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I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

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Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#71

Post by aworks »

happytoexplain wrote: post #35
MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

>The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. That's not what the author said. And anecdotes are perfectly fine - in fact, they are literally are all we have to write about. In this case, everything I've experienced and heard from others suggests that the author is correct. Linux distros are amazing, and their issues are generally fixable with experience, but the problem i…

I have a computer science degree yet continue to use Windows. Is it because I have 30 years of experiece knowing what to ignore?j I do also use WSL for the command-line.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#72

Post by gbro3n »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #65

I kinda switched to Linux when I realized that Microsoft had fractured the control panel into different areas in "Settings" and there was almost no pattern in how to get to the various system settings and diagnostic tools that had become ingrained in muscle memory for me over the course of 15-odd years. I decided I'd rather start from scratch on Linux than Windows for reasons of Microsoft's various decisions and dire…

That is true regarding prior experience. It feels better learning such well known canonical tools that have (and very likely will continue to) stand the test of time.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#73

Post by zamadatix »

pixel_popping wrote: post #27
GuardCalf wrote: post #3

You can just use Windows and run your required Linux distro inside WSL2. That's exactly my setup—I'm a heavy user of both, as I need both systems daily.

Is there a reason you don't do the contrary?

You get the hardware/driver support of Windows, things like GPU/drive/network/window sharing in the out of the box config, and there are very few graphical apps for Linux which don't run graphically in Windows in the first place (but the reverse is not as true).

I loved it for my work laptop but then Apple Silicon MacBooks came along and forced a main OS due to the hardware (though nowadays Asahi is pretty good on the older ones). I suppose on a home use case you get big multiplayer game DRM support as well (different people will consider that a plus or minus).

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#74

Post by thewebguyd »

kgwxd wrote: post #59
likesHumidity wrote: post #45

Haha, I love Linux, but I can't quit MacOs/iOs. As many complaints as I have about Apple and MacOS and iOS, their products hit a niche and commoditized it.

That's basically just *nix + a fancy (but less so by the day) DE + product lock-in.

You're missing that it's also a *nix with broad commercial app support which is important for a lot of folks, myself included.

Everything else can be re-created yourself on Linux except for that.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#75

Post by tosti »

pndy wrote: post #54
tosti wrote: post #30

MS-Windows ME was the reason I jumped ship to GNU+Linux. I'm honestly surprised why it's taking the rest such a long time.

That was a long time ago - from your experiences, you think Linux has changed for better or remains same?

Everything got better except for icon themes and the introduction of avahi, pulseaudio and systemd. Icon themes peaked with KDE3 where they had subtle animations and the Tango project which had very recognizable colorful icons.

I still run my boxen with X.org (an upgrade from XFree86) and ALSA. The latter was already a thing in 2001.

I've helped those who just wanted to get online with Debian, SuSE and Ubuntu. In one case PCLinuxOS was best because the hardware was very old.

There's one Ubuntu LTS install at a place I visit which has been running for 7 years now. I've upgraded it twice with no fuzz.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#76

Post by aqme28 »

MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

Haven’t used Windows in a while, but I remember hating the seemingly completely random “restarting in 5 minutes for a system update.” Usually at the least-opportune time

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#77

Post by retrochameleon »

cryo32 wrote: post #52
aqme28 wrote: post #11

Linux friction is “unpredictable” but windows friction isn’t, because you have a lot of windows experience and not much in Linux. I don’t think you’d feel the same after a few months of Linux.

30 years of Linux here. Windows issues are easier to fix as they are usually consistently broken and well documented due to the huge user ase.

Full time linux user for 8 years now. The knowledge base of discussion around Linux issues is vast and usually has the answers you need. Albeit with the variety of distros and their differences you must be mote scrutable in identifying what is applicable to your situation. Stick with mainstream like Ubuntu and you will have tons of community support and knowledge to search through.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#78

Post by teo_zero »

happytoexplain wrote: post #35
MostlyStable wrote: post #9

The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't…

>The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. That's not what the author said. And anecdotes are perfectly fine - in fact, they are literally are all we have to write about. In this case, everything I've experienced and heard from others suggests that the author is correct. Linux distros are amazing, and their issues are generally fixable with experience, but the problem i…

> > The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me.

> That's not what the author said.

It is exactly what the author said. TFA makes a point that Windows' issues are well known and predictable. And the author would rather endure the daily nuisances infliced by Windows than fix the sporadic breakages that Linux might throw.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#79

Post by solumunus »

pixel_popping wrote: post #23

It's not really applicable nowadays as you can just ask any agent to solve most linux issues for you, it's literally 1 prompt away and you can snapshot your FS to be safe prior and lock it down to avoid agent mistake.

100%. I was finally about to permanently switch a year ago and agents have been a game changer.

Re: I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

#80

Post by retrochameleon »

martinald wrote: post #37

Two thoughts (I was in the same situation, constantly trying desktop Linux then pinging back to Windows after hitting issues). 1) Fedora is really worth a try, it's extremely polished. The best thing is the packages in the repo are generally much more up to date that debian based distros, which maeans less random PPAs to work around it, which cause issues. 2) The biggest change is having Claude Code/Codex able to dia…

Using Linux is a learning experience. You will inevitably face and solve numerous problems over time, but every time you do, you come out of it understanding what's going on under the hood a little more.

Still, it can be dreadful to face even small issues when you only feel like using your computer and not fixing it. Having an LLM agent help with fixing issues is a lifesaver. Ask it what you don't understand, take note of the commands it uses or suggests while troubleshooting and fixing your issue, and you'll supercharge your learning and not get as hung up on the issues.

If someone doesn't care much to learn though, I'd say Linux is still tough to recommend.

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