I’ve seen a trend where people move the goalposts on the reasons they’re not able to switch. “If only this program worked I could switch”, but when that program is ported it’ll be a new excuse next. Sooner or later you’ll have to draw a line and say “99% of my stuff works, the 1% that doesn’t can get bent”.
I had used Linux before so I wasn’t too worried, but gaming for me was the reason. With Proton I had the desire to switch, but I needed something to just push me over the edge. I wasn’t taking the leap on my own. For one Windows update it put the search bar back on the Taskbar, which I had told it to remove. Microsoft, once again, ignoring what I had told it before to try to force me to use something is the thing that pushed me over. It’s such a small thing, but it’ll be different for everyone.
I don’t blame anyone for not switching. It’s a fairly large change (though not as large as some imagine). Most people will just stick with what they know until something comes along that makes them trip up, and then the thing they know is seen as a hindrance. That’s going to be different for everyone. We just need to inform people that, when that thing comes, there is an option for them that will handle pretty much whatever they need.
I switched to Ubuntu a few months ago and the only thing that doesn’t work are a few online games due to anti-cheat software and those games I’ll just play on PS5 now. I don’t see myself ever going back at this point. Every issue I have encountered I’ve been able to resolve with a quick google search. Google search has been getting kinda shitty so that’s the next thing I’m looking to replace.
If you’re willing to pay for a search engine, I highly recommend Kagi. I’ve been using it for a few months and I like the results better than Google or any other search engine I’ve tried.
And the reason is going to be “enterprise” software, which is usually a pile of a flaming wreck that barely runs in its native Windows environment in the first place. So it is with the point of sale/inventory software I have to use for work. I can run it in a VM, but it explodes spectacularly in Wine.
Moving goalposts is a concept that applies to debates. Choosing an operating system shouldn’t be a debate. It’s a personal choice, or sometimes a professional choice. Convincing people who don’t want to be convinced shouldn’t be anyone’s goal.
I didn’t mean my post to be read as trying to convince someone to use Linux, but as someone trying to convince themselves to use Linux. It’s fairly common that people want to switch but have convinced themselves that unless they have their exact same workflow from Windows they won’t be able to.
M$ has been the dominant OS for the majority of a lot of peoples lives, accordingly a massive, massive ecosystem has grown up around it.
My IT career has taken me some weird and wonderful places, and there is a lot of extremely specialised software that will only run on windows, and wine unfortunately still has a bit of a stigma with its interoperability. When you’re running shit a business literally relies on to exist, you don’t play games with it.
Fortunately m$ are shooting themselves in the face, which is driving a lot of vendors to rethink their software., but it’s still a slog.
It’s scary. Straight up. You don’t know if changing it will put you into a situation where there is no one there to help. All your information is on these machines and Windows for all it’s faults is a bought product with customer service.
Making a change without a safety net or someone to walk you through it is ballsy. Research is important and no offense, hard to find for Linux. Sure there are many “how to” videos and scenarios. But what if I play a game and I cannot absolutely live without it. And all of its plugins?
Not unless you’re a business customer lol, don’t get me wrong they do support but the quality really isn’t much above a community Linux forum (at least where I live). Not that the average Joe knows that so the claim is still a valid reason why people don’t switch.
I went to MS forums for remembering how to write “sfc /scannow”, “Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth”, because it was often the first answer on a post. How-To’s concerning “bootrec” and “diskpart” were always to be found somewhere else. At least with sfc and dism it was always pray and hope it does something useful under the hood.
With an unbootable Linux partition (which seldomly happens) I mount it, chroot it and then have a plethora of fixes I can try, tools I can use and logfiles I can check instead of putting my self in the hands of 2-3 blackbox-apps. Manual fixing under Windows is possible but nobody can tell me it’s feasible with the repair console.
You're the only developer, then you burn out on the project.
You underbake the UI so much your project becomes infamous for how hard it is to use, complete with an elitist userbase that just screams "git gud" memes at everyone asking for help (most often happens to dev tools).
The rare occasion, it'll become like Krita, modern Blender, Audacity, etc.
Exactly the same with me. Very occasional Mint user. I will never touch Win11, so when Win10 hits EoL I’m screwed if I haven’t learned to deal with the friction of learning Linux.
I may end up regressing to a PC-less monke until I figure it out. Windows can kiss my primate ass.
Meanwhile I’m over here, not used windows on my own machine in more than 1.75 years and I don’t even touch the terminal most of the time, I know how some commands work, but I hardly touch them
I should really learn to do more with it, but I have my system setup and working how I like, So I don’t really have motivation to learn to do all this other cool stuff
I use the free version for my Win10 VM. It works well, plus it’s super easy to share folders between guest and host. I’m not sure about 3D though, I use it for Photoshop & Illustrator.
