Are MS business practices actually going to have you switch to Linux?

[linkboy]

I've tried in the past, but there's just too many Linux quarks that annoy me (like not having WiFi drivers installed and having to install them manually).

 

Windows does everything that I need it to and the telemetry stuff really doesn't bother me.

 

I am going to be setting my laptop up to dual boot Mint (mostly for school purposes), but my main OS will still be Windows.

[You_are_a_cunt]

Setting aside the work I do in my free time (independent research in Physics/Astronomy, currently in a partnership with an NGO) or my dayjob, the odds of me switching to Linux for day to day usage is slim to none.

While the advancement and popularization in gaming on Linux has seen quite the boom in recent years, it's far from being as ubiquitous as Windows, at least when it comes to games. Sure, Wine might work for most older games, but when looking at what I play, there's no other option than Windows (or Mac OS, but I'm not touching Apple hardware anytime soon, mostly due to the unreasonable price).

Aside from work and gaming, anything else I'm interested in can easily be done on any phone with internet capability.

 

I'm sticking to the Windows ecosystem for the foreseeable future, since it makes my life significantly easier.

[Silentprototipe]

Lol nope! I tend to game alot and theres a specific game that wont run on linux so no thanks. Id go to Linux if the games I play comes for it. Though I have been thinking about it for my laptop for a while though but I got too lazy to try so meh

[vorticalbox]

On ‎22‎/‎05‎/‎2017 at 9:48 PM, firelighter487 said:

i made the switch as soon as all the privacy stuff came up... way to scary.. now happily running ubuntu!

the kicker for me was when they started to install apps like candy crush without my permission. 

[Terryv]

48 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

the kicker for me was when they started to install apps like candy crush without my permission. 

Don't forget the fact that they come back after new updates.

[Ashleyyyy]

1 hour ago, vorticalbox said:

the kicker for me was when they started to install apps like candy crush without my permission. 

i actually switched back and forth a lot. as much as i hate ms business practices, on ubuntu, i was constantly getting freezes and wifi disconnect's, and it just wasn't worth it... i just reinstalled windows 10 and am going to keep using it.. but the apps automatically installing are really annoying... especially if your ssd is nearly full.. 

[noobs guid to marsterrace]

On 5/8/2017 at 9:32 AM, Terryv said:

MS has been in my opinion the greatest driving force for Linux adoption as of late.

 

I for one have been seriously looking into getting rid of my windows partition (I'm dual booting).

 

I'm sick of the built-in bloatware and telemetry and their dishonesty in regards to it.

 

The only thing that has kept me from switching entirely is gaming, but it's getting to the point of not being a good enough excuse anymore.

 

How about you?

the only reason I ues windows is because of gaming 

[noahdvs]

I don't really use Windows anymore. I also don't game much anymore, but if I was going to play PvP in a game where good aim and reaction time was important, I'd still play it on Windows.

[Flygenring]

On ‎08‎-‎05‎-‎2017 at 2:03 AM, Godlygamer23 said:

I wonder if it's possible, and if people are willing, to make Linux super intuitive. 

Something like fedora but without the whole no proprietary drivers and codecs would be super intuitive and stable.

[elkenrod]

If Overwatch, Street Fighter, and Star Citizen ran on Linux natively, I wouldn't even bother dual booting anymore.

 

 

[Terryv]

Just now, elkenrod said:

If Overwatch, Street Fighter, and Star Citizen ran on Linux natively, I wouldn't even bother dual booting anymore.

 

 

From the looks of it, star citizen will be native on Linux eventually. Overwatch sort of works on wine and I have no idea about street fighter.

 

I'm with you for good native ports

[SpaceGhostC2C]

I don't intend to use Windows 7 for ever, so it's bound to happen (unless there's a radical turnaround in Windows 10 or an hypothetical new Windows, which seems unlikely).

 

I could be already in Linux based on my computer usage, both at work and at home, if it wasn't for me being lazy, Windows 7 working just fine, and Linux being... so Linux  I don't game enough to care about which game is and which game isn't available.

