Enough with the fan wars. Let’s be perfectly honest for once. Windows, Linux, MacOS - they all suck. Sometimes in similar ways, sometimes in different ways. But they all suck.
Windows users - I get you, you use it because it sorta works 40%, of the time and sucks in the way you understand.
Linux users - I get you, you know all of the arcane incantations you need to quickly install, update, and troubleshoot your os in a terminal window. It works - once you apply your custom bash script that applies every change you need to get everything exactly how you like it. But again, it sucks in the way you understand.
MacOS users - well I don’t really get you. You know what you’ve done.
We deserve better than this, guys. We deserve an os that just works, is easy to use, easy to configure, doesn’t require an IT degree to use, and that we can recommend to our grandma without a second thought.
MacOS users - well I don’t really get you. You know what you’ve done.
I laughed hard on this one hahahahaha
What did we do?
I’m not sure, but the statement made me laugh.
Personally, I love that there are so many choices. And, while I don’t like Apple products, I’m glad the choice exists, so that people who do like them (like you) are able to enjoy them.
Macbooks just make really nice ssh terminals for accessing your Linux dev environment. Though these days there are decent options for Linux terminals with a similar form factor, they just don’t tend to be much cheaper.
Probably an unpopular opinion on here, but the OS I recommend for grandparents and parents is ChromeOS. It’s so locked down that it’s almost indestructible, and they almost never need any specialized software that you’d use Windows/MacOS for. If you’re savvy enough you can also use Linux on it in a container, which is how I prefer to use it for day to day stuff (in my case, data related workflows).
Yep. I’m in IT, so every time my parents’ computer “does something weird,” I get a call. Bought them Chromebooks a few Christmases ago and the calls have all but stopped.
No that’s fair. It just assumes that everything you’ll ever need is on a browser, which in the case of grandparents, is probably true.
I would just um…never tell them about the Android app store because that can get real messy real quick.
As much as i dislike google, chromebooks are perfect for anyone tech illiterate that just need a simple web browser that works. Every family member I’ve recommended a chromebook to has not needed additional tech support for it, which IMO, is a truly impressive accomplishment on google’s behalf.
I know you made a joke about MacOS, but I am genuinely interested with what issue you have of it.
It sucks in the way you understand and know because nothing else even exists. No one is interested in having to cater to their walled garden unless there’s money to be made. Meanwhile both Linux and Windows have many open source projects and hobbyists working on things. So you might get a mac driver for something you buy but most of the time macos is an afterthought at best in many hobby projects. Also lol mac gaming is a joke. Even Linux is getting better support now than macos in that regard since the Steamdeck.
Yeah it was just a joke because I love to piss off the MacOS guys. But its like a brotherly teasing. Like, I love you guys, but I gotta rib you, you know.
I think Apple’s biggest sin is that everything works as long as all of your hardware, software, and co-workers have an apple emblazoned on their back. But the moment you have to work with anything or anyone that doesnt use Apple, you have problems. And Apple seems to encourage this because it gets their users to dread working with Windows or Linux users.
The sad thing is that I like a lot of their software. But using their OS is like having Steve Jobs standing over your shoulder and smacking you on the head when you try to shift outside of their intended workflow. I keep running into situations where Windows and Linux would let me go left or right (after finding a hidden and misnamed switch or running a well researched and crafted bash command), and MacOS just put a roadblock on the left because fuck you we said no.
I know that my ideal of a perfect OS is unrealistic. MacOS is more stable because it’s more rigid. Windows and Linux prove that the more flexible you are, the harder it is to use. But settling for one option and looking down at everyone who chose different isn’t going to help. We should all keep criticising our chosen option and root for others that are criticising their own. Because it seems like Apple, Microsoft, and the Open Source community are all in a rut, safely ignoring basic fucking usage issues because of an implicit assumption that their user base isn’t going anywhere.
I live in a mixed OS household. My wife and I both use windows and Apple machines for various purposes (my wife’s work requires both, my mac is just for dabbling) and I have some linux boxes for streaming or storage or whatever. And while that gives me the benefits of all three, I also have to deal with the problems of all three. And its a lot, guys. Not to mention they all refuse to work together.
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When I worked as a IT Tech at a University years ago we had a lot of MacOS users who believed they could just pick it up and use it like their iPhone. It was absurd how well their marketing worked because those users either forced themselves to learn it or dropped it and went back to Windows.
I know a lot of iOS users who have iPads and iPhones but still have windows PCs because they don’t have to worry about compatibility issues.
I’m one of those guys, IOS phone with windows PC. There really isn’t much out there that is as convenient as IOS, but theres no way I would use a Mac, as compatibility issues and more expensive hardware will ultimately hurt functionality.
This is a pointless argument even saying that everyone sucks, linux runs worse on the desktop because it doesn’t get even 1/10th the investment from consumer hardware manufacturers compared to windows or mac to make it compatible. nevertheless linux is undoubtedly less difficult and more efficient to integrate than windows, for example the steam deck is done very well but it could be done better since KDE, wayland and arch do not have the same number of employees as microsoft.
