this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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I think that Linux is the worst for middle-tier tech people.
For elderies, kids or someone that just visit social media, listen to music on Spotify and edit photos from vacations this it is perfect. They might learn where the app store is, how to open up menu and that's all.
For tech saavy, programmers, engineers I... don't really get how you can use Windows at all until you are forced by your environment. Going from Windows to Linux to do work is just like going from ChromeOS to MacOS.
But the worst would be the midtier, a friend who does a joke in "ohshit.exe" style, but don't know what is an executable. That has multiple free games from Epic Store he never plays but must be installed and work. That have bought Photoshop and "original" MS Office licence years ago for outdated version but keep it, because "original". And that has some amateur audio eqippment that even if Linux have build-in drivers for, would complain the .exe installer from that "download for free" website does not work.
I have the opposite experience.
Windows consistently gets in my way. Linux has been a breathe of fresh air and stays out of my way. It just works.
I now use Linux as my desktop at work (Debian 12) and at home (EndeavorOS).
Damn this is the opposite of my experience. As much as I appreciate some aspects on the philosophical side of Linux, and the lack of spying etc, but really the main reason I've stuck with it is that it just works.
My updates don't break things, my updates only happen when I allow them to happen, I don't have to periodically run disk cleanup and crap like that to remove dozens of gigabytes of useless data like old windows updates, my search works properly, I dont get ads in my OS after some updates that I have to find out how to disable, I don't have shitty MS apps that I can't uninstall, dark mode actually applies to my entire system so I don't get blinded at night when I open XYZ program.
I probably lose a couple of hours every month on my work laptop just doing silly Windows nonsense that I just don't have to deal with on Linux.
A good way to fix this, I guess, would be teaching children to use GNU/Linux alongside or in place of Windows when they're learning how to use computers in digital literacy classes.
Because this isn't an OS problem, it's a familiarity problem.
Agree, a lot of Windows weirdness is taken as like it's like computers work overall. An example I give is when program freeze everyone knows Ctrl+Alt+Del to get the task manager. On Linux mostly there is Ctrl+Alt+ESC and click on the window to kill it.
For generations, parents have been giving kids their old cars or buying a used beater so they can learn to drive.
We need to get a generation of parents giving kids their old laptops or buying a cheap one off eBay with a light linux distro to extend its life.
And are there even industry standard equivalent programs available for graphic designers on Linux?
Most FOSS alternatives tend to be a significant step back for folks used to their closed source industry counterparts like for example Adobe. The available video editing software is either a step back or closed source (DaVinci Resolve).
It's probably the proverbial chicken-and-egg situation.
I mean, for UI-UX, Figma, Lunacy, etc. are available via browser. But I despise web-based clients.
That's a wonderful example. My average tech friend was an early adopter of SteamOS and called me a lot about wine.
I must fit in the middle here. I know that virtual drives exist, I've had a friend install one on my computer, but I never got it to work. I installed an old game off of a disk once, but when it quit working I had no idea why or what to do. I had a laptop and installed Ubuntu on it, and just never used it because I didn't know what it would be good for and I got tired of constantly updating/fixing/troubleshooting it.
I'm used to the options and menus of windows, Linux is just confusing to me.
I do native Windows, Linux and Android development and much prefer working on Windows since I like the software and tooling there better. At home, I don't really want to fiddle with Linux anymore than I want to. Spending 2 days trying to fix my work PC's Ubuntu installation not being able to detect my Nvidia GPU has scared me off bothering with it.
Coincidentally, I did not have fun switching over to my Ubuntu partition at work today and finding out my Bluetooth mouse stopped working with it all of a sudden.
NVidia and Linux... don't get along very well. They've also been caught violating the GPL in their drivers, resulting in the kernel being hardcoded to block them in some instances. There is good reason why Valve picked an AMD APU in their handheld
Modern bluetooth controllers store the paired devices on their onboard memory, rather than only in the OS (allowing your bluetooth peripherals to work in the BIOS etc). If the two paired device lists fall out of sync, this could lead to erroneous behavior, especially since you're dual booting two completely different operating systems using completely different driver implementations to talk to your hardware
Just wanted to share why things are broken - not trying to persuade you to change your workflow. Use whatever works best for you!
Yea I get where you're coming from. Unfortunately, my work requires me to use an Nvidia GPU so I can't really budge on that front. It is what it is.
Thanks for sharing! I found it interesting.
Zorin OS has Windows App Support.. You can run .exe and .msi on it..
I put zorin on my parent's computer 2 years ago, while its a great distro, their windows app support is just marketing, its an out of date wine version with an unmaintained launcher. Worse than tinkering with wine yourself.
Yep, don't even dare to advertise it to a midtier person. There are just going to download random .exe and find out how broken it is and have no idea how to get back and uninstall the software.
I really want to love WINE, but it's so difficult to find .net framework installers that actually work on it. Luckily the few Windows apps I use under Linux work with Wine (using Mono as an alternative to .net), or were compiled for XP so run OOTB without any framework install necessary