I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions on Linux.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. No, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people.
Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I’ve installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it’s gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn’t look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works… only it doesn’t save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically… but that doesn’t work, so now I can’t boot… so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that… then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution… wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it’s been four hours, it’s 3:00am and I’m like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren’t supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can’t wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can’t do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I’ve loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s on a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
I totally get what you’re saying, even though I disagree with small details. Also, about the OP, I think DNS and its resolution should obligatory be server in a decentralized manner. If Microsoft takes control over such vital service, and since we agree they own the market (regarding home computers, laptops etc), it raises serious concerns about people’s access to information, which is much more worrisome than (the also included) privacy concerns.
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions on Linux.
I don’t think you should bash Linux for choosing an immature desktop environment.
KDE has this and I don’t think it’s a new feature. System settings, power management, advanced power settings to set low and critical levels and what to do at critical, and “energy saving” menu to configure everything else. The interface is better than any windows implementation of this that I have seen.
Yes I’ve also been frustrated by the inferiority of the default mint DEs, but saying that Linux can’t do those is not true.
Every time I’ve installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems
For me windows would be the same if I ever reinstalled it
can’t wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured?
KDE, configurable in system settings gui. For ages.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
There’s no single shell that’s true, but why do you think bash is not common? All distros I have used so far (debian, ubuntu, mint, suse, arch (no I don’t use it by the way)) has used bash.
After finishing the sentence, I realized you probably mean the desktop environment. Yeah there are pros and cons of all of them, I think KDE is the most suitable for most uses but for old machines maybe it’s not what I would choose.
settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard
Windows does not have a single gui. They change it roughly every 2 major OS versions, and recently they are not just changing it but turning it into a steaming hot pile of garbage, first with the settings app in 10, and now full-on in 11.
Yawn.
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it’s still no competition to Windows.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I’d stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won’t even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions on Linux.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn’t compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let’s look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that’s just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. No, I’m not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That’s just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn’t realistically shareable with other people.
Now there’s that print monitor that’s on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking… Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn’t say “save creds”? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Someone else said it better than me:
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM’s on Linux (Proxmox) because that’s better than running Linux VM’s on a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn’t even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it’s own way), and that’s a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would’ve had a chance to beat MS, even then it would’ve required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980’s to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
I totally get what you’re saying, even though I disagree with small details. Also, about the OP, I think DNS and its resolution should obligatory be server in a decentralized manner. If Microsoft takes control over such vital service, and since we agree they own the market (regarding home computers, laptops etc), it raises serious concerns about people’s access to information, which is much more worrisome than (the also included) privacy concerns.
I don’t think you should bash Linux for choosing an immature desktop environment.
KDE has this and I don’t think it’s a new feature. System settings, power management, advanced power settings to set low and critical levels and what to do at critical, and “energy saving” menu to configure everything else. The interface is better than any windows implementation of this that I have seen.
Yes I’ve also been frustrated by the inferiority of the default mint DEs, but saying that Linux can’t do those is not true.
For me windows would be the same if I ever reinstalled it
KDE, configurable in system settings gui. For ages.
There’s no single shell that’s true, but why do you think bash is not common? All distros I have used so far (debian, ubuntu, mint, suse, arch (no I don’t use it by the way)) has used bash.
After finishing the sentence, I realized you probably mean the desktop environment. Yeah there are pros and cons of all of them, I think KDE is the most suitable for most uses but for old machines maybe it’s not what I would choose.
Windows does not have a single gui. They change it roughly every 2 major OS versions, and recently they are not just changing it but turning it into a steaming hot pile of garbage, first with the settings app in 10, and now full-on in 11.
Just use Linux for what it is good, for everything else you can always use VirtualBox…