It depends. It could also be a better idea to introduce a sort of “IT driver’s license” for everyone to have basic understanding/skills to use their devices. Sure, modern software stacks are ridiculously complex and no one understands every detail down to each machine code/assembly instruction, so there’s always a big amount of abstraction or simplification needed, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to request that someone with literal zero knowledge whatsoever should be able to perfectly use an OS or device. That’s also not even possible. I see it with my mother, she started from zero knowledge but she had to learn some basics to be able to do the few things she needs to do. Of course she uses Linux. No prior Windows knowledge means a much easier start with Linux of course. She wouldn’t have been able to use Windows either with zero knowledge. So this is a point that some forget: even Windows users need knowledge to be able to use Windows, and they probably already earned that knowledge in much earlier years. This Windows knowledge also works against you building up Linux (or even OS X) knowledge because Windows works quite differently from a Unix-like OS. This is not irrelevant: a Windows user who spent like 30 years in Windows has a much harder time learning Linux, than someone who didn’t have that. But, again, not really the fault of Linux that you indoctrinated yourself with Windows-only MS product specific knowledge over the last decades. This is probably the biggest problem there is, because almost everyone on the planet has already acquired some amount of Windows knowledge in the past. This works against you when trying to switch. Windows knowledge is mostly Windows-specific. When learning about IT, you should make sure that you learn things in a preferably OS agnostic way. Which is also the reason why schools etc. should never teach “using MS products”. They should always teach fundamentals, irrelevant of what you use afterwards. And those fundamentals should of course not be taught using commercial products, but rather open source software.
Then there are some fantasies which MS and Apple could establish in the broader population which aren’t true, for example that CLI/terminal usage is archaic and has no place on modern desktops anymore. CLI usage will always remain as a fast alternative to a lot of tasks which are hard or even impossible to do via GUI. Even MS has realized this and introduced Powershell, a new terminal, and winget, for example. As well as WSL (which was originally and still mostly is being used to have access to powerful Linux-based CLI utilities). Yet still a lot of people seem to think that CLI is obsolete or that it’s “hard”. Sure, if you do some scripting or complex one-liners, it can be too hard for someone without strong IT knowledge. But most commands are really basic and easy to understand. Even my mother is able to use basic commandline utilities, and she even prefers it sometimes over clicking around in the GUI. To claim that this is impossible or too hard to learn for a Windows user is, I don’t know. At least untrue. Probably even an insult to your own intelligence. And the main reason why most Linux users suggest doing things via commandline is that this is an almost distro- and desktop-independent way of doing things.
Also, not a big fan of the “fan” label here. Regardless of whether or not you like Linux (I like Linux as an OS more than Windows, because I think the Unix-way is better, but it’s also about so much more), I see a neutral, free/libre open source (FLOSS) operating system as the base for our digital lives as a necessity, and so I see Windows or OS X as intrinsically worse. I don’t see it as a kind of war between different products on equal footing. One product denies you any rights and control (and in more recent times, also extracts even more value and data from you than just the price you paid for the license to use it), and one that gives you full rights and control (and pretty much never extracts any more from you). It’s not OK that we use our devices for so many things in life nowadays, that all aspects of your life are being done via digital means nowadays, and yet the most popular operating systems are still 100% proprietary black boxes fully controlled by big US companies. This needs to change, and it should have happened a long time ago already. And Linux is simply the most mature and most well supported FLOSS operating system out of all of them. I actually wouldn’t care if it would be FreeBSD or OpenBSD or whatever instead, but I see Linux as being the most mature, well-supported and mainstream-viable option here. I only care that it’s not a damn black box I don’t have any real control over.
We need (almost) everyone on such open technologies like Linux, because the future (or even present) for Windows users looks like this: no control, no privacy (plus AI being trained on your work/data as well), big vulnerability when (not if) MS gets hacked (and they’re a huge, juicy target, and we already saw them being compromised twice in the last couple of years), pricey subscription to MS’ services which continues to get pricier once you’re successfully vendor-locked-in (once all your servers, desktops and data is in MS’ cloud, you won’t be able to easily leave their services anymore, so they are free to increase prices until it hurts you). Even if you happen to like the offering MS gives you, does that really seem like “the future” of computing to you? To me, that’s backwards. Or mainframe history repeating itself. Moving into proprietary clouds with vendor-lock-in only really benefits the cloud provider, which is why they want all users to join the “party”.
