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The way everyone talked about Linux, I thought it would be a transient interest I would eventually tire of. I’ve known a lot of professors who say they liked Linux back in the 90s, but decided they couldn’t keep up with it, and have gone back to windows/apple.
I never anticipated that 4 years ago, when I booted up Linux for the first time, that it would also be the last time I shut down Windows. Furthermore, the likelihood of me ever going back seems to be getting smaller and smaller every day.
Truly 2024 is the year of the Linux desktop. no notes.
It was actually 2022, the year when steam deck released. The proton compatibility shot through the roof. Linux now supports a far wider array of software than MacOS, even.
It’ll probably be 2025, when adoption hits 5% a few months before Windows 10 support ends. The 5% will make people take Linux more seriously when looking for alternatives to Windows 10, which will increase adoption even more, which will cause hardware and software providers to offer better Linux support, which will just cause the whole thing to snowball.
Worked on me, I finally switched (like, REALLY switched) on my primary PC this year after using Linux only for servers and hobby projects for a long time. My only regret is that I may not live long enough to have used Linux longer than I used Windows. I’d have to make it to my mid 80’s just to break even.
Valve gets all the credit. Gaming was the main thing holding me back all this time.
Same here and for me too it was gaming holding me back, though I mostly buy my games via GoG hence use Lutris and it’ve had a pretty low rate of games that won’t work at all (and, curiously, one of them which won’t work in Steam works fine if I use a pirated version with Lutris), though maybe 1/3 require some tweaking to work properly.
It’s also interesting that by gaming in Linux with Lutris I can make it safer and protect my privacy because Lutris let’s me do things like run the game inside a firejail sandbox which I have set up as default for all games including disabling network access for the game.
Still have the Windows partition around just in case, though the only time I booted it in the last several months was to clean up some of the stuff to free one of the disks to make it a dedicated Linux disk.
Yeah I haven’t completely gotten rid of Windows. I have it installed on another SSD but in the last 8 months since I switched, I’ve only needed it for Dyson Sphere Project (needed AutoHotKey), Deadlock (crashes too often in Linux and they ban you for 2 hours every time you leave a game), and whenever I feel like playing C&C Generals which for some reason runs like absolute dogshit on my Linux box despite everything else working fine.
But that Windows SSD has nothing, NOTHING on it but Steam games and Winamp. Microsoft isn’t getting access to a damn thing anymore when it comes to personal data. I’m tired of protecting myself against them, and FFS I’ve been a Microsoft backoffice sysadmin for over 25 years so I know how, but I’m still sick of it! I don’t even surf the web on that install. I play my game and when I’m done I boot back to Tumbleweed!
Gonna have to look into Lutris, I really like the idea of that sandboxing!
For sandboxing in Lutris you’ll want to have a look at the “Command Prefix” option under “Runner options” - whatever you put there prefixes the command that runs the game, which is exactly how sandboxing with things like firejail works (i.e. you start your stuff from the command line with firejail firejail-args your-stuff your-stuff-args so you literally prefix your command with firejail).
It’s possible to configure it game by game and also as a global default for all games which you can then override for only some games (this later is how I run it).
Lutris also integrates with Steam so you can run Steam games from it.
My only regret is that I may not live long enough to have used Linux longer than I used Windows.
I hear that, I’ve been using Windows since '98, and only had Linux on my primary computer for a few weeks. I didn’t think I’ll be going back even though HDR support is spotty.
I’ve been using Windows since 3.11. I’ve been supporting it for a career since 1998 (although almost entirely servers not desktops for the last 23 years). I’m tired of Microsoft’s bullshit.
On the other hand, my expertise at resolving their (server) bullshit over the last couple decades sure did pay well. So I guess it wasn’t all bad. But these days they can kiss my ass.
Most people don’t even know what a browser is, let alone an os
Yes they do. They know a Mac is different to a PC and they know a phone isn’t the same as a desktop. They just don’t know what that’s called. They still have an intuitive understanding. They still understand that phones do annoying things like denying file system access. They understand that Microsoft products make it harder to save files for no reason. Most people understand the appeal of Linux if you explain it in familiar language. They’ve just been conditioned by society to fear change.
sorry man you are a perfect example of the comic.
cause most people also dont know what denying system file access even means.Drag is using language you can understand easily, because drag is talking to you. To a normal person, drag would say “You know how on your phone, you can’t just look at your files? Like you have a separate app for photos, and documents, and you can’t just look at all your files from one app like you can on PC? Well, you can actually if you use an android. Here’s the app that does it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.nbu.files&hl=en_AU”
Drag even casually named an operating system during that speech, and would have been understood perfectly by most people.
Kids today barely know what a file is. I have to regularly explain folders and file types. When I asked them where they saved a thing, they answer “On the computer” and look at me like I’m crazy for asking that.
Copium.
Steamdeck made many times more Linux users than Windows ever did.
Copium
🤮
Keep dreaming, people will keep on using Windows because they don’t care about the bloat, they just want something that works and that doesn’t require fucking around for hours every time they plug something new in!
i doubt the average user even understands what an operating system means and they’ll just go with thatever it came with
Can confirm, I am a windows user and if my laptop came with Linux preinstalled, the way it had windows preinstalled, I’d be a Linux user.
