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Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

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Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#421

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

RMPR wrote: post #333
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell XPS 17 from 2020. Sound doesn’t work. Thee we drivers exist. For the first time in over a decade I had to install drivers manually. And don’t even start with hibernate or even just waking up. I’ve never rebooted a laptop so many times. And what’s the deal with flatpak? A screen shot app is not 700mb? WTF?

It really surprises me since there's a developer edition coming natively with Ubuntu (it only exists for the XPS 13 though). Is the underlying hardware that different?

The Precision 7750 supports Linux and supposedly has the same sound system as the XPS 17. Both are 17” laptops and share similar chassis. Finger print reader isn’t well supported. No gestures.

20 years ago I was convinced Linux would win on the desktop. But we still have the same problems decades later.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#422

Post by dsego »

simonh wrote: post #342
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…

In 2018 I ended up calling both Apple and Microsoft for phone support within a few months of each other and, to my surprise, got excellent support from both of them. The Apple issues turned out to require an NvRAM/SMC reset to fix a weird performance issue. The Apple support person was very polite, helpful and knowledgeable. The Microsoft issue was I’d bought a laptop which came with an Office trial, but wanted to en…

You need a root and a home partition, than you can do whatever, upgrade it, nuke it.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#423

Post by GrumpyNl »

Linux, it just doesnt work straight from the box. To even install the most basic thing like wifi is a long search through Google and trial and error. Still doesnt work properly by the way. By any advice you find online, oh doesnt it work, try sudo in front of the command.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#424

Post by qz2 »

peteri wrote: post #393
secondcoming wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, I just bought a Dell Precision laptop that had Bitlocker enabled by default (presumably by Dell) and at no point was I asked to record a backup key. I don't have a Microsoft account either. I'm probably screwed?

You can export the key to something else (and it's worth doing) personally I've gone for passing it to Microsoft (I'm not sure I could find whatever USB key I've stored it on otherwise). The option is under "Manage bitlocker" "backup your recovery key". I've had bitlocker fail to find the key after doing a BIOS update where the TPM has been messed up (although usually it's just been disabled and needs re-enabling). I…

Exactly this.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#425

Post by roytries »

sysrpl wrote: post #283
itvision wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Parent author reporting back. I am going to have to sort of disagree with you there (in Lumbergh voice). In all seriousness though, you are wrong on all points. Sorry, yes you are wrong. Rather than write a point by point rebuttal, against my common sense (you know, the thing about arguing with someone one the Internet) I'll just write a few paragraphs, provide some professional anecdotal and maybe quantitative evide…

I find this an extremely weird set of argument.

Opening the task manager or explorer takes less time than I can measure on both Windows and Linux... what kind of metric is this?

As for background services, of course they spend (at that moment unused resources). But you completely forego that they have an actual usefulness. Indexing files makes searching later faster. Prefetching makes loading commonly used programs faster. Virus scanning keeps your computer safe. Telemetry helps developers recognize issues and prioritize bugs, even stop hackers in time. The article you mentioned wants you to disable the firewall (bad advice) but also a lot of services that are not even consuming resources unless you have the necessary policies/hardware, like the bluetooth service or touch screen service.

Not that Windows these days runs from high-end server to low powered ARM devices, while still looking generally the same. This is not the same Windows from 20 years ago where you could easily tweak the system to get some more performance out of it. These days Windows comes out of the box running as fast as it can, while giving a reasonable user experience.

As for software, on Windows you're free to install all the software you want (just as on Linux), some software is not so nice, just as on Linux. I find it hard to blame Windows itself for that. Microsoft does not curate all the software you can install it, and a user is free to install what they want. The only OSes where this is really different are mobile OSes.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#426

Post by ACS_Solver »

TsomArp wrote: post #397
Nginx487 wrote: post #371

"Most people use Windows on the desktop because it's the default" That's just a stereotype, and that's not true. I keep using Windows (hardened and almost isolated Parallels instance of Windows 7), because Linux has serious lack of software I need. I need fully functional MS Office, including API bindings for data import to Excel, and no, Libre Office Calc does not have even 20% of features I need. Of course, I need…

I have to agree with you. I consider myself a geek, a fairly advanced user of software and a software developer. I have been trying different versions of Linux since the Mandrake Linux times, so about what, 20 years? I always come back to Windows, which from Windows 2000 has been getting better and better. Of course there have been sh*t moments like Windows Vista and Windows 8, but Windows 2k, XP, 7, and now 10 (ente…

I think it really comes down to what software you need, more than proficiency. Just like you, I'm an advanced user, a software developer, and Mandrake was my first serious Linux.

For me though, software isn't missing on Linux, it's missing on Windows. I rarely need an office suite, and my needs are limited to simple Word/Writer documents and even simpler Excel/Calc spreadsheets, so even MS Office 97 or StarOffice 5 have all the needed features (minus support for XML file formats). The extent of image editing I do is limited to cropping, rotating and resizing images, so even GIMP is way overkill.