I’m not a big fan of Stallman in general, but his fundamental propositions e.g. that FLOSS software is intrinsically better than proprietary black boxes, is true. I wonder how long we still need as a society, to arrive at that realization. I assumed that the Snowden revelations as well as the desaster that Windows 10 was for privacy, would have already started a change in thinking about such things. But that probably wasn’t enough (strangely). I’m not sure what else would need to happen, but I guess something like first MS shoving all their users into their cloud, and then MS being hacked (again) but this time with malicious auto-updates being pushed to all MS software users as well, impacting tons of businesses. Then, maybe, people will start thinking whether this was such a great idea to begin with to play along with what MS envisioned as the “grand future”. Unfortunately I see parallels with the human behavior concerning climate change here as well. It’s like we have to first destroy our climate and suffer the consequences, before we realize it’s a bad idea and we should do it differently RIGHT NOW. We are just incredibly short-sighted and we only learn AFTER disasters, which were even announced long before. It’s tragic.
And for those people who know or think they could start using Linux but still use Windows because it’s more “aesthetically pleasing” or whatever else irrelevant aspect they make up to “justify” still staying on that sinking MS ship in 2023, please reconsider your priorities.
Uh huh.
please reconsider your priorities
Ngl, I laughed pretty hard when I saw that you ended your giant rant with this line.
But do they have a varying degrees of suck?
The OS I direct the technologically-illiterate to when I don’t plan on supporting it myself is invariably iOS. Boomers don’t need anything more anyway.
Havent had issues with my Windows PC in years. I dont have time to deal with linux stuff at this ppint in my life but used to play with it as a teen.
My Linux review: 10/10, would recommend, but would not install for someone and let them use it for the next 5 years.
I guarantee you’ve had “problems” but you’re so used to Windows now that you have the muscle memory to deal with it without thinking much about it.
Using all three in my household kinda highlighted for me how much I was just ignoring or working around the ugliness of Windows every single day.
Sure thing buddy. I’ll say it again: no issues at all in ages.
ReactOS is promising.
Lol Linux is easier than Windows, you don’t need to know any troubleshooting secrets or bash. Even the installation is easier
How many people do you know with Android phones that know bash?
Terminal isn’t any more necessary on Linux than Windows but the commands are simpler
The downside of Linux is that it’s free, that means they can’t afford to pay manufacturers to include their OS at the same scale as Microsoft. Thus Windows will have more users and be a more profitable ecosystem to target software for
Been using Ubuntu on my desktop for a couple of years, following a couple years use of WSL (so I’m very comfortable using the terminal etc)
Off the top of my head, some of the stuff I ran into almost immediately:
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the package manager has been essentially unusable - the home page will work okay, but trying to view or install any applications through it, it just hangs forever. So I just go and use apt-get, but that’s not what I’d call ‘easier’ or ‘just works’
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Firefox windows regularly break - the contents of the page still work fine but I can’t resize or move the window, have to close it and open a new one. This happens multiple times a day
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only way I could get the discord app installed was with a .deb (since the package manager didn’t work), so as soon as it’s out of date I just get a message saying “you need to update”. So I have to use it in the browser
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speaking of discord - I like to use push to talk. Guess what, push to talk is impossible with Wayland. Supposedly this is a feature, not a bug
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also couldn’t get vnc working to remote home while travelling, due to Wayland. Maybe if I persisted with troubleshooting I could have got it to work, but it took me 30s on windows.
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installed zoom - it won’t launch from the gui, I have to launch it from the terminal. Also, ‘join this meeting’ web links don’t work, I have to copy paste them into the app
There’s plenty more quirks I run into all the time but thats just shit I run into with a clean install and very typical hardware.
I love interacting with Linux through the terminal - I hate interacting with it through a gui. That’s not my definition of easier lol
Have you tried just downloading the app image off of websites and running it that way? Most windows users don’t use the windows repos
I’ve had no issues with Firefox or discord but I don’t use wayland
Not my Kubuntu experience, and sounds like something broke.
Which can happen with Windows too.
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I’ve worked exclusively with Linux servers since 2002 and exclusively Linux desktop since 2004 and I’ve come to the point where I prettyuch refuse to touch windows for fear it will infect me somehow.
I know most people don’t know any better but it’s insanity to me that anyone still pays money for windows. It’s a scam, no other words for it.
Don’t even get me started on Windows servers. It’s just sad to see how much money is spent on a company that has so litte focus on quality.
Even the online services suck. Dear God Microsoft, would it kill you to understand that people might have gasp TWO tabs open with your teams “app”?
Even azure runs Linux
I guess I pay for the convenience that I get when I buy a new game, simply press Install and start playing. I spend most of my free time playing games on PC, I have no other reasons to stick to Windows. I’ll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
This is going to sound selfish, but I don’t have the “energy” of fighting against whatever the current meta is - I just have to appreciate the more invested people that drive Linux forward. I’ll just follow and use the OS where I get the smoothest overall experience for gaming (including thing like mouse/kb driver support). Windows is the current answer for this, one day it’ll be something else - hopefully Linux.
Shit’s been progressing really fast recently - I guess Steam Deck is doing some heavy lifting when it comes to motivating developers to keep Linux in mind. Direct support will always give the best results for everyone.