If I ever have to Google what the hell a kernel is then I have read everything else available on the internet.
To be fair, I’m using Linux, MacOS with Darwin Nix for managing it, Windows, and I still am not sure what exactly is an operating system, what’s the role of kernel and all of the possible system software is. Well, I think kernel is for hardware abstraction, but other than that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The kernel does stuff like
- process and CPU task management
- hardware abstraction
- memory management (at the process level),
- file system managment
- and resource isolation (such as randomized memory addresses (ASLR))
The rest of the OS provides the actual software that users interact with, like
- file managers
- desktop rendering and window management
- settings menus
- sound mixing between applications
- graphics rendering
WSL is the best thing that’s ever happened to windows
it’s interesting they call it windows subsystem for linux
- oh, so it’s a subsystem for Linux?
- no, it’s a windows subsystem
- …for Linux?
- kind of, I guess
“Linux is open source and free! You can do whatever you want with it! It’s our thing!”
Microsoft: “Whatever I want with it?..Free?..Hm…This is my thing .”
Yeah Windows subsystems to operate Linux
WSL is the best thing that’s ever happened to windows
WSL is great but the NT kernel was/is more important, then userspace GPU drivers (which Linux still lacks), then WSL.
People now in their 20s don’t realize how utterly bad Win9x and then the first consumer grade NT-based WinXP were (and those older may have forgotten). Win7, 10, and 11 are paradise by comparison. These days I can cope with Windows. I don’t love it but it’s not a daily cause of anger like the Windows dark ages. Heck, winget even makes software installation bearable.
Winget-ui (renamed to something annoying I choose not to remember) is pretty great. Does Winget, Choco, pip, and some others. Better package manager ui by far than the laggy garbage on a lot of Linux distros, even if you do have to deal with annoying UAC nonsense on the regular.
Except for virtualization
I found WSL kinda useless when it first came out, you didn’t have any low level access and they explicitly refused ssh connections unless you paid for windows professional and interacting with files on windows was either impossible or just very buggy I’m still not quite sure which, I think the problem was that they used the wrong slash in the file system and most programs that interacted with it didn’t understand that, not to mention networking was a chore.
Windows 10 was actually ok when you got past some of the awful stuff. Nowhere as good as 7, but it did the job for me for years.
Windows 11 got announced though and I immediately switched to Linux lol.
Yeah I honestly legit enjoyed my fond time with old Windows machines back when they were fun and user-oriented instead of the user-exploitative SAAS monsters they are now.
Win10 wasn’t even SO bad as everyone says…well, until recently when they started forcing Microsoft Accounts on install and harass you with their ads every 3 forced updates. Ugh.
Now they’re on the Ai bandwagon? Yeah they’re real small in my rearview mirror now.
I think it’s just a different landscape now, and I’m glad Linux was there to jump to after all these companies started losing their collective minds.
I find myself actually considering paying 30$ a year for prolonged windows 10 support because I find the switch to linux really overwhelming. Like being sent grocery shopping, but all lables are in traditional chinese. Some things you can figure out very easily, but troubleshooting anything takes me days.
If you send me a message on matrix or a dm here I can help you with that unlimited no strings attached, I have over 10 years of experience and am very free!
Fair disclosure, I personally run OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, BUT…
Honestly for this situation I think Linux Mint might be your on-ramp. It’s very familiar from a user experience perspective from someone coming from Windows, and everything can be done with GUI apps.
It updates the entire system smoothly through an “app store” so it stays nice and secure. “Cinnamon” is also a highly attractive and smooth desktop environment.
I’ve switched a few people to it who were sick of Windows on older machines, but NOT computer people at all, and they’ve enjoyed it a lot! The nicest thing is it will feel like your computer again, not like you’re leasing it from Microsoft.
Don’t try and “completely switch over” in one go.
Look up how to try Linux in a virtual machine on your existing setup (so you don’t have to risk anything!) and just try it and play around with installing and using it.
An old laptop or something is also a great way to try it out.
You can always dual-boot if you want. I sure did for a while until Win10 started BSODing for no discernable reason, and refused to let me “refresh this PC” because “Sorry, can’t. Goodbye.”
I still have it, just in case, but it’s been most of the year since I’ve even bothered logging into it.
If you game: you’ll want Heroic Launcher for your GoG/EA stuff, and Steam of course, and maybe Bottles to run your old CD/DVD games maybe. :)
Sometimes things take a little tweaking, but Mint’s community is fantastic and helpful. You really will start to learn a lot about computers just by using Linux a little and trying things, while Windows makes every effort to hide things from you. (“wE’rE gEtTiNg ThInGs ReAdY” who’s “we”?!)
As you start to get comfortable with it, it will grow with you. You can start trying to get the hang of the terminal, or jump to another distro once you learn why you might prefer to.
But you really can’t go wrong just trying Mint out. It’s overall just a pleasant OS.
