Switch From Windows to Linux

No worries, my biggest gripe is consumer gear which tends to focus on windows while having issues in linux. I run into no issues with company supplied stuff or purpose built systems. The 2 latest laptops i got recently for personal use are a cheap dell inspiron 10th gen intel that is ubuntu certified and a walmart brand motile 14 no name laptop. Ironically the dell has been a train wreck bios wise in windows and linux. The update fixed the ACPI issues in windows but not linux and then the function keys so far haven't been possible to correct. At the same time the no name walmart brand one was plug and play with linux so it goes both ways.

Valid points. Nothing is 100% perfect, not Windows, not Linux. But Windows is ageing, the NT kernel cannot last forever, the NTFS file system with it's limitations cannot last forever and considering Microsoft own Github, considering Microsoft are the biggest contributors to Github, considering Edge is moving to a Chromium base and being made available under Linux, considering MS Teams has recently been made available under Linux, considering Microsoft's more profitable cloud based division runs under Linux and considering WSL - I see little doubt that eventually Microsoft will move to the Linux kernel with a locked down DE based around the current Windows interface.

Honestly, I don't understand the blind love for a dying OS. Considering Linux is actually the more modern OS, embrace it, learn about it and use it every chance you get - You don't have to dump Windows overnight, not by a long shot; But the more you build familiarity with the OS, the better off you'll be in the long run.

I just installed Detroit: Become Human via Lutris. The process was every bit as simple as under Windows and the game plays perfectly at either 1080p or 4k - It's actually a very impressive title, the graphics pop and being a Vulkan based game I'd be surprised if it ran any faster under Windows, in fact considering Linux is technically the faster OS I wouldn't be at all surprised if it ran faster under Linux.

Peace, I don't want to argue over an OS of all things.
 
Honestly, I don't understand "love" for any operating system. I love people, not tools. Use the tool that works best for you.

Well, I did love OS/2 Warp 3, Amiga OS 2.04 (and my Amiga 500 in general) and I was passionate about Windows Phone 7 and on but, I really do not love any OS anymore. I do, however, get complete enjoyment out of them.
 
Practicality over philosophy for me, at this point. I love the idea of Linux and I love distro-hopping in VirtualBox and using Linux for specific use cases (rPi, file servers, etc) and I dislike the direction Windows 10 has gone. I have a love/hate relationship with macOS and Apple. So philosophically I've made the switch...

But in practical use, every time I try Linux on a "daily use / main" PC, it's just not worth the compromises one has to make. Gaming is way better now than before, but still not fully there yet. Hardware detection is miles ahead of where it used to be. So many times I just can't find an adequate equivalent of software. Yes, in almost all cases there exists an alternative- but the alternatives are usually quite poor and not worth it.

That said, I have an rPi with Linux for Pi-hole and I'm going to try to run my HTPC-ish PC on Linux and see how long that lasts- and lastly, my light-use laptop (browsing, light dev stuff) is getting Linux too.

I think the conclusion I've reached is just to use whatever best fits your needs or use case. My daily driver is an iMac, my gaming PC is Windows 10, and all the other stuff is Linux. So far, that seems to be working. Time will tell. :)
 
Well, I did love OS/2 Warp 3, Amiga OS 2.04 (and my Amiga 500 in general) and I was passionate about Windows Phone 7 and on but, I really do not love any OS anymore. I do, however, get complete enjoyment out of them.

I never got into AmigaOS 2.04, it was 1.3 then straight to 3.1 for me on my A500 and then my A1200. OS/2 Warp was a great OS, it's a shame it dwindled into non existence.

AmigaOS 3.1 is still being updated, there was yet another update not that long ago.
 
Maybe for the average user that is just going to turn on their PC and open Chrome, sure. But then wouldn't they just buy a Chromebook? My problem for decades now with Linux is kind of the contrary to how most Distros and Open Source software works, it's so fragmented that nothing seems "done". Yeah, I can find an app that does what I want but it's half ass complete because the developers parted ways / differing opinions / can't agree on color of the sky, so each of them fork the product into different directions that gets forked by some a-hole that wants the background to be orange and now we have 5 applications that are all the same only slightly different and none are finished. The Open Source movement was supposed to bring collaboration together and foster creative thinking. Instead it's just turned into a fragmented mess of opinions. Even a distro can't get it's shit together. The basis of the operating system. "Well I don't like that it doesn't run KDE, so fuck you guys I'm making another distro using the same core but with KDE and the shit I want on it". Good for you.

