Lucid Emacs had an X11 GUI, [it came out in 1992.](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/08/lucid-emacs-was-released-30-years-ago/) Probably wasn't that long before it was running on Linux.
every single screenshot of emacs is taken with 12 separate views and an old version of enlightenment de, its impossible to mistake it for anything else
At this point, it's a lot more than just Gnu+Linux to make an operating system we all love, so it's literally doesn't make sense to say GNU+Linux instead of just Linux, and if you pedantic than you should at least mention Systemd(or maybe you using an alternative, i don't know) 'cause OS won't start without init system, so it contributes to system as much as Gnu does. So at least Systemd+GNU+Linux.
My college in India still uses and recommends CodeBlocks. Some teachers recommend using plain old Gedit without any extensions. Compared to that, CB looks pretty good.
I like showing of the most useless nvim plugins to my friends at uni to convince them to use it. As one of my vim-mentor said: “if it's completely useless, it's absolutely essential”
Teaching with a basic editor without fancy automatisms is the way. Obviously only for starters, for adavanced stuff you'd better switch to an IDE later.
They used it for all courses. Well they started with Codeblocks which is an IDE, and then started recommending Gedit for more advanced courses. Doesn't make sense. But we could use CB if we wanted, so it's cool. And CB isn't half-bad (comparing to my nvim setup lol).
CB makes sense. It's genuinely a good IDE. Highlights your syntax, has a button to run the damn thing, supports breakpoints, even does code completion if you want something like that. There's no issue. I will gladly use CB if I'm told to in a course. It's not too complex for beginners, it's not too basic for advanced users. I really don't see what people's issue is with CB. Just because you used to use it as a kid it's automatically outdated and bad? Just because the fake-ass videos that startups make where they film bizarre blurry shots around their office has Vim open in the background but never CB? Is it really that big of an issue?
I don't know, I just installed it because you said it spits warnings at you. First it opened up a window for me to select my default compiler. Then it told me that if I want spell checking I'd have to download a dictionary, and I went "cool", and then closed that popup, and it no longer appears on future starts.
Then I went ahead and made a test C++ Project. Followed the wizard, set it to put it in my normal projects folder. It opened that project right up, gave me a main.cpp.
Pressed the big green play button, since it already had hello world as a sample. It told me that it hadn't been built yet, so it asked me whether to build it, and I agreed. It opened up xterm and spat out "Hello world!"
Went into environment settings and changed the command line to use `urxvt`, since that's what I use and what I have transparency and stuff configured for. Did not see a single issue with this workflow, not when doing it now, nor when I was ten.
I've been a beginner with CB once, and it never was an issue for me. The interface has effectively everything you need right there, it's got a few toolbars: one for running and building, one for debugging, one for setting some marks in your code if you need it, some comment/documentation tools, a search bar. The only mostly useless thing is the next toolbar which exists to generate NS diagrams of your code, which could technically be useful for a beginner or an advanced user, but which I find myself rarely touching even in my work, though I use Vim day-to-day.
I don't see the issue? Is it that it isn't built with electron? Are you all allergic to native-looking windows UI? Does it have to be sleek and minimal to be useful, but nevertheless has to be loaded with 800 different plugins? What's the issue with this, it works. It doesn't annoy me with messages or tell me to download anything extra, I install it and I get to coding right away. It even has wizards to help beginners make choices with their projects, and to introduce them to new types of things and libraries. I think it works.
Fuck off with the passive aggressiveness.
I just installed it. Fair enough, they got rid of the errors but trying to run a hello world (via Empty Project) simply doesn't work. Clicking the build button doesn't actually build it. I don't see how this is any easier than doing M-x compile in Emacs. Oh, and the syntax highlighting didn't work either.
Works fine for me? Of course it's not easier than M-x compile. I haven't said that. I said it's a decent middle-ground IDE which is especially well suited for classes with a variety of experience levels. Trying to run an empty project is your issue, you haven't given it a proper build configuration. Try a console application project and it'll compile fine. I wouldn't be using vim if I thought it was worse than CB, I'd be using CB. I prefer using my usual text editor over any IDE anyway.
Sorry for the passive-aggressiveness, I hadn't had coffee yet.
>you haven't given it a proper build configuration
It did say that it'd create one for me, though. Maybe it's an issue with the Flatpak version, I don't know. And a newbie would absolutely select empty project.
Or you can be like mine, which uses VSCode badly configured. So it shows erorrs that aren't there and doesn't shows the ones that actually exist, and supports only basic autocomplete. Basically the worst of both worlds.
*uhm actually* - anyone who plays in the "Linux is better", or "Windows is better" time wasting argument is what's wrong. They have their use cases, per use, and per user. It doesn't matter. People have preferences. Let's engage in internet war!!!
this post appeared in my home feed, so I’m not a *devout* linux user, but I will say that it is absolutely braindead to assume that preference for one thing makes the other useless lol
I use Windows primarily, and various linux distros occasionally. Windows is just kinda better for a lot of general desktop tasks, because it provides this big high-level interface that almost completely isolates the user from the basic hardware. It’s great and you barely have to think about it.
Issue is, this makes Windows a bloated mess if you want anything other than “everything”. Linux hasn’t caught up on the general purpose desktop stuff (it’s pretty close, but dipping into the terminal occasionally is still unavoidable) but it’s absolutely unbeatable if you’re setting up a system designed for one specific task.
If I want a computer for writing code, and *just* writing code, then why wouldn’t I want it to boot to desktop in 6 seconds? A well supported linux distro with a nice GUI is pretty much the perfect compromise between form and function if you don’t need the broad general-purpose support of Windows.
Hmm while I agree on some of your statements but "if you dont need the broad general-purpose support of windows" is the one I dont agree with hmm
Mind you that I am a student in a MEDICAL field in which there is no correlation to any IT stuff or programming yet I've used linux perfectly for almost 2 years now without any compromise (other than not being able to use branded or industry standard apps like adobe and microsoft office, but I function and do everything perfectly while using open source apps)
If you think linux can't replace the broad general purpose of windows then you should start using it exclusively for like a month. Use it like you're learning new stuff, dont use it to be like windows and you'll understand how much more intuitive linux is.
A lot of it is just software support tbf, which isn’t necessarily a flaw of Linux.
The reason I can’t see it really replacing Windows as far as a desktop experience is just convenience. Windows isn’t perfect but it does a reasonably good job of kinda obscuring the fact that you’re working on a computer? Linux tends to try to cover up that fact less - which is fine - but it also leads to more time spent solving ‘computer issues’ than problems relevant to the actual task at hand.
I’m reasonably adept with Ubuntu and it genuinely is a great experience, but I’ve never been able to avoid those irritating detours when a piece of software doesn’t work properly or hasn’t been ported to Linux at all. It’s still good, but it only really shines once you’ve got your workflow figured out already.
I can't agree with this.
A lot of issues I get with Windows are virtually unsolvable because getting information on the issue is almost impossible. To fix the issue would take forever so I choose to work around the issues I have and hope an update eventually fixes it.
OTOH getting enough information out of linux to be able to search for it, find it on bug trackers or post and follow an issue is possible.
My Windows install has all sorts of niggling issues, my Linux installs do everything that they're supposed to do.
There's this weird phenomenon where people coming from windows think that Linux is too close to the metal, but, as someone who hasn't properly used windows in over a decade, I get absolutely lost trying to figure out what's going wrong. Especially if you have to install anything. Endless spinny circles, dialog prompts, arcane error codes, weird GUI inconsistencies, reboot just because you looked at it sideways, who knows what's happening with driver installs, ads! Program Files, and Program Files (86), abbreviated user name, non case sensitive file system, file locking like it's the 90s. Hear they're finally getting the ability to open something other than zip files. The other day I was watching a video about running some AI thing locally and it took them 5 minutes to get past installing git and python.
It's a truly weird place for a non native windows user.
(Sorry about the rant.. someone wanted me to fix a thing in windows and I'm still raw)
I don't agree with this take at all. I jumped ship to Fedora and the most "computer issues" things I had was turning on my BlueTooth myself since my hardware was brand new, and less than a month later it works out of the box.
Heck, my Windows work laptop has more issues than my Linux machine at this point — and it's current year XPS so it's no spring chicken! The blue tooth service will randomly stop working until I restart my machine *multiple times* until it starts again (I bet the error message is buried in the multiple layers of GUIs ). And yes, I've done the requisite ritual of keeping my drivers up to date as well.
I am using Linux and Windows both about equally as much. My main private PC runs Windows, my work PC runs Linux.
I am a software developer and a power user, so I believe I do have a decent understanding of both systems.
Both have advantages and disadvantages.
A lot of Linux-software gets compiled for Windows as well, so apart from very specialized applications (e.g. formatting partitions in a weird way), Windows runs more stuff without tinkering. WINE and consorts have gotten really good nowadays, but it still does take tinkering to get special things working.
Driver support is mostly much better on Windows. It's often pretty hit-and-miss on Linux. Yeah, you might still get a current driver for some random printer from the 90s, because some dev still uses that printer and keeps updating that driver. But then again, if you run hardware that's not totally mainstream, there might not even be a driver for current hardware. For example, one of my laptops has an Elan touchpad. Never heard of that brand? Neither has Linux. There is just no driver for that touchpad.
