this post was submitted on 10 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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There is not a single distro where everything works out of the box. I would be very surprised if even Windows or MacOS work exactly like you expect, the second you boot into them the first time.
I like Arch / EndeavourOS, but you will definitely need quiet some configuration for them. If you want more user-friendly or more up-to-date Debian, try Sparky Linux. It's honestly quite good. Instead of Ubuntu you might want to give Mint a try. Many fancy it as a more open and less corpo alternative.
Ubuntu itself is alright, but it's being criticised for pushing anti-consumer moves lately (i.e. forcing Snaps and telemetry onto them). Also, updates on Ubuntu are extremely slow in my experience. Maybe that has changed, but in some areas I doubt it.
On the other hand, if hardware manufacturers or software developers test their products with one Linux distribution, it will be Ubuntu. So that's generally the safest bet - and that's coming from someone who doesn't use Ubuntu.
Windows generally does work exactly like that. It's the reason it has such a huge market share of desktops.
Windows breaks something all the time. Just the other week I had to fix their stupid new Email program for my dad.
There are many reasons why their market share is so high:
That is absolutely not true, Ubuntu has been a lot more out of the box experience for almost 2 decades. Thing is people are already familiar on how to do things on Windows, and most laptops already come with windows and drivers pre installed. Windows 10 was the first version to have a driver manager that could find the correct drivers for you, still you need to waste a few hours and reboots to get all of the drivers and updates.
But let's be honest it still really isn't an out of the box experience.
Just look at all the shit with Snap you see constantly.
No, it's not, I said it's more of an out of box experience than windows, not that it was perfect
As a very casual user, I can say that windows has intuitive solutions to issues that may arise. At least there are some things users can try by just using logic.
In Linux, solving issues requires you to type in the Romanian national anthem backwards, speperated by ; and the ocational "sudo" and "apt get"
If you tried to stumble your way around the UI on Linux you'll probably find very similar UI paths to solve any issue. The thing is that Linux has several different UIs so when you ask in a forum it's easier to give you the UI-agnostic solution. Let's take a common issue with an apparent arcane solution, e.g. change your screen positions. On windows you do this by going start > settings > system > display and adjust them there, on Linux you'll get given an xrandr command like
xrandr --output HDMI-0 --left-of DP-2, but on KDE you go start > system settings > display and monitor and adjust them there, but because you might be using Gnome, Lxde, XFCE, Mate, etc (all of which have a very similarly intuitive path to adjust this) it's easier to give you a command that does it.For the first several years I used Linux I almost didn't touched the terminal, and that was a long time ago so it's not that it's not possible or recent, it's just that because windows has only a single graphical interface you get answers for it, but if you ask things on generic Linux forums you'll get generic Linux responses, if you had to do things without asking anyone online they're very much the same.
@cosmicrookie the intuitive solution to error 0x4f63e78 would be...? Because that's how Windows issues typically are: no explanation of what has failed, only an hex string
I'm just saying that if something breaks in windows, i more or less know where i can go and change some setting that may help. I realise that because linux has so many variations, this is not a viable way, but its still a fact that its more complicated for me to solve an issue by myself om linux than or windows, as well as finding a solution for it on the internet. I'm not against linux, it's just a feedback to the conversation about it, compared to windows
No offense but this is highly anecdotal. When my Linux systems broke, I've always found good leads to solutions on the internet with a good search. On the other hand, every time Windows broke on me, it's been near impossible to find relevant information as everything is drowned in a sea of basic nonsense, and the built-in tools that were supposed to help me, e.g., revert the system to a previous state, either errored out or did nothing, leaving me only with reinstalling the whole system as an option. Absolute nightmare.
For me, I guess I needed to find solution to fewer things on windows issues than on Linux issues. Basically anything I wanted changed on Linux needed me to search for a solution. Many of the things I wanted changed on windows, I could do without a search
It's exactly the opposite for me. Why? Because I'm just not used to Windows and nothing is where I expect it, or works as I would expect, and a lot of it makes no sense to me. On the other hand, I've been daily driving Linux since 2010 and I know what to do for most of the things I want to change in my system.
It's literally just a matter of what you're used to. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