We have Linux on all desktops and laptops. This has been the case for more than 10 years by now. There are still a couple Windows VM's (mainly for checking how some things work on Windows in case need be).
Who's "we"?
Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
31–40 of 116 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#32The real issue, macos has one distribution, Windows has one distribution, Linux has so many I doubt anyone really keeps track. The issue with Linux is they’re working in fragments instead of as one. The problem is oss not the operating system but the culture it was developed in.
I guess the theory is open competition and whoever builds the best thing gets all the market and everything else dies. The only problem with that is that if you have spent years developing something, especially if you weren't paid for it, you are not likely to want to accept defeat and lose your investment.
Maybe the way to sort this is to create Linux groups around certain topics like graphics or music production and then the people with the specific skills can contribute to multiple applications at the same time (at least their design work). This way, if one product dies, their work lives on in other products.
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#33My family and I have used Linux desktops since 2008, when Windows Vista failed to run full screen video with BSOD. There was a learning curve for a few months, but I've never regretted the shift and it has made for significant contributions to my career. YMMV.
I switched to Linux around the same time as you. Before that I was a Windows user from 1997 until ~2008. In the late 1990s and early 2000s people just accepted that Windows crashing everyday was a normal feature of that software, and they blamed every crash on user error, eg: "your drivers are bad", "you're running buggy software", etc. My Windows 98 install couldn't run for more than ~4 hours without crashing, it wa…
Windows 8.1 reached end of mainstream support on January 9, 2018, over three years ago. Windows 8 support ended on January 12, 2016.
No wonder you ran into issues if you installed it and tried getting it "updated" recently.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/faq/windows#windo...
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#34What he's saying is true, but also i think the app-store type approach that apt-get provides is a major benefit. With windows i have to find some random program, hope its not malware, possibly pay for it, etc. With linux, i have reasonable assurance that packages (from main repos) aren't evil, they are free (as in beer), and i can easily search through and find something for my usecase. I can't really do that in wind…
Strange, because I can do it, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/apps/windows https://chocolatey.org/
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#35play Super Mario Bros for free online: https://supermario-bros.co
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#36does freebsd suffer from this problem as well? specifically, that application package needs to support "15 billion different versions"
No since there's one FreeBSD like there's one Ubuntu. But you still have the problem of supporting older versions. FreeBSD 13, 12, ... have different libraries and your program should consider that.
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#37What he's saying is true, but also i think the app-store type approach that apt-get provides is a major benefit. With windows i have to find some random program, hope its not malware, possibly pay for it, etc. With linux, i have reasonable assurance that packages (from main repos) aren't evil, they are free (as in beer), and i can easily search through and find something for my usecase. I can't really do that in wind…
Super Mario Bros, play for free online: https://supermario-bros.co
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#38Does appimage not solve this problem? Linus himself released software by appimage the next year (2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppImage
I think part of the problem is that there's so many "Does x not solve this problem?" solutions now all with their own unique downsides and upsides, it reminds me of that one xkcd[0].
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I switched to Linux around the same time as you. Before that I was a Windows user from 1997 until ~2008. In the late 1990s and early 2000s people just accepted that Windows crashing everyday was a normal feature of that software, and they blamed every crash on user error, eg: "your drivers are bad", "you're running buggy software", etc. My Windows 98 install couldn't run for more than ~4 hours without crashing, it wa…
because printer/scanners don't work with the included software, and linux has a reputation.
I guess my point was, Windows should have just as much of a reputation, given Microsoft has shipped release builds with absolutely horrible and blatant bugs (does anyone remember windows millennium?).
I did do some research before I bought my printer and found a brother that connects to wifi and works flawlessly with both Mac and Linux. I find you can also make your life much easier as a Linux user by choosing popular distributions. It's always easy to Google specific fixes for Ubuntu.
Re: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks (2014)
#40What he's saying is true, but also i think the app-store type approach that apt-get provides is a major benefit. With windows i have to find some random program, hope its not malware, possibly pay for it, etc. With linux, i have reasonable assurance that packages (from main repos) aren't evil, they are free (as in beer), and i can easily search through and find something for my usecase. I can't really do that in wind…
I totally agree. This is one of the things that makes Windows feel like a second-tier OS to me compared with Linux and Mac. If I have to do something "tech-y", on Linux or Mac, I look for it in the package registry. I trust that action would probably have been taken by the community if it were doing something malicious, and usually I can find the project on github and peruse the source if I really want. By contrast o…
Right, because sourcing a ruby file to install homebrew on macOS is what “real” operating systems should do.