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Upgrade to Linux

upgradetolinux.com

101–110 of 138 posts

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#101
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that's bad, check out this link: https://www.upgradetolinux.com/linux-differences-an-introduc... According to the link I clicked on to get here, this is supposed to be "linux differences". I daily drive linux and recommend it to people who I think would do well with it, but I would never link them this website.

I wonder what the intended audience of this page is supposed to be

I don't understand this phenomena in the Linux community of trying to convert anyone and everyone to Linux. But then again, I'm not want to convert others to my religion, sports team or car model.

Yes, there are Mac and Windows evangelist, but there's more and they are louder in the Linux community. You would think for a community that claims to support "freedom" and "opensource," they would live and let live what others use for operating systems.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#102
so I see Linux advocacy hasn't advanced a measurable amount in 20 years.

that makes me a bit sad, but as a former Linux desktop user, I would not inflict that experience on anyone.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#103

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.

Some people know about Linux but aren't going to touch it and there are some that touch it but wish nothing to do with it when they aren't configuring servers. It's not necessary limited to Linux, some people use Macs when they work on PCs at the office, but the greater question is what would switching Linux provide to the switchers when you claim, "It should answer the needs of the vast majority of people". If my car is fine for my transport needs, why would I buy a truck?

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#104
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forced upgrades in the middle of something, invasive "telemetry" and aggressive ads. Plus a Frankenstein UI and Pluto, the system that makes "your" computer no longer yours. What a dream.

My work computer need not be mine for me to get my work done.

On the one hand, you’re right. I fight this battle in my mind all the time. When I’m happy with MacOS I’m not terribly tempted to go back to Linux and live with the quirks.

But the way Microsoft abuses me every day with its constant invasions that can’t be disabled, and worse: Windows Storage Sense deleted my personal files from my computer. It’s right there in the logs.

So yeah, Windows is out for me. macOS survives a while longer, certainly while my machine feels like mine.

But I really do think something like FOSS operating systems have to survive for people. It’s great that the cloud is run on it, but it’s far too controlled by corporations, and more than a decade ago.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Traditionally on most linuxes (and bsds) you obtain trusted executables from a known good source (your distribution ) , whilst files from other sources are never run at all. On the other hand, the vast majority of people installing applications by piping curl output to Bash are also on linuxes and bsds

Is this worst-case scenario for linux users any worse than the average-case of windows users downloading an .exe from a vendor's website and running it? If you do not already have a pubkey for which the code can be signed, then there is no chain of trust to verify in the first place. What signature would you check the code against in such a scenario? One you download from the vendor's same website?

> "Is this worst-case scenario for linux users any worse than the average-case of windows users downloading an .exe from a vendor's website and running it?"

Uh, yes? The naïve Windows user has Windows Defender scanning downloads to offer at least some token protection against known threats.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Traditionally on most linuxes (and bsds) you obtain trusted executables from a known good source (your distribution ) , whilst files from other sources are never run at all. On the other hand, the vast majority of people installing applications by piping curl output to Bash are also on linuxes and bsds

Is this worst-case scenario for linux users any worse than the average-case of windows users downloading an .exe from a vendor's website and running it? If you do not already have a pubkey for which the code can be signed, then there is no chain of trust to verify in the first place. What signature would you check the code against in such a scenario? One you download from the vendor's same website?

A tiny bit, maybe. Those commands usually run as root, at least Windows warns you if the installer wants root.

But I think the main point is that this debunks "whilst files from other sources are never run at all".

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Traditionally on most linuxes (and bsds) you obtain trusted executables from a known good source (your distribution ) , whilst files from other sources are never run at all. On the other hand, the vast majority of people installing applications by piping curl output to Bash are also on linuxes and bsds

Is this worst-case scenario for linux users any worse than the average-case of windows users downloading an .exe from a vendor's website and running it? If you do not already have a pubkey for which the code can be signed, then there is no chain of trust to verify in the first place. What signature would you check the code against in such a scenario? One you download from the vendor's same website?

>Is this worst-case scenario for linux users any worse than the average-case of windows users downloading an .exe from a vendor's website and running it?

Well in my case, I screw around a lot on my computer. So I end up copying and pasting a few lines of bash code that download god-knows-what because I accidentally deleted the entire /etc/ directory and the howto guide that was the 3rd result on Google says "run this it will totally work".

So at least for me, yes, it's often worse than installing an .exe from a vendor's website.

But I didn't mean to say Linux installs don't tend to be safer than Windows, just that it's not as rosy as the original comment made it seem like.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#108
I'm running Ubuntu on a Framework laptop. I installed Linux because I was too cheap to buy Windows, and wanted to try it out (why not, it's free) but now I've found it's very good. Good enough I won't be installing Windows. This surprised me. So, yeah, give it a shot!

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#109
post #97
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…

I don't understand? What are these things you have to change?

Your second paragraph mentions changing defaults. Of course software evolves over the decades. You may not like every change, but evolving along is always an option, of you don't want to tinker. Also, most UI config is stored in dotfiles. Upgrading doesn't apply the new defaults to an existing account.

Re: Upgrade to Linux

#110
post #10

This website is terrible. Its "resources" are almost entirely just links to articles and youtube videos. The information is poorly presented and poorly written. Why is the front page entirely taken up by a picture of a penguin?

This looks like the sort of website my friends and I would've setup when we were running local community teams for Ubuntu and running computer expo and flea market tables trying to get people to try it. In 2005. I checked, this domain was registered May 2022.
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