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Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

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Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#271

Post by md8z »

Zhyl wrote: post #264
md8z wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the desktop. AFAIK the steam deck is a handheld gaming device similar to a Nintendo Switch, not a desktop PC. It seems about as related to desktop Linux as google stadia, i.e. not much. When I say machine with Arch I mean a desktop/laptop with just the stock Arch on it. Edit: And if you really want to be pedantic, ChromeOS is technically Gentoo underneath the covers, but the only…

>AFAIK the steam deck is a handheld gaming device similar to a Nintendo Switch, not a desktop PC It is essentially a fully fledged desktop PC in a handheld form factor [0]. It is identical architecturally to a desktop PC with integrated controller running Arch-based Steam OS 3.0. >When I say machine with Arch I mean a desktop/laptop with just the stock Arch on it. Which is fair, but not what I asked. [0] https://www.…

Yeah I get that, but you still probably are not going to want to run desktop apps on that thing. It doesn't have a keyboard or mouse. It looks more suited to running tablet apps. And regardless of that, my point is that the status of gaming APIs shipped by one vendor on a proprietary bundling of Linux has little to do with the status of the rest of the platform, which by the way is also woefully inadequate for shipping tablet apps. And also: Linux still is not able to adequately run the majority of desktop software for Windows that people actually want to use, which is all proprietary. Progress has not changed or increased here, Wine is still about as far behind (relatively speaking) as it's ever been. AFAIK the only reason Proton is able to work is because support for Direct3D 11 was added, which at this point is a 13 year old API, and it still doesn't work perfectly.

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#273

Post by tmalsburg2 »

earthtolazlo wrote: post #133
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What speech recognition system did you use on Linux? I'm interested in using speech recognition more after getting used to it on iOS devices (where it works amazingly well).

I had the most success using Dragonfly with the Kaldi engine, which handles the heavy lifting of speech recognition and provides a nice API on top of xdotool for desktop interaction. You can also check out Talon, although I think its Linux support is still somewhat experimental.

Thank you. These keywords (Kaldi, Dragonfly) put me on the right track and I found nerd-dictation [1] which is easy to use and hackable. Perhaps not useful for your programming purposes, but I need something for writing prose and it's a decent start for that.

[1] https://github.com/ideasman42/nerd-dictation

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#274

Post by dustymcp »

ginko wrote: post #148
pjmlp wrote: post #75

Yet another one of thoses guides. When XP came out everyone was going to go GNU/Linux, due to Toy'R us interface. When Vista came out everyone was going to go GNU/Linux, due to DX 10 drivers and hardware requirements. When 8.x came out everyone was going to go GNU/Linux, due to tablet UI. When 10 came out everyone was going to go GNU/Linux, due to telemetry. Now Windows 11 came out, naturally everyone is going to go…

The first 10 reasons don't matter, really. Windows is proprietary software and should be avoided on ethical grounds just for that.

So software cant be monetized how do you make a living?

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#275

Post by Zhyl »

md8z wrote: post #271
Zhyl wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>AFAIK the steam deck is a handheld gaming device similar to a Nintendo Switch, not a desktop PC It is essentially a fully fledged desktop PC in a handheld form factor [0]. It is identical architecturally to a desktop PC with integrated controller running Arch-based Steam OS 3.0. >When I say machine with Arch I mean a desktop/laptop with just the stock Arch on it. Which is fair, but not what I asked. [0] https://www.…

Yeah I get that, but you still probably are not going to want to run desktop apps on that thing. It doesn't have a keyboard or mouse. It looks more suited to running tablet apps. And regardless of that, my point is that the status of gaming APIs shipped by one vendor on a proprietary bundling of Linux has little to do with the status of the rest of the platform, which by the way is also woefully inadequate for shippi…

With a dock you can have a keyboard and a mouse :)

Moreover, given that the Steam Deck is essentially a PC, any investment in the Deck in drivers, APIs, desktop environments, display manager (Valve have invested in KDE Plasma/Wayland and Gamescope), native game compatibility, compatibility layers (applies to all software, not just games) is also an investment in desktop Linux as a whole. Even if we are just limiting it to games, having more games on Linux makes the platform more viable for people who want to use their computer for gaming.

This isn't even mentioning how much has moved to either web or cross-platform electron apps in the last 10 years (which includes Teams, Spotify, Discord, Youtube, VSCode and others)

>which by the way is also woefully inadequate for shipping tablet apps

I will bow to your experience on this one, I don't have any experience in this area.

