Linux is a clearing in the woods. You have the freedom to build a cabin yourself from logs with your barehands with LFS, buy building materials and power tools to build a completely custom house yourself with something like Arch or Gentoo, get a kit and put it up yourself with Fedora or Debian, put up a prefab with Ubuntu, or just pull up a trailer for a while and move on with a live ISO.
this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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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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IKEA has a nice offer on new Fedora and Debian spins 🤣🤣
Perhaps Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc are either pre-built homes delivered complete by truck or a stick-built home built to specifications provided by an architect.
In any case, remodeling is a possibility.
good analogy bro. i was fuming when they decided that the taskbar on my ultrawide had to be at the bottom now, where in past versions you could slap it on the short edge. and if you dare use a mod from GitHub then explorer.exe will crash every 5 minutes.
where linux
Nah windows is a landlord.
it even demands rent for using your computer in the form of licensing, and possibly recurring payments in the future.
Sounds like Gnome.
I'd say they're more like the developer, they've made the house their way, you can kinda change it, change the paint, move the furniture but you can't make any major structural changes.
As much as Microsoft sucks their os is generally pretty solid. Not great but good enough for most
(I say this having not had a windows install on a personal machine for over a year now)
You will not find a developer standing at your front door saying "Sorry, Updating the house- you can't go in right now" - and if you buy a home usually you can remodel but if you are in an HOA you probably have to beg permission to do anything that would be visible from the street.
I didn't understand the "forced upgrade" argument until now. Yea I guess you're right, at some point you have to do updates (they nag about upgrading to 11 but you can skip that indefinitely). But with how popular Windows is you have options for a lot of problems (including forced updates which to be fair shouldn't be ignored when it comes to security patches).
If you open up Chris Titus Tech's Windows Utility (https://christitus.com/windows-tool/) you basically have a comprehensive list of all the ameliorations one could ever want at their disposal. That's really the main thing Windows still has going for it, it's a decades-long mainstay which means there are plenty of knowledgable people out there who know how it can be made to heel even if Microsoft decide to force a Microsoft account on you, telemetry, whatever it may be, there will probably always be a way around it.
For example one of my main gripes with Windows 11 is how you can't make the taskbar show all tray icons anymore by default. They removed window titles in the taskbar so now everything is basically a square down there meaning there's all this empty space between my open windows and the tray. But of course someone out there has written a program to automatically unhide all tray icons and thrown it on GitHub.
To me personally it doesn't matter how crappy the design choices are as long as they can be mitigated. If bad corporate decisionmaking is a dealbreaker (which is also a fair assessment) then you have to ditch the corporation entirely and go Linux or what have you. Not trying to be smart or anything but there really is no reason to stay on Windows left anymore. Maybe if you absolutely need Microsoft Office or something but ever since Proton came out the issue with Windows-only games has pretty much evaporated.
Switching to Linux without prior experience will challenge even the most tech-savvy, but it's an investment worth making many times over.
Switching to Linux without prior experience will challenge even the most tech-savvy, but it's an investment worth making many times over.
I would normally agree with this but for reals, I've switched over "I just need a computer and don't care what's on it if it does what I need" types to Linux Mint, usually because they keep a perfectly good old laptop around that is getting Windows-crusted and nagged to updating to an even slower bloatier version...
...and I get very few help requests, and I hear "I'm getting used to it and I like it!" Especially now with how their Steam games will just work 98% of the time. I also hear that it's faster and more responsive.
It's truly awesome, and I think a lot of the fears come from past horror stories and turbo-nerd elitism haha.
There's still holdout issues, like VR or Adobe stuff, yeah, but it's going in such a lovely trajectory. :D
I have a middle aged customer who is legitimately using Mint on one of those old Athlons today in 2024 for her day to day. There literally is no reason for her to upgrade hardware unless her usecases evolve into something more demanding.
I agree Linux is a lot more accessible than it used to be, but if I understand you correctly the people you helped transition still needed at least some initial holding of their hands. If for example you buy a laptop with Linux preinstalled that initial hurdle could be cleared but I still believe there's a learning curve at least as steep as it would be for someone learning Windows for the first time. The difference being that everything out there takes Windows into account.