On the other hand, the software I do use and like is a pain on Windows. First it's basic text manipulation tools. Things like grep and sed are missing on Windows, and I want to e.g. "replace this line in all files in this folder" far more often than I open an Excel file. I use SSH, which isn't on Windows, and applications like putty are great but don't provide anywhere near the seamless experience that Linux has with SSH. Then there's the desktop environment itself - I use KDE Plasma 5 and find it amazing, having been a fan of KDE since 3.5. I like KDE Plasma overall much more than Windows Explorer, and then there are the individual power features, e.g. I have a button on the titlebar that toggles always-on-top for a window, and I exclude certain applications from appearing in the taskbar because they already have a systray icon.

I use Linux at work, and haven't had to boot Win7 at home since Steam Proton. I've heard that Win10 makes some things better, like it has built-in SSH. But I haven't tried Win10 myself, and at this point it'd take some Windows killer feature to make me switch.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#427

Post by lta »

> Unless you're obsessed with downloading software illegally, it's not an issue in Windows either. I don't remember the last time I had to deal with malware for my +20 of friends using it.

I can't remember the last time I touched one of my friend's computer without seeing any kind of suspicious search bar or fishy "helper" installed. I'm pretty sure this counts as malware.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#428

Post by majkinetor »

There are many factual errors in the text (config files, chocolatey not having moderation or that its worse then linux repos (its much better and more up to date then majority, even Arch), etc.).

Most others are not a benefit, just preference.

Many are simply omitted where Windows is better (such as MUCH more software, easy of use - for example no automatic mounting on many linux distros of usb drives by default in 2020 is simply insane, much better support all around from vendors, just to mention some).

Some basic and most important stuff are not there, such as difference between Windows and Linux process or difference between PowerShell and Bash.

Some thing are not very comparable but still involve performance differences (for example Windows role based security vs very limited linux default g/u/o security)

TLDR, another linux-is-better-then-windows article that is poorly done, although it pretends its not, by giving tones of references mostly for irrelevant stuff and talking about technological decisions that have almost 0 relevance for most of the people (importance of having API calls in unicode 16 vs 8 to end user is less then 0)

Lets be honest - there is 0 technical benefit regarding what OS you use today, the only difference is:

1. Windows costs money

2. Community

Unless you use thousands of containers point 1 is negliable for most services especially on Windows 10 which you can run perpetually in trial mode. Point 2. is not however, on linux open source mindeset and hacking culture is favored which is something that is for me personally much better (although I still use Windows as my main OS). Windows community just started to go along in that direction, but it will probalby take another decade to come to the level where Linux is now (if ever).

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#429

Post by sergeykish »

tester34 wrote: post #370
sergeykish wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Linux user the article does not resonate with me. The actual points are discarded points # Linux is more stable and reliable. I've reinstalled Windows so many times, never reinstalled Linux. System is separate from the user, I can remove all user configurations and it would work like new. # Linux is more secure and private. I have so many packages, they are free and safe. I've tried Windows recently, have to insta…

>I have so many packages, they are free and safe. I've tried Windows recently, have to install software from the web. It is scary. If you write it this way (without details) then how people can argue? What's so scary? I think I'm using 99% of my software from an actual vendor sites and never felt that way. Also using things like virustotal.com.

It was unexpected. But could you feel it without experiencing?

I've used open source OS for a decade. It has changed my mind. I've never downloaded software from site. I trust community, not vendors. I use just one non open source application (slack) and I do not trust them, I'd rather run it in a sandbox.

My system comes with a framework to download, build, install any package with just a few commands:

    $ yay -G foo
    $ cd foo
    $ makepkg -sei
I can inspect it and change it, and sometimes I do.

No other ecosystem comes close. Browser extensions and smartphone applications replicate some of it but

* it can be adware/spyware/malware

* it can change overnight, no one checks

* one gallery by popularity or by restriction

Even my closed source software comes from community maintained recipes, Windows finally got it with winget.

Oh, I know! Compare it with programming language package managers — gems, pip, cargo.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#430

Post by Cloudef »

yankcrime wrote: post #323
pmontra wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or simply disable swap if you have enough RAM. I've been running without swap since 2014 on a 16 GB laptop. I upgraded to 32 GB a couple of years later when I started to routinely use at least 12 GB. At least one browser and editor window per virtual desktop (one VD per customer plus a couple for me), docker, virtualbox, slack, thunderbird, etc.

Don't do this. Disabling swap is bad idea: https://chrisdown.name/2018/01/02/in-defence-of-swap.html

In practice the benefits of swap mentioned in that article almost never happen on desktop use. I used to use swap on my last install and it was pretty much never used. I don't bother with swap anymore. Server may be different game though.
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