I already used QEMU which was a heck more complicated than VirtualBox, although I got MacOS Big Sur running with acceptable speed at the end. Sadly no-joy with NVidia single GPU passthrough in the apple garden. But I plan to do it for Windows 10 because I want that fucking 1TB NVMe that the big ass of my Windows install is hibernating on for the second year.
What GPU are you using and if it’s Nvidia, was it difficult to enable?
I’m currently learning FreeCAD so that the one machine I still have sitting around to run Fusion360 can be liberated from Windows at long last. And as a bonus I won’t have to keep updating NoMachine every couple weeks.
FreeCAD is such garbage though. In something like 6 months, CadSketcher blender plugin made something that was far more functional, and FreeCAD has been in development for 20 years and it still can’t provide a logical, cohesive CAD experience.
Honestly, Solidworks is my hangup too, so I get the willingness to castrate yourself in order to just move to Linux finally. I’m thinking of moving over to their 3DExperienceWorks product that runs in the browser. If it handles my workflow, and I can get the cheap “maker” license without them ever asking me to upgrade it, then I’m finally down to switch full time.
The other big problem that I generally have is window-decoration and padding. I need to find a window manager where I can have things with embedded tabs but pixel-perfect edges. I like a single-pixel edge to my applications and as dense as possible window title bars.
Now that Firefox is releasing Wayland enabled by default, it might be the time to try again.
Just yesterday I updated an 8bitdo controller’s firmware. I just keep a laptop with windows around for this sort of nonsense. And no, it’s one of the older ones that do not work with the android app, not that using the app is any better.
Just use a windows VM lol. Only problem I’ve encountered outside of that was a lockdown browser for school but I just put that on a burner laptop because there is no way I’m letting some rando have root access to my main pc
AFAIK the Same situation with KDE Connect which I couldn’t properly exist without. Also KRunner & Dolphin. Kate would be possible but hard AF.
Full on agree with KRunner. One of the MVP applications of KDE. So far none of the alternatives I tried on Windows 10 and MacOS come anywhere close to its power and elegance. Maybe Alfred which I tested years ago.
I could write 10 more paragraphs about why KRunner is one of the most advanced laucher/search/command application but I think everyone should experience it themselves. Best not to over-do it with the KRunner-plugins where an overwhelmingly long search result list could ruin your experience.
Okular is the MPV of documents it seems. Regarding file-formats and UI. I only use it for PDF’s and I honestly had no clue it can read e-books and so much other formats. Even docx and odt with plugins. Also didn’t knew it has 3 dark-modes. Tyvm for your post.
BTW, I love mpv. It’s minimalistic, supports all necessary shortcuts and can be controlled via Lua script. As a scripter/keyboard-only user it’s perfect.
Yeah it’s great. I use it for youtube and twitch and I don’t need more than the volume, mute, forward/backward and fullscreen keys to use it. Never touched Lua. Do you use it with MPV yourself?
I have a pretty good streak without Windows, I use macOS and Linux, and everything I need is available. If not, I can use Wine, and it works. And Proton is just amazing, the number of games you can play with it without ONE SINGLE PROBLEM is just insane.
I want to use linux and will use it when two conditions are met:
-All my work software and the games I play the most all work on it (without requiring me to re-buy shit I already own to get a linux compatable version)
-Its user friendly enough that asking which version I should use as a beginner doesn’t result in all the linux users immediately descending into the thread equivelent of a cartoon fight cloud with random limbs flailing around.
Edit: Some feedback on the feedback:
-Apparently some of the linux versions are super user friendly but advice about this is totally inconsistent, some of the advice doesn’t even actually name a specific version or versions.
-“It all works fine you just need to install thing A through thing B and then use it to run thing C in order to run this one single program from windows” is not as encouraging as you think it is. The thought of potentially going through that for every piece of software is at least for me a big reason for not switching yet and I suspect for a lot of other people too.
-The reference page for what games work on linux is helpful though some things on it only work if you use the steam version which is the precise reason for my not wanting to re-buy things comment.
Edit: Additional question.
Is it mandatory to use the terminal for everything? Everytime I see people talk about linux or look stuff up about it the terminal seems to be everywhere. I’m somewhat familiar with the windows command line (which I assume is the terminals equivelent) but having to use that just to install software (as opposed to just running a .exe) seems really daunting.
