this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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Linux

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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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I've been using all major OSes for a long time. I have the most experience with Windows, I've been using it since Windows 95 and stopped at Windows 8. I've been using macOS for about a decade and Linux (in total) for about 5 years. I have started with Mandrake, moved to Mandriva, spent over a year on Ubuntu and recently I've been using Fedora as my daily driver. And honestly, I'm running out of patience.

Few days ago I ran into the gpu driver issue. Long story short, Steam games started to crash on directx issue. Games that were working few weeks ago. I admit, I was mocking around with GPU drivers in order to make Podman containers to access the GPU. But I did the fresh diver install and it didn't solved the issue (also my GPU was not found despite all commands showed it was there). I don't have much spare time and I would like to play a game, I used to play before, without spending hours/days fixing issue that didn't exist last time I played it.

But it's not only about games. I have two laptops, both running Fedora 40 KDE spin. Some time ago on one laptop the power widget stopped working. It shows "no power profiles found on a device". But when I delete the widget and add it again, it works fine.

Other issue is with the general look and feel. There are many apps that don't follow the OS look - lack of window borders/shadow, random icons that don't match the system, flatpacks having issues accessing system configuration (e.g. vscodium not recognising zsh as a default shell).

Few more problems I had:

  • on GNOME, some extensions where crashing without any reason
  • some apps don't respect desktop scaling
  • bluetooth randomly dropping connections
  • syncing files between devices is always a struggle
  • you never know what's going to break when installing updates

If you want a Linux like experience use macOS, and if you want to play games, stick to Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I don't really get the obsession a lot of people seem to have with trying to push Linux on people who are content with windows

It's great for technical people who actually understand the reasons to use it but I really doubt switching to Linux even if it works perfectly and never breaks down (which it probably won't) will it really be a net positive effect on the lives of non technical users.

To repeat the same thing everyone always says if all they're using is a browser they could be using any OS, but at that point windows serves them perfectly well and doesn't require the local nerd's help when they want to edit an image or something

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I think it comes from diminishing experience windows provides

An example, since a few windows versions I can't get to install an old HP printer because they haven't written the drivers for it. On Linux it works fine.
You don't want ads and your os to be sending your passwords who knows where? AFAIK ATM no long time support version of windows provides that.
My gaming buddy is rather well versed in computer stuff, he's the person that writes and hosts our discord bots. He can't make sound drivers to work as he wants. Sometimes things go loud without reason, sometimes mute doesn't work, sometimes sounds play on an output that according to Windows is muted... Crazy stuff