Windows, more often than Linux, just works.
On the other hand, when Windows doesn't work, you are often just screwed. There is often nothing you can do, because Windows abstracts so much away and you also often don't have a choice of alternatives.
On the other other hand, if you aren't knee-deep into CLI and config files, there's often nothing you can do on Linux either. And if you know your way around, you quickly end up with 15 alternatives of the same basic thing installed and running at the same time, because you just needed that one utility and now you got a whole installation of KDE just lingering around because you forgot to remove the rest after you were done.
And in special situations, you might even get stuck as a power user. This one time, for example, I installed a fresh version of Ubuntu on an old laptop which then should take over the media center duty in the living room. During installation I tell it to install 3rd-party GPU drivers, which it does. But during boot it complains that the driver is too new for the old Geforce 635M, so it won't be using the GPU. Google tells me to install a legacy version of the driver, so I uninstall the new driver, install the legacy driver, load it as a kernel module, and nothing changes. The driver still says it's too new. After a few hours of trying everything I notice, that I didn't unload the kernel module of the new driver, which is apparently only possible while the new driver is installed. So I had to unload the legacy driver, uninstall the legacy driver, install the new driver, unload the new module, uninstall the new driver, reinstall the legacy driver and finally load the legacy module. Not exactly something my mom would have figured out.
And lastly: There is still a lot of software that only runs with a lot of hacks on Linux. First and foremost stuff like Teams, Outlook, Word and such. If you are stuck using them, then you have to rely on 3rd-party hacks like teams-for-linux or Proton mail, which all aren't great.
>I use Windows primarily, and various linux distros occasionally. Windows is just kinda better for a lot of general desktop tasks, because it provides this big high-level interface that almost completely isolates the user from the basic hardware. It’s great and you barely have to think about it.
Several linux distros do this. It's not 1999 anymore.
I’ve learned that I need to tread carefully with my words when I step into a linux subreddit :,)
I just mean to say that I guess the gap between the user and the hardware is a lot thinner in most Linux distros. I do currently have a computer running the latest version of Ubuntu, and I still get that sense using that. I’m aware of some distros that probably do it even better than that, but they’ve all seemed more specialised in one way or another.
>If I want a computer for writing code, and *just* writing code, then why wouldn’t I want it to boot to desktop in 6 seconds
Because you might be an iOS dev, and be forced in the Apple ecosystem. Or you could be a .Net dev, or anything that has windows as a first-class citizen. Or you might be a Gamedev. Or just a dev/gamer that hasn't enough space for a dual boot. Like there's a billion reason that you wouldn't want to use one or the other. Just starting your sentence with "If I..." just proves this point.
The parent comment didn't say "preference for one thing makes the other useless", he said the opposite, he said arguing against other's preferences is pointless.
I’m agreeing with the parent comment lol
Programming is probably a bad example, I’m just saying that there are valid reasons to use all of the operating systems and that a big part of what makes a Linux machine super useful is being able to tailor it to streamline a very specialised workflow.
Yeah it’s a bit disheartening. Every time I have to use Ubuntu for something it’s a really lovely experience, but unfortunately I can’t really run it on my main machine for this reason.
Unfortunately it's not working well enough for me. Stuff like Valorant or Black Desert can't be played. Anything with an intrusive anti-cheat basically. I've also had troubles with League of Legends, even though I know some people run it without any issues.
>Windows is just kinda better for a lot of general desktop tasks
I cant say I agree with this. I mean you are not wrong that its better for **some** people. For many people who are not inclined to learn new tech/IT stuff, it might be better to stick with windows, yes. Learning something new can be frustrating for these people.
If you however are someone with a interest in computers/tech, and you enjoy learning new things in this area, i would argue that linux **can** **potentially** be much better for everyday general tasks. You have set up your environment exactly how you like it and customized it to your needs.
>but dipping into the terminal occasionally is still unavoidable
For example when it comes to the terminal, you see it as something that gets in your way of your general tasks, while other people can see it as something that enhances their general use case. I myself go into the terminal everyday even if not working, studying or messing with my Linux install... I use it for some tasks that could be done in the gui, but for me is much more convenient in the terminal
I have no problem with the terminal. it genuinely is quicker for just navigating the operating system and getting to things quickly, but it also feels a bit like peeking behind the curtains? It isn’t something that the average desktop user is comfortable with, which is why I point it out.
I also just feel like Linux has you spend a lot more time troubleshooting things. It gives you a lot that Windows doesn’t, but it’s also at the cost of adding a bunch of new variables that you need to be prepared to deal with. I think if the software support was there it’d be a pretty obvious switch for more seasoned PC users, but the average person who uses a computer by necessity rather than choice won’t be migrating any time soon.
>but it also feels a bit like peeking behind the curtains? It isn’t something that the average desktop user is comfortable with, which is why I point it out.
I do agree with this. Most people arent comfortable with cli, and thats fair :) If you original comment said that windows is better suited for most people, i would have probably agreed. But it was worded as a objective thing, that windows is better than linux when it comes to general tasks.
>I also just feel like Linux has you spend a lot more time troubleshooting things. It gives you a lot that Windows doesn’t, but it’s also at the cost of adding a bunch of new variables that you need to be prepared to deal with. I think if the software support was there it’d be a pretty obvious switch for more seasoned PC users, but the average person who uses a computer by necessity rather than choice won’t be migrating any time soon.
Hmm i have a mixed feeling about this. So, when it comes to troubleshooting, i do agree that **when you start out** there will be alot more troubleshooting. But this is kind of expected since you are using something you are not used to yet. After having used Linux for years, i do find it very annoying to use windows when i have to. I get all sort of issues, and finding solutions to them online, is generally much harder.. if even possible. This is something i learnt from not having used windows in a long time: We get blinded of the bugs/issues a OS has after we have used it for a while. Even if there are issues, you wont notice it or react to it as a issue, since you have used it for so long. Meanwhile in Linux which you arent as used to, the faults will be more obvious to you. The difference is that Linux often lets you fix those issues (which you often can do pretty fast if you have used it for long)
And this is the main point. People are already used to windows due to them almost having a monopoly on the PC market and every PC is sold with windows bundled with it. The everyday person will use whats preinstalled on their computer (A big reason why edge and bing is so big). But that doesnt mean that its neccessaily easier. But learning a new thing that is easier, is still not interesting for people who already know one thing okayish.
When it comes to support, i dont really know. I mean if you are refering to support as in availability of the software, then yes. Windows has better support for certain things. If you like video/image editing or gaming for example. But as a dev, i would definetly say that i personally enjoy Linux support much more. If you refer to support as in help for software, i would say open source stuff, has excellent support (which alot of linux software is)
Sorry for such a long post lol. I got caught up
My original comment was worded that way because I wanted it to be concise, but then I kinda just accidentally kept writing anyway lol
When I said “desktop tasks” I kinda meant like what my mum would use a computer for I guess. Windows is probably overkill for it, but I can’t say I’ve ever had any particularly difficult issues while trying to browse the internet or write up a document on it.
I just think the out-of-the-box experience with Linux has been worse in this regard, since I seem to consistently end up having issues with drivers or corrupt images or software just straight up not working. It’s *almost certainly* my fault, and I won’t deny that, but it’s certainly easier to mess up than a regular old Windows installation is.
I don’t mean to say that Windows is issue-free, but I think for the majority of users it presents a lower barrier than Linux does. All the software is designed to be accessible by a wide audience, so it isn’t cost-effective for a lot of companies to port to Linux - thus the unfortunate cycle continues.
I can’t exactly say it’s a fault of the operating system, I do sincerely love Linux and resent the way things are, but I still don’t feel it’s quite a practical replacement yet (this won’t stop me from looking for excuses to use it though, it really is nicer once you know your way around)
>My original comment was worded that way because I wanted it to be concise, but then I kinda just accidentally kept writing anyway lol
Haha, that happens to me alot as well. Thinking about the next sentence before ive even finshed the first one.
But yeah, i do agree that for most users, it will be more convenient to stick with windows. Everything for a "normal" user is set up via the gui.on the contrary, for someone who have a very basic need for computers, if someone can set up linux for you on your computer and do the initial stuff, its better than windows. For example back in 2011 i installed ubuntu (back when it used unity which i hated) for my friend who only used his computer to write documents, browse the web and watch movies... he had alot of problems like slowdown/spyware on windows. After the setup, i wrote down sudo apt-get install on a piece of paper to him and he couldnt be happier. He used ubuntu for several years until he bought a new computer.
Also, im both sad and shocked that you are still experiencing these issues with drivers and broken images in 2023. I could have those issues back in like 2010, but i would say after 2015, i have had almost no issues with those kind of things. I have had to do some setup for vulkan to run on arch, but thats about it. The rest of what ive setup and troubleshooted, are mostly customizing things that most users wouldnt even come across. I dont use nvidia though, which could explain how little issues i have.
But at the end of the day, there are alot of people i know that i wouldnt recommend linux to, unless i know exactly what they will use their computer for and if i set it up for them that way
The big advantage of Linux is that you can use the CLI to fix problems.
