Windows 11 may be what finally forces me to switch entirely to Linux, if I can find a distro that isn't run by commies. I was happy the other day when my non-work-PC came up with a warning that it was not eligible for Windows 11, but I'm assuming that it will take some manual prevention efforts to keep it off of my work PC.
I'd have switched to Linux long ago if not for Visual Studio. It's simply leaps and bounds better than every other IDE. Back in the early '00s, Microsoft basically hired all of Borland's IDE talent (Delphi and C# were both designed by the same dude) making Visual Studio the only real IDE left in the world. (Sorry, XCode users. It has some nice features, yes ... when they work ... and it doesn't crash.)
And I'm always amused when I have this discussion with web or Apple developers who respond with, "an IDE is just a text editor that launches your app, XCode/Notepad++/VIM/whatever works fine."
I've honestly most ever only built Windows software from Makefiles and the like. So basically ports of Linux stuff. And then I just edit with vi or whatever.
Some video game mods have come as VS projects, and I open them on Windows, but I ended up editing the xml manually anyways to make the build-test-debug cycle work.
Visual Studio project files and solutions are easy and work great, until they don't. Everyone I know that develops on Windows eventually has to go and tweak those xml files when something automagical did the auto part but not the magic part.
XML make files / dependency trees are a good way to do it. IDK if Microsoft thought of that. I haven't spent a lot of time on build systems, other than simple make and VS, though I have used the systems that people have already setup for a project. Usually I just hope it works, and I don't have to mess with it too much.
But yeah when you end up dumping xcopy commands in your XML files, which is what I had to do, something isn't working ideally.
XML make files / dependency trees are a good way to do it. IDK if Microsoft thought of that.
You are basically describing MSBuild, of which Visual Studio project files are (used to be? the last project I worked on which made heavy use of it used VS 2012) a subset. It's not a bad system all things considered, at least once you install/start using the MSBuild Extension Pack
You used to be able to embed MSBuild commands into VS project files, but you had to be careful because you could very easily confuse VS by doing so.
Yeah, and nothing ever goes wrong with makefiles, CMake, or Gradle setups.
I'm talking about features like built-in profiling, extremely flexible memory inspection, edit-and-continue, and .natvis customization just to name a few.
Visual Studio Code is not Visual Studio. It's not bad;
I disagree but that's because I'm an opinionated motherfucker who's tired of having idiot sysadmins tell me that Powershell ISE is deprecated as if that means it isn't still the superior environment in which to write my code when VSCode keeps sperging out on me every time I try to use it whereas ISE has always just fucking worked without requiring any coaxing or configuration.
And yes I am stubborn and mad enough about this that I have managed to make Powershell 7 work with ISE because goddammit it's my preferred environment but that doesn't even matter because Powershell 5 does everything I need.
Visual Studio is nice though. I need to get back to brushing up on my C# one of these days so I can make the jump to more dev focused work.
Can be installed in about 30 seconds with something like flatpak too. Linux has the wrong reputation for easy install of software. I find it much better myself for the majority of things. I can update 95% of what's installed on Linux the same way. It's not a bunch of bullshit like Windows where I have the "java updater" and the "adobe updater" and all trying to constantly run. Two commands to run my dnf and flatpak upgrades every so often, whenever I feel like it, without being compulsory, and I'm done.
I still like actual Visual Studio at times, but low level programming and web projects work great in VS Code.
but low level programming and web projects work great in VS Code.
I suspect we have different definitions of "low level programming" since "low level programming" and "web projects" by my definitions would put them on almost the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, and for the former, VS Code is inadequate.
Well I had in my head C for microcontrollers, because that's what I've used it for the most recently. I also played around with Gameboy assembler a year or two ago. Granted both are uncomplicated projects, but I would consider pretty low-level.
Of course if you're doing some mega-project in C++ it would not be all that great. I still like Visual Studio don't get me wrong. Especially in it's more current formats. I didn't care for the early iterations, like when they first went from Visual Basic, Visual C++, etc. to the whole Studio.
Fair enough, I've used VS Code to do some Arduino projects and the like, but that's mostly because full Visual Studio isn't available for platforms like that.
And yeah, the earlier IDEs were not great compared to what Borland offererd, but after all the employee poaching, VS basically became a Borland IDE.
The "but my sound drivers" schtick is just half-remembered sneery nerd shit from 20 years ago at this point, anybody who goes into the routine now has absolutely no idea what they're talking about but wants you to think they do.
I can speak for exactly one brand of tablet (Ugee) that I sought out that was officially supported on Linux by the company and it works fine. I have absolutely no idea about any kind of generic tablet driver solution.
I think I had problems with a USB Wi-Fi adapter years ago that kept me from migrating to a Linux desktop 8 years ago instead of 4. It was a total piece of Chineseium Wifi adapter anyway. Gave me issues in Windows at times too.
Like the other said, I've heard about Nvidia issues, but I don't think I've tried Linux on an Nvidia system.
I bought a little tiny USB wifi thing for a desktop a few months ago and it plugged in and worked out of the box with no drivers or configuration. I've never had a single Nvidia driver problem and I've set up multiple systems with different Geforce cards in the last few years.
I wish the Linux community would get their thumbs out their arses and make some kind of easy to use normie distro.
