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Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

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Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#441

Post by anonymou2 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #238
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. I agree, and what really sold me was Plasma Desktop, as someone that couldn't stand KDE 3 & 4. It used to be that GNOME was the desktop environment you could turn into a Windows or macOS clone, but it looks like that switched with GNOME 3 and KDE 5. I have Plasma Desktop set up[1] to take advantage of my macOS muscle memory when it comes to the GUI and key…

So you install Linux to install a bunch of proprietary software on it? I don't get the point.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#442

Post by ho_schi »

What makes GNOME3 good is it keyboard usability. GNOME is comfortable and fast to be used with the keyboard. For professionals as well as normal people. It is incredible how underestimated the success of GNOME-Shell is outside of ther user base. GNOME made mistakes with GNOME3 and the removed beloved features and many required options. But getting rid of the flawed Desktop-Metaphor and concentrate on usability improved GNOME a lot. And yes, GNOME is also usable with a pointing device.

Aside from GNOME. For professional users CLI and TUI usage on the terminal is bless and necessity. What is needed are more developers, testers and companies investing into it. The decline of Nokia and their withdraw from Gtk was a huge setback. Then the lost of Sun. And least Canonical helps now again but - years where lost. Canonicals current improvements are significant.

Aside from that. Free software seems to strive always to improve existing solutions when necessary, people see actual problems and want improve them. Within closed-ecosystems this is impossible and you're required to stay within boundaries to survive.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#443

Post by megous »

Ability to read through all of the code that's running on my computer, and understand it all at some level, is what I like a lot.

Arguably my desktop is not that complicated (i3wm), so there's not a ton of processes running around.

When I find a bug, I can try to fix it myself. When I want an extra feature, I can add it. I did this so many times already, it's ridiculous. From adding support for new HW to the kernel, to patching my postgresql to support my language better, to adding zstd support to qemu qcow2, and hundreds of other small things over the last 15 years or so.

This is what's great on GNU/Linux.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#444

Post by sergeykish »

einpoklum wrote: post #407
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…

> Linux is getting better while Windows and macOS getting worse. Well, some things are arguably not getting better. > Flatpak That's part of what's getting worse: Fracturing/deterioration of the use of distribution package management, instead of improving and expanding it. > web applications Another part of what's getting worse: Instead of having compact apps you have to load a behemoth of some web browser/app framew…

Everything has positive and negative consequences. These are just tools, they provide choice.

There is a need to package closed source software, to provide dependencies. Some people use outdated distributions, that's root cause. If distribution is switching I'd better search like minded and help with maintaining (or it would be systemd scenario).

At least there is application. Everyone is free to make native. There is Void (Linux), runit [1], at least on Arch Linux there is big choice [2]. Fork Gnome, KDE 3 forked as Trinity Desktop Environment [3]. Boot to xmonad — 100MB RAM, Chromium — several GB RAM.

It is easy to imagine arguments against — Steam builds distribution platform on top of Linux, no packages there, Wayland vs X11, distributions spread resources, maintainers breaks software. I am not Steam user, I am not Ubuntu user, but I benefit from wider community.

[1] https://voidlinux.org/

[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/init

[3] http://www.trinitydesktop.org/

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#445

Post by rbanffy »

sammorrowdrums wrote: post #361
jamaicahest wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as you buy a system with known good Linux support And that is where the problem lies. With Windows I can buy pretty much any laptop and expect it to work with. With Linux I have a limited selection of laptops, if I want it to work fully. I'm a developer and I know my way around Linux pretty well, still I usually run into "missing drivers", "package management is broken", "hardware working mostly but not ful…

I sympathize with this as I had a laptop with Nvidia Optimus and installed Linux on it back before it was really supported, which wasn't fun. However with Dell XPS Linux version, Lenovo has a couple, and also System76 and things you have now hundreds of laptops guaranteed to work and many more that actually still will. Just research them first if you're not sure. These days there is so much info on laptops that work…

One of the best things of Linux support is that the more mundane the laptop is, the better supported it tends to be. And also cheaper.

All I'm doing to have perfect Linux support in all my laptops is to go for the boring models. No RGB keyboard, no bleeding-edge dGPU's, and no dual, or foldable screens.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#446

Post by ylyn »

anonymou2 wrote: post #441
heavyset_go wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really, most modern Linux distros are pretty god damn nice. I agree, and what really sold me was Plasma Desktop, as someone that couldn't stand KDE 3 & 4. It used to be that GNOME was the desktop environment you could turn into a Windows or macOS clone, but it looks like that switched with GNOME 3 and KDE 5. I have Plasma Desktop set up[1] to take advantage of my macOS muscle memory when it comes to the GUI and key…

So you install Linux to install a bunch of proprietary software on it? I don't get the point.

Linux isn't just an OS you use because you want to use free software.

For a good number of people it's just better than Windows and macOS.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#447

Post by tester34 »

sergeykish wrote: post #429
tester34 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Maybe I'm kinda skewed because I started with Windows, but I don't feel difference between downloading e.g Firefox on Windows and typing `apt-get install nginx` on Linux.

Maybe because it requires "huge shittons" of effort to try to controle the software, and yet, at the end of the day I still have to trust somebody (OS, Drivers, ISP, Firmware/Hardware, Govt)

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#448

Post by anthk »

3np wrote: post #337
g_p wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the discrete GPU front, most AMD users will be using FOSS drivers that are built into the kernel, plus the standard open source Mesa. In fact, AMD actively recommend you use the open source ones. I think the community radv vulkan driver also outperforms anything proprietary they offer. Nvidia still requires proprietary out-of-tree drivers and causes breakage every so often, but AMD is just like Intel integrated gr…

I did have some issues with getting proper utilization of a 3000-series APU on Debian stable. Eventually got it working but it did requires mesa > 20.1 and some specific version/params in kernel (can't recall exactly what did it).

If you use Debian Stable, set the backports repo as 9999 priority and then upgrade everything.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#449

Post by rbanffy »

Nginx487 wrote: post #412
manquer wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your arguments are reasonable however they are trending to become weak over time. - Photoshop : your lifetime license is not really lifetime, CS2 servers got shut down recently, Adobe will shut down those servers sooner or later. While you may not find it true for you, for the non professional Gimp is generally good enough. Also the Mac version of Photoshop while having some kinks even for professional use is…

I got your point, but as a developer working on User Privacy products, I consider "software as a service" model personally unacceptable. I do not force anyone into my philosophy, but I will try to keep my offline software functional as long as possible, before maybe I find self-sufficient solution to replace it (like I did with migrating all Evernote documents into Nextcloud). And again, I emphasized "software of tha…

While your points are valid, this is not what the overwhelming majority of Windows users consider. People use Windows because it's what came installed in the computer and it runs the software they think they need. In their point of view it's not broken (because either they never experience the brokenness, or because they don't know what not broken looks like).

From my point of view, Linux is not broken at all. It runs the software I need (I'm comfortable with Gimp, I don't have spreadsheets that pass the limits of LibreOffice and I don't use EA). Lately, the move from X to Wayland has been introducing some brokenness - it's not as easy as it used to be to run X apps across the network - but I imagine all these will be eventually fixed.

Like you said, most users don't worry EA is Windows-only because most users don't worry about things like OS.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#450

Post by 1_player »

rhacker wrote: post #263
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…

I had to buy Pro for Docker usage. $200

I used Docker and WSL2 with Home.
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