>adequately run the majority of desktop software for Windows that people actually want to use

Actually you can run pretty much all Microsoft Office on Linux - the big ones that people still have trouble with are Adobe Creative suite.

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#276

Post by filmgirlcw »

Zhyl wrote: post #261
filmgirlcw wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I’m not dismissing Linux though. I am dismissing the idea that an operating system not funded by a trillion dollar company can make inroads with many , many end users, yes, that’s true (Google, Microsoft, Apple are all in that category), but I’m not dismissing Linux or the massive impact it has had. The Linux kernel is one of the singularly most disruptive forces in computing of the last 30 years. I think the…

> I mean, I’m not dismissing Linux though. > But Linux on the desktop, sorry. It’s not going to happen. I mean this seems like a dismissal to me. I am specifically talking about the desktop. I don't think the impact that the Linux kernel has had on the server or mobile spaces is up for debate - as you say it's pretty massive. The issue I have is the certainty with which you can dismiss the viability of Linux desktop.…

I’ll put it this way, I think that a successful Linux on the desktop would not be something a lot of the people that advocate and love Linux on the desktop would embrace. It would be a lot more like Chrome OS (and Google is writing their own kernel, which just blurs a lot of the lines even more), meaning purposefully obfuscating the Linux bits, using custom or highly-customized desktop environments, being tightly configured with close-sourced backend cloud services, and being very difficult to use custom libraries or app repositories. I think Proton is a good example of this, actually. Valve has done some great work with compatibility and its great to see the work they have done to improve the gaming situation (tho people who claim that Windows and Linux are equivalent in gaming, as far as the desktop goes, are being disingenuous imho) and desktop Linux as a gaming platform is certainly superior to Mac, in terms of library. But Valve’s primary motive is to create a front end for their storefront and to do it in a way so that Valve can avoid paying various licensing fees. Gabe has been very upfront about that from the beginning. Steam Machines were a massive failure (I was at the launch party in Las Vegas the CES they were unveiled) and although I personally preordered a Steam Deck, I don’t think we really know what the actual market is for that kind of device. It could be on-par with consoles or it could be a lot less. But everything we’ve seen from that shows that the experience is very much designed to mimic a console experience — albeit with a lot more freedom for nerds like us. I don’t think that is at all the same thing as Linux Mint or even Ubuntu being the primary desktop OS for end users. Or that if Steam Deck is successful, that we will see computers sold with traditional Linux distros pre-installed at Best Buy (and the developer edition XPS and Lenovo machines aren’t what I’m talking about).

And that doesn’t touch on the still existing consumer software issues on Linux — getting developers like Serif (makers of Affinity) to target the Linux desktop (I’m not even going to try for Adobe) or for existing commercial software to come over.

Now, some of this ceases to matter because the web won and the web runs everywhere. But keep in mind that you’ll need to use that proprietary version of Chrome on your Linux desktop to watch HD Netflix or other DRM content and to access other stuff. The web winning doesn’t mean that software freedom has won.

As I said in my OP, I’m a diehard macOS user and I certainly appreciate the POSIX underpinnings and the fact that the OS has some BSD roots. In fact, it’s a huge part of the appeal for me (like many nerds in their late 30s, I embraced Mac OS X in the early 2000s because it was kind of like Linux but pretty and had Photoshop). But most Unix purists I know don’t like macOS (especially these days) for a variety of reasons and would rather use OpenBSD or pine for the days of Sun OS or Solaris.

So yes, despite the many notable efforts that have been made, no, I don’t think the Linux desktop as I think you define it will happen. If it were to happen, it would look and act a lot more like Windows and macOS with everything good and bad that that entails.

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#277

Post by yepthatsreality »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #186

Disclosure: I'm a developer advocate at Microsoft with a focus on Linux, I am typing this on a laptop running Windows 11 (it also has another SSD that runs Linux), and I'm a diehard Mac user. I hate this sort of SEO-driven clickbait that is trying to inflame wars that frankly, were settled two decades ago. Use Linux. Use Windows. Use macOS. Use Chrome OS. Use OpenBSD. Use Haiku. If you're a complete masochist, use GN…

> It will never be the year of the Linux desktop (and that's totally OK!) and poorly-written articles like this do nothing to help change that.

