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I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

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Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#801

Post by jama211 »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #512
jama211 wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but folks around here like to stick their heads in the sand when reminded that this is a very real and concerning barrier to adoption of desktop Linux. It could happen 1000 times and they’ll still scream that it’s either user error or even worse “it works on my machine”. Until the Linux community stops pretending and accepts that these are real issues and they need addressing, it will never be the year of the Li…

Maybe not for everyone, but it will never be the year of the Windows Desktop for everyone either.

Everyone is a basically impossible metric, so this is a fairly pointless statement.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#802

Post by jama211 »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #789
whatever1 wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody cares about what runs under the hood (I mean the real market, not the dozen of us nerds), as long as it looks and plays nice. Market already uses linux both in the form of android but also as a server OS. For both of these the financial incentive was there for someone to write the drivers, make the UI user friendly (android users never have to open a terminal), create sales channels. Desktop and laptop market…

I had to open a terminal on android to copy photos to laptop with tar|netcat for backup and larger screen.

No, you didn’t, that’s just the solution you chose to go with. You could’ve used literally any other file transfer method.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#803

Post by BAM-DevCrew »

Starting on Jan 5th, I am mostly migrated from Windows 10 to Zorin Linux. It has taken about a week. Would have went faster if I wasn't a "power user" who tests every option and tweaks the shit out of my system. I have researched and tested multiple file managers (Nemo won) and terminals (Tabby won). Moved everything possible out of sandboxes. Set up VSCodium with Claude Code desktop extension, moved MCP servers to global in both Linux and Windows vs project specific, installed the wrapper for Claude Desktop, wired in 4 hard drives, bookmarked directories, imported Thunderbird and Librewolf profiles. E.T.C... And to do it I guided Claude Desktop with full access to both Windows 10 and Linux to research and implement, verbosely explaining each step of the way. Zorin did work out of the box. If I was not, unfortunately, a freak about how everything has to work exactly how I want, with a full software dev environment (no, not for vibe coding) to get working fluidly, the migration would have been instant. Zorin worked out of the box, other than passwords. It looks and behaves very similar to Windows. This is on my 2012 Hp 220Z with 32gb ram and an SSD for the OS. It works like a champ.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#804

Post by lpcvoid »

worksonmine wrote: post #758
lpcvoid wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wayland is not working What's your source on that? I have been using it for years. Skill issue?

I'm still on X because I'm too comfortable with dwm and I've never had problems with Wayland the few times I've tried KDE/Gnome. That said blaming the user for lacking skill for basic stuff like copy/paste between applications or screen sharing isn't constructive. Those features should just work and shouldn't require skill. Building a niche window manager from source is a different discussion.

Alright, good point. Sorry for my bad first comment, I am just a bit defensive after all these years of people saying Wayland is unusable. The problems you describe with screen sharing are likely because of missing xdg-portal implementation (the implementation depends on your setup).

>Those features should just work and shouldn't require skill.

Maybe, yeah. But we are on hacker news, I assumed people would be open to hacking on things, but the comments are always very much not like that.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#806

Post by Nextgrid »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #659
Nextgrid wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plus it's open-source Open-source only matters if you have the time/skill/willingness to download said source (and any dependencies') and compile it. Otherwise you're still running a random binary and there's no telling whether the source is malicious or whether the binary was even built with the published source.

It's no guarantee, but it's a positive indicator of trustworthiness if a codebase is open source. I don't have hard numbers on this, but in my experience it's pretty rare for an open source codebase to contain malware. Few malicious actors are bold enough to publish the source of their malware. The exception that springs to mind is source-based supply chain attacks, such as publishing malicious Python code to Python'…

> It's no guarantee, but it's a positive indicator of trustworthiness if a codebase is open source.

It's something we as techies like to believe due to solidarity or belief in the greater good, but I'm not sure it's actually justified? It would only work if there's a sizeable, technically-inclined userbase of the project so that someone is likely to have audited the code.

If you're malicious, you can still release malicious software with an open-source cover (ideally without the source including the malicious part - but even then, you can coast just fine until someone comes along and actually checks said source). If you're anonymous there is little actual downside of detection, you can just try again under a different project.

Remember that the xz-utils backdoor was only discovered because they fucked up and caused a slowdown and not due to an unprompted audit.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#807

Post by Nextgrid »

happymellon wrote: post #792
Ajedi32 wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically you can do all that with on Linux with SELinux. But it's not the default, nor is it easy.

> it's not the default, nor is it easy. That's really the main point for me. Flatpak could also a lot of this, but Flatseal isn't the default, nor is it easy for users. MacOS has a bunch of switches for access, but they are hidden away inside the settings, and they are not granular. If it's not the default, and it's not easy then it may as well not be there for most people.

> they are hidden away inside the settings, and they are not granular.

