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I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

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Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#261

Post by mixmastamyk »

themafia wrote: post #240
toddmorey wrote: post #9

Commercial 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…

> and ensuring they don't fumble the ai/agent transition They've already fumbled it. > the way they did with mobile. It's the exact same way they fumbled with mobile. They were very late to the party and decided to buy their way in. It _never_ works.

MS was almost two decades early to the mobile party, and still fumbled it. Because they didn't have the usability insights around touchscreens that others pioneered.

Also could never name things—they named it Wince.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#262

Post by jmclnx »

RankingMember wrote: post #179
jmclnx wrote: post #3

Congratulations and welcome to the club! But please, do not push to make Linux into a Windows Clone :)

I can't say I understand the prevalence of Windows-esque UI theming/refits beyond short-lived novelty- are people out there actually trying to make their UIs look like Windows XP and then using them like that on a daily basis?

To me it is adding things that windows love to do.

Examples: binary log files, binary configuration, .ini files, hidden options.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#263

Post by austin-cheney »

I have old computers. Windows 10 is dead and Windows 11 will not install on old hardware. I put Debian 13 on my wife’s computer.

At first she found it really frustrating, but then reality set in: she didn’t really know Windows either. On Linux there is pretty broad capability to solve your own problem if you can get over fear of a terminal.

Her favorite game runs faster on Debian so that helps.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#264

Post by unethical_ban »

unethical_ban wrote: post #120
0xperke wrote: post #44

For 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.

edit: after "many" years.

What are peoples' thoughts on which style of distro is best to hand over to a non-techie user for the least amount of hand-holding?

I re-install so much that I don't know how easy it is, or how the distros prompt, when something like Debian Stable or Fedora need to update to the next version. With Arch, you constantly get the "updates ready" and it is always fresh.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#265

Post by mixmastamyk »

dannyfritz07 wrote: post #138
jacquesm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been like that for 15 years or more. The fact that you now need an account for almost any piece of hardware, including computers, phones etc is a major drawback that arrived with the internet era. Linux has been able to avoid that temptation.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 15 years ago I was still looking up installation and driver procedures and workarounds to install Linux on my devices. I failed to install arch in college because I didn't have a driver for my SATA drive for example. Today though. Yeah totally easy. Especially if you get one of the many machines with Linux support. Smooth sailing all around.

Windows has also needed external drivers installed at times, since the DOS days. It's the nature of obscure, new, or advanced hardware.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#266

Post by kstenerud »

0xperke wrote: post #44

For 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.

Kubuntu. I wanted the compatibility of Ubuntu, but not the horrible UI.

It's not without its problems, though:

Snaps completely bork the system, so you need to remove snap entirely on Kubuntu (good riddance anyway - snaps are a plague).

Idle suspend is flaky. Sometimes it won't come back. Better to just disable it.

Sometimes the machine just freezes up. Either it completely freezes, or the mouse slows down to 1fps with the entire movement queued up (move the mouse and it'll go exactly where you told it to, over 2-3 minutes).

WIFI was a nightmare, but I switched to ethernet so it's not an issue for me anymore (desktop machine).

Bluetooth is iffy. I just switched to wired speakers.

On the plus side, AI works great!

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#267

Post by SilentM68 »

toddmorey wrote: post #9

Commercial 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…

Windows has evolved into the world's highest security risk. MacOS feels like Eye Candy due to its increasingly inaccessible price for people with low resources. So, price and security are the reasons why I switched to Linux.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#268

Post by MarsIronPI »

g947o wrote: post #233
MarsIronPI wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Windows still has Windows tax, which is why I always choose "No OS" when buying a machine. MacOS/iOS/iPadOS were never for sale separately, so we can't judge the price. Android sure is subsidized though.

Android does have a cost. While the OS itself is free, any manufacturer that wants to put Play Store, which is almost every company outside China, needs to pay Google a license fee, which effectively pays for Android. Of course there are also ads everywhere in Android and Android apps that helps pay the bill.

Wow, so the only OSs with no money in them are the FOSS ones. Makes sense, though.

(No, at this point Android hardly counts as FOSS anymore.)

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#269

Post by saltmate »

einpoklum wrote: post #172

I noticed the blog post said nothing about working with documents, i.e. the office suite the poster was using. Or - maybe he wasn't at all? I wonder. Same goes for email, although perhaps he was just using webmail.

Have you ever heard of Thunderbird? There's to my knowledge no other mail client besides maybe mutt that offers more features and flexibility. For office, LibreOffice doesn't feel very modern but is capable of a lot of things.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#270

Post by anon291 »

1over137 wrote: post #122
toddmorey wrote: post #9

Commercial 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…

Commercial OSes (both Windows and macOS) are also both American, and lots of people are trying to de-Americanize.

Linux is also realistically American since the largest contributors are American corporations and the dictator for life lives on Portland oregon.

America has a monopoly on software essentially.

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