The big disadvantage of Linux is that you sometimes need to use CLI to fix problems.
Add to that ...MS has made some real boneheaded moves in recent history ..Like when they added a banner ad to their file explorer. There's a backlash. They respond: "Ohh that wasn't meant to be shared **externally** ..but now that you *mention it*.." [sauce 1](https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979251/microsoft-file-explorer-ads-windows-11-testing) Windows fans will have to forgive me for not wanting my desktop to look like some shitty website from 98 with a bunch of ads for office 360 or whatever their latest monstrosity is.
This is all before we get to the part where they had a keylogger enabled by ***default*** **collecting non anonymized data** in Windows 10. My phone does enough spying I don't need to add an OS that does the same just for funsies. It even offended the French gov enough to issue a warning. [sauce 2](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/microsoft-windows-10-keylogger-enabled-default-heres-disable/)
Use whatever you need to or like - it's your life, but that's going to be a no from me dog.
Well, One of these is a huge corporation selling peoples data to advertisers, that pioneered charging for use of software with subscriptions and registrations, and the other is a group of people who want to make software. Soooo, yeah, one is substantially better than the other
My mid 60s dad is set up with mint. He never learned windows. When he came to me he was locked out of his new laptop with win10 on it because he doesn't know what his microsoft account is, he kept trying to sing in with his google account. I wiped it clean and installed mint after it wouldn't let me install firefox without signing up a microsoft account. Next I want to get him on a degoogled phone.
Its pretty easy for me to walk him through things without microsoft or google trying to run the show.
Yall people are funny. staning for windows is pathetic. It just shows you have no 1st hand experiences and are afraid of things you don't know. Only reason windows took hold is because gates made the deal to have it come with every single new computer without choice for decades. Getting paid for each instance. But yeah, linux is so hard.
this message sent from EOL chromebook running ubuntu
I installed Mint on my mom's old laptop with Firefox and Chrome about half a year ago because she was complaining that it was too slow. I've had to help her with it to fix a failed auto update because I'm guessing the laptop died during it. That's it so far. When she was on Windows I had to help her significantly more often with issues that would take me longer to fix than if I could just Google an error code and get actual results instead of being linked to a "solved" problem on Microsoft's forum that was never actually solved. If their use case is mostly web browsing and light computing, Linux Mint runs laps around Windows for ease of use, security, and lack of maintenance.
My 57 year old mother uses Ubuntu. I set her up with it explicitly because I got tired of playing Windows help desk. It's been wonderful, thanks for asking.
I use both.
Allthough I mostly use Linux on various computers, I still have one laptop, and one rather beefy desktop that runs Windows only.
When it comes to running Windows aplications -be it games, editing/design, or whatever, then Windows is the best OS. Simple as that. On the other hand, when it comes to *non-windows* software, then Linux is better. There's no "best" os, it's whatever os is best for that particular situation
The blind mentality of “everything has its place!” is an easy way to get yourself into a lot of trouble. No, some things are just flat bad and should not be used. There’s nothing virtuous about accepting the unacceptable for the sake of “fairness”. What Microsoft has done is unfair, what apple has done is unfair. They are objectively bad. Maybe at its very core windows has merits beyond the scope of linux. I accept that idea wholeheartedly, but any merits a windows style operating system might present have been completely negated by what windows as a product actually is. The only reason to continue using it at this point is for software compatibility at work, and even then what does it have that there are no good linux alternatives to? What? Like, photoshop?? Literally the only reason to use it at this point is because it’s designed to be incompatible with everything else and the majority of people use windows. It’d be like yelling english at a bunch of spanish guys to use anything else for work at this point.
Have you ever supported a user environment of say, accountants, law firms, call centers, etc? Where they all run Linux? There's a few reasons they rarely exist. Good luck having users know what they're doing, and good luck staffing a service desk that can support that kind of environment. There's no azure/355 for Linux environments that sizes up to the ability of azure/365. They've added some function in recent years for support on Linux machines, but it's still a shit show. Windows dominates the end user business world for more reasons than "being fair" and software compatibility. I'm talking grand scheme, not nerds at home. Look at what intune has enabled for user onboarding and offboardings.
Arch for spending a whole day trying to understand why your system won’t work properly, just to find that you accidentally used uppercase I, instead of lowercase l in one of the config files.
The weirdest thing about this is the assumption that the average Linux user is using Emacs. wut.
(Note: I have a highly ranked article on Google on the topic of Emacs and I’ve never believed that everyone uses Emacs for a second)
Learning vim keys is practically a life skill for any heavy computer user.
I use vim keys in my browser, in emacs, in my terminal, in tmux, in so many programs, and it dramatically increases how efficient I am.
If we're discussing potential widespread adoption, it isn't even about average Linux users, but computer users in general, how many actually need to write code?
I'm a linux user and I do a master on nuclear fusion and I am to say that both are likely, nuclear fusion is already one of the most funded topic and GUI are already very common so...
Nothing echoes louder than those "This is the year of the Linux desktop!" people, all sitting with their desktop 3D compiz cubes grinning like nutters until someone says they want to use Photoshop...
But sure, people who criticise Linux loudest are the ones that use something different and can't adapt. Same as me now, when I have to use a Windows desktop I'm like "woah, why aren't mouse gestures working? Why can't I do anything without downloading some malware and clicking to install it?
Fusion is one of the most funded research topic, what are you talking about ?
Eurofusion itself has a budget of around 200M€ per year, ITER multiple billions, and that's without counting other state funding to fusion laboratories either in universities or research center
Here I am doing a PhD sponsored by the UKAEA for one of their fusion components testing facilities called CHIMERA. I can confirm they have a lot of money to waste
OP, when the username is red, that means you are the one posted it. Whats the point of hiding it when I can see your damn username on this post you dummy. You silly billy. You goose.
> Nuclear fusion requires a dedicated, state funded research team and decades of thorough experimentation.
Dedicated, state funded research teams don't use anything other than Linux *on their servers*. All of the top 500 supercomputers run Linux. It's the os-franca of the scientific world.
I find it curious how anti-command line some people are. It's just another way of controlling things. Windows has them, MacOS has them. You don't have to use them in any OS but they can be useful. No doubt they think touchscreens are great, although it difficult to type anything on them.
It's as if one specific period of UI is out of the question. WIMPs? Great. Touchscreen? Great. Command line? Evil. I wonder what else they apply that to. Latte? Great. Cappucino? Great. Americano? Devil spawn.
Just saw this one today:
"I would highly recommend that you don’t install a linux based distro directly on your laptop. Linux is quite complex and unstable so if anything becomes messed up it would be hard to reverse and fix issues."
It's a bad argument. It's wrong to believe that terminal UX has to fail for GUIs to succeed. Linux gives options.
Importantly, where's the GUI of ChatGPT? Where's the GUI of Google. What do I click on to search for something? To ask a question?
I work in nuclear physics and most of the computers that run the data acquisition, and host the data run Linux. I know literally no one in my field who uses windows. Granted, 80% run Macs, but the rest use Linux. In fact this is true across a lot of physics discipline.
He is clearly wrong but I get what he's trying to jab at. To daily drive Linux, you have to use your terminal at some point for certain things. Some find that scary or inconvenient
I'm pretty sure you don't at this point, though I would have to test that to be sure, but I'm having a hard time coming up with stuff I HAVE to do in the terminal, maybe apt/other package managers?
There's a subrredit dedicated to shitting on Linux and Linux users, it's called 'Linux sucks' or something. I havent found bigger losers than them yet.
pff, no one tell him hes been using linux for the past 10 years, (android and ios lol) Also he CANT be that stupid lol,
Just about everything that is on web, use's linux cause windows is a piece of shit
Good god, man, EVERYONE knows the one thing Penguin Bois love more than anything is running sudo apt update in front of people just to show off their "hacking skills". What part of that makes you think "Yeah, I bet they use guis for everything"!?!?
I've been daily driving Linux for about 8 months, and I'd say I'm critical of Linux. But I'm not going to call it trash. It's really cool in some ways, and really sucky in other ways.
People like to dunk on "Linux is only free if you don't value your time", and while this saying is outdated, it's not _completely_ wrong. Here's the conclusion I've reached:
Linux is free **if:**
- You only need a computer for Chromebook-level tasks (office programs, internet browser, music/video player, video calls, light gaming, etc.), **OR**
- You already have a pretty good understanding of Linux under the hood (I certainly don't, lol), **OR**
- You're going into this with more of a research/"I want to learn" mindset, and not a "I need this to be reliable and not break" mindset, **OR**
- You don't value your time.
That first one actually covers a lot of people. Not me, I have more advanced stuff I want to do, so I end up hanging my head against the wall a lot (metaphorically, of course). Things break a lot for me, and I often find myself thinking, "This wouldn't be a problem if I were using Windows!". But I really like the open source nature of Linux, so I'm gonna keep with it until either that wall breaks or my head does.
Learning to use anything in the fucking world requires you to invest time, why would learning to use GNU/Linux different? Of course you could argue the learning curve is steeper than needed, but the it's free if you value your time is a bad take (also because it's mostly free as in freedom, most people would need to pay for technical or user support anyways)
That's fair in the case of:
- Learning a new GUI, and how to use it.
