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Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

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Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#301

Post by Thorrez »

pmontra wrote: post #294
Thorrez wrote: post #290

The article says determining filetype via heuristics is better than via extension. I don't agree with that, heuristics are confusing. File extensions lead to behavior that a human can predict.

mv image.png program.exe mv program.exe sound.mp3 mv sound.mp3 text.pdf Same file, always a PNG despite the extensions I can attach to it.

Sure. But I think of the file extension as a way to tell the OS which program I want a file to open with. In Windows when I see a .mp3 file I know which program will open when I double click on it. In Linux it's a mystery. I like my computer to behave in a predictable manner.

In Windows extensions have a meaning. In Linux, why even bother having extensions? In neither OS does the extension tell you about the content of the file. But on Windows the extension does tell you something useful about how the OS interacts with the file.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#303

Post by pault »

fartcannon wrote: post #198
moocowtruck wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using linux since 95, both doing kernel dev and using as desktop. At some point around windows 8 i decided to give windows a try, and purely use windows 10 now and love it for many of the same reasons you mentioned. To me OS wars are over, if someone prefers linux desktop more power to them, but for me anymore I feel like I want technology out of the way as much as possible, and I feel like windows 10 deskt…

Technology out of the way, advertisements in the menus, right?

I’m so tired of reading this same comment over and over every time someone on HN dares to say they prefer Windows. As if it obviates all of their other points. Also, you turn it off once after install and that’s it.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#304

Post by rrobukef »

pxeboot wrote: post #253
rubyn00bie wrote: post #214

I just moved to Linux as my primary OS; been fucking great. 11/10 Overall, everything seems to "just work" at least as well as on MacOS and is not quite (for me) as endlessly frustrating as Windows. Gaming has also been effortless and honestly just the most delightful surprise about the whole thing. I can write code AND play games... on the same machine... and it's running Linux?! I would've lost that bet ten years a…

> Really, most modern Linux distros are pretty god damn nice. This has been my experience recently as well. For laptops at least, as long as you buy a system with known good Linux support, the vast majority of the common complaints I see are not really valid. If you need macOS or Windows to run a specific application exclusive to that platform, great. If your software all runs on Linux, you can gain a lot of freedom…

My last three laptops (3y/laptop) have been bought without consideration for Linux. All three worked splendidly.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#305

Post by billyjobob »

Linux on desktop used to be great, but does anyone get the sense that it is going downhill?

I don't even touch proprietary Nvidia drivers, all my machines are Radeon or Intel GPU and they used to work fine. But currently on Radeon I have to revert back to kernel 4.19 to get sleep to work. On Intel anything newer than 5.6 won't even boot. I don't get it. Maybe kernel devs mostly care about servers and VMs and are letting the desktop stuff bitrot?

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#306

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

itvision wrote: post #167
sysrpl wrote: post #44

Linux runs better on both new and older hardware. Better as in programs open faster, the file manager opens faster, the task manager opens faster. Everything uses less memory and less CPU cycles. Everything is snappier. Linux users don't have to worry nearly as much about malware, trojans, viruses, exploits. It's more secure. Linux distros generally don't annoy users with stealthy automatic forced updates. Linux dist…

> Linux runs better on both new and older hardware. This is very much debatable. What's true however is that if your HW is not supported by at least Windows 8.1 you're SoL. > Better as in programs open faster, the file manager opens faster, the task manager opens faster. Everything uses less memory and less CPU cycles. Everything is snappier. I haven't observed any slow downs in Windows 10 for ages. As for "less memo…

≥ Except there's 100 times more software in Windows

Really? I bet dockerhub alone has more linux-capable software than windows has anywhere. I also expect that a randomly chosen GitHub repo is more likely to support Linux than it is to support Windows.

Maybe these aren't fair comparisons, but I'm not sure what would be. The ecosystems are so different it's hard to know how such a count would go.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#307

Post by craftinator »

About ten years ago, I thought to myself, "Man, if I just reallocated all the time I spend fighting against Windows towards learning and customizing a Linux install, I'd have both a functioning OS, and an OS that I actually like!". I haven't looked back.

It used to take work and knowledge to use Linux as a daily driver, like you would Windows. But Linux has matured, and now all of the things you expect to work just do work.

And, aside from doing any .NET projects, EVERY programming endeavor I've worked on in Linux has been an absolute breeze. 98% of the time, everything I need is just an "apt install" away, configures correctly, and runs correctly. There is no reason for Windows to exist anymore.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#308

Post by somedude11 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #265

I've been running KDE Neon on a NUC for several years now, and has been quite happy with that as a secondary PC. However, as much as I like it, I've not even tried to run it on my primary desktop due to the lack of a viable RDP alternative. The irony here is that with Microsoft implementing RDP support in WSL2, the thing that might finally remove the key obstacle might render the entire point moot.

Lack of proper RDP-like experience is also a dealbreaker for me.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#309

Post by LeCow »

Bash is more intuitive than powershell, not saying powershell is bad. It's just a might beast.

But nix has vi, native package managers and doesn't need a GUI most of the time. Saying that, I don't mind hyper-v and it's VBS technology.

If you need to run a business use Windows, if you need to host infrastructure or run an app...use nix.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#310

Post by thebigspacefuck »

fb03 wrote: post #193
jbirer wrote: post #178

I started my journey with linux at the age of 12 when Canonical was sending out free CD's of Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04. After nearly 13 years of usage I am a happy user of Windows 10 now. My reasons are: * Horrible font rendering that makes me not even want to code * Terrible application support * Audio and touchpad support is noticeably superior on Windows * Small things that you have to tinker with in order to get ev…

And now we have WSL2 which is quite good in that regard too. I love being on Linux but I am sick of tinkering too. I make music and game on Windows and Dev on WSL2 with X11 forwarding to desktop, which is flawless.

WSL, even WSL2, has always been much slower in my experience.
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