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5 Reasons You Should Switch From Windows To Linux Right Now
- Thread starter phands
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Fair cop.Jokodo
Veteran Member
The caption shows you how things have actually changed. I suspect that Apple usage is much higher as well.
Android is a derivate of Linux.
If we count smart phones (and we should: the average smart phone today has more computational power than the average computer when most of us were already using computers), more machines are being sold with a variant of Linux pre-installed than ones with Windows preinstalled, every year since the early-mid 2010s.
Ruth Harris
Token Christian,retired bad-ass level tech support
I for one recognized your humor in your original post. However, given the heated temperature of the conversation to that point I was afraid that joining you in a laugh would cause spontaneous combustion in others.....
You do have a wonderful sense of irony. I appreciate that greatly as it is a rare thing nowadays.
Ruth
Ruth Harris
Token Christian,retired bad-ass level tech support
Apples and oranges, Jokodo; we are discussing desktops and laptops at least according to the original poster. And you don't see companies substituting smartphones for desktops yet.
Full disclosure - my smartphone is an Android. I do like it. This is not about what we personally like; this is about actual market penetration of Linux on the desktop. I already made my arguments on this earlier so I won't repeat them.
Ruth
braces_for_impact
Veteran Member
I love android. I like windows. I think 10 is the best system I've used thus far, except on phones. Gawd windows on mobile sucks in my opinion. But on PC, it's been smooth sailing through 4 laptops I've had the opportunity to run it on. It runs smoothly, without hassle. No worries. Linux has it's uses, and once configured properly, nowadays it can run along well enough. In my experience, it's almost always a pain the ass to configure on most machines to get it running perfectly. Even on builds that are supposedly built to be easy to run right out of the box, there is almost invariably some problem with compatibility. This isn't necessarily a Linux fault, as in reality most machines are built to run Microsoft.
Cheerful Charlie
Contributor
Why I will be sticking with Linux. Years ago, I had Windows 98. Then out came Windows XP. I had paid $149.00 for Hayes browser software, and didn't like it much. Now, Windows XP was $149.00 and I had three computers. Only one computer could be used with te XP license. And add on costs of software to go with it.
I went with Linux, Mandrake 7 I got free from a Linux magazine. I went to Mandrake 8.0, 8.2, and Mandrake 10, paying for box sets at my local computer store, $39.00 with a manual to go with it. Software was free. Opera had just come out with their Linux version.
Today we have Windows 10, but the home user version has spy ware, ad crap, and cost. There is a crap free version, but is an expensive thing available only to enterprises who pay for multiple seats. Screw that. And I avoid the Windows Update Dance of Pain.
My brother's Windows crap system likes to grind on updating for 2 hours, fails, and takes an hour to undo the damage. He has another system I loaded Linux on. It just works. Updates take mere minutes.
The days of Windows only modems at al, seem mostly to be over. All my hardware works under Linux. Including older printers not supported under Windows 10 any more.
I see no reason to move to Windows and many reasons not to.
I went with Linux, Mandrake 7 I got free from a Linux magazine. I went to Mandrake 8.0, 8.2, and Mandrake 10, paying for box sets at my local computer store, $39.00 with a manual to go with it. Software was free. Opera had just come out with their Linux version.
Today we have Windows 10, but the home user version has spy ware, ad crap, and cost. There is a crap free version, but is an expensive thing available only to enterprises who pay for multiple seats. Screw that. And I avoid the Windows Update Dance of Pain.
My brother's Windows crap system likes to grind on updating for 2 hours, fails, and takes an hour to undo the damage. He has another system I loaded Linux on. It just works. Updates take mere minutes.
The days of Windows only modems at al, seem mostly to be over. All my hardware works under Linux. Including older printers not supported under Windows 10 any more.
I see no reason to move to Windows and many reasons not to.
phands
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Strangely, the shift in support and Drivers has come to mean that in many cases, hardware vendors develop on Linux first, especially in the huge data center server market.
Windows 10 is still plagued by driver issues, even on slightly older or brand new hardware - WiFI and Bluetooth drivers on w10 are still shockingly poor. The latest round of Lenovo 2-in-1 laptops have endless woes with wifi and bluetooth. Windows Server upgrades are a scary mess and logistical nightmare and often take 10x longer than Linux upgrades. Part of the reason is that windows has a primitive architecture which was never based in multi-user, networked systems. Even the TCP stack in windows was a copy of the stack from BSD Unix, because windows wasn't network aware at first, and they did a hurried hack. The fact that Pagefile.sys is still around is shockingly ancient and a terrible swap solution. And as for the clusterfuck is the windoze registry...all hope abandon, yet who enter there.
