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I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

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Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#701

Post by surgical_fire »

lifetimerubyist wrote: post #646
surgical_fire wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this might be some odd library issue that could be fixed in the WINE prefix. I knew a guy that wanted to play a Japanese version of a JRPG on Linux and he figured out he needed some weird libraries there to properly render the font, which was causing the game to not start. Anyway, for older games and emulators, playing on Linux has been a magnificent experience for the most part.

Out of incessant curiosity and borderline obsession - I installed KDE, then I enabled the experimental Wayland support for Proton and tried the game again. It runs great now. The Wayland support didn't seem to do anything when I was using Gnome but it's a noticeable difference on KDE. As long as I disable vsync which locks the framerate at 30fps for some reason. But overall the game is very playable on Linux now. Gue…

This is actually great to know!

This makes me wonder if this would be a preferable setup for Proton.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#702

Post by jm4 »

pjmlp wrote: post #677
jm4 wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the wrong way to look at it. Instead, look at how much does land upstream. Linux moves at an incredible pace. Edit: BTW the figure I cited are contributors to mainline.

Yet it is still a mess to support laptops, because everything still needs to be reverse engineered instead of landing into upstream.

My laptops have been running fine for years.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#703

Post by fao_ »

xenonite wrote: post #413
dualogy wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since I found with searchable app menus / start menus that I don't ever navigate through menus but just start typing, I ditched the menu entirely and have KRunner bound to the Win key. Not only is it fine with any desktop app GTK or not (that packagers have ensured will install with its FreeDesktop metadata file or some such), it supports all the enabled KDE Search plugins. So I don't ever open a calc app again, eith…

Sorry but no, the parent commenters looked for a global menu within an application (File -> Open, File -> Save, etc.) by the way, on macOS the global menu is searchable, too. Shortcut is Command+Shift+/

> Sorry but no, the parent commenters looked for a global menu within an application (File -> Open, File -> Save, etc.)

KDE has such a feature, and yes "Global Menu" is the term for the application menu being pulled into system dock

https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/merge_reque...

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#704

Post by conz »

mft_ wrote: post #661
conz wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "Or maybe the operating system should just work reliably for (at least) the basics?" So, out of curiosity, if I tried installing MacOS on any of the 15+ computers I have at home, what are the likely chances that this "operating system should just work reliably for (at least) the basics?" I can tell you that my success rate with Linux is 100%.

I’m not especially speaking for MacOS, but to your question, I suspect if you tried to install an appropriate version of MacOS on Mac hardware, you’d have very close to a 100% success rate. That’s certainly my past experience with Mac and, FWIW, Windows too. Anyway, my point wasn’t that Linux should be perfect; but that if it can’t be, maybe give some help why, and more experienced users shouldn’t just jump to blamin…

Re: "if you want Linux to win with non-experts, it needs to target being a better experience for non-experts than the alternatives"

I agree in broad terms, but let me re-capitulate this. Which OS do you think would offer a better experience for non-experts when installing on bare-metal? By my reckoning, Windows is a nightmare to install afresh on random hardware, and MacOS wont work on most-all random hardware. Users think that Windows is easier because they almost never have to install it from scratch.

Also, do you factor in the ever-increasing nuisances (AI, ads, spyware)[0][1][2][4] that Microsoft and Apple are injecting into their operating systems, and the move towards digital sovereignty which is accelerating in every nation outside of the US in any computation of what is a 'better experience'?

[0]https://au.pcmag.com/migrated-15175-windows-10/104927/micros... [1]https://www.techradar.com/news/is-windows-11-spying-on-you-n... [2]https://www.itnews.com.au/news/apple-delays-image-scanning-f... [4]https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/microslop-infuriat...

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#705

Post by conz »

llmslave3 wrote: post #555
conz wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "I gave up and have been using a MacBook ever since lol." I'm curious. What will you do when Apple too starts shoehorning AI into every part of MacOS and when Apple introduces increasingly unpalatable or government-mandated surveillance functionality like Microsoft is doing with Recall? What will you do then?

Probably stop using technology. Might go back to bartending tbh.