Games don’t always run perfectly under Windows on release either.
I specifically remember one of the CoD games running just long enough to use up all my vram, whereby it would promotly crash. Took about about two weeks to sort that one out.
My tinkering under Linux consists of downloading a game under Steam, ticking a compatibility checkbox, and playing the game. For other launchers, I simply open Bottles and install the launcher of my choosing. Been playing Diablo 4 under Battle.net just fine since launch.
It blows my mind just how bad file system performance is under Windows compared to Linux. I mean, you literally have to have an SSD in order for the OS to be responsive. Granted, most have SSD’s these days, but performance on spinning rust shouldn’t be that bad.
I’ll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
Let me give you an honest answer that no Linux users is willing to give you (certainly because they fear to scare people off of Linux): you will never see the day where Linux will be equal if not better than Windows for gaming (which it can be sometimes, but it’s not always the case) if not a certain amount of people get out of their comfort zone and are willing to try something new. In fact, nobody can improve anything in their life if they’re not willing to get out of their comfort zone.
You’re already using a PC to play video games, I did this choice too, so trust me, you definitely have the energy to change for a better OS, something ever you recognize as having qualities outside of games. Otherwise, you would’ve played exclusively on console where you actually have a plug and play experience… unfortunately at the cost of your freedom to use the machine you bought however you want, besides all the other considerable disadvantages.
For me, Linux made as much progress as it can do, meaning now, for Linux to be viable for gaming, either companies start to move their asses and make Linux native games (which they can easily do, if they’re willing to use the right tools for their game like Vulkan) but I hardly see that coming any time soon, or new users have to come to Linux so that companies would finally care. Personally, I made my choice by making the first step.
I’ll happily switch to Linux on the day when every new release works with no extra problems, tinkering, waiting or searching caused by my choice of OS.
Yes, it’s definitely getting close now…
2003 wants is comment back :p.
Linux people will never admit that it’s like that though. I have a few friends on Linux and when we all boot a game to play, the windows users like me sit in the lobby waiting for my friends to trouble shoot why battlefield 1 isn’t launching on Linux, then they give up and just boot into windows and magically the game starts.
I haven’t had this exact experience, but I struggled to game on linux for years before I asked my self why I was struggling to prove nothing to nobody when I could just not.
I stopped gaming a long time ago but what I’m reading is that gaming in Linux has improved immensely and these days is in the same level as Microsoft Windows. I’d give that a try
It’s the professional software that’s lacking in Linux, and that’s the only reason I keep a Windows machine around. For music production, video production, design work, photography and so on, Windows has good commercial software that is well established in these professions.
But for most people, including gamers, Linux is a very good option right now.
I recently setup a Windows vm for my mum because she also needs photo and video editing sw and isn’t happy with the Linux alternatives. This works astonishingly well. Virtualbox even has a mode now to fully integrate the vm into the existing desktop, so basically she just gets the windows status bar in addition to the Linux one when she starts the vm. Windows programs open as if they were running natively. Might be worth a try for you.
I prettyuch refuse to touch windows for fear it will infect me somehow.
Don’t worry. It won’t. It’ll just frustrate you. Windows has gone seriously downhill since 7.
It was alret horrible at 95. I used windows for about a good 2 years in my life. I’ve been on Amiga is before, Unix osses for a while and over 21 years now on Linux. Windows, any version, compared to any of those is a joke
I love windows… I appreciate Linux but as a standard user, I have no need for Linux. I’m careful and I’d say an advanced user. I avoid dodgy websites and idk… I have a dual boot with fedora but I really don’t use fedora because no need?
Let’s assume you’re not a power user who would be confined to Microsoft’s “can’t do” or “too complicated” rules; why do you pay for windows?
And if you pirate, why? Then just use Linux, it’s tree and does all you need
And if iou “got it for free with your computer”, you didn’t, you paid Microsoft ab obligatory tax, like ot or not. Why?
The KDE UI looks and feels the same like windows but is superior, you don’t always have to reboot after any minor issue or change, it’s free, it doesn’t spy on you, and you don’t have the virus bullshit for a variety of reasons
If you don’t know better, I can understand, but you do. You know Linux is out there, why windows?
Thanks. I’d say I’m a power user for program use (multiple windows, programs, etc.).
I got it for free with my computer (lol) when I bought an open box product from a large computer store on discount.
I used to be a sailor but have hung up my hat. The seas seem to be calling me though.
I guess I haven’t really been confined by windows as much as I have been free to do things. Maybe the things I want to do are not extending beyond the limitations that you see. What are some things that you can do that you can’t normally do on windows?
Are there distros that you recommend over others? Do different distros do different things? Are they for different purposes? I have some experience in fedora, Ubuntu, and very little in kali2 (school teaching)
I’d recommend Kubuntu. Been using it for ages. I’ve been on Linux desktop for 20 years now and kubuntu is by far my favorite. It had the KDE desktop (on Linux you have different desktop brands) and KDE is by far the most powerful, prettiest, and most windows like. See it as windows desktop on steroids.
