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

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

#71

Post by CFeminine »

ikfmpwdsoz wrote: post #65
drb91 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

i hear you 5 by 5, i would also wonder who would tolerate subsription like leasing of software such as norton or office 360.

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

#72

Post by ikfmpwdsoz »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #34
Theodores wrote: post #23

I find it amusing that so people who are quite capable feel compelled to hold onto the hand-rails for so long and won't just dive in to Linux. I was guilty of hanging on to the dual boot for a few years but never ended up using the Windows side or any of those programs that I thought were so fundamentally important to my life. I am not sure why people can't just give Ubuntu a go on a brand new machine rather than may…

> I find it amusing that so people who are quite capable feel compelled to hold onto the hand-rails for so long and won't just dive in to Linux. Well it doesn't help that Linux desktop is backed by one of the most condescending cultures that ever stalked the internet. Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, the way Linux works just doesn't jive with a lot of people? Like, everything has a middleman involved. Driv…

Huh? Binaries downloaded off the Internet work just as fine on Linux as they do on Windows! Package managers just give you very convenient updating and a chain of trust to greatly reduce the risk of installing malware; and these are things people definitely want - see the App Store, the Play Store, Homebrew, Chocolatey, etc.

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

#73

Post by [deleted] »

Theodores wrote: post #23

I find it amusing that so people who are quite capable feel compelled to hold onto the hand-rails for so long and won't just dive in to Linux. I was guilty of hanging on to the dual boot for a few years but never ended up using the Windows side or any of those programs that I thought were so fundamentally important to my life. I am not sure why people can't just give Ubuntu a go on a brand new machine rather than may…

[deleted]

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

#74

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

MisterOctober wrote: post #61
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #45

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…

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.

My understanding is the the Windows NT was influenced by the design of the Mach kernel, but it certainly wasn't itself the Mach kernel. I have a vague recollection of a discussion of some of the NT kernel designers being old Multics people (so that most of the extant OSes are in same way or other influenced by Multics). But I've never enjoyed using any of the versions of DOS/Windows. I surely would have gone into computer science if my experience in late high school/university hadn't been almost exclusively Windows (in contrast to my earlier experience with Atari computers).

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

#75

Post by joe_the_user »

drb91 wrote: post #38
joe_the_user wrote: post #29

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…

"State of the Art" desktop GUI essentially provide next to no benefit for the end user. Most people use their GUI only to launch their browsers but those who launch multiple application, search for and move around file and similar stuff can use any GUI from the last twenty years quite easily for the purpose - Windows 101 idiocy or Gnome Shell or whatever Kiosk interface might be faster to learn but a person only has to learn to use a given GUI shell once in their life but then they have to surfer it's inefficiencies, it's advertisements and updating every day or every inconvenient period. Of course, few users take action to stop time-wasting interfaces for the same reason few users learn to touchtype.

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

#76

Post by CFeminine »

drb91 wrote: post #38
joe_the_user wrote: post #29

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…

i am in the habit of providing linux installs on new machine builds,and all my customers love linux, extolling the fact that everything they need and want is right there when they want it, no sudden updates in the middle of use and no extra price tag for libre office or gimp.

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

#77

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

MisterOctober wrote: post #61
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #45

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…

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.

Windows NT was designed by some DEC people with lessons learned from VMS, though certain microkernel-like aspects of it were influenced by Mach.

> They really ought to have, at minimum, aliased a lot more bash commands to Powershell 'cmdlets'.

First of all, I am of the opinion that PowerShell is significantly superior to bash+coreutils in many ways. If you took a step back from your familiarity with the UNIX stack and looked at it objectively, you might come to the same conclusion.

Anyway, I think aliasing bash commands to cmdlets at all was a mistake, because it creates the impression that they are compatible in some way, when they often function very very differently.

> It used to be so frustrating, having to look up all their weird, verbose commands.

They're verbose because they are descriptive. When you write scripts, this is an advantage. When you're not writing scripts, PowerShell has a lot of built-in short aliases you can use (gci => Get-ChildItem), and you're free to define your own at will. This is in addition to tab completion of cmdlets, variables, and argument names.

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

#78

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

MisterOctober wrote: post #62
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Of course you can always choose to resolve problems in that fashion. But I've never had to on Linux if I didn't want to.

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

#79

Post by CFeminine »

bscphil wrote: post #64
drb91 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

i think hes a troll

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

#80

Post by falcrist »

joe_the_user wrote: post #3

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…

> Lately, I have had few problems installing and running Linux on the various cheap laptops I've bought.

For the last year and change, I've carried a particularly fast thumb drive with Linux Mint installed on it (it's actual mint, rather than an installer/preview image). I'm constantly surprised by how many machines it "just works" with. Laptops from many different brands, workstations and desktops, AMD, Intel, Nvidia... Everything I plug it into seems to work fine.

With that in mind, I want to echo the sentiments in other comments. I'm still using Windows, but only because of the software.

At home I run windows only because of the software I use (Photoshop/Lightroom, games, and Equalizer APO).

At work I still need to use Windows simply because the toolchains I use are often exclusive to windows (Visual Studio and Atmel Studio in particular).

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