Software. What’s a computer without software other than an over glorified calculator.
That was my first experience with Linux back in the early 2010’s and pretty much up to recently. However with changes to my workflow and Steam improving and sharing the improvements with Wine. My software library went from web browsing and office software t
99% of games, and all of my business software.
The UX experience needs some work under the hood. There is still a nasty tendency to over rely on the terminal to fix basic problems. (IBT=off for VM to work).
But its close enough that I can almost recommend it to my grandparents… Almost.
Linux is perfect for grandparents or non tech savvy family if you set it up for them. Once it’s up and running, there isn’t much of anything they can do to break it.
Not so, it was true for my 86-year-old mom. I installed Linux Mint and put the Chrome browser icon on her desktop, and that was all she used. She only checked e-mails and browsed like Facebook, etc. Every month or so when I went to visit, I’d just run the updater. Never broke and I never really had to do anything. The reason why I put it on, was her PC was getting old, and Windows was getting super slow. So it was win-win. She did not even know it was Linux.
If the only thing you’re doing is turning it on and firing up a browser, I can see that working for just about any device with just about any operating system…
Yeah, but Mint is completely free and doesnt come with much of the software bloat that might be confusing to an older person. It’s a simple user experience by design.
Not in my experience. They don’t know how to use the terminal and downloading anything shady online won’t install. No auto-updates, no bloat, nothing but what I put there. How would that not work?
My pattern with linux is that I tinker with it until I eventually break it in a way I don’t have the knowledge or skill to repair, and then I balk at the thought of starting from scratch again, so I just put windows back on the machine…
Every few years I try Linux again. At this point I’ve decided that when I can install linux, and use all of my hardware/software without having to open a terminal window, I’ll try it again. Until then, I only use it when I’m paid to.
If I have to open a terminal just to get up and running, the UI has failed. If something that basic has failed, there are other much larger problems to deal with still. None of which I want to deal with.
Also I’ve spent 40 years working in various versions of dos and PowerShell interfaces, and there’s enough difference with all nix type interfaces that I don’t want to deal with swapping back and forth. I do that enough with the programming languages I use every day that it’s a constant annoyance.
I got tired of having to endlessly maintain it, vs windows which generally just works (no fighting with audio drivers, wifi drivers, gpu drivers, suspend to disk works without glitching, etc) and i like playing video games without having to deal with wine. Still run linux on servers, and my work desktop and laptop are linux since we have an IT department which maintains it for me.
Oh also windows has handled high DPI monitors and mixed DPI multi monitor setups perfectly for a decade or more, I think linux only more recently started handling it ok and it’s still got quirks.
I think the experience depends a lot on what ditros you’re using and your hardware configuration. I started out on Manjaro and that ran terribly for me, then i went on to Linux Mint which i liked a lot and that was solid, but since i got a new GPU i needed a distro with a newer kernel which made me switch to Pop!_os and that is also running great. But i won’t deny that audio was a bit flakey on Mint for me until i messed with it, seems solid on Pop though.
It’s more of a “why do I keep Windows on my main machine and only use Linux for my servers?”
The answer is two-fold
a) most of my games and a (dwindling) amount of productivity software are windows based. I know things are improving… But the fact remains that I am still literally invested in some software that is only supported on Windows (that pile is shrinking).
b) there are a few everyday tasks that are still just too frustrating to be practical for non-technical people. For example, why in the fuck do I need to deal with user and mod permissions for files on an external harddrive? I get why for system files, but for media files on an external drive? It’s a level of pedantry I’m just not ready to deal with.
That’s almost exactly my problems with Linux. Adobe is what holds me back the most, a few games that I play also don’t run, and dualbooting has been really annoying. Also, audio drivers, audio problems drive me nuts, and the solutions are absolutely bonkers complex weird setting stuff, specially becaus I’m using a laptop. That said, I love Linux and open-source software, just can’t afford the compromises.
I tried it just last month for a whole week before I ditched it back for Windows. Its just not ready for serious gamers. I am very anti microsoft so when it is ready, I will happily make the switch.
I’m definitely a Linux novice, tried it on and off over the last decade and currently dual boot Mint on my laptop. I love Mint, it’s been the easiest version of Linux by far.
Now the bad, DaVinci Resolve Studio just does not play nice. I know this is more of a Resolve problem, but still, it doesn’t connect to my NAS efficiently. As an editor, this is a deal breaker. I hope it gets fixed in the future.