Ubuntu (on which kubuntu is based) also has a nice way of how it manages the files though that is more a oeiet user thing.
Can’t recommend Kubuntu enough
Windows requirements: sprawling list of unsupported hardware based on an arbitrary requirment for a security chip that doesn’t actually improve security at all
Linux: CPU (optional)
As a person who has used linux i can confirm that my daughter runs linux
I like Linux a lot, but saying you can’t understand why someone would run Windows on a server just shows a lack of knowledge. Linux is great in a lot of server applications in the application realm. However, it doesn’t get close to the power of Active Directory and Group Policy for Windows device management. Besides that, a lot of people are more comfortable with a UI for managing DHCP, DNA, etc in a SMB environment. Even if they prefer a command line for those tools PowerShell allows those people to coexist with those that prefer a GUI. Under certain circumstances, (mainly ones where a business is forgoing AD for AAD), Linux can be the right choice. Pretending that there’s no place for Windows Server, though, is asinine.
We use both. Its not my department but i know the server guys are using windows for some servers and linux for others and the decision is normally made based on which is going to be best for the specific needs of the function of that server.
Pretending one is outright better than the other is childish. Just use whats best at the time.
The main problem are companies forcing windows servers and technologies when they are not the good ones for the task.
If one needs to set up desktops for accounting, windows is fine. But I saw companies setting shared NFS drives used by Linux severs on windows machines! Not joking!
I know companies that even deploy kubernetes clusters on windows servers!
Just because finding cheap windows engineers is easy, everyone has had an experience on windows to put on a cv. Than some of that cheap labor go up the hierarchy as head of a random infrastructure team because all good sys engineers moved to manage linux servers after some time, he recruits people like-minded, and in few years you ends up with a team refusing to do the right thing because “we know windows and windows can do the same as Linux and Microsoft is good for governance and Linux bad”. Execs don’t understand the difference and force architecture to go along because they don’t believe it’s worthy to rebuild a team, we are anyway using windows for accounting and execs laptops, it can’t be that bad! Even accenture and mckinsey consultants us it! And they told us that wls2 is the holy grail
Corporate IT is the peak of suboptimal tools for the job because politics and money
They have a point. I’m in the market for a new laptop and I have, so far, returned two of them.
First, I tried a Huawei Matebook 16. I was foolish, but I thought it was “easy”. No NVidia, no dGPU at all - just part that looked very standard. It was based on the info I had gathered from a few years of Linux usage: “Basically avoid NVidia and you’re good”. It was anything but. Broken suspend, WiFi was horrible, random deadlocks, extreme slowness at times (as if the RYZEN 7 wasn’t Ryzen 7-ing) to become less smooth than my 5 year old Intel laptop, and broken audio codec (Senary Audio) that didn’t work at all on the live, and worked erratically on the installed system using generic hd-audio drivers.
I had a ~€1500 budget, but I raised it to buy a €1700 ThinkPad P16s AMD. No dGPU to speak of, sold with pre loaded Linux, boasting Canonical and Red Hat hardware certifications.
I had:
- Broken standby on Linux
- GPU bugs and screen flickering on Linux
- Various hangs and crashed
- Malfunctioning wifi and non working 6e mode. I dug, and apparently the soldered Wi-Fi adapter does not have any kind of Linux support at all, but the kernel uses a quirk to load the firmware of an older Qualcomm card that’s kinda similar on it and get it to work in Wi-Fi 6 compatibility mode.
Boggles my mind that the 2 biggest enterprise Linux vendors took this laptop, ran a “thorough hardware certification process” on it and let it pass. Is this a pass? How long have they tried it? Have they even tried suspending?
Of course, that was a return. But when I think about new laptops and Windows 11, basically anything works. You don’t have to pay attention to anything: suspend will work, WiFi will work, audio and speakers as well, if you need fractional scaling you aren’t in for a world of pain, and if you want an NVidia dGPU, it does work.
Furthermore, the Windows 11 compatible CPU list is completely
unofficialarbitrary, since you can still sideload Windows 11 on “unsupported” hardware and it will run with a far higher success rate than Linux on a random laptop you buy in store now. Like, it has been confirmed to run well on ancient Intel CPUs with screens below the minimum resolution. It’s basically a skin over 10 and there are no significant kernel modifications.To be clear: I don’t like Windows, but I hate this post as a consumer of bleeding edge hardware because it hides the problem under the rug - most new hardware is Windows-centric, and Linux supported options are few and far between. Nowdays not even the manufacturer declaring Linux support is enough. This friend of mine got a Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition, and if he uses ANY ISO except the default Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 audio doesn’t work at all! And my other friend with a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition has various GPU artifacts on the screen on anything except the relative Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 image. It’s such a minefield.