You and me both. I use linux all the time for work and it is always a pulling teeth experience to get things working the first time. Microsoft gets a lot of shit for Windows, but they have always hit the sweet spot between configurability and usability. Linux is always to the far end of configurability and OSX is idiot-proofed waaaay too far toward the usability side.
Like the saying goes: linux is only free if you don't value your time.
I'm not going to hold my breath that this will ever change though. Linux die-hards are too proud to cater to normies, so it will always be relatively niche. And with the way normies have ruined everything else they have invaded, I can't say I really blame them.
That said, when was the last time you gave linux a go? It's still more work that Windows, but it's not a huge time sink anymore. Most things "just work", including games via Proton. Biggest "gotcha" seems to be Nvidia and Wayland atm, but that seems mostly up to application developers now.
Not Steam (though I agree with you on that) - SteamOS - the OS that runs on the Steam Deck. It's Linux running KDE, but having Valve behind will no doubt improve user friendliness over time.
Nvidia drivers were a pain to get installed and working. Lots of docker/podman problems, manual installation of drivers for certain specialty usb devices...
Once we figure out what the problem is and get it fixed, everything works fine. It's the constant tiny things that would take 30 seconds on a Windows machine, but require a non superuser to browse forums to find the list of terminal commands to diagnose the problem, and then more searching to find the list of terminal commands to fix the problem. It doesn't help that a lot of the linux or die types you ask for help are smug, sanctimonious fuckwads who make communicating with them even less enjoyable than working with linux.
edit: I forgot about the worst problem - PKI support. We have been banging our head against that one for years and still don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
Like the saying goes: linux is only free if you don't value your time.
I'm sorry but this is bullshit. I haven't done a Linux install in 15 years that wasn't just "boot from live USB/CD, click install, answer 5 questions, wait for installer + reboot, now everything just werks."
Quit trying to install Gentoo and Arch for memes and just slap Ubuntu / Mint in your shit.
And if you like Arch for the rolling-release basis on which it gets software updates, there's Manjaro which is basically Arch for people without the time to fuck around.
I don't know anything about Gentoo. I have used Ubuntu a bit, but mostly RHEL. If you think either of them are easier to install and setup than Windows, then you are the one talking bullshit here.
Linux has its place but that place is in an enterprise environment as a server running some shit that end users never know about or interact with. Anyone who thinks Linux is a remotely viable desktop environment is out of their fucking mind.
Removing the telemetry shit and making windows 10 work properly last time I out a PC together took several hours of fuckery anyway. If I have to crawl around in virtual crawlspaces anyway, I'll do it on something that won't keep trying to force re-enable updates for everything through their security software, or do other fuckery.
Honestly, Linux is not hard. If you're any sort of a power user, and especially if you're doing any programming, you're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't know at least some linux.
I can't imagine being a Windows-only dev. The *nix/*bsd commandline tools are just so insanely powerful.
A normie user can do just as fine on modern Linux as Windows because they don't do anything interesting. A Windows power user is going to go "where is all my stuff" and have to relearn the wheel, but will eventually realize it's a better wheel.
The place where it still really suffers is still device drivers. Generic stuff like mass storage, CDC, Ethernet are pretty decent these days but GPU is convoluted and god help you if you have some non-consumer specialty device. Printers, flip a coin.
Yeah, my computer-illiterate parents have been using Linux Mint for 12 years. I turned on autoupdates and Timeshift backups... It just works, and switching from XP was a lot easier than figuring out Windows 8. All they care about is that it has a web browser (Firefox), email (Thunderbird), and can print out tide charts from an old program that doesn't work under newer Windows.
I find AMD for GPU and Brother for network printer work out of the box.
Just use basic Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Just keep in mind that instead of downloading random .exe's from the internet that there is an "app store" that manages the software for you (just search and click the one you want)
Not at all! I'm not saying there aren't things in Linux that are more complicated, nor am I saying that you won't have to learn anything new. But, it's not rocket science. If you can program in Godot or what not, you can pick up Linux.
Seriously, try it out with a VM. Get an Ubuntu installer, spin up a free Virtualbox VM, and have at it. You can have a desktop up and running in minutes.
(Ironically, I'm not a huge Linux fan. I've been running FreeBSD on various devices for more than 20 years now. I feel like it's kind of falling behind now due to the dominance of Linux and the lack of Docker, but it's just amazingly solid and consistent for servers.)
Mine doesn't qualify either but I never get nagged about it. I do expect to be nagged when Window 10's end-of-support happens next year, though. It may as well be off support now because every Win10 machine I have isn't fully up to date because Microsoft royally screwed up one of their updates. I'm sure as hell not jumping through any hoops to manually install it.
I wish the Linux community would get their thumbs out their arses and make some kind of easy to use normie distro
Ubuntu, Mint, Pop_OS, Zorin. Used Zorin to play the old switcheroo on my parents and they barely noticed. In fact, the only time I was "required" to enter the terminal was to add the repos for LibreWolf so they have a decent privacy-focused browser. And that's only because I wanted to be lazy and copy/paste that task. Everything regular people might want is in the GUI. And, let's be honest, power users on Windows are dropping into command line / powershell anyway.
that let's me do gaming easily
Lutris is fantastic for a "just work, damnit" gaming shell. Surprisingly it's even easier and better at running Windows 98 era stuff on modern graphics hardware than Windows 10 is. Half an hour of reading is all you need: wine prefixes, runners, etc. No one is born knowing it, but give it a shot and it will pay dividends. Switching up between playing Sacrifice (2000) and Mad Max (2015). My wife is playing Baldur's Gate 3 (ulg, 2023). Wrapped up playing some Touhou games (Lutris has a retroarch wrapper) a while ago. All within the same UI.
