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Windows for Linux Nerds

blog.jessfraz.com

31–40 of 393 posts

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cygwin cannot run Linux executables. Cygwin .exe's are specifically compiled for Windows.

Cygwin is essentially a distribution, so like any distribution their packages are recompiled for that specific distribution and available in their repo. It's not too often you download a random binary for Linux and run it, but that case I concede.

> It's not too often you download a random binary for Linux and run it

Mostly because you don't have to due to package managers. Assuming there are no unsatisfied dependencies, it's totally possible to share binaries between Linux distros.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#32
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing on desktop. Yeah, any decade now. There is of course a constituency of Linux Nerds primed to move to Windows: people who want to develop software for Linux servers but don't want to run Linux on the desktop. Many of those people are using OS X, which is POSIX enough to run some Linux software unmodified. WSL is a way to target those people, who may be being left behind by Apple's changing strategy in laptops (…

How healthy is the desktop market outside of the corporate environment? Consumers seem largely content with phones and tablets.

As long as PC gamers exists, the desktop market will never die.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#33
For anyone wanting to automate using boxstarter and chocolatey without finding all the packages manually I created this GUI about a year back.

It has a search bar to search chocolatey's repository automatically.

It has search and allows you to save the GIST straight to github and then invoke installer straight from website. Uses cookies to store script on machine so you can come back to it and add/remove more.

Was a quick 2-3 hour job so it may have bugs

http://dhruvb14.github.io

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#34
post #22

A lot of snarky comments here, but I've been using Ubuntu shell on Win 10 for the past few weeks and it's really fantastic. Way faster than a VM and much more compatible than cygwin or msys.

More snarky than usual, i don't know why. "why not just" or "just use" kind of comments that you see more in reddit.

Even someone recommended an Electron alternative, on HN! the #1 Electron hater community.

Interesting.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop. I try it every year, and every year it sucks very slightly less. It goes beyond drivers and application compatibility, Linux distros are ugly and the people making them have no taste. The Desktop/Laptop market is not nearly as important as it used to be, but within that space, Microsoft's dominance is about as strong as ever. Apple might have been able to take a dent out of it i…

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ I think the linux desktop user experience has improved exponentially over the last few years, you should give it another shot.

I was an early desktop Linux user 1996-2004, before switching to the Mac.

I think I've heard "you should give it another shot" every single year since.

Kiosks or super locked down experiences like ChromeOS have a decent chance at making an impact for some use cases (especially less technical/senior users)

But as a general purpose desktop OS ? Still no, thanks. It's not just the lack of major commercial desktop apps (especially in the creative space, where browser apps won't take over anytime soon)

It's also the fact that desktop Linux's priorities still largely mirror those of its left-brained developers, who don't value good design and human interface guidelines nearly as much as they should. Or as another commenter has put it : they have no taste.

To be fair, I'm sure (well, I hope) there are now some professionally trained UX/UI specialists at Canonical and other places, but by and large there's still this mentality that it's a soft skilled task that a dev is perfectly capable of doing if need be (and yet, devs are horrified when a web designer quickly cobbles some PHP snippets together and calls that development, as ops people are generally horrified when they see servers set up by developers :) )

The last and maybe most important issue is that good design is necessarily strongly opinionated, it needs a leader to make hard calls so that the user doesn't have to, and this is completely at odds with the Linux/OSS philosophy. And why Apple became so good at it, having a (not always benevolent) dictator at its helm for so long.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks have improved a fair amount. The normal user still wouldn't know how to install any software they know on it, however. And I'm not talking about an open-source alternative from apt. Also, touch screens <3

For what it's worth, for software installation there's now "snaps," the new "universal Linux package" format that Canonical has been pushing.

Yet another package format...

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#37

Install hyper terminal, it is a lot more bearable than the ugly default console emulation on Windows.

Conemu is where is at (for me at least), along with clink you have a lot of niceties bash has (reverse history search, etc)

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop. I try it every year, and every year it sucks very slightly less. It goes beyond drivers and application compatibility, Linux distros are ugly and the people making them have no taste. The Desktop/Laptop market is not nearly as important as it used to be, but within that space, Microsoft's dominance is about as strong as ever. Apple might have been able to take a dent out of it i…

> Linux still sucks shit on the Desktop Shrug I've been using it on my main machine (a laptop) for 8+ years now. Works well for me. > Outside of admins and linux developers, Linux has no chance on PCs While I'm ever so slightly afraid you might be a little right, I'm super thankful that Canonical keeps putting out excellent new releases.

That's one of the three (?) answers you get when someone says they have a problem with Linux.

I can relate to the quote and I use Linux.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#39
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/ I think the linux desktop user experience has improved exponentially over the last few years, you should give it another shot.

Nice UIs won't fix people's broadcom wireless cards.

Responding snark with snark: Then don't use them.

Most wireless cards out there work just fine. When I had to use a laptop with a Broadcom chip for uni I used my Android phone as tethering (charging it as a bonus) and the guy sitting next to me just used a dongle smaller than his thumb.

Re: Windows for Linux Nerds

#40
post #22

A lot of snarky comments here, but I've been using Ubuntu shell on Win 10 for the past few weeks and it's really fantastic. Way faster than a VM and much more compatible than cygwin or msys.

> Way faster than a VM and much more compatible than cygwin or msys.

More than, say, msys2? I haven't had any compatibility problems with it.

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