[HN Gopher] I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going...
___________________________________________________________________
I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great
Author : rorylawless
Score : 458 points
Date : 2026-01-10 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| djfergus wrote:
| https://archive.is/CEsFK
| jmclnx wrote:
| Congratulations and welcome to the club!
|
| But please, do not push to make Linux into a Windows Clone :)
| RankingMember wrote:
| I can't say I understand the prevalence of Windows-esque UI
| theming/refits beyond short-lived novelty- are people out there
| actually trying to make their UIs look like Windows XP and then
| using them like that on a daily basis?
| jmclnx wrote:
| To me it is adding things that windows love to do.
|
| Examples: binary log files, binary configuration, .ini files,
| hidden options.
| mrintegrity wrote:
| I configured gnome to look like win 95/98, tried to use it
| for a while but the novelty wore off quite fast. Weirdly the
| mouse pointer still looks like win95 randomly in certain
| applications, guess I didn't clean up thoroughly!
| ktallett wrote:
| I have been using Fedora comfortably as my main os on a framework
| for the last 18 months and I have had no issues. I do just think
| for all that I do, lab work, coding, and gaming. I also run
| debian on mnt pocket reform and tbh I think it is OSes' like
| Linux that allow devices like that to exist. Windows and Mac just
| aren't options.
| jna_sh wrote:
| Moved my Framework laptop to Bluefin and my gaming desktop to
| Bazzite early last year. Zero regrets, zero issues. I'm not new
| to Linux by any means, I've been dabbling since a kid. But in
| adulthood, I had given up on having Linux as my daily driver
| because I just wanted my main computers to work, I didn't want
| maintaining them to be a hobby. That's not been an issue with
| Bluefin or Bazzite. I'm sure it's not for a lot of modern
| Linuxes, but these ones I can vouch for at least!
| bikelang wrote:
| Bazzite is my first immutable distro. Idk that I would want
| this for my dev machine - but for a gaming/general desktop
| usage it's pretty amazing. If they exposed more of the
| maintenance tooling and stuff like adding RPM layers via the UI
| then I think they'd have a really compelling OS for non-
| technical users.
| freedomben wrote:
| I agree, if you have a specific dev flow that is compatible
| with the immutable OS approach, then these can be wonderful
| dev machines, but personally I don't want to change my
| workflow to fit the OS, I prefer the OS to fit my workflow.
|
| At some point I I'm pretty confident that I will switch to an
| immutable version of Fedora and relearn my workflow in a
| distro box like world as I do see some real benefits to doing
| so, but I'm not in a hurry
| jna_sh wrote:
| I expected it to be an issue but I've had surprisingly few
| problems so far. If you're working in docker-land or can
| use devcontainers, it just works. If you're not but your
| stack is well supported by homebrew, also not a problem.
| Anything else you can handle via a distrobox container,
| where you can install from package managers to your heart's
| content, and they have good integration with the base OS,
| but I've had to reach for distrobox a lot less than I
| expected.
| freedomben wrote:
| Interesting, thanks! Out of curoisity would you (or
| anyone else) mind sharing some details about which stacks
| you work on? And have you done any GTK or linux native
| apps?
|
| I do a decent amount of GTK and occasionaly Qt, and
| wonder if there's any extra friction for that
| jna_sh wrote:
| I've not done any native Linux app development I'm
| afraid, I can see that being quite painful...
|
| I am mostly over in web application and Python ML land.
| mongrelion wrote:
| I had the dilemma of choosing between Bazzite and CachyOS or
| Manjaro for my workstation, which is also my gaming rig.
|
| The whole immutable distro felt like a hinder for my workflow
| (running docker containers, etc.), so that's why I went for
| CachyOS.
| jna_sh wrote:
| I think you should take another look, especially at the
| "Bazzite developer experience" edition: container based
| development is pretty much what it's centred around.
| Alternatively, Bluefin, which is much more dev focused
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Back in the days of Unity I decided to make a full switch to
| Linux and it just worked. The UX was unfamiliar but it had a
| cohesiveness that made sense. I use macOS for the past 10 years
| as my main system (work stuff needs Mac-specific things) but
| switching to a decent Linux distro would honestly feel like an
| upgrade. Windows continues being a shitshow and I want nothing to
| do with it.
|
| What I think could really push Linux desktop forward is if
| various PC gaming influencers started doing content on how to
| game on Linux. Given that it is not just viable now but actively
| sometimes better than on Windows it would make for good content
| AND show people an alternative. And soon as AAA games start being
| created for Linux first and run on Windows in some sort of
| compatibility or emulation mode that will really start turning
| the tides.
| freedomben wrote:
| I think this is both the blessing and the curse of the
| incredible work that wine and steam has done. Unless and until
| we get the Linux packaging stuff figured out in a way that
| developers can target Linux instead of having to target each
| individual distro, I think the clear incentive for the vast
| majority of gaming companies will be to target windows even if
| they ultimately care more about Linux, because wine and proton
| are so good and so much easier to support than each individual
| distro natively.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I rejoice when I get a native Linux game. I
| buy nearly every native Linux game I can find that is
| reasonably priced and sounds remotely interesting. I have a
| couple dozen games in my GOG backlog that I haven't even tried
| to run yet, but I bought on a sale or something because they
| were relatively cheap and supported Linux natively. So I would
| love a world where it was Linux first and Windows second.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Steam runs plenty well on Linux and has for a while but I
| guess developers might want more than one option for
| distribution.
|
| But to me it seems like in the long run emulating Linux on
| Windows is easier than the other way around.
| 0xabe wrote:
| I wanted to setup a family gaming PC in the living room for
| Christmas and went with CachyOS. It gave me a one click
| gaming installation option that just worked. I'm not
| interested in the FPS games with constant anti cheat
| mechanisms right now. It has worked with every game I've
| tried so far. Examples include: Crazy Machines 3, Cygni,
| Gradius, and Bejeweled (all on Steam.)
|
| I have a PC with Windows 10 and so does my dad that I'll be
| converting to some kind of Linux soon. Windows 11 isn't
| even an option due to the TPM chip requirement. The
| computers are still quite good and it makes no sense to
| abandon them. With Linux their performance will probably
| improve.
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| > What I think could really push Linux desktop forward is if
| various PC gaming influencers started doing content on how to
| game on Linux. Given that it is not just viable now but
| actively sometimes better than on Windows it would make for
| good content AND show people an alternative.
|
| Not _exactly_ what you are looking for, but Gamers Nexus at
| 2.57M subscribers is working on Linux Gaming Benchmarks with
| help from Wendel at Level1Techs [0]. Steve bemoans the shitshow
| that Windows has become all the time.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovOx4_8ajZ8
| peanut-walrus wrote:
| I've been a Linux admin for 25 years but up until a few months
| ago my personal computer has been windows (gaming desktop) or Mac
| (laptop).
|
| I decided to give desktop Linux another shot and I'm glad I did.
| I was prepared for a lot of jankiness but figured I have enough
| experience to fix whatever needs fixing. Surprisingly, this has
| not been the case at all, the PC has been not only as stable as
| Windows or Mac but also performs better and is much more
| comfortable and intuitive to use. I never really want to "work
| on" my personal computer, I want it to just be there for me
| reliably. I've always had a soft spot for free software, but I
| just couldn't justify the effort until now.
|
| So I guess this is my love letter to all the devs that have made
| the modern Linux desktop possible. Even compared to just a few
| years ago, the difference is immense. Keep up the good work.
| rsyring wrote:
| 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 to predatory
| sites and extensions. Pretty easy to script the entirety of the
| OS install and lockdown so that it was documented and
| repeatable. Can't do that without techie roots but I love that
| it's possible and mostly straightforward from a scripting
| perspective. It's almost exclusively get the right file with
| the right config in the right place and restart a service.
|
| The only major day-to-day downside IMO is battery life on Linux
| laptops. Can't compare to current generation of Macs but that's
| true for Windows too.
| arcfour wrote:
| I have been using desktop Linux for about the same amount of
| time and the way I see it now, even on the occasion where I
| have to troubleshoot something weird (which has maybe been
| one or two times in the past few years), it doesn't sound any
| different from the issues people are having with Windows and
| Mac these days--and at least I can fix it!
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| > and at least I can fix it!
|
| 100% this!
|
| I wrote this in another thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=46120975
|
| > Openbox does everything I need it to. I don't want Mac or
| Windows, they both suck in ways I can't change. Sure, Linux
| can be rougher, but at least I'm not helpless here. I can
| make the changes I need, and the software is generally less
| broken IME
| freedomben wrote:
| Yes exactly. When I had a Mac for work, I had to tinker
| with that thing just as much if not more so than I do
| Linux. To windows credit, it was the best of the three when
| it came to not having to tinker to get what I want, but the
| lack of ability to configure it in a way that was
| comfortable and preferable was more limited and difficult,
| so there were annoyances I had to just live with. The point
| at which they started injecting ads into my desktop
| experience was a dark day and the day I said goodbye
| arcfour wrote:
| Oh god, I had a Mac for work recently and had to spend 3
| weeks becoming an expert in Mac External Displays And
| Thunderbolt just to get my HP Thunderbolt 4 dock
| (officially compatible with Macs!) to use a dual monitor
| setup with it. Finally I got it working, but every
| configuration I tried Just Worked(tm) on Linux. Jeez...
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| 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 unplugging and reconnecting
| the drive.
|
| No way to do that from the GUI (on KDE at least) and I'm not
| sure how I'd even solve that problem if I didn't know the
| super user password.
|
| Still glad to be using Linux, of course, but sometimes these
| problems still pop up.
| amlib wrote:
| This shouldn't happen with external disks formatted with
| ntfs, ext or udf. If you have an EXT4 or something like
| that external disk things get more hazy...
| crazysim wrote:
| Can't it just do what I _mean_ if it's a Desktop install
| and mount it like ntfs, udf, or etc?
| bisby wrote:
| no? A file system is the format that the data on the disk
| is stored as. If you mount an ext4 disk as ntfs, it
| wouldn't load properly. It's not just the interface for
| loading the data, it's how the data is actually stored.
| crazysim wrote:
| What I mean is that it should ignore permissions on
| external ext4 by default in Desktops.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Whether it should or shouldn't, it did. But I think the
| issue is less that it happened, and more that the user
| interface doesn't respond to the "no permission" error by
| offering up a button you can click to attempt to grant
| yourself permission. If it can be done through the
| terminal, there should be a novice friendly way as well.
|
| (For that matter, a novice user shouldn't even have to
| know how their external hard drive is formatted! It might
| not even be their drive; it could be a family member
| attempting to share photos with them. If they're just
| plugging it in for the first time and seeing errors,
| they'd be pretty hesitant to mess around with the
| terminal typing in commands they don't understand).
| amlib wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't mean to imply this isn't an important
| problem that needs to be addressed. I mostly agree with
| what you say and I bet the right way to deal with this is
| to have it be mounted with a special user space
| filesystem like fuse that wraps the permissions to always
| look correct for the user that mounted it, but I guess no
| one so far has decided to take upon such task...
| noAnswer wrote:
| I don't doubt you had that problem. But it, and the
| solution you want, sound a bit strange. You want a button
| that gives your user access to everything despite its
| access settings... Than login and work as root.
|
| I mean it's hard to tell what really happened. But a
| different user could have created this files with access
| rights only for himself on purpose. Something one can do
| with NTFS on Windows too. It also could have been a distro
| bug.
|
| > but sometimes these problems still pop up.
|
| I'm a 90% Windows- 9.5% Linux- 0.5% Mac-Admin at day job:
| Don't tell me Windows has no problems poping up. ;-)
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I've been on Mint for nearly 4 years now,. migrating from
| Windows.
|
| The only hiccup I had was botched updates once, and the OS
| would error during boot.
|
| The fix was easy, boot to terminal, fiddle with timeshift to
| restore to the point prior to update, then apply de updates
| carefully with a few reboots in between.
|
| Now, was that easy? For someone well versed in the
| technicalities, yes. For a layman, probably not.
|
| Now, that said, it was the only problem I had in 4 years. It
| has been very smooth sailing besides that.
|
| My experience with Windows prior to that was always horrible.
| Yearly clean installs because after a while the computer felt
| extremely sluggish. Random blue screens for god knows what
| reason.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's been like that for 15 years or more.
|
| The fact that you now need an account for almost any piece of
| hardware, including computers, phones etc is a major drawback
| that arrived with the internet era. Linux has been able to
| avoid that temptation.
| dannyfritz07 wrote:
| Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. 15 years ago I was
| still looking up installation and driver procedures and
| workarounds to install Linux on my devices. I failed to
| install arch in college because I didn't have a driver for my
| SATA drive for example.
|
| Today though. Yeah totally easy. Especially if you get one of
| the many machines with Linux support. Smooth sailing all
| around.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Windows has also needed external drivers installed at
| times, since the DOS days. It's the nature of obscure, new,
| or advanced hardware.
| noAnswer wrote:
| Facetiously: Well actually, you didn't need a driver for
| the SATA drive but the SATA controller.
|
| Something that was also true for Windows and such a common
| problem that many BIOSes would offer a IDE compatibility
| mode one could switch to.
|
| 26 years ago I installed SUSE and it just worked on my self
| build PC. Smooth sailing all around. Than I tried Debian
| and couldn't for the life of me get X11 to work.
|
| So yeah, the distro and hardware lottery is still a
| problem.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| I've been using Linux as a desktop for that entire time, and
| actually, it was better before. The hardware was simpler, more
| compatible, and relied less on firmware blobs, so making Linux
| drivers was way easier. And the software was simpler because
| GUI makers weren't trying to be fancy. The peak of Linux
| desktop stability and ease of use was in 2002. It's been
| downhill from there.
| Salgat wrote:
| My experience, as a software developer, is that both Windows
| and Linux desktop are great. The biggest advantage Windows has
| is better support for desktop applications that are used by a
| lot of people, which is just the nature of Windows being more
| popular for desktop users, and is why I use it. With Linux,
| it's more likely you'll have to be a bit more savvy with
| occasional issues.
|
| To note, with official Linux support on Windows, it's trivial
| for me to get everything I want as a developer on Windows, so
| that's never been a hard blocker for me.
| SirFatty wrote:
| Proof that this is the year of Linux on the Desktop!
| toddmorey wrote:
| Commercial OSes (both Windows and MacOS) now feel so insanely
| agenda driven, and the agenda no longer feels like anything close
| to making the user happy and productive. For Mac, it feels like
| Apple wants to leverage what came out of VisionOS and unify the
| look and feel of mobile and desktop--two things no one asked for.
| For Windows, it feels like ads for their partners and ensuring
| they don't fumble the ai/agent transition the way they did with
| mobile.
|
| Linux is SUCH a breath of fresh air. No one wants it to be
| anything other than what you want it to be. Modern desktop Linux
| has a much improved out of the box experience with good support
| for all the hardware I've thrown at it. And Claude Code makes it
| very fast and trivial to personalize, adapt, automate, etc.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Come back when I can run Linux on a laptop that has 12+ hours
| battery life, runs fast, that's lightweight, quiet and doesn't
| cause infertility from the heat when I put it on my lap....
|
| Using an x86 laptop in 2025 is like using a flip phone 6 years
| after the iPhone came out.
|
| Of course if you are a gamer, ignore everything I just wrote.
