this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] CoupleOfConcerns@lemmy.nz 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Speaking for myself, but I suspect this applies to a lot of people, the factors that are enabling me to run Linux as my personal computer are:

  1. The browser experience is now on par with other operating systems. For many people, almost everything they do on their computer is through the browser so this is important.
  2. Games now work. Every game I've wanted to play has worked on Linux.
  3. If I want to do word processing or spreadsheeting and I absolutely need the formatting to be correct or want to use the more advanced aspects of Excel, I now have a work device to do those things. This wasn't the case a few years ago, when most people worked on a company desktop machine at work.

Putting that together and subtracting all the annoyances of Windows - nagging notifications, updates that take forever, Windows trying to make my default browser Edge, the greater threat of viruses - why wouldn't I be on Linux? Why wouldn't a lot of people be on Linux?

[–] beta_tester@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As a latex user, reading "... and I absolutely need the formatting to be correct ..." and using word is a joke

[–] bl_r@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Latex is what made switching to linux possible for me during college. I had multiple lab classes that required their own very specific formatting. One of them required latex, and I was the only person who ended up learning latex in my lab group. Between that semester and the next one, I installed linux and used latex exclusively for all my reports, and I can certainly say that my papers actually looked good. I spent no time on formatting after the first lab report when I made my template.

[–] IndiBrony@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Why wouldn't a lot of people be on Linux?

Because dumb people like me are too scared to leave what we know and have always heard that you need to actually know a thing or two instead of just relying on modern user-"friendly" systems to do it all for you.

[–] kitsastro@mastodon.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

@IndiBrony
I've come to the conclusion that the user friendly part is just plain wrong. how many times have i struggled on Windows with something but managed fine on linux.

of course there are actual things that are more difficult but that's only because so much more is possible with linux.

advanced users wouldn't notice a difference and advanced user appreciate the difference.
@CoupleOfConcerns @linux

[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's not really true nowadays. Linux Mint is easier to learn than Windows. Unless you want to play certain games, in which case you might have to tinker with Wine and Lutris.

[–] raptir@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Honestly with things like Heroic it's unlikely that you really need to "tinker" much regardless.

[–] Acid@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago

Well there’s the fact that it’s somewhat true as for example if you use a chromium based browser on Linux hardware acceleration isn’t enabled by default and borderline doesn’t work a lot of the time.

Doesn’t sound so bad till you realise what it does to battery life on a laptop.

I love Linux and we are so close but it’s small things like that, which prevent me getting friends and family to use it consistently.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 1 points 1 year ago

Remember that MS removed office from chromebook's play store, you can imagine why, they are pretty scared now. Apart from office I see the Cad industry offered briscad to Linux , the video editing industry offered davince and lightworks, the 3d modeling one has blender which is just industry-grade per se, I guess office and adobe are the only grandparents reluctant to switch to the new world.