Windows 10 is still plagued by driver issues, even on slightly older or brand new hardware - WiFI and Bluetooth drivers on w10 are still shockingly poor. The latest round of Lenovo 2-in-1 laptops have endless woes with wifi and bluetooth. Windows Server upgrades are a scary mess and logistical nightmare and often take 10x longer than Linux upgrades. Part of the reason is that windows has a primitive architecture which was never based in multi-user, networked systems. Even the TCP stack in windows was a copy of the stack from BSD Unix, because windows wasn't network aware at first, and they did a hurried hack. The fact that Pagefile.sys is still around is shockingly ancient and a terrible swap solution. And as for the clusterfuck is the windoze registry...all hope abandon, yet who enter there.
Jimmy Higgins
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It is incredible how so many have survived the hell of Windows. I can’t speak to Windows 10 as I have 7 and would like to avoid the data farming in 10, but people are talking as if Windows is always like 95 with its memory loss or Windows Vista with its bump into the limits of 32 bit.
XP, 2k, and 7 have been powerhouse OSs.
XP, 2k, and 7 have been powerhouse OSs.
phands
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Vista truly was an abortion of an OS. I still shudder when I remember the 32-bit driver "Thunking" to 64 bit and how flaky it was.
Agreed on Xp,2k and 7. 10 is horrible in so many ways, on both desktop and server....and it STILL can't network properly, Active Directory is shyte, and security can still be defeated by a malicious GIF or a font...in 2018.
DBT
Contributor
I am astonished. Going on my experience and others I have talked to, very few have had a truly positive experience with Win10, if only because of glitches and monumental updates.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
There is a saying from the 80s, software expands to fill memory. Windows a prime example. It is unlikely that any one or group of people know the entire code package inside out.
Testing asynchronous systems is difficult. The original Windows developed a somewhat random way.
It is probably an out of control mess at MS. Trying to do too much at once with a lot of flexibility.
Testing asynchronous systems is difficult. The original Windows developed a somewhat random way.
It is probably an out of control mess at MS. Trying to do too much at once with a lot of flexibility.
Seriously. Sure I'll just go recommend Linux to my parents who don't understand how Facebook privacy settings work.
Lots of out of touch statements in this thread. If all you want to do is browse the internet, listen to music, and maybe do a bit of online banking Microsoft makes this impossibly hard to fuck up. Buy computer, turn it on.. is all you have to do. And this is what the overwhelming majority of users need in a computer.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
There is a computer being marketed over here on TV targeted to older people and those computer illiterate. It powers up in a GUI. Everything is available via touchscreen. No user accounts.
phands
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This is palpably not true.
Bought a Lenovo Yoga 920 with w10. Plugged it in, switched it on. Managed to avoid the billion dumb questions it asked, and get it connected to WiFI. Had to wait 35 minutes while it figured out how to start updating itself. Updates took forever. Updates broke WiFi driver and Bluetooth....lost connectivity. Had to do a factory reset. That took several hours. Connected it to the internet via a USB WiFI dongle, because the updates had to be done all over again. Install a new WiFi driver after digging into Lenovo support. Finally got to the part where it wants to set up your personal account. Don't have or want a m$ account, so used Google account. Then had to find ways of turning off the barrage of adverts you now get on the home screen and start menu (if you can even find it). Had to turn off the repulsive Cortana and the shitty OneDrive, which requires a REGISTRY HACK!!!. Anyone who uses Edge or IE is insane, especially if they do online shopping and let windoze have their credit card info, so go find and install Chrome or Firefox. Now delouse the start menu and the screen with all the live tiles of the Bundled crapware like violent games or Candy Crush. Get rid of the XBox adverts. Remove the Office365 nagware. Oh, crap - there's no malware checker, so go find AVG free or preferred tool of choice because using the m$ supplied stuff is the fox guarding the henhouse. Go get iTunes, because no-one uses the laughable m$ product.