Current complaints about Linux:
(a big one) Support is shit. Always been shit. Lots of really old no-longer-useful advice floating around out there. And if you don't know a magic word to search for, you might never find it. If you're having printer issues, for example, you're just going to have to know to add "CUPS" to your searches. We do have a woefully slow c/linux so getting some activity here from like-minded people would be good.
"Not invented here" anti-pattern, probably more accurately stated as "Not invented by a woke marxist." Commies and SJWs are working hard to strip away old stuff that works and replace it with new stuff that doesn't but is woke (Wayland over Xorg, systemd over initd, and more). But if you just want to use your machine and not mess around in the internals, the defaults are all very sensible and usable.
Thanks for the tip on Lutris. 100% going to be trying that out at some point. I might have to grab a cheap SSD or something, or use an external HDD and try to dual boot a bit on my actual gaming PC.
I'd been considering 86box with Windows 98 to run old games. I'm going to give this a shot first.
The Linux kernel has a code of conduct. I was very vocal against its introduction, preferring merit over politics for code submission, but I am just one voice in a sea of wokeness. At this point, if you want to avoid all the CoC in the FOSS sea, you're going to have to create your own operating system and that needed to start in the 90s at the latest because, as with consoles on the market, it'll be impossible to gain traction from companies to support it if there is more than three (ask the BSD crowd).
The thing is, source code doesn't know anything about a code of conduct. There is no way for the repo to know if it's being cloned by a communist ally or an actual human.
Don't forget that these scumbags have been using software written by normal people for decades to satisfy their needs and advance their causes. Stupid anti-capitalist idiots on iphones or a deliberate mindful decision, doesn't really matter. Rejecting the use of something useful for failing a purity test isn't very pragmatic.
Although I did talk about Lutris, and KiA is gaming centric (maybe still?), non-entertainment software is something to be used. Unless we all want to go back to CPM and 16 bit PCs?
Give these Linux orgs money? Hell no. And using paid commercial software (or using Microsoft software which spies on you for financial gain) gives them money. But I don't see a practical reason to not use a hammer that's just laying on the ground in front of me just because its imagery is part of the hammer and sickle.
my steam deck has all the features of a Windows machine, can run 99% of Windows programs, and is regularly updated with both security and feature updates. I tried doing Linux customization with it, but ended up reverting it since the default setup was just fine. it is become my default PC, I don't use Windows anymore.
I've heard similar experiences about PopOS, mint, and Arch Linux.
My next PC will be linux. It's in a state where competent laymen can figure it out, now. Microshit can burn - 10 was already bad enough, lobotomizing it's spyware takes more effort than learning how to work linux will.
I feel it was pretty much there in 2010, but it's gone backwards since.
I remember Gnome back then would just work. Other than some sound issues (it's always sound issues) I could get programs to do pretty much anything and the use interface had at least as much control as Windows.
Today, it feels like they've deprecated all the useful GUI interfaces. I used to have a couple of programs that could handle mounting ISOs as drives (great if you're, say, running an old PC game from an image of the disk). Now I can, technically and with much research, do so with the command line, but there's no good GUI interface to do this. I feel the settings and a lot of the utilities are same way. The Start menu is completely fucked and impossible to edit, how they failed to copy the Windows "each menu item is a folder with shortcuts" is beyond me. Software Center should allow you one click install any program you could need, but it's slow, can't search for beans, and often breaks.
The old trick used to be that you just keep the computer offline by unplugging the cable until the the install was over. This forced a local account instead.
If that's not possible anymore, then I don't want it.
Windows is pushing towards a model where it is dependent on an external server when the OS is installing. It may never fully get there, since people will always want to join windows machines to domains, which is the one bypass that still works.
Linux long ago switched to a model where it is dependent on an external server every time you install anything (package managers). From what I've seen, if you ask for help on actually installing something yourself you'll usually get told to use a package manager instead.
Of course you can always compile from source and manually resolve dependencies on Linux, but that feels like a lot more work that bypassing some account creation. So, for me, Windows actually feels like the better option for a system actually under your control.
Eventually it will become a cloud OS and you'll be expected to pay a licence (with the purchase of your computer or a boxed copy) and an ongoing subscription fee to use it like with Microsoft 365. I expect Apple to go the same way.
Nobara was very nice OOTB, I tried it when I had actual hardware issues and tried to narrow my issues down. Might even install it on a new machine if I ever do plan to reinstall.
Nobara does a lot of things well out of the box though, OBS for example is dreadful on Arch to install with all functionality, some stuff just doesn't work and installing the flatpak isn't an option as that one brings other issues with it, too.
My MAIN issue with it is though the fedora package manager, just not the biggest fan but that's from someone who's mainly using arch. My work laptop has Fedora on it and I've had to read up on how to use the package manager. After I got used to it but isn't as great as pacman.
