Live data from Hacker News

How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

larrysanger.org

61–70 of 232 posts

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is a first rate OS saddled with some stupid bullshit that's been piled on top of it. And be fair, maintaining a Linux configuration just the way you like it is a lot of work too. If it weren't, there wouldn't be hundreds of slightly-different distros.

> Windows is a first rate OS saddled with some stupid bullshit that's been piled on top of it. I'm sure there are good bits of Windows - Microsoft has a lot of very smart people working for them. But I've never experienced Windows as a first rate OS - it's always had bullshit on top (and beneath) it. > And be fair, maintaining a Linux configuration just the way you like it is a lot of work too. If it weren't, there w…

I remember Windows NT being a bit of all right -- if I recall correctly, it was based on the Mach kernel as OSX is[was?].

One real historical criticism I have of Windows is that it took them until Win10 to make bash available. They really ought to have, at minimum, aliased a lot more bash commands to Powershell 'cmdlets'. It used to be so frustrating, having to look up all their weird, verbose commands.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows is a first rate OS saddled with some stupid bullshit that's been piled on top of it. I'm sure there are good bits of Windows - Microsoft has a lot of very smart people working for them. But I've never experienced Windows as a first rate OS - it's always had bullshit on top (and beneath) it. > And be fair, maintaining a Linux configuration just the way you like it is a lot of work too. If it weren't, there w…

> Maybe "just the way you like it", but "functional and not sending your private information off to a dubious corporation" is pretty easy. Sure, and that's great if that's all you want out of a personal computer. > When there are issues with a Linux install, it's usually transparent enough to debug. Bull. I've been using Linux for decades and it's always the same story. You have a problem with X, you do a search for…

^ I'm a confirmed Linux user these days, but this is accurate. Half the time when I break something in a serious way, the above situation obtains and I just scowl and do a clean reinstall.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam for Linux now runs some games under their own Wine btw there's a good number of them they support now.

Yes, for anyine who wants to do further research it's called Proton. Valve has tried several times in the past to make gaming on Linux more attractive, but this has by far been their most successful attempt.

A lot of games don't even start on my Antergos setup. I refuse to run ubuntu, because I don't like it (mostly package naming, and a lot of the time I feel like it's poorly configured at least when I was starting out). I personally have had a negative experience whenever I use a Debian derivative.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#64
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

has all the software I need and lacks BS like the Windows interface. Darn, pardon me. I should have said the Windows 10 interface. Yeah, Mate is copying Windows 7/Vista task bar stuff, with perhaps less of that system's unneeded flash.

So it copies the user interface of windows, with all its problems, but it doesn’t carry over the reliable variable DPI support, a notifications framework, a unified reliable software management interface, and consensus on how to provide basic utilities like secret management, file associations, and accessibility controls for the visually impaired. That is, the features of windows ACTUALLY worth copying. Linux is stil…

>Linux is usable for daily tasks, but only barely, and it gets further behind state of the art software every year. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone who isn’t fluent with critical debugging skills (bash, knowlege of logs and how to search them, the ability to manipulate system tasks, x11 and graphcis driver configurations, etc etc).

Would you say the same for Chromebooks? Chromebooks are Linux. If not that proves that it's at least possible for a user-friendly experience to exist on Linux. And I would further suggest that running Ubuntu on well-supported hardware closely approximates the Chromebook experience for most users. I personally know several ordinary users who find Ubuntu as easy as Windows to use, if not easier.

I think your statement that Linux gets "further behind state of the art" as time goes on is probably the oddest claim you make here. It runs counter to everything I've heard from anyone running Linux for a long period of time. Most reasonable hardware configurations just work right out of the box. Remember that the average user never installs an operating system. Either the OS comes with the computer or someone competent is doing the installation for them; in any case the end user isn't expected to fix any problems that arise. Whenever I've installed Windows I've encountered driver problems that had to be fixed to get a working experience, but that's not something I count against Windows when talking about the end-user experience.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#65
post #25

I switched to Linux about ten years. I basically got tired of having an OS I paid for (in buying a computer) not really be "mine". Lately, I have had few problems installing and running Linux on the various cheap laptops I've bought. Ubuntu with a Mate GUI "just works", has all the software I need and lacks BS like the Windows 10 interface. I don't really think there's any objective barrier to using Linux for a signi…

> Ubuntu with a Mate GUI "just works", has all the software I need and lacks BS like the Windows interface. How do you figure? Every part about Ubuntu, from keybindings to menus to window management to user interface expectations, are directly copying windows.

You pay for Windows, but Linux is free. Windows is filled with ads; Linux has none. Windows is slow; Linux is less slow. Windows tried to pull some weird tablet hybrid nonsense; Linux desktops are just desktops. Cinnamon, Mate and KDE took the very best parts of old Windows and made them better. Gnome and Pantheon ripped off macOS and they're also great. Every single one of them is more polished and more useable than Windows 10.

But seriously, who in their right mind would tolerate advertisements in software that they paid good money for?

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#66
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the work Valve has done improving the Linux gaming situation is actually quite impressive, 'serious' PC gamers already do enough configuration tweaking and working around problems already, it doesn't strike me that they'll really want to deal with even more of that.

My point is, that Linux is already well usable for gaming, including for very demanding games. "Serious gamer" is too much of a generalization, to assume what people are willing or not willing to do to configure their systems. Many gamers are actually very much into tweaking things as you say, from custom PC builds to game mods and other customizations. They see configurability as a benefit, not as a downside. So Lin…

Let me put it this way. What's the best damn GPU on the market right now? I'm actually not sure, but I'd bet good money the top 3 slots are nVidia. Even if you use the nVidia proprietary drivers, the data says you're suffering a performance hit for it. God help if you're using nouveau, because you just wasted hundreds of dollars.