I do think Linux has many things to improve, and I'm not sure the Linux community will ever accept that those are indeed improvements from a home PC point of view. But in the current market it has become the lesser evil.

[Hazy125]

I don't game that often, and web based alternatives to desktop software is freaking amazing these days. I've been running Linux on my laptop for years. I don't think I'll switch to Linux on any of my main machines- too many small issues. But maybe OSX

[vorticalbox]

14 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I don't intend to use Windows 7 for ever, so it's bound to happen (unless there's a radical turnaround in Windows 10 or an hypothetical new Windows, which seems unlikely).

 

I could be already in Linux based on my computer usage, both at work and at home, if it wasn't for me being lazy, Windows 7 working just fine, and Linux being... so Linux  I don't game enough to care about which game is and which game isn't available.

I do think Linux has many things to improve, and I'm not sure the Linux community will ever accept that those are indeed improvements from a home PC point of view. But in the current market it has become the lesser evil.

what things do you feel they need to improve? I've been running ubuntu for a few months now and nothing feels "bad" .

 

 

[Terryv]

2 hours ago, vorticalbox said:

what things do you feel they need to improve? I've been running ubuntu for a few months now and nothing feels "bad" .

 

 

Agreed. Other than app compatability, Linux doesn't appear to have any more issues than with Windows (probably less).

[SpaceGhostC2C]

1 hour ago, vorticalbox said:

what things do you feel they need to improve? I've been running ubuntu for a few months now and nothing feels "bad" .

 

 

A handful of things, but I think a good way to summarize most of them, and why it won't happen any time soon: it needs to become less secure.

 

Linux has an underlying corporate/institutional LAN perspective, where dangers come from two sources: the outside world, and the users. Outwards security is useful as home as well, but all the ways in which Linux protect the user from him/herself become a hurdle in home use. I guess the experience may vary if you start trying package after package, but for example: all of the distros I've tried out of the box have very limited GUI usability. Things as trivial as moving a file from here to there quickly get you into a permission-ownership nightmare that can only be managed through the command console. The situation tends to repeat: practically any interesting task requires some "sodoing" in the console. (at least Debian allows you to "su" once and that's it ). Put simply, Linux has this built-in HAL 9000 constantly telling you "I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that", and off you go to sudo war until you force your way through. It makes you miss UAC so hard...

In other words, Linux is great for sysadmins who fear their users more than any virus, and also for Mac-type users who just want their PCs to be like TV sets (hence Android's success). But as a replacement for home power users accustomed to toy around as much as they please in an as easy/risky manner as possible, deleting System32 in two clicks if they so please, the root-user schizophrenia drives him nuts.

So yes, when your user list happens to have exactly one user, maybe it's time to become less secure internally and allow the user to take control for better or worse, and by control I mean GUI control. I know many Linux users won't see the need for this, or may not see how Linux is not good enough yet for everyone more generally, but they must remember that they already are Linux users. They have to drop their own point of view (which lead them to use Linux now) and adopt the point of view of those who don't like it as much to understand what's holding it.

 

On the more trivial side of things, the whole app-market thing vs apt-get isntall. Etc. Just no. Download "install_virus.exe", double click it, done. That's how it needs to be (what I mean is at least the option must be there). Again, that is in conflict with security, but being safe from myself is not something I value in an OS.

 

Also, it needs to be more stable. In one of my experiments, I installed a distro. Next, I downloaded and install GPU drivers: the PC froze in the process, and it never booted back. It needed a fresh OS install to come back to life. That's not what I would call a robust OS...

[vorticalbox]

3 minutes ago, Terryv said:

Agreed. Other than app compatability, Linux doesn't appear to have any more issues than with Windows (probably less).

most things (excluding games) have either a Linux version or an alternative. All the major browsers are there, gimp as Photoshop though cs6 runs perfect in wime , for office you have libre or wps.

