Uh
Who’s ready to talk Linux
Unfortunately the “horror” that is windows persists almost as much as the horror of Linux. Which is a bunch of fanbois crowing about their distro without any explanation at all. But why do they do this? Because that’s how they got into it, and that’s how the people that got them into it got into it.
Which fucking distro should I use?
- Well, really it’s just preference.Then I choose arch.
- Uh, wrong try again lol.Fair enough, Which fucking distro should I use?
- Well, really it’s whatever works for you.Okay, I didn’t like the feel of that one.
- Well, you were using the wrong desktop environment.😐😑😤😠… …Which fucking desktop environment should I use?
- Well, really it’s just preference.🤬. 🤬🤬, 🤬. 🤬.
- Look clearly you don’t know what you’re doing just use Ubuntu, or Kubuntu, or Lubuntu, or Xubuntu, or Fubuntu, or Poobuntu, or Schmubuntu. And with cinnamon obvi.Well how do I know? The site for each one uses the exact same bloviated claims. They’re all feature rich, and lightweight, and extended support, etc. Do I have to install them all to find out?
- Yes but that’s impossible. So just use mine, it works.Until it doesn’t. Then you need to hit up Linux self help forums, to get help from Linux bros, who are the most detestable group of unhelpful, impatient, and pretentious neckbeards imaginable. “Did you try searching first?” “Just use our discord!” “Just use [my fucking distro!]”
😖🤯👺
FML
I typed 6 words. Are you alright
Lol, thought I was replying to a different comment, my bad 😆
Please accept my apologies 🙏
I’m not unhinged, more or less
Been there. Accepted
To answer your questions though, I suggest the non-Cosmic version of Pop!OS. (and switch to wayland if it’s not the default yet- not sure, I’ve had this install for YEARS) It’s a good blend of “just works” and “up to date enough” to run anything, and I recommend steering well clear of Arch. I’ve been using Linux for a decade and I’ve always found a way to whoopsie it into a broken state. That’s a “me problem” yes, but if I can fudge it up that easily and I have experience using it, I think it’s unsuitable to recommend to anyone.
Most people live in a web browser- does it really matter if the desktop environment isn’t riced enough or isn’t windows-ey enough? That said, it takes actual hackery to make any version of Windows usable these days, so I’ll forgive a distro not being “absolutely elite” for someone’s preferences. Let’s not compare Linux forums to Windows forums, where no-one has ever, I repeat ever received ANY useful advice besides reinstalling their Windows, am I right?
Lol, touche. Unless you include how to “unbreak” every single windows update, but even those resources are growing ever more seldom. Thanks for the explanation. I think I remember hearing about pop during the great steam Linux supportathon a few years back. I held off since the video card support wasn’t quite ironed out of something like that and haven’t checked back.
Sadly, steam VR and fusion360 are still tying me to windows. :(
Steam VR runs on Linux natively, doesn’t it? I switched to Linux a few weeks ago but haven’t tried VR gaming on it yet.
It does, but performance seems a lot laggier than Windows.
I’ve been using Linux full time for a while now, and only recently installed Windows on a secondary drive, just for those two things.
Before, on Linux, it was a bit of mixed bag. Sometimes it would start up without issue, other times sound wouldn’t work, etc.
Using corectl is a must, and make sure you have a stable steam install. (iirc the steam I installed didn’t come with half of the 32 bit libs it was expecting). I’m rocking a 7900xtx, so it’s not exactly low-end, and half-life alyx was giving me a lot of stutters.
No they don’t. Steam VR is native on Linux, and most of fusion 360 can run in wine. Good news for you!
I’m liking Linux Mint and Kubuntu personally.
Especially Kubuntu for my main desktop PC, Linux Mint for my little clunker PC I use to run my 3D printers.
Same, I just loaded kubuntu on another new system
I’ve used the unpatchable Win11 account loophole, that exploits a functionality of your pc, where you wipe your boot drive, and install NixOS on it
That’s a neat trick!
Man, Microsoft advertising for Linux Mint YET AGAIN?! They are so gracious.