Just make something feel complete, for the love of all things holy.
 
Maybe for the average user that is just going to turn on their PC and open Chrome, sure. But then wouldn't they just buy a Chromebook? My problem for decades now with Linux is kind of the contrary to how most Distros and Open Source software works, it's so fragmented that nothing seems "done". Yeah, I can find an app that does what I want but it's half ass complete because the developers parted ways / differing opinions / can't agree on color of the sky, so each of them fork the product into different directions that gets forked by some a-hole that wants the background to be orange and now we have 5 applications that are all the same only slightly different and none are finished. The Open Source movement was supposed to bring collaboration together and foster creative thinking. Instead it's just turned into a fragmented mess of opinions. Even a distro can't get it's shit together. The basis of the operating system. "Well I don't like that it doesn't run KDE, so fuck you guys I'm making another distro using the same core but with KDE and the shit I want on it". Good for you.

Just make something feel complete, for the love of all things holy.

The problem is: This isn't really the issue Windows users make it out to be. The last thing I want is some a-hole corporation telling me how my computing experience should behave, that fragmentation Windows users believe is so unholy is actually the main thing that attracts me to Linux - It's literally the epitome of freedom and I see no more FOSS projects that are half finished than proprietary projects that are abandoned.
 
One of the things I loved about the early days of Windows was having to download my own software for various things. I remember back in the day having to get ACDSee because Windows didn't have it's own decent image viewer yet. Linux brings those days back (kind of). Choice is nice. Fragmentation is actually ok in most cases. They just need to settle on a single method of installation. Sad that after all these years we still have .deb, .rpm, PPAs, and the AUR. That should have been unified a decade ago.
 
One of the things I loved about the early days of Windows was having to download my own software for various things. I remember back in the day having to get ACDSee because Windows didn't have it's own decent image viewer yet. Linux brings those days back (kind of). Choice is nice. Fragmentation is actually ok in most cases. They just need to settle on a single method of installation. Sad that after all these years we still have .deb, .rpm, PPAs, and the AUR. That should have been unified a decade ago.

I'm not sure install methods are that fragmented - they tend to either be CLI based minimal installs, an "old school" ncurses type semi-GUI installer ( think about DOS era colors, keyboard navigation, but there is a GUI), to fully graphical installers booted from live images that many desktop focused distros use today.

I think the problem is essentially legacy preference and subtle differences with packaging , as you describe. At one point, RPM distros were considered "dependency hell" (circa 2000ish) and thats where things like Debian and the deb format (along with the apt system) took off. However, some, really preferred RPM be it from RedHat/CentOS being a focal point of their work, to Fedora etc. So it goes for the rest. PPAs allow additional repos to be added easily and managed from within apt/synaptic etc. Even source based distros are different (ie Gentoo's way of doing things vs Arch) and the AUR allows for "unofficial" PKGBUILDs and the like, ensuring that it is different from the stuff handled by the Arch or Manjaro team, but still accessible for those who want it. These days distros are more or less categorized by what kind of packaging formats/tools they use (ie deb vs rpm, portage vs pacman etc ) and while there are relatively few outliers, the ones that tend to do things in a meaningful way tend to spawn derivatives and become a "standard" on their own . The vast majority of software doesn't have to worry too much about packaging style, as its relatively easy for maintainers to package it for whatever distro prefers if need be

The thing that concerns me more is the next "format war" among the platform/distro-agnostic packaging formats - Snap vs AppImage vs Flatpak. Unlike those mentioned above, these are specifically designed to be "The One Truly Universal Packaging Format", so having conflicting standards is a problem.
 
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One of the things I loved about the early days of Windows was having to download my own software for various things. I remember back in the day having to get ACDSee because Windows didn't have it's own decent image viewer yet. Linux brings those days back (kind of). Choice is nice. Fragmentation is actually ok in most cases. They just need to settle on a single method of installation. Sad that after all these years we still have .deb, .rpm, PPAs, and the AUR. That should have been unified a decade ago.