 

3 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Things as trivial as moving a file from here to there quickly get you into a permission-ownership nightmare that can only be managed through the command console.

this I can totally get on board, when I ran multi user I would always hit "this drive is mounted by x" very annoying.

 

5 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Download "install_virus.exe", double click it, done. That's how it needs to be (what I mean is at least the option must be there).

 you can download packages a .deb and run them to install if you don't like terminal commands. 

[Terryv]

3 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

most things (excluding games) have either a Linux version or an alternative. All the major browsers are there, gimp as Photoshop though cs6 runs perfect in wime , for office you have libre or wps.

I was mostly refering to games. Linux has turned towards those alternative apps (some I prefer much more than traditional choices)

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

 you can download packages a .deb and run them to install if you don't like terminal commands. 

I haven't had much luck with that: I couldn't get a file browser to just understand that when I click it I mean run it (right mouse button didn't help either ). I may have not looked hard enough, but at that point I just found it easier to do it in the command prompt (which is a bad sign ).

[vorticalbox]

9 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I haven't had much luck with that: I couldn't get a file browser to just understand that when I click it I mean run it (right mouse button didn't help either ). I may have not looked hard enough, but at that point I just found it easier to do it in the command prompt (which is a bad sign ).

it should know to open with the package manager if not open with and change it. 

[noahdvs]

2 hours ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I haven't had much luck with that: I couldn't get a file browser to just understand that when I click it I mean run it (right mouse button didn't help either ). I may have not looked hard enough, but at that point I just found it easier to do it in the command prompt (which is a bad sign ).

If you're on Ubuntu, double clicking a DEB file should open it in the software store and there should be an install button you can click on. There's also QApt and GDebi, which will let you double click to install. Installation of Debian packages is really a lot simpler than install wizards for Windows. You don't even have to do anything besides click install and enter your password.

[vorticalbox]

24 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

If you're on Ubuntu, double clicking a DEB file should open it in the software store and there should be an install button you can click on. There's also QApt and GDebi, which will let you double click to install. Installation of Debian packages is really a lot simpler than install wizards for Windows. You don't even have to do anything besides click install and enter your password.

I still like terminal for installing though Audi song -i name.deb though this doesn't last install dependants, which i believe the gui does.

[noahdvs]

Just now, vorticalbox said:

I still like terminal for installing though Audi song -i name.deb though this doesn't last install dependants, which i believe the gui does.

I believe `cd`ing into the directory where the package is and using this also works.

sudo apt install ./the-package.deb

 

[SpaceGhostC2C]

26 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

If you're on Ubuntu, double clicking a DEB file should open it in the software store and there should be an install button you can click on. There's also QApt and GDebi, which will let you double click to install.

I'll take that into account for my next Debian-based tryout (ran away from Ubuntu really fast )

26 minutes ago, noahdvs said:

Installation of Debian packages is really a lot simpler than install wizards for Windows. You don't even have to do anything besides click install and enter your password.

That can be a problem, though. For example, typing my password is a chore, while custom installs, choosing installation locations, etc, is a plus  

[noahdvs]

7 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

I'll take that into account for my next Debian-based tryout (ran away from Ubuntu really fast )

That can be a problem, though. For example, typing my password is a chore, while custom installs, choosing installation locations, etc, is a plus  

I use a password manager called KeepassXC where I keep all my passwords, including my system password. I can just do Meta+A (Meta is the Windows key on my system) and it will offer to fill in my password for any dialog asking for root privileges.

I don't see custom installations as a plus in the majority of situations. With everything installed the same way to the same locations, I can activate or refer to any program I install simply by using its executable's name (e.g., `firefox` for Firefox and `kate` for the Kate text editor). Every package is managed perfectly by my package manager instead of everything being thrown wherever and disconnected from the rest of the system like on Windows. I use Chocolatey on Windows for the few times I actually do anything with Windows, but it's still not the same as a Linux package manager.

 

I use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE now, but I liked Ubuntu. What didn't you like about Ubuntu?