Why is everyone reccommending linux mint all of a sudden? What happened to ubuntu and fedora?
Mint is ubuntu with the icky stuff removed and given an extra layer of polish. Still loving it here.
Ubuntu added telemetry and forced snaps
And Ubuntu Pro popup ads. Linux Mint is, from a compatibility standpoint, Ubuntu without the crap.
So out of curiosity, why Mint over, say Debian? Has Debian added telemetry etc as well?
In addition to what the other guy said, Mint is also more focused on desktop. A bunch of apps are pre-installed that one would expect on a desktop OS. Additionally, the default Mint UI, Cinnamon, feels very familiar to a Windows user. It has a start menu, task bar, tray, etc.
Debian is in the same family, and is more oriented for servers. It is super minimal out of the box, which is perfect when you want it to sit in the other room and perform specific tasks. However, you can install all the same programs, even the Cinnamon UI on Debian.
Really the difference is the out of box experience, but they are otherwise pretty similar.
Debian is a stable distro and therefore tends to have less up-to-date packages.
It’s just a comparable GUI surface.
Ok, so this solidifies my desire to never buy a Windows PC/laptop and why my switch to Mac was a good choice a few years ago. However Mac gaming is nowhere near where it should be right now and I was thinking about getting a cheap Windows laptop for games that aren’t available on Mac.
I remember a push a few years ago to get some linux distros pre-installed on some OEM hardware but I didn’t hear much of anything past the hype. Anyone have any good OEM brands that have linux installed instead of Windows and are relatively affordable?
This forced account shit is infuriating. I’d see students with computers that cannot get to government-provided education sites because they are forced to sign up with a Microsoft account to use their PC, which forced them to setup a child account because of their age and therefore be under a parent account, which means the child account can only use Edge and can only go to whitelisted websites, which blocks some government education sites unless the parent account allows it through which they can’t until the student goes home.
I didn’t know Gentoo was named after a penguin.
Now I want a Chinstrap and a Southern Rockhopper Linux.
Chinstrap Linux haha. It’s like Fedora, but for a totally different demographic.
GalapagOS
Funny how corporations think taking away consumers freedom and privacy is a good idea.
Have fun losing customers.
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
-Benito Mussolini, 1932
Its a good idea for their shareholders, who don’t think beyond the next quater. Pretty sure most of them don’t have object permanence.
“Hi, I liked XY development tool having a proper GUI on Windows where can I find a non CLI…”
“LEARN TO USE NEOVIM!”
“LEARN TO USE GDB!”
“DO EVERYTHING FROM THE COMMAND LINE!”
Every time I hear about Microsoft it makes me wanna take a shit
Pavlov Reaction?
To be far this command was only needed for win 11 Home. Pro did not need a command as the option is available through normal prompts windows gives you.
Are they trying to kill windows on purpose?
I wouldn’t say that, more just abusing a monopoly.
companies do things like this when they feel they have the power in the business/customer relationship and there’s no regulations to stop them.
I don’t know what is going on at Microsoft. I’m starting to think that they are trying to pivot to a completely different business model. In addition to this Windows 11 crap and XBox seemingly being given up on, they appear to be losing their embedded market as well. In the past, if you saw any screen in an industrial setting, there’s a good chance that there was the embedded Windows version behind that screen. Lately, all the new products are moving over to Linux.
They are, and have said they are.
Subscriptions are the wave of the future.
The sad thing is they know the large majority of users will comply. Most people put familiarity and convenience above their own privacy and general well-being.
Once valve drops better nvidia support into the kernel, and steamos starts coming pre-loaded on laptops and pre-built desktops it’s over for their consumer division.
No it’s not, multiplayer games with anticheat that hard-locks you into Windows and productivity software with DRM that hard-locks you into Windows is still a thing, if that were to stop being a thing, then Windows’ dominance on the desktop might finally be threatened, but until then, sadly, no.
There’s nothing special about SteamOS. Linux has been available as an option from several manufacturers for years.
What we need to see is a major studio pushing for Linux like valve has been doing.
Imagine if call of duty or fortnite had a Linux promotion to have a penguin hat. That would help
What we need to see is a major studio pushing for Linux like valve has been doing.