Agreed, Nvidia's the ONE thing that's pretty hard to fix mostly because Nvidia themselves are very much special about it. Auto driver install, latest drivers and making stuff as painless as possible is probably the main thing that Linux really needs since everyone and their mother has an Nvidia GPU(me included, AMD's shown to have issues for me for some reason, that was the aforementioned hardware issues).
My media server is currently running Windows 10 and I refuse to upgrade to 11. Is there anyway to block all updates? I want to keep them from forcing the update. I also would switch over to Linux, but that would require me to get a 20TB external hard drive to move data around and I would need to take a day off work to do the transition. All because Linux is not too friendly with NTFS drives.
EDIT: Reading the rest of the OP's post. You do not want an easy to use normie distro. Well, not any easier than what SteamOS currently is. Because the more people that use an OS, the more likely you'll have security issues with that OS. Mainly because scammers tend to target very popular operating systems.
EDIT2: Reading the top comment here. I don't think my media server would be eligible for Windows 11 to begin with. It's a Dell Poweredge R720XD and I don't think it has that TPM that Microsoft has been trying to push on everyone.
I'm pretty sure you can block updates with a group policy, but it's going to be irritating to set up I'd guess. But like your second edit, just go into the BIOS and disable all TPM. I have that on a Windows 10 machine and it never bugs me about 11 because it's "ineligible"
Please autists, please make a normie distros for Linux that let's me do gaming easily because I want to do stuff like play Morrowind and other old windows based games.
Generally speaking the older a game is, the MORE likely it is to run flawlessly on Linux. And funny you mention Morrowind in particular since OpenMW started as a Linux project.
I switched to Linux around 15 years ago having dipped my toe into SuSE back when KDE 3 was the latest release.
I am that individual who says "I use Arch, btw" because I prefer timely updates (tested quickly before release) of software I am using rather than having a snapshot and a wait of months before I get updates.
There are a few things that I wish Linux had. The ability to do BIOS updates. Easy support for Secure Boot as in the future, Microsoft is going to mandate it for all computer manufacturers who want to install Windows (that will be all of them). Even I look at this with dread, how is someone new to Linux supposed to understand this? There are also issues with getting firmware and devices to work if they are new because everyone tests for Windows and calls it a day. And I do understand the concerns of people who want an easy way to install Linux on a PC. It has come leaps and bounds but I am that one person who still installs Arch if I ever need to from a command line.
I see your comments, I get it, you're not a fan of Linux or whatever. I'd like to see some improved gaming support for sure, it works great when it does, but can be a pain when it doesn't. I'm considering maybe a dual-boot or something to ease myself into it for games and really see. I've only played a handful of low-performance games in Linux so far. I won't be pushed into having a MS account on my Windows, I've been down that road and it ended very badly with me losing a lot of data. So for when the day comes I can't get around it, I'll just start going backwards to Windows 7 or something.
Worse version of DOS though? Uh yeah, that's absolutely insane. I was just cleaning up some things on my DOSBox setup yesterday and it's irritating once you've gotten used to a Linux command line. There's so much that's just a pain to do or just doesn't exist without a highly custom config.
You've obviously no experience with headless servers then. Networks and the internet live on the Linux terminal, not a GUI. I did some Windows Server work for clients in the past, it's pretty and clickable. It's also a total pain in the ass when they ask for anything beyond the default things Microsoft wants them to do. If you don't want it on a desktop machine, that's fine. A lot of things work okay without it, and the improvement is real. I couldn't bear Linux as a main desktop just a few years ago and it's great and easy now. If you want a "stupid fucking terminal" gone forever, then well, go ahead and hand the entire internet over to Microsoft. What of it still exists I guess, as it will be limited to what MS decides to allow in the "Set Up My Website Now Wizard"
I'm not sure I want mass adoption really. Mass adoption of computer things has gotten me required acccounts everywhere, TPM and secure boot requirements, software that runs like shit because it's dragged and dropped by someone who has no idea what even happens inside the computer much less how to optimize for it. I'm to the point I say gatekeep away.
I'd be curious what you've used on Linux that is requiring so many hours to set up though, or a command line at all. Fallout New Vegas is a horrible example, that game is actually broken on Windows now too. I admit, gaming is a disaster and it's going to be something like SteamOS that comes the closest to fixing it. Everything else, that isn't advanced user stuff, you really don't need terminals and hours to do.
If you go into the "app store" there's a category for multimedia and you can try out players pretty easily. It's usually called something like Software Center, Discover, or whatever depending on which Linux you have. Every one of those options is in there on my system except Gnome--but I'm not using Gnome desktop. Click to install, try it out, click to remove.
For me, I just use VLC on Linux and Windows, because it does what I want. I don't really use an old Winamp style music organizer anymore.
I fucking hate Windows 10 as-is. I'd still be on 7 if I hadn't been required to upgrade due to hardware requirements.
The more I hear about 11, the more I realize it'll be time to switch over to linux.
The day I realized I could no lobger run 7 was the day I vowed never to run Windows again.
Apparently, my new motherboard won't even let me install it.
Windows 11 may be what finally forces me to switch entirely to Linux, if I can find a distro that isn't run by commies. I was happy the other day when my non-work-PC came up with a warning that it was not eligible for Windows 11, but I'm assuming that it will take some manual prevention efforts to keep it off of my work PC.
