I made the switch around this time last year and haven’t looked back. A few things have taken a bit of effort to figure out, but largely it has been a breeze. I should’ve done this many years earlier.
I made the switch around this time last year and haven’t looked back. A few things have taken a bit of effort to figure out, but largely it has been a breeze. I should’ve done this many years earlier.
As much as I like seeing people making the jump, I’m seriously surprised how many people are still putting up with microsoft. Like yes, I get it, your grandma won’t care, but I know people who are absolutely capable of installing another OS but still stick with windows, even tho there’s not a lot of software that just won’t run on linux. Some games like fortnite or league, yeah, but other than that … it’s just weird. Especially because they keep yapping about something breaking or not working all the time.
Last Friday I showed a colleague that the computer he had been using to control a robot arm with a CNC mill that day, is running Linux (Ubuntu). I opened a terminal, listened to the obligatory “wow, are you hacking?!”, and typed
uname.“THAT’S Linux?!”… And he is a clever nerd.
Clever, but obviously not too curious 😉
Eh, not curious about operating systems at least. I know a few hardware people who don’t give a shit about the software side of things. I’m a software guy, and I’m largely that way about hardware too. I have my logitech whatever-the-fuck mouse and keyboard, and who-the-hell-cares headset, and I’m good. Same with graphics cards/cpus/etc. I will be making the effort to switch to AMD when I next upgrade because fuck nvidia at this point, but historically, I didn’t care. I stuck with nvidia because I understand the versioning system. Dumb reason, I know, but also wtf AMD, why do I need a calculator to figure your shit out?
I get the impression that, just like it did on the server-side, Linux has also taken over most of the embedded computing space (except for the smaller microcontrollers that don’t even have an OS).
So that just leaves the Desktop and Mobile Devices.
All Android devices are Linux, it just happens to be the worst kind of Linux possible: one that entirely depends on proprietary drivers and is controlled by a company hellbent on closing it down through total dependence on their services.
The kernel in Android is Linux but the rest of the OS is not.
In my previous post I meant Linux as the whole OS rather merelly the kernel.
Even in the embedded space Linux is not just the kernel but also at minimum the common libraries and utilities (for example ARMbian is a distro for ARM-based SBCs).
There are entire business models built around customer complacency. Most people don’t want to make a change unless their hand is forced, even with a steady decline in quality.
A lot of nerds would be perfectly capable of installing a different OS. But i atleast often forget that screwing around with the computer itself isnt the focus for a lot of them. They just use the computer to get shit done in their field of special interests. Like for me the whole administrative overhead of switching to Linux was only bound by the resource of time. But i really looked forward to it and had a blast when i finally secured enough time to do it. In the end i just learned a new aspect for my hobby. For others that would just take time away for the things they want to do. Interest in open source, privacy, beeing in control of your digital shit etc also isnt as common as one would hope even for computer nerds.
With that said in the last two years i still saw a big shift. Atleast in the other online spaces i frequent and even in my private life tons of people picked up Linux. Just because the strain of windows became so insuffereable.
I’ve converted a few people to Linux who have no interest in the technical side just because Windows is that bad a few hours installing an OS has become far preferable to continuing to use windows. Something like Mint or Bazzite works much the same from their perspective, just without all the bloat slowing them down.
If you have to use Windows and Office at work, you’re kind of stuck. At home I finally ditched Win10 and found LibreOffice perfectly fine to use. Not everyone can make that choice or would want to have one type at home and one at work.
But it’s okay, Microsoft seems to want to shoot themselves in the foot every chance they get. Even making the mistakes they are, they can’t even easily topple the monopoly dependence they built up.
I‘m currently considering Softmaker office suite. It supposedly runs well with Windows formats, which I’m hoping is true, as I have to use DOCX and the like heavily in my work.
As someone who had been doing lots of Excel work with macros, this looks interesting. Don’t need it now, and I’ve adapted to using LibreCalc’s Basic which is very similar to VBA, but still, good to see some true competition now. Looks like they’re mainly aiming for the Europe crowd with the FreeOffice comparisons.
I‘m old(er), need my PC for work since my livelyhood depends on it, and unfortunately only have a limited amount of fucks to give per day. That made it quite the daunting task to switch OS since I‘m stuck with Windows for over 20 years now.
Got new hardware recently and will take my time to set up Zorin OS while keeping the old Windows machine running in parallel for a while. It is the softest of switches I could think of all in all, and I‘m looking forward to it. Sometimes things take time, especially when people have essentially been indoctrinated with Windows since their early school days.
This was me until roughly a year ago, because I was still under the assumption that it would be a difficult transition, and I just never heard much news about progress even in techie spaces.