ProTip: You’ll be asked about a file system when you install any distro. I spent COUNTLESS HOURS on researching this question. BTRFS can be a bit of an advanced file system, but if you just “set it and forget it”, it has the ability to take incremental snapshots without taking a ton of space! So if something really goes south, you can use an app called “Timeshift” to just roll back.
This is great for your root drive / partition, but I wouldn’t suggest it for your home folder. :)
(Just like Windows rollback used to do, but…more reliable lol)
Lol sorry for the ramble but I hope this might help you feel a little less lost at the grocery store. ;)
Lol sorry for the ramble but I hope this might help you feel a little less lost at the grocery store. ;)
Thank you for your detailed comment. :)
I am dual booting Linux Mint Cinnamon, and you are totally right. The “app store” is very nice and I was honestly impressed how much control Cinnamon offered and made it accessible for beginners through GUI. It felt more streamlined than Win10 in some places. Steam’s Proton is also a huge deal, as most games work great with it enabled out of the box. I do however often feel lost. I didn’t expect that but the thing most difficult for me is basic stuff, like navigating the start menu. I really like the customization Win10 offered and miss it dearly.
I guess it is part not having a feeling on how Cinnamon works yet. After using Windows since 2006 I know my way around it failry well, and I don’t have that “gut-feeling” in Linux yet. It will come with time, but atm I am feeling a little defeated.
You could try OpenSUSE, it has Yast2 GTK GUI control panel for everything, no command line needed. Assuming CLI is what you find troublesome.
And GUI package manager
I spent today trying to install a USB WiFi dongle in Debian. On Windows it took about 5 seconds, I still haven’t got it working on Debian.
i have been lucky with all my computers and peripherals, everything worked out of the box. but there’s a weird issue in our household, none of the windows machines can connect or stay connected to our wifi but all phones and linux machines have no issues…
Yep, had to fuck around for a while on Mint, managed to get it working with a driver found on GitHub and disabling the default driver and making sure it’s plugged in an USB 3.0 port… As you say, plug and play on Windows.
What brand? In my experience Linux is very persnickety about USB Wifi/Bluetooth adapters.
When I was buying mine a couple years back I had several failures before finding some kind of master list of supported devices.
I dont have the list anymore, but everything I bought was TP-Link cause TP-Link appeared very frequently in the list from what i recall.
I only buy accessories that will work without having to manually install anything. The whole concept of end users installing drivers can go to hell.
Is it one of those ASUS or similar ones? There is a wifi dongle that has drivers for linux, and says on the box linux support, but actually both the kernel and the provided drivers for the chipset are broken, you need to clone the github of the CHIP manufacturer, and compile it. After that, it works.
Dad didnt allow me to use Windows cause of “viruses”. So grew up using Mandriva Linux.Transitioned to Ubuntu when mandriva got discontinued. Currently using Arch BTW.Funny how he had the knowhow to install Linux AND was worried about viruses (XP era though).
Based dad
100% :)
XP was totally a wild time, to Dad’s credit though! hahaha
It was that funky era of needing like 4 different anti malware programs, and downloading game patches from various hopefully-trusty file hosts, or nabbing the suspiciously convenient “Linkin-Park-Meteora-FULL_ALBUM.exe” off of Kazaa which would promptly rootkit your whole system.
Routinely running Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, AVG, and CCleaner to combat constantly-reinstalling spyware.
Heck, I consider myself kinda smart but I still had Bonzi Buddy for a while! …I mean, c’mon, funnee purpl monke. Who could resist?
Like wow, now that I think back on it, you really needed a bit of “street smarts” back then. Nowadays security has gotten a lot better and one can get away with just “Not downloading weird Russian Web3 games off the dark web” and they’ll usually be relatively fine. Lol.
TL;DR: Windows XP was compatible with Bonzi Buddy, Mandriva was definitely a more secure choice, seeing as it couldn’t run Bonzi Buddy unless you were determined with WINE maybe?
… It’s cool you got introduced to Linux so early. Cool dad. :)
I don’t even know what to call this absurd reality you’ve invented.
Lemmy user hallucination.
Quite the drug.
I expected the punchline to be “for me to poop on”.
I have to say that I am getting pretty good at Linux. I use it on my gaming desktop, my 8 year old Lenovo, on a specialized workstation at work, and I have two servers running it. It’s approaching general utility.
That said, I am being defeated by Broadcom wireless drivers on a HP Enterprise laptop. They aren’t just working, and the wireless soft switch isn’t just turning on. Until we can get to the point where the average user can just try a bunch of .deb (or whatever) files until they hit the jackpot, it isn’t going to be as easily adopted.
That’s defo Broadcom’s fault. Unfortunately when Linux is a second class citizen, hardware vendors will make crappy Windows and maybe Mac drivers, but a lot of Linux support seems like it needs to be reverse engineered or something, if the company itself refuses to play ball. :(
This was the case with NVIDIA for a long while. Still kinda is. Hopefully that’s improving though.
It is absolutely Broadcom’s fault, but it’s also still the state of things.
Thanks to Ubuntu, Mint is quite well endowed with functional software. If it can receive the same level of support as Windows or MacOS, it will probably outpace them both.
I love the restart button, it makes switching to Linux faster