Due to the nature of open source, it's unlikely this is ever going to happen to the extent seen under Windows - Having said that, the Windows method of software installation is something in desperate need of an overhaul in an attempt to limit infections at the source. A decade ago Linux was barely more than a kernel.

Snaps and Flatpaks are overcoming some of these issues, both have teething problems - But they're slowly being resolved.
 
The problem is: This isn't really the issue Windows users make it out to be. The last thing I want is some a-hole corporation telling me how my computing experience should behave, that fragmentation Windows users believe is so unholy is actually the main thing that attracts me to Linux - It's literally the epitome of freedom and I see no more FOSS projects that are half finished than proprietary projects that are abandoned.

I'm just giving you my literal experience, not what I expect other users to experience or some bull shit trolling post about Linux vs Windows vs MacOS. Every time I've used Linux and set out to "This is going to be my desktop", what I wrote was what I came away with when I went back.
 
Due to the nature of open source, it's unlikely this is ever going to happen to the extent seen under Windows - Having said that, the Windows method of software installation is something in desperate need of an overhaul in an attempt to limit infections at the source. A decade ago Linux was barely more than a kernel.

Snaps and Flatpaks are overcoming some of these issues, both have teething problems - But they're slowly being resolved.

A decade ago was 2010. Linux was way past being just a kernel at that point.
 
A decade ago Linux was barely more than a kernel.

What? Linux has had GUI interfaces for something like 25 years (or more) now. Mandrake, one of the first "Windows replacement" distros released almost 21 and a half years ago. Heck, Ubuntu itself has been around for 15 years at this point. You're a bit off on your timeline.
 
What? Linux has had GUI interfaces for something like 25 years (or more) now. Mandrake, one of the first "Windows replacement" distros released almost 21 and a half years ago. Heck, Ubuntu itself has been around for 15 years at this point. You're a bit off on your timeline.

A decade ago was 2010. Linux was way past being just a kernel at that point.

What you experienced 10 to 25 years ago shares little in common with modern Linux. Just like Windows, modern Linux has progressed in leaps and bounds from 10 to 25 years ago. Package managers 10 years ago were nothing like they are now, these days the term 'dependency hell' is a relic. Ten years ago people were still compiling from source in most cases.

Why do people constantly refer to Linux in the past but Windows in the present? Windows is actually the older OS that still relies on an outdated method of installing some random .msi from some obscure part of the internet with little to no security whatsoever.
 
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I'm just giving you my literal experience, not what I expect other users to experience or some bull shit trolling post about Linux vs Windows vs MacOS. Every time I've used Linux and set out to "This is going to be my desktop", what I wrote was what I came away with when I went back.

Linux is my main OS and I don't experience what you describe to be issues to any extent greater than that I experience under Windows or MacOS, the fact you post in defense of Windows by no means makes your opinion more valid, and comparisons are difficult to avoid when discussing the merits of certain systems - I hardly consider them to be bullshit any more than your own opinion could be considered bullshit.

It's actually the opinion of many that Windows never appears to be 'done', with most updates introducing more issues than they resolve.

Essentially, no operating system is immune to the issues you've described.
 
What you experienced 10 to 25 years ago shares little in common with modern Linux. Just like Windows, modern Linux has progressed in leaps and bounds from 10 to 25 years ago. Package managers were nothing like they are now 10 years ago, these days the term 'dependency hell' is a relic. Ten years ago people were still compiling from source in most cases.

Why do people constantly refer to Linux in the past but Windows in the present? Windows is actually the older OS that still relies on an outdated method of installing some random .msi from some obscure part of the internet with little to no security whatsoever.

Linux is radically different now but it was still a far cry from just being a kernel. When I first explored using Mandrake and Red Hat nearly 20 years ago they were still usable. It took a lot more work to do, I actually went out and bought a "Red Hat For Dummies" book in order to figure shit out, but that doesn't make it "barely more than a kernel". I've used Linux off an on for the past two decades, I'm well aware of how it's changed and what it was like more than a decade ago.
 
Linux is radically different now but it was still a far cry from just being a kernel. When I first explored using Mandrake and Red Hat nearly 20 years ago they were still usable. It took a lot more work to do, I actually went out and bought a "Red Hat For Dummies" book in order to figure shit out, but that doesn't make it "barely more than a kernel". I've used Linux off an on for the past two decades, I'm well aware of how it's changed and what it was like more than a decade ago.