I have effectively added €500 to my budget, to now reach an outrageous €2000 for a premium Linux laptop with no significant trade-offs (mostly, I want a good screen and good performance). I am considering taking a shot in the dark and pre ordering the Framework 16, effectively swaying from traditional laptop makers entirely and hoping a fully customized laptop by a company that has been long committed to Linux support will be different.
I’ve thrown Linux on every laptop I’ve ever owned, and a couple of family members laptops as well and the past 15 years and haven’t encountered 1/10th of the issues they you have.
Complaining about broken suspend is funny because Microsoft basically killed S3 sleep in favour of the battery sucking S0. If anything it works better in Linux because you won’t open up your laptop to find that Windows Update fucking ran in the background while it was sitting closed in your backpack and rebooted.
I think your issue might be more of an AMD issue. They have a long history of buggy mobile hardware even on Windows.
I mean hell I threw Fedora on to my Intel MacBook Pro and the only real annoyance I had was not being able to reliably disable the SPDIF light in the 3.5mm jack.
I’m currently using the non-linux version of the XPS 13 2-in-1 and my OS experience is actually the opposite of your friends. I can install any Linux ISO without issue, but the standard Win 11 ISO refuses to work because it can’t detect any storage drives.
As far as daily driving Linux on it, the only things that don’t work are the fingerprint reader and webcam. It’s a bit of a piss off given that non-touchscreen version uses similar spec hardware that does support it but it doesn’t really affect daily use.
I’ve never had suspend work correctly on Linux. It’s always been buggy in Windows as well. You can boot from SSDs about just as fast as waking from suspend, so I don’t even try to use it anymore.
Why would you throw away so much money for new and shitty hardware, if Linux runs perfectly on old robust devices, which can be bought for a fraction of what you invested?
thorough hardware certification process
Probably marketing speech for “an intern tested it once with the default setup and he reported there were no errors”
Broken standby on Linux
That is sometimes broken because of broken UEFI/ACPI implementations which the Windows drivers were made to respect and work around, but the Linux drivers who are often developed not by the hardware manufacture himself but rather 3rd parties who implement them according to the available docs/specifications, will then result in a semi-broken functionality because implementing something according to the specification doesn’t mean much unfortunately if there are quirks or bugs you have to circumvent as well. This improves over time though with more adoption of Linux. When you compare the hardware support of Linux today vs. 20 years ago, it’s become much, much better already due to more developers and users working on it / reporting issues, and also more and more hardware vendors becoming actually involved in the Linux driver development.
GPU bugs and screen flickering on Linux
Various hangs and crashed
Definitely not normal. But it’s likely that it’s just a small configuration or driver issue. Since you didn’t provide any details, I just leave it as “easy to configure properly”. I get that it would be cooler if it worked OOTB, but sometimes that isn’t the case. It goes both ways, as well. It’s hard to generalize based on few occurrences, but I also had problems long ago with a mainboard with its Realtek audio drivers on Windows which didn’t work. Don’t remember the details because it was long ago but I had to hunt for a very specific driver version from Realtek (wasn’t easy to find), and couldn’t use the one the mainboard vendor provided as the Realtek driver, nor the one provided by Windows by default. Anyway, of course Windows is generally better supported on most notebooks, I won’t deny that, but that’s simply due to market share, not because it’s somehow made better. That’s important to realize. If Linux had 80% market share, it would be the other way round, every manufacturer would absolutely ensure that their driver will work on all their distro targets and all their hardware models. In the Linux world, the drivers are sometimes made by 3rd party developers because otherwise there would be no driver at all, and so it’s better to have a mostly functional driver than none at all. And that’s also just because the vendors CAN ignore Linux based on marketshare. They shouldn’t, but they can, and it makes short-term financial sense to do so, so it happens. Of course, if they market some of their models as explicitly Linux-friendly, they should absolutely ensure that such things will work OOTB. But even if they don’t, it’s usually not hard to make it work.
new laptops and Windows 11, basically anything works
Only because the manufacturer HAS to ensure that it works, while he DOESN’T HAVE to ensure that Linux will play nice with that hardware as well. I recommend using either notebooks from Linux-specific manufacturers (I had good experiences with Tuxedo for example) or you continue to use the “Linux-centric” notebook models from Dell/HP/… and then simply troubleshoot any shortcomings these might have. I don’t know the model but it’s very likely that it’s a simple configuration issue. And I wouldn’t recommend using the manufacturer’s default OS. Especially not with Windows notebooks. Always reinstall a fresh, unmodified OS, and work from there. I’d even assume that if you leave out any vendor-specific software or kernel modules, your problems will probably vanish already.