The switches default to off though, with a prompt on first attempt at accessing the protected resource.

The problem is that they're leaky like a sieve and the permission model and inheritance works is unclear (I once had the Terminal app ask me for permission - does it now mean anything I run from the terminal automatically inherits it - and so on).

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#808

Post by Nextgrid »

lutusp wrote: post #697
Nextgrid wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plus it's open-source Open-source only matters if you have the time/skill/willingness to download said source (and any dependencies') and compile it. Otherwise you're still running a random binary and there's no telling whether the source is malicious or whether the binary was even built with the published source.

> Open-source only matters if you have the time/skill/willingness to download said source (and any dependencies') and compile it. Not really. The fact that an application is open-source means its originator can't rug-pull its users at some random future date (as so often happens with closed-source programs). End users don't need to compile the source for that to be true. > Otherwise you're still running a random bina…

The kind of rug-pulling you describe only works if the software implements an online licensing check/DRM, and either way has nothing to do with security against malicious behavior.

> Github archive with an appropriate track record

How do you judge the "track record"? Github stars can be bought. Marketing can be used to inflate legitimate usage of a program before introducing the malicious behavior.

> the risks of downloading and running a closed-source app are much the same

But that's my point - open-source doesn't really change the equation there unless you are actually auditing the source and building & running said source. If you're just relying on a binary download you're no better than downloading proprietary software in binary form.

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#809

Post by throw-qqqqq »

xattt wrote: post #788
throw-qqqqq wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> … desktop Linux still has rough edges … > My personal pet peeve is the GTK/Qt divide. Theming has an extra step, as you have to pick a matching theme for the other toolkit apps you inevitably end up using. Is this perhaps an issue of fractional scaling? I’ve run Openbox/Blackbox on Linux for ~15 years and never had these issues. Not 100% sure I understand the issue at least. Things look mostly fine (to me) and eve…

Yes, this is a KDE/GTK issue, but this is also a real-world case. Linux Greybeards, a hypothetical man with astute technical and sexual prowess, might not be bothered by follies such as proper text rendering, but it is an issue if desktop environments have any chance to compete with mainstream operating systems.

> Yes, this is a KDE/GTK issue, but this is also a real-world case

I believe you when you say it.

> Linux Greybeards, a hypothetical man with astute technical and sexual prowess

No need to be snarky. I was speaking from my own Linux experience (just like you did?), not trying to impress anyone.

Text renders fine in Openbox, hence the question about the issue being with Linux or GTK/KDE. I’ve honestly never heard of these issues or experienced them myself. Perhaps because Openbox is simpler (no fractional scaling AFAIK) so I’ve likely been “shielded” from such issues (never heard about theming or issues like this tbh).

Re: I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too

#810

Post by jijijijij »

pxoe wrote: post #644
vanviegen wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s still too confusing for the average user (many distros, many desktop environments, Wayland vs X, systemd vs init, snap vs flatpak). Users don't need to know about any of that, except for picking a distro and just using whatever is there. Regarding DAW - I get sticking with Windows if you have thousands invested in it. Even so, there's quite a bit of professional software out there with native support (like Bit…

Even if they pick a distro and decide to install it, more often than not the install process is still overly convoluted even in just making installation media. Going to a distro website and trying to find where to get it (ubuntu has a habit of leading with literally anything else other than regular desktop distro on their front page). Finding a download page, and having it just spit out an iso file, with no explanati…

> There's glimmers of hope, like fedora which has its media writer, which is gonna hold your hand through the whole thing. Even that links out to github for a download, despite clicking on a seemingly specific 'windows/mac or linux' button. It's a little buried too, below iso downloads, when it really should be brought up more forward, and explain a little bit better on how it's gonna guide you thru the whole thing.

> It really should be an app that's gonna guide you thru it, or a dead simple 1-2-3 step tutorial that's gonna guide you thru writing an image (download writer, download iso, write an image - laying it out more than that is just overcomplicating it really, at least in the initial quick install guide), with a clear, visible link to it - and yet somehow even this is too high of a bar for many distros to clear.

Sorry, but this is just ridiculously nit-picky. How much more hand-holding do you need? Everything you want is literally there. Are you complaining that Fedora also addresses Linux users, at all?

Fact is, installing an operating system is a bit of an involved process. Realistically, people wouldn't even start with the docs, but some YouTube tutorial... But man... Fedora tries so hard! The site is ultra clean and on-point. Docs are friendly and very much 1-2-3 structured, they maintain a fucking media writer to do all the complicated shit like choosing a mirror and checking signatures, a simple installer where all complexity is hidden and you can just hit 'next'. What the hell do you want more?

MacOS and Windows don't even consider OS installation and only show you where you can find their OS preinstalled. Lol.

(I do have to agree with you on ubuntu.com tho. Haven't opened their site in a while and... jesus christ, what a mess!)

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