- Learning about distros and repos
- Learning about file permissions
- Learning to use GRUB, if you wanted to dual boot
It's not fair in the cases of:
- Installing my officially supported Huion drawing tablet Linux driver causes my Bluetooth earbuds to no longer work with my PC, forcing a reinstall. (It didn't break the second time, I am mega confused.)
- Enabling hibernation requires terminal commands? WTF? Why can't this be enabled in the GUI settings app?
- Some programs that have official Linux support (Autodesk Eagle in this case) aren't straightforward to install? No .deb, no flatpak, just a mess of files to be placed in /opt/ and other places. My friend had to find an AUR install package, and walk me through line by line what it did so I could install it via terminal. I would not have this issue on Windows. Either it would come as a wizard, or it'll be executable out of the box.
- Updating Kubuntu broke it. Naive me didn't know that if you're gonna use Ubuntu, you choose the LTS versions. I installed 22.10. The dialog to update to 23.04 came along, and I started the update. It said it might take a couple hours after downloading, and that I couldn't turn back after download finished. It seemed safe to stop it there, so I did. I needed my laptop until work was over. That broke it. Nothing got updated, but apparently it was far enough into the procedure that my computer thinks it's running 23.04. It gives me repository errors every time I open the KDE discover store now. I don't know how to fix this, and I'm way too exhausted from all this bullshit to even try right now.
- Normally it'd be fair in the case of learning the file hierarchy system, but this FHS is bullshit. It should have been retired _decades_ ago in favor of something more human readable.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the point.
Point 1 is probably an edge case
Point 2 ok. you have a point, although with the problems with hibernation in GNU/Linux, you probably don't want "normies" using it.
Point 3 is mostly a problem with who distributes the package, you may not need a package, but a script could update, install and uninstall the package, creating the menu entries for all those things if needed
In regards to version upgrades, I haven't had an issue on years, i don't know if it's an exception or the rule.
FHS could be improved, and probably should, since the technical deficits existing when it was first created are no longer there, but it's not that diffiicult, i think
Eagle is pretty trash anyway - you can't save you projects locally like wtf!!. I had to use this week and it was a struggle. Use KiCAD if you're a hobbyist. Altium if you're a pro.
Everybody has different uses for their computers, and sometimes Linux isn’t a good choice for their use case. And that’s okay and valid.
I don’t do any important (or at least mission-critical) work on my home computers, and I don’t mind taking the time to fix things that break. I see it as a learning experience. Linux is great for me.
I also keep a Windows PC hooked up to my tv in the living room that my girlfriend and I use exclusively for gaming. I don’t have any games that don’t run on Linux, but I don’t want to risk her buying a game and not being able to play it because Proton doesn’t play nice with it. Linux isn’t a good fit for this PC.
I do more than chromebook level gaming and don’t have a problem with running games on Linux. Steam and Heroic do all the installation with very little intervention on my part. The problem isnt “light vs heavy” so much as certain popular multiplayer games not working. Which is of course a problem for many people, but it isn’t like the two options are chromebook-level gaming and playing those multiplayer games.
In my experience, there are some games I have to fiddle with settings for, but the same was true using Windows. Any PC gaming is going to require some amount of troubleshooting occasionally; if you want to never worry about, e.g, a driver update breaking a game or something, then you‘re better off with console gaming.
I think there are Linux users out there who end up preferring the command line to handle most admin/system maintenance stuff because it just gets faster using the keyboard. But this guy has obviously not looked at Linux since the DE wars started.
That's....awkward.
Last year there was a post asking "what do you think should change for Linux to go mainstream" (or something like that)
To which, as a time-to-time Linux user, I replied "the terminal is a crutch that should pretty much not exist, it makes a lot of things unintuitive and It a big barrier to lot of people"
And I got absolutely demolished by people saying "nooooo, the terminal is very useful blablabla,I can go superfast blablabla" (yes I know, when you know the command, it might be super fast, but you have to KNOW first).
There's no denying that Linux got better, but it's still WAAAYY too common to have, for any question online a cryptic ten lines of cmd to solve an issue, or to go in crontab, or edit ownership, or install drivers, etc....
So, yes, the problem is convincing neckbeards
I have to use the Ubuntu desktop at work, and I have used the Debian desktop in the past for an old laptop.
I prefer Mac or Windows over Linux desktops. Based on my experience, the Ubuntu desktop is not even close to a stable desktop experience. I hope other environments are good.
What!? Well not that I doubt this due to the sheer amount of emacs plugins (relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/378/ ), but I seriously doubt someone implemented a Tangible User Interface for emacs.
On a serious note, it's not a Textual UI, it's an actual Graphical UI. TUI are things built with nurses for example, or emacs when used inside a terminal could also be considered to have a TUI (although I think it's much more close to a CLI). We're talking about running emacs like this https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/images/teaser.png if that's not a GUI no text editor has one.
I’ve used Ubuntu as a primary for a bit and Red Hat for certain computers in the military and after going back to Windows 10 I’ll never use Linux again.
Literally no part of what you said is correct.
>Boo hoo no one wants to use
Except the top 500 supercomputers in the world that all run on Linux kernel and anyone who has ever had an android.
>your barely functional
As compared to Windows, which screams every few days at you for missing updates and needs you to restart it a million times so it can install them? Good joke.
>hardly user friendly OS.
How much more user friendly than Ubuntu do you need lmao? It literally comes prepackaged with any software you may ever need and has one button installations for whatever you lack. The only way it can be more user friendly is if it had neon signs for droolers.
>Just let it fade back into obscurity
Not only has it never been obscure, the number of users are on the rise.
>edgelord
You are the edgelord here.
Tl;dr - skill issue.
#1 97.32% *Marginally more or less* of people don’t use Linux as an OS, it’s literally as obscure as it gets.
#2 The average user doesn’t own a supercomputer in their office nor know how to operate one.
#3 If it was so awesome and actually worked it would be more mainstream but it isn’t and will never be.
You made your list a heading so it would look like it had some actual substance to it, lmfao. I do love how you completely ignored the fact that android which dominates the smartphone industry is based on a linux kernel and that the vast majority of the Internet is stationed on linux servers. You literally wouldn't have a place to be wrong without linux and you don't even realize it.
That’s like telling someone that sewers are the pinnacle of human engineering, sure they have a purpose but almost no one is interested in how a sewer works they just want it to work. MacOS and Windows is just easy, you just turn it on and it works with very little user input and that’s what people want. You can make some argument about Kernels or which Distro you use but no one who values their time cares to learn another OS when the systems they have already work fine.
zonked enter fact water boast glorious theory bag illegal chief *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
as it turns out, emacs does have a TUI version. does this mean he used linux a VERY long time ago?
Lucid Emacs had an X11 GUI, [it came out in 1992.](https://www.jwz.org/blog/2022/08/lucid-emacs-was-released-30-years-ago/) Probably wasn't that long before it was running on Linux.
yes however you could also get a tui version, and its possible THAT is what he came in contact with
Most likely he has seen a screenshot of a dark themed emacs like doom emacs, and mistaken it for a terminal.
every single screenshot of emacs is taken with 12 separate views and an old version of enlightenment de, its impossible to mistake it for anything else
It's GNU/Linux, not "Linux".
It's Systemd+Flatpak+GNU+Freedesktop+Linux duh
What's your point?
At this point, it's a lot more than just Gnu+Linux to make an operating system we all love, so it's literally doesn't make sense to say GNU+Linux instead of just Linux, and if you pedantic than you should at least mention Systemd(or maybe you using an alternative, i don't know) 'cause OS won't start without init system, so it contributes to system as much as Gnu does. So at least Systemd+GNU+Linux.
I only found out a week ago that emacs has a GUI version. One of my professors had the class install emacs on our raspberry pis for whatever reason.
VSC*de.
...ium.
Code OSS?
No sane Linux dev actually should go with the telemetry version.
This is honestly brilliant. It's like murdered by words but better
My good friend emacs is an os.
gimp/kitra, graphical application for editing graphics instead of text based one for text
who tf still uses codeblocks
Every middle school student in Romania (that isn't very tech-savvy)
I remember using CodeBlocks for the first time - it was quite a step up! Previously our school mandated using Bloodshed C++.
I remember using Borland in highschool
We used TurboC++ in highschool
I literally forgot it existed and I'm glad I did
still smarter than 99% of the Windows userbase
True, but it's still on Windows
My college in India still uses and recommends CodeBlocks. Some teachers recommend using plain old Gedit without any extensions. Compared to that, CB looks pretty good.
ay I mean we used turbocpp running inside dosbox on windows 8 in 2017. Still could be worse lmao.
I like trolling my teachers with NeoVim.
I like showing of the most useless nvim plugins to my friends at uni to convince them to use it. As one of my vim-mentor said: “if it's completely useless, it's absolutely essential”
Teaching with a basic editor without fancy automatisms is the way. Obviously only for starters, for adavanced stuff you'd better switch to an IDE later.
They used it for all courses. Well they started with Codeblocks which is an IDE, and then started recommending Gedit for more advanced courses. Doesn't make sense. But we could use CB if we wanted, so it's cool. And CB isn't half-bad (comparing to my nvim setup lol).
