this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2024
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Linux
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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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I just got rid of my last Windows installation, and I got rid of all my Apple devices a couple years ago. The Linux life is so nice!
On the other hand, I just setup a Windows gaming machine for a friend (I would have pushed Linux, but I live far away and can't commit to being tech support). There were so many hoops to jump through to cut through all the crap:
It's seriously bonkers. It makes you really appreciate Linux as a whole and package managers in particular.
Whenever people talk about how difficult Linux is to install i ask them if they've installed Windows lately. They all say "yes". I do not believe a word of it, though. If they had done so--or more likely, tried to do so--there's no way they'd have that opinion. I'm sure they've gone into their OEM's recovery menu and hit "reinstall" or whatever, but that's a very different process.
It's "hard" to us because we actually uncheck the telemetry settings and care about not having a Microsoft account on, including the additional debloating afterwards. For the average user, clicking next every step, ignoring the data harvesting effort and creating / using a Microsoft account is part of the experience and "normal" to them.
It's funny because I've built like six Windows machines and the install process is always a snap. You just select what drive to install to, what telemetry options you want on/off, and then press start.
You don't even have to have an Internet connection/Microsoft account if you don't want to, you can just create a local one.
I don't understand how you guys have such a hard time with it. Certain distros of Linux are pretty easy to get going, but Windows is only hard if you refuse to leave your Linux knowledge bubble, ever.
Sure we can talk about how you have to go in and do X and Y in order to get it configured how YOU want, but that shit applies in Linux too.
I don't know when the last time you tried to install Windows was, but when I installed Windows 11 Pro yesterday, there was no obvious option to install without an internet connection and a Microsoft account. To make that option appear, I had to hit shift+f10 at the country selection screen to open a command prompt and run the script located at "oobe\bypassrno.cmd" to have the option "I don't have an internet connection" to pop up and allow me to bypass needing a Microsoft account.
I've never installed Windows 11 outside of assisting company IT, but we have install media/network based images we can push.
I'm referring to W10, I don't like 11 at all.
That's fine, and people said the same thing about Windows 10, and Windows 7, and Windows XP, and...
If you control for bloat, tracking, and ads, the install process for Windows versions has gotten steadily more difficult as time goes on. Installing Windows 11 is a snap, too, ... if you don't care about all the crap they added.
The thing us Linux users are complaining about is not how easy it is to install if you accept the enshittification that Microsoft forces, but how difficult it is to install without it.
.....
Christ on a fucking cracker man, leave the fucking ethernet cable unplugged...
Installing Windows from scratch is as easy, if not easier, than installing Linux. If you think it's difficult, that really seems like a you problem.
I've tried switching to Linux exclusively multiple times, and I always end up falling back to Windows on my desktop. I have multiple Linux servers and VMs, but there are two main barriers. First is gaming. Last time I tried, I couldn't get RTX working in some titles, EA launcher was broken, and it was generally just buggy. The second reason is for coding. I've been coding for Windows for almost 20 years, and I am hugely reliant on Visual Studio. I just can't find a comparable alternative for Linux.
I'd ditch Windows in a second if I could make Linux work for me, but so far I haven't had much luck.
I have a friend that does .NET development on Linux. So I guess that's possible. I know he uses JetBrains Rider as an IDE instead of visual studio. I'm sure there are some other hoops he jumps through, as well, but I never really dove into it with him. I always used Visual Studio in Uni, myself. I also have a Windows partition for gaming and music production.
.NET is infuriating enough on Windows. Any time I have to work with a .NET library, I always write a wrapper with a C or C++ interface first. Your friend who does .NET development on Linux has far more patience than I can ever hope to have.
For sure. If I was going to do .NET again I would just fire up Windows and Visual Studio like most other sane people.
I had similar issues. My Nvidia GPU was the main thing hold me back for so long. I finally upgraded to an AMD RX 7900 XTX and cycled my Nvidia GPU to my home server for transcoding, gpu compute, and KasmVNC GPU acceleration.
I also decided that ray tracing, HDR, and games that don't support Linux just aren't important to me, but it took me a long time to become okay with that.