I have effectively added €500 to my budget
That’s an unfortunate reality also in other areas. Smaller vendors can’t produce in mass quantities, and so they have to sell their stuff for more money, even though it seems counter-intuitive at first. But this is also the case with e.g. the Librem 5 mobile phone which is also very expensive (but a great option if you want a mainline Linux phone) [in this case, it’s very expensive becaue you not only pay for the hardware, but also for the software development time], or well anything which isn’t cheaply produced on a mass scale where you get volume discounts. So in a sense, if you want to change the status quo, you have to pay extra. So yes, buying a brand new Linux notebook isn’t cheap, unless you want to specifically use an older notebook where Linux also happens to run on. But on the other hand, buying a pure Linux notebook also should generally ensure that it will work well. Similar to how when you buy hardware from Apple, they will ensure that OS X runs well on it.
I don’t think that you can generalize anything from your or your friend’s experience, so it seems likely that your friend misconfigured something or installed something the wrong way, leading to such stability problems. General tip: stability issues are almost always driver-related. Same as on Windows. So first try to remove all non-essential drivers (kernel modules on Linux) and see whether that improves stability. And, of course, check the logs. In most cases, they will point out the issue. I’ve also installed Linux on several “Windows-only” (not marketed as Linux compatible) notebooks and it ran just fine without ANY stability or graphics issues. I have a Lenovo ThinkPad for work and it runs Arch Linux, it’s probably more stable than the Win11 it’s supposed to run with. At least among my colleagues who run Win11 on it, I’m the only one who didn’t yet have a driver or update issue within its lifespan. One of those colleagues even had to reinstall Win11 after a borked update. I also use Tuxedo notebooks (Linux-compatible by default) personally and they’re great as well. But of course I never use vendor-supplied software, so I’m not affected if such software behaves badly. I always configure my systems the way I want them, starting from a vanilla base.
You know, I’ve been using Linux on desktops and laptops for like 20 years now. I can count on one hand then number of times I’ve had hardware support issues. Outside of a fingerprint scanner, I’ve been able to solve all of those issues.
Meanwhile, my adventures across the years dealing with Windows drivers led me to finally say “fuck it” earlier this year and nuke the Windows install on my gaming rig in favor of Nobara.
I’ll take Linux hardware support over Microsoft any day of the week.
I switched to arch using qtile wm a few months ago. Couldn’t be happier. If a game doesn’t run on my rig either though stream or lutris well I just don’t play it, there’s way more games to discover and play.
This! I literally give Windows a chance every version. I even kind of liked Windows 11 this go around.
But something always breaks and no matter how much I trouble shoot the fix is to reinstall windows. To which I say screw that and start distro hoping.
11 with 2022 gaming laptop just stopped updating. The only non native app I had on the thing was STEAM! I have been using Linux for 18 years because it’s the only way I know how to fix Windows.
I’d rather stick my head in the rotating blades of a combine harvester than deal with HP printer drivers…
Well, you’ve got me on that one.
I remember having some issues with Ubuntu 10 because I had a janky pentium 4 built out of scrap. I think it was an pci ide card I had issues with.
Linux does support more CPU architecture (x86 Arm PowerPC RISC) while Windows only support x86 and some Arm CPU so technically Linux support more CPU but Windows does support more GPU and Plug and Play devices (controller, external sound card…)
Windows 11 inherently does not support my CPU because of their fake secure boot requirement. You have to have UEFI.
Rufus USB can take care of that for you
I’m too scared to install it just for it to decide to stop working in the future.
It just removes the pre check I think. After that you’re good just as normal
Sure, but if they ever tweak the check the wrong way, you’re right back to hosed
I can’t really imagine them checking once it is installed but who fucking knows lol.
I would probably rephrase it as “external plug ‘n’ play devices supporting Windows”. You can be fairly certain Microsoft wasn’t the one doing the work.
I think game controllers, external sound card or external Ethernet they all use the same generic driver that Microsoft provide to them, and those devices can add their own functionality on top, but Linux can’t have that driver because it’s MS property
You’d be surprised how many external sound cards will not function without their official driver, despite being class compliant on mac/linux.
Even with x86 only, Linux supports more CPUs. For example, the Ryzen 5 1500x in my old PC isn’t supported by Windows 11.
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Wha? Even a bleeping potato can run Linux nowadays, with zero issues at day 1.
t. Got a Orange pi zero 3, and the lil’ bastard is rocking solid – even with (near zero) support.
Imagine not having all your drivers baked in into your kernel
Ah yes… it is easy as long as you do something difficult first.
Reminds me of that comment on Dropbox where some guy said it’s going to fail because he can easily build something similar with an ftp server.
Dropbox is even making money…(I am shocked as it sends tech firms rarely do.)
How is Dropbox making money and how is it possible it is still around? It can be easily replaced by an ftp server.
Oh wait, they sell data for money, my fault.
Nothing started easy, someone has to figure out the hard part for everyone else to benefit.
I know hardware compatibility has massively improved, but back when I was messing with Linux in high school compatibility was a huge issue. I managed to end up with two laptops and some desktop hardware that were truly difficult to get running. It’s like I somehow found a list of incompatible hardware and chose the worst options.