Don't take things so literally! When I say Linux wasn't much more than a kernel I mean the Linux desktop was 'far' from being a viable proposition for the average user, it wasn't uncommon for people to damage monitors as a result of incorrect Xorg settings in the early days of desktop Linux. Modern Linux is nothing like this, despite what certain naysayers like to claim modern Linux is every bit as usable a Windows or MacOS desktop with the same level of finish and polish - Vastly superior to desktop Linux of 10 years ago and a magnitude better than desktop Linux 20 years ago.
 
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As far as libre software is concerned, the ongoing commitment of libre software by far exceeds that of proprietary solutions. Where propriety solutions become unviable due to personal issues on behalf of the developer or financial issues, the software usually dies along with the developer. Where libre software is concerned someone else tags in and continues on with software development.

Two examples I can think of off the top of my head in this regard are:

- Open Office forking to Libre Office.
- Compiz forking to Compiz Reloaded.
 
Linux is radically different now but it was still a far cry from just being a kernel. When I first explored using Mandrake and Red Hat nearly 20 years ago they were still usable. It took a lot more work to do, I actually went out and bought a "Red Hat For Dummies" book in order to figure shit out, but that doesn't make it "barely more than a kernel". I've used Linux off an on for the past two decades, I'm well aware of how it's changed and what it was like more than a decade ago.

Mandrake Linux 7 was one of my first experiences with Linux (the other being RH5, iirc). It was super easy to install, and came with lots of different packages on the CD, including Gnome (1.x.x), Enlightenment, and KDE. My favorite activity was piling a bunch of drawers inside eachother, opening and closing them, and watching them cascade...I was young, okay? lol
 
Mandrake Linux 7 was one of my first experiences with Linux (the other being RH5, iirc). It was super easy to install, and came with lots of different packages on the CD, including Gnome (1.x.x), Enlightenment, and KDE. My favorite activity was piling a bunch of drawers inside eachother, opening and closing them, and watching them cascade...I was young, okay? lol

I've been using Linux for a very long time, it's easy to view the early days of Linux through rose colored glasses, but modern solutions are vastly superior. As I stated earlier, people act like modern Linux is identical to the Mandrake days while Windows has progressed - Naturally this is most definitely not the case.
 
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I've been using Linux for a very long time, it's easy to view the early days of Linux through rose colored glasses, but modern solutions are vastly superior. As I stated earlier, people act like Linux is identical to the Mandrake days while Windows has progressed - Naturally this is most definitely not the case.
Never said it was the same. Trust me, I've been through dependency hell and back, and I've f-ed up plenty of xorg configs and bootloaders. Just being le nostalgic.
 
I've been using Linux for a very long time, it's easy to view the early days of Linux through rose colored glasses, but modern solutions are vastly superior. As I stated earlier, people act like Linux is identical to the Mandrake days while Windows has progressed - Naturally this is most definitely not the case.

Literally no one is saying it's the same. People talking about their experiences and memories over time (and correcting memories of what it was like) is not saying that it's the same. The ONLY person who believes that is you. Stop making up arguments that don't exist.
 
Never said it was the same. Trust me, I've been through dependency hell and back, and I've f-ed up plenty of xorg configs and bootloaders. Just being le nostalgic.

They were good days, computing in general was so much more exciting back then. Now everything's so ho hum and serious.
 
Literally no one is saying it's the same. People talking about their experiences and memories over time (and correcting memories of what it was like) is not saying that it's the same. The ONLY person who believes that is you. Stop making up arguments that don't exist.

Actually, that's exactly what they're saying and that's exactly what my replies are relating to:

One of the things I loved about the early days of Windows was having to download my own software for various things. I remember back in the day having to get ACDSee because Windows didn't have it's own decent image viewer yet. Linux brings those days back (kind of). Choice is nice. Fragmentation is actually ok in most cases. They just need to settle on a single method of installation. Sad that after all these years we still have .deb, .rpm, PPAs, and the AUR. That should have been unified a decade ago.

My problem for decades now with Linux is kind of the contrary to how most Distros and Open Source software works, it's so fragmented that nothing seems "done"

As stated, there's many that will claim that Windows never seems 'done'. No OS is immune from this and desktop Linux is younger than Windows.
 