I already had a negative view of Microsoft and was constantly frustrated with Windows. It still didn’t even occur to me to consider jumping ship until the end of security updates was announced for Win 10. Once I looked into it a little and it became obvious that I wouldn’t be making nearly as big of a sacrifice as I had thought, I just did it immediately and haven’t looked back lol
My point I guess is that changing a fundamental part of machines most people interact with every day (and probably already have a mixed relationship with, both b/c computers are complex tools and because windows is windows) is a hurdle that takes a lot of momentum to clear, especially when it’s “common knowledge” that switching to Linux is hard. I’d like to hope that the public perception will change quite a bit over the next few years though
I’ve tried to switch to Linux a handful of times on my secondary machine, from Vista era up to Windows 11. My primary use case at the beginning was DVR. Couldn’t beat Windows Media Center for that in the Vista/Win7 era. Then WMC got the axe so my use case shifted to Plex with other content sources. Tried Linux for that changeover. As an unseasoned Linux toe-dipper, that process was just a bunch of blindly running commands from a setup guide to install everything, usually without an explanation of what each command does. Some stuff wasn’t working and I didn’t have an idea of how to fix it where to start looking, so I aborted Linux and ran Windows 10. As a largely headless machine (accessible via KVM, but I usually just used remote desktop to manage), Windows 10 updates were a frequent hassle with the full-screen nags for OneDrive and whatnot that interrupted the boot to desktop (and thus prevented my background services from starting), but I lived with it for years, and remoted in when I had to fix something.
This past year, I finally did a fresh start with TrueNAS running all the same apps I was using on Windows. It took a while to figure out permissions, and the process of getting there was messy, but everything is working.
In anticipation of the Valheim 1.0 release, I wanted to setup a dedicated server. I initially tried setting up a spare laptop to run it in Mint, but I ended up reallocating that laptop to my wife so she could dip her toes in Linux. I then shifted to trying to set up a Docker container for it, but had a misunderstanding of where to paste the Docker compose, so I gave up and installed a Mint VM and setup the server inside that VM. Then a couple months passed, and I’d forgotten what installation type I used and also what commands to update/configure, which motivated me to delete the VM and figure out what I was doing wrong with Docker. Got it set up after a little struggle with file paths to a separate storage pool, but it’s now working perfectly. Now I have an easy update button in the GUI so I don’t have to remember or document any commands. I’d go so far as to say the vanilla dedicated server running as a Docker app inside TrueNAS is a cleaner, easier experience than the default method in Windows. Now I have a friend asking for a server-side mod, so we’ll see how that goes…
As for my wife, her main use case is simple Libre Office and web browsing, so there’s basically no struggle there. There was one hiccup with her touchpad not working, but she resolved that. She did try to run Clone Hero and ran into an issue with button mapping with her Xbox 360 guitar but didn’t have the will to look into it at the time. She’ll get around to it.
As for me, I’m a gamer and an engineer. Until all my games and SolidWorks run on Linux, I won’t be switching my primary PC off of Windows.
One of my mates got himself a steam deck and was so frustrated with Linux, he desecrated it and installed windows. Mental. It was all because he could wrap his head around a slightly different way of using an OS.
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Only if you’re into lowest common denominator multiplayer slop.
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If you’re a Riot fanboy, maybe. Haven’t heard a lot of other new multiplayer games that have issues with Linux.
Ah yes, really mature and thought out argument
I think the funniest implication here is that he seems to think he is somehow superior to us mere Linux simpletons for playing fucking Fortnite. Or League.
and let’s not forget, he also gets the privilege of having Valorant’s anticheat looking through everything he does on his computer. You know, just in case.
Let’s let that marinate for a moment, because I truly do think that invasive kernel anticheat is something that people will be really kicking themselves over accepting somewhere down the road in this, the modern digital panopticon, the dying days of privacy. This individual seems to wholeheartedly and truly believe, that it is somehow the superior, intelligent choice to use an OS that will allow random software companies (that are not your hardware or OS vendor) to take complete control of your computer with the pinky swear they won’t do anything untoward with that access. For a fucking video game. (Sometimes, one you paid actual money for!) Especially now, in the days of forced arbitration clauses and constant corporate data breaches. “no no, guys, you see, you have to let our
malwareanti-cheat have kernel access because we can’t be fucked to actually employ humans to moderate the game nor hire another anti-cheat vendor that actually knows how to detect cheats without getting all up in your OS’s guts (they do exist, you know), I sweeeeaaaarrrrrr nothing bad will happen!”Oh yeah, he’s a genius alright. I shudder in the presence of such brilliance. (no one tell him, it’ll be funnier)
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I guess I’m very lucky because I haven’t found a game I play that doesn’t work yet. Even gacha games, notorious for their anti-cheats and always online requirement, can be run on Linux. I’m afraid the skill issue is on your side.
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I don’t even understand your argument. Are you arguing for Linux, or against it? You’ve been spouting blatant bullshit like “gamers can’t use Linux” and then doubling down when told otherwise. What exactly am I ignorant of? Your inability to form sentences?
And here folks is the perfect example of why a huge number of people have absolutely zero interest in playing games like league or fortnight.
Again skill issues. Thats a terrible game as well way too team oriented so you can get held hostage for 20 minutes.
Nope. Missed the point completely. A little introspection will be required, but I’m not holding my breath.
Your social skills have a skill issue
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Get away from the mirror.
That’s not strictly true. Most Steam games work just fine on Linux. Even a lot of live service games. Just from the ones I personally play - Overwatch, Elder Scrolls Online, Arknights and Arknights: Endfield have no issues running via Proton even though they all clearly have some degree of anti-cheat.
The real issue is kernel level anti-cheat that some publishers stick to, like Riot.
kernel level anti-cheat isnt even the issue by itself. most of them work on linux just fine but you can configure them in a way to specifically block linux.