That’s it. That’s literally what makes it special. You, me, and half the fediverse probably aren’t going to use steam os unless maybe we buy a steam deck.
The fact that there’s a multi-billion dollar company throwing money at both it and proton is what makes steam os special. Its what’s going to give Linux a unified brand name that every machine can put on their case badge.
Normal people and the companies that sell them computers need that unified brand name. Why on gods green earth, I don’t fucking know, but I know that they do. Its how you get them to use shit.
There kind of is though. I’m not here to argue it’s enough to unseat windows but it is markedly different
From a technical standpoint it’s just another linux distro with some nice tweaks for gaming but from a human perspective it has brand recognition, familiarity, a known company behind it. Those things do really matter for adoption. No idea if that’d be anywhere near enough, I’m not inclined to make predictions, but it does have explicit advantages over consumers hearing they can get a laptop with Ubuntu or fedora on it
Yeah I agree. I just don’t wanna see more apps made exclusively for the steam deck with SteamOS and winderp. So I feel it’s important to highlight it’s just another Linux distro.
https://youtu.be/5KYQRk_SIB8 this is what pulled my attention to the matter.
Also, I will not be surprised if they audaciously disable Win 10 Home edition for security purposes once end of life is reached.
They already said they are going to charge $30/year for patches. They want recurring revenue from ads in 11 or from you paying yearly for 10.
The fact that Facebook still exists is proof of this.
Games. Most of the games I play don’t play well with Linux.
I keep a Linux laptop for banking that only connects via ethernet cord while I’m banking. Which is nice, I don’t worry about key loggers now.
What games do you play? I’ve been gaming exclusively on Linux since Windows 7 went EoS, and especially since the Steam Deck came out, I’ve had very few problems. That said I don’t play competitive stuff, which is what tends to have anti-cheat rootkits.
Yeah. Gaming isn’t the issue for a long time. Productivity is. Rantmode
Proper CAD for Linux? Nonexistent, even worse, some manufacturers intentionally make sure you can’t use a VM either until you massively pay extra.(Looking at you Dassault) FreeCAD is a shitshow (and that is entirely the communities fault) and no professional competitor has shown any incentive - even though there is a increasing market for Linux in some professional capacities. And the current projects to get bottles/wine/etc. to work are maintained by a single guy (bless him) who tried to do it for multiple systems at once and seems to have given up mostly.
Graphic design? While the situation is a little bit better,it’s still a shitshow. No, GIMP and Inkscape are not sufficient replacements for Adobe or even Affinity. They are “good enough” for most things,but they are not nearly ready for production use in any professional capacity.
Office? Yeah. Sadly equally bad. I really really really hate Microsoft and Office. But: They are inherently good at what they do. Not because people get used to it - but because they work. I used LibreOffice since back when it was still StarOffice. (And have used Lotus before that) But we as the open source community still rather fight about ribbons (even though they became the standard everywhere) than get LibreCalc halfway production ready or make proper collaborative working possible. Or get a proper fucking search into thunderbird.
And this is the problem: OSS is so damn up its own ass, that it does not see the bigger picture. We can fight about the kernel allowing Rust, having Ribbons, which is the proper workbench in FreeCAD or about packet managers, distro flavours,etc. In the end what will happen is that the other side will be alienated, excuse themselves from further contributions and, and this is even worse, a lot of possible future contributors will also not contribute. And wow, someone was right and can think he (and it’s almost always a he) thinks he knows the only truth.
While the actual truth is held by the others. The ones that don’t even are bothered by the whole fucking discussing because they make the money, they influence millions and they are the ones setting de facto standards. And yes, that will mean we will need to adapt.
Including adapting market standards. When 95% of the world does a thing “that way”, it’s simply preposterous to claim “your way” is the right way, even it’s for historical reasons. (Easy example: CTRL C / CTRL V)
Same goes for adapting software. If 10% of the development power of Libre Office,GIMP, etc. would have been used to further Wine/Proton to get people to be able to use their industrial standard software we would have seen much much much larger adoption rates,both professionally and for private users.
