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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

#811

Post by lutusp »

Nextgrid wrote: post #808
lutusp wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 dow…

> 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.

My point was that an open-source program cannot rug-pull its users without the obvious remedy of forking the project and removing the offending code. Open-source: commonly seen. Closed-source: not possible and often illegal.

For both options, you have to trust the source, which makes that a non-issue. You can checksum the Linux kernel to satisfy yourself that it came from a trusted source. You can checksum the Windows kernel to satisfy yourself that you're about to be screwed.

> 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.

In the open-source world, knowing how computers work is essential. In the closed-source world, knowing how computers work is somewhere between pointless and illegal. This is how open-source "changes the equation."

Modifying open-source code is welcome and accepted. Modifying closed-source code breaks the law. Take your pick.

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

#812

Post by Grisu_FTP »

broodbucket wrote: post #677
koyote wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Desktop Windows still has rough edges. Desktop MacOS still has rough edges. Desktop Linux still has rough edges. Pick your poison. I think this sentiment is often overlooked as people are used to their 'poison'. As someone who uses Linux a their main personal machine (with dual boot to Windows every now and then) as well as W11 for work, it's amazing what you get used to. I was almost agreeing with OP, remembering…

The thing I like about Linux is that if your thing doesn't work you have a way better chance of being able to wrangle it into working (odds increasing as your technical skill increases) Meanwhile on Windows if something doesn't work you're generally SOL.

What do you mean? If i google "{Insert issue here} Windows" i get clear and easy solutions.

1. You reboot. 2. You try sfc /scannow 3. You try Dism 4. You reboot again. Doesnt work? (like 99,99999% of cases, like with a pc i had to fix yesterday) 5. Reinstall windows

Doesnt work? Have fun trying to get information from microsofts documentation where the same thing got documented 3 different ways 3 different times, and when you change from/to your native language you get another 3 different documentations. All telling you entirely different things, each screenshot showing a ui that doesnt resemble yours because it gotta change every month.

Very fun, not annoying at all :)

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

#813

Post by JodieBenitez »

erikbye wrote: post #763
JodieBenitez wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (like Bitwig) Been there, done that... worked fine but with an unacceptable performance penalty.

Compared to which software? Ableton? Reaper? Did you use RT kernel? JACK or ALSA? Pipewire? DE will also affect performance.

Compared to Bitwig, since that's what I use on both Macs and Windows PCs. Distro was Ubuntu Studio, which is tooted as an OS "configured for best performance for various purposes: Audio, Graphics, Video, Photography and Publishing", and comes with Jack.

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

#814

Post by cromka »

MrPowerGamerBR wrote: post #211
pelagicAustral wrote: post #179

I have... I switched to Bluefin, which is a branch of Universal Blue, which is flavour of Fedora. Sounds complicated, but in fact is the best thing to ever happen to Linux. I get all the ease of use of something like macOS but pre-built with tools for development like distrobox, and then I can just build my dev environments and get shit done in no time, without having to worry about breaking updates or nuking the who…

> Oh!, and the one thing I miss is Affinity Designer. While I haven't experimented with it that much yet, Affinity (the new one, the one after the Canva acquisition) does work in Wine 10.20. Now, I won't say it is a smooth experience, one of the workarounds that I needed to do is use Wine's virtual desktop so Affinity's tooltips are rendered correctly instead of being pure black, and the GUI does seem to not render c…

Don’t they use Qt for their Win/macOS version already?

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

#815

Post by givemeethekeys »

foxglacier wrote: post #709
NamlchakKhandro wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn't. Only in your head

Over 90% of desktops had Windows back then. So yea, that's everybody. Unless you're being pedantic because one guy was using IRIX on an SGI workstation, or the odd Mac.

10% of everyone is still a whole lot of people. Even 1% of everyone is a lot of people.

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

#816

Post by mariusor »

Moosdijk wrote: post #777
mariusor wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opening paragraph gives the reason why Linux is still not at the same level as windows: > “ A few months and several headaches later…” These are the words of someone that hasn't tried to install Windows on a recent machine. There's plenty of headaches there too.

I have, actually. It was a several-click process with few to no headaches (I don’t recall any in the last several installs I did).

Lol, I had to hunt for drivers for a while and then research which ones match my hardware, then I had to research how to strip windows 11 of the more egregious privacy intrusions and nags ... in my case there was plenty of headaches.

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

#817

Post by jama211 »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #815
foxglacier wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 90% of desktops had Windows back then. So yea, that's everybody. Unless you're being pedantic because one guy was using IRIX on an SGI workstation, or the odd Mac.

10% of everyone is still a whole lot of people. Even 1% of everyone is a lot of people.

No one said “everyone” until you did, and now you’re using it to be pedantic… bad faith tactic that.

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

#818

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Nextgrid wrote: post #806
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

> 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.

Not really. There's a long history of seemingly credible closed-source codebases turning out to have concealed malicious functionality, such as smart TVs spying on user activity, or the 'dieselgate' scandal, or the Sony rootkit. This kind of thing is extremely rare in Free and Open Source software. The creators don't want to run the risk of someone stumbling across the plain-as-day source code of malicious functionality. Open source software also generally makes it easy to remove malicious functionality, or even to create an ongoing fork project for this purpose. (The VSCodium project does this, roughly speaking. [0])

Firefox's telemetry is one of the more high-profile examples of unwanted behaviour in Free and Open Source software, and that probably doesn't even really count as malware.

> 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).

I already acknowledged this is possible, you don't need to spell it out. Again I don't have hard numbers, but it seems to me that in practice this is quite rare compared to malicious closed-source software of the 'ordinary' kind.

A good example of this was SourceForge injecting adware into binaries. [1]

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

Right, that was a supply chain attack. They seem to be increasingly common, unfortunately.

[0] https://vscodium.com/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SourceForge#Installer_with_adw...

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

#819

Post by GoblinSlayer »

jama211 wrote: post #802
GoblinSlayer wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which method, sftp?

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

#820

Post by Zetaphor »

user34283 wrote: post #616
Zetaphor wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running ComfyUI or _any_ AI stuff on Linux is a night and day difference in terms of ease of use and performance when compared against that of Windows users. Python on Windows is suffering

I fail to see how Python or ComfyUI would be easier to setup and use on Linux, unless we're talking about torch compile or Triton.

You said you fail to see how it would be easier, and then you gave examples of things that are easier.
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