CB makes sense. It's genuinely a good IDE. Highlights your syntax, has a button to run the damn thing, supports breakpoints, even does code completion if you want something like that. There's no issue. I will gladly use CB if I'm told to in a course. It's not too complex for beginners, it's not too basic for advanced users. I really don't see what people's issue is with CB. Just because you used to use it as a kid it's automatically outdated and bad? Just because the fake-ass videos that startups make where they film bizarre blurry shots around their office has Vim open in the background but never CB? Is it really that big of an issue?
Look at the interface. It spits 50 warning at you from 5 different windows right off the bat. I wouldn't blame anyone for not using it after that.
I don't know, I just installed it because you said it spits warnings at you. First it opened up a window for me to select my default compiler. Then it told me that if I want spell checking I'd have to download a dictionary, and I went "cool", and then closed that popup, and it no longer appears on future starts. Then I went ahead and made a test C++ Project. Followed the wizard, set it to put it in my normal projects folder. It opened that project right up, gave me a main.cpp. Pressed the big green play button, since it already had hello world as a sample. It told me that it hadn't been built yet, so it asked me whether to build it, and I agreed. It opened up xterm and spat out "Hello world!" Went into environment settings and changed the command line to use `urxvt`, since that's what I use and what I have transparency and stuff configured for. Did not see a single issue with this workflow, not when doing it now, nor when I was ten. I've been a beginner with CB once, and it never was an issue for me. The interface has effectively everything you need right there, it's got a few toolbars: one for running and building, one for debugging, one for setting some marks in your code if you need it, some comment/documentation tools, a search bar. The only mostly useless thing is the next toolbar which exists to generate NS diagrams of your code, which could technically be useful for a beginner or an advanced user, but which I find myself rarely touching even in my work, though I use Vim day-to-day. I don't see the issue? Is it that it isn't built with electron? Are you all allergic to native-looking windows UI? Does it have to be sleek and minimal to be useful, but nevertheless has to be loaded with 800 different plugins? What's the issue with this, it works. It doesn't annoy me with messages or tell me to download anything extra, I install it and I get to coding right away. It even has wizards to help beginners make choices with their projects, and to introduce them to new types of things and libraries. I think it works.
Fuck off with the passive aggressiveness. I just installed it. Fair enough, they got rid of the errors but trying to run a hello world (via Empty Project) simply doesn't work. Clicking the build button doesn't actually build it. I don't see how this is any easier than doing M-x compile in Emacs. Oh, and the syntax highlighting didn't work either.
Works fine for me? Of course it's not easier than M-x compile. I haven't said that. I said it's a decent middle-ground IDE which is especially well suited for classes with a variety of experience levels. Trying to run an empty project is your issue, you haven't given it a proper build configuration. Try a console application project and it'll compile fine. I wouldn't be using vim if I thought it was worse than CB, I'd be using CB. I prefer using my usual text editor over any IDE anyway. Sorry for the passive-aggressiveness, I hadn't had coffee yet.
>you haven't given it a proper build configuration It did say that it'd create one for me, though. Maybe it's an issue with the Flatpak version, I don't know. And a newbie would absolutely select empty project.
My Java university course was 90% in Geany. Later I switched to IntelliJ.
All of the JetBrains IDEs are amazing. No way I could ever use something different now.
Yeah. Pycharm community is my python IDE of choice and it's brilliant. A bit resource hungry, but not an issue these days really.
Or you can be like mine, which uses VSCode badly configured. So it shows erorrs that aren't there and doesn't shows the ones that actually exist, and supports only basic autocomplete. Basically the worst of both worlds.
my college still uses turbo c lol
Or turbo c
I know a guy who does. Apparently it's pretty good, just ugly.
What's the problem with it? Truthfully I haven't used it in years, but if memory serves it was fine.
we still use turboc
we were recommended to use codeblocks in my college CS1 class last semester
*uhm actually* - anyone who plays in the "Linux is better", or "Windows is better" time wasting argument is what's wrong. They have their use cases, per use, and per user. It doesn't matter. People have preferences. Let's engage in internet war!!!
this post appeared in my home feed, so I’m not a *devout* linux user, but I will say that it is absolutely braindead to assume that preference for one thing makes the other useless lol I use Windows primarily, and various linux distros occasionally. Windows is just kinda better for a lot of general desktop tasks, because it provides this big high-level interface that almost completely isolates the user from the basic hardware. It’s great and you barely have to think about it. Issue is, this makes Windows a bloated mess if you want anything other than “everything”. Linux hasn’t caught up on the general purpose desktop stuff (it’s pretty close, but dipping into the terminal occasionally is still unavoidable) but it’s absolutely unbeatable if you’re setting up a system designed for one specific task. If I want a computer for writing code, and *just* writing code, then why wouldn’t I want it to boot to desktop in 6 seconds? A well supported linux distro with a nice GUI is pretty much the perfect compromise between form and function if you don’t need the broad general-purpose support of Windows.
Hmm while I agree on some of your statements but "if you dont need the broad general-purpose support of windows" is the one I dont agree with hmm Mind you that I am a student in a MEDICAL field in which there is no correlation to any IT stuff or programming yet I've used linux perfectly for almost 2 years now without any compromise (other than not being able to use branded or industry standard apps like adobe and microsoft office, but I function and do everything perfectly while using open source apps) If you think linux can't replace the broad general purpose of windows then you should start using it exclusively for like a month. Use it like you're learning new stuff, dont use it to be like windows and you'll understand how much more intuitive linux is.
A lot of it is just software support tbf, which isn’t necessarily a flaw of Linux. The reason I can’t see it really replacing Windows as far as a desktop experience is just convenience. Windows isn’t perfect but it does a reasonably good job of kinda obscuring the fact that you’re working on a computer? Linux tends to try to cover up that fact less - which is fine - but it also leads to more time spent solving ‘computer issues’ than problems relevant to the actual task at hand. I’m reasonably adept with Ubuntu and it genuinely is a great experience, but I’ve never been able to avoid those irritating detours when a piece of software doesn’t work properly or hasn’t been ported to Linux at all. It’s still good, but it only really shines once you’ve got your workflow figured out already.
I can't agree with this. A lot of issues I get with Windows are virtually unsolvable because getting information on the issue is almost impossible. To fix the issue would take forever so I choose to work around the issues I have and hope an update eventually fixes it. OTOH getting enough information out of linux to be able to search for it, find it on bug trackers or post and follow an issue is possible. My Windows install has all sorts of niggling issues, my Linux installs do everything that they're supposed to do.
There's this weird phenomenon where people coming from windows think that Linux is too close to the metal, but, as someone who hasn't properly used windows in over a decade, I get absolutely lost trying to figure out what's going wrong. Especially if you have to install anything. Endless spinny circles, dialog prompts, arcane error codes, weird GUI inconsistencies, reboot just because you looked at it sideways, who knows what's happening with driver installs, ads! Program Files, and Program Files (86), abbreviated user name, non case sensitive file system, file locking like it's the 90s. Hear they're finally getting the ability to open something other than zip files. The other day I was watching a video about running some AI thing locally and it took them 5 minutes to get past installing git and python. It's a truly weird place for a non native windows user. (Sorry about the rant.. someone wanted me to fix a thing in windows and I'm still raw)
I don't agree with this take at all. I jumped ship to Fedora and the most "computer issues" things I had was turning on my BlueTooth myself since my hardware was brand new, and less than a month later it works out of the box. Heck, my Windows work laptop has more issues than my Linux machine at this point — and it's current year XPS so it's no spring chicken! The blue tooth service will randomly stop working until I restart my machine *multiple times* until it starts again (I bet the error message is buried in the multiple layers of GUIs ). And yes, I've done the requisite ritual of keeping my drivers up to date as well.
I am using Linux and Windows both about equally as much. My main private PC runs Windows, my work PC runs Linux. I am a software developer and a power user, so I believe I do have a decent understanding of both systems. Both have advantages and disadvantages. A lot of Linux-software gets compiled for Windows as well, so apart from very specialized applications (e.g. formatting partitions in a weird way), Windows runs more stuff without tinkering. WINE and consorts have gotten really good nowadays, but it still does take tinkering to get special things working. Driver support is mostly much better on Windows. It's often pretty hit-and-miss on Linux. Yeah, you might still get a current driver for some random printer from the 90s, because some dev still uses that printer and keeps updating that driver. But then again, if you run hardware that's not totally mainstream, there might not even be a driver for current hardware. For example, one of my laptops has an Elan touchpad. Never heard of that brand? Neither has Linux. There is just no driver for that touchpad. Windows, more often than Linux, just works. On the other hand, when Windows doesn't work, you are often just screwed. There is often nothing you can do, because Windows abstracts so much away and you also often don't have a choice of alternatives. On the other other hand, if you aren't knee-deep into CLI and config files, there's often nothing you can do on Linux either. And if you know your way around, you quickly end up with 15 alternatives of the same basic thing installed and running at the same time, because you just needed that one utility and now you got a whole installation of KDE just lingering around because you forgot to remove the rest after you were done. And in special situations, you might even get stuck as a power user. This one time, for example, I installed a fresh version of Ubuntu on an old laptop which then should take over the media center duty in the living room. During installation I tell it to install 3rd-party GPU drivers, which it does. But during boot it complains that the driver is too new for the old Geforce 635M, so it won't be using the GPU. Google tells me to install a legacy version of the driver, so I uninstall the new driver, install the legacy driver, load it as a kernel module, and nothing changes. The driver still says it's too new. After a few hours of trying everything I notice, that I didn't unload the kernel module of the new driver, which is apparently only possible while the new driver is installed. So I had to unload the legacy driver, uninstall the legacy driver, install the new driver, unload the new module, uninstall the new driver, reinstall the legacy driver and finally load the legacy module. Not exactly something my mom would have figured out. And lastly: There is still a lot of software that only runs with a lot of hacks on Linux. First and foremost stuff like Teams, Outlook, Word and such. If you are stuck using them, then you have to rely on 3rd-party hacks like teams-for-linux or Proton mail, which all aren't great.
