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Upgrade to Linux

upgradetolinux.com

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Re: Upgrade to Linux

#91

Post by seltzered_ »

tssva wrote: post #59
keithnz wrote: post #19

For me, Linux would be a downgrade. Suddenly there's a bunch of software I can't run anymore. I actually really like windows 11, plus I can install and run any linux software as if it is a native windows program, and while I can do this, actually, there really isn't many gui apps in the linux world that aren't already on windows and worth running. However, being able to open a linux shell on windows is really useful.…

I also really like Windows 11 and find it to be a nice upgrade from Windows 10. The 1st Linux distro I used was TAMU back in 1992. I have tried countless desktop distros over the last 30 years. I still try the major desktop distros when they have a new release but leave disappointed each time. Poor battery life, poor trackpad gesture support, and awfulness of both flatpaks and snaps are just a few of the issues.

Trackpad support has substantially improved in the past couple years, https://linuxtouchpad.org/ has more info.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#92

Post by binkHN »

kiwih wrote: post #66

I love Linux systems. My daily driver, an MSI GS-66, runs Ubuntu as the primary OS. But despite the fact that it's 2022, I still have to spend at least a few hours every month fixing things. The latest issue is that after updating the kernel and graphics drivers, I can't suspend the PC anymore. It dumps a bunch of crap to dmesg, then returns to the login screen. This is a known issue on the forums, and it's still bro…

> I love Linux systems. My daily driver ... runs Ubuntu... But despite the fact that it's 2022, I still have to spend at least a few hours every month fixing things.

Perhaps in some crazy way, because this has his own set of pros and cons, I'm seriously considering evaluating ChromeOS as my daily driver. Fixing things should be a thing of the past here, and I'll still have a full Linux virtual machine running inside of it to work outside of ChromeOS's limitations.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#94

Post by hayst4ck »

BarryMilo wrote: post #84
hayst4ck wrote: post #62

Direct marketing doesn't seem like a very good method to attract people. Linux needs to do one thing to make it a viable option: Make steam and all windows based steam games work out of the box. Linux needs to do one thing to win the consumer market: Make all steam games work better than on windows out of the box. If linux can do that, they can win a market that is not the server market. If Linux cannot do that, then…

People aren't "trapped" on Windows, by and large they just don't know about Linux. Awareness is the first step. It should answer the needs of the vast majority of people, but they won't consider switching if they think Windows is the only OS.

I don't think that's true at all, personally. I think that attitude is pure hubris (not meant in an attacking way, but in a feedback way). I tried to move my mom to Linux (ubuntu) and she absolutely hated it. Nothing "just worked." Everything was a "new learning opportunity." I came to the conclusion it was the wrong OS for her myself, despite my offer to give her any kind of support she might need.

There is a whole concept of "Killer app" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_application) that the industry was founded on.

The linux desktop does not AFAIK have any kind of killer app. The value of running a linux desktop is clear for devs and security professionals, but it is not clear at all for "normal" people. The killer apps for windows are Steam, MS Office, and Firefox/Chrome, to a smaller degree active directory.

The only viable path that I can see for linux is "free" privacy respecting operating system choice, but in order to be a choice it must run exe's without any extra configs, check boxes, pop up windows, or anything else that would indicate something should be understood or configured. It must be able to understand a printer is on the network without any effort at all. It must take no more than 3-5 clicks and a google search to be running Firefox.

Awareness before feature parity (runs MS office, runs steam) increases resistance through bad experiences. If someone has a bad experience, they will be less interested even if it gets better later.

I feel like your comment is not very different than "awareness of rsync is the first step to moving files around."

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#95

Post by password4321 »

xupybd wrote: post #81
jcelerier wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I had to dual boot on windows and literally every operation & interaction felt five times as slow as on Linux on the same hardware. I had a ton of bugs on software that works just fine on Linux. Explorer crashed at some point and I had to add a fucking registry key to enable long paths. I'm 30 and I never had to use MS Office once in my life, LibreOffice works fine with everything I had to do with it

If I didn't have to use Office or it ran on Linux, I'd be on Linux.

Apparently Office 2000 has 5-star support: https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility?browse=&app_desc=&...

Good luck otherwise.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#96

Post by hayst4ck »

headsoup wrote: post #64
hayst4ck wrote: post #62

Direct marketing doesn't seem like a very good method to attract people. Linux needs to do one thing to make it a viable option: Make steam and all windows based steam games work out of the box. Linux needs to do one thing to win the consumer market: Make all steam games work better than on windows out of the box. If linux can do that, they can win a market that is not the server market. If Linux cannot do that, then…

To be honest, it's closer than you'd think. I find very few games now that I can't run through Steam+Proton, to the point I forget I'm not on the 'Native' OS for them. And what I've also found is that issues that affect my games on Linux Steam are usually also reported for Windows (i.e. black screen on loading, certain freezes).