Second, it won’t even see my Bluetooth keyboard, once again, probably something to do with the hardware, but it works on everything else, even Android. I also have weird issues with my wireless Xbox controller in that the trigger buttons don’t register in games. Still trying to troubleshoot that.
I still try to use Mint as often as I can, but there always something that keeps me from switching fully.
My main problem is that I have "legacy" games that don't work on Linux as well as Linux ports and native Linux builds being worse than their Linux counterpart.
#limuxgaming has come a long way and I'm curious and excited to see where it goes, but ease of use simply doesn't have parity. I want one click installs with identical performance.
The bigger issue with the #linuxdesktop in general is that no distro actually thinks about it as a product. 1/2
As in, where things are, why they are there and how it works as a holistic thing, isn't being talked about.
Redesigns are graphic or graphic subsystems.
But nobody touches aspects of which settings make sense to put where, taking the education level of the user into account.
And there is no at least semi centralized group that organize that some setups actually work and are well explained. E.g. Sound, If you run into an issue there, good luck finding a support contact or manual.
FIFA23. Yeah I know it’s a shit game but I just play it for the couch multiplayer experience! Anyway 22 was working great on linux but they added a new DRM so the new one doesn’t work anymore. Hopefully someone can get the next one to run on Linux so I can ditch windows again.
Basically visual arts software and some writing software. Additionally I have a free version of Ableton Live Lite 11 (so one music-making application as well) that came with my keyboard.
I mostly do photography, writing, and other visual arts type work on my two computers. I use quite a few photography and painting applications (Photoshop, ArtRage, Rebelle, Lightroom, Inspirit, and a few others; I’m also looking at BlackInk), as well as Scrivener and MS Office when I’m writing. I don’t know if any of those run well or at all in Linux or in Wine, etc. Also I stopped flirting with learning programming and there wasn’t much point maintaining a Linux machine after that. I think Linux is better than Windows all around, and I hate Windows, but it’s just because I use certain apps and from what I’ve heard and seen the Linux apps just aren’t as good.
TLDR, creative software that won’t run on Linux (to my knowledge, anyway).
Yeah proton works very well, in some rare cases running the games in question better than windows. Right now the main issue is games with super invasive kernel level anticheat, eg. Valorant, Siege, Fortnite, etc. So really mostly shooters.
Some don’t even need to. EasyAntiCheat and BattlEye both have support for Linux and it’s up to the devs to enable support (or upgrade to a version that supports Linux). But in some cases, the companies just refuse to support it (Bungie with Destiny 2 for example)
Multiplayer games often use a third party anti-cheat software. Some of them work on Linux, some of them don’t. What the previous commenter was referring to specifically is that some anti-cheat, like easy anti cheat has been updated to work in proton, but it requires that game developer push out an update to enable that functionality. Some do, and some (Bungie) have outright refused to do it, and even threaten bans for players that try to play on Linux.
Stuff like East Anti Cheat needs to have support for Linux essentially turned on. Otherwise the game won’t run even if WINE/Proton can run the game fine. I think a lot of devs don’t bother because they don’t know Linux in case OS specific support might be required, and the market was fairly small up until the Steam Deck came out.
For an example. A few weeks after the Steam Deck came out, suddenly Apex Legends and a few other games could be run on Linux without anti-cheat issues. The developers just turned on a switch and made a new build essentially.
For the longest of time is Linux users were mostly just told that people use Linux to cheat in games and that’s not really the case.
Overall though there is no real reason why anti-cheat software shouldn’t be able to work on Linux.
I tried installing Zorin amd Pop_OS on my laptop, but the mousepad gestures, bluetooth, speakers, and a bunch of other small things didn’t work.
I just don’t have the time to tinker with it. I have an hour or two of free time a day and it’s hard to convince myself to spend it trying to get linux to work whenever I have windows that just works.
Plus, i found that people just weren’t helpful. Unlike some people, i didn’t come out of the womb knowing how linux works. I did research and fixed what i could, but some things i could’t fix. People were rude, condesending, and just not helpful whenever i would ask a question
I think the biggest thing here is how insular the linux community can be. I do think that Lemmy’s linux communities are much better about being supportive and welcoming however. Less of a dick measuring contest and more a group of people who are passionate and want to engage with the topic.
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