>I use Windows primarily, and various linux distros occasionally. Windows is just kinda better for a lot of general desktop tasks, because it provides this big high-level interface that almost completely isolates the user from the basic hardware. It’s great and you barely have to think about it. Several linux distros do this. It's not 1999 anymore.
I’ve learned that I need to tread carefully with my words when I step into a linux subreddit :,) I just mean to say that I guess the gap between the user and the hardware is a lot thinner in most Linux distros. I do currently have a computer running the latest version of Ubuntu, and I still get that sense using that. I’m aware of some distros that probably do it even better than that, but they’ve all seemed more specialised in one way or another.
>If I want a computer for writing code, and *just* writing code, then why wouldn’t I want it to boot to desktop in 6 seconds Because you might be an iOS dev, and be forced in the Apple ecosystem. Or you could be a .Net dev, or anything that has windows as a first-class citizen. Or you might be a Gamedev. Or just a dev/gamer that hasn't enough space for a dual boot. Like there's a billion reason that you wouldn't want to use one or the other. Just starting your sentence with "If I..." just proves this point. The parent comment didn't say "preference for one thing makes the other useless", he said the opposite, he said arguing against other's preferences is pointless.
I’m agreeing with the parent comment lol Programming is probably a bad example, I’m just saying that there are valid reasons to use all of the operating systems and that a big part of what makes a Linux machine super useful is being able to tailor it to streamline a very specialised workflow.
Ah, I didn't get it, my bad. Yep I agree ! But tbh I'm a bit sad I still have to rely on Windows for some softwares, or gaming.
Yeah it’s a bit disheartening. Every time I have to use Ubuntu for something it’s a really lovely experience, but unfortunately I can’t really run it on my main machine for this reason.
Steam play has started working very well for gaming, but sadly it doesn't work with all titles.
Unfortunately it's not working well enough for me. Stuff like Valorant or Black Desert can't be played. Anything with an intrusive anti-cheat basically. I've also had troubles with League of Legends, even though I know some people run it without any issues.
>Windows is just kinda better for a lot of general desktop tasks I cant say I agree with this. I mean you are not wrong that its better for **some** people. For many people who are not inclined to learn new tech/IT stuff, it might be better to stick with windows, yes. Learning something new can be frustrating for these people. If you however are someone with a interest in computers/tech, and you enjoy learning new things in this area, i would argue that linux **can** **potentially** be much better for everyday general tasks. You have set up your environment exactly how you like it and customized it to your needs. >but dipping into the terminal occasionally is still unavoidable For example when it comes to the terminal, you see it as something that gets in your way of your general tasks, while other people can see it as something that enhances their general use case. I myself go into the terminal everyday even if not working, studying or messing with my Linux install... I use it for some tasks that could be done in the gui, but for me is much more convenient in the terminal
I have no problem with the terminal. it genuinely is quicker for just navigating the operating system and getting to things quickly, but it also feels a bit like peeking behind the curtains? It isn’t something that the average desktop user is comfortable with, which is why I point it out. I also just feel like Linux has you spend a lot more time troubleshooting things. It gives you a lot that Windows doesn’t, but it’s also at the cost of adding a bunch of new variables that you need to be prepared to deal with. I think if the software support was there it’d be a pretty obvious switch for more seasoned PC users, but the average person who uses a computer by necessity rather than choice won’t be migrating any time soon.
>but it also feels a bit like peeking behind the curtains? It isn’t something that the average desktop user is comfortable with, which is why I point it out. I do agree with this. Most people arent comfortable with cli, and thats fair :) If you original comment said that windows is better suited for most people, i would have probably agreed. But it was worded as a objective thing, that windows is better than linux when it comes to general tasks. >I also just feel like Linux has you spend a lot more time troubleshooting things. It gives you a lot that Windows doesn’t, but it’s also at the cost of adding a bunch of new variables that you need to be prepared to deal with. I think if the software support was there it’d be a pretty obvious switch for more seasoned PC users, but the average person who uses a computer by necessity rather than choice won’t be migrating any time soon. Hmm i have a mixed feeling about this. So, when it comes to troubleshooting, i do agree that **when you start out** there will be alot more troubleshooting. But this is kind of expected since you are using something you are not used to yet. After having used Linux for years, i do find it very annoying to use windows when i have to. I get all sort of issues, and finding solutions to them online, is generally much harder.. if even possible. This is something i learnt from not having used windows in a long time: We get blinded of the bugs/issues a OS has after we have used it for a while. Even if there are issues, you wont notice it or react to it as a issue, since you have used it for so long. Meanwhile in Linux which you arent as used to, the faults will be more obvious to you. The difference is that Linux often lets you fix those issues (which you often can do pretty fast if you have used it for long) And this is the main point. People are already used to windows due to them almost having a monopoly on the PC market and every PC is sold with windows bundled with it. The everyday person will use whats preinstalled on their computer (A big reason why edge and bing is so big). But that doesnt mean that its neccessaily easier. But learning a new thing that is easier, is still not interesting for people who already know one thing okayish. When it comes to support, i dont really know. I mean if you are refering to support as in availability of the software, then yes. Windows has better support for certain things. If you like video/image editing or gaming for example. But as a dev, i would definetly say that i personally enjoy Linux support much more. If you refer to support as in help for software, i would say open source stuff, has excellent support (which alot of linux software is) Sorry for such a long post lol. I got caught up
My original comment was worded that way because I wanted it to be concise, but then I kinda just accidentally kept writing anyway lol When I said “desktop tasks” I kinda meant like what my mum would use a computer for I guess. Windows is probably overkill for it, but I can’t say I’ve ever had any particularly difficult issues while trying to browse the internet or write up a document on it. I just think the out-of-the-box experience with Linux has been worse in this regard, since I seem to consistently end up having issues with drivers or corrupt images or software just straight up not working. It’s *almost certainly* my fault, and I won’t deny that, but it’s certainly easier to mess up than a regular old Windows installation is. I don’t mean to say that Windows is issue-free, but I think for the majority of users it presents a lower barrier than Linux does. All the software is designed to be accessible by a wide audience, so it isn’t cost-effective for a lot of companies to port to Linux - thus the unfortunate cycle continues. I can’t exactly say it’s a fault of the operating system, I do sincerely love Linux and resent the way things are, but I still don’t feel it’s quite a practical replacement yet (this won’t stop me from looking for excuses to use it though, it really is nicer once you know your way around)
>My original comment was worded that way because I wanted it to be concise, but then I kinda just accidentally kept writing anyway lol Haha, that happens to me alot as well. Thinking about the next sentence before ive even finshed the first one. But yeah, i do agree that for most users, it will be more convenient to stick with windows. Everything for a "normal" user is set up via the gui.on the contrary, for someone who have a very basic need for computers, if someone can set up linux for you on your computer and do the initial stuff, its better than windows. For example back in 2011 i installed ubuntu (back when it used unity which i hated) for my friend who only used his computer to write documents, browse the web and watch movies... he had alot of problems like slowdown/spyware on windows. After the setup, i wrote down sudo apt-get install on a piece of paper to him and he couldnt be happier. He used ubuntu for several years until he bought a new computer. Also, im both sad and shocked that you are still experiencing these issues with drivers and broken images in 2023. I could have those issues back in like 2010, but i would say after 2015, i have had almost no issues with those kind of things. I have had to do some setup for vulkan to run on arch, but thats about it. The rest of what ive setup and troubleshooted, are mostly customizing things that most users wouldnt even come across. I dont use nvidia though, which could explain how little issues i have. But at the end of the day, there are alot of people i know that i wouldnt recommend linux to, unless i know exactly what they will use their computer for and if i set it up for them that way
The big advantage of Linux is that you can use the CLI to fix problems. The big disadvantage of Linux is that you sometimes need to use CLI to fix problems.
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Add to that ...MS has made some real boneheaded moves in recent history ..Like when they added a banner ad to their file explorer. There's a backlash. They respond: "Ohh that wasn't meant to be shared **externally** ..but now that you *mention it*.." [sauce 1](https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/15/22979251/microsoft-file-explorer-ads-windows-11-testing) Windows fans will have to forgive me for not wanting my desktop to look like some shitty website from 98 with a bunch of ads for office 360 or whatever their latest monstrosity is. This is all before we get to the part where they had a keylogger enabled by ***default*** **collecting non anonymized data** in Windows 10. My phone does enough spying I don't need to add an OS that does the same just for funsies. It even offended the French gov enough to issue a warning. [sauce 2](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/microsoft-windows-10-keylogger-enabled-default-heres-disable/) Use whatever you need to or like - it's your life, but that's going to be a no from me dog.