| mecsred wrote:
| You mean the framework Ive been running for the past 4 years
| or so?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| You mean the same ones that consistently get bad reviews
| for being hot, with poor battery life, heavy and sub par
| screens?
|
| https://community.frame.work/t/fw-16-review-the-good-the-
| bad...
| smj-edison wrote:
| It's important to distinguish between the Framework 13
| and the Framework 16. The Framework 16 is by far the most
| ambitious of the two, and so it has had a lot more
| issues. I use a Framework 13, and I've loved it. It's
| light, has a solid frame, and runs Linux great. The
| battery life isn't great, and the speakers aren't either,
| but I've been able to mitigate the latter with
| EasyEffects.
| plagiarist wrote:
| I've got a Framework I am not too upset with, but the
| battery life (especially during sleep) is definitely one of
| my gripes. I still have yet to try powertop or other tools
| to optimize, maybe I would be proven wrong.
| dale_glass wrote:
| Sleep just ceased to exist in the last few years and got
| replaced with an always on, low power mode.
|
| I believe the reasoning was partly that suspend to RAM
| had serious reliability issues due to the complexity of
| saving the state, partly that people starting expecting
| cell phone-like performance where eg, mail is always
| received.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Depends. The Intel models still support sleep on Linux
| (at least up to 12 or 13 gen, AMD boards only nap.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Besides the 12+ hour battery life which is only achievable
| with ARM processors, everything described can be accomplished
| easily for the typical slightly above average computer user
| with Kubuntu today.
|
| I installed latest Kubuntu on my old 2015 MacBook Pro and it
| runs ice cold now when playing YouTube videos with Firefox
| whereas before it ran hot even with a Mac fan control app
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| So everything but good battery life is achievable on a
| portable device?
|
| "Besides that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
|
| This isn't 2015... ARM Macs have been out for six years
| cogman10 wrote:
| If you know what to look for, you can also get good
| battery life. The 268V CPU will give you pretty good
| battery life.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| Come on, buddy, at this point, nobody could take you
| seriously.
|
| You are attributing to the software and OS a difference
| that exists because of hardware.
|
| You can't seriously sit here and say Linux battery life
| on x86 doesn't reach your par when you're comparing it to
| a completely different computing architecture.
|
| You're comparing apples to oranges and complaining the
| oranges are more sour than the apples.
|
| Run Asahi Linux and tell me how it goes.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I don't care _why_ it's better. Whose fault is it that
| Linux gets worse battery life on every computer that also
| runs Windows or MacOS?
| redeeman wrote:
| it doesnt on thinkpad p16s
| xerox13ster wrote:
| Don't try to act like that is the discussion we've been
| having.
|
| You're holding Linux on x86 to a Mac on ARM standard.
|
| It's fine if Linux doesn't meet your standards, but don't
| try to act like that's Linux's fault and not your
| standards'.
|
| Nothing x86 meets your standards, so save the criticism.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Linux gets WAY better battery life on SteamDeck than
| Windows: https://www.howtogeek.com/ive-tried-steamos-and-
| windows-on-m...
| rpdillon wrote:
| I think what you're running into is that you have a
| different attitude than some of us do about technology.
| I've been using computers for a very long time as well,
| but I don't feel a sense of entitlement to the latest and
| greatest features because it often comes with other
| compromises regarding freedom and control. Because Linux
| is several years behind Windows and Mac in terms of
| adopting those technologies, there is an evergreen
| argument in every thread about Linux which boils down to
| "Why can't it do this thing from the last four years?"
|
| This is uniformly tiring and uninteresting. I've been
| using 1920x1080 displays for 25 years and they're just
| fine. A retina display is not necessary to do anything
| that I need. Similarly with these requirements about
| particular thermals and particular battery lifetime. I
| can buy a battery and I can find a wall outlet.
|
| You're comparing not having those features to having your
| husband assassinated during a play. But I don't think a
| lack of those features ruins the computing experience the
| way having your husband assassinated would ruin the play.
| The thing that ruins the play for me is when they chain
| me to my seat and tell me I have to watch the whole thing
| while they pin my eyelids open. And that's how I feel
| about using Windows or Mac OS.
|
| So to turn your original comment around, Windows and Mac
| OS can call me when they allow me to configure my system
| as I see fit, and not shove ads for their auxiliary
| services in my face every time I try to start a program
| or modify a setting.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I believe devices based on Lunar Lake (and the upcoming
| panther lake) can hit 12h battery life. Something with a
| 268V will be the fastest low power chip you can grab that
| will likely support linux.
|
| But I do wish there was a viable ARM laptop offering that
| supports linux.
| bitwize wrote:
| But here's the thing with Apple ARM processors. Each core
| in that M3 chip is _faster_ than the corresponding core in
| an x86 chip. _And_ it has unified memory, meaning that the
| CPU, GPU, and NPU all get access to the same RAM.
|
| So you can get long battery life, cool thermals, _and_
| superior performance _all in the same machine, at the same
| time_. It will take the rest of the industry years to catch
| up to what Apple has wrought.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| Given that this is your stance and demands for laptop
| hardware I have to assume that you have never once
| participated in the laptop market prior to the M1 releasing?
|
| That's the only way your unrealistic expectations make sense.
|
| Of course, people have been parroting that about Linux on
| laptops for over a decade. I never understood it, since I've
| never had any significant issues with Linux on my laptops.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Yes and I also had a flip phone before the iPhone came out
| and a 90 pound CRT before large CRTs got affordable.
|
| In fact my first computer was a 1Mhz Apple //e with 128KB
| of RAM.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| I'm not sure what your point is?
|
| You were ahead of the curve on displays and behind the
| curve on phones and I guess congrats on the 2e start, I
| had an early Mac.
|
| What does this have to do with the price of CPU cycles in
| clamshell PCs?
|
| You abstained until ARM because you could see the future
| and you knew that the specs you demanded we're gonna be
| available eventually?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| My point is that because something is acceptable before
| something else came along better doesn't mean it's
| acceptable now.
|
| Would you have been okay if Android phones had still been
| BlackBerry clones 7 years after the iPhone came out?
| xerox13ster wrote:
| I don't know what to say to that other than I pity that
| mindset.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| So I should still be using an Apple //e and an 80 pound
| CRT TV?
| xerox13ster wrote:
| Please be serious, that straw-man is clearly not my
| point. (I thought you said it was 90# of CRT)
|
| There's definitely a balance between the newest of the
| newest bleeding edge hardware that we could only have
| dreamed of five years ago, and still functional hardware
| from five years ago.
|
| Just like engineering is a balance between technical
| optimization and cost.
|
| Seems like your mindset is one that chooses optimization
| at any cost, which is pitiable.
|
| I bought an M3 when it was brand new but I also have a
| Dell XPS laptop that's running an Intel 8th GEN
| processor. Both have their uses, and the existence of the
| M3 does not make the Dell worthless or unacceptable.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| A 6 year old M1 MacBook Air that is still being sold new
| for $699 at Walmart is not "bleeding edge" and not
| expensive. Even the latest MacBook Air with 16GB RAM is
| $999.
|
| And a 27 inch CRT was between 70 and 100 pounds...
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Battery life was always better on Macs, along with a bunch
| of other things.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Apple did some OS optimizations. But the next to last x86
| laptop generation (the butterfly keyboard era) was really
| bad. The keyboards were bad and they had poor thermals
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Yes, those were far from perfect. Keyboards were
| horrible. Still superior in many other aspects.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| Yeah, but that's Mac, not Linux on Laptops of the era
| designed for Windows
| hecifato wrote:
| I remember battery life on my Late 2015 MBA was great for
| the time. It easily got through my post-secondary
| classes, 3-8 hours depending on the day, with leftovers.
| IIRC Apple claimed 12 hours of battery life. That was a
| significant improvement over the suggested 5 hours of my
| previous laptops.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Indeed nothing other than being the only device that
| dropped connections on some of my routers, no hardware
| video decoding no matter what tips from Linux forums I
| tried, OpenGL 3.3 when the card supported OpenGL 4.1....
|
| And when during 2024 I looked for a replacement after it
| died, I was so lucky that I got one with an UEFI that
| refused to load whatever distro I tried from SSD, while
| having no issues loading the same, if it was on external
| box over USB.
| iam-TJ wrote:
| "refused to load whatever distro I tried from SSD" sounds
| very much like a feature in AMI InsydeH2O firmware (and
| possibly others) where-by one has to manually "trust" the
| boot-loader file the boot menu entry points to. This
| doesn't seem to apply to Microsoft Windows boot loaders
| so I've always assumed the signing certificate is checked
| directly against the MS UEFI CA root rather than the
| intermediate 3rd party certificate that is used by
| Microsoft to sign distro shim files.
|
| I have kept a screenshot of the firmware setup for years
| to remind me where the option can be found; looking at it
| now:
|
| menu: Security > "Select UEFI file as trusted"
|
| That would bring up a file-chooser where one can navigate
| the files in the EFI System Partition and select the
| distro's initial boot-loader file. For example, for a
| Debian install it would either or both of:
|
| /EFI/debian/shimx64.efi /EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
| pjmlp wrote:
| No, because that wasn't even an option on that device.
| prezk wrote:
| Linux will run on most platforms, so just pick up a fast,
| lightweight laptop, and select a conservative power profile
| for longer battery life and less heat, and don't run
| 32-thread machine learning jobs on it.
|
| A 12-hour laptop battery life is a little bit of a red
| herring: yes, you can get it on efficient ultrabooks and
| MacBooks, with light use like web browsing or office work, on
| low brightness and minimal background apps. This is true on
| MacOS, Windows and Linux. The first two may be better at
| handling low power modes on hardware peripherals, but OTOH on
| Linux I have a better control over background tasks.
|
| I have an absolute trash travel laptop from last decade,
| running Fedora Linux, and it lasts for multiple days if I
| keep it mostly closed and just open it for whatever
| browsing/editing I need on the road.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| And how many laptops _running Linux_ are light, power
| efficient, fast, quiet with good battery life?
|
| My 16 inch M3 MacBook Pro runs 5 hours at 80% brightness
| doing development with my USB powered (video and power from
| one USB cord) portable monitor. The Mac battery is powering
| the monitor
|
| https://a.co/d/gHqpcs3
| prezk wrote:
| Pretty much every laptop on the planet will run Linux.
| Maybe your optics are tinted because you seem to be a Mac
| person, and Linux support for newer Macs has known issues
| with low power modes.
|
| I note how your 12+ hour claim was reduced to 5 hours
| when you actually put it to real work. It's still
| impressive, of course, but 5 hours aren't out of reach
| for Ryzen laptops either.
|
| BTW, I have a RISC-V platform with 8 1.6GHz CPUs that
| uses under 5W under full load; on your 100Wh battery it
| would last for 20 hours. It's not a complete system, and
| performance lags behind Apple/Intel CPUs, but I think in
| few years RISC-V may take a bite out of both.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| It's not "running Linux" that's the issue. It's running
| Linux and getting good battery lifez
|
| And a 1.6Ghz RISC V CPU isn't exactly "fast" in 2026 or
| even 2021.
|
| You noted that it was 5 hours _when powering a second
| monitor from its USB port_. Not just displaying video
| from the USB port, the monitor is getting power from the
| USB port.
|
| How long do you think your 5 hour laptop would last
| powering an external display - again not just video out,
| also supplying power?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I personally don't care about battery life, there are
| power outlets around everywhere I'll be more than several
| hours.
|
| Still, no one is getting that kind of battery life
| outside apple, just the way it is. If your existence
| revolves around battery life there's no substitute.
|
| But note, this thread is about replacing Windows, and
| Wintel does not do as well as Apple either. So this
| thread is off-topic.
| Rayosay wrote:
| 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, even though it isn't quite as fast because it is
| passively cooled, is easily fast enough that I've never
| noticed it feeling "slow", has good driver support in
| mainline Linux and Mesa (which took a few years to be fully
| worked out, but is there now), and it's readily available for
| a good price (on eBay).
| oliwarner wrote:
| Have you managed to get sleep states to work? I'd love mine
| but it never sleeps properly.
|
| Ubuntu but I'd change for sleep.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Why would anyone come back? Nobody is bothered by you having
| a device that you like, and nobody cares if you replace it.
|
| People without this particular 12 hour battery life
| requirement (which is quite niche, most of us live near
| plugs) are talking about what works for them.
| cocoto wrote:
| Battery life is the best selling point of MacBooks and the
| reason these are selling like crazy. I'm a full time Linux
| user and I'm even considering buying a macbook and running
| a Linux VM full time because of the battery.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Just to be clear this is entirely a response to what I
| have in the parentheses, right?
|
| Ok, perhaps it is not niche. I don't know. I have never
| had to use a laptop for 12 hours without any ability to
| recharge but if that's a common use case I'm happy that
| folks are finding a way to satisfy.
| rwyinuse wrote:
| I love my expensive Macbook at work, but at home old my old
| Thinkpad running Linux is a godsend. The performance is
| perfectly adequate for all my daily non-work needs, battery
| lasts several hours, and since the thing has little monetary
| value, I can be pretty careless with it, in an environment
| with small kids running around and doing random things. At
| this rate, I think it will last me well into 2030's.
|
| I'm not going to buy a new Macbook with my own money as long
| as I can't install Linux on it. I don't want perfectly fine
| machines to turn into e-waste, or at least become insecure
| once the original manufacturer decides not to offer OS
| updates anymore.
| wwweston wrote:
| Pre-lenovo or post? any particular model?
| tazjin wrote:
| Xiaomi, Honor and Huawei make ARM-based notebooks like that.
| The closest to your description is probably the Qingyun line
| of laptops.
| everdrive wrote:
| >is like using a flip phone 6 years after the iPhone came
| out.
|
| I was doing this and it was great. I only had to get a smart
| phone for work, and I hate the stupid thing.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Like the ThinkPad T14s or any other Snapdragon X Elite, or
| better? Apple chips _are_ great in this space but they 're
| not alone.
| faust201 wrote:
| One good thing is choice. You are free to use macOS or even
| windows.
|
| But this battery argument is bull shit
|
| 15 years ago it was so difficult to find charging points.
|
| Not now. I have never ever been in a situation the I needed
| to be away from charging for > 6 hours. 6-10 hours is really
| possible.
|
| If your working or life demands that then pity you. I have
| better life/work.
|
| And again choice. You are free to use macOS or even windows.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| My "work life" involves business travel - consulting.
|
| My personal life involves month long stints of me working
| outside the home and even at home, I am sometimes working
| on the patio enjoying 80 degree weather in the middle of
| winter in Florida...
| RiverCrochet wrote:
| Most of Linux's laptop woes is due to two things:
|
| A. ACPI which is a sprawling, overengineered mess created by
| Microsoft, Intel, and Toshiba, and
|
| B. ACPI-specific things like sleep and power being tested
| only for Windows
|
| B is a direct result of two things: 1) crappy outsourced
| firmware developers, and 2) Microsoft's 1990s strategy of
| disallowing OEMs from offering systems with other operating
| systems preinstalled.
|
| So, not really Linux's fault. If the interfaces that
| controlled all the laptop goodies were exposed as normal
| hardware (and documented) instead of gatekept behind ACPI
| methods that have to be written by firmware vendors that can
| often barely spell the menu options correct in the setup
| screens, then this issue would not exist.
|
| UEFI is ACPI's successor and carries on this legacy. It's
| disappointing that it's seeping into the ARM world.
| timschmidt wrote:
| > If the interfaces that controlled all the laptop goodies
| were exposed as normal hardware (and documented) instead of
| gatekept behind ACPI methods that have to be written by
| firmware vendors that can often barely spell the menu
| options correct in the setup screens, then this issue would
| not exist.
|
| > UEFI is ACPI's successor and carries on this legacy. It's
| disappointing that it's seeping into the ARM world.
|
| Arm (and Risc-V and other arches) Linux has
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devicetree instead of ACPI,
| which is better in that it declaratively documents the
| hardware in a system and how to access it. However, the
| hardware support which can be found in the Arm ecosystem is
| in no way better than that for x86 laptops. Many SoC
| manufacturers still don't put any effort into upstreaming
| drivers or device trees, many devices are still only
| supported by tossing a single release of a heavily patched
| kernel over the corporate wall and then forgetting about
| them.
