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I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

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Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#241

> I picked CachyOS rather than a better-known distro like Ubuntu because it’s optimized for modern hardware So this isn't a usual comparison, as the vast majority of users will choose Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint. CachyOS is also a new distro, meaning it won't last long (most distributions, like small businesses, only last a few years). It's also Arch-based, meaning the user is going to get constant updates, which leads t…

If you hold out for a few more paragraphs until he gets past the installer there is closure:

The issue is that he was using an obscure gaming mouse, and the solution was to use a different mouse.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#242

In case of small enterprises, what are the options for migrating to Ubuntu for all remote users? How does one have an MDM solution? Most of the solutions out there are poor on Ubuntu or need lots of work to get things right. Can anyone provide a reference architecture/solution that allows them to be SOC2 compliant? But also not have high friction for developers and more importantly not have bigger overheads on proces…

The industry standard endpoint security solutions all run on either Windows or Mac. Endpoint security is an absolute MUST for a corporate environment.

Yeah, I requested to have a Linux desktop from my employer and was flatly told "NO". None of our many security applications supports it, which is a real shame. As we use Windows and MacOS, I can't see how we'll really be more secure on those platforms, even with the security theater applications they force us to use.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#243

For not much prior research, he sure has done a lot of prior research to even know about desktop environments or bootloaders compared to your average windows user. This article read like every other promising Linux is user friendly and easy, then proceeding with the author fixing issues the average user wouldn’t be able to even diagnose. I think anyone technically savvy enough to follow the article is already aware L…

Linux is a lot more user-friendly than Windows, with generally useful error messages when things go wrong. How do you fix Windows when it breaks every couple of weeks and the only information you get is a bright blue screen with a couple of lines of hexadecimal on it?

You run memtest86 to rule out a RAM issue, then check with your system reseller or mobo vendor for BIOS mitigations for the latest round of Intel CPU bugs. If you are able to rule out the RAM and CPU, try a different power supply. Failing that, the motherboard itself may be causing the issue.

Unfortunately there are few good ways to narrow down intermittent hardware failures (which is what you are experiencing) beyond these common steps.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#244
post #16

Since it is paid, how is he going with hardware accelerated video decoding on YouTube, Netflix or Amazon Prime? Which I never got to work properly on the laptop/netbook I owned until 2024.

There have been leaps and bounds of progress in the last few years. Youtube hardware acceleration works perfectly in chrome/firefox now (assuming you have working video drivers).

As far as I know netflix still limits you to 720p under most browsers (although their support page shows that opera of all things supports 1080p)

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#245
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the remaining difficulties with Linux tend to revolve around managing ownership and permissions of files and directories. I recently plugged in my external hard drive into my Linux PC and it just wouldn't read it. "You do not have permission to access this drive" or something like that. The solution after googling ended up being (for some reason) some combination of sudo chown -R user /dev/sda1 and…

This shouldn't happen with external disks formatted with ntfs, ext or udf. If you have an EXT4 or something like that external disk things get more hazy...

Whether it should or shouldn't, it did. But I think the issue is less that it happened, and more that the user interface doesn't respond to the "no permission" error by offering up a button you can click to attempt to grant yourself permission. If it can be done through the terminal, there should be a novice friendly way as well.

(For that matter, a novice user shouldn't even have to know how their external hard drive is formatted! It might not even be their drive; it could be a family member attempting to share photos with them. If they're just plugging it in for the first time and seeing errors, they'd be pretty hesitant to mess around with the terminal typing in commands they don't understand).

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#246

>I picked CachyOS rather than a better-known distro like Ubuntu because it’s optimized for modern hardware, >First challenge: My mouse buttons don’t work. I can move the cursor, but can’t click on anything. Maybe should've picked Ubuntu? I suspect this is the Linus (tech tips, not Torvalds) strategy of picking up an obscure distro for content purposes. Can't really have an article if everything just works, right

Ubuntu's UI isn't particulates intuitive for people coming from Windows anymore (it hasn't been for the past 13 years tbf).

Mint is the best default to advise to someone switching to Linux (it's mostly Ubuntu under the hood, but without the snap nonsense and with a less imaginative UI).

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a Framework I am not too upset with, but the battery life (especially during sleep) is definitely one of my gripes. I still have yet to try powertop or other tools to optimize, maybe I would be proven wrong.

Sleep just ceased to exist in the last few years and got replaced with an always on, low power mode. I believe the reasoning was partly that suspend to RAM had serious reliability issues due to the complexity of saving the state, partly that people starting expecting cell phone-like performance where eg, mail is always received.

Depends. The Intel models still support sleep on Linux (at least up to 12 or 13 gen, AMD boards only nap.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it was horrible. It is similar to GNOME here - a design for tablets and smartphones. It simply does not work on the desktop computer.

I use standard GNOME as my desktop environment and nothing about it feels like it was designed for tablets and/or smartphones. Not that it isn’t capable of being used as such, but my desktop usage doesn’t indicate that tablet/smartphone use-cases were the primary goal. Is GNOME even in wide use for those contexts?

ya i was a GNOME hater for a long time after the GNOME 3 transition, switched between Mate and KDE for years. But gave up on those due to persistent video instability and went to vanilla Ubuntu GNOME and it's actually pretty nice. Not sure if it was good originally but I actually prefer it now.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#249

Commercial OSes (both Windows and MacOS) now feel so insanely agenda driven, and the agenda no longer feels like anything close to making the user happy and productive. For Mac, it feels like Apple wants to leverage what came out of VisionOS and unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop--two things no one asked for. For Windows, it feels like ads for their partners and ensuring they don't fumble the ai/agent tran…

>unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop Lol, that's what Microsoft tried 10+ years ago and everybody gave them shit for it, especially Apple fans. Now Apple is "inventing" this again.

I'm old enough to remember everyone praising Apple for not following Microsoft and making iOS it's own separate thing.

It's totally mad that they're now trying to converge their two differentiated, successful, and (mostly) well-liked OSes with the new one they just made for a $3000 headset nobody bought and even fewer people use with any regularity.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#250
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux will run on most platforms, so just pick up a fast, lightweight laptop, and select a conservative power profile for longer battery life and less heat, and don't run 32-thread machine learning jobs on it. A 12-hour laptop battery life is a little bit of a red herring: yes, you can get it on efficient ultrabooks and MacBooks, with light use like web browsing or office work, on low brightness and minimal backgroun…

And how many laptops running Linux are light, power efficient, fast, quiet with good battery life? My 16 inch M3 MacBook Pro runs 5 hours at 80% brightness doing development with my USB powered (video and power from one USB cord) portable monitor. The Mac battery is powering the monitor https://a.co/d/gHqpcs3

I personally don't care about battery life, there are power outlets around everywhere I'll be more than several hours.

Still, no one is getting that kind of battery life outside apple, just the way it is. If your existence revolves around battery life there's no substitute.

But note, this thread is about replacing Windows, and Wintel does not do as well as Apple either. So this thread is off-topic.

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