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Actually, that's exactly what they're saying and that's exactly what my replies are relating to:

Not really. They're saying that they don't like the fragmentation and that, to them, it feels like things are never "done". Linux is nowhere near as fragmented now as it used to be, but a lot of fragmentation still exists. This is especially true when you get into more specialized uses. The fragmentation is more akin to Android these days then it was 15-20 years ago, so it's far less confusing to the end user .
 
Some things don't need a standard and some things do, but Linux devs will never agree on anything and it will always be an unnecessarily complicated crapshoot on the things that should be standard but aren't. Android is miles ahead here. At least every version of android all use APKs
 
Not really. They're saying that they don't like the fragmentation and that, to them, it feels like things are never "done". Linux is nowhere near as fragmented now as it used to be, but a lot of fragmentation still exists. This is especially true when you get into more specialized uses. The fragmentation is more akin to Android these days then it was 15-20 years ago, so it's far less confusing to the end user .

And as myself and many other Linux users in this thread have stated, fragmentation isn't the issue many like to claim it to be. In relation to your example regarding Android, globally Android is the most popular OS available, beating Windows by a country mile - If fragmentation, the fragmentation you claim exists under Android was such an issue, logic dictates that Android would not be as popular as it is - And yet it is popular.

The one strength of Linux is the fact it is not owned by anyone, it is not locked down - To many, including myself, that's a selling point of Linux. There is no major issue packaging for .deb, .rpm, apt or AUR.

I couldn't imagine anything worse than being locked down to the one UI like Windows 10.
 
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Some things don't need a standard and some things do, but Linux devs will never agree on anything and it will always be an unnecessarily complicated crapshoot on the things that should be standard but aren't. Android is miles ahead here. At least every version of android all use APKs

There's no complexity at all. I install software, software works.

At least Linux has some measurable level of security when it comes to software installation.
 
There's no complexity at all. I install software, software works.

At least Linux has some measurable level of security when it comes to software installation.

You seriously don't think having multiple package managers doesn't add an uneeded layer of complexity that confuses people? Especially average normies? This is the kind of extreme denial that makes me want to bang my head against a wall when talking to Linux users and devs
 
You seriously don't think having multiple package managers doesn't add an uneeded layer of complexity that confuses people? Especially average normies? This is the kind of extreme denial that makes me want to bang my head against a wall when talking to Linux users and devs

No, because people pick one distro and use one distro. When they want software they find the deb or apt installer if they're running an Ubuntu based distro and install their software, it's far from difficult. There's also more than one way to install software under both Windows and especially MacOS - And yet people claim MacOS is an OS for the layman. There's also more than one way to 'uninstall' software under MacOS - That's terribly confusing for average users.

These days people use a variety of interfaces and most cannot install software under Windows - Essentially what you're arguing is a fairly moot point for the average pleb who'll probably just use the Ubuntu Software Store.
 
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You seriously don't think having multiple package managers doesn't add an uneeded layer of complexity that confuses people? Especially average normies? This is the kind of extreme denial that makes me want to bang my head against a wall when talking to Linux users and devs
They've been pushing to hide this complexity recently, with URIs and also portable package/sandboxed application installers, software stores... and to some extent it's worked, but there is still some disagreement over which solution(s) are best.
 
I just love installing iTunes under Windows. It used to be that you go to the Apple site, download the installer and install iTunes. Now you're redirected to the Windows store where Microsoft try and manipulate the unsuspecting user to open a Microsoft account (yes, we know you don't have to, but the requester doesn't specifically state that), transitioning their local profile to a cloud based profile with a different password next time they log into their PC!

That's vastly more confusing than .deb or APT.
 
Some things don't need a standard and some things do, but Linux devs will never agree on anything and it will always be an unnecessarily complicated crapshoot on the things that should be standard but aren't. Android is miles ahead here. At least every version of android all use APKs

Standards are the only thing that hold Linux together. I'm not sure I follow the no everyone agrees on anything line of argument. This is because the developers talk publicly and we can all see what they are debating doing going forward. Sure a closed source OS like MS all that cross talk happens internally... or in smaller voices on beta test forums I guess.