Now....want to add an external mouse and keyboard. USB works OK, but I want to use a Logitech Bluetooth K780 Bluetooth Keyboard and M585 Bluetooth mouse - see earlier comments about Bluetooth drivers not working....spend an hour with Lenovo online support to get new drivers, and then have to install them, which involved yet another reboot, where it of course forgot the WiFI info because of the driver update. Bluetooth and WiFI now work most of the time, but periodically - every few days, the Bluetooth driver stops working, and the Bluetooth adapter disappears from the Device manager. This requires at least a reboot to fix, but often needs the user to go into the device manager and delete and reinstall the adapter hardware. WiFI drops out and reconnects all the time. The system doesn't know how to use preferred SSIDs, and connects to the wrong WiFi. Desktop icons periodically rearrange themselves away from the user-defined layout. That last is guaranteed after an update, even without a reboot. Every update restores OneDrive and nags the user to use Edge and reinstitutes the unwanted ads. w10 is a clusterfuck.
After 2 months of this lunacy, I added Linux (SuSe Leap 15.0 - KDE desktop) Dual-Boot. Install took 15 minutes, was totally automatic, and there was only one reboot - from the install system to the production image. ALL hardware, inlcuding the touchscreen, WebCam and Audio, works correctly without configuring anything except which WiFI SSID to connect to, and which Bluetooth devices. Chrome and Firefox were already there, as was LibreOffice and VLC and a plethora of music players. Haven't rebooted back to windows since.
phands
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What is it? Got a link?
It sounds incredibly dangerous, especially if online shopping might be involved.
This is counter to the experience I've had with all of about 6 of my Windows Machines in the past.
Literally the only trouble I've ever had with it is when they did a Remote update from Windows 8 to 10.. and really, fair enough, and that trouble was minimal.
Most of those problems are self-inflicted. Most people tolerate Cortana, OneDrive, Edge, XBox tile ads and Office365 popup ads, and Windows Defender, and don't care about your privacy and security concerns.
Those things are not as important as having a computer that automatically recognises your Canon inkjet printer and can be fixed simply by soliciting help from family or the kid at the local computer shop. Win10 may be shit in many ways, but it's shit that a lot of people in meatspace can help you with.
Linux also comes with it's own suite of nightmares:
https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html
A sample of things I've struggled with (in 8 years variously using Ubuntu and Arch Linux):
- No ALSA drivers for my common Realtek sound card--can't play sound at 100% volume. Tried fixing by writing my owning ALSA config but ALSA is a poorly-documented clusterfuck.
- Tearing (fixed by installing Compton)
- Black screen with Nvidia drivers--had to rescue using a live USB (although that wasn't strictly necessary).
- Printers are a total crapshoot. Currently unable to connect to a Samsung laser printer, despite installing their drivers.
- Setting up scanners in SANE is shit.
- NetworkManager struggling to connect over ethernet--seemingly confused by the presense of both patch cable and wifi.
- Resume after suspend hides the mouse cursor
- package manager errors
- update errors
- broken software packages
- Software requiring older/newer Linux kernel
- Windows programs fail to boot but Wine doesn't tell me anything--just behaves like I never launched a program in the first place. Turns out the errors only appear on the CLI.
- "./configure && make && make install" That shit should be the sole domain of the hobbyists playing on Gentoo or LFS.
- Never figured out how to get any laptop's webcam to work. VLC couldn't detect the webcam.
Windows has its problems, and many of those problems are deal-breakers for a minority of computer users, but switching to Linux is trading a set of user experience problems for a veritable minefield of technical shortcomings. I like Linux, and I troubleshoot my problems instead of buying a Mac, because Linux provides a powerful platform for the type of work that I do, but for most people I would recommend they buy a Macbook rather than installing any Linux distro (even Mint). Developers on all three platforms show contempt for their users, just in different ways.
Phil Scott
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Gentoo users don't do that shit. They have a package manager.
For myself, right now, on a Dell XPS 13:
1) The intel driver is currently borked and is waiting upstream patches. So I can't use dual monitors for very long before my system freezes. I can do a magic SysRq to kill the X session without rebooting, but it still sucks. I now just stick to one display.
2) Bluetooth is really flaky coming back from suspend.
3) Font sizes in the face of high-definition were initially mostly a nightmare, and needed me to go through a lot of crap in this list.
Fair enough. My ill-stated point was that many software packages are distributed to Windows users as installers/binaries but distributed to Linux users as source code rather than as compiled packages for the various Linux package managers. This is one of the reasons why I've rarely ventured from Ubuntu; many vendors only distribute Debian (and RPM) packages, and I can add third party PPAs to supplement the Ubuntu repositories. At this point I will only move to another distro if I don't have to hack packages or compile source just to keep my current tooling. When I was running Arch, I spent too much time maintaining my software when I should have been doing work.
Phil Scott
Member
Won't argue with you there. Out of interest, did you submit new package definitions to the AUR for stuff you were missing?