Exactly. I have my setup just the way I like it for final fantasy. ACT (a packet capturing DPS meter) doesn’t work without windows. Once that’s supported I may hop ship.
If you use plogons (xivlauncher), you can use IINACT as the parsing plugin and either HUDkit for a separate overlay program, or LMeter (this fork that’s still maintained) for a plugin overlay. I use the latter perfectly fine on my Steam Deck and my Linux desktop
Yep, it gives the same logs for uploading. It’s in a different directory, but all the same type of file. And the fflogs uploader is Linux compatible too
I haven’t played FFXIV since switching to Linux so I haven’t tested this, but it seems there’s a Dalamud plugin to have the ACT plugin working without having to deal with ACT itself. github.com/marzent/IINACT
If a piece of software requires you to re-buy itself for a different platform why would you use such an application? I don’t get why people choose to torture themselves when there are SO many alternatives to literally anything.
Edit: thanks for the clarification on the re-buying part. Doesn’t apply to you then ʘ‿ʘ
@nolight@CheeseNoodle I believe one use-case for those licensed paid programs are the business who truly need some trustworthy software and dedicated support. The FOSS might be great for personal use, but maybe LibreOffice doesn't fit every company's needs
I agree, though I think LibreOffice is not a great example as there’s very little room for error and something that you would need “dedicated support” for. That’s how I see it anyway. Never worked in an office.
However, the majority of companies that require using paid proprietary software also require the use of Windows itself. A safe bet in this situation would be to just set up a VM for work and use Linux for everything else.
Also an important aspect for companies is liability. If the app they paid money for screws up customer data they have someone on the hook for that. If the FOSS version does the most they have on the hook is the 40 year old dude living in his parent’s basement maintaining the project they used. Not much money to be got there for damages.
Yeah, but a lot of users want something that does exactly what they want without tinkering. Why does everyone in the Linux community project their readiness to tinker forever on the average user.
Switching an operating system doesn’t come without tinkering. Even reinstalling an existing installation doesn’t. You have to be ready if you are willing to make a switch.
That said, LibreOffice gives you exactly what you would expect from an office suite. And it doesn’t only apply to office apps. Pretty much every field is already filled with FOSS solutions that “just work”.
Im not talking about the operating system switch. That is the trivial part. Getting software to run on wine can involve a tinkering. Sure you can run a VM, but then you have 2 operating systems you need to take care of. Also there are a lot of add on’s for proprietary programs that might not run well even if you got the bas program to run. And then if you go through the VM route you might need hardware Passthrough.
All these things are possible for people that want to put the time into it. But the majority of the population doesn’t want to spend time on stuff like this. They would rather pay for the convenience and put up with AD’s.
Take my father for example, he is completely incompetent when it comes to technology. His new PC has Windows 11 and he still plays Solitaire. Which is now plastered with AD’s, but he doesn’t care enough to do something about it.
The average end user just has his priorities somewhere else.
I meant to convey my thought in the context of the person above refusing to switch to Linux because of “re-buying stuff” (they’ve already clarified they were talking about games). I do agree that people of little technological literacy wouldn’t be willing to put in the work to get everything working.
My stance on it is that everything comes down to individual situations. I’ve installed Ubuntu on my mother’s laptop and she’s been nothing but happy about it. I just think we shouldn’t gatekeep FOSS and encourage others to use it. Whether to actually try it or not is always up to the end-user.
Is it mandatory to use the terminal for everything?
No. Most distros have a GUI that you can use to install stuff without touching the terminal, and most distros have a GUI for configuring your system (think Control Panel in Windows).
It’s not necessary to use the terminal, but I do recommend eventually learning how to use the terminal, for a couple reasons:
It’s more ubiquitous - like you said, a lot of places online give terminal instructions, not GUI instructions for things, so knowing your way around the terminal is helpful in those situations. Plus, it makes things a little more distro-agnostic - if I’m trying to install some program, I know I can probably run apt install regardless of whether I’m running Mint, Ubuntu, PopOS, or any other Debian-based distro that uses the apt package manager.
It’s usually faster. Opening a terminal window and typing in a few dozen characters is usually going to take less time than digging through a couple layers of menus.
It’s more flexible. A lot of times, GUIs are just fronts for a terminal based application, and sometimes they only partially implement the features the terminal app exposes. By using the terminal app directly, you aren’t limited by whatever options happen to be made available in the GUI.
Again though, it’s not necessary to use the terminal. It’s definitely helpful, especially if you want to do gaming, or if you’re used to being a power user (which it seems like you are in Windows), but certainly not a requirement these days.
