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How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

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Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#171

Post by mvaliente2001 »

Animats wrote: post #83

I've used Linux on the desktop for over a decade. Currently, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on x64. It still sucks for the average user. The GUI is lipstick on a pig. As soon as anything goes wrong, it's back to the command line. You look up the problem, and there will be a dozen articles about it, all contradicting each other. Look up what it takes to create a desktop icon for something. (Hint: the top result in Google won't work…

I understand your point about going back to the command line in case of something going wrong. But for me that's a plus. Other systems are, to me, black boxes. If something goes wrong with them, there's less that you can do to fix them.

Now, I have a love-hate relationship with Ubuntu. Things kind of work, but they feel the pathological need of changing most of their tools each other version. The sad thing is that those changes don't provide any improvements, it's just the same but different.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#172

Post by lasagnaphil »

amaccuish wrote: post #161
wyattpeak wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Libreoffice was fine enough until I started working in an office with people on Windows. I ran into so many compatibility problems I could barely believe it. Couldn't edit each other's headers, no maths support worked between the two, images and other objects would get randomly shuffled in the documents (one image showing up where another used to be). To say nothing of the minor niggling display differences…

Use OnlyOffice. It uses the Microsoft xml formats internally and I've found it work miles better for compatibility than Libreoffice. Plus it looks nicer :) you can install it as a snap.

I'm surprised that the desktop software is AGPL. When I first looked at the website I initially thought it was proprietary...

Github Link: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE

One question though: What desktop UI API are they using? Is it using the native APIs, or using Electron under the hood?

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#173

Post by denniskane »

rv-de wrote: post #132
Animats wrote: post #83

I've used Linux on the desktop for over a decade. Currently, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on x64. It still sucks for the average user. The GUI is lipstick on a pig. As soon as anything goes wrong, it's back to the command line. You look up the problem, and there will be a dozen articles about it, all contradicting each other. Look up what it takes to create a desktop icon for something. (Hint: the top result in Google won't work…

On Linux Mint 19 with xfce desktop icons are absolutely no issue whatsoever. But who needs them anyway? - [Super Key] - First three letters of the program name - [Enter] Boom! Much faster.

I don't understand. Isn't the primary use for desktop icons the opening of particular files within programs and not the programs themselves?

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#174

Post by BossingAround »

rv-de wrote: post #132
Animats wrote: post #83

I've used Linux on the desktop for over a decade. Currently, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on x64. It still sucks for the average user. The GUI is lipstick on a pig. As soon as anything goes wrong, it's back to the command line. You look up the problem, and there will be a dozen articles about it, all contradicting each other. Look up what it takes to create a desktop icon for something. (Hint: the top result in Google won't work…

On Linux Mint 19 with xfce desktop icons are absolutely no issue whatsoever. But who needs them anyway? - [Super Key] - First three letters of the program name - [Enter] Boom! Much faster.

This is pretty much exactly how it works on Windows.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#175

Post by Krasnol »

Alan_Dillman wrote: post #129
Krasnol wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even…

"One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human." Blech. Do you remember when games like Leisure Suit Larry went from text input to "click the right pixel"? All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost. You can see all the options because there aren't as many.

Sure I remember.

Do you remember all those games that came with the mouse?

And they are still coming.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#176

Post by Krasnol »

dgzl wrote: post #99
Krasnol wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even…

I recognize your position, and I even hold it myself sometimes. A fancy Arch setup really is just a glass Castle, and Windows is fairly sturdy with minimal effort. Being able to have convenient out-of-box support for nearly all kinds of SW/HW, and an easy GUI for usage and installation... It really lets you kick back and not have to think about things. The terminal definitely requires mastery, there's no argument abo…

Sure they are. I never said otherwise. That's why I wouldn't want it to go away. I just don't want to _have_ to do it. And if we look back on the topic, with me growing older, I don't believe I'll fully transition to Linux in my lifetime.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#177

Post by zbentley »

Alan_Dillman wrote: post #129
Krasnol wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even…

"One finger even or my nose if I have to. A double click does it. A GUI where I can see all the options, select them, apply and run. So...human." Blech. Do you remember when games like Leisure Suit Larry went from text input to "click the right pixel"? All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost. You can see all the options because there aren't as many.

