Live data from Hacker News

Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

github.com

621–630 of 636 posts

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#621

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…

Are you saying it's finally the year of Linux desktop?

But I can't resist using macOS at this point and their hardware.

I'd like to see someone run Linux on the new M1 hardware.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I use both code generation, and backward automated modeling from code, which is possible only on EA to my knowledge. Overall usability was worse, maybe because of old Java SWT interface (last time I used VP in 2011)

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't expect this to win you back, but i can't recommend this highly enough: http://www.webupd8.org/2013/06/better-font-rendering-in-linu... you can choose between different system font rendering styles, including macos and windows

infinality is long dead and its rendering engine has been upstreamed to freetype. here's a more up-to-date guide to font rendering on linux: https://pandasauce.org/post/linux-fonts/

news to me! thank you

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neon is not that much better and doesn't fix a lot of the issues. I've found XFCE and cinnamon are the most stable/reliable DE's. I'm rocking Manjaro cinnamon right now.

XFCE had some weird virtual desktop behaviour where when I opened an application from the tray, it would open in my current desktop and not the desktop that I'd placed it. Aside from that it was great, and there was probably some configuration option to stop that behaviour but I could not find it. Actually I quite enjoyed Cinnamon, I cannot even remember what things I disliked but I'd just saw the new release of KDE…

I love KDE and think it is the best Linux desktop in terms of features and customization. Unfortunately it's just so damn buggy. Not in in unstable way, but there are just enumerable ways you can break it. It gets to the point that when you try something new that it has, you pause and think "Is this gonna break or stop working thus ruing my workflow again?"

It's why I went back to cinnamon. I mean in the realms of the phrase "Fuck, marry, kill", I'd fuck KDE, marry cinnnamon, and kill MATE.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#625
post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Skylake From this I gather that we are talking ~5 years ago? > First and foremost, sound. I tried to get mixing -- simultaneous playback from different programs I remember this being a problem 10 years ago, but not since pulseaudio. > sleep / resume I successfully use systemctl suspend a lot. But yeah, depends on the hardware, def. a pain point. > experimental support for the chipset [...] completely froze Not sure…

> Not sure what to respond to this. Experimental drivers are expected to be, well, experimental, as in highly unstable. This is what to make of this: The then-latest linux kernel did not support then-latest hardware.

Thank you for the response. this helped me understand better how people come to conclusions like this.

You want to be able to buy bleeding edge hardware without checking for driver support and have it just work. That is important enough for you to prefer windows for this reason. Fair enough.

Something to think about: What do you think causes this situation that on day one windows has a stable driver and Linux doesn't? Could it have anything to do with the cooperation of the hardware vendor?

Assuming you actually wanted to run linux, would there be any way you as an end user could work around this problem? Is there anything people could do to improve the overall situation? Maybe something more helpful than puplicly complaining about experimental drivers being experimental?

It's ok if you don't care about this. But characterizing the story above as "linux has driver problems" strikes me as something between superficial and disengenious.

But yeah, you can't always blindly throw the newest Linux at the newest hardware and expect it to work. Free Software requires a a certain amount of taking responsibility for your own computing.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The amount of software in dockerhub and github is entirely irrelevant when you just for a second stop considering just the subset "developers who use linux-compatible tools".

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#628

I've been running KDE Neon on a NUC for several years now, and has been quite happy with that as a secondary PC. However, as much as I like it, I've not even tried to run it on my primary desktop due to the lack of a viable RDP alternative. The irony here is that with Microsoft implementing RDP support in WSL2, the thing that might finally remove the key obstacle might render the entire point moot.

NoMachine works great here. Enable screen blanking setting or not depending on needs.

Does it technically work? Yes.

Does it work as well as RDP? Not even close.

With RDP I get a near-local experience. With NoMachine, VLC, whatever else it's very, very obvious I'm working remotely.

Maybe it's my setup, but I've tried many times over many years with different hardware on both ends and internet connections.

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#629
post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its pretty simple: GUI is more intuitive. I do not find them bizarre. Their diversity or bespokeness doesn't register as a hindrance to me. The options are visible all at once, or are a couple of clicks away. Contrast this with the command line where I more or less have to memorize each application's interface or look online or browse the manual for answers. GUI lets me use keyboard + mouse. CLI is keyboard only. Reg…

>GUI is more intuitive. I would completely disagree here, they're more aesthetic but not more intuitive or discoverable. Compare tar with apple's camera app on the iphone for example: tar --help will tell you how to do everything in the app. Is there something equivalent that tells how to do manual focus in the camera app? (yes, it's supported that for years and no one knows how to do it because it won't tell you.)

Of all the examples you could have chosen you picked tar? The program with such an obtuse command interface it has its own xkcd comic?

Re: Reasons to prefer Linux over Windows (2014)

#630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NoMachine works great here. Enable screen blanking setting or not depending on needs.

Does it technically work? Yes. Does it work as well as RDP? Not even close. With RDP I get a near-local experience. With NoMachine, VLC, whatever else it's very, very obvious I'm working remotely. Maybe it's my setup, but I've tried many times over many years with different hardware on both ends and internet connections.

Hmm, fwiw I think all my boxes with NoMachine have GPUs as well, that may make a difference in the quality for encoding/decoding.

If I go full screen it's hard for me to distinguish local vs remote, even watching videos, other than occasionally can see video compression artifacts per the connection quality.

Do like that I can blank screen on login, lock screen on logout, similar to RDP, unlike xrdp and others where it's a new session when you connect, you can't resume a session locally (e.g. work half in office, half at home, same session).

Post reply on HN