I'd have switched to Linux long ago if not for Visual Studio. It's simply leaps and bounds better than every other IDE. Back in the early '00s, Microsoft basically hired all of Borland's IDE talent (Delphi and C# were both designed by the same dude) making Visual Studio the only real IDE left in the world. (Sorry, XCode users. It has some nice features, yes ... when they work ... and it doesn't crash.)
And I'm always amused when I have this discussion with web or Apple developers who respond with, "an IDE is just a text editor that launches your app, XCode/Notepad++/VIM/whatever works fine."
Visual Studio Code has been officially available on Linux for years.
Visual Studio Code is not Visual Studio. It's not bad; I use it almost daily for non-C++ projects, but it's not Visual Studio.
Yep. Visual Studio has way more functionality than VSC can provide. Nearest Visual Studio replacement would be jetbrains Rider
I've honestly most ever only built Windows software from Makefiles and the like. So basically ports of Linux stuff. And then I just edit with vi or whatever.
Some video game mods have come as VS projects, and I open them on Windows, but I ended up editing the xml manually anyways to make the build-test-debug cycle work.
Visual Studio project files and solutions are easy and work great, until they don't. Everyone I know that develops on Windows eventually has to go and tweak those xml files when something automagical did the auto part but not the magic part.
XML make files / dependency trees are a good way to do it. IDK if Microsoft thought of that. I haven't spent a lot of time on build systems, other than simple make and VS, though I have used the systems that people have already setup for a project. Usually I just hope it works, and I don't have to mess with it too much.
But yeah when you end up dumping xcopy commands in your XML files, which is what I had to do, something isn't working ideally.
You are basically describing MSBuild, of which Visual Studio project files are (used to be? the last project I worked on which made heavy use of it used VS 2012) a subset. It's not a bad system all things considered, at least once you install/start using the MSBuild Extension Pack
You used to be able to embed MSBuild commands into VS project files, but you had to be careful because you could very easily confuse VS by doing so.
Yeah, and nothing ever goes wrong with makefiles, CMake, or Gradle setups.
I'm talking about features like built-in profiling, extremely flexible memory inspection, edit-and-continue, and .natvis customization just to name a few.
I disagree but that's because I'm an opinionated motherfucker who's tired of having idiot sysadmins tell me that Powershell ISE is deprecated as if that means it isn't still the superior environment in which to write my code when VSCode keeps sperging out on me every time I try to use it whereas ISE has always just fucking worked without requiring any coaxing or configuration.
And yes I am stubborn and mad enough about this that I have managed to make Powershell 7 work with ISE because goddammit it's my preferred environment but that doesn't even matter because Powershell 5 does everything I need.
Visual Studio is nice though. I need to get back to brushing up on my C# one of these days so I can make the jump to more dev focused work.
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux
Can be installed in about 30 seconds with something like flatpak too. Linux has the wrong reputation for easy install of software. I find it much better myself for the majority of things. I can update 95% of what's installed on Linux the same way. It's not a bunch of bullshit like Windows where I have the "java updater" and the "adobe updater" and all trying to constantly run. Two commands to run my dnf and flatpak upgrades every so often, whenever I feel like it, without being compulsory, and I'm done.
I still like actual Visual Studio at times, but low level programming and web projects work great in VS Code.
I suspect we have different definitions of "low level programming" since "low level programming" and "web projects" by my definitions would put them on almost the exact opposite ends of the spectrum, and for the former, VS Code is inadequate.
Well I had in my head C for microcontrollers, because that's what I've used it for the most recently. I also played around with Gameboy assembler a year or two ago. Granted both are uncomplicated projects, but I would consider pretty low-level.
Of course if you're doing some mega-project in C++ it would not be all that great. I still like Visual Studio don't get me wrong. Especially in it's more current formats. I didn't care for the early iterations, like when they first went from Visual Basic, Visual C++, etc. to the whole Studio.
Fair enough, I've used VS Code to do some Arduino projects and the like, but that's mostly because full Visual Studio isn't available for platforms like that.
And yeah, the earlier IDEs were not great compared to what Borland offererd, but after all the employee poaching, VS basically became a Borland IDE.
The "but my sound drivers" schtick is just half-remembered sneery nerd shit from 20 years ago at this point, anybody who goes into the routine now has absolutely no idea what they're talking about but wants you to think they do.
It really isn't, I had huge issues with wifi drivers on a raspberry pi that were fixed by turning it off for 24 hours and coming back recently.
Nvidia has entered the chat.
Many of my drivers, like with art tablets barely work on Windows. I have zero expectation that they would work on some Linux distro.
I can speak for exactly one brand of tablet (Ugee) that I sought out that was officially supported on Linux by the company and it works fine. I have absolutely no idea about any kind of generic tablet driver solution.
I think I had problems with a USB Wi-Fi adapter years ago that kept me from migrating to a Linux desktop 8 years ago instead of 4. It was a total piece of Chineseium Wifi adapter anyway. Gave me issues in Windows at times too.
Like the other said, I've heard about Nvidia issues, but I don't think I've tried Linux on an Nvidia system.
I bought a little tiny USB wifi thing for a desktop a few months ago and it plugged in and worked out of the box with no drivers or configuration. I've never had a single Nvidia driver problem and I've set up multiple systems with different Geforce cards in the last few years.
