We use OneDrive/Teams/Office365 at work. I think this will be difficult with Linux. Doable with Mac.
In think MacBook Air + Microsoft365 may be the cheapest startup IT setup that doesn’t require windows itself.
I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
111–120 of 753 posts
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#112I switched from Windows to Linux ~20 years ago because and never came back to Windows. First years I used Ubuntu and experimented with Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc. Later went to Fedora Linux with Gnome Desktop which is still my preferred Linux Distribution. Nice to see so many people thinking about free and open alternatives to big tech!
I switched 25 years ago.
Still, every computer I buy comes with Microsoft tax and their OS preinstalled. In all these years I always left a small Windows partition, in case I need it. Never booted it.
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#113Commercial 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.
Honestly, forced to use a macbook for work and I get incredibly strong "windows 8" vibes from macos.
Apple still has pretty incredible hardware, although it's definitely priced with that in mind - but the software has been a constant slog. Change for change's sake, needless shifting in settings/config menus. Weird "we tried to make this similar to mobile" themes in some places but not others. Overly complex os navigation, without clear goals or direction.
Frankly - the OS apple is producing for their traditional computers feels like garbage. I use Arch/Gnome on my personal hardware and I feel like some time in the last 5ish years my opinion swapped - I used to think Gnome was mostly copying Apple design choices, but slightly worse. Now I think Gnome is just a more clear, more usable DE than what Apple is releasing. I moved my wife to Arch/Gnome on her personal laptop last year, and the sure sign was that she hasn't really had any problems with it.
All that said... I still keep a laptop around with Windows 11 on it, because I have a couple of legacy tools (CNCs, solar inverters) that still want it, and holy shit is modern Windows just absolute trash. I grew up on Windows, from windows 3.1 to windows 10, and it's the worst of the 3 by a good distance right now.
You know something's gone wrong with commercial tech companies when the only OS that actually feels like it's intentionally designed for users is the free product.
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#114Article reads like an anti-Linux post because the author goes on about, "muh mouse buttons" and "how many desktop environments?" Screw that, do something simple like Ubuntu that just works without decision paralysis. The whole piece reads like, "Linux is good if you're smart so git gud" esp. since he makes a point of crowing how it's Arch-based.
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#115For all who switched to Linux: which distro did you choose and why? Fedora: wanted to have the newest kernel and updates due to new hardware - so far i am really satisfied; the only issue i have is that the printer does not work everytime… as a workaround i print with my iphone instead.
Pop!OS (22.04) nearly 2 years ago, after having read generally favorable reviews on HN and getting a sense of "monernity/stability/mainstream'ness of Ubuntu without snap and with closer-to-leading-edge kernels" on an Asus Vivobook 17 (my daily personal/WFH driver).
Later (on repurposed low-spec Chromebooks, then on newer deployments just because I came to like it) Crunchbang++ (12, then 13) which is Debian-based.
I avoid printing like the plague, and keep a long-remaining-AUE Chromebook around almost solely for its ability to WiFi-print to our aging Brother laser printer.
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#116Commercial 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…
It's typical business logic. It's not enough to focus on making the product better than the user, you must have a "big" product vision and you're only allowed make changes that align with that product vision.
So when that vision is something that users are ambivalent on (3D TV, AI operating system, etc...), well tough, that's still all they're getting until it hurts the company financially or the next executive has a different "big idea". :(
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#117Moved my Framework laptop to Bluefin and my gaming desktop to Bazzite early last year. Zero regrets, zero issues. I'm not new to Linux by any means, I've been dabbling since a kid. But in adulthood, I had given up on having Linux as my daily driver because I just wanted my main computers to work, I didn't want maintaining them to be a hobby. That's not been an issue with Bluefin or Bazzite. I'm sure it's not for a lo…
Bazzite is my first immutable distro. Idk that I would want this for my dev machine - but for a gaming/general desktop usage it’s pretty amazing. If they exposed more of the maintenance tooling and stuff like adding RPM layers via the UI then I think they’d have a really compelling OS for non-technical users.
I had the dilemma of choosing between Bazzite and CachyOS or Manjaro for my workstation, which is also my gaming rig.
The whole immutable distro felt like a hinder for my workflow (running docker containers, etc.), so that's why I went for CachyOS.
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#118[dead]
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#119I switched my main everyday machine to Ubuntu last May, no regrets, it's a superior experience day to day.
Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
#120For all who switched to Linux: which distro did you choose and why? Fedora: wanted to have the newest kernel and updates due to new hardware - so far i am really satisfied; the only issue i have is that the printer does not work everytime… as a workaround i print with my iphone instead.
CachyOS KDE. My first time using Arch family after meant years of Debian and some Fedora. Honestly fedora is great, and I wanted to try something new.
You know what's fun? Being able to change system fonts, which you can't do on Windows.
I'm using the IBM Plex fonts and they are so good looking.