For development, I guess I've been lucky in the type of work that I do in that Linux is a perfect fit. I find Windows to be far more of a hassle than it's worth, but if you do game development or Windows-specific development, I can see that being a barrier.
RTX is one of those things that just isn't optional for me. I may be in the minority, but I am far more concerned with how games look than how they run. As long as my FPS is above 30 or so, I'm generally okay with performance. I feel like Windows will always support those "extra features" like RTX before Linux, unfortunately. I really comes down to market share, I think; the developers at Nvidia and AMD are going to target Windows first, and the people who maintain Proton are stuck in second place. You'll have to pry Windows 10 out of my cold dead hands, though; I liked Vista better than Windows 11.
For development, I'm locked into Windows at work, but my job isn't specifically software development; it just happens to be a useful skill to have in my career. I do far more coding at home, and I certainly have the option of switching to Linux. I think I've just been spoiled by Visual Studio's all-in-one approach for so long. My #1 concern is debugging. I haven't seen an Linux IDE that allows for stepping back through the call stack and checking variable states inside the IDE quite like VS does it.
To be clear, I'm not bashing Linux at all. I've been a homelabber for longer than I can remember, and I have a total of 3 physical machines and VMs that run Windows compared to a total of probably 20 that run Linux, FreeBSD, or some other POSIX variant. I have so few Windows machines that I actually own legal licenses for all of them. I do feel like the people who say "Just run Linux on your desktop PC; it can do everything Windows can" are looking at the operating system through rose-colored glasses. Linux will always be the best choice for anything that doesn't require having a monitor attached, but otherwise, it feels like it's playing catch-up to Windows.
For sure, there are compromises no matter what you pick. I just hit the point where Linux checked enough boxes for me to ditch Windows. I hope that it gets to that point for you eventually!
I use VS Code on Linux, but yeah regular VS is Windows-only. Maybe people good at compatibility layers can get it working.
VS Code(ium) doesn't work for you instead?
No, all you had to do was leave the PC disconnected from the internet during the install.
The nVidia driver, direct from nVidia, certainly does not require an account. Only need an account if you plan on using GeForce Experience.
I wish it were that simple. The motherboard I was using had built-in wifi, which, while technically on a B-Key M.2 slot, was buried beneath RF shielding, heatsinks, and plastic cowling. On top of that, I would have had to take off the CPU heatsink and take out the GPU to get to it.
I tried just removing the external antennae and looking in the BIOS for a way to disable the WiFi card before looking for a way to bypass the network requirement. Removing the antennae still showed a few available networks, and I couldn't find a way to disable the card in the BIOS.
Sure, there may be other things I could have tried. I could have taken the computer apart, rebuilt it, installed Windows, taken it apart, and rebuilt it again. I could have isolated my wireless access point from the internet in the hopes that it would give up and give me the option then. None of the available options were as simple as "just don't connect it to a network, dude."
The windows installer did not give me an option to not connect to wifi as long as there were networks available, of which there are many in my apartment complex.
You can manually download drivers from Nvidia, and that's basically what this tool I'm using does for me, but for GPU drivers in particular, you want to have the newest version available, especially if you like to play new games on launch day. The only way to officially get automatic game-ready Nvidia drivers is through the GeForce Experience app, which, as you said, requires an account.
For the Microsoft account during install you can just type: [email protected] as username and a as password, then submit. It'll then tell you this account is blocked or doesn't work and allows you to create a local account instead.
The setup is so bloated.
That's a neat trick. I'll have to try that next time.
Hey, why get rid of valueable computing devices 😃 there is nothing more fun than a rolling distro like arch pr openSuse tumbleweed on old apple hardware
😁 i live a free computing live where I collect trash (mostly from my father and thus apple devices) and install Linux on them to make them treasures
I love it because I hate eWaste
I love resurrecting old hardware with Linux.
When I said "got rid of," I mostly meant "gave to friends and family."
I recently installed NixOS on my partner's 2013 macbook air to give it a new lease on life, too.
🤩👌🏻awesome, we need more people like you