Live data from Hacker News

My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

scottrlarson.com

61–70 of 173 posts

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#61
post #19

1970s: Secretaries learn to use Emacs for documents, and to literally write Emacs Lisp to customize it to their needs 2020s: Professional software developers on Hackernews: "Desktop Linux doesn't have software that works exactly like the software I like, so it's a complete nonstarter. I'd rather keep bending over for Microsoft than deal with anything different or with any sort of learning required."

Correct.

If the utility on Linux is not the exact same as Windows (or doesn't even exist, the horror!), then modifying your behavior or expectations is insane and is considered "ricing" and a complete waste of your time.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#62
Linux isn't even close for normal people's desktop use.

Just recently I tried and failed to simply set up a screensaver that turns my screen black (not off!) to save my display from burn-in. Eventually I just gave up. You can't do this with stock GNOME. I also tried xscreensaver (but the Debian-specific instructions in the man page are out of date) and xfce4-screensaver, both didn't work.

I've been using Debian GNU/Linux since Feb 2016 and consider myself adept but still couldn't figure this very simple task out.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#63
post #62

Linux isn't even close for normal people's desktop use. Just recently I tried and failed to simply set up a screensaver that turns my screen black (not off!) to save my display from burn-in. Eventually I just gave up. You can't do this with stock GNOME. I also tried xscreensaver (but the Debian-specific instructions in the man page are out of date) and xfce4-screensaver, both didn't work. I've been using Debian GNU/L…

What? It really couldn't be simpler: You open settings -> screensaver, choose blank after N minutes and close the settings window. Works.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#64

Gave up on Microsoft in the 90s. Never looked back.

Same story here, happy Linux user since the 90s... at home on family computers and at job. It's like choosing Netflix vs HBO Go - takes a few days to find your favorites, once you get it you are all set and don't worry anymore about the competition.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#65

Every time I try this I go thru standard stages: 1. Ugh I want to run docker natively, Ubuntu looks good, I’ll do that 2. Install latest Ubuntu. It’s great! Love the shell. Hardware works. I can run Windows in Virtual Box for odd apps. 3. Why is my battery life so bad? Why won’t Bluetooth stay connected? 4. I am full Linux. I am living the creed! 5. I am so tired of constantly fixing something. Why is Spotify renderi…

Do the settings once. Keep a copy of ~/ and /etc handy. Apply all settings in one go at will. Stop fiddling around, making a fuss about nothing and just keep on using it.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#66

Fair comments but as someone who has tried many times to adopt Linux, I can honestly state that nothing in Windows comes close to the user-hostile UX approach in Linux. For example, Radarr is an extremely popular tool for managing movies. It connects to usenet and torrent clients, as well as indexers and movie databases. It makes maintaining a home movie collection seamless. Radarr is not in major package managers, a…

Bottom line: You are ranting about a piracy app.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#67
post #5

It's good to know that this year is the year of the Linux Desktop. Just like last year. And the year before that. And the year before...

The year of Linux Desktop for me was 2006. For every linux user/fan out there: when was yours?

1997, also the year when I got 10Mbit connection at home, which was unheard of at that time. Also, came from Amiga, skipped the msdos and windows almost completely.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#68
post #62

Linux isn't even close for normal people's desktop use. Just recently I tried and failed to simply set up a screensaver that turns my screen black (not off!) to save my display from burn-in. Eventually I just gave up. You can't do this with stock GNOME. I also tried xscreensaver (but the Debian-specific instructions in the man page are out of date) and xfce4-screensaver, both didn't work. I've been using Debian GNU/L…

Even my grandmother who used her first computer late in her seventies knew how to do that on linux.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#69
post #17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Adobe CC, Microsoft Office and Visual Studios prevent an all out shift to linux for the majority How do you figure? Most people don't do any real photo editing or real asset creation. Microsoft Office isn't required for anything except Excel and that's fairly specific to a certain type of office worker. Visual Studio has many replacements, especially if you aren't using an MS stack top to bottom. Heck, when I was i…

A typical business org uses microsoft office for documents, and they employ programmers writing plugins to their microsoft office products using visual studio which also integrates into their internal .NET business services. I doubt migration would be easy, as everything ties into each other.

I've been working in companies that use office 365 for the last 4 or 5 years and I had no problem working with office documents either using the office 365 web apps or libreoffice on linux.

Re: My transition from Windows to Linux in an anti-customer age

#70

Every time I try this I go thru standard stages: 1. Ugh I want to run docker natively, Ubuntu looks good, I’ll do that 2. Install latest Ubuntu. It’s great! Love the shell. Hardware works. I can run Windows in Virtual Box for odd apps. 3. Why is my battery life so bad? Why won’t Bluetooth stay connected? 4. I am full Linux. I am living the creed! 5. I am so tired of constantly fixing something. Why is Spotify renderi…

I've taken the dive to running Linux again recently. Not on all my machines, just on the older gaming laptop which I set up with a bigger SSD and Ubuntu Studio. I realized that I was right on the precipice of actually having an entirely open media creation app stack I could see myself using(Blender, Inkscape, Krita, plus Syncthing to move data from other devices), and therefore could have a media making box running Linux - so I booted up on a freshly flashed USB, tested my tablet, it worked. All the hardware has worked, although the laptop keyboard is doing the "shift and pageup acts like numpad 9" thing, which I haven't looked into yet - but isn't too important since I am gonna use external keebs. Then add in that Renoise works and supports plugins - maybe not all the commercial plugins, but in exchange you get hundreds of LV2 plugins with no separate install process, and I was sold on the concept. In this limited role, I wouldn't run into problems related to software I wasn't using, and therefore it wouldn't develop into that general frustration with Linux as an all-purpose desktop.

There are still flaws - the keyboard thing, and then Pulseaudio and JACK not getting along well so if I want to listen to a reference on YouTube while Renoise is open, I have to fiddle with the JACK session management to plug one into the other - but even that one has been addressed with the Ubuntu Studio UI having a feature just for that use case. And I have two installs of some of the media apps because I have a version from snap plus a version from apt. It's like, yeah, still rough edges, but these are comparable rough edges to what I see on contemporary Windows, and I'm in a better position to fix them.

I've actually been helping to troubleshoot a Windows issue for my mom while I set this up: "sometimes only the right side of my earphones (her term) plays sound, it's been happening for months". At first we thought this was a connection issue and after determining that the headphones were not faulty, replaced the speakers she plugs into(which she likes using because of the physical volume knob). Then it still happened afterwards and I finally caught on to the idea that it was software, and after poking around saw that there was preinstalled audio enhancement crap on top of the Realtek driver doing auto detection when the jack is plugged in - just poking around with the software, it started working, perhaps because doing that updated a config file somewhere. Perhaps it originally started because of a Windows update. It's all mystery meat, so who knows. For now I've advised her to turn the speakers off and then on again if it happens, but I might look into removing the bloatware too. I did have her temporarily on Linux at one point just running off a USB stick when the OS drive on her old machine failed. She loved it, all she ever did was watch YouTube and check email and it was perfect for months. Then Dad got her a new computer, and she's now a bit resistant to using Linux again because of her Word documents. But she also hates that Word has cloud features(even though she does nothing to properly archive her documents and is an obvious candidate to benefit from cloud sync). Perhaps I will broach the question of using a Word alternative if the computer issues keep up.

Bottom line, I do still think of Linux desktops as a tinkering space, but increasingly a viable one in a professional setting if you aren't working against a fixed standard(like an artist that needs Adobe CC or a grandma that needs Word) and can use tinkering to your advantage to hack out a custom workflow.

Post reply on HN