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I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

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Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ They need a web browser and not much else.” These people will probably use a tablet or phone.

Yes, but if they need to write a document, the larger screen and keyboard make it more usable.

Then they will attach a keyboard to their tablet. I think desktop OS for personal use is pretty much on the way out.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people don't make their coffee in an Aeropress either. Stupid analogy, the Linux version of that would be whatever french press you want to use. Buy your coffee ground or as beans and grind yourself, depending on preference. And for my girlfriend there's always the Starbucks equivalent (Debian stable with Gnome). Apple would be picked by modern slaves and sold in a capsule at 100,000% markup and it only fits t…

I don't see how their analogy is stupid. Aeropress and french press are pretty similar from an "enthusiast coffee device" perspective. Lots of room for variability in grind size, coffee choice, and specific brewing technique with both methods.

Aeropress is a brand, one I've never heard of. It fits in the Linux ecosystem (maybe as one of the Red Hat flavors?) but as an analogy it is simplified. Linux is so much bigger than that and there's everything from LFS (grow, grind and brew with tools you've sourced and put together yourself), to Android (plain old drip machine). Reducing everything that's the Linux ecosystem to a niche brand of a specific type of coffee maker is dishonest.

I use a french press myself, and never heard of Aeropress. My machines all run Debian with DWM and I never have any problems. My non-technical girlfriend is fine on Debian and doesn't really know the difference. She did mention how fast her laptop boots though.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the touchpad alone puts it way above every laptop I’ve tried

The touchpad is great, yes, I like it, too. But I'm anyway mostly using mouse and keyboard and occasionally the 3-finger-swipe which is possible with Thinkpad+Linux as well since a few years. Thinkpads are also famous for their touchpad/trackpoint if one doesn't fancy using a mouse.

> I'm anyway mostly using mouse and keyboard

Have you considered that you're using the mouse because the touchpad doesn't work as well on any other OS?

It's not the hardware, it's the software somehow that makes the touchpad usable in Mac OS.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#485

It’s worth acknowledging the real challenges raised in this thread: desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds. But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could…

> Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? As a user of Linux as my main desktop OS for more than 20 years, a user of Linux far longer than that, and a promoter of FOSS before that was a term, th…

> Most of the world does not care. I suspect that is more true today than ever before. There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works.

Yep. I was amazed when I was talking to a friend who's a bit younger (late 20s) and told him about a fangame you could just download from a website (Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers, for the record) and he was skeptical and concerned at the idea of just downloading and running an executable from somewhere on the internet.

I suspect most adults these days are like this; their computing experience is limited to the web browser and large official corporate-run software repositories e.g. app stores and Steam. Which ironically means they would do just fine on Linux, but there's also no incentive for them to switch off Windows/MacOS.

To them, Microsoft and Apple having control of their files and automatically backing up their home directory to Azure/iCloud is a feature, not a problem.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#486
post #164

Every now and then a new article "Why you should go Linux". I get it, I like Linux too but every case is different. I want to use Linux but I have to use Digital Audio Workstation. So in my case, I shouldn't dump Windows (and thousand of $$ I've spent on audio software). I know people desperately want to believe that Linux is "there", but it really isn't. And will probably never be. It’s still too confusing for the a…

Ableton + Serum + many custom VSTs user here. You're spot on. This is actually the biggest reason I can't switch. In fact Steve Duda (creator of Serum) has said many times that he doesn't ever plan to support Linux. That's not a deal-breaker necessarily, but the fact we paid lots of money for this stuff makes it a bit unreasonable to switch to Linux.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#487
post #4
post #3

Can recommend https://system76.com and Pop!_OS https://youtu.be/IOp7g7BNzRE?si=IKm6SLIdedgHr-u3 even if the name "Pop OS" isn't my favorite.

Can you also add why and for who you recommend it?

Pop!_OS is a solid desktop tailoring of Ubuntu for the hardware.

I would not recommend Pop for server situations, as the desktop trim might be unneeded.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#488

I have been using Linux exclusively for twenty years now. I don't understand people who use anything else, to be honest.

> I have been using Linux exclusively for twenty years now. Ditto. I can't stand other OSs; they are constantly in my way for just the basic tasks. > I don't understand people who use anything else, to be honest. Anti-ditto. I would never give Linux to my parents. They're capable enough to maintain their own Windows computers, and switching them to Linux would mean that I'd have to take over all of those tasks -- bec…

I did give Linux to my dad and he used it fine for many years until my sister gave him a Windows laptop.

Most people just use an OS to start applications. There is nothing they need to learn other than maybe the start button has a different logo on it.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#489

It’s worth acknowledging the real challenges raised in this thread: desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds. But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could…

Some desktop versions of GNU/Linux have rough edges. Self-important grognards think everyone should "git gud" and install Arch or waste a weekend waiting for Gentoo to compile in order to optimize the install. This article along with this one (https://www.theverge.com/tech/858910/linux-diary-gaming-desk...) go on about using an Arch-based distro rather than a Debian-based distro.

Clearly there will be challenges, minor or major.

The failure of these articles is the authors aren't going for distros that "just work". Want to undercut Microsoft's user base, grow GNU/Linux, and herald the year of Linux on desktop that's been promised for decades? Keep it simple.

Majority of people going online with their computers are browsing the web, doomscrolling, and engaging on social media. They're not pentesting with Rust, running an instance of a LLM, or setting up a webserver for giggles.

Keep it simple.

But pushing Arch and other beardy distros with these kinds of articles reeks of gatekeeping as if only "smart" people are allowed to engage online and control their experience. Everyone else should suck it up with Microsoft having Copilot phone home since they don't deserve to know better. And I don't care how much preamble they give about Debian-based and beginner distros, they're just wagging their dicks to easily-awed proles and relishing imagined egoboos from other neo-Stallmans.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#490
If you must, Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC is where the goodness is at. Less bloat, no ads, a frozen feature set (so they won't move your cheese every 6 months), 10 years of official support and security updates... it's like it's 1997 again! And you can install tools like Classic Shell (with its superior Start menu) to make it even better.
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