Linux has one Kernel... which is ruled over. The manner of rule has been questioned the last couple years and Linus has had to eat a bit of crow and promise to be kinder. But its still ruled over. Good luck trying to get a shit coded driver included in the OS. Hey there is a Star Wars movie out lets compare it to that. You can disagree about X or Y or argue that Z isn't canon all you like... but at the end of the day if Disney says your thoughts are non canon that is the way it is. The kernel is run the same way... people can argue and disagree about inclusions or exclusions but at the end of the day if Linus pushes the commits they are canon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
For 25 years now Linux OS things go Where they are supposed to go. Ok there are some heretics that purposely flaunt their non conformity. But they are heretics. FHS is the rule not the suggestion.

File systems... sure we have choices but what is included in the kernel is canon. Sure you can find distros that patch up and bolt on support for non mainline file systems but even in those cases their ultimate goal is to have their code included mainline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:File_systems_supported_by_the_Linux_kernel
Of course most distros default to using ext4... as its likely the best of all worlds as file systems go. Its very stable, its not the fastest but its not slow, its not the most efficient but its not inefficient... its just an all around solid safe bet. There are other options and no distro is wrong for compiling support for them into their kernel builds.

As for Desktop Environments... those are user land and not really OS bits. Even if most of us consider them part of the OS. Still even if we want to consider that as part of a desktop OS. There are standards... and only really 2 major frameworks in play. GTK and QT. Gnome and KDE have become the defacto standards if you will... but its not like if you decide you perfer an old version of Gnome and run MATE things fall apart. All the same software still runs. If you choose KDE its not like you can't install GTK framework and run software designed for Gnome. You can and vise versa.

I hear this all the time Linux doesn't have standards... its a crock. Without standards Linux couldn't exist. To go back to the star wars reference. It doesn't matter if there are 20 different fan factions arguing over minutia... the canon is the canon is the canon. Those factions arguing over how best to go forward is how most projects become solid good software. In most cases all the major Linux software projects move forward by committee and the best ideas tend to rise. Sure perhaps a few people get but hurt now and then and spin off a unnecessary DE cause they really want their desktop to look like its 1999, or someone decides they hate SystemD and they port some Unix init system and build out a distro. All the more power to them... but to suggest that the little baby splinters of unhappy developers doing their own thing is fragmentation is a bit much.

Although I will admit obscurity is in many way desktop linuxes biggest problem. Because most "advanced" PC enthusiasts know little about Linux... its easy for them to confuse some splinter distro as in someway a major player. Many of these little distros that get semi popular with people that don't know any better are the brain child of one but hurt Linux developer. lol For every Solus that starts that way and becomes something interesting down the road when more people join the project. We get some other half baked distro that just alienates new Linux users... cause ya they end up trying out a distro developed by one dude in his mothers basement.

Ubuntu Fedora Suse. Those are the major distros right now... and frankly they run much the same. A few philosophical differences in their management (read updates and release schedules ect) but mostly they all run the same, their files and .ini type stuff is all in the same place, and they are running very much the same versions of software. There are a few good distros that started as one man shows that have grown... Manjaro being my favorite, Mint, and perhaps MX Linux although I think they are still really small and I can't imagine their no SystemD stance is going to go well long term. For the most part every other "General desktop" distro is a labour of one or two peoples love that is probably not doing Linux as a whole any favors. (I'm sure if anyone gets this far in my book of a post, it would be someone that has a Distro I didn't list as an example of a perfect distro lol) My point I guess is when you stop looking at distros with less then 5 developers... your left with less then 10 real distros, and I think you can argue having them as options is worthwhile as they all bring something a bit different to the table.
 
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Linux is my main OS and I don't experience what you describe to be issues to any extent greater than that I experience under Windows or MacOS, the fact you post in defense of Windows by no means makes your opinion more valid, and comparisons are difficult to avoid when discussing the merits of certain systems - I hardly consider them to be bullshit any more than your own opinion could be considered bullshit.

It's actually the opinion of many that Windows never appears to be 'done', with most updates introducing more issues than they resolve.

Essentially, no operating system is immune to the issues you've described.

Whoa there Skippy, I'm not defending Windows. I gave an opinion, my opinion. You are literally the problem with Linux apologists.
 