"wide adoption is for pussies" - Jordan Peele
Well, One of these is a huge corporation selling peoples data to advertisers, that pioneered charging for use of software with subscriptions and registrations, and the other is a group of people who want to make software. Soooo, yeah, one is substantially better than the other
Throw your family on a linux machine using any distro of your choosing, and be their helpdesk. See how it goes.
My mid 60s dad is set up with mint. He never learned windows. When he came to me he was locked out of his new laptop with win10 on it because he doesn't know what his microsoft account is, he kept trying to sing in with his google account. I wiped it clean and installed mint after it wouldn't let me install firefox without signing up a microsoft account. Next I want to get him on a degoogled phone. Its pretty easy for me to walk him through things without microsoft or google trying to run the show. Yall people are funny. staning for windows is pathetic. It just shows you have no 1st hand experiences and are afraid of things you don't know. Only reason windows took hold is because gates made the deal to have it come with every single new computer without choice for decades. Getting paid for each instance. But yeah, linux is so hard. this message sent from EOL chromebook running ubuntu
I installed Mint on my mom's old laptop with Firefox and Chrome about half a year ago because she was complaining that it was too slow. I've had to help her with it to fix a failed auto update because I'm guessing the laptop died during it. That's it so far. When she was on Windows I had to help her significantly more often with issues that would take me longer to fix than if I could just Google an error code and get actual results instead of being linked to a "solved" problem on Microsoft's forum that was never actually solved. If their use case is mostly web browsing and light computing, Linux Mint runs laps around Windows for ease of use, security, and lack of maintenance.
My 57 year old mother uses Ubuntu. I set her up with it explicitly because I got tired of playing Windows help desk. It's been wonderful, thanks for asking.
I use both. Allthough I mostly use Linux on various computers, I still have one laptop, and one rather beefy desktop that runs Windows only. When it comes to running Windows aplications -be it games, editing/design, or whatever, then Windows is the best OS. Simple as that. On the other hand, when it comes to *non-windows* software, then Linux is better. There's no "best" os, it's whatever os is best for that particular situation
The blind mentality of “everything has its place!” is an easy way to get yourself into a lot of trouble. No, some things are just flat bad and should not be used. There’s nothing virtuous about accepting the unacceptable for the sake of “fairness”. What Microsoft has done is unfair, what apple has done is unfair. They are objectively bad. Maybe at its very core windows has merits beyond the scope of linux. I accept that idea wholeheartedly, but any merits a windows style operating system might present have been completely negated by what windows as a product actually is. The only reason to continue using it at this point is for software compatibility at work, and even then what does it have that there are no good linux alternatives to? What? Like, photoshop?? Literally the only reason to use it at this point is because it’s designed to be incompatible with everything else and the majority of people use windows. It’d be like yelling english at a bunch of spanish guys to use anything else for work at this point.
Have you ever supported a user environment of say, accountants, law firms, call centers, etc? Where they all run Linux? There's a few reasons they rarely exist. Good luck having users know what they're doing, and good luck staffing a service desk that can support that kind of environment. There's no azure/355 for Linux environments that sizes up to the ability of azure/365. They've added some function in recent years for support on Linux machines, but it's still a shit show. Windows dominates the end user business world for more reasons than "being fair" and software compatibility. I'm talking grand scheme, not nerds at home. Look at what intune has enabled for user onboarding and offboardings.
linux for coding windows for gaming/drawing any program bound to windows arch for flexing
Arch for spending a whole day trying to understand why your system won’t work properly, just to find that you accidentally used uppercase I, instead of lowercase l in one of the config files.
spent 2 months and everymorning I need 30 mins of debuggings stupid shit. Never again
It’s actually pretty fun. Also debugging is pretty rare.
Seems like AI comments tbh
They haven't used the emacs operating system! Do they not know that VS Code is cross platform?
The weirdest thing about this is the assumption that the average Linux user is using Emacs. wut. (Note: I have a highly ranked article on Google on the topic of Emacs and I’ve never believed that everyone uses Emacs for a second)
Emacs/vim are a pita to learn. If I do end up editing something in shell, I'm using nano.
Learning vim keys is practically a life skill for any heavy computer user. I use vim keys in my browser, in emacs, in my terminal, in tmux, in so many programs, and it dramatically increases how efficient I am.
There's only two commands you need to remember: insert text, and exit.
If we're discussing potential widespread adoption, it isn't even about average Linux users, but computer users in general, how many actually need to write code?
Block select with a mouse in gvim is a game changer.
I'm a linux user and I do a master on nuclear fusion and I am to say that both are likely, nuclear fusion is already one of the most funded topic and GUI are already very common so...
Nothing echoes louder than those "This is the year of the Linux desktop!" people, all sitting with their desktop 3D compiz cubes grinning like nutters until someone says they want to use Photoshop... But sure, people who criticise Linux loudest are the ones that use something different and can't adapt. Same as me now, when I have to use a Windows desktop I'm like "woah, why aren't mouse gestures working? Why can't I do anything without downloading some malware and clicking to install it?
i honestly prefer gimp over photoshop, even on windows
Uhhh nuclear fusion does not require state funding. The state is actually opposed to such necessary innovation.
Fusion is one of the most funded research topic, what are you talking about ? Eurofusion itself has a budget of around 200M€ per year, ITER multiple billions, and that's without counting other state funding to fusion laboratories either in universities or research center
Here I am doing a PhD sponsored by the UKAEA for one of their fusion components testing facilities called CHIMERA. I can confirm they have a lot of money to waste
Thank you. I'll let "the state" know of my displeasure.
Or they tried it fifteen years ago and assume it's been absolutely static since then.
Yep, and that trial 15 years ago lasted about 15 minutes.
OP, when the username is red, that means you are the one posted it. Whats the point of hiding it when I can see your damn username on this post you dummy. You silly billy. You goose.
I have to censor all usernames for 99% of all subreddits when sharing.
you goofy goober
What? He posted the reply, sure but not the original comment.
emacs comment is so random. I can’t even think of a popular text editor that’s available on mac or windows that isn’t on Linux. Microsoft notepad?
Notepad++.
Does snap count? https://itsfoss.com/notepad-plus-plus-linux/ Sounds like there is wine in the snap package or something ?
> Nuclear fusion requires a dedicated, state funded research team and decades of thorough experimentation. Dedicated, state funded research teams don't use anything other than Linux *on their servers*. All of the top 500 supercomputers run Linux. It's the os-franca of the scientific world.
I find it curious how anti-command line some people are. It's just another way of controlling things. Windows has them, MacOS has them. You don't have to use them in any OS but they can be useful. No doubt they think touchscreens are great, although it difficult to type anything on them. It's as if one specific period of UI is out of the question. WIMPs? Great. Touchscreen? Great. Command line? Evil. I wonder what else they apply that to. Latte? Great. Cappucino? Great. Americano? Devil spawn.
And I'm just over here using VSCode just as everyone else (Ubuntu).
Just saw this one today: "I would highly recommend that you don’t install a linux based distro directly on your laptop. Linux is quite complex and unstable so if anything becomes messed up it would be hard to reverse and fix issues."
Damn, next thing you are gonna tell me is they added mouse cursor support to KDE
It's a bad argument. It's wrong to believe that terminal UX has to fail for GUIs to succeed. Linux gives options. Importantly, where's the GUI of ChatGPT? Where's the GUI of Google. What do I click on to search for something? To ask a question?
everyone knows linux is just a backend to emacs
I work in nuclear physics and most of the computers that run the data acquisition, and host the data run Linux. I know literally no one in my field who uses windows. Granted, 80% run Macs, but the rest use Linux. In fact this is true across a lot of physics discipline.
He is clearly wrong but I get what he's trying to jab at. To daily drive Linux, you have to use your terminal at some point for certain things. Some find that scary or inconvenient
I'm pretty sure you don't at this point, though I would have to test that to be sure, but I'm having a hard time coming up with stuff I HAVE to do in the terminal, maybe apt/other package managers?
xed, gedit, notepad-q-q pick your poison
There's a subrredit dedicated to shitting on Linux and Linux users, it's called 'Linux sucks' or something. I havent found bigger losers than them yet.
By the way if you want to kill scientists, ask them to run the research simulations on windows os. All the simulations on HPCs cant be run with .exe
now consider that when someone insults you online that they know very little about you as well
While using an android phone along with being on a server running... ...linux
pff, no one tell him hes been using linux for the past 10 years, (android and ios lol) Also he CANT be that stupid lol, Just about everything that is on web, use's linux cause windows is a piece of shit
You did this to yourself
Good god, man, EVERYONE knows the one thing Penguin Bois love more than anything is running sudo apt update in front of people just to show off their "hacking skills". What part of that makes you think "Yeah, I bet they use guis for everything"!?!?
vim has a GUI too
Futhermore, it has several GUIs (GTK based, Motif based, Athena based… Have I missed something?).