Pretty interesting. I took a look through:

https://www.protondb.com/explore

and I was fairly surprised.

I definitely expect the 20% tail to be 80% of the effort.

I've also found that often there would be a lag time between the windows release (for total war warhammer for example) and the non windows releases. I've also found OSX versions of things to be a bit buggier (guild wars 2 for example), I assume that is no different for Linux. Reactive solutions to games not running (as opposed to games working by default) seems like the type of behavior that would continue to prevent Linux from being a standard choice over windows. The small frictions build up until you don't want to deal with it anymore.

You are right though, closer than I thought.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#97

Post by m10k »

flkiwi wrote: post #67

Most of my day to day work is on a Thinkpad running Fedora. I also have a work laptop running Windows, and a personal macbook pro. Two quick points: 1. The emphasis in this website of "you can change what you want" targets a pretty small population. Anecdata of the worst sort, but the vast majority of people in my orbit absolutely do not want to manage their computer. They want it to largely disappear so they can wor…

Let's be honest, "you can change what you want" should really be "you will have to change certain things". Which is fine for developery people and people with a lot of time and patience on their hands. But for the overwhelming majority, even fiddling with the contents of /etc or $HOME/.whatever is too much of a hurdle. People don't choose Windows or Mac despite not being able to change things, they choose it so they don't have to change things.

And let's not forget that, eventually, "you can change what you want" becomes "you have to change what you want" because the developers of your distro / desktop environment / window manager / UI toolkit decide to change the default behavior (if they don't change the entire thing).

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#98

Post by tetraca »

OJFord wrote: post #51
tetraca wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was still the year N-10 then this would be a great X more or less sums up my entire desktop linux experience.

Ever use a 'window manager', particularly tiling, rather than a full 'desktop' or 'display manager'? I've had the opposite experience, i3 and now sway have made macOS & Windows clunky and unusable nightmares to me - even talking strictly just about interface/windowing/interaction.

I've used tiling window managers before, but I don't really find them to be that big of a productivity boost. I have two monitors and I prefer to have all my windows maximized. The only splitting that I need is in my text editor.

The one thing I do like is the command line - I find that to be a much better experience than power shell or cmd. But that is it. If I want to do anything creative that isn't text based it feels flatly inferior. But your mileage may vary based on what you like to do.

I love it in a server, I just don't like linux on the desktop.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#99

Post by jillesvangurp »

The most successful commercial desktop linux distribution is probably chrome OS.

I use Manjaro and it's great but it's not for everyone. I've gotten my parents to use Ubuntu for a while on some old laptop. But people like that have a high chance of encountering issues that will require fiddling with configuration files or doing stuff on the command line. And it's deal breaker. People like my parents are simply incapable of doing either of those things. So, my father now has a mac and my mother uses an ipad. Zero IT support needed from me.

Chrome OS is probably the only thing that works well enough that I could recommend it to people like that. And with Chrome Os Flex, that's now an option. But it would be a bit of a downgrade.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#100

Post by csdvrx »

tssva wrote: post #59
keithnz wrote: post #19

For me, Linux would be a downgrade. Suddenly there's a bunch of software I can't run anymore. I actually really like windows 11, plus I can install and run any linux software as if it is a native windows program, and while I can do this, actually, there really isn't many gui apps in the linux world that aren't already on windows and worth running. However, being able to open a linux shell on windows is really useful.…

I also really like Windows 11 and find it to be a nice upgrade from Windows 10. The 1st Linux distro I used was TAMU back in 1992. I have tried countless desktop distros over the last 30 years. I still try the major desktop distros when they have a new release but leave disappointed each time. Poor battery life, poor trackpad gesture support, and awfulness of both flatpaks and snaps are just a few of the issues.

> I also really like Windows 11

Same!

With all the keyboards shortcuts, and "new" apps like Windows Terminal, the experience is just wonderful!

Most of my apps are fullscreen, and Windows-Arrows to pin to specific quadrant on the screen is just as good as i3 and tiling wm.

Also, there's software for everything you may even think about: just yesterday, I wanted an app to display pictures while keeping the same position zoom factor, to take bits and include them in a report.

I found nomacs (free software), which is keyboard driven: my workflow became Alt-Tab, Win-Shift-S for snapshot, Alt-Tab again, Control-V, Alt-Tab and the arrow for moving between pictures.

> Poor battery life, poor trackpad gesture support, and awfulness of both flatpaks and snaps are just a few of the issues

It can happen on some Windows install, especially with newer hardware. But there're a lot of eyeballs on Windows, so getting a working solution is more likely.

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