The “year” already happened, I don’t know when specifically. We are years into Linux on the desktop. The idea was to provide a perfectly usable DE on Linux and comparable software for the every day user. Which now has several options and a plethora of software. Lots of people run Linux desktops on the daily. Is it mainstream? No, but no one actually cares about that because to get to that point you need some giant exodus migration from every platform to Linux…it’s impossible. So what’s possible for desktop Linux in a practical sense? That it’s available to install and use and is supported. So it’s here and no one cares that there isn’t a big giant annual release with lots of media attention crooning over how awesome the new OS menu is. Instead it’s people working and developing on Linux.

I’m sorry for all those people who can’t live without their niche OS features and software, but it also tells me those people have no real technical skill or understanding anyways. Which is fine that software plane exists too.

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#278

Post by AnthonyMouse »

md8z wrote: post #271
Zhyl wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>AFAIK the steam deck is a handheld gaming device similar to a Nintendo Switch, not a desktop PC It is essentially a fully fledged desktop PC in a handheld form factor [0]. It is identical architecturally to a desktop PC with integrated controller running Arch-based Steam OS 3.0. >When I say machine with Arch I mean a desktop/laptop with just the stock Arch on it. Which is fair, but not what I asked. [0] https://www.…

Yeah I get that, but you still probably are not going to want to run desktop apps on that thing. It doesn't have a keyboard or mouse. It looks more suited to running tablet apps. And regardless of that, my point is that the status of gaming APIs shipped by one vendor on a proprietary bundling of Linux has little to do with the status of the rest of the platform, which by the way is also woefully inadequate for shippi…

> Linux still is not able to adequately run the majority of desktop software for Windows that people actually want to use, which is all proprietary.

All of this has been getting replaced by the web over the course of twenty years.

The primary exception to this is games, because they're so resource intensive and benefit from being closer to the metal. Which is why gaming APIs are significant -- AAA games don't get converted into a web page and therefore are the main thing still tying a large group of consumers to Windows.

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#279

Post by Zhyl »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #249
Zhyl wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like with the uptick in Linux gaming, Valve's investment in Proton, the Steam Deck, EAC/Battleye compatibility with Proton, modern desktops catching up to Windows look and feel, it's closer to being 'the year of the Linux desktop' than ever before. Sure, 'the year of the Linux desktop' is a loosely defined term that doesn't necessarily have any key metrics that you'd agree with, and it's not like any of the wo…

> modern desktops catching up to Windows look and feel Honestly, ever since Gnome Shell Linux has been ahead of Windows in look and feel, IMO anyway. That being said, the year of the Linux desktop isn't a thing anymore because honestly, desktops (or laptops) aren't that much of a thing anymore. For consuming media, phones, tablets and TVs are the main devices. For gaming, phones and consoles. Laptops/desktops are mos…

This is a fair argument that I don't see as often as I should.

Re: Reasons to switch from Windows to Linux

#280

Post by danShumway »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #186

Disclosure: I'm a developer advocate at Microsoft with a focus on Linux, I am typing this on a laptop running Windows 11 (it also has another SSD that runs Linux), and I'm a diehard Mac user. I hate this sort of SEO-driven clickbait that is trying to inflame wars that frankly, were settled two decades ago. Use Linux. Use Windows. Use macOS. Use Chrome OS. Use OpenBSD. Use Haiku. If you're a complete masochist, use GN…

Windows 11 is launching with literal TV commercials. The Surface Pro 7 earlier this year launched with commercials comparing the device to Apple laptops -- again, literal TV ads.

So why is it suddenly toxic for a Linux Institute blog to advertise Linux? Why is it toxic to mention in a blog (completely accurately) that the average Linux distro (even commercial distros like Ubuntu) have less telemetry than Windows 11? Windows 11 Home edition does still require a Microsoft account that users need to use airplane mode during setup to circumvent, right? It does genuinely have camera requirements for new manufacturers, right?

It's a wild double standard here to argue, from the position of a company that runs TV ads mocking its competitors about touchbars -- that the Linux community is stoking division by publishing a blog post that compares Linux to Windows on the day of a new Windows release.

Of course there's a bias to the article, it's an advertisement. But I don't understand why the Linux community is held to this standard that no other OS manufacturer follows. Apple/Microsoft/Android run ads attacking competitors all the time, much more prominently, and nobody accuses them of being "territorial" because they try to distinguish their products.

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