If you just wana surf the web Linux can probably be as easy as ChromeOS these days but that isn't really a usecase where operating systems can make a difference one way or the other.
That's a really cool story about the Athlon still kickin in 2024! I love the spreading awareness of using existing equipment instead of mindless consumption! :D
You're right, like with any system, the user needs to want to understand it. I think the install will always be a hurdle for anyone as long as "computers with Linux pre-installed" stays a niche thing.
Although, I'd also argue that a pre-formatted install media with a little "How to start" card would do wonders. For something like Mint and many other distros there's just "Install this distro only" or "Alongside Windows" if no fancy partitioning needs to be done.
That's pretty snazzy for a fresh start!
As far as initial hand-holding though, Mint/Cinnamon or KDE are especially friendly for Windows users. With people being used to smartphones now, the repository being an "app store" makes a boatload more sense too.
Those beginner-aimed OSs also have that little "Welcome" window to familiarize users with what to use for office apps, how to get more software, how to update, and where to ask for help.
In my experience, I had to do barely if any support that couldn't be gained by the user just poking around a bit, and nothing that required any "fixing" under normal use. Two people I helped was in a position at my local library, so being bugged with simple questions was part of the job haha.
But my sister's experience with Mint was really smooth. She was nervous at first because it was different, but quickly got the hang of things. I don't get any questions, really. She uses the apps, gets online, plays Steam occasionally, and keeps it updated.
And to be fair, an install of Windows I think is way more intimidating these days LOL. (Had to do that for her, too for a dual boot...it was a huge headache, especially with their "Microsoft account" shenanigans and a million dubious opt-outs.)
Minus really specialized niche software that depends on Windows, I've noticed the beauty of these distros are that they can grow with the user, and if the user wants to get more advanced, the OS won't stop them.
I don't necessarily think a learning curve is a bad thing as long as it's a smooth ramp. I think if there's a learning curve, it means you're using a tool rather than an appliance. :)
(Example: Mobile OSs tend to be super intuitive...but they're mostly aimed at consuming content over any other purpose.)
Windows can definitely be a nuisance these days especially during the setup. But you mention a key aspect at the end. Touch-based devices these days are super intuitive compared to what we've grown accustomed to on our desktops for decades. And they aren't just miniature PCs anymore, they can do all the same stuff, regardless of whether they're actually being used for the same things we associate with desktop-work.
Linux has a huge userbase in the form of Android and therein virtually no entry-barrier or learning-curve to speak of. I feel that that's where we need to go. Mac OS is already there. Windows is just living and breathing off the fact that its market share was once virtually 100%. I think a good example of what I mean is how Valve are leveraging Linux on their Steam Deck. It's still intimidating when you switch over to the KDE desktop, but as a regular ~~user~~ gamer you won't ever need to. Everything this device has been built to do can be done in a tailor-made UI for its purpose. Or think ChromeOS. I can install a virtual Debian beneath ChromeOS if I want more control over what I can install but other than that the OS is dead simple to use.
Linux deserves mass adoption but it needs to think user experience first just like the big corporations do. I firmly believe that that's possible even when the big bucks aren't being thrown around.
I don't get the forced update thing at all, use windows at work and don't get nagged about updates ever. if it ever has updated on its own it's done so completely imperceptibly to me
The only argument I see is that they're dropping support for win 10 soon which kinda sucks but the majority of people will not even notice they've been upgraded
Is that an Enterprise version at work? I mean even if you pause updates for as long as they allow you to on consumer versions, at some point you do have to do it. I do get nagged on one of my installations but not on my main one. Both Windows 10.
I was planning to transition to Linux completely by this autumn but laziness strikes as per. I guess autumn 2025 is the new deadline now.
It is the professional version yes but even when I used to have windows 10 I managed to turn auto updates off permanently
I haven't had an update forced on me on my work machine ever
If you're having the house fumigated, or making some renovations you'd have to be out of the house for a bit
Funny, that Linux manages to 1) Tell you when updates are available and leaves it up to you to apply them 2) Apply updates quickly, rarely over a minute. 3) Even more rarely requires a reboot. Because of these three features, I am usually more than happy to install an update any time one is available when I come to a convenient point to do so.
