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People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

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171–180 of 214 posts

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is only bottlenecked from doing the same by their AI products not working. I’m currently evaluating a move to Linux from macOS for this reason. Unless they speed up a major internal shakeup they don’t seem to be in a position where their products will be interesting. Amazing hardware though.

> AI products not working Are Microsoft's AI products built into the OS any better? It may very well be that the reason Apple got such bad press for their AI efforts is that people genuinely wanted to try them and hoped they'd be good, where as nobody wants to try Microsoft's and already expects it to be bad, thanks to their stellar reputation since Windows 8.

Microsoft has the copilot brand which includes relatively well valued products, apple does not have anything that could potentially work if only it was integrated well.

I’m not saying that to defend Microsoft, but at least they have _some_ measure of product success leading them to push further. With apple the leadership push for ai seems an entirely divorced from the current reality of the company.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#172
post #81

I still want to switch, have been trying for like 8 years. Not yet unfortunately. Video editing is still pretty sub-par on Linux compared to Windows. DaVinci Resolve technically works on Linux and it's an amazing piece of software that I'd love to use but on Linux there's no h264 support unless you pay $300. Ok no problem, I'd do that except the studio version doesn't support AAC for audio on Linux. If you want to re…

I highly recommend you give Shotcut a chance. I am a total beginner with video editing but unlike kdenlive (sorry, still a cool project) it gave me much bigger "professional product" vibes. IMO it is more polished, built-in effects are better, runs stable on Windows for me (so you can try it anytime before switching to Linux) and it looks nice. I was editing video gameplay footage with kdenlive some time ago (on Wind…

Thanks for the suggestion and reminder! I remember trying Shotcut many years ago and it was worse (IMO) than Kdenline at the time.

The good news is I gave it a quick spin just now and it has come a -really- long ways since then. Within 10 minutes I had an ok workflow for doing cuts / ripple deletes. You can add text with individually colored words and styles, add a background shape behind the text and also add effects like drop shadows, glows and other things. All done graphically in the video preview.

It's no where near as intuitive as Camtasia but I think it's very usable and over time I'm sure I'll get used to its features.

I just hope it's stable, I'll edit a couple of videos and see how it goes.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#173
post #81

I still want to switch, have been trying for like 8 years. Not yet unfortunately. Video editing is still pretty sub-par on Linux compared to Windows. DaVinci Resolve technically works on Linux and it's an amazing piece of software that I'd love to use but on Linux there's no h264 support unless you pay $300. Ok no problem, I'd do that except the studio version doesn't support AAC for audio on Linux. If you want to re…

Have you looked at the video editor in Blender? I'm not much into video editing, but Blender as a whole is very solid, supports H.264 and AAC as far as I can see.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#174
post #3
post #2

"By my count"... Which means pretending that every single "unknown" desktop, which is a larger percentage than the Linux desktops, are Linux. And also by considering ChromeBooks, which also have a larger percentage than Linux, are Linux.

Chromebooks are quite literally linux...

ChromOS is Linux in the way that Android is linux. Technically it has a Linux kernel, but that's it. It is not a Linux desktop under your control. It's a strictly proprietary OS you have very little control of. It's not Linux in the way that literally everyone else means the word.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#175

Oh fuck. The assholes that thought Windows was perfectly acceptable until late 2025 are flocking to Linux. Maybe get a Macbook? Do you even know how bad Linux is? The video drivers don't work, bluetooth doesn't work, your laptop won't wake up from sleep, it's horrible. Go the fuck away. Linux is horrible. Windows is fucking awesome. Mac is OK. Linux sucks. Don't waste your time.

Last install of Linux (Mint) everything worked fine except the wakeup from sleep ^^ Hahaha, some things never change, I had the same problem years ago with my last Linux test phase. Getting Mint to correctly wake up took a long search and some command line skills. Nothing for the masses.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing: amazing hardware. I want two things: good hardware and software I trust. It's going to be hard to trust a for-profit company selling a closed source OS, but Apple is doing a much better job of consistently talking and walking respect for user privacy for many years. There may be another reason beyond incompetence that they're not rushing out half-baked chatbots wrapped in privacy disasters.

The other problem is things like DRM being increasingly common. Last I checked, many video streaming providers either don't support Linux, or only serve low-quality videos. With Macs you know they'll get support.

Many content rights contracts I see instruct the streaming platforms that they must detect Linux and either give low quality or deny the playback entirely.

It's because, rightly or not, they don't trust Linux in comparison to MacOS and view it as a piracy vector.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents run a Windows PC as, from what I can tell, a home for stray botnets. The main uses are checking email and working on Word documents. (They have a laptop and iPad, respectively, which does most of their work, so it's an infrequently consulted machine.) What Linux build would you recommend that I can fire and forget, that would be compatible with the Windows 10 machine they have running and will likely never…

How can they manage without Office suite? I really can't without teams that's why I keep coming back. PWA doesn't have the "5% feature" I need.

For an office suite, I use LibreOffice. The fact that it has a normal/standard WIMP interface instead of the ribbon is a plus for me.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#178
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chromebooks are quite literally linux...

ChromOS is Linux in the way that Android is linux. Technically it has a Linux kernel, but that's it. It is not a Linux desktop under your control. It's a strictly proprietary OS you have very little control of. It's not Linux in the way that literally everyone else means the word.

As pointed out downthread this isn't true. It is under your control. All modern chromebooks let you enable developer mode which gives you root access, at which point is is a linux desktop in the way literally everyone means the word.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> kind of like the old Control Panel. Aaaah, old Control Panel. One of the things that made me realise that I'm now better at administering a Linux system than a Windows one is that the old Control Panel has been replaced by a series of other screens that don't link together by the same concepts that Control Panel used as groupings. I think the old Control Panel still exists, but they make it hard to find, and if tha…

It's worse than that - the older the layer, the older and typically more powerful the UI you'll find. Such a crazy hodgepodge.

The fact that they have this accumulating crust of interfaces, usually with different capabilities and visual styles stapled on top of one another, really makes you wonder whether Microsoft is really thinking about what they're doing.

Re: People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows

#180
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who has used rdp for more than a few hours knows how much better the experience is compared to vnc. Most things just work. In case someone needs touch screen support, there is no comparison. File picker has been a strength of Windows for quite a few versions. And the consensus seems to be that it is better than Mac's (based on my YouTube watch history). I have used various Linux desktops, and none of the file…

I concede that RDP is great (though Sunshine/Moonlight are worth the trouble), but that's been available on Linux for ages. It's hilarious that you're comparing features to GNOME-ecosystem apps. They are allergic to features. Dolphin from KDE would be a much better comparison for Windows Explorer.

> It's hilarious that you're comparing features to GNOME-ecosystem apps.

Someone that is not me started the debate of RDP vs VNC and file pickers in the first place.

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