I loved Delphi back in the day.
Never been a fan of Xcode.
Vim on the other hand...
You and me both. I use linux all the time for work and it is always a pulling teeth experience to get things working the first time. Microsoft gets a lot of shit for Windows, but they have always hit the sweet spot between configurability and usability. Linux is always to the far end of configurability and OSX is idiot-proofed waaaay too far toward the usability side.
Like the saying goes: linux is only free if you don't value your time.
I'm not going to hold my breath that this will ever change though. Linux die-hards are too proud to cater to normies, so it will always be relatively niche. And with the way normies have ruined everything else they have invaded, I can't say I really blame them.
I imagine SteamOS will might become that one day.
That said, when was the last time you gave linux a go? It's still more work that Windows, but it's not a huge time sink anymore. Most things "just work", including games via Proton. Biggest "gotcha" seems to be Nvidia and Wayland atm, but that seems mostly up to application developers now.
Not Steam (though I agree with you on that) - SteamOS - the OS that runs on the Steam Deck. It's Linux running KDE, but having Valve behind will no doubt improve user friendliness over time.
The last time I gave linux a go was three days ago. I use RHEL on several different machines for work. I hate it.
RHEL kinda sucks, but was there a particular issue?
Nvidia drivers were a pain to get installed and working. Lots of docker/podman problems, manual installation of drivers for certain specialty usb devices...
Once we figure out what the problem is and get it fixed, everything works fine. It's the constant tiny things that would take 30 seconds on a Windows machine, but require a non superuser to browse forums to find the list of terminal commands to diagnose the problem, and then more searching to find the list of terminal commands to fix the problem. It doesn't help that a lot of the linux or die types you ask for help are smug, sanctimonious fuckwads who make communicating with them even less enjoyable than working with linux.
edit: I forgot about the worst problem - PKI support. We have been banging our head against that one for years and still don't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
I'm sorry but this is bullshit. I haven't done a Linux install in 15 years that wasn't just "boot from live USB/CD, click install, answer 5 questions, wait for installer + reboot, now everything just werks."
Quit trying to install Gentoo and Arch for memes and just slap Ubuntu / Mint in your shit.
And if you like Arch for the rolling-release basis on which it gets software updates, there's Manjaro which is basically Arch for people without the time to fuck around.
Manjaro:Arch::Ubuntu:Debian
I don't know anything about Gentoo. I have used Ubuntu a bit, but mostly RHEL. If you think either of them are easier to install and setup than Windows, then you are the one talking bullshit here.
Linux fanboys gonna Linux fanboy.
Linux has its place but that place is in an enterprise environment as a server running some shit that end users never know about or interact with. Anyone who thinks Linux is a remotely viable desktop environment is out of their fucking mind.
Removing the telemetry shit and making windows 10 work properly last time I out a PC together took several hours of fuckery anyway. If I have to crawl around in virtual crawlspaces anyway, I'll do it on something that won't keep trying to force re-enable updates for everything through their security software, or do other fuckery.
Honestly, Linux is not hard. If you're any sort of a power user, and especially if you're doing any programming, you're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't know at least some linux.
I can't imagine being a Windows-only dev. The *nix/*bsd commandline tools are just so insanely powerful.
It can't get much easier than installing Ubuntu.
It depends.
A normie user can do just as fine on modern Linux as Windows because they don't do anything interesting. A Windows power user is going to go "where is all my stuff" and have to relearn the wheel, but will eventually realize it's a better wheel.
The place where it still really suffers is still device drivers. Generic stuff like mass storage, CDC, Ethernet are pretty decent these days but GPU is convoluted and god help you if you have some non-consumer specialty device. Printers, flip a coin.
Yeah, my computer-illiterate parents have been using Linux Mint for 12 years. I turned on autoupdates and Timeshift backups... It just works, and switching from XP was a lot easier than figuring out Windows 8. All they care about is that it has a web browser (Firefox), email (Thunderbird), and can print out tide charts from an old program that doesn't work under newer Windows.
I find AMD for GPU and Brother for network printer work out of the box.
Just use basic Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Just keep in mind that instead of downloading random .exe's from the internet that there is an "app store" that manages the software for you (just search and click the one you want)
Not at all! I'm not saying there aren't things in Linux that are more complicated, nor am I saying that you won't have to learn anything new. But, it's not rocket science. If you can program in Godot or what not, you can pick up Linux.
Seriously, try it out with a VM. Get an Ubuntu installer, spin up a free Virtualbox VM, and have at it. You can have a desktop up and running in minutes.
(Ironically, I'm not a huge Linux fan. I've been running FreeBSD on various devices for more than 20 years now. I feel like it's kind of falling behind now due to the dominance of Linux and the lack of Docker, but it's just amazingly solid and consistent for servers.)
Last time I used Rufus to make Win11 image USBs it created an admin account automatically and skipped the entire OOBE.
That's gone now?
Joke's on them - Windows 10 thinks that my machine is incapable of "upgrading" to windows 11 so they can nag me all they want and it'll never work.
Mine doesn't qualify either but I never get nagged about it. I do expect to be nagged when Window 10's end-of-support happens next year, though. It may as well be off support now because every Win10 machine I have isn't fully up to date because Microsoft royally screwed up one of their updates. I'm sure as hell not jumping through any hoops to manually install it.
