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Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

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Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#611

Post by dusted »

I've been using Linux as my daily driver for about 22 years now. It's been great for me all the time, though, I do miss GTK and Gnome before they made it suck. I ran mate for a while, but now I've just given up and run i3.

That said, Linux is almost for everyone now, at least if they get someone else to set it up for them.

The single biggest problem is that there is still not one document format to rule them all, and most people use PDF (can't be edited) or Microsoft (can't be rendered correctly and have limited support in other programs) formats. For most things, openoffice or libreoffice can get the job done, but for things that need to actually look the same, or where one needs to fill out the "formula" it often falls short, and then we have to resort to a VM with Windows inside it..

Then there's battery life, at least for EVERY laptop I've ever owned, or serviced, Linux requires a fair amount of tweaking, and then it (or some software running on it) still results in a worse-off battery life than a stock install of Windows.

That said, there are so many good things about Linux and the tools on it, that it's definitely worth the shortcomings, it's still the best OS for me.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#612

Post by cryptos »

Nginx487 wrote: post #498
cryptos wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I need Enterprise Architect, modeling software of that class simply does not exist on Linux. That is not quite true. At least Visual Paradigm exists for Linux. I consider it to be even better than Enterprise Architect. https://www.visual-paradigm.com/download/index.jsp?platform=...

I used both. Visual Paradigm is not even close

I wouldn't call myself a UML power user, so maybe my comparison was not challenging enough. What I like better in VP is the usability.

What did you miss in VP?

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#613

Post by eeZah7Ux »

einpoklum wrote: post #608
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these are used when you're making your own builds anyway That's the problem: they encourage building with tons of random stuff pulled from the Internet on the fly, sidestepping OS distributions completely and providing no reproducible building, no vetting, no license review, no long-term security. The leftpad disaster is a good example.

Can you link to a description of "the leftpad disaster"? Also - it's not supposed to be "tons of random stuff", it's supposed to be the libraries you're relying on. Maybe I'm missing something in the point you're making?

Random link: https://www.davidhaney.io/npm-left-pad-have-we-forgotten-how...

> it's supposed to be the libraries you're relying on

When an ecosystem has poor engineering practices and encourages small libraries with many dependencies you get a quadratic explosion of indirect dependencies.

You might not care about having 100 transitive dependencies until a poor soul has to maintain your code in 4 or 10 years from now.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#614

Post by Nginx487 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #550
Nginx487 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Average" user must have used very limited amount of software. I agree, not everyone need software for modeling or design, but again, looking at Grammarly, which is pretty useful addon, and it's only available for MS Office. "Average user" may start from Libre Office, but end up disappointed, why addon developers don't care about him. And they don't care (well, maybe just deeply concerned), because investing 20-30% o…

You mean spell checker? Libre office has it.

No, I mean exactly what I said

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#615

Post by Terrario »

dmitriid wrote: post #595
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but it's a lot like saying "I'm a mechanic but it's too much of a burden for me to change my own oil or tires." I probably wouldn't use your services.

"I'm a surgeon, but it's too much of a burden for me to perform surgery on myself". I probably wouldn't use your services. See how stupid it sounds?

It sounds stupid because that analogy doesn’t work. A surgeon can’t properly do most kinds of surgery on themselves, some are down right impossible. There’s nothing a mechanic can’t do to their car that they can’t do for their costumers.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#616

Post by Ygg2 »

3np wrote: post #538
Ygg2 wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you try anything remotely exotic, it's a no go on Linux. E.g. I remember nVidia drivers always being crap. Even the blob ones. Latest example for me is Swiftpoint Z mouse. Doesn't work on Linux. From what I understand, either drivers are in the Kernel and thus open source. Or the drivers are outside of Kernel and thus break on every kernel update.

I assume the nVidia experience is not recent? They’ve ramped up Linux efforts significantly. Even if despite officially embracing nouveau they’re still a bit toxic, in practice it should be expected to work fine (though see below, and apparently there were some issues with 5.9 specifically). As for Kickstarter projects with proprietary drivers targeting only Windows and/or OS X, well, yeah... You’re right that with p…

Admittedly not. But I still hear lots of horror stories about nVidia drivers.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#617

Post by eikenberry »

oehtXRwMkIs wrote: post #351
eikenberry wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these supposed to be advantages over using the browser for these "apps"? As someone who uses the browser for most of these things, I was looking for some reason why the electron app would be better and I don't see any (and see some definite negative aspects).