> All sorts of exploration and hilarity was lost.

About games, I agree with you. But when doing work, or even non-gaming fun things on a computer, "exploration and hilarity" are damn near the last things I want to be expected of me. I want to get things done in a cognitively efficient way, even if that's not the most temporally efficient way.

That means: if an application wants me to learn new skills, they should be limited enough as to be relevant to the immediate task, discoverable, and with a clear, immediate path towards competence.

No "Well, you want to do $x in a GUI, but have you considered learning the CLI? it's much more flexible, and the next 10 things you might want to do with $x will be so easy (once you've mastered the CLI)!" I may never need to do 10 more things with a given program/task; I may be happy to do what I need inefficiently but in a familiar way; if I do need to do more in the future, I'll set aside time to learn how rather than getting interrupted on my way to a specific goal unrelated to leveling up my proficiency at something.

The attitude of many people and ecosystems in the Linux community seems to be like that. The tools themselves are fine once you learn to use them, but the people and conventions that proliferate those tools seem to often lose sight of their (desktop, not power/dev/sysadmin) users' needs for immediate specific task-accessibility, discoverability, and incremental increases in proficiency rather than "exploratory" or deep-end-first learning styles.

I say this as someone who spends just as much time obsessively, wastefully over-customizing my development workflow/shell/etc. as most programmers I know. I do that for fun, but while I find it fun, I recognize that most of my users do not, and likely never will.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#178

Post by doublepg23 »

Krasnol wrote: post #96
dgzl wrote: post #90

I started using Ubuntu Linux about 8 years ago, about the same time I started my CS degree at school. Over the years, my interest in Windows shrunk to essentially just PC gaming. When school got serious I stopped gaming as much, and all my needs from both school and personal computing were met with open source tools. Every once in a while I would try a new distro as live CD, just for kicks, and to see how things are…

> But don't feel put off by this, we actually have a lot of fun in the terminal. I believe you. I grew up on a C64 and later DOS and really, I don't miss it. It's nice to have the console just in case but I don't want it to become something I have to use again. It always was that "waste of time" you're describing there and I've never seen it the other way around. I can do that swishing with one hand. One finger even…

First off comparing the UX of the C64 and DOS to a modern Linux shell is nuts.

I like my GUIs for a lot of things. Music playing for me almost requires album art. Instant messaging as well, I need avatars/pfps (I've always disliked IRC because of that). Checking log messages though? File management? Quick edits? Shell all the way.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#179

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ikfmpwdsoz wrote: post #111
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is more of a headache for the developer, but the end user has a much nicer experience (it can't be overstated how nice it is to be able to install almost anything with one command, and update everything with another) It's a trade off. For that you're giving up control as a user about what can and cannot be installed on your system, you're giving up portable applications, being able to have applications on differ…

I still don't understand - you can still have a standalone executable if you want, nothing's stopping you! Package managers just streamline the common case of "I just want to install some software on this computer and have it update automatically". Linux has all the freedom of Windows and more.

> I still don't understand - you can still have a standalone executable if you want, nothing's stopping you!

Try it some time. See how much of your Linux Desktop software you can actually acquire that way without a whole lot of work.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#180

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

beagle3 wrote: post #104
bootlooped wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have infrequently fooled around with Linux only a handful of times in the last 15 years. I recently installed it on my laptop but was disheartened to see how much you still need the command line to do some very basic things. Installing a program (not from the Ubuntu Software Center) and getting a launcher icon into the start-menu-equivalent took way too much time and Googling.

That’s true, but on the other hand, you have some 15000-30000 packages installable from software center that are guaranteed virus free, with automatic updates. (And they are liver and gratis to boot), so the average user rarely if never needs to go there.

> installable from software center that are guaranteed virus free

This is not true. Repos can, and have, been hijacked. Packages can and have had malicious code inserted. Hell, projects can and have accidentally accepted stealth backdoors in the guise of bug fixes or feature commits.

The repo system is not a panacea for security.

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