341–350 of 431 posts
I’ve been using Elementary for 2-3 weeks and it’s really good. Still far behind MacOS, but it’s the best I’ve felt about a linux distro becoming a mainstream alternative. I’ve used Pop_OS! as well and while it’s good, I wish System76 would have just backed Elementary OS. Elementary is a good base but needs a larger community and more resources to become legit.
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I do think windows update process is also seriously broken: no info given to users what is being changed, no indication given how long it will take, and often taking many hours to complete, all the while your computer remains unusable; I do not know why Microsoft is not being taken to task for such a shoddy experience.
I'm an old timer. I remember when Microsoft would expire your license - for any of their applications - essentially at random. And they disabled reloads of the software and disabled reinstalls of the entire OS. Even after you paid them again, it was a major hassle - but Mocrosoft didn't care about customer complaints as long as the money was rolling in (Bill Gates at the time said that "I am a businessman" when he di…
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I don't understand. I run linux on an IBM Thinkpad T40 for the better part of a decade.Then I moved to a Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon which also runs Ubuntu fine. IN fact installing linux takes at most 20 min and I am done. Drivers and everything are all automatic. Windows on the other hand can take hours to install from scratch. God forbid you need a service pack or to find a driver that's not easily found anymore. Peo…
Has Linux changed a lot? Last I tried installing it years ago, I had to find each driver individually and had to get some stubborn ones working. At the time I thought to myself - no average Joe would figure this out, no wonder nobody uses Linux (and by nobody I meant non-devs)
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I have run exclusively Linux and mostly on laptops for 15 years and it's been about 10 years since I have had problems with packages clashing, except for python pip. (I don't use python though)
Does it sleep nicely on closing the lid?
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Well, for some people that is a pretty big advantage. I'm on Ubuntu 16.04 now, running Unity. Despite all its bad press I love Unity - it perfectly fits my workflow and just gets out of your way. (Not like Gnome Shell, where a third of your screen real estate is gone just with various menubars, each of which you could park a truck on.) Gnome Shell on 18.04 pretty much killed Ubuntu for me. Next time I set up my compu…
Unity still works perfectly fine on 18.04 for me. There is still some maintenance going on, so it can be an ok choice for the near future.
Some of the comments here feel weird. Elementary OS has picked a specific niche, and its arguably the best distribution in it. It has a really well designed and consistent UI experience, and you can't break it. I think most of you just don't realize how difficult linux is for people who barely understand how to use a Mac or Windows machine. Furthermore, linux is a world where mainstream distributions still release wi…
I recently installed kubuntu with the latest version of KDE Plasma and was blown away. This is by far the most polished linux experience I've ever had. My girlfriend who is definitely not a linux user forced me to install it on her laptop too after seeing it. Everything "just works", even more than macOS IMO, and you can configure everything to your hearts content. Animations are smooth, UI is very polished and consi…
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Which software program did you need to install?
Tor Browser. There is no right click > unpack on some distributions. But my main point is that it takes a massive effort to make Linux easy. Anything short of that is just another reskin.
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> The first time a non-crazy person has to decompress and unpack a .tar.gz to install a program that usually comes in a .msi they're done. Can we put this myth to bed yet? I use Linux full-time at home and on my laptop and I can't remember the last time I had to do this. Hey, I only see a command line because I can do stuff much faster there, not because I need to (I live in a command line on my Mac at work, too).
Between installing software, editing configuration files as sudo in vim, partitioning drives, mounting drives, copying files to a directory where you need sudo, etc. any user on a Linux system will spend plenty of time at the command line. We should do a test and see if it really is a "myth". Get 10 normal users to install 10 programs not already in the repositories and see how well that goes. Just the other day I ha…
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This kind of attitude towards less popular programming languages is very damaging to the field of software engineering. Domain-specific languages are our best tool to combat the excessive complexity of software. The difficulty of learning a new programming language is overblown.
When people say they resent having to learn another language, I wonder if it's really the language they don't want to learn or another set of libraries and frameworks. I mean, that's fair enough, the wheel only wants reinventing so many times. Windows has Windows Forms, WPF, and UWP; macOS has Cocoa; and Linux has … well, a lot of things, each with their own quirks, and not all of them with bindings into every langua…
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Do you use a high DPI display? How is that? I'm reticent to give up my 5k screen and crisp text when programming but I'd love to use Linux as my daily driver (as much as I like macOS).
It's a complete mess. I tried to switch from macOS to Linux Ubuntu running wayland gnome. HiDPI is sort of ish there. Spotify definitely isn't and weird stuff going on in other apps too. The touch pad is not even remotely comparable with macOS. No inertia scrolling and overall a clumsy feeling. Shearing when scrolling is common. The entire UI stutters if I compile some rust in the background. Key bindings are inconsi…
Look into libunput gestures for the touchpad too if you get the chance.