Subj : Re: Windows vs Linux
To   : claw
From : boraxman
Date : Thu Apr 21 2022 23:21:36

 cl> I feel this is a double edged sword. I would really like to see mass
 cl> adoption, however I feel what stops many people is the sheer mass amount
 cl> of options you have.  Every distro claims to be the best one.  Your
 cl> average nerd will learn the differences and choose one they like. The
 cl> average person will start reading and TLDR later decide to stick to
 cl> windows.  Linux can do so much of the day to day things better and for
 cl> free, but windows can do everything and it just works. I would like to
 cl> see one of the top distros have an option that offers the look and feel
 cl> of the older windows systems labels that match XP, 7, and 10. This way
 cl> people joining have a familiar place to start.  As they learn more about
 cl> it then customization will happen.
 cl> 
 cl> If you really want customization then arch lets you completely install
 cl> by hand. So you start out with a bootstrap and hand install every single
 cl> item as you go.  This will allow you to choose to not use a distro and
 cl> hand build your system.  There are tons of videos on youtube about this
 cl> if you are interested.
 cl> 
 cl> I would like to see Linux take out windows so the gamers and the
 cl> everyday user can come to Linux and all the hardworking open source
 cl> folks start to see greater fruits of their labor.  
 cl> 

When I moved to Linux, there weren't as many distros, and I didn't distro-swap at all.  I just defaulted to what came with the magazine I bought when I wanted to start.  I tried Mandrake, couldn't get the sound working, and went back to Red Hat.  I still use RedHat, only swapping to Debian for 32 bit support.  Puppy Linux was good to have on a USB stick.

There are too many "choices" of distro, and most are unecessary.  A lot of the difference is just in defaults, stylistic differences.  The only difference that I think is significant, is package management, which having used both Debian and Fedora, isn't that much of a difference.  Distros that are designed to run very differently, such as Puppy Linux do offer something significantly different.

The true choice is the choice of graphical environment, whether you want to use a tiling window manager, or floating, FVWM or KDE or XFCE or DWM or i3.  It is choice of shell, ability to script and automate, to change fundamental parts of the system, if you wish. It is your ability to choose whether you run a GUI at all, or use GUI or command line apps.  It is having python or perl on tap, for example, so you can write your own programs, and the unix tools so you can compose your own 'programs'.

It's freedom from surveillance, from corporate control, from walled gardens, and if someone believes that some piece of software should work differently, and has forked it, the choice to use that fork.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
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