I still have money on MS abandoning the OS space....The point is there may not be much of an issue before too long. If MS looks to abandon the OS market companies will have no choice but to port over and support their software on Linux and the point will be moot.

Lol. Microsoft makes big $$ with enterprise licenses and support. They'd be stupid to give all that money up.

...Linux is far from the software wasteland Windows users believe it to be and the biggest problem with desktop computing in general - Is Windows...

Let me fix that for you:

Windows is far from the software junkpile/wasteland Linux users believe it to be and the biggest problem with desktop computing in general - Is users.

Furthermore, back when I ran Windows, quite often gaming wasn't just install and play - I encountered numerous issues from Nvidia driver problems to Anti Virus messing with launchers. Quite often a substantial amount of Googling was required before issues were resolved or I had to wait for certain aspects to be updated before things worked correctly.

When, in 2003? I think I've had 1 issue with nVidia drivers, and it might have been more than a decade ago.. (fan speed issue), and I found the answer here on [H] (google would have probably worked too, but not 'substantial' google... ). Never had AV mess with launchers, and virus are not a big threat anymore. It's malware and 1 good malware app is all you need. The chrome browser is constantly improving protections from nasty or hacked websites, and runs in a sandbox.

It's something I experienced recently regarding Quake Champions, my problem was identical to the problem encountered by Windows users and the fix was identical between platforms.

Sounds like the game or launcher was the issue then, not the OS of choice.

But what I've learned from this thread: If you want to play the newest games, you are a shallow gamer.
If a game you want to play doesn't work on Linux, you are a shallow gamer.

Thanks everyone!
 
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Lol. Microsoft makes big $$ with enterprise licenses and support. They'd be stupid to give all that money up.

Let me fix that for you:

Windows is far from the software junkpile/wasteland Linux users believe it to be and the biggest problem with desktop computing in general - Is users.

When, in 2003? I think I've had 1 issue with nVidia drivers, and it might have been more than a decade ago.. (fan speed issue), and I found the answer here on [H] (google would have probably worked too, but not 'substantial' google... ). Never had AV mess with launchers, and virus are not a big threat anymore. It's malware and 1 good malware app is all you need. The chrome browser is constantly improving protections from nasty or hacked websites, and runs in a sandbox.

Sounds like the game or launcher was the issue then, not the OS of choice.

But what I've learned from this thread: If you want to play the newest games, you are a shallow gamer.
If a game you want to play doesn't work on Linux, you are a shallow gamer.

Thanks everyone!

MS isn't likely to abandon the Enterprise... or even the desktop OS. Consider what Google is doing with Chrome. They are carving out a pretty sizable market with a stripped down Linux distro. MS at some point is going to develop a Linux version of the Windows Desktop Environment. Its painfully obvious that NTFS is one of the worst "modern"file systems. MS attempt to replace it went very badly. Since then they have inserted themselves into the open source file system community. They have even went out of their way to do things no one ever expected like getting exFAT support added to mainline kernel. They have also released open source/Linux versions of .net. Their most recent widows API C++/WinRT has been released under the MIT licence. I mean for krips sakes they released windows file manager as open source in 2018. Powershell is also opensource (at least he majority of it)... as well as Visual Studio and through their purchase of GIT I guess they also own ATOM now, both open source projects. I don't have a Link but I also noticed a few times this year MS employees submitting driver code for non MS hardware. Its possible those engineers did that work on their own time... however that doesn't seem to be the case. MS appears to be paying some of their engineers to improve Linux hardware support of obscure bits of hardware... I am pretty sure one of the commits I noticed was for a driver pertaining to a old MS propitiatory surface touch screen controller. lol

Sure there is no gurentee MS drops their windows micro kernel and file system..... however they seem to clearly be making it possible. At some point in the next couple years I expect they will release a proprietary windows DE... and run it on top of a standard Linux distro in much the same way Google does with ChromeOS. Average consumers won't even notice the difference.

Windows software junkland is mostly due to MS allowing people to install anything they want with minimal intrusion. Or put a better way minimal security. Its still far to easy to download a .exe or .msi file and install crapware. MS has tried their best to their credit the last few years to try and build a proper package manager, which they call the windows store. But that is half the problem calling it a store made a lot of people resist it. Allowing people to install things willy nilly and then allow those software bits access to things they don't need is 99% the problem with windows software.