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Just buy any modern Laptop? What you describe hasn't been an
| issue for at least ten years now.
| nhhvhy wrote:
| I recently switched to Debian on my laptop (Zephyrus G14)
| because it was the only way I could get it to NOT run into
| the problems you described. Went from ~2 hours of battery
| life to 10, and no more of the constant jet engine level fan
| activity I experienced with windows.
| bigfatkitten wrote:
| I was doing that on my Thinkpad X220 a decade ago.
| al_borland wrote:
| I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the
| VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering
| so few people have Vision Pro. The justification for bringing
| some iOS ideas to macOS made sense, because everyone knows how
| to use iOS and is familiar with those conventions.
|
| I'm curious if we'll see another major shift with the new deign
| lead, or if the higher ups will want to run with Liquid Glass
| for a while after so much investment, and not wanting to
| alienate users by radically changing design direction too
| often. Or if Liquid Glass is here to stay as long as we have
| Vision Pro, because VR/AR demand that style of UI, so
| everything else needs to fall in line for consistency's sake.
|
| I think I'd be more apt to switch to Linux if it wasn't for all
| the mobile integration macOS and iOS have. Giving that up is a
| tough sell. It also means finding new solutions for managing
| photos, music, notes, and a bunch of other things. I also
| struggle to find non-Apple hardware I find acceptable. I've
| used Linux on and off for over 20 years, and in the past few
| years is gotten to the point where I think I could daily drive
| it with little to no compromise, in a bubble. But mobile really
| bursts that bubble.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| KDE Connect
| layer8 wrote:
| It's not actually really the same as the visionOS design,
| merely inspired by it.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > I find it so odd that Apple put so much weight behind the
| VisionOS design, rolling it out to all platforms, considering
| so few people have Vision Pro.
|
| I suspect they began working on Liquid Glass before the
| Vision Pro was publicly unveiled, so they didn't know what
| the public response would be.
|
| What I honestly find more baffling is that they thought the
| Vision Pro would sell well. It just isn't a good product.
|
| Perhaps they're still banking on a future where the Vision
| Pro becomes a pair of real glasses. In which case, Liquid
| Glass _is_ the type of interface you 'd want to have.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I thought I saw various comments to the effect that the
| Vision Pro is just a developer thing to bootstrap the app
| ecosystem, a prelude to a real consumer product. But if
| that is the case I'm slightly confused as to why they
| aren't sharing more of their roadmap...
| 1over137 wrote:
| Since when does Apple share their roadmap of anything?
| They have been super-secretive for decades.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I mean, if this was the strategy, it has clearly failed,
| right? The Vision Pro doesn't have anything approaching a
| thriving app ecosystem.
|
| And if this was the strategy, I'd have expected to see
| that consumer product by now. It has been almost two
| years.
| bee_rider wrote:
| 100% agree.
| t43562 wrote:
| Even within the range of Linux distros there are some that feel
| more agenda-driven than others. That's the absolute wonder of
| it. One can sidestep the flamewars and just use another distro
| that suits likeminded people.
|
| On the other hand I think this makes it difficult to provide a
| perfect experience - you have to stay closer to the herd if you
| want trouble free computing. You have the choice.
| nwallin wrote:
| I think it's great that there are Linux projects where the
| people in the project are obviously unhinged fanatical
| idealists sent on a mission by god to do <whatever> in the
| One True Way. I wouldn't use any of those projects, but it's
| great that they exist, and sometimes their good ideas
| percolate out to projects that I do use.
|
| Like fine, they're gonna make a distro that only uses
| software under one of the FSF's free as in freedom copy-left
| open source licenses, not just excluding closed source
| software, but also binary blob device firmware and software
| distributed under one of those filthy permissive licenses.
| That's great. It's fucking _unusable_ , but it's awesome that
| it exists and it's great that they're doing it.
| herdymerzbow wrote:
| Curious to hear which good ideas had their origin in a
| distro run by fanatical idealists. Not asking for evidence
| to try and disprove you. Genuinely curious!
| blauditore wrote:
| >unify the look and feel of mobile and desktop
|
| Lol, that's what Microsoft tried 10+ years ago and everybody
| gave them shit for it, especially Apple fans. Now Apple is
| "inventing" this again.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Lots of Apple fans are giving Apple shit for it now too.
| josephg wrote:
| The new glass look is just so bad. It feels cheap, like a
| child's toy. And performance is worse as a result.
|
| I've turned it off on my phone, via the accessibility
| settings. But it's clear Apple doesn't test the UI layout
| much with the new glass look turned off. Lots of controls
| are subtly misaligned now. I regret updating.
|
| I have a Linux workstation. On Linux, nobody has the power
| to foist new ideas - good or bad - onto all users. All the
| arguing and bike shedding is one of Linux's big weaknesses.
| But it's also a huge strength. The desktop experience
| hasn't gotten worse over the last 20 years like it has on
| windows and macOS. Programs start more or less instantly,
| as they should on modern hardware.
| dunham wrote:
| > But it's clear Apple doesn't test the UI layout much
| with the new glass look turned off
|
| I turned it off and the keypad buttons for screen time
| passcode became white on white.
| snek_case wrote:
| Ubuntu also tried this with Unity. They were hoping that
| Ubuntu would become more popular on tablets if they had a
| more tablet-friendly UI... They imposed this on desktop users
| even though nobody asked for it and basically nobody used
| Linux on a tablet. It was kind of a disaster. Ubuntu is a
| commercial entity though, so yeah, prone to the same kind of
| bad management decisions. as Microsoft and Apple. At least
| with Linux you have options. Personally I just want Linux to
| keep becoming more reliable over time, and have better
| support for energy-saving features on laptops. It's sad that
| Ubuntu still has issues waking up from sleep mode in 2025.
| Somehow those problems haven't been fixed in 20 years.
| CarVac wrote:
| The thing is, Unity was great as a UI even on desktop. The
| main issue was poor performance early on.
| shevy-java wrote:
| I found it was horrible. It is similar to GNOME here - a
| design for tablets and smartphones. It simply does not
| work on the desktop computer.
| byproxy wrote:
| I use standard GNOME as my desktop environment and
| nothing about it feels like it was designed for tablets
| and/or smartphones. Not that it isn't capable of being
| used as such, but my desktop usage doesn't indicate that
| tablet/smartphone use-cases were the primary goal. Is
| GNOME even in wide use for those contexts?
| abacadaba wrote:
| ya i was a GNOME hater for a long time after the GNOME 3
| transition, switched between Mate and KDE for years. But
| gave up on those due to persistent video instability and
| went to vanilla Ubuntu GNOME and it's actually pretty
| nice. Not sure if it was good originally but I actually
| prefer it now.
| tombert wrote:
| In a bit of fairness to the haters, Gnome 3 used to have
| a lot of graphical glitches and was unstable in a lot of
| its early iterations, but I broadly agree with your
| characterization.
|
| I think if you actually give modern Gnome a chance (and
| actually make an attempt to _learn_ it), it 's actually a
| pretty slick desktop.
| tombert wrote:
| I disagree with this characterization.
|
| I don't run Gnome now (since I have more fun hacking on
| Sway), but I really don't think that the characterization
| of it being a "tablet desktop" is actually very fair. I
| found Gnome to be very productive, and actually extremely
| keyboard focused. Outside of a tiling window manager like
| Sway or i3, I actually have found it more keyboard-
| centric than any other desktop I've used.
|
| The reason I am harping on keyboard is because to me the
| keyboard is the signature differentiator between
| "desktop" and "tablet".
|
| I feel like everyone hated on Gnome because it was
| different. They tried it for ten minutes, didn't bother
| trying to actually learn how to use it, declared it as
| "shit", and moved on. I was one of those people.
|
| It wasn't until I decided to stick with Gnome for a few
| weeks (using the Antergos distro of Arch) that I came
| around, and now I find it to be the most productive of
| the "normie" desktops on Linux.
| marssaxman wrote:
| 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.
| drdec wrote:
| To me, the killer feature of Unity was the searchable
| application menus. Wish that was still a thing
| fao_ wrote:
| KDE supports this! It's called the "global menu", and has
| search built in. GTK app support is iffy, though
| dualogy wrote:
| 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, either..
| lossyalgo wrote:
| I also still have tons of issues waking from sleep mode on
| various PCs running Win10/11 so I wouldn't be so quick to
| label it an OS issue.
| whatevaa wrote:
| Yeah, it is a general PC thing. Steam deck sleeps
| perfectly, so it can be done properly, but manufacturers
| are lazy.
| tormeh wrote:
| I suspect that's an Nvidia problem. Never been an issue for
| me using AMD.
| spockz wrote:
| It's the only issue I have on my CachyOS install on an
| AMD 5900X+9070XT without additional peripherals. It seems
| like when I hit sleep it doesn't manage to fully enter
| sleep (illustrated by the power lights) and then never
| wakes up anymore until a hard power reset.
| kentonv wrote:
| I've had wake-from-suspend issues on plenty of non-nvidia
| machines, and I have had nvidia machines that have no
| issues.
|
| I think it has nothing to do with the GPU and everything
| to do with the motherboard chipset.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Keep in mind there's a whole class of touch screen laptops
| that did need to be serviced by Windows and Linux.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Honestly, forced to use a macbook for work and I get
| incredibly strong "windows 8" vibes from macos.
|
| Apple still has pretty incredible hardware, although it's
| definitely priced with that in mind - but the software has
| been a _constant_ slog. Change for change 's sake, needless
| shifting in settings/config menus. Weird "we tried to make
| this similar to mobile" themes in some places but not others.
| Overly complex os navigation, without clear goals or
| direction.
|
| Frankly - the OS apple is producing for their traditional
| computers feels like garbage. I use Arch/Gnome on my personal
| hardware and I feel like some time in the last 5ish years my
| opinion swapped - I used to think Gnome was mostly copying
| Apple design choices, but slightly worse. Now I think Gnome
| is just a more clear, more usable DE than what Apple is
| releasing. I moved my wife to Arch/Gnome on her personal
| laptop last year, and the sure sign was that she hasn't
| really had any problems with it.
|
| All that said... I still keep a laptop around with Windows 11
| on it, because I have a couple of legacy tools (CNCs, solar
| inverters) that still want it, and _holy shit_ is modern
| Windows just absolute trash. I grew up on Windows, from
| windows 3.1 to windows 10, and it 's the worst of the 3 by a
| good distance right now.
|
| You know something's gone wrong with commercial tech
| companies when the only OS that actually feels like it's
| intentionally designed for users is the free product.
| shinycode wrote:
| In what way does MacOS feels like garbage ? I use it
| everyday on a +5y MacBook and it's an absolute blast.
| Powered on for weeks without reboot, 3x4K 32inch screens,
| hundred of chrome pages and apps opened and it's all
| smooth. Ofc I don't even hear a fan but the software is
| amazing for me. It all works, all the time.
| halapro wrote:
| You can't seriously compare how inappropriate Windows 8 was
| on desktop to the latest macOS. Bad UI aside, the OS is
| effectively the same OS X from 2001 with some fresh skin.
|
| Also a lot of people hate on macOS changes, I myself did not
| upgrade to the latest version.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I guarantee that there is enough stuff from 2001 that won't
| work in Tahoe.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Actually, I think Tohoe is much worse!
|
| Windows 8 is fundamentally just Windows 7 with a full
| screen start menu. This is a dumb usability downgrade, but
| unless you went out of your way to install Metro apps, it
| wasn't such a big change. Your apps worked the same way
| they always had.
| debo_ wrote:
| Mac OS Touhou would probably be better received than Mac
| OS Tahoe.
| icedchai wrote:
| I'm still on Sequoia on both my Macs. I updated my iPad Pro
| to iOS 26, decided it was meh, and am not updating my
| phone. My iPhone is over 4 years old and figure the new iOS
| will run like crap on it and then I'll be forced to get a
| new phone.
| 20after4 wrote:
| > figure the new iOS will run like crap on it and then
| I'll be forced to get a new phone.
|
| Indeed, it does run like crap on older phones. You made
| the right choice. I don't feel forced to upgrade my phone
| but the new OS definitely drains the battery faster and
| feels slightly sluggish, making me regret the "upgrade."
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| What about the security update, especially for the phone
| ? There have been critical flaws patched recently.
|
| Agree that iOS 26 is trash and it empty my iPhone 13 mini
| battery in less time than I need to write it.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Except that GNOME Mobile is actually pretty close to
| achieving that right now, and runs quite well on any
| reasonably up-to-date mobile hardware if the kernel-level
| support is there.
| latexr wrote:
| Effectively no one is arguing Apple is "inventing" this, and
| tons of people--especially the most ardent Apple fans--hate
| this direction. Adoption of the 26 OSs is lower than others
| in recent memory. Even the comment you're replying to is
| critical of it.
|
| There are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticise Apple,
| especially under Tim Cook. Let's please not do this obvious
| rage bait where you fabricate that a group has a singular
| unified hypocritical opinion which is the opposite of what
| we're seeing just so you can hate on them.
|
| What even is the point? For the past twenty years, I have
| _never_ seen an Apple fan being as close to annoying as the
| haters are. Same thing with other groups like vegans: There
| are more people loudly proclaiming that vegans are annoying
| than there are annoying vegans in the world.
|
| Why must we keep defining ourselves by hating on others? As
| long as they're not causing harm, let people be. "Why are you
| so angry?"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExEHuNrC8yU&list=PLJA_jUddXv.
| ..
| barnabee wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember everyone _praising_ Apple for not
| following Microsoft and making iOS it 's own separate thing.
|
| It's totally mad that they're now trying to converge their
| two differentiated, successful, and (mostly) well-liked OSes
| with the new one they just made for a $3000 headset nobody
| bought and even fewer people use with any regularity.
| temporallobe wrote:
| They also seem to be reinventing Windows Vista (visually).
| bee_rider wrote:
| Windows is a bizarre product at this point; it is what the
| company is famous for, but it is small beans next to Azure,
| right?
|
| Nobody would get into the Operating System business to make
| money I think, the going rate is $0, subsidized by something
| (an ad company, a hardware company, or general kindness and
| community spirit).