The kinds of people I think of when you say "serious gamers" are not going to be very happy with the idea that they're locked out of the best kit. These are people for whom their computer's primary purpose is probably playing games. Why would they sacrifice needlessly?

> So Linux is a natural fit.

If it were a natural fit, they'd be interested in using it. Data suggests they aren't.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows is a first rate OS saddled with some stupid bullshit that's been piled on top of it. I'm sure there are good bits of Windows - Microsoft has a lot of very smart people working for them. But I've never experienced Windows as a first rate OS - it's always had bullshit on top (and beneath) it. > And be fair, maintaining a Linux configuration just the way you like it is a lot of work too. If it weren't, there w…

> Maybe "just the way you like it", but "functional and not sending your private information off to a dubious corporation" is pretty easy. Sure, and that's great if that's all you want out of a personal computer. > When there are issues with a Linux install, it's usually transparent enough to debug. Bull. I've been using Linux for decades and it's always the same story. You have a problem with X, you do a search for…

> > When there are issues with a Linux install, it's usually transparent enough to debug.

> Bull. I've been using Linux for decades and it's always the same story. You have a problem with X, you do a search for your problem with X, you find a dozen solutions that don't apply to you because you're on a different distro or they're from 2013 when half the software stack was different.

Ok, so in some cases there can be complications. But once you've found (a/the) solution, it makes a sort of sense. In contrast, in the cases I've successfully found a solution to a problem on Windows, the reasons usually remain opaque. This, surely, is a side-effect of running a proprietary OS, and one I no longer have patience for.

For example, when I was dual-booting Windows 10 on two desktops a couple of years ago, I ran into major problems just getting Windows installed (taking far longer to ultimately install than it ever took me to install any Linux distro, from Ubuntu to Arch to Void to GuixSD).

I had downloaded the official Windows 10 image from Microsoft onto a usb thumbdrive and went to install. During the installing process, it failed with an obscure message about missing drivers. I try on the other differntly-configured desktop (different motherboard etc). It's the same thing. I think perhaps it's an chicken-and-egg issue with trying to install via a usb3 port (i.e. maybe it's missing usb3 drivers or something). Seems unlikely, but I try booting from a usb2 port. No luck. For good measure, even from different usb ports. But it doesn't matter, it's always the same error message during install. Seems like something which would be easy to debug, since there are in fact lots of Windows users, but I can't find anything similar described.

I finally find a post on some obscure forum which describes a similar problem. The suggested solution: wait until you get the 'drivers missing' error, and then unplug the installation usb thumb and plug it into a different usb port. (So it doesn't matter which usb port you start with, it will always 'miss' the drivers until you unplug it and plug it into another usb port.)

I thought: what a stupid solution, surely it won't work, but what the hell, let's try it for shits and giggles. Of course, that was the solution. That's completely opaque. The solution might as well have been sprinkling the machine with chicken blood while playing the Beatles' White Album.

I don't know how many hours were wasted trying to resolve that. After a year or so, I ended up wiping all of the Windows partitions. Too much headache.

It sounds like you have better experiences with Window. Perhaps you have the right magic touch that's needed.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#68
post #28

So 2019 is _finally_ gonna be the year of Linux on the Desktop? (Pardon me if I seem a little skeptical, I've heard this song before...)

blender is getting fun; inkscape reaches 1.0, gimp might evolve methinks if libreoffice gets a bit leaner and featured it might be

Krita has been much nicer than Gimp in my experience, although they fulfil slightly different niches.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#69
post #25

I switched to Linux about ten years. I basically got tired of having an OS I paid for (in buying a computer) not really be "mine". Lately, I have had few problems installing and running Linux on the various cheap laptops I've bought. Ubuntu with a Mate GUI "just works", has all the software I need and lacks BS like the Windows 10 interface. I don't really think there's any objective barrier to using Linux for a signi…

> Ubuntu with a Mate GUI "just works", has all the software I need and lacks BS like the Windows interface. How do you figure? Every part about Ubuntu, from keybindings to menus to window management to user interface expectations, are directly copying windows.

emulating is the less perjorative term, and this is done to provide a familiar environment to the unwashed masses that are not keen on the CLI terminal interface.

Re: How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

#70
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is, that Linux is already well usable for gaming, including for very demanding games. "Serious gamer" is too much of a generalization, to assume what people are willing or not willing to do to configure their systems. Many gamers are actually very much into tweaking things as you say, from custom PC builds to game mods and other customizations. They see configurability as a benefit, not as a downside. So Lin…

Let me put it this way. What's the best damn GPU on the market right now? I'm actually not sure, but I'd bet good money the top 3 slots are nVidia. Even if you use the nVidia proprietary drivers, the data says you're suffering a performance hit for it. God help if you're using nouveau, because you just wasted hundreds of dollars. The kinds of people I think of when you say "serious gamers" are not going to be very ha…

> The kinds of people I think of when you say "serious gamers" are not going to be very happy with the idea that they're locked out of the best kit

Again, generalizations like "serious gamer always does that" are not helpful. Lot's of people are not satisfied with Windows for many reasons. Would they switch to Linux if they could play their games? Many would and already do, and I wouldn't call them not serious.

Performance variations are not uniform. I.e. it's not a given that Linux always reduces performance. Proper made games actually perform better on Linux. Of course if you are using translation layers like Wine, some performance hit is expected to compensate. That's not necessarily a bad trade-off for those who want to switch, as long as result is well playable.

> If it were a natural fit, they'd be interested in using it.

They are, increasingly.

Post reply on HN