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Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#121

Post by Leftium »

CarelessExpert wrote: post #112
Leftium wrote: post #109

I have a laptop that dual-boots into Linux Mint. I haven't logged into the Linux side for ages. I like the Linux command line, but I get what I need via Git Bash for Windows. Also there's Windows Subsystem for Linux. Windows generally has better compatibility with hardware with less fuss. Especially on laptops. My friend tried to use Linux-only for a while, but he said trying to video conference just sucked. Sure, th…

> My friend tried to use Linux-only for a while, but he said trying to video conference just sucked. As an FYI, for folks reading this, I spend at least half of every day in video conferences and this is largely a non-issue these days. The vast majority of platforms have web-based clients that work great, and many have native clients that are quite good as well. The biggest issue is probably screensharing on Wayland,…

Yes, this was a couple years ago; good to know Linux has better video conference support, now.

I use ThinkPads, so I probably could use Linux if I wanted to. But other people might not want to prioritize their OS choice over their hardware choice.

And this is probably really niche, but I forgot to mention anything in Korea like online banking/shopping required Active-X for secure transactions. I think this is getting better now, but a few years ago you couldn't even use a Mac or the Chrome browser on Windows.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#122

Post by sam0x17 »

captainmisery wrote: post #10

I'm using Windows 10. In the past year I've tried: Manjaro, Fedora, Linux Mint and some others. Why I'm not switching? Because every time I login there is something that needs a quick update or a quick fix. After I've tried Fedora the last time, I turned on my PC and the resolution of my monitor switched to 800x600 from the 1920x1080. There was no way of setting it back to the correct resolution. "Well, you know, you…

I've had the opposite experience with windows lately -- start menu type to search randomly stops working and I have to restart, windows will do this weird thing where you have to rapidly click their dock icon to get them to show up or they minimize. The pre-windows-11 updates have been nothing but bugs for me.

On my Ubuntu Budgie desktop I have none of these problems. Sure I have to deal with the occasional linux challenge but nothing "buggy" stuff either works or it doesn't.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#125

Post by ASalazarMX »

dschuessler wrote: post #8

The trackpad experience on MacBooks is unbeatable. Another comment here on HN described it as the trackpad completely disappearing from your mind. You don't have to fight it at all. You don't even think about it anymore. The cursor just becomes a natural extension of your hand. Also, as a person working with PDF documents on a regular basis, I don't know of any application that can beat the feature set and UX of Prev…

> The trackpad experience on MacBooks is unbeatable

Only if you use it as your main OS. If you use a combination of Windows, Linux and MacOS, the latter's trackpad tends to do the opposite of what you expect. the first thing I do is change the vertical scroll direction so it behaves like the others.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#126

Post by ASalazarMX »

Leftium wrote: post #109

I have a laptop that dual-boots into Linux Mint. I haven't logged into the Linux side for ages. I like the Linux command line, but I get what I need via Git Bash for Windows. Also there's Windows Subsystem for Linux. Windows generally has better compatibility with hardware with less fuss. Especially on laptops. My friend tried to use Linux-only for a while, but he said trying to video conference just sucked. Sure, th…

I solved that with a Virtualbox'ed Windows 10 where I install all the stuff required by my company (Forticlient, Zoom, etc.) that can't be safely installed in Linux. No issues so far.

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#127

Post by xboxnolifes »

1. Video games. Easily the biggest one. I don't want to have to potentially jump through hoops or be completely unable to play a game by chance every time I download a new game.

2. The subtle issues from various audio devices, mice, printers, GPU driver support, etc. Or just driver/hardware support in general.

3. Learning the equivalent (or worse) software for the various little things that need to get done like picture editing, video editing, editing doc/docx files, etc.

4. Attempting to fix issues leading to multi-page long support involving installing new software, editing configs, running cryptic commands, etc. (Not that Windows is much better, since most big issues seem to lead me to the suggestion of a fresh install. and there have been some issues caused by updates that I haven't been able to fix to this day.)

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#128

Post by rcarmo »

For me, it’s the lack of polish and full corporate productivity suite.

There are _zero_ effective replacements for a multitude of things I need, although I would be perfectly happy with a fully standard implementation of Remote Desktop (and no, Remmina still lacks the authentication and virtual desktop workspace support I need). Edge and Teams betas are coming close to providing around half of what I need, but not all there yet (I work at Microsoft).

I am, however, pretty happy with Linux for personal use and development work - I even bought a new laptop exclusively for it: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2021/08/26/1400

I am running Elementary on it, which is (by far) the best distro for my needs (and habits): https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2021/08/16/1200

However, all my personal stuff (mail, photos, music) still lives on a Mac, and I don’t see that changing as for “civilians” (as a friend puts it), the lack of even half-baked e-mail and calendaring, let alone the kind of creature comforts you get from the Mac App Store (and the Windows one) make Linux a no-go unless they just want to browse Facebook and read webmail.

(Again, Elementary comes closest and flatpacks are _nearly_ there, but the core apps aren’t ready yet.)

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#129

Post by rcarmo »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #127

1. Video games. Easily the biggest one. I don't want to have to potentially jump through hoops or be completely unable to play a game by chance every time I download a new game. 2. The subtle issues from various audio devices, mice, printers, GPU driver support, etc. Or just driver/hardware support in general. 3. Learning the equivalent (or worse) software for the various little things that need to get done like pict…

I got Proton running quite nicely on my Lenovo (https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2021/08/26/1400), but I agree with all your points (see my other comments in this thread).

Re: Ask HN: Why don’t you use Linux as your daily driver OS?

#130

Post by rcarmo »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #125
dschuessler wrote: post #8

The trackpad experience on MacBooks is unbeatable. Another comment here on HN described it as the trackpad completely disappearing from your mind. You don't have to fight it at all. You don't even think about it anymore. The cursor just becomes a natural extension of your hand. Also, as a person working with PDF documents on a regular basis, I don't know of any application that can beat the feature set and UX of Prev…

> The trackpad experience on MacBooks is unbeatable Only if you use it as your main OS. If you use a combination of Windows, Linux and MacOS, the latter's trackpad tends to do the opposite of what you expect. the first thing I do is change the vertical scroll direction so it behaves like the others.

Funny, I change the others because they’re clearly wrong :)
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