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| No, Windows still has Windows tax, which is why I always
| choose "No OS" when buying a machine. MacOS/iOS/iPadOS were
| never for sale separately, so we can't judge the price.
| Android sure is subsidized though.
| g947o wrote:
| Android does have a cost. While the OS itself is free, any
| manufacturer that wants to put Play Store, which is almost
| every company outside China, needs to pay Google a license
| fee, which effectively pays for Android. Of course there
| are also ads everywhere in Android and Android apps that
| helps pay the bill.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| Wow, so the only OSs with no money in them are the FOSS
| ones. Makes sense, though.
|
| (No, at this point Android hardly counts as FOSS
| anymore.)
| gunalx wrote:
| Productivity and Cloud have a revenue of about 30B each while
| personal computing only was 13.5B (that includes windows Xbox
| and search + advertising) according to ms earnings report q4
| 25
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yep! That's what I was thinking of. It is a cloud hosting
| company that keeps some legacy software around for
| sentimental reasons.
| wvenable wrote:
| The only reason Azure is a success though is because of
| Windows. Maybe now it's so big that it can exist without
| Windows but Windows is the gateway into Azure. So many
| other companies would kill for a platform (aka Meta) and
| here Microsoft has one and is treating it poorly. In pure
| financial terms it makes sense but, as a business
| strategy, I think it's severely lacking.
| davkan wrote:
| I would imagine a significant portion of the cloud
| revenue is derivative of windows though. Whether that's
| lift and shift workloads or entra id which is picked over
| alternatives for its compatibility with existing windows
| and AD infrastructure.
| leptons wrote:
| If you want the "Home" version of Windows, you'll get ads and
| crap, but the cost will be free/low. If you don't want the
| ads and need a more professional setup, then you can pay for
| Windows "Pro" version. They also have server versions that
| cost a lot more, so yes, Microsoft can and does make money
| from their OS. No, it's probably not as much as they make
| from Azure now, but in the past it made them a lot of money.
| It's estimated Windows brings in ~$20 billion for Microsoft,
| which is nothing to balk at. Azure brings in ~$75 billion.
| $20 billion isn't "small beans" in this equation, it's
| substantial.
| Macha wrote:
| It's typical business logic. It's not enough to focus on making
| the product better than the user, you must have a "big" product
| vision and you're only allowed make changes that align with
| that product vision.
|
| So when that vision is something that users are ambivalent on
| (3D TV, AI operating system, etc...), well tough, that's still
| all they're getting until it hurts the company financially or
| the next executive has a different "big idea". :(
| 1over137 wrote:
| Commercial OSes (both Windows and macOS) are also both
| American, and lots of people are trying to de-Americanize.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| Yep, I'm in this boat. After years of macs my next will be a
| FreeBSD Desktop.
|
| edit: Although phone is much harder. I guess I'll just turn
| all the 'stuff' like icloud off, use only signal and my
| banking/etc apps, and get a separate camera.. Anyone found a
| less painful way to live without an iPhone/Android?
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| As someone who had been in the Apple ecosystem since
| Windows XP, it was difficult to lose that constant seamless
| interplay between my phone and computer. But honestly? The
| trade-off was worth it in the end. I'm 8mo into Linux-only
| desktop and man...it's great.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Look into KDE Connect1 - it provides some of that
| seamless experience. It even has some basic support for
| syncing between iOS and Gnome, but it's originally
| designed for seamless integration between Android and
| KDE's plasma desktop.
|
| 1. https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I use it some but it's just not the same. Very useful and
| well built don't get me wrong.
| barnabee wrote:
| GrapheneOS is not quite "without" Android but it's without
| what makes it bad (Google) and works fine for me. I hear
| LineageOS is ok too.
| touwer wrote:
| Fairphone with Graphene
| hans_castorp wrote:
| Graphene only runs on Pixel phones
| pjmlp wrote:
| However if we don't get something like SuSE desktops and
| laptops at Media Markt and friends, most people won't care.
|
| In fact I know of library that rolled back to Windows kiosk
| mode, from a previous SuSE deployment, because it wasn't what
| library users were expecting.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Yeah. The TechBros changed things globally. I can not support
| their Evilness, so I also need to get people to commit to
| having viable alternatives, e. g. improving LibreOffice to
| the point where the proprietary office suites from US
| corporations are no longer needed.
| anon291 wrote:
| Linux is also realistically American since the largest
| contributors are American corporations and the dictator for
| life lives on Portland oregon.
|
| America has a monopoly on software essentially.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| assumign this is arguing in good faith..
|
| the issue is not about it being american as it is america
| being in control of it. you don't get access to windows or
| mac os source code. You can however take the linux source
| code, fork it and make it yours. that "dictator for life"
| in portland can't stop you. nor can anyone else in the us
| government for that matter.
| 20after4 wrote:
| Not to mention that many of the most important open
| source events and organizations are based in Europe.
| luckylion wrote:
| But technically you can also do that with chromium and
| gecko, but it's a lot of work, so very few do. And those
| that do don't cut the line, they'll almost all still
| follow upstream and just apply their changes.
|
| So in the end, they're still dependent on the decisions
| made in the US. That doesn't need to be a problem, but I
| don't think "you can get the source code" really changes
| that.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| > but it's a lot of work, so very few do.
|
| sure but a nation state that takes digital sovereignty
| seriously could easily devote some resources towards
| maintaining their own fork. Thats the point. Hell, north
| korea has their own special linux distro
| 1over137 wrote:
| It doesn't much matter that Americans are the largest
| contributors, because you can still take it and change it
| however you want.
| stavros wrote:
| The question is which nation you'll have to depend on when
| you want a bug fixed. With OSS, the answer is "none".
| rrgok wrote:
| As if Linux was/is not agenda driven. People really forgot I
| guess.
| bee_rider wrote:
| By agenda-driven, I think they mean the commercial operating
| systems are designed with the intention of improving the
| uptake of other products and services by the companies that
| sell them.
|
| I think you are referencing something more like a political
| agenda. And Linux to some extent, GNU even more so _are_
| motivated by a political agenda: user empowerment. It is
| just... a good agenda.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| Obviously, you can't build something as complex as a modern
| operating system without intention, and therefore an "agenda"
| but I have a feeling you know what OP was getting at.
|
| I also know that the impulse to be a pedant is strong because
| I fight it every day, ha!
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| I turn on my computer, the desktop shows up...and that's it. No
| random windows, no popups about some bundled software I don't
| use or how my subscription for X service I don't want isn't
| activated. A chime and a blank screen. Bazzite made my computer
| _fun_ again.
| shevy-java wrote:
| I agree with you. Microsoft really has gotten bad in this
| regard. In the past, the operating system was kind of semi-
| useful. Now one has to wonder what the real agenda is. For me
| the quitting point was the recall-sniffing on everyone; I don't
| care if this can be disabled. To me it means that the USA wants
| to monitor me non-stop. That's a no go. (I was already using
| Linux before, so I don't depend on Microsoft anyway, but it now
| meant that I also need to stop using secondary computers with a
| Microsoft-tainted operating system. I can not trust the USA in
| any regard anymore with the TechBros in charge. They killed all
| goodwill and reputation.)
| themafia wrote:
| > and ensuring they don't fumble the ai/agent transition
|
| They've already fumbled it.
|
| > the way they did with mobile.
|
| It's the exact same way they fumbled with mobile. They were
| very late to the party and decided to buy their way in. It
| _never_ works.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| MS was almost two decades early to the mobile party, and
| still fumbled it. Because they didn't have the usability
| insights around touchscreens that others pioneered.
|
| Also could never name things--they named it Wince.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| Windows has evolved into the world's highest security risk.
| MacOS feels like Eye Candy due to its increasingly inaccessible
| price for people with low resources. So, price and security are
| the reasons why I switched to Linux.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Windows has evolved into the world's highest security risk.
|
| It has always been.
| SilentM68 wrote:
| That unfortunately is true, for the most part. Whether this
| is due to financial reasons or for lack of engineering best
| practices, I can't say. All I can say is that, switching to
| Linux has led to significantly less cost, technical or
| spyware issues, not counting the issues which I created out
| of ignorance.
| derrheat wrote:
| Getting a macbook is cheaper than it has ever been. You can
| get a new m4 macbook air for around 750 on amazon. The prices
| of apple laptops have been dropping every year despite
| inflation in the rest of the economy....
| SilentM68 wrote:
| Yes, prices have gone down over the years, but still
| unaffordable by people who can afford less.
|
| Don't get me wrong, MacOS graphics, aesthetics, GUI, are
| awesome and I like its consistency but there are cons, too.
|
| They typically have a higher upfront cost, limited
| upgrades, fewer ports/software options, repair challenges.
|
| For comparisons, I purchased an Acer Helios 300, three or
| four years with the following specs:
|
| The Acer Predator Helios 300 Processor: Intel(r) Core(tm)
| i7 Memory: 16 GB RAM Storage: 512 GB SSD Display: 15.6"
| Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS ComfyView Graphics: NVIDIA(r)
| GeForce RTX 20xx.
|
| I upgraded the machine's drives, to three, run Windows on
| the 500GB SSD drive, Linux on a 2TB M.2 drive and have a
| 4TB storage drive.
|
| This is not something that I could do on a MacOS without a
| significant price upgrade. As such, I would say that MacOS
| is restrictive as far as hardware upgrade, and price. It's
| just Eye Candy for most people.
| hollerith wrote:
| >price and security are the reasons why I switched to Linux
|
| What measures do you take to insulate yourself from desktop
| Linux's really bad security?
| SilentM68 wrote:
| Ha, I have nothing on my machine that anyone would want.
| Yes, my life is that boring. So no, I keep nothing of
| importance in the drives, just old memories.
|
| Out of the box, I've experienced less spyware-related
| issues with Linux. I have enabled UFW, installed ClamAV,
| closed or blocked communication with some ports. But for
| the most part, I've not had the same problems that had
| caused system and browser infections. If anything, the
| badly designed hardware of the machines and systems that
| I've built tend to cause the problems, for the most part,
| not to mention my own stupidity. If I do begin to
| experience, spy or adware-related issues, I suppose I could
| look into something like this: https://github.com/pi-
| hole/pi-hole
|
| Though if things got to the point where I'd need more
| protection, I'd think about the following:
|
| -Keep system and software updated. -Enable firewall (e.g.,
| UFW). -Use strong passwords and MFA. -Install from trusted
| sources only. -Encrypt disks (e.g., LUKS). -Use SELinux or
| AppArmor. -Sandbox apps with Flatpak/Wayland. -Install
| antivirus like ClamAV. -Disable unnecessary services.
| -Monitor logs and use tools like OpenSnitch. -Switch to
| CubesOS (qubes-os.org) but I'm not that paranoid, yet :)
|
| I'm just not too tech savvy, but honestly if anyone had
| enough knowledge, they'd probably could get into my system.
| That being said, though I consider Linux to be more secure
| than Windows, no system is 100% secure, in my view.
| nailer wrote:
| I'm stuck in a world of AirDrop and expecting my phone to know
| the Wi-Fi password on my laptop, so I'm not gonna leave MacOS
| but it absolutely does suck. It used to be that Spotlight file
| finding was broken, but as of the last today Finder file
| finding is broken too. This is on multiple new Macs.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Mac feels like it is constantly trying to sell you on their
| cloud services. A few times a day it will tell me that I
| haven't backed up to the cloud.
|
| Windows is strangely less direct, but will regularly
| automatically try to save something to onedrive and force a
| subscription. Plus, it is just full of ads and nonsense.
| ElCapitanMarkla wrote:
| Ugh it annoys me so much that the desktop etc is all in one
| drive without me setting it that way. But then there is still
| a desktop/documents directory in the usual spot under your
| profile, just the files don't appear if you actually look at
| the desktop.
| dana321 wrote:
| Windows 10 and Sequoia are the last two versions before the
| complete and utter enshittification of these operating systems.
| curious_riddler wrote:
| I would gladly move to Linux from macOS if only I could get the
| same energy efficiency on the arm MacBooks.
| p4coder wrote:
| How do you do taxes in Linux? Install a windows VM? I don't want
| to use the web version. With Google docs being good enough, I
| don't really need windows for anything else. Last time I checked,
| the tax software didn't run under wine.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| Where do you need windows to do your taxes? Is this a US thing?
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I hope not because I've been doing my US taxes on Linux for
| 15 years.
|
| It's probably a specific windows desktop app, probably
| TurboTax by intuit, the company that lobbies to make filing
| your taxes hard and to destroy any free simple government app
| to file taxes.
|
| So, not sure why they'd complain about not being able to help
| shoot their foot off but we all have preferences. :shrug:
| sylens wrote:
| TurboTax has had a great browser-based version for over a
| decade now
| p4coder wrote:
| Yes, it is the unfortunate reality of the US. You either fork
| over all your data to tax preparation companies on the web or
| pay them to use windows/MacOS software. There is still paper
| filing by doing taxes by hand, but that's a bit too
| inconvenient. Free online filing is restricted to $89k annual
| income.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| What tax software are you running? Basically all of the tax
| software for individuals is a browser-based SaaS.
| bikelang wrote:
| In years that my taxes are simple - I open up my browser and go
| to FreeTaxUSA. In years that my taxes are complex - I pay a
| CPA. What do you use?
| bee_rider wrote:
| Personally I'm fine using the web version. If you arbitrarily
| cut out solutions, you will be sure to find unsolvable
| problems.
| pjmlp wrote:
| 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.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Who knows, it's 2026 now.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yeah, and still it isn't the Year of Linux Desktop for 90% of
| the world, unless it is hosted on a VM.
|
| Being generous with Steam hardware survey numbers for
| GNU/Linux.
| osamagirl69 wrote:
| There have been leaps and bounds of progress in the last few
| years. Youtube hardware acceleration works perfectly in
| chrome/firefox now (assuming you have working video drivers).
|
| As far as I know netflix still limits you to 720p under most
| browsers (although their support page shows that opera of all
| things supports 1080p)
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I watch Freetube and Netflix on my Starlite tablet and it works
| well. Works on the laptop too, though I don't watch there.
|
| libva is usually installed these days but you can install it
| manually. For Netflix you'll need to install widevine.
| antennafirepla wrote:
| For not much prior research, he sure has done a lot of prior
| research to even know about desktop environments or bootloaders
| compared to your average windows user. This article read like
| every other promising Linux is user friendly and easy, then
| proceeding with the author fixing issues the average user
| wouldn't be able to even diagnose.
|
| I think anyone technically savvy enough to follow the article is
| already aware Linux is a viable primary OS, the question is can
| you manage it without having to become a Linux nerd? I want to be
| able to tell normal people they can use Linux.
| freedomben wrote:
| If you get someone to help you with the installation, or buy a
| pre-installed Linux, then yes I believe this to be true. I only
| have anecdotal evidence, but I have my dad who is very non-tech
| savvy who after about a day with gnome actually said it's the
| first desktop environment that he liked more than Windows 95.
| There has been one time in 5 years that he had to reach out for
| technical assistance. It turned out that he had been misled by
| a prompt to buy Ubuntu pro and had gotten into a weird state. I
| blame that one solely on canonical, not on Linux in general.
| After that I switched him to Fedora, and he's been running that
| now for a few years and didn't even realize I had changed his
| underlying OS. He is able to install anything he wants from the
| graphical storefront, and same with updates. In the early days
| we did have some trouble getting his printer to work, though
| once we switched him to Fedora everything on that printer
| worked out of the box. When my sister came over to his house
| with her MacBook, she had to mess with the Mac to get the
| printer working for over an hour, and it was still pretty hit
| or miss. It would lose half the jobs she tried to send to it.