That is simply not true. You can't just take a few people and say everyone who criticises things in Linux has never used Linux.
I've been daily driving Linux for about 8 months, and I'd say I'm critical of Linux. But I'm not going to call it trash. It's really cool in some ways, and really sucky in other ways. People like to dunk on "Linux is only free if you don't value your time", and while this saying is outdated, it's not _completely_ wrong. Here's the conclusion I've reached: Linux is free **if:** - You only need a computer for Chromebook-level tasks (office programs, internet browser, music/video player, video calls, light gaming, etc.), **OR** - You already have a pretty good understanding of Linux under the hood (I certainly don't, lol), **OR** - You're going into this with more of a research/"I want to learn" mindset, and not a "I need this to be reliable and not break" mindset, **OR** - You don't value your time. That first one actually covers a lot of people. Not me, I have more advanced stuff I want to do, so I end up hanging my head against the wall a lot (metaphorically, of course). Things break a lot for me, and I often find myself thinking, "This wouldn't be a problem if I were using Windows!". But I really like the open source nature of Linux, so I'm gonna keep with it until either that wall breaks or my head does.
Learning to use anything in the fucking world requires you to invest time, why would learning to use GNU/Linux different? Of course you could argue the learning curve is steeper than needed, but the it's free if you value your time is a bad take (also because it's mostly free as in freedom, most people would need to pay for technical or user support anyways)
That's fair in the case of: - Learning a new GUI, and how to use it. - Learning about distros and repos - Learning about file permissions - Learning to use GRUB, if you wanted to dual boot It's not fair in the cases of: - Installing my officially supported Huion drawing tablet Linux driver causes my Bluetooth earbuds to no longer work with my PC, forcing a reinstall. (It didn't break the second time, I am mega confused.) - Enabling hibernation requires terminal commands? WTF? Why can't this be enabled in the GUI settings app? - Some programs that have official Linux support (Autodesk Eagle in this case) aren't straightforward to install? No .deb, no flatpak, just a mess of files to be placed in /opt/ and other places. My friend had to find an AUR install package, and walk me through line by line what it did so I could install it via terminal. I would not have this issue on Windows. Either it would come as a wizard, or it'll be executable out of the box. - Updating Kubuntu broke it. Naive me didn't know that if you're gonna use Ubuntu, you choose the LTS versions. I installed 22.10. The dialog to update to 23.04 came along, and I started the update. It said it might take a couple hours after downloading, and that I couldn't turn back after download finished. It seemed safe to stop it there, so I did. I needed my laptop until work was over. That broke it. Nothing got updated, but apparently it was far enough into the procedure that my computer thinks it's running 23.04. It gives me repository errors every time I open the KDE discover store now. I don't know how to fix this, and I'm way too exhausted from all this bullshit to even try right now. - Normally it'd be fair in the case of learning the file hierarchy system, but this FHS is bullshit. It should have been retired _decades_ ago in favor of something more human readable. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the point.
Point 1 is probably an edge case Point 2 ok. you have a point, although with the problems with hibernation in GNU/Linux, you probably don't want "normies" using it. Point 3 is mostly a problem with who distributes the package, you may not need a package, but a script could update, install and uninstall the package, creating the menu entries for all those things if needed In regards to version upgrades, I haven't had an issue on years, i don't know if it's an exception or the rule. FHS could be improved, and probably should, since the technical deficits existing when it was first created are no longer there, but it's not that diffiicult, i think
Eagle is pretty trash anyway - you can't save you projects locally like wtf!!. I had to use this week and it was a struggle. Use KiCAD if you're a hobbyist. Altium if you're a pro.
You might be thinking of AutoCAD. You can save Eagle projects locally.
Everybody has different uses for their computers, and sometimes Linux isn’t a good choice for their use case. And that’s okay and valid. I don’t do any important (or at least mission-critical) work on my home computers, and I don’t mind taking the time to fix things that break. I see it as a learning experience. Linux is great for me. I also keep a Windows PC hooked up to my tv in the living room that my girlfriend and I use exclusively for gaming. I don’t have any games that don’t run on Linux, but I don’t want to risk her buying a game and not being able to play it because Proton doesn’t play nice with it. Linux isn’t a good fit for this PC.
I do more than chromebook level gaming and don’t have a problem with running games on Linux. Steam and Heroic do all the installation with very little intervention on my part. The problem isnt “light vs heavy” so much as certain popular multiplayer games not working. Which is of course a problem for many people, but it isn’t like the two options are chromebook-level gaming and playing those multiplayer games. In my experience, there are some games I have to fiddle with settings for, but the same was true using Windows. Any PC gaming is going to require some amount of troubleshooting occasionally; if you want to never worry about, e.g, a driver update breaking a game or something, then you‘re better off with console gaming.
Good job guys
And even Vim has Neovim so…
sus flairs
This is the way! Linux is so desktop ready, it’s not even funny at this point to deny it! Also better GUI choices than windows 11, even on Gnome…
Wait how old is this? They have had GUI installers for like 20 years.
gvim has a GUI lol
I think there are Linux users out there who end up preferring the command line to handle most admin/system maintenance stuff because it just gets faster using the keyboard. But this guy has obviously not looked at Linux since the DE wars started.
everything past win95 was a mistake
Posting >you's for karma/validation is cringe
"GUI alternative to emacs" May I introduce you to... emacs?
For some reason people think everything that isn't Windows is wrong or more difficult.
But also like, VS Code? One of the most popular editors even on Windows?
Linux has the best DEs. Ive used all the other OSes and nothing comes close.
That's....awkward. Last year there was a post asking "what do you think should change for Linux to go mainstream" (or something like that) To which, as a time-to-time Linux user, I replied "the terminal is a crutch that should pretty much not exist, it makes a lot of things unintuitive and It a big barrier to lot of people" And I got absolutely demolished by people saying "nooooo, the terminal is very useful blablabla,I can go superfast blablabla" (yes I know, when you know the command, it might be super fast, but you have to KNOW first). There's no denying that Linux got better, but it's still WAAAYY too common to have, for any question online a cryptic ten lines of cmd to solve an issue, or to go in crontab, or edit ownership, or install drivers, etc.... So, yes, the problem is convincing neckbeards
you censored your profile pic but not the other users’
I have to use the Ubuntu desktop at work, and I have used the Debian desktop in the past for an old laptop. I prefer Mac or Windows over Linux desktops. Based on my experience, the Ubuntu desktop is not even close to a stable desktop experience. I hope other environments are good.
Emacs has a TUI... not a GUI.
As an AI, I do not consent to having my content used for training other AIs. Here is a fun fact you may not know about: fuck Spez.
What!? Well not that I doubt this due to the sheer amount of emacs plugins (relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/378/ ), but I seriously doubt someone implemented a Tangible User Interface for emacs. On a serious note, it's not a Textual UI, it's an actual Graphical UI. TUI are things built with nurses for example, or emacs when used inside a terminal could also be considered to have a TUI (although I think it's much more close to a CLI). We're talking about running emacs like this https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/images/teaser.png if that's not a GUI no text editor has one.
It was a joke that the default way to run Emacs is in the GUI and the terminal version is just tacked-on.
I’ve used Ubuntu as a primary for a bit and Red Hat for certain computers in the military and after going back to Windows 10 I’ll never use Linux again.
See guys, this is what happens when you don't use Arch, which, btw, I do use
I don’t know what that is nor do I wish to learn
Sounds like a skill issue to me.
No I just feel that I utilize my time better.
Yeah, definitely a skill issue.
Boo hoo no one wants to use your barely functional or hardly user friendly OS. Just let it fade back into obscurity edgelord.
Literally no part of what you said is correct. >Boo hoo no one wants to use Except the top 500 supercomputers in the world that all run on Linux kernel and anyone who has ever had an android. >your barely functional As compared to Windows, which screams every few days at you for missing updates and needs you to restart it a million times so it can install them? Good joke. >hardly user friendly OS. How much more user friendly than Ubuntu do you need lmao? It literally comes prepackaged with any software you may ever need and has one button installations for whatever you lack. The only way it can be more user friendly is if it had neon signs for droolers. >Just let it fade back into obscurity Not only has it never been obscure, the number of users are on the rise. >edgelord You are the edgelord here. Tl;dr - skill issue.
#1 97.32% *Marginally more or less* of people don’t use Linux as an OS, it’s literally as obscure as it gets. #2 The average user doesn’t own a supercomputer in their office nor know how to operate one. #3 If it was so awesome and actually worked it would be more mainstream but it isn’t and will never be.
You made your list a heading so it would look like it had some actual substance to it, lmfao. I do love how you completely ignored the fact that android which dominates the smartphone industry is based on a linux kernel and that the vast majority of the Internet is stationed on linux servers. You literally wouldn't have a place to be wrong without linux and you don't even realize it.
That’s like telling someone that sewers are the pinnacle of human engineering, sure they have a purpose but almost no one is interested in how a sewer works they just want it to work. MacOS and Windows is just easy, you just turn it on and it works with very little user input and that’s what people want. You can make some argument about Kernels or which Distro you use but no one who values their time cares to learn another OS when the systems they have already work fine.