Distros being so similar is the entire reason why the comments about which is best for beginners usually descend into a mud slinging contest. Honestly most “popular” distros are perfectly reasonable for any beginner nowadays. But there is just so much choice it creates decision paralysis in people wanting to switch.
Yeah, distro variety is a block for adoption, but when you do adopt Linux, you understand why they’re there.
Good thing community starts to center on a few distros for beginners, particularly Linux Mint + 1 or 2 more. (I’m a Manjaro adept, but ready to bury the hatchet to welcome newbies, and always do recommend Mint - it is good too)
100% on the TLDR there, I’ll edit as such, that comment is open source ;)
I’ve been running Ubuntu on a separate machine for a little while now, and it works great, just not a good fit for me.
I’m happy to say within 2 weeks of my dual boot I’m already on mint 90% of the time. It just fucking works. (Without waking me up at 2-4am sending the fans to mach 7 for a damn windows update).
Visual Studio Enterprise (VS Code with a hundred plugins still doesn’t come close)
SQL Server Management Studio (though with extensions, Azure Data Studio has gotten me pretty damn close)
Full-featured Office 365 software (Edge web versions are somewhat sufficient, but not quite there)
Teams with multi-tenant. The desktop Windows app lets me quickly switch between the 6 orgs I need to, unfortunately on Linux I have to have 6 different browser profiles and use the web version which just doesn’t fly.
More responsive RDP. Unfortunately for server management I’m juggling 3-4 RDP instances daily and I’m not typically allowed to install AnyDesk or VNC or anything. I’ve tried a couple RDP alternatives and there were just all sorts of problems from keyboard issues to rendering issues to general sluggishness.
There is one weird VPN program a job forces me to run and unfortunately it isn’t available on Linux.
But! All the above said, I run Linux and have a Windows VM. And I also run Windows and have a Linux VM - so it’s almost there for me. If work & clients all ditched Microsoft’s ecosystem, it’d be a lot easier for me to but, unfortunately, they pay my bills.
Teams with multi-tenant. The desktop Windows app lets me quickly switch between the 6 orgs I need to, unfortunately on Linux I have to have 6 different browser profiles and use the web version which just doesn’t fly.
Probably never gonna happen because Microsoft has an active interest in making it not happen
There is one weird VPN program a job forces me to run and unfortunately it isn’t available on Linux.
Knowing the VPN I’m forced to use I’ll just make a blind guess that the VPN you’re forced to use doesn’t support IPv6 either, because actually providing a product instead of an overpriced relic apparently is really difficult for Enterprise VPN Companies.
For the last bit, that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s like going to an ice cream shop and complaining there are too many flavors and people arguing over which flavor is best makes you decide to just not get ice cream.
What you should do instead is look at the flavors of ice cream and weigh what you want with what each flavor is. Only you know what you desire. Windows wants to make their system work for everyone, so then it works for no one because everyone has different wants and needs. It’s the ice cream flavor of them shoving every ingredient together and it just creates a mess.
As for games, it’s pretty good now. There’s the issue of some multiplayer games not having updated their anti-cheat, but a lot of anti-cheat is ready. Easy anti-cheat, for example, is fine if the devs have updated it and implemented it. However, it’s not like Proton where it makes most things work without devs doing any work. Check ProtonDB for compatibility.
What work software do you need? There are alternatives for MS Office, including online versions of MS Office that don’t require an OS. Blender is great. There are plenty of code editors. Most of the alternatives are also FOSS so don’t require buying anything, though donating is encouraged.
I’ve had similar thoughts and sentiments in my (short) Linux journey, my only advice is to distro-hop a bit as many Lemmings preach, find your fit (in VM/live mode or separate machine) and dive right in.
Side effects may include hair loss in early introduction, stick with it, it’s worth it.
The first condition already are In practice tru proton and wine (even the principal anticheat work). But the second is probably impossible, people will try to convince you to use the distros that they believe is good
Saying that, Linux mind is a good option for a Windows user
That’s what weekends are for. No windows on my PC. The worst thing with this windows stuff at work is that it is needed for running some antique software that still needs win7. At least the win98 machine has been retired.
Windows 7 is yolo for a business. Support ran out in January 2023. But I guess it’s some hardware it needs to support, right?
Had that for a few years in my life too. The enterprise ran on Windows Server, MS Dynamics, MS VPN, Exchange etc. and the Dynamics Server could not be upgraded for years because so much depended on it. It was a tremendous effort to do it at the end.
But I guess it’s some hardware it needs to support, right?
No, it is for some fickely software. There is a win10 version of the software, but it supports only a subset of the data that the win7 version supports for some reasons that make no sense to me.
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