The most frustrating were an evil Broadcom (I think) wireless card and an AMD switchable card (they did actually make a few). That graphics card wasn’t supported for very long and was a bother even in Windows.
Edit to add: I was just saying that to point out why some people might have that opinion, even if it isn’t valid anymore. I’m actually thinking of jumping back on the Linux bandwagon.
Linux will be my next OS. Win11 is a nightmare, and now with the huge progress Linux has made in the gaming space, is just a no brainer.
I’m not very experienced with it yet, but I did dial not it for a while back in college, back when Ubuntu’s Feisty Fawn was the newest shit, and Edgy Eft was the more established version. I didn’t do a whole lot with it, because I mainly used the PC to write papers for classes and gaming. And Linux gaming back then was mostly non existent.
But I did ok with using it for browsing and research and using LibreOffice to write the document. Actually had to manually write a cfg file to get the extra buttons on my mouse to work like they were supposed to.
Long story short, I don’t have much knowledge of it these days, that was back in 04-06ish. But I know enough to know how to look for what I need. And I have a friend who’s already made the switch for the same reason. I’m just paranoid to switch to it completely, as I’ve never done that, but I think I’ll be building a new rig soon anyway, so I might just start fresh with Linux for that.
Either way I’ll switch by the time Win10 ends support. I will not be installing 11 on anything of mine. I’ll probably still have family that will need it, but I’m not doing it.
I could never go back to Windows, after having tasted the freedom of Linux.
I always see people say this but does no one here use professional apps like solidworks or revit? Are there good Linux alternatives? I’d switch to Linux but I need solidworks for work I do.
Windows is the defacto standard for desktop PCs for a reason. In a corporate setting it’s kind of the ideal.
Because of the sheer number of users, most software is built with Windows in mind and therefore has the most support. It’s pretty rare that you find an application that doesn’t have a Windows build available.
On top of that tools like Active Directory, and group policy makes managing thousands of machines at scale a reasonably simple affair.
Microsoft is a corporation rather than a community so you can always expect their main goals to be profit-driven and that comes with some nasty baggage, but it’s not enough that it’s easy for professionals to make the switch.
Linux has made lightspeed progress over the last decade, especially with Proton making games mostly work cross platform, but outside of specialist use cases, the vast majority of business PCs and by extension home PCs will be running Windows for the foreseeable future.
More important IMO is the fact that Linux re-detects hardware on every boot! Try moving a Windows hard drive to completely new hardware and getting it to boot. Not a chance…
I’ve done that multiple times without issue.
The windows boot drive? Dont think thats possible anymore. If its completely new hardware.
Im not sure what the trigger is but if enough hardware has changed it wont boot.
I had to install windows fresh on a new hard drive when i bought a new pc last year.
If the partitioning is fine (GPT with EFI System Partition), it should boot up even if you move the disk to a completely new machine. You will need to re-activate Windows though after booting.
You may have had the ESP on a different drive than the one you moved to the new machine, perhaps?
I did just that just yesterday/today. Built a new PC from scratch, added the SSD with Windows from the old PC, booted up, and it worked just fine. I didn’t even need to reinstall the graphics driver.
That actually works fine since like XP
Until it marks you as unlicensed because you used a new motherboard.
Still runs, albeit with a your are bad symbol…
Which is easy to solve
Yup. though for GPU drivers you’ll need to cleanly reinstall them if you downloaded them separately from windows update (which is a requirement for most gaming GPU users)
At least on linux its [insert distro command here] and it’ll have your new drivers up and running for you without bloatware
True, GPU drivers are a mess
It must have stopped with Win11. Tried to upgrade one of my family members Laptop. Took the ssd from the old one, put it in the new Laptop and only got to the Windows rescue Window. With Linux. I can setup an ssd with my laptop and when setup, plug it into my headless server and everything works fine.
The only real hardware problems I come across these days with Linux is WiFi cards being shit. As far as I’m concerned, carefully selecting hardware is a problem for the *BSDs at this point. Am I missing something?
I bought a new PC recently and put Linux on it. It didn’t work with the on-board Bluetooth until I did some research and digging through the logs and compiled and installed a kernel driver and edited some config files as root.
Also the fps on my Nvidia graphics card is really bad in games.
So it does still have driver issues, I’d say.
I would place the blame for poor driver support directly on the chip/device manufacturer and not on Linux (whoever that is).
Am I missing something?
No. I think you are correct and mostly even wifi hardware works fine, at least compared to *BSDs. I use Linux across a wide-range of machines, both desktops and laptops, with mostly very recent components. The only other unsupported hardware I have personally come across is some gaming hardware (e.g. Thrustmaster racing wheels) and an add-on sound card (Soundblaster AE9). And of course, some things like DLSS3 with Nvidia do not work.
Linux is cool and all but can it tell if I’m watching porn and suggest me other porn like windows 11?
Is the other porn at least relevant?
For Microsofts sake it sure better be
