this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2024
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Why wouldn't you?
Hard to figure out. Have to settle for similar but different apps. Video drivers not built in. Inconsistant bluetooth. Update all breaks everything. Hard to get support for your individual set-up when Linux is so fractured.
Just to name a few.
Man. That's some weak-sauce arguments against linux. In my experience, just a default Mint install with no stuffing around of any kind came with fully-functional video drivers and bluetooth. No update has ever broken anything; and the first thing that launches after a fresh install is a menu with bunch of different ways to get personal support for Mint.
I don't like Ubuntu that much but one thing they really do right is a tool that made installing the few drivers not built into the kernel stupid easy. That's the number one thing I see people mess up with Nvidia drivers. You always install Nvidia drivers through your distro app store/package manager never the website.
I understand the mistake but it's painful to see someone manually install Nvidia drivers from their website just for it to shit the bed in a kernel update.
I'm sure the update manager was probably very important back in the day but I am glad updates come through the software manager now. Even though I don't use it it's very intuitive.
When I installed Mint my entire video screen was tinted blue. Bluetooth sometimes worked, sometimes didn't. People yelled at me for having a Dell PC in support forums, and when I followed the advice of someone trying to help, he suggested to update all, and when I did the fans stopped working.
Hmm. I'd be interested to see that. I just did a brief search of the support forum for your post, but didn't find it. Perhaps you can post the link here. Your account history will have it.
This was 10 years ago on the mint forums. My username would have probably been Lost-My-Mind unless the forum disallowed special characters. In which case it's LostMyMind, and if that was taken when I signed up, it was LostMyMlnd (using a lowercase L instead of an i)
I didn't find it. Maybe forum doesn't go that far back. 10 years is a long time in computer software. I guess probably a lot has changed since then.
Did you ever find your mind btw?
If anything, the last 8 years has made it worse! I've had this handle since 2001, and BIG HAT since 1997. But BIG HAT became increasingly harder and harder to get screen names of.
Huh. I find windows way harder to figure out. I guess it depends on DE, but Windows is kinda just layers of cruft, with old confusing menus mixed with newer ones, installing apps in particular is a confusing mess.
Updates breaking things I guess depends on distro. If you go with something like Arch you're gonna have a bad time, but that's on you for installing Arch. If you installed Debian or something, stuff will break faaaar less often than with Windows.
Video drivers not being built in is an odd one, because... they aren't in Windows, but are in Linux, assuming you use AMD or Intel. With Nvidia it's usually a case of typing in "Nvidia" in your software centre, clicking install, then being done.
Support can be hard or easy, that's very true. Although most stuff I see in terms of windows support is "have you tried a system restore? Oh it didn't work? Ok reinstall Windows then", which isn't very helpful at all.
It's much easier nowadays. I find Windows much more hard to figure out now that I've made the switch. At the very least, everything in Linux takes very few steps to perform tasks and install programs compared to Windows.
The sooner you do it, the faster you'll be free. Once you do, you can be confident that said program won't undergo enshitification since it's open source. That said some apps can't be replaced like Photoshop if it's for work. I like Gimp, but I understand it's not for everyone.
It pretty much is now if you install an Nvidia specific distro. AMD is preferable of course.
Totally fair.
Use a rolling release distro like Debian or Fedora and you should be fine.
Linux is not perfect, but it's better than Windows. Nobody will force you to use your computer in a way you don't want to. It's so awesome and it's free. There is no way I'll ever go back to Windows. Linux is the ideal OS for so many people (especially those who go the extra mile to modify Windows heavily) they just don't know it yet.
?
Debian has has a branch called Testing where you can get newer features faster ans it's pretty stable.
Edit: Oh and Fedora is semi-rolling release, to be fair I wasn't really clear with this one.
Which part? The one where to install an app, instead of downloading a .exe you search for the app in the package manager?
That's not exclusive to Linux though. Like for example moving to MacOS you wouldn't really expect for all the apps to work either?
Video drivers aren't built into Windows either? And on Linux, AMD's drivers are (as I understand it), and for Nvidia, you'll probably have Noveau installed.
How? I've found BT to just work on Linux, while on Windows I had to track down the specific drivers.
Unless you installed Arch (or any rolling release distro) as your first distro, this probably won't be an issue.
Then maybe install Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS or anything more widespread that does have the support you want?
Ah, I see. So because YOU understand something, and know what you're doing, and haven't had anything fail on YOU, then it must be everybody ELSES fault, right? Meanwhile Linux has less than 5% of PC userbase, and that INCLUDES Chromebooks.
I don't think it's even fairly controversial to say that Windows over the last couple of versions have turned into an unmitigated privacy dumpster fire, and only looking to get worse, and MacOS is and always has been a walled garden which offers very little in the way of customization or individuality.
Yet despite all that, Linux only has about 4% marketshare, because nobody is able to use it. But hey, must be 95% of societys fault, and not the direct result of a confusing to use interface, right? And if YOUR bluetooth works fine, and doesn't refuse to connect at random until you restart, that must be something I'm making up and doesn't exist, right?