| It truly is remarkable how usable Linux is for the average
| person now. For people that have to run software that only runs
| on Windows or Linux, excluding games of course since steam and
| other game managers handle those wonderfully now, there is
| definitely still a bit of pain. But for people who can get by
| with cloud-based or Linux friendly software, it's really quite
| good.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| My sister was the same, she brought her machine over, I
| booted a Ubuntu disk and did the disk config in the install
| and then she set the rest of the stuff up and I haven't heard
| from her about it for 5 years, other than that I check if
| she's still using it now and again.
| philistine wrote:
| Printers. It always haunts us. I have exclusively bought
| Brother for home and work for close to two decades at this
| point because they follow CUPS standards requiring no
| fidgeting, and their modern offerings all have AirPrint,
| which eliminates the need for drivers. It's 2026, and the
| normies still think you cannot print from your phone because
| printers suck so much.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Hey, we should be thankful that printers suck. Wasn't this
| whole journey kicked off by Stallman getting frustrated
| with printer drivers?
| ipsi wrote:
| Even then - I have a reasonably nice Brother
| Printer/Scanner/etc device, and I could _never_ get
| AirPrint to reliably work until I switched over to using
| Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi. Something to do with it going to
| sleep and not broadcasting the necessary mDNS stuff, IIRC.
| I couldn 't find any combination of settings in the printer
| to make it happy, and since it's now right next to a
| switch, it's not really worth the effort of digging any
| further.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > after about a day with gnome actually said it's the first
| desktop environment that he liked more than Windows 95.
|
| You have to choose that?
|
| I'm a long-time Linux user, and I don't like GNOME better as
| a desktop environment. I'll take a Windows 95-like desktop UI
| over GNOME any day of the week...
| rav3ndust wrote:
| > but I have my dad who is very non-tech savvy who after
| about a day with gnome actually said it's the first desktop
| environment that he liked more than Windows 95.
|
| more anecdotes, but I had the same experience with getting my
| mother in law on Linux. she is 75, and hadn't used a computer
| since her old job, and she used Windows XP, i believe she
| said, there. a couple of years ago, she wanted a bigger
| screen device to use for her internetting since her eyesight
| isn't what it used to be (her primary computing device was
| always her Android phone otherwise). my wife and I got her a
| thinkpad t440p, set her up with Debian GNOME, showed her how
| to use the Software Centre and install her stuff and update
| the machine, and off she went. haven't had a call to fix
| anything at all. she says she likes the experience better
| than the computers she remembers using at work running
| Windows.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| *GASP* OH NO THEY MIGHT LEARN A SKILL!!!!
|
| Snark aside, I really really don't understand the aversion,
| even within the tech community, to learning new skills
| especially as it pertains to Linux.
|
| Would having new knowledge be such a burden? Why is it
| something to avoid? Why is it not a good thing if normal people
| learn more about computing?
|
| Do we want a population of iPad baby Linux users? Normal people
| can use it now, don't gate keep.
|
| We have people going "I don't have to read, I could just have
| the AI do it for me" and pretty soon they're not gonna be able
| to think. People don't want to think or learn because we have
| such a cultural aversion to being a nerd. Nerd is not a bad
| thing.
| erikon wrote:
| Because although sometimes annoying, people already have a
| good alternative making the hours required to invest in
| something they're not interested in a very high price.
|
| It's the same reason why as a software developer I use Visual
| Studio Code and don't plan to learn (neo)vim.
|
| I (like many who'd have to learn Linux) have better things to
| do.
| xerox13ster wrote:
| You simply dismissed or forgot the learning you did to use
| Visual Studio Code.
|
| Regardless of how much learning you did you still had to
| learn how to use it.
|
| Just trying to short-circuit that logic and show you that
| it cuts both ways and that we should be willing to learn
| new tools.
| erikon wrote:
| That is true, but you can't deny the fact one tool has a
| significantly steeper learning curve. They are not the
| same.
| retsibsi wrote:
| Partly, the issue isn't "they would have to learn about
| Linux, and that's bad", it's "they would have to learn about
| Linux, and they wouldn't want do that, and so they would get
| frustrated and quite likely give up on it, and my
| recommendation would have been a waste of their time".
|
| The other part is that they're not necessarily wrong not to
| want to learn about Linux! Learning is great, when it's
| something interesting or valuable. But if I'm not interested
| in the thing, and my time and mental resources are limited,
| and I have a good enough alternative, I think it's absolutely
| fine to avoid it.
|
| Most of us choose to drive a car that just works, and take it
| to a mechanic when it doesn't, rather than buying one that
| requires and rewards tinkering. Maybe you're into cars, I
| don't know, but I bet you take this attitude to at least
| _some_ of the useful objects in your life.
| otherme123 wrote:
| > Most of us choose to drive a car that just works, and
| take it to a mechanic when it doesn't, rather than buying
| one that requires and rewards tinkering.
|
| You can also bring your Linux machine to the mechanic. The
| only difference is that we linux users are also the
| mechanics.
|
| My mother only wants a browser and a mail client, maybe a
| word processor from time to time. I installed Fedora, and
| the thing is still working after 5 years or so. I ssh into
| the thing once a month to do a "dnf update", she doesn't
| even notice. After initial setup, no more tinkering ever
| needed.
| whatevaa wrote:
| Because you maintain it for her.
| throwaway2046 wrote:
| It should be a choice, not a requirement. With Windows you
| can get your work done without knowing much about Windows
| itself, but with Linux you're forced to understand every
| level of the entire OS so you can debug it first and then
| maybe get your work done. For an OS built around user freedom
| Linux sure doesn't give its users much choice on how to use
| it.
| simion314 wrote:
| Windows is worse , just latest example: a USB WiFi antenna for
| the PC, on Linux it just works, on Windows you need either to
| buy a CD drive to install the drivers - not sure if your
| grandma can buy a cd drive, install it and install drivers. On
| Linux it just works.
|
| People like buy a computer and use whatever is on it, they
| can't manage to install windows, the drivers needed for the
| hardware, I had to setup emails, or other online accounts for
| this kind of people so give them a preinstalled Linux and they
| should manage,.
| jama211 wrote:
| You would never use the cd lol, it would auto install - and
| if it didn't you'd download the drivers online though if it's
| such a piece of junk as to need that then it's a junk piece
| of hardware anyway.
| redeeman wrote:
| hardware that doesnt have builtin drivers to windows are a
| piece of junk? i think you'll find thats most hardware then
| leptons wrote:
| You are hilariously wrong. Seriously, what century are
| you living in? It's been a _very long time_ since I had
| to install a specific driver for any piece of hardware on
| Windows, and I go through _a lot of hardware_. Every
| piece of hardware I had is automatically installed and
| configured without any hassle whatsoever.
| simion314 wrote:
| >You would never use the cd lol, it would auto install -
| and if it didn't you'd download the drivers online though
| if it's such a piece of junk as to need that then it's a
| junk piece of hardware anyway.
|
| Sure, sure , so all hardware that does not autoinstall on
| Windows directly without a driver or internet is junk.
| AFAIK Windows can't install the correct nvidia or AMD
| drivers and you need to use special steps to prepare a
| windows install USB since the installer for some reason
| starts from the stick but doe's not have the drivers to
| complete the installation from the stick
| whatevaa wrote:
| Nowadays these things contain a hidden storage partition to
| install a driver.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Linux is a lot more user-friendly than Windows, with generally
| useful error messages when things go wrong.
|
| How do you fix Windows when it breaks every couple of weeks and
| the only information you get is a bright blue screen with a
| couple of lines of hexadecimal on it?
| jama211 wrote:
| I don't think you've used windows in 20 years by the sounds
| of it
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You run memtest86 to rule out a RAM issue, then check with
| your system reseller or mobo vendor for BIOS mitigations for
| the latest round of Intel CPU bugs. If you are able to rule
| out the RAM and CPU, try a different power supply. Failing
| that, the motherboard itself may be causing the issue.
|
| Unfortunately there are few good ways to narrow down
| intermittent hardware failures (which is what you are
| experiencing) beyond these common steps.
| jama211 wrote:
| Well said. There's a lot of angry comments below but it's all
| people who don't want to deal with these hard truths.
| mkozlows wrote:
| What's funny is, the author is only having these questions
| because they chose a wacky Arch-based ultra-techie distro that
| I'd never even heard of.
|
| If they'd just installed normal Ubuntu or Fedora, they wouldn't
| even know what a bootloader was, and they'd just use whatever
| desktop environment (probably GNOME, maybe KDE) came with it.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| For real. I should write a blog post about my expierience but
| it would only be like 2 sentences. "Hey! I switched to Linux.
| I bought a desktop from System76 and it all just worked."
| barbs wrote:
| My Dad managed to install linux (Q4OS) on his computer in a
| dual-boot setup, having never even touched Linux before. He
| hasn't asked me for help once, whereas historically I've been
| his tech support when he was running Windows. He's loving the
| linux experience.
|
| I believe if my Dad is able to install, use and benefit from
| Linux, anyone can.
| rubymamis wrote:
| There's no soul in major OSes these days - Windows is a big
| bloatware and macOS's aesthetics is the result of design for the
| sake of the design instead of any practical use. No wonder we're
| seeing this sentiment for an alternative growing.
| Kapura wrote:
| I installed a dual boot on my gaming machine last year when the
| Win10 support ended, and I have also had basically no issues.
| Something something HDR in certain video games is the biggest
| complaint I have, which is not all that important and will be
| higher priority for developers in future as more gamers leave the
| sinking Windows ship.
|
| Microsoft has really, really fucked up windows 11, and ultimately
| abandoning it is the only recourse the consumers have.
| greenavocado wrote:
| If you need Windows these days just install virt-manager and load
| the version of Windows you need.
|
| It's really fast and lightweight (my laptop stays cold at idle
| while running the Windows VMs) with all the HV enlightenments for
| good computational efficiency.
|
| Installing and using the virtio drivers is key for many useful
| features such as memory ballooning, fast networking with low
| computational overhead, and virtiofs which is used to mount a
| virtual drive in the Windows guest in a way that it's not a
| "network" drive.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| How does this work compared to VirtualBox?
| iwanttocomment wrote:
| I hadn't run desktop Linux in several years now. (I've run it
| server-side for decades.)
|
| Out of the increasingly loud outpouring of support for desktop
| Linux over the past year, I went ahead and installed some distros
| to get back in on the action. I came to four conclusions:
|
| 1) You can play games on desktop Linux now other than Tux Racer.
| Cool!
|
| 2) There's less weird X11-wrangling. Thank god.
|
| 3) It's otherwise still pretty much the desktop Linux I've always
| known and felt mildly annoyed by.
|
| 4) The current versions of Windows and macOS have gotten to be so
| unbelievably annoying for no good reason that a mildly improved
| desktop Linux now actually seems far less annoying than the
| mainstream options do.
|
| Good job, Microsoft and Apple, for giving us the year of
| retreating in disgust to the Linux desktop.
| einpoklum wrote:
| ... and considering the GTK file picker we still have to live
| with, that's saying something.
| bigyabai wrote:
| File pickers are an XDG standard, you can replace it whenever
| you want: https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-
| portal/docs/doc-org.fr...
| fpauser wrote:
| I switched from Windows to Linux ~20 years ago because and never
| came back to Windows. First years I used Ubuntu and experimented
| with Xubuntu, Lubuntu etc. Later went to Fedora Linux with Gnome
| Desktop which is still my preferred Linux Distribution. Nice to
| see so many people thinking about free and open alternatives to
| big tech!
| kbrkbr wrote:
| I switched 25 years ago.
|
| Still, every computer I buy comes with Microsoft tax and their
| OS preinstalled. In all these years I always left a small
| Windows partition, in case I need it. Never booted it.
| 0xperke wrote:
| For all who switched to Linux: which distro did you choose and
| why?
|
| Fedora: wanted to have the newest kernel and updates due to new
| hardware - so far i am really satisfied; the only issue i have is
| that the printer does not work everytime... as a workaround i
| print with my iphone instead.
| while_true_ wrote:
| Debian stable with KDE Plasma. Plasma is similar in feel to Win
| 10, but far more customizable. It's the first Linux desktop
| I've used that feels professional and polished. Short video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ6bojRSIw0
| karussell wrote:
| The printer also was my reason I picked Ubuntu over Arch /
| Endeavour OS :)
|
| I don't want to tweak hours and Ubuntu was so far always a no
| brainer. At some point, probably 5 years ago after they
| switched to GNOME Shell, I even stopped switching the desktop
| manager and kept using the default one.
| vlod wrote:
| PopOS is what I've picked (using it ~6 years). Their new
| distribution is called Cosmic (Wayland). They've moved away
| from Gnome to a rust based Iced.
| undyingtrillion wrote:
| I also use Fedora only because it seems like Debian's nvidia
| driver installation is a big pain, Fedora made it as easy as
| Ubuntu.
| davemo wrote:
| I swapped to Bazzite on my gaming rig (5800x3D, 64gb DDR4, 4080
| Super 16gb) and it's been fantastic. I tried going with Omarchy
| for a bit to try and have that machine do double duty as a
| dev/gaming machine, but I felt like the gaming experience on
| Omarchy is a second-class citizen compared to what the Bazzite
| experience is optimizing for, and I realized that the Hyprland
| setup and tiling window manager adds a lot more friction for my
| normal gaming needs. (I just want to have a few Path of Exile 2
| windows open to tab between while gaming, and the tiling window
| setup in Omarchy had me hitting more hiccups between fullscreen
| and windowed mode than I care to troubleshoot on my gaming
| rig).
|
| Immutability in OS updates is also something I didn't know I
| needed until I experienced it on Bazzite; pretty advantageous
| as a gamer using Linux with nVidia hardware these days.
|
| This is my second go around on Bazzite, YMMV but I opted for
| Gnome over KDE this time and have had zero issues running the
| games I am into (WoW, PoE2) and no funky window management
| issues that I seemed to run into with KDE.
|
| I'm considering a move to a Framework machine in the very near
| future, and still need to settle on a distro for dev; most of
| that is done on an M3 Max Macbook these days.
| cagey wrote:
| Pop!OS (22.04) nearly 2 years ago, after having read generally
| favorable reviews on HN and getting a sense of
| "monernity/stability/mainstream'ness of Ubuntu without snap and
| with closer-to-leading-edge kernels" on an Asus Vivobook 17 (my
| daily personal/WFH driver).
|
| Later (on repurposed low-spec Chromebooks, then on newer
| deployments just because I came to like it) Crunchbang++ (12,
| then 13) which is Debian-based.
|
| I avoid printing like the plague, and keep a long-remaining-AUE
| Chromebook around almost solely for its ability to WiFi-print
| to our aging Brother laser printer.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| CachyOS KDE. My first time using Arch family after meant years
| of Debian and some Fedora. Honestly fedora is great, and I
| wanted to try something new.
|
| You know what's fun? Being able to change system fonts, which
| you can't do on Windows.
|
| I'm using the IBM Plex fonts and they are so good looking.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| edit: after "many" years.
|
| What are peoples' thoughts on which style of distro is best
| to hand over to a non-techie user for the least amount of
| hand-holding?
|
| I re-install so much that I don't know how easy it is, or how
| the distros prompt, when something like Debian Stable or
| Fedora need to update to the next version. With Arch, you
| constantly get the "updates ready" and it is always fresh.
| dmit wrote:
| NixOS. Had prior Linux experience, so wasn't too worried about
| learning multiple new major paradigms in parallel. Also had
| been running a lil' NixOS server for half a year before that,
| so I could carry over most of my configuration.nix from there,
| and also the safe feeling of knowing that if I do mess up
| stuff, I could with very high probability just reboot to a
| previous generation and have everything back to working exactly
| the same as before.