You can try to stop using technology, but that wont stop the technology from using you:

https://www.authoritarian-stack.info/?2

The only safe and sane path for humanity is community built software. All other roads lead to serfdom.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#706

Post by emporas »

subjectsigma wrote: post #697
emporas wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Linux exclusively for almost 20 years. I can tackle any tinkering of almost anything in a Linux environment, alongside of heavy use of Vim and Emacs. Nowadays every time I want to run a non-trivial command of a program, configure a file somewhere, customize using code Emacs or anything else, I always put the LLMs to do it. I do almost nothing by myself, except check if said file is indeed there, open the file a…

99% of people who don’t work in tech want to configure their computer by clicking buttons and menus, not by running terminal commands or asking ChatGPT.

Not true. They want to talk to their secretary, and the secretary do it for them.

Go around, and ask people if they want a free secretary, see if someone doesn't want one.

They will not ask a computer program to do stuff. They will talk to the secretary, and the secretary will do any computer stuff necessary. For the moment the secretary cannot click buttons and menus as well as manipulate language. The secretary will have realistic skin and lips, and a dress as short as required by the job description.

Language AI is the king of AIs, and the gap will only get bigger. Everything will be tied to language going forward, driving, surgeries and so on.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#707

Post by heavyset_go »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #41
rsyring wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been running a Linux desktop for about 13 years. There are still "moments" where you have to work on it and it can be more opaque than Windows/Mac. But you have the control to do what you need to do, which is one huge factor for me in Linux's favor. I moved my immediate and mostly non-tech family to all run Linux including an aging relative who needed a locked-down Firefox install to keep her from falling victim…

In my experience, the remaining difficulties with Linux tend to revolve around managing ownership and permissions of files and directories. I recently plugged in my external hard drive into my Linux PC and it just wouldn't read it. "You do not have permission to access this drive" or something like that. The solution after googling ended up being (for some reason) some combination of sudo chown -R user /dev/sda1 and…

Don't make block devices directly read/write-able to your user unless you want every user process to be able to have raw disk access to it.

Your distro should have been set up so that you can mount USB drives indirectly through the options your DE exposes.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#708

Post by heavyset_go »

pjmlp wrote: post #16

Since it is paid, how is he going with hardware accelerated video decoding on YouTube, Netflix or Amazon Prime? Which I never got to work properly on the laptop/netbook I owned until 2024.

What issue did you have? This should work if you follow the happy paths on video and browser hardware acceleration guides for your distro.

At least for Intel and AMD graphics, the Arch wiki's guide should work.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#709

Post by Rayosay »

zekrioca wrote: post #526
Rayosay wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the ThinkPad X13s Gen1 might meet these requirements. It is my favorite ARM Linux laptop I've ever used. It has great support in Debian 13 (trixie), and it feels pretty smooth and fast. It doesn't have any fans, stays cool, and I regularly get a full day's worth of battery life out of it with margin to spare (10-12 hours). It's better than the newer Snapdragon X1 Elite based ThinkPads, in my opinion, eve…

It seems this laptop is not available any longer. Are there any ARM alternatives you are aware of?

I'm hoping that the new Snapdragon X2 Elite based laptops coming out this year will beat it. Qualcomm seems to have been trying to upstream driver support for them earlier than the X1. Then it's up to what kinds of laptops OEMs offer with them.

Personally I'd still just get a used ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 on eBay at this point if I were going to buy another one today because they're available for around $400, and I don't see anything better that's passively cooled, with great battery life, and great Linux support available at the moment. I hope there will be a better, faster alternative in the near future. I'd gladly upgrade.

Re: I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great

#710

Post by raffraffraff »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #488
marssaxman wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really was! I have never even used a tablet, but I was disappointed when they dropped Unity and went back to the old way. But I was never a Windows user, either, and I've never held the idea that there is one normal and right way to do a computer interface, so I think I was more open to it than many people are.

I was also disappointed that they dropped Unity. I stayed on a workable Unity install on 2020.05 LTS for as long as possible, then switched to 2024.05 LTS, at which point Unity, for some reason, no longer functioned (even though I was using the Ubuntu Unity flavor). Tried Gnome for a while but what ultimately lost me was the notifications. To close out a notification without switching focus I had to, very carefully,…

Resizing windows on xfce (most themes) is next to impossible though. You have about a pixel sized border to grab.

I used xfce since Unity came out. Switched to KDE Plasma about 2 years ago.

Plasma is the most "sane" out of the DEs right no IMO. Not perfect by any means but good enough.

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