Ubuntu, Mint, Pop_OS, Zorin. Used Zorin to play the old switcheroo on my parents and they barely noticed. In fact, the only time I was "required" to enter the terminal was to add the repos for LibreWolf so they have a decent privacy-focused browser. And that's only because I wanted to be lazy and copy/paste that task. Everything regular people might want is in the GUI. And, let's be honest, power users on Windows are dropping into command line / powershell anyway.
Lutris is fantastic for a "just work, damnit" gaming shell. Surprisingly it's even easier and better at running Windows 98 era stuff on modern graphics hardware than Windows 10 is. Half an hour of reading is all you need: wine prefixes, runners, etc. No one is born knowing it, but give it a shot and it will pay dividends. Switching up between playing Sacrifice (2000) and Mad Max (2015). My wife is playing Baldur's Gate 3 (ulg, 2023). Wrapped up playing some Touhou games (Lutris has a retroarch wrapper) a while ago. All within the same UI.
Current complaints about Linux:
(a big one) Support is shit. Always been shit. Lots of really old no-longer-useful advice floating around out there. And if you don't know a magic word to search for, you might never find it. If you're having printer issues, for example, you're just going to have to know to add "CUPS" to your searches. We do have a woefully slow c/linux so getting some activity here from like-minded people would be good.
"Not invented here" anti-pattern, probably more accurately stated as "Not invented by a woke marxist." Commies and SJWs are working hard to strip away old stuff that works and replace it with new stuff that doesn't but is woke (Wayland over Xorg, systemd over initd, and more). But if you just want to use your machine and not mess around in the internals, the defaults are all very sensible and usable.
Thanks for the tip on Lutris. 100% going to be trying that out at some point. I might have to grab a cheap SSD or something, or use an external HDD and try to dual boot a bit on my actual gaming PC.
I'd been considering 86box with Windows 98 to run old games. I'm going to give this a shot first.
The Linux kernel has a code of conduct. I was very vocal against its introduction, preferring merit over politics for code submission, but I am just one voice in a sea of wokeness. At this point, if you want to avoid all the CoC in the FOSS sea, you're going to have to create your own operating system and that needed to start in the 90s at the latest because, as with consoles on the market, it'll be impossible to gain traction from companies to support it if there is more than three (ask the BSD crowd).
The thing is, source code doesn't know anything about a code of conduct. There is no way for the repo to know if it's being cloned by a communist ally or an actual human.
Don't forget that these scumbags have been using software written by normal people for decades to satisfy their needs and advance their causes. Stupid anti-capitalist idiots on iphones or a deliberate mindful decision, doesn't really matter. Rejecting the use of something useful for failing a purity test isn't very pragmatic.
Although I did talk about Lutris, and KiA is gaming centric (maybe still?), non-entertainment software is something to be used. Unless we all want to go back to CPM and 16 bit PCs?
Give these Linux orgs money? Hell no. And using paid commercial software (or using Microsoft software which spies on you for financial gain) gives them money. But I don't see a practical reason to not use a hammer that's just laying on the ground in front of me just because its imagery is part of the hammer and sickle.
my steam deck has all the features of a Windows machine, can run 99% of Windows programs, and is regularly updated with both security and feature updates. I tried doing Linux customization with it, but ended up reverting it since the default setup was just fine. it is become my default PC, I don't use Windows anymore.
I've heard similar experiences about PopOS, mint, and Arch Linux.
My next PC will be linux. It's in a state where competent laymen can figure it out, now. Microshit can burn - 10 was already bad enough, lobotomizing it's spyware takes more effort than learning how to work linux will.
I feel it was pretty much there in 2010, but it's gone backwards since.
I remember Gnome back then would just work. Other than some sound issues (it's always sound issues) I could get programs to do pretty much anything and the use interface had at least as much control as Windows.
Today, it feels like they've deprecated all the useful GUI interfaces. I used to have a couple of programs that could handle mounting ISOs as drives (great if you're, say, running an old PC game from an image of the disk). Now I can, technically and with much research, do so with the command line, but there's no good GUI interface to do this. I feel the settings and a lot of the utilities are same way. The Start menu is completely fucked and impossible to edit, how they failed to copy the Windows "each menu item is a folder with shortcuts" is beyond me. Software Center should allow you one click install any program you could need, but it's slow, can't search for beans, and often breaks.
The old trick used to be that you just keep the computer offline by unplugging the cable until the the install was over. This forced a local account instead.
If that's not possible anymore, then I don't want it.
Windows is pushing towards a model where it is dependent on an external server when the OS is installing. It may never fully get there, since people will always want to join windows machines to domains, which is the one bypass that still works.
Linux long ago switched to a model where it is dependent on an external server every time you install anything (package managers). From what I've seen, if you ask for help on actually installing something yourself you'll usually get told to use a package manager instead.
Of course you can always compile from source and manually resolve dependencies on Linux, but that feels like a lot more work that bypassing some account creation. So, for me, Windows actually feels like the better option for a system actually under your control.
Eventually it will become a cloud OS and you'll be expected to pay a licence (with the purchase of your computer or a boxed copy) and an ongoing subscription fee to use it like with Microsoft 365. I expect Apple to go the same way.