|
| Edit: the two configuration.nixen has since been merged in a
| single dotfiles repo, which also covers my Macbook via
| https://nix-darwin.org.
| lunar_rover wrote:
| Started with Debian 10 GNOME, switched to KDE 5 for its
| features, went back because of the design issues(KDE 6 is much
| better). After a few years I switched and settled on Fedora
| Silverblue.
|
| With rpm-ostree automatic updates are so reliable it's a set
| and forget experience.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Fedora 43 with KDE. It's almost perfect.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Gentoo with KDE plasma, because I can :)
|
| I don't really recommend this route, but I will say that the
| experience has been pretty great. Once setup the regular
| maintenance is just boring update commands. Most days, it's a
| less than 1 minute affair to get everything compiled and up to
| date.
|
| Arch would be a pretty equivalent experience as would be using
| bin packages with gentoo.
| nineteen999 wrote:
| I guess i've never really "switched" - I've always used Linux
| desktops together with Windows desktops - each to the strengths
| that they are good at it. And this goes back to the late
| 1990's. There are times I've used more than the other.
|
| But yes Fedora - I have traditionally worked on "Enterprise"
| Linux where RHEL is the standard, so I track Fedora for
| bleeding edge development work and target EL for "production".
|
| Don't get me wrong I'm just as comfortable on Debian systems or
| even building Linux-from-scratch type systems but I really
| don't have a day to day use case for Linux distributions
| outside of Fedora/Redhat, they cover all my needs.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Mint because I am a filthy casual. I love Mint. It has been
| smooth sailing for the past 4 years running it on a 2019 Dell
| X5. Part of why I lack any motivation to get a new machine is
| because it still runs very smooth with Mint.
|
| I plan on getting a new machine in the near future. Then I'll
| use my old Dell as a testing ground for other Distros. Was
| thinking of testing Tumbleweed first.
| leptons wrote:
| I started with Ubuntu but had some problems installing
| software. Then I moved to Mint and it stuck with me. I
| converted 6 virtual machines from Windows to Mint Linux, and
| it's been great.
|
| I then moved my main server that runs the VMs from Windows to
| Linux Mint, and that went far better than expected, basically
| no problems at all. I had two LSI x8 SAS RAID cards, each
| running an 8 disk RAID 10 array. Moving over to Linux there
| was nothing to do except plug them in, and they just worked.
| No drivers to install. I did have to find a copy of the
| management software, but that runs exactly the same as it did
| on Windows.
|
| The last VM I have is running a somewhat complex IIS web
| server setup that I have to move over to Linux, and I haven't
| had the time to dig in on that yet, but I will do it this
| year.
|
| The last system I have on Windows is my laptop/workstation.
| It doesn't behave that well on Linux with my 3 displayport
| monitors, and a few other things. I have it dual-booting to
| Mint, so I will keep trying. There's really not much software
| that I need that only runs on Windows (I do not play any
| games).
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > There's really not much software that I need that only
| runs on Windows (I do not play any games).
|
| This is the main barrier for most people, I reckon.
|
| I mostly play on consoles nowadays, but I recognize that
| games are important as they bring the masses. If gaming on
| Linux becomes important, the rest will follow.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Kubuntu. I wanted the compatibility of Ubuntu, but not the
| horrible UI.
|
| It's not without its problems, though:
|
| Snaps completely bork the system, so you need to remove snap
| entirely on Kubuntu (good riddance anyway - snaps are a
| plague).
|
| Idle suspend is flaky. Sometimes it won't come back. Better to
| just disable it.
|
| Sometimes the machine just freezes up. Either it completely
| freezes, or the mouse slows down to 1fps with the entire
| movement queued up (move the mouse and it'll go exactly where
| you told it to, over 2-3 minutes).
|
| WIFI was a nightmare, but I switched to ethernet so it's not an
| issue for me anymore (desktop machine).
|
| Bluetooth is iffy. I just switched to wired speakers.
|
| On the plus side, AI works great!
| Jigsy wrote:
| Originally started with Xubuntu 22.04, but switched to Mint at
| the start of March last year since it (Xubuntu) was going to
| EoL.
|
| Mint does everything I need it to, so there's no need for me to
| hop.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I switched fully to Linux about four years ago. I chose
| Kubuntu. I had previously used Linux Mint for quite a while,
| but on a computer that wasn't my main one. I downloaded some
| ISOs and tried out a few distros in VMs.
|
| I definitely find KDE the most appealing. I'm one of these
| people who feels like desktop UI pretty much peaked around
| Win98 or Win2000, and KDE more or less lets me have that
| experience. It's customizable and works well. It has occasional
| problems and annoyances, but over time I find they're
| comparable in magnitude to what I had with Windows.
|
| It always seems like Ubuntu has the best compatibility with
| stuff overall, in the sense that anything that has a Linux
| version will almost always explicitly say they support Ubuntu.
| I looked at some other KDE-based distros but Kubuntu seemed
| like the safest choice. I had used Linux Mint KDE in the past
| and was bummed to see it go away; if that still existed I might
| well have chosen it.
|
| Notably, I had attempted to switch to Linux several years
| before (around 2014), but wound up going back to Windows
| because I just encountered too many gotchas. But things were
| much smoother this time. The main reason I switched was because
| I felt Windows 10 was getting too intrusive and user-hostile,
| and also no longer made it easy for me to get the "Windows
| classic" look and feel that I wanted. I'm glad I switched when
| I did, because since then those trends have become even more
| pronounced; I'd probably be pulling my hair out if I were using
| Windows now. I still have a Win10 VM for situations where I
| need Windows, but I rarely use it.
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Debian. Rock solid, dependable. If you need new features, use
| backports.
| MrDresden wrote:
| Switched back in 2009 and back then Ubuntu was the easiest to
| get running.
|
| And I've stuck with it ever since while trying Fedora, Arch and
| a few others along the way.
|
| I guess it just works for me, know my way around the tooling
| and can use that knowledge on my Debian servers.
| wnevets wrote:
| WSL and Windows Terminal has done a fantastic job at delaying my
| move to Linux as my primary desktop but Microsoft seems hellbent
| on ruining Windows.
| nchmy wrote:
| This was my stance for the past couple years, but I moved to
| Linux (PopOS) 3 months ago because wsl2 kept crashing from OOM
| (even though I had allocated excess ram). I kept having to
| manually manage my memory usage by choosing which apps,
| containers etc to run.
|
| There's nuisances in popos, but I am generally thrilled.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Even Microsoft often doesn't use its own servers for critical
| infrastructure.
|
| It is a fools errand. =3
| lifetimerubyist wrote:
| I replaced Windows with Linux about 6 months ago. Then I ran into
| a game I really wanted to play but it didn't run well with Proton
| (not kernel anti-cheat, just bad performance) after all the
| tweaks so I just reserved to dual booting with Windows 10.
|
| After not using Windows for so long, I came to realize that
| Windows is just as much a mess as Linux just in different ways.
| You get used to the quirks so you don't notice them after a while
| but they are definitely there.
|
| _Most_ of my games work just fine or even better on Linux. Some
| of my older games don't even work on Windows that work perfectly
| under Wine /Proton which is truely miraculous. The Wine team and
| Valve have made some incredible contributions to the preservation
| of games on PC, it can't be understated.
|
| So I daily drive Linux and play those handful of games on
| Windows, and I'll probably stay this way for now and try the
| proton situation again in a few years.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| > Then I ran into a game I really wanted to play but it didn't
| run well with Proton
|
| Out of curiosity, which game?
|
| I promise I am not asking as a gotcha. Just genuinely curious.
|
| I don't play many new games on PC (normally I play recent games
| on consoles). What I play on PC is older/niche games.
|
| I have a couple of oddballs that I could not make work on
| Proton. Others had weird issues that got fixed over time.
|
| Sometimes there is a fix, such as fiddling with different
| Proton versions, etc. Lutris makes this somewhat
| straightforward.
| nikanj wrote:
| Do any of the main-stream Linux installers make any attempt at
| bringing over your files?
|
| I have seen so many "anyone can switch to Linux" articles, and
| none of them seem to mention "all of your files are going to be
| utterly lost"
| hackyhacky wrote:
| This is a non-issue if your files are stored in a partition
| separate from your OS, and is infeasible otherwise.
|
| * If you have a separate partition, you can replace your OS and
| your file remain untouched.
|
| * If you don't have a separate partition, your OS and your
| files will be replaced by the Linux installation. The only way
| to preserve your files is to copy to some external media before
| installation. Even if the Linux installer could retain files
| while reformatting a partition (which might be technically
| feasible), it would have no way of knowing _which_ files to
| retain: the user could easily keep important files in arbitrary
| directories, not just in their designated C:\User\Patrick
| directory, and they would be understandably irate if the
| installer promised to keep files but didn 't. To say nothing of
| adding complications of copying files that Windows has pushed
| to OneDrive.
| nikanj wrote:
| > This is a non-issue if your files are stored in a partition
| separate from your OS, and is infeasible otherwise.
|
| That is one of the biggest ifs of 2026. I don't think any
| major PC laptop vendor has ever sold consumer laptops with
| anything but one-big-partition layout. For the average user,
| their files are not stored in any partition, they are stored
| "right there on my desktop, with a separate folder for photos
| and bills"
| BoredPositron wrote:
| What desktop OS offers file migration from a different desktop
| OS during installation on the same machine? Windows and macOS
| definelty not...
| nikanj wrote:
| Windows definitely keeps your files right there in your
| Desktop / Documents folder when you update from Windows 10 to
| Windows 11.
|
| Like it or not, Aunt Clara is going to expect the same when
| she "upgrades" to Ubuntu.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| Can I interest you in some new goal posts right over there?
| hxugufjfjf wrote:
| What files? Where would the files be originally for this to be
| a concern? I've switched OS many times but I don't think I've
| ever thought about moving any files.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| >I picked CachyOS rather than a better-known distro like Ubuntu
| because it's optimized for modern hardware,
|
| >First challenge: My mouse buttons don't work. I can move the
| cursor, but can't click on anything.
|
| Maybe should've picked Ubuntu? I suspect this is the Linus (tech
| tips, not Torvalds) strategy of picking up an obscure distro for
| content purposes. Can't really have an article if everything just
| works, right
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| Yeah, if the goal of the article was to convince Windows users
| to switch to Linux then Ubuntu would provide as frictionless an
| install as Windows. Since the author chooses CachyOS, of course
| there's going to be some important steps during installation
| that need to be handled with some forethought and extra
| software to handle all hardware issues. After all, CachyOS is
| based on Arch Linux and inherits it's minimal mindset. But the
| article about switching from Windows to Ubuntu has been already
| written a thousand times.
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| I don't think PopOS could be called "obscure". At the time that
| the LTT video came out, PopOS and Manjaro (IIRC) were _the_
| distros to game on, if you wanted up-to-date OOTB working
| drivers.
| mkozlows wrote:
| I suspect they sincerely picked CachyOS because they read
| people advocating for it, and were convinced by the advocacy.
| People advocate all kinds of distros, and all of them except
| the one I advocate are bad choices.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Ubuntu's UI isn't particulates intuitive for people coming from
| Windows anymore (it hasn't been for the past 13 years tbf).
|
| Mint is the best default to advise to someone switching to
| Linux (it's mostly Ubuntu under the hood, but without the snap
| nonsense and with a less imaginative UI).
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| I really struggle when folks recommend a distro that is only
| now getting itself unstuck from a decade++ of inaction,
| starting an advance that other distros have been up to for
| decades.
|
| Starting people out on a dinosaur has some advantages yes but
| personally I think it's malpractice, setting users up to have
| to make major painful shifts in the future to update all the
| derelict knowledge they gain.
| https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=449033
| dminik wrote:
| There's this reply in the comments from the author.
|
| > Nah, it's a problem with this particular mouse in X and
| Wayland and it's been seen on Fedora and OpenSuse almost since
| the mouse came out. Not a Cachy issue, a nonstandard USB HID
| implementation by the vendor
|
| Tbh, I don't even know what a distro would have to do to break
| this.
| karussell wrote:
| If only I could use recent Apple hardware with Linux :)
|
| A year ago I was about to switch from Linux to Mac for that
| reason after 25 years using Linux (although I really don't like
| MacOS). But then Apple released their Glassy OS and so I just
| bought a used Lenovo for 300EUR with 1 year warranty ...
| neko_ranger wrote:
| this is the tech equivalent of "I'm a strong, independent nerd
| and I don't need no windows"
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| My Linux evenings usually appear 6 months down the road. It's the
| big updates that cause system breakdowns. This is like saying I
| got married in November and everything is going great. Far too
| early to know how far your patience will be tested before you
| leave.
| timbit42 wrote:
| In my experience, it's not so much the updates as the upgrades
| but even upgrades are smooth with Linux Mint.
| loehnsberg wrote:
| Why Bedrock? Get the kids a Steam Deck, Prism Launcher, open a
| local server and boom :) It's not iOS convenience but they'll
| sure love to tinker with all the mods you can install.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I was watching the Lenovo CES keynote and couldn't believe how
| hard they were selling Qira on Lenovo computers and Motorola
| phones. All the major players have platform specific Windows
| features that can't possibly meet their success criteria in terms
| of ROI. Lenovo isn't Apple or Google or Microsoft, and even the
| latter two have trouble selling fully integrated platform
| services on hardware.
|
| All this time, money, dev energy, and marketing to keep trying to
| find a magical bean in their stalk and they still just won't
| support open hardware and open source OSes with vigor.
|
| Apple people tend to buy Apple products generation over
| generation, and none of the Windows hardware manufacturers are
| even close to having that rep. Even in this thread people are
| recommending Gen 1 Thinkpads, but Lenovo's heart really isn't in
| it across the board. Dell went simple with the revived XPS but
| the release versions don't offer Linux in the BYO order flow.
|
| And no, I don't think Framework is good enough.
| ethersteeds wrote:
| Gotta be doing something, elsewise it's layoffs for your
| business unit
| browningstreet wrote:
| The "do something" is support open hardware, sell more
| machines, provision fewer product variations.
|
| I get that these are the immovable objects and sacred cows of
| the management ranks ..new executives need to try, try, try
| again. All these features just sit in the "update" queue
| advertising their uselessness, and eventually highlight their
| abandonment.
| modeless wrote:
| > My goal here is to see how far I can get using Linux as my main
| OS without spending a ton of time futzing with it
|
| > First challenge: My mouse buttons don't work. [...] Not a major
| issue; I can get around fine with just the keyboard.
|
| > Then I remember that my root partition is only 100GB. I reboot
| back into the Cachy live image and use the Parted utility to
| increase it to 1TB, then make a second btrfs partition in the
| remaining space.
|
| I don't think the goal was achieved here. For most people it
| still takes some dedication and a lot of computer knowledge to
| switch successfully.
|
| But I expect things to continue to improve now that Valve has
| solved the single major blocker for a large chunk of people, that
| being running their back catalog of games. It's an amazing gift
| to the community that we should all be very thankful for.
| blipvert wrote:
| Not a desktop thing (digital out-of-home signage) but we're
| dropping Windows like it's flaming dogshit. Minimal Linux install
| with X, Blackbox and player software (and management/monitoring
| stuff obvs) on all new assets and the thousands of extant ones
| will get replaced as soon as feasible.
