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I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

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Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#161

Post by faust201 »

walthamstow wrote: post #68
dividedbyzero wrote: post #23

Not saying I'm not considering it given the current political climate, but I'm spoiled by my Macbook Air. The Thinkpad I've been issued for work costs about the same, runs hot like crazy, always has fans running, is cheap-feeling plastic, thicker, heavier, garbage touchpad, weird keyboard layout (printscreen right next to the arrow keys, what were they thinking?), mushy keys, barely serviceable display ... what do I…

As well as beautiful hardware that is a pleasure to use, Apple machines can be capable of running local models like gpt-oss-20B or Qwen Coder portably and without sweating. My 24GB M4 Mini was very cheap considering the local models it can run.

Yes hardware is great. Price per performance watt is also great. But UI sucks. Look at all then posts even macOS fans about new macOS release like the glass ones. I prefer ssh and running jobs in macOS.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#162

Post by keyshapegeo99 »

stainablesteel wrote: post #148
keyshapegeo99 wrote: post #134

For both ideological and practical reasons, I'd love to switch. If I were a desktop computing person, I'd already have done so years ago. Alas, I exclusively use laptops - as I work a great deal while travelling. I do not wish to have to carry around a mouse with me wherever I go with my portable computer. If any Linux distro manages to replicate even 80% of the smoothness and functionality of a Mac trackpad experien…

[flagged]

People can have different preferred input devices to others. It doesn't make them amateurs.

My gripes with the trackpad are less to do with window management and are more to do with the graphical components of my job.

Please explain to me how I'm supposed to design graphics in Inkscape using only the keyboard? Or create presentations in LibreOffice Impress using only the keyboard? I don't spend the entirety of my time in a text editor.

Consider these "amateur" tasks all you like, most organisations value them and I need to be able to undertake them without frustration. MacOS won't fight me in these contexts. Linux will.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#163

Post by lukaslalinsky »

adontz wrote: post #86

These articles... I'm not sure who are the target audience, because I am definitely not and I don't know anyone who is. Specific OS is not the important, anything with modern KDE is good enough to replace Windows 10/11. But do I (and all my colleagues) need Microsoft Office (Word, Excel at least) and/or Drawing software (Adobe or something) and/or god forbid Visual Studio 2026, and some other corporate software to ma…

Maybe Windows should remain as a professional tool for using these applications. Most people don't need them. They need a web browser and not much else. Maybe some games for kids. Something like Ubuntu can serve those needs just fine. If you need VS for developing Windows apps, then you obviously stay on Windows.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#164

Post by mnls »

Every now and then a new article "Why you should go Linux". I get it, I like Linux too but every case is different. I want to use Linux but I have to use Digital Audio Workstation. So in my case, I shouldn't dump Windows (and thousand of $$ I've spent on audio software).

I know people desperately want to believe that Linux is "there", but it really isn't. And will probably never be. It’s still too confusing for the average user (many distros, many desktop environments, Wayland vs X, systemd vs init, snap vs flatpak).

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#165

Post by morcus »

adontz wrote: post #86

These articles... I'm not sure who are the target audience, because I am definitely not and I don't know anyone who is. Specific OS is not the important, anything with modern KDE is good enough to replace Windows 10/11. But do I (and all my colleagues) need Microsoft Office (Word, Excel at least) and/or Drawing software (Adobe or something) and/or god forbid Visual Studio 2026, and some other corporate software to ma…

> I'm not sure who are the target audience, because I am definitely not and I don't know anyone who is.

Are you all expected to provide your own personal hardware?

Maybe this depends on location, but everyone I can think of has a corporate-issued laptop on which their corporate software runs.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#166

Post by tonyhart7 »

al_borland wrote: post #75
tonyhart7 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dual boot

This never lasts long, in my experience. It’s a nice idea, but it’s a huge pain. At some point, I always end up sticking with the OS that has what I need , which is never Linux. Linux is what I install when feeling idealistic, but it doesn’t allow me to do anything I can’t do on a mainstream OS that is mission critical to my life.

so dual pc ???

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#167

Post by dizzy9 »

TOMDM wrote: post #30
sumalamana wrote: post #5

Try CachyOS, it's based on Arch but with additional optimizations, better defaults, and is user friendly. The problems the author of the article had would not have happened if he spent some time using an user friendly distro before trying a hard distro.

I find this comment funny given it reminded me of a very similar recent thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46567586

That's what I first thought of too. The author picks CatchyOS as their first Linux distro, only to find it's more complicated to set up, and then the mouse buttons don't work.

For the Linux newcomer, the biggest advantage of Ubuntu (or Ubuntu derivatives like Mint) is the wealth of guides, tutorials, and Q&As online, allowing you to google most common problems. You can always switch to another distro once you become more confident with Linux.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#168

Post by aruggirello »

phkahler wrote: post #56
Jackknife9 wrote: post #42

I tried to leave Windows 11 for Linux - it just didn't work for me. I installed EndeavourOS onto my main gaming desktop. It worked great for a while and ran all the games I played with my friends. However, one night when I went on to play a game I ran a system update and it seemed to completely break my nvidea drivers - I tried reinstalling them and also using the open source driver. This meant I just couldn't play a…

Never heard of that Linux variant. Use one of the big names: Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian. If you have a choice don't use nVidia either, but the bigger distributions do handle them well.

Yeah the real mistake was starting with Endeavour. I wonder just how many people are turned off by their initial Linux experience because they choose stuff like Arch, Gentoo, or some obscure variant rather than Fedora, Kubuntu or Mint. Even stuff like Bazzite is probably an odd choice for a novice - though it would have handled that failed nVidia upgrade nicely.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#169

Post by juliangmp »

poulpy123 wrote: post #97
sumalamana wrote: post #5

Try CachyOS, it's based on Arch but with additional optimizations, better defaults, and is user friendly. The problems the author of the article had would not have happened if he spent some time using an user friendly distro before trying a hard distro.

That's one of the biggest pain points of convincing someone to switch to linux: the bazillions distributions

Yeah, it can quickly lead to analysis paralysis. I've set up three laptops with a Linux on them for non-tech friends and family members and deliberately went with distros that "just work" (Debian and Fedora specifically).

In general I'd recommend sticking to the simple options and not going into niches unless you/the user actually wants or needs to.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#170

Post by reactordev »

mnls wrote: post #164

Every now and then a new article "Why you should go Linux". I get it, I like Linux too but every case is different. I want to use Linux but I have to use Digital Audio Workstation. So in my case, I shouldn't dump Windows (and thousand of $$ I've spent on audio software). I know people desperately want to believe that Linux is "there", but it really isn't. And will probably never be. It’s still too confusing for the a…

Reaper is just as good as FL Studio or Logic Pro. VSTs are really your biggest hurdle. Depending on how they are compiled, they may rely on platform specific code. Most big plugin makers have VSTs for all platforms though and your license works on all.

The pathway is there should you choose, one day. Linux is quite good now. That being said, I know a lot of niche plugins that some guy wrote that only works on windows because that’s all he/she has access to. Some 8-bit synth bitcrushers come to mind.

Also Steinburg made VST 3 sdk open source so you have a path to a free music production studio.

https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3sdk

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