What browser do you use that is unaffected by browser settings? Sounds like a metaphysical anomaly to me.

I'm not saying a browser isn't effected by its settings. I'm saying that not being affected by browser settings is not an advantage. If I'm running an in-browser app, I want and expect it to be effected by my browser settings.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#618

Post by eikenberry »

danShumway wrote: post #240
eikenberry wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are these supposed to be advantages over using the browser for these "apps"? As someone who uses the browser for most of these things, I was looking for some reason why the electron app would be better and I don't see any (and see some definite negative aspects).

Do you really not see any of these as advantages, at all? You don't use a task bar on your computer? You would never want to be able to alt-tab to a programming IDE or music player? You can't imagine why someone would want to be have a programming IDE like Atom that didn't need to pop up a dialog box literally every time you wanted to save a file to disk? You can't imagine why someone would want an IDE like Atom to a…

> Do you really not see any of these as advantages, at all?

I can see how they would be an advantage to some, but a detriment to others. I don't find any of these things to be enough of an advantage to outweigh the advantages of having it in browser.

> You don't use a task bar on your computer?

Nope.

> You would never want to be able to alt-tab to a programming IDE or music player?

Having these in browser means 1 less window to keep on the desktop taking up space so I don't need to alt-tab as much. I can see both my IDE and my browser at the same time.

> [ .. Atom, more interactive app section ...]

I don't use Atom or VSCode (electron-based editors) so this isn't an issue for me. But I can totally see wanting these to be as native as possible, so using them that way makes sense. So I'll 100% concede the point for code editors.

For data I use Firefox containers to keep that things compartmentalized sufficiently so there to no need to worry about polluting local data stores.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#619

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

dmitriid wrote: post #594
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the userbase size relevant? I'm not saying "I have more tools than you have cars" because I think it makes me win at something. I'm trying to point out that the ecosystems are so different that it's hard to quantify which side has "more".

> Is the userbase size relevant? Yes > I'm trying to point out that the ecosystems are so different that it's hard to quantify which side has "more". No. In response to "there's 100 times more software in Windows." you started speaking about dockerhub and git. That does not encompass all software, especially software that is required by non-programmers.

Let L be the set of all software for Linux and W be the set of all software for Windows.

If there is a subset of L that is larger than W, then L itself is also larger than W.

I was proposing that if you count every image, or every repo, then dockerhub-only or the GitHub-only subsets of L might be larger than W because the effort of creating an additional windows project is much greater than the effort of creating an additional Linux project.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#620

Post by majkinetor »

Nkuna wrote: post #519
majkinetor wrote: post #428

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 2…

Lets be honest - there is 0 technical benefit regarding what OS you use today Then you're being dishonest. There are many technical reasons to choose Linux over Windows. On mobile so will keep it short. My desktop lacks Hyper-V. I went years thinking I can't run Docker because of this fact. Turns out the PC has no such limitation when running Linux. Years ago, tried using Meteor. It was practically unusable as I kept…

> My desktop lacks Hyper-V. I went years thinking I can't run Docker because of this fact. Turns out the PC has no such limitation when running Linux.

You don't have such limitation on Windows Server either. Mac OS has the same limitation. Its strange to think about this the way you do, it was originally linux tech, its like complaining Windows Explorer is not available on linux.

> Years ago, tried using Meteor. It was practically unusable as I kept getting error after error. Multiple roundtrips searching and a ton of Windows-specific GitHub issues later, I gave up on the framework.

There were always tools that were Windows or Linux specific. You should research your tech more in order not to finish into that trap.

> There are plenty of frameworks and dev tools that are an afterthought for Windows. This, of course, is due to Windows requiring often heavy extras to be compatible whereas Unix systems simply just work.

Not sure where you got that, that Unix systems simply just work. I had never had a Linux or Unix that just worked in last 20 years of experience with all OSes.

Almost everything just works as long as you fit its niche. Once you need specific stuff, every OS needs to be customized and if it works in first iteration, you remember that day like the God looked at you.

> Plenty devs just don't Care that much whether their software runs on Windows.

Its also the opposite.

> This, of course, is due to Windows requiring often heavy extras to be compatible

Whaaat ? Windows itself is compatible with older self, its not requirement for apps.

> MS have released new software or updates to macOS first.

Whaat ?

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