| rrgok wrote:
| I came back to Windows when Windows 10 came out and everything is
| going great too.
|
| Everything just works. Snappy. Professional awesome native tools
| (Office, Affinity series, Directory Opus, Visual Studio,
| AutoHotkey,...)
| mongrelion wrote:
| I ran Archlinux as my main driver on both PC and Laptop for more
| than a decade but after having the opportunity to use a Windows
| machine with WSL and eventually WSL2, I felt like I had access to
| the best of both worlds: a Linux terminal for development (bash +
| tmux + vim, now bash + zellij + neovim) without the hassle of
| updates breaking things every few months and a out-of-the-box
| native gaming experience.
|
| But with the enshitification of Windows (first all the spam and
| ads on the Start menu, then Microsoft forcing you to have an
| account to be able to use the machine and the expensive license
| for Windows Professional if you want access to Hyper-V, which I
| did), I did some research, tried a few new distros (Manjaro,
| Bazzite and CachyOS) and settled for CachyOS (gaming support was
| the main driver, based on Archlinux was secondary).
|
| I do everything I did on Windows and some more: all the terminal
| stuff plus browsing, CAD modeling, 3D printing / slicing, Office
| stuff... I miss nothing. No more double partition to boot into
| Windows when I want to game.
|
| My RX 9070 XT runs smoothly with no driver issues whatsoever. I
| even have tested the waters running some LLMs with LM Studio and
| that also worked out of the box.
|
| The only thing that has been a bit meh are Teams and Slack and I
| believe that has to do with the fact that I ran them in Firefox.
| Once I ran Slack on Chromium, noise canceling was again
| available.
|
| 2009 was the year of Linux on desktop for me. 17 years later,
| after going back and forth between macOS and Windows, it feels
| good to be back home.
|
| One last note in my random ramble is that I do not have as much
| spare time as before, and I had heard this from other people back
| in the day whenever I'd say I ran Archlinux on my machines, so I
| am going to repeat what others have said to me: it's really nice
| to not have to worry about much, be able to sit down and get
| productive right away. To me, CachyOS and KDE have made that idea
| my actual experience and for that I am grateful.
| timbit42 wrote:
| > without the hassle of updates breaking things every few
| months
|
| That's not so much a Linux issue as an Arch issue.
| ant6n wrote:
| We use OneDrive/Teams/Office365 at work. I think this will be
| difficult with Linux. Doable with Mac.
|
| In think MacBook Air + Microsoft365 may be the cheapest startup
| IT setup that doesn't require windows itself.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I'm mostly happy with OneDrive on Mac. I lead a major
| competitor to OneDrive back in the day, so that's saying a lot.
|
| I still have to restart it from time to time, though.
| BoredPositron wrote:
| You use your private hardware at work?
| tobadzistsini wrote:
| Article reads like an anti-Linux post because the author goes on
| about, "muh mouse buttons" and "how many desktop environments?"
| Screw that, do something simple like Ubuntu that just works
| without decision paralysis. The whole piece reads like, "Linux is
| good if you're smart so git gud" esp. since he makes a point of
| crowing how it's Arch-based.
| Neil44 wrote:
| I switched my main everyday machine to Ubuntu last May, no
| regrets, it's a superior experience day to day.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > I picked CachyOS rather than a better-known distro like Ubuntu
| because it's optimized for modern hardware
|
| So this isn't a usual comparison, as the vast majority of users
| will choose Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint. CachyOS is also a new
| distro, meaning it won't last long (most distributions, like
| small businesses, only last a few years). It's also Arch-based,
| meaning the user is going to get constant updates, which leads to
| problems. Finally, Cachy is optimized for speed and security, not
| hardware.
|
| > First challenge: My mouse buttons don't work. I can move the
| cursor, but can't click on anything. I try plugging in a mouse
| (without unplugging the first one), same deal. Not a major issue;
| I can get around fine with just the keyboard
|
| And this is where I stop reading
| osamagirl69 wrote:
| If you hold out for a few more paragraphs until he gets past
| the installer there is closure:
|
| The issue is that he was using an obscure gaming mouse, and the
| solution was to use a different mouse.
| secondcoming wrote:
| It's kind of concerning to me that Ubuntu has started paywalling
| some package updates behind Ubuntu Pro. Thinking of switching to
| Debian.
| Dwedit wrote:
| I can't switch to Linux because I am so dependent on Visual
| Studio.
| jama211 wrote:
| "Linux is so easy and great, my mouse didn't even work and I have
| it unplugged to this day, and I can't even play minecraft!" - I
| use every OS and have arch on my gaming pc (dual booted I'll
| admit), but this is both one of the worst articles advocating for
| desktop Linux and one of the best at the same time, because it
| shows the harsh truth a lot of people experience and us Linux
| users don't even want to admit exists.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I agree. Yet another "Linux is great! The only issues I had
| were A, B, C, D, E...".
|
| I also use every OS and Windows 11 is still the most hassle
| free and reliable (at least if you install the IoT version
| using Rufus). I _still_ have to use X because Wayland has a
| couple of remaining issues. Also most distros inexplicably use
| Gnome despite KDE being significantly better. Why?
| lunar_rover wrote:
| KDE 5 wasn't much better than GNOME 3, it's the main reason
| behind GNOME default I think. It's only til KDE 6 they got
| back up on their feet and solved the most egregious design
| issues, many more still linger.
|
| GNOME/Red Hat in a long time is the only one even trying to
| figure out a solution for some of the longstanding issues
| like application distribution and sandboxing. Those rant
| articles about GNOME unfortunately went nowhere since the
| other desktops were all stuck. KDE Discover eventually
| supported Flatpak which was advocated by GNOME for years,
| SteamOS using Flatpak ended up being the decisive push.
|
| GNOME having better enterprise support can be another factor.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| _" Windows is great... you only need to... install the IoT
| version using Rufus"_
|
| Oh and tweak 24 settings with these powershell scripts, and
| better run them after every update to ensure they weren't
| changed back on purpose. Otherwise, _totally_ hassle free.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Nope. I tweaked _one_ setting via the GUI (to get the
| taskbar back to the left where it rightfully belongs).
| Literally everything else I 've left as-is. The IoT edition
| doesn't come with any bloatware and Rufus does a couple of
| other tweaks automatically.
| christkv wrote:
| Im pretty happy with bazzite after getting used to the atomic
| fedora underpinning and how it changes the way I have to organize
| and install some stuff
| 999900000999 wrote:
| It's a catch 22.
|
| The way to make Linux easy to use is basically just to pre-
| install it and ensure the hardware is compatible.
|
| System 76 does this, and charges 3x as much as other OEMs.
|
| At this point if I'm a consumer ohh Linux is 3x the price.
|
| If you install Linux on a refurbished Thinkpad, most of the time
| you can get something very nice for 500$ or less.
|
| I often dream, if I had money, of buying and refurbishing
| hundreds of laptops per year. Installing Linux and giving them
| out.
|
| Would be better than cities handing out Chromebooks.
| lpcvoid wrote:
| If I buy a laptop from Lenovo today, buying it without an OS or
| with Linux is cheaper than Windows.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I noticed the blog post said nothing about working with
| documents, i.e. the office suite the poster was using. Or - maybe
| he wasn't at all? I wonder. Same goes for email, although perhaps
| he was just using webmail.
| saltmate wrote:
| Have you ever heard of Thunderbird? There's to my knowledge no
| other mail client besides maybe mutt that offers more features
| and flexibility. For office, LibreOffice doesn't feel very
| modern but is capable of a lot of things.
| DetectDefect wrote:
| On the desktop. Laptop/mobile devices still significantly suffer
| under Linux compared to proprietary operating systems. The author
| even admits: "Tried getting Linux on my laptop over Christmas.
| Didn't work." We have a lot more work remaining to claim any sort
| of victory.
| duxup wrote:
| My experience:
|
| I came from windows to MacOS so despite what folks bemoan about
| MacOS ... I still love it and it is problem free enough that I
| don't feel the need to do the lifting to go to Linux.
|
| I think that's a common thing for those of who maybe haven't
| ridden MacOS for so long.
|
| Windows for me is on a whole several levels of worse when I have
| to dive back into it. Windows feels like an OS POINTED AT ME
| rather than for me.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > it is problem free _enough_
|
| The money's paw curls.
|
| I used to love macOS, back in the Mojave days. You could run
| almost anything you wanted, and _still_ get work done on a
| decently made machine. Those were the days when the grass truly
| felt greener to me, macOS for creative work simply annihilated
| any other option on the table.
|
| Then Catalina stripped out 32-bit compatibility, ruining my
| Ableton Live project folder and Steam library. And Big Sur
| removed the sleek, professional-looking UI that I loved.
| Apparently Tahoe is infecting it with the glass disease, but
| I've long since migrated to Bitwig and Steam on Linux.
|
| macOS taught me, ultimately, that any feature you take for
| granted can be removed to fulfill someone's OKR.
| duxup wrote:
| Yeah I mean that's the software life right?
|
| You use the platform you use ... until it doesn't work for
| you. I did that for Windows and now I'm on MacOS. Maybe one
| day Linux, maybe I pick a flavor there that doesn't work for
| me eventually.
| Capricorn2481 wrote:
| Ableton supports 64 bit. How did that ruin your projects?
| arbuge wrote:
| Is there a secure and good replacement for OneDrive on Linux?
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| In general, people just use noIP home router VPN, ssh/sftp host
| on LAN, and a sshfs client on their iOS/Android device or
| MacOS/Windows/Linux. It will look like any other network shared
| drive in the native OS.
|
| For paid services, there are also native Dropbox client support
| in MATE, Ubuntu, or Mint desktop file managers etc.
|
| iOS sftp:
|
| https://www.photosync-app.com/home
|
| Android sftp:
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.bukacek.fil...
|
| Practically speaking, I often recommend dual booting from 2 ssd
| drives for windows and Linux. There are just some commercial
| software/games that can't run properly within a linux
| environment (programs like Wine do allow running some Windows
| native programs, but YMMV.)
|
| https://www.linuxmint.com/ or
| https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop is a great starter OS.
|
| If you already use a posix system like MacOS, than the workflow
| will seem more familiar. =3
| timbit42 wrote:
| NextCloud?
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Throwing in opencloud here. I ran nextcloud self hosted for
| many years. If you need only file sharing on a webui with
| users, then opencloud is faster, more stable and less
| resource hungry.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| In case of small enterprises, what are the options for migrating
| to Ubuntu for all remote users?
|
| How does one have an MDM solution? Most of the solutions out
| there are poor on Ubuntu or need lots of work to get things
| right. Can anyone provide a reference architecture/solution that
| allows them to be SOC2 compliant? But also not have high friction
| for developers and more importantly not have bigger overheads on
| process or investment?
| bitwize wrote:
| The industry standard endpoint security solutions all run on
| either Windows or Mac. Endpoint security is an absolute MUST
| for a corporate environment.
| bigyabai wrote:
| What is RHEL, chopped liver?
| hxugufjfjf wrote:
| EDR products are really quite bad on Linux, even RHEL in my
| experience.
| bitwize wrote:
| It's been years since I've seen RHEL on the desktop at
| work. Any company that tolerated Linux desktops has either
| been large and geeky enough to go all-in on Linux and roll
| their own custom management solutions (Google), or else was
| still operating in "startup mode" with an attitude of "we
| trust our software devs, let's just give them a laptop and
| let them go nuts with root" which means they would flunk
| any serious security audit. And most of those used Ubuntu
| or similar.
|
| The only place I've actually seen RHEL on the desktop, also
| the only large instutition besides Google I've seen Linux
| desktop rollout, was in government labs; and for those the
| government can commission arbitrarily bespoke security
| systems. In the real world, the CISO of your organization
| is going to go with one of the industry standards, like
| Cisco Secure Endpoint, which--again--only exist on Windows
| and Mac. In the real world, you might be issued a Mac if
| you're a developer, otherwise a Windows machine, and that's
| what you'll use, end of story.
| leptons wrote:
| Yeah, I requested to have a Linux desktop from my employer
| and was flatly told " _NO_ ". None of our many security
| applications supports it, which is a real shame. As we use
| Windows and MacOS, I can't see how we'll really be more
| secure on those platforms, even with the security theater
| applications they force us to use.
| bitwize wrote:
| The standard approach is to use intrusive spyware to
| monitor all activity "for security" rather than to use
| systems designed to be resistant to attack. I call it the
| "fucking for virginity" approach to infosec. The reason why
| is because it's assumed that all attack-resistant systems
| break down somehow, under some circumstances but the audit
| trail to determine who committed the attack and how is non-
| negotiable, especially in regulatory and compliance
| settings. So institutional infosec tools are more
| interested in gathering the audit trail if/when an attack
| happens than in preventing the attack (in a "while we value
| the things in column A, the things in column B take
| priority" kind of way). And since they're almost always
| proprietary and considered beyond reproach by the corporate
| infosec division, well... occasionally something like the
| Clownstrike incident of 2024 does happen. But even that's
| not as bad as having had a breach without a sufficient
| audit trail to defend against liability or claims of
| noncompliance with regulations or industry standards (e.g.,
| HITRUST in the health field).
