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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

#301

Post by timschmidt »

RiverCrochet wrote: post #232
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come back when I can run Linux on a laptop that has 12+ hours battery life, runs fast, that’s lightweight, quiet and doesn’t cause infertility from the heat when I put it on my lap…. Using an x86 laptop in 2025 is like using a flip phone 6 years after the iPhone came out. Of course if you are a gamer, ignore everything I just wrote.

Most of Linux's laptop woes is due to two things: A. ACPI which is a sprawling, overengineered mess created by Microsoft, Intel, and Toshiba, and B. ACPI-specific things like sleep and power being tested only for Windows B is a direct result of two things: 1) crappy outsourced firmware developers, and 2) Microsoft's 1990s strategy of disallowing OEMs from offering systems with other operating systems preinstalled. So…

> If the interfaces that controlled all the laptop goodies were exposed as normal hardware (and documented) instead of gatekept behind ACPI methods that have to be written by firmware vendors that can often barely spell the menu options correct in the setup screens, then this issue would not exist.

> UEFI is ACPI's successor and carries on this legacy. It's disappointing that it's seeping into the ARM world.

Arm (and Risc-V and other arches) Linux has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devicetree instead of ACPI, which is better in that it declaratively documents the hardware in a system and how to access it. However, the hardware support which can be found in the Arm ecosystem is in no way better than that for x86 laptops. Many SoC manufacturers still don't put any effort into upstreaming drivers or device trees, many devices are still only supported by tossing a single release of a heavily patched kernel over the corporate wall and then forgetting about them.

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

#302

Post by Joel_Mckay »

arbuge wrote: post #189

Is there a secure and good replacement for OneDrive on Linux?

In general, people just use noIP home router VPN, ssh/sftp host on LAN, and a sshfs client on their iOS/Android device or MacOS/Windows/Linux. It will look like any other network shared drive in the native OS.

For paid services, there are also native Dropbox client support in MATE, Ubuntu, or Mint desktop file managers etc.

iOS sftp:

https://www.photosync-app.com/home

Android sftp:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.bukacek.fil...

Practically speaking, I often recommend dual booting from 2 ssd drives for windows and Linux. There are just some commercial software/games that can't run properly within a linux environment (programs like Wine do allow running some Windows native programs, but YMMV.)

https://www.linuxmint.com/ or https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop is a great starter OS.

If you already use a posix system like MacOS, than the workflow will seem more familiar. =3

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

#304

Post by VertanaNinjai »

forgotaccount22 wrote: post #235
nh2 wrote: post #226

I'm using Linux on the desktop for 15 years and I still sometimes cannot connect to Wifi. This is because the list of network refreshes (and disappears) before I can find and click the correct Wifi: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-applet/-/issu... This completely breaks the Linux experience for anybody living in a reasonably populous area. The issue has 3 upvotes. I also put a 400 $ bounty on it, if an…

PR on the way

Well, huge shoutout to you for following up on your word!

https://gitlab.gnome.org/rickyb/network-manager-applet/-/com...

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

#306

Post by 20after4 »

I've been using nothing but Linux on my desktop since 2013. Converted my parents around 2015. Rarely a complaint from them and I haven't even once considered switching back to Windows. My shiny new Macbook Air is collecting dust. Almost all of my gaming is done on a SteamDeck or a Linux desktop. The only applications that I can think of where Windows or Mac are still relevant would be CAD and Audio/Video production. And even those are use-cases where Linux has viable options. Actually, Video probably doesn't even belong here since one of the most popular video packages (DaVinci Resolve) has Linux support and there are multiple open source options like Kdenlive. For music, it's really hard to beat Apple's ecosystem: Mac and iOS have an incredible variety of affordable and really high quality audio applications, however, the gap is narrowing with lots of great music software on Linux as well. There are free software options for CAD and 3d Modeling (Blender, Freecad) but most of the popular CAD software is either Windows only or Windows/Mac. Some of this may be possible to get working under Wine but I haven't tried.

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

#307

Post by dunham »

josephg wrote: post #282
1over137 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of Apple fans are giving Apple shit for it now too.

The new glass look is just so bad. It feels cheap, like a child’s toy. And performance is worse as a result. I’ve turned it off on my phone, via the accessibility settings. But it’s clear Apple doesn’t test the UI layout much with the new glass look turned off. Lots of controls are subtly misaligned now. I regret updating. I have a Linux workstation. On Linux, nobody has the power to foist new ideas - good or bad - o…

> But it’s clear Apple doesn’t test the UI layout much with the new glass look turned off

I turned it off and the keypad buttons for screen time passcode became white on white.

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

#308

Post by BrenBarn »

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.

I switched fully to Linux about four years ago. I chose Kubuntu. I had previously used Linux Mint for quite a while, but on a computer that wasn't my main one. I downloaded some ISOs and tried out a few distros in VMs.

I definitely find KDE the most appealing. I'm one of these people who feels like desktop UI pretty much peaked around Win98 or Win2000, and KDE more or less lets me have that experience. It's customizable and works well. It has occasional problems and annoyances, but over time I find they're comparable in magnitude to what I had with Windows.

It always seems like Ubuntu has the best compatibility with stuff overall, in the sense that anything that has a Linux version will almost always explicitly say they support Ubuntu. I looked at some other KDE-based distros but Kubuntu seemed like the safest choice. I had used Linux Mint KDE in the past and was bummed to see it go away; if that still existed I might well have chosen it.

Notably, I had attempted to switch to Linux several years before (around 2014), but wound up going back to Windows because I just encountered too many gotchas. But things were much smoother this time. The main reason I switched was because I felt Windows 10 was getting too intrusive and user-hostile, and also no longer made it easy for me to get the "Windows classic" look and feel that I wanted. I'm glad I switched when I did, because since then those trends have become even more pronounced; I'd probably be pulling my hair out if I were using Windows now. I still have a Win10 VM for situations where I need Windows, but I rarely use it.

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

#309

Post by dualogy »

fao_ wrote: post #297
drdec wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the killer feature of Unity was the searchable application menus. Wish that was still a thing

KDE supports this! It's called the "global menu", and has search built in. GTK app support is iffy, though

Since I found with searchable app menus / start menus that I don't ever navigate through menus but just start typing, I ditched the menu entirely and have KRunner bound to the Win key. Not only is it fine with any desktop app GTK or not (that packagers have ensured will install with its FreeDesktop metadata file or some such), it supports all the enabled KDE Search plugins. So I don't ever open a calc app again, either..

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

#310

Post by timschmidt »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #158
xerox13ster wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, buddy, at this point, nobody could take you seriously. You are attributing to the software and OS a difference that exists because of hardware. You can’t seriously sit here and say Linux battery life on x86 doesn’t reach your par when you’re comparing it to a completely different computing architecture. You’re comparing apples to oranges and complaining the oranges are more sour than the apples. Run Asahi Li…

I don’t care why it’s better. Whose fault is it that Linux gets worse battery life on every computer that also runs Windows or MacOS?

Linux gets WAY better battery life on SteamDeck than Windows: https://www.howtogeek.com/ive-tried-steamos-and-windows-on-m...
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