Because that is literally what happened in gaming. Once Valve basically put massive efforts into allowing Windows games to be played on Linux - and not into developing native Linux games all of a sudden Linux gaming went ahead. Because it is a advantage for your game to work natively and well on a steam deck.
This is even more relevant for production software. If a CEO/CIO has reached a point where his main production software runs on Linux and he has deployed Linux in his company his next software contract for other software will go towards the company who runs better in their environment.
Rant out
(Nothing personal,mate, I just spent the last two days to get fucking CAD to work on Fedora…)
Blender at least has gotten to the point where an indie flick made with it actually won some Oscars and other big awards, so that pretty much put it on the map as a viable Maya or 3DSMax alternative, so there’s that.
Do you play exclusively esports games or something? It’s rare I encounter a title that doesn’t work just fine on Linux. It seems I barely need to tweak any settings anymore.
I do play eSports games
We no longer own our products. We just pay to use it until they decide you can no longer use their service. What happens if they mysteriously shut down your account without warning?
That is what happened to a guy and he had to get court involved and then he found out his account was flagged for CP by their algorithm because he had a video of his 19 year old ex. False bans do happen. I couldn’t find that story again sadly to share.
Also, make sure you always have back up turned off or have one drive not installed on your phone. If you’re a parent, be careful what photos you take of your children because if those get backed up to cloud, their AI will kill your account because it can’t tell between CP and normal family photos.
I actually want to own our products than make accounts to use.
Nothing’s stopping you from nuking your Windows install and installing some Linux distro though, at least on a normal PC. Surface products tend to be more locked to Windows though. I haven’t ran Windows as a main OS in years and don’t plan on going back, and Windows has gotten so user-hostile lately that I don’t even trust it enough to dual-boot it anymore, LTSC included.
(so far LTSC has dodged most of MS’ worst atrocities but it’s only a matter of time before that version starts getting compromised in some way too, so I don’t trust Windows outside of a VM, period, anymore, at least if I virtualize it, whatever stunts it may pull are isolated to that VM and won’t affect the host generally)
We no longer own our products.
This is a popular saying but its not as clear cut. You have choice. You can own the products you use or buy. So why don’t you?
Yes, the software we used yesterday is no longer a one time purchase today. However, you still own the software you bought yesterday and you have choice to buy new software which you will own or you can subscribe to a service providing the updated version of the new software. Example:
I can still use a purchased copy of Adobe Lightoom from 2010.
I can buy a new license for Affinity Photo today and use it forever.
I can pay to use Lightroom as a service.Imo, the only price you pay is the trek you take into unfamiliarity brought on by using new software.
This happens on the Google side of the fence as well - this article immediately came to mind.
I’m glad I started self hosting so I still have a “cloud” convenience while still owning all my data and being the sole person responsible for it.
How does this work nowadays when you buy a PC from a store?
Does it come with Windows already installed?
And if so, with what account?Installed yes, but the OOBE that runs (assuming the OEM didn’t fuck it up) is more or less the same as a retail install: you have to add the account, untick the 300 ‘yes, please spy on me’ boxes, and tell it that you do not want office 14 times.
Remember clippy on word 2000? That was annoying.
“Sucking off Bill Gates is bad, but Linux doesn’t support video games”
Bill Gates doesn’t run Microsoft anymore. He’s not the CEO and largely not responsible for the change in their business model.
Also, I game on Linux more than I do on windows (though I do have a partition in my drive to run windows for games I couldn’t get working on steam OS/ Bazzite. It’s literally 4 games out of over 100.
I’m making fun of the juxtaposition of people that express frustration/animosity for Windows with the need to stay on Windows in order to consume cutting edge video games.
It gets to be comical. Something about the “height” difference. Like you have the giant “They’re taking away my ownership of my data and my very computer!” standing next to little old “But I like my raytracing.”
“My data is being exposed in the name of corporate AI!” next to “But I can’t play games with anticheat with my friends.” It’s funny. I’m going to laugh.
lol there’s already a fix: run
start ms-cxh:localonly
from a CMD line in the installer