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Crowdstrike Falcon runs on Linux.
|
| Edit: that's probably a bad thing, lol
| shevy-java wrote:
| "Continue reading with a Verge subscription"
|
| Well ...
| Jigsy wrote:
| I've really been enjoying Linux since I started using it back in
| mid 2024.
|
| Although I was trying to shift to Linux slowly at the time, I
| honestly wish I'd switched sooner.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| Did this in 91 as well. Going well ever since.
| Lvl999Noob wrote:
| I recently switched to linux from windows. The only reason I was
| sticking with windows was because hoyoverse refuses to support
| linux. I finally decided I need some break from them anyways and
| took the plunge.
|
| First, I tried to install fedora atomic cosmic. It kind of worked
| but I could not get it to work with my dock + external monitors
| at all. Now that I am used to that setup, I can't go back.
|
| Not wanting to spend time figuring it out, I just installed
| Ubuntu instead. Thankfully, that worked out though it's not
| perfect. Everytime I turn on my laptop, I need to spend 10-15
| minutes turning the monitors on and off until ubuntu recognises
| them correctly and also sends dp output (it shows the monitor in
| settings and I can open windows on it but the monitor doesn't
| actually show anything; other times, it reads the monitor as
| something nvidia with the lowest resolution).
|
| I tried to install genshin anyways on ubuntu. I couldn't get it
| to work via wine/lutris. Virtualbox doesn't support gpu
| passthrough so I tried using virt-manager. The setup was too hard
| and it didn't work anyways. I gave up on hoyo at this point and
| install steam instead.
|
| Honestly, ubuntu is rough and Linux as a whole is very rough. But
| on the whole, I would still pick this over dealing with windows
| any longer.
| imer15 wrote:
| check out the launchers here for hoyo stuff, i haven't tried
| the genshin one but zzz worked nearly out of the box (had to
| change the wine version it was using iirc)
| https://github.com/an-anime-team
| whatevaa wrote:
| GPU passtrough on a laptop? If GPU is not in a separate IOMMU
| group I wouldn't even try.
| articsputnik wrote:
| I moved from 15 years of macOS to Linux (Omarchy in my case). I
| was mostly using the terminal and am therefore super happy with
| my choice now. I wrote more at https://www.ssp.sh/blog/macbook-
| to-arch-linux-omarchy/, in case of interest.
| johnhamlin wrote:
| I'm getting closer with every update Apple pushes
| edem wrote:
| My gaming PC now runs Zorin, my dev box rund Omarchy. It is time.
| Commercial OSes are dead.
| nh2 wrote:
| I'm using Linux on the desktop for 15 years and I still sometimes
| cannot connect to Wifi.
|
| This is because the list of network refreshes (and disappears)
| before I can find and click the correct Wifi:
|
| https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-applet/-/issu...
|
| This completely breaks the Linux experience for anybody living in
| a reasonably populous area. The issue has 3 upvotes.
|
| I also put a 400 $ bounty on it, if anybody wants to give it a
| shot. (Given that AI is supposed to replace 90% of programmers
| last year, making the Wifi list stay visible should be easy,
| right?)
|
| This worked fine 10 years ago.
|
| Most of my gripes are around some UI garbage behaviour like that.
| I have a file manager on one PC (I think it's the Ubuntu one
| where some "GUI in Snap" stuff breaks the GUI) breaks the file
| picker dialogue, so that when pasting a directory path in to
| navigate there, at the exact instant you press Enter, it
| autocompletes the first file so that that gets selected, leading
| you to upload a file you didn't want to upload.
|
| That said, all of that feels like really high quality compared to
| when once per year I click the Wifi menu on some Windows and it
| take 20 seconds to appear at all.
| forgotaccount22 wrote:
| PR on the way
| forgotaccount22 wrote:
| PR created https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/network-manager-
| applet/-/merg...
| nh2 wrote:
| Excellent, I will try it straight away. I'll pay out 75% if
| it works (as it fixes my immediate problem), and the
| remaining 25% if it gets merged. I'll email you after my
| test.
|
| I think one possible complaint you might get in the review
| is that when refreshing is fully disabled in the menu,
| people won't see new networks come up (e.g. when they had
| just enabled Wifi, or unsuspended).
|
| Maybe a good solution would be to to have one unclickable
| menu entry pop up labelled e.g. "Networks changed, re-open
| this menu" to solve that. Probably in nm-applet's main
| context menu of which the list is a child, instead of in
| the list itself, so that its appearance doesn't move around
| the networks on which the user is currently intending to
| click.
| forgotaccount22 wrote:
| It only stops refreshing if you are hovering the actual
| SSID list items which in my opinion is the cleanest way
| to do it, if you want new data you can reclick/rehover
| the "available networks". The Other option is putting the
| refresh on a global timer, but that would add magic which
| isn't clear to the user.
|
| Thanks, I will be awaiting your test result!
| nh2 wrote:
| I agree that logic is sound, but it is also not
| discoverable to the user:
|
| They might open the list (with the cursor resting on one
| of the items, or use the keyboard to navigate out of
| comfort or for accessibility reasons), then notice "oh
| wait, I haven't actually enabled my phone's Wifi hotspot
| yet", enable that, and wait forever for it to appear.
|
| That's why I'm thinking something should visually (and
| non-visually) change so the user can notice.
|
| Maybe even cleaner would be to add a tooltip to the
| currently-hovered entry? That might work for both mouse
| and non-mouse use cases, and might even work for
| screenreaders.
| nh2 wrote:
| Confirming it works, thank you! I sent you a mail. In
| case it doesn't arrive, contact us via the support chat
| on https://benaco.com
| VertanaNinjai wrote:
| Well, huge shoutout to you for following up on your word!
|
| https://gitlab.gnome.org/rickyb/network-manager-
| applet/-/com...
| forgotaccount22 wrote:
| Ashamed to admit that the power of monetary motivation got
| the best of me here. But it was also nice to apply myself.
| herczegzsolt wrote:
| If you are sensitive to these issues, unfortunately you need to
| go with a mainstream linux distribution and use near-default
| settings.
|
| It's great that you can customize everything and use your own
| window manager, compositor, etc ... but these issues are the
| price you pay. It is unfair to compare this to Windows, where
| you don't even have these customization options.
|
| Specifically for the network manager applet, it is not fixed
| because it's not really used anymore. GNOME Shell has it's own
| network selection menu that does not use the applet. It is the
| default on most systems, so users don't face this issue by
| default.
| rickdg wrote:
| I use ubuntu and the default remote desktop just stopped
| working since 24: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/rdp-stopped-
| working-after-upg...
|
| With Linux, you just have to be prepared to hit a bug and
| find no help coming anytime.
| Xfx7028 wrote:
| >>With Linux, you just have to be prepared to hit a bug and
| find no help coming anytime.
|
| Mate there are bugs in windows and macos that have been
| unfixed for years. This is not a good argument in my
| opinion.
| nh2 wrote:
| > find no help coming anytime
|
| Well, see sibling thread: Looks like you just need to post
| your bounty in HN and somebody will do within a few hours.
| Somebody to that for Windows or macos.
|
| Sometimes I feel the bounty topic isn't well served yet. On
| the GNOME bug tracker it doesn't seem to be very
| discoverable. Are there current good platforms to advertise
| bounties where people actually look?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Are you proposing that the linux community offers worse
| support than any kind of software support that you pay for?
| I've found strangers on the internet to be worlds better
| than anything I've ever gotten from a vendor.
| 63stack wrote:
| >With Linux, you just have to be prepared to hit a bug and
| find no help coming anytime.
|
| I'd argue it's the opposite. Windows stuff randomly
| breaking on forced unattended updates is a common trope by
| now. If you try to search for solutions, you will find
| "Trusted Microsoft Computing Expert Gold Level Diamond
| Star" people on MS forums giving you advice ranging from
| "reinstall drivers, uninstall drivers, update bios, run
| virus scan, and defrag your ssd".
|
| If you search for problems on linux, you will get much
| higher quality answers.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| I've been recommending Mint/Cinnamon over Ubuntu for years now.
| Its wifi widget does not do this, nor does it use snap.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Mint is really polished
| mft_ wrote:
| I jumped on the Linux bandwagon with my main work laptop last
| week, when my perfectly fine (I thought) Windows 11
| installation nuked itself without warning (possibly related
| to merely opening Teams).
|
| I somewhat randomly chose Mint, and a few oddities aside;
| it's been a pretty good experience.
| hexbin010 wrote:
| Also the latest KDE UI that inserts a tiny password input box
| below the SSID when you click the SSID, and doesn't scroll it
| into view, so you're left wondering what's going on
|
| Really really bad WiFi connection UI all over
| llmslave3 wrote:
| Last time I tried Linux I was so done with Windows I installed
| Arch. Couldn't connect to Wifi. I figured it was Arch, so I
| installed Ubuntu. Literally the same problem. So I got a new
| USB wifi adaptor that said it supported Linux...same problem. I
| gave up and have been using a MacBook ever since lol.
| lpcvoid wrote:
| Perhaps you could have checked if the firmware was installed?
| Most distros have non free firmware in their packages, it
| just needs to be installed.
| llmslave3 wrote:
| I tried everything lol.
| mft_ wrote:
| Or maybe the operating system should _just work_ reliably
| for (at least) the basics? Or if it can't, at least give an
| indication why?
|
| Blaming a new user like this is one of the cultural reasons
| why the 'year of the Linux desktop' has always been n+1.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| That sounds like a GNOME problem, not a Linux problem.
|
| You should give KDE a go.
| rickcarlino wrote:
| Linux is one of the last strong defenses for the idea that people
| should control the computers they own. On desktops and servers,
| root access is normal, and attempts to take it away do not work
| because software freedom is well established. On phones, that
| never happened. There is no real, mainstream "Linux for mobile,"
| and the result is a world of locked-down platforms where things
| like "sideloading" are treated as scary security risks instead of
| basic user rights. This makes it much easier for lawmakers to
| argue for removing root access on mobile devices, even though the
| same idea would be unrealistic on desktop systems.
|
| A great deal of gratitude is owed to all the people who volunteer
| their free time to create the stable desktop environment we have
| free access to on Linux in 2026.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| If you're interested in this aspect of user agency, you might
| like the "trustworthy technology" site a few friends and I are
| working on: https://aol.codeberg.page/eci/
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >Linux is one of the last strong defenses for the idea that
| people should control the computers they own.
|
| Please run Kate/Kwrite as root and then we will talk on the
| topic. Or pipe password to ssh
| jamblewamble wrote:
| You dont have to use that software. Who even would? You're an
| adult, presumably, so use vim.
| zufallsheld wrote:
| That's the good thing with open source. You can theoretically
| fork it and remove what prevents you from using Kate as root.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Sure. But the malaise of smug people taking decisions that
| are outside of the scope of the software is creeping into
| linux too. It is up to me decide what is secure, not them.
| tom_ wrote:
| It's smug people telling other people what to do all the
| way down!
| austin-cheney wrote:
| I have old computers. Windows 10 is dead and Windows 11 will not
| install on old hardware. I put Debian 13 on my wife's computer.
|
| At first she found it really frustrating, but then reality set
| in: she didn't really know Windows either. On Linux there is
| pretty broad capability to solve your own problem if you can get
| over fear of a terminal.
|
| Her favorite game runs faster on Debian so that helps.
| anon291 wrote:
| I have used Linux my entire adult life. Honestly never really had
| any issue with setup. Everything just works without having to do
| anything. Much easier than windows usually.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| It's quite interesting to see all these people switching to Linux
| on the desktop and realizing it works. Some of us are using Linux
| on the desktop since more than ... a quarter of a century.
|
| Everytime I read such an article I'm thinking _" duh, of course
| it works"_ but apparently people still think it's not the case.
|
| I do really, really, really wonder what's going to happen once
| battery usage is more efficient on Linux than on Windows. For in
| every thread about Linux on the desktop, there seems to be an
| endless flow of comments saying _" I can get 11 hours of battery
| time on Windows, but I only get 10h40 minutes on Linux"_.
|
| Linux powers billions, if not tens of billions of devices by now:
| trust me, it can power your desktop/laptop just fine.
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| It's great that we are already in such a strong spot! I'm also
| excited for how LLM's can help folks administer & setup systems.
|
| There's still a lot of folks who bounce of setting up this or
| that thing that requires editing some config file. We're really
| good now about making most things pretty well UI'ee up, but Linux
| is such a malleable platform (complementary): LLM's decondtrain
| what users can do from what UI has been built. That's super
| exciting.
|
| Step 1 of folks being able to use Linux as a desktop is going
| pretty well these days. With some AI hope, I hope folks get more
| and more enticed into setting up some devices. Once you're up
| with TailScale and have a service or two deployed, it can be very
| addictive to keep going. LLM's can make setting up & customizing
| the desktop easier, & they can help operate & admin services too.
| Strong hopes users will have much more agency, with where we are
| going.
| 20after4 wrote:
| I've been using nothing but Linux on my desktop since 2013.
| Converted my parents around 2015. Rarely a complaint from them
| and I haven't even once considered switching back to Windows. My
| shiny new Macbook Air is collecting dust. Almost all of my gaming
| is done on a SteamDeck or a Linux desktop. The only applications
| that I can think of where Windows or Mac are still relevant would
| be CAD and Audio/Video production. And even those are use-cases
| where Linux has viable options. Actually, Video probably doesn't
| even belong here since one of the most popular video packages
| (DaVinci Resolve) has Linux support and there are multiple open
| source options like Kdenlive. For music, it's really hard to beat
| Apple's ecosystem: Mac and iOS have an incredible variety of
| affordable and really high quality audio applications, however,
| the gap is narrowing with lots of great music software on Linux
| as well. There are free software options for CAD and 3d Modeling
| (Blender, Freecad) but most of the popular CAD software is either
| Windows only or Windows/Mac. Some of this may be possible to get
| working under Wine but I haven't tried.
| s0a wrote:
| can we just boot to a browser sandbox and call it a day? ditch
| all the old bloatware. we do not need native apps.
| desireco42 wrote:
| I installed Omarchy last year when it come out (Arch distro for
| devs) on laptop and December I installed it on desktop machine,
| the powerful one.
|
| Now I can play and work on a same machine for the first time in
| like 15+ years since I switched to Mac so I can work.
|
| It isn't smooth sailing, I have bluetooth speakers and
| headphones, switching is not easy experience. Vibe coding, audio
| dictation works on Thinkpad which is underpowered compared to
| desktop, but it isn't working there. In fact this is more
| troublesome issue then headphones.
|
| But for most part I could live with those issues and hopefully
| they get resolved.
|
| Macs are just annoying, updates are for things I don't care and
| everything is about pushing me towards some subscription or
| other. I don't see future there for myself
| cramcgrab wrote:
| When you think about it, lots of Linux and Unix devices.
| nottorp wrote:
| I replaced windows with linux 30 years ago.
|
| Then i replaced linux with mac os.
|
| Cook, keep in mind that if you keep dumbing down Mac OS I can
| switch back to linux in 24 hours.
| bstar77 wrote:
| I have been primarily in the tiling window manager space for the
| past 5 years... that said I've been driving Cosmic on my NixOS
| workstation and I'm really impressed... it looks great, is
| simple, performs well and does tiling quite well. It's not going
| to take me away from Niri, but it's my goto suggestion now for
| any one getting into Linux.
| grog454 wrote:
| > I reboot, log into Epic and GOG, and start downloading The
| Outer Worlds, a game from 2019 I've been playing a bit lately. It
| runs fine with Proton, and I can even sync my saves from the
| cloud. I play it for a few minutes with my trackball, remember I
| hate gaming on a trackball, and plug my gaming mouse back in. It
| works fine as long as I'm in the game, but outside the game,
| mouse clicks stop working again. It makes sense -- the bug is on
| the desktop, not in games -- but it's very funny to have a gaming
| mouse that only works for gaming.
|
| What is it with mice and OSes?
|
| Windows is the only OS I can seem to configure to get low
| latency, high accuracy, linear movement with, and it's not for
| lack of effort.
|
| I struggled for several years to do SWE work on a Mac and no 3rd
| party program could get it working the way it does on Windows. I
| tried Linear Mouse and many others. I eventually gave up, went
| against the prevailing (90%) culture where I work, and exchanged
| my mac for a windows laptop. I haven't measured it, but I _feel_
| more productive simply because I can click what I want to click
| marginally faster.
|
| Is something in Mac drivers performing non-linear mapping? Why?
|
| Based on the quote above it seems like Linux hasn't even gotten
| up to par with Mac for mice.
|
| The best litmus test for an OS for me is whether I could play an
| RTS or FPS competitively with it, even though I haven't played
| either for years.
| pipes wrote:
| I've done the same, though I've used Linux in work and home for
| 22 years (I think 2004 was my first install).
|
| At home I consistently gave up on Linux due to hardware and game
| compatibility issues.
|
| A combination of buying a steam deck plus windows 11 pushed me
| back to Linux.
|
| It is oddly peaceful using mint Linux. No adverts. No "like what
| you see" wall paper click bait. No news site click bait. No
| register with an online Microsoft account that doesn't have a no
| button. Just my computer.
|
| The one annoying thing is, some games just don't play nice with
| wine / proton (for some reason I want to play soldier of fortune,
| even though I know it's not great). Others are a pain to set up.
| But mainly it is good enough. (I'm a gog.com junkie). So I may
| end up installing windows 11 lts. Though I did that with windows
| 10 and it was lacking some DLLs that some old games needed and
| was pretty much unfixable.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-10 23:00 UTC)