On the argument that all windows gaming issues are ancient history... come on now. Didn't red dead redemption II just have a ton of issues with MS November update. (everyone blamed the Developer but it was MS fault their PC launch was shit) There was also a windows update on March 1 that dropped Destiny 2 , Apex legends and some smaller titles frame rates 50%. A may update last year also broke sound in a bunch of windows games. I am not saying windows is full of issues... but to say people haven't had to mess around with windows games in years is disingenuous. Maz is also correct that many third party virus scanners do cause gaming issues... mainly the type of games that have crap bloatware anti cheat systems (not that that is MS fault I guess but its still a real issue). As an example Avast blocked league of legends from starting last summer. (not sure if it still does honestly its not my game).

As for your edit there no... your not a shallow gamer if you feel you need windows to play X or Y title that is hard to run or doesn't run under Linux. Its just unfair to say Linux has issues with games and windows does not. Windows has plenty of issues with games... the fault tends to be 50/50 in my experience MS cause the issues with borked updates, and developers causing issues with bloat crap ware DRM/Anti cheat systems that cause more issues then they solve.
 
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MS isn't likely to abandon the Enterprise... or even the desktop OS. Consider what Google is doing with Chrome. They are carving out a pretty sizable market with a stripped down Linux distro. MS at some point is going to develop a Linux version of the Windows Desktop Environment. Its painfully obvious that NTFS is one of the worst "modern"file systems. MS attempt to replace it went very badly. Since then they have inserted themselves into the open source file system community. They have even went out of their way to do things no one ever expected like getting exFAT support added to mainline kernel. They have also released open source/Linux versions of .net. Their most recent widows API C++/WinRT has been released under the MIT licence. I mean for krips sakes they released windows file manager as open source in 2018. Powershell is also opensource (at least he majority of it)... as well as Visual Studio and through their purchase of GIT I guess they also own ATOM now, both open source projects. I don't have a Link but I also noticed a few times this year MS employees submitting driver code for non MS hardware. Its possible those engineers did that work on their own time... however that doesn't seem to be the case. MS appears to be paying some of their engineers to improve Linux hardware support of obscure bits of hardware... I am pretty sure one of the commits I noticed was for a driver pertaining to a old MS propitiatory surface touch screen controller. lol

Sure there is no gurentee MS drops their windows micro kernel and file system..... however they seem to clearly be making it possible. At some point in the next couple years I expect they will release a proprietary windows DE... and run it on top of a standard Linux distro in much the same way Google does with ChromeOS. Average consumers won't even notice the difference.

Windows software junkland is mostly due to MS allowing people to install anything they want with minimal intrusion. Or put a better way minimal security. Its still far to easy to download a .exe or .msi file and install crapware. MS has tried their best to their credit the last few years to try and build a proper package manager, which they call the windows store. But that is half the problem calling it a store made a lot of people resist it. Allowing people to install things willy nilly and then allow those software bits access to things they don't need is 99% the problem with windows software.

On the argument that all windows gaming issues are ancient history... come on now. Didn't red dead redemption II just have a ton of issues with MS November update. (everyone blamed the Developer but it was MS fault their PC launch was shit) There was also a windows update on March 1 that dropped Destiny 2 , Apex legends and some smaller titles frame rates 50%. A may update last year also broke sound in a bunch of windows games. I am not saying windows is full of issues... but to say people haven't had to mess around with windows games in years is disingenuous. Maz is also correct that many third party virus scanners do cause gaming issues... mainly the type of games that have crap bloatware anti cheat systems (not that that is MS fault I guess but its still a real issue). As an example Avast blocked league of legends from starting last summer. (not sure if it still does honestly its not my game).

As for your edit there no... your not a shallow gamer if you feel you need windows to play X or Y title that is hard to run or doesn't run under Linux. Its just unfair to say Linux has issues with games and windows does not. Windows has plenty of issues with games... the fault tends to be 50/50 in my experience MS cause the issues with borked updates, and developers causing issues with bloat crap ware DRM/Anti cheat systems that cause more issues then they solve.

Average users will immediately notice the difference when their programs will not install. It does not take a genius to understand that it did not work with Windows RT and it would not work today, either.
 
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