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Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

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Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#141
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File system access? Ability to Play a Video stream without a user click? Access to non-CORS enabled APIs if needed?

Most apps don't need that feature. In fact, the apps which insist on electron experience often misuse it. Think of the zoom daemon that remained on mac desktops even if you uninstalled zoom.

Every time I click a zoom link these days on macOS, I get really annoyed that I have to click again to get into the video call: the security issue was unfortunate, but (for me) Zoom was absolutely right about the UX.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#142
post #112
post #44

Linux runs better on both new and older hardware. Better as in programs open faster, the file manager opens faster, the task manager opens faster. Everything uses less memory and less CPU cycles. Everything is snappier. Linux users don't have to worry nearly as much about malware, trojans, viruses, exploits. It's more secure. Linux distros generally don't annoy users with stealthy automatic forced updates. Linux dist…

I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. But I still run Windows because the only really good video editor on Linux (Davinci Resolve) is really unstable there with the hardware I have, the USB audio interface I use has all sorts of issues on Linux and not all games run well on Linux. Basically what it boils down to is I've been one of those folks who builds their computers from parts for 20+ years with the goal…

ReactOS or Qubes can solve this right now (at least the software running on it)

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#143
I spent roughly 1999-2015 trying mightily to get off Windows and become Linux only. I finally decided that the Linux desktop was never going to solve its feature and compatibility shortcomings to make that possible. I much prefer Linux as a development environment, but for anything related to office productivity, compatibility issues force me to be on Windows so much that it's not worth the effort to switch to Linux for the few things that I could do there. I could rant about lost opportunities, but that's already been done many times by others.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#144
post #44

Linux runs better on both new and older hardware. Better as in programs open faster, the file manager opens faster, the task manager opens faster. Everything uses less memory and less CPU cycles. Everything is snappier. Linux users don't have to worry nearly as much about malware, trojans, viruses, exploits. It's more secure. Linux distros generally don't annoy users with stealthy automatic forced updates. Linux dist…

While I agree with all of these 100%, I'm a UI/UX designer, so Adobe continues to hold me hostage to my Apple and MS boxes. Some of the Linux alternatives are good, but they still aren't as good as Adobe. I still do quite a bit of JS development and some app development on my older Linux rig, but I just wish at some point Adobe will pull their heads out and support Linux. I remember in several threads on the Adobe fo…

> It pissed me off enough where I did give it a full go on Linux with Gimp Shop and some other alternative open source alternatives, but it just wasn't the same - which really bummed me out.

Is Gimp Shop still a thing?

Wikipedia says the stable release is from 2006.

Going to https://www.gimpshop.com/ leads you to the official gimp site when you try to download it.

It kind of looks like maybe it's a marketing site for gimp now?

I was one of those people who moved from Photoshop to gimp and for the longest time I thought gimp was really bad but after customizing a few hotkeys and setting up some pre-made scripts and brushes it's pretty decent. At least for casually making YouTube thumbnails and things like that.

Some design decisions still leave me baffled tho, like not having a default bind to merge a layer down or not being able to easily center things relative to objects in an intuitive and graphical way (ie. dragging something until it snaps in place while seeing some temporary guide lines overlay near where it's snapped and some basic pixel measurements near it).

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#145

I use linux for my personal server, but I still use Windows in my desktop (with WSL). I have Nvidia GPU, multiple monitor, so Wayland don't seem to be ready for my use case. I aware of proton too, but needing tweaks to run games doesn't seem to be ready to me. I expect games to be "just work". Also, there are also non-steam games and anti-cheat. Currently, WSL perfectly fit my needs for development environment. I had…

Its not that "Wayland is not ready" and more "NVidia does not care". Wayland works on all Free drivers.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Linux users don't have to worry nearly as much about malware, trojans, viruses, exploits. It's more secure. In my opinion it's flawed logic _if_ you wanted to say that "Linux is more secure because windows has more malware" >Linux user experience is much more customizable. In what way? desktop? kernel tweaks?

> In what way? desktop? kernel tweaks? How deep do you want the Rabbit hole to go Alice? On one end you have Arch Linux: Arch is largely based on binary packages. Packages target x86-64 microprocessors to assist performance on modern hardware. A ports/ebuild-like system is also provided for automated source compilation, known as the Arch Build System.[28] Arch Linux focuses on simplicity of design, meaning that the m…

Surely Arch is somewhere in the middle, with things like Gentoo, Nix, Guix, LFS (in increasing order of complexity, perhaps) &c. as the opposing end from Ubuntu/Mint.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#147

I have been running Linux on all my personal machines for the last 8 years and I have to say that one thing windows has going for it is it’s graphics system. I have super sensitive eyes and I have to say that even wayland does not cut it when compared to windows. Everywhere else Linux on desktop is either far better or a bit behind but workable

I have very sensitive eyes too. And this is also a problem I've had with Linux on certain systems. My desktop is nothing special. My video card is Nvidia and the main monitor is a Dell running at 75hz. Windows is fine. Every distro I've tried is not. I've checked in Linux to make sure the refresh rate is correct. I've used both the open source driver and the closed source blob for the video card. I have no idea why I don't get eye strain from Windows but I do with Linux.

If anyone knows the answer and has a solution, please let me know. I'd love to dual boot this machine.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#148
For work I use Mac. It is where native MS office apps intersect with a unix terminal. I really think your choice of OS is down to usecase. But linux often requires much more patience than windows or mac to get started. Windows update is still terrible though!

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#149

I use linux for my personal server, but I still use Windows in my desktop (with WSL). I have Nvidia GPU, multiple monitor, so Wayland don't seem to be ready for my use case. I aware of proton too, but needing tweaks to run games doesn't seem to be ready to me. I expect games to be "just work". Also, there are also non-steam games and anti-cheat. Currently, WSL perfectly fit my needs for development environment. I had…

Its not that "Wayland is not ready" and more "NVidia does not care". Wayland works on all Free drivers.

I know, but it doesn't matter for me, I care about "work" or "not work". Also, I heard that Wayland still have problems with Remote Desktop, screenshot, screen recording...

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#150
post #44

Linux runs better on both new and older hardware. Better as in programs open faster, the file manager opens faster, the task manager opens faster. Everything uses less memory and less CPU cycles. Everything is snappier. Linux users don't have to worry nearly as much about malware, trojans, viruses, exploits. It's more secure. Linux distros generally don't annoy users with stealthy automatic forced updates. Linux dist…

1. Swap thrashing can bring the system into a completely unresponsive state. 2. Linux servers are targeted and breached. Linux desktop share is too small to be worth it (yet). 3. Windows updates aren't stealthy for a considerable time. 4. That's a matter of opinion. 5. Some distros do, but it's opt-in. Transparency is better on the Linux side too. I agree on this point. 6. You are tempted to spend time on customizati…

>1. Swap thrashing can bring the system into a completely unresponsive state.

This can be prevented using earlyoom (which is packaged in most distros):

https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom

It's probably too difficult to fix the underlying design errors, e.g. fork() duplicating the process's entire address space, thus requiring overcommit and copy-on-write, but losing only one process beats losing all of them. earlyoom should be enabled by default.

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