Nobara was very nice OOTB, I tried it when I had actual hardware issues and tried to narrow my issues down. Might even install it on a new machine if I ever do plan to reinstall.
Nobara does a lot of things well out of the box though, OBS for example is dreadful on Arch to install with all functionality, some stuff just doesn't work and installing the flatpak isn't an option as that one brings other issues with it, too.
My MAIN issue with it is though the fedora package manager, just not the biggest fan but that's from someone who's mainly using arch. My work laptop has Fedora on it and I've had to read up on how to use the package manager. After I got used to it but isn't as great as pacman.
Agreed, Nvidia's the ONE thing that's pretty hard to fix mostly because Nvidia themselves are very much special about it. Auto driver install, latest drivers and making stuff as painless as possible is probably the main thing that Linux really needs since everyone and their mother has an Nvidia GPU(me included, AMD's shown to have issues for me for some reason, that was the aforementioned hardware issues).
My media server is currently running Windows 10 and I refuse to upgrade to 11. Is there anyway to block all updates? I want to keep them from forcing the update. I also would switch over to Linux, but that would require me to get a 20TB external hard drive to move data around and I would need to take a day off work to do the transition. All because Linux is not too friendly with NTFS drives.
EDIT: Reading the rest of the OP's post. You do not want an easy to use normie distro. Well, not any easier than what SteamOS currently is. Because the more people that use an OS, the more likely you'll have security issues with that OS. Mainly because scammers tend to target very popular operating systems.
EDIT2: Reading the top comment here. I don't think my media server would be eligible for Windows 11 to begin with. It's a Dell Poweredge R720XD and I don't think it has that TPM that Microsoft has been trying to push on everyone.
I'm pretty sure you can block updates with a group policy, but it's going to be irritating to set up I'd guess. But like your second edit, just go into the BIOS and disable all TPM. I have that on a Windows 10 machine and it never bugs me about 11 because it's "ineligible"
Unless its changed there is a registry entry you can change that lets you turn off windows update completely.
Generally speaking the older a game is, the MORE likely it is to run flawlessly on Linux. And funny you mention Morrowind in particular since OpenMW started as a Linux project.
Any recommendations for linux security software?
I switched to Linux around 15 years ago having dipped my toe into SuSE back when KDE 3 was the latest release.
I am that individual who says "I use Arch, btw" because I prefer timely updates (tested quickly before release) of software I am using rather than having a snapshot and a wait of months before I get updates.
There are a few things that I wish Linux had. The ability to do BIOS updates. Easy support for Secure Boot as in the future, Microsoft is going to mandate it for all computer manufacturers who want to install Windows (that will be all of them). Even I look at this with dread, how is someone new to Linux supposed to understand this? There are also issues with getting firmware and devices to work if they are new because everyone tests for Windows and calls it a day. And I do understand the concerns of people who want an easy way to install Linux on a PC. It has come leaps and bounds but I am that one person who still installs Arch if I ever need to from a command line.
I see your comments, I get it, you're not a fan of Linux or whatever. I'd like to see some improved gaming support for sure, it works great when it does, but can be a pain when it doesn't. I'm considering maybe a dual-boot or something to ease myself into it for games and really see. I've only played a handful of low-performance games in Linux so far. I won't be pushed into having a MS account on my Windows, I've been down that road and it ended very badly with me losing a lot of data. So for when the day comes I can't get around it, I'll just start going backwards to Windows 7 or something.
Worse version of DOS though? Uh yeah, that's absolutely insane. I was just cleaning up some things on my DOSBox setup yesterday and it's irritating once you've gotten used to a Linux command line. There's so much that's just a pain to do or just doesn't exist without a highly custom config.
You've obviously no experience with headless servers then. Networks and the internet live on the Linux terminal, not a GUI. I did some Windows Server work for clients in the past, it's pretty and clickable. It's also a total pain in the ass when they ask for anything beyond the default things Microsoft wants them to do. If you don't want it on a desktop machine, that's fine. A lot of things work okay without it, and the improvement is real. I couldn't bear Linux as a main desktop just a few years ago and it's great and easy now. If you want a "stupid fucking terminal" gone forever, then well, go ahead and hand the entire internet over to Microsoft. What of it still exists I guess, as it will be limited to what MS decides to allow in the "Set Up My Website Now Wizard"
I'm not sure I want mass adoption really. Mass adoption of computer things has gotten me required acccounts everywhere, TPM and secure boot requirements, software that runs like shit because it's dragged and dropped by someone who has no idea what even happens inside the computer much less how to optimize for it. I'm to the point I say gatekeep away.
I'd be curious what you've used on Linux that is requiring so many hours to set up though, or a command line at all. Fallout New Vegas is a horrible example, that game is actually broken on Windows now too. I admit, gaming is a disaster and it's going to be something like SteamOS that comes the closest to fixing it. Everything else, that isn't advanced user stuff, you really don't need terminals and hours to do.
If you go into the "app store" there's a category for multimedia and you can try out players pretty easily. It's usually called something like Software Center, Discover, or whatever depending on which Linux you have. Every one of those options is in there on my system except Gnome--but I'm not using Gnome desktop. Click to install, try it out, click to remove.
For me, I just use VLC on Linux and Windows, because it does what I want. I don't really use an old Winamp style music organizer anymore.
POP OS it is.