The first two are not true on my distro
People complain about being notified about windows updates all the time, and they generally install quietly in the background for me while I get on with my work
The only time I consciously update is when I get wind of a CVE
Debian lights up an icon in the System Tray. When I am ready I can either click on that icon to bring up the package manager GUI or I can open a Konsole window and run 'sudo nala update' then 'sudo nala upgrade'. (Nala is a beautiful front end for apt)
Nix to my knowledge doesn't have anything like that at least by default
You must be the one person I've ever seen saying that. I remember up to windows 7 and some time with 10 that updates would just wait for you (assuming you configured it to wait) and I would update when ready to shit down. But I've seen 10/11 just kick people out over an update way too many times to know it's. I configured my wife's computer to not update at all unless I actively told it to, and it she woke up to windows 11 one day (which I appreciate because that was the trigger for her to love to Fedora, lol).
it's incredible how it went down. apple also did steps into this direction, but way slower and smaller steps at least (am still mainly a macos user). i still use windows 10 ltsc enterprise when i need it, and i am extremely happy with it. if microsoft would take this version, and try to build from there and, finally, actually improve the core operating system instead of adding some bells and whistles where no one wants it, i would probably even use it more (although probably never as a main driver). but seeing the direction windows is headed towards, i will probably use win 10 ltsc until it's support ends (which is in about 5 years), and then say goodbye for ever, hopefully.
So can Canonical. The difference is, they don't.
Some HOAs are better than others.
Unfortunately, all it takes is a change in the HOA board to turn a better HOA into a badder HOA.
So far, and since I have been running Debian for a while now I don't know about Ubuntu specifically, All the distros I have used either show an update is available, or you check for updates.
You have the choice and control to install the update and can do it later if now is not a good time. Or don't install it at all, it's your system.
Obviously, yes. My point is: Do you read and understand all changes in the code for each update? You need to trust the maintainers, cause they could theoretically push out any code with the update.
This is true of any OS, The people who build the OS for you to use can build in all kinds of sneaky stuff - see "Trusting Trust" about an invisible trojan in the C compiler. An issue with Microsoft Vs. Most Any Linux is the whether the maintainer's goals and the User's goals are oriented in the same direction. Microsoft wants to get data about you for whatever purpose whereas Most Any Linux maintainer's main goal is to produce an OS that is as free of bugs and is as useful and as secure as possible.
Or like Fedora (and I'm sure more distros) nicely asks you if you want to update in a user initiated restart or shutdown, and if you say yes it does just that and updates to restart or shut down. My memories with Windows are having to remain in front of the computer to make sure I can turn it off after it reboots multiple times to update.
Please do tell how they would do that.
You trust their repos.
With every apt update, they could push whatever code they want onto your PC.
Same as with literally any binary-based OS.
Someone definitely reads the changed code of Gentoo packages. You are saying that every operating system on the planet is untrustworthy, besides gentoo and a few other source-based distros, but let's target Ubuntu in particular.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying you need to trust the people making your OS cause no way in hell is anyone else able to audit every update they push.
Whether your OS is trustworthy depends on their history. In that regard, I'd give Ubuntu a solid B-
Fair enough
You're so nice. Here they have deserved a C- for at least the last 5 years, and declined to a D during the last 2.
Not sure why you specify binary-based OS's. Following Gentoo's upgrade guide also gets you potentially whatever they want on your systemp
How does that work, exactly? I don't actually know. Are they compiling their own copies of the upstream code changes?
Yes, they're taking the source code from upstream, modifying ("patching") it, compiling it, then uploading their compiled binaries to the Ubuntu repo where your system downloads them during an update.
You can technically download the source code as well, if you activate the source repo. But hardly any end user does. And the source code you get doesn't compile to the same binary you get from the repo anyway. (This would be called a "reproducible build". Some distros try to be reproducible. Ubuntu doesn't, they have other priorities.)
Thank you. That makes sense why some downstream distros designed for specific purposes (e.g. gaming) might include a handful of their own repos for specific software.