Comment by enraged_camel
7 years ago
For most people there is no other choice.
I mean MacOS requires a relatively expansive machine to run it, and many business-critical software either doesn’t run on Macs, or has drastically reduced functionality.
Linux isn’t even worth bothering with if one isn’t technical.
So really, we are left with Windows.
Linux one is just untrue.
If you're not technical, just go with Mint. Looks like Windows 7, behaves like Windows 7, doesn't break. You don't have to leave GUI environments once, neither in installation nor in usage. Doesn't break. Gives you the opportunity to optimize your workflow if you want to.
Mint broke all over the place on all the machines I've ever installed it on. Couldn't get graphics, sound, or networking running smoothly. Complete disaster with my built-in Bluetooth and my BT mice & keyboards. And doesn't behave like Win7 when it comes to actual programs. .deb is not .exe, .bat files didn't work, programs needed to come from a central app store or else be "compiled". Drive names were completely whacked as well. My optical drive wasn't D:\ and I had no idea how to find a DVD through that version of VLC, my main HDD wasn't C:\; and my USB floppy drive (yes, I still have one) didn't plug in as A:\.
No version of Linux "behaves like Windows 7". At best, it's like Linux wearing a bedsheet-ghost costume labelled "Windows 7" and screaming BOO! at you every time you do anything from a DOS/Windows background.
All of it works flawlessly as long as you run only Intel/Amd. The moment you go to nvidia(which unfortunately has a near monopoly on laptops) is the moment you start paying with performance on nouveau or major features (wayland) and battery on proprietary driver. And this is before we even get to optimus and prime.
Yes, there are solutions for these problems but you need to be technical for them.
Mint isn't great on high-dpi displays, KDE is probably best for that but has other issues.
This thread is about OS upgrades. Mint's support of in place upgrades at all is... mixed.
I know completely computer illiterate people who use Ubuntu. Your opinion says a lot about you.
Hmm. I'm skeptical that those 'computer illiterate' people don't have a computer literate person providing them with support that's key to enabling that situation.
I've had Ubuntu running on a few cheap desktop machines for some years now used for light duties in a few living spaces. So far we're at 100% failure rate on version upgrades: Both LTR release upgrades have bricked both the machines.
When they switched the window manager on one of the recent ones, the UI simply died and the simplest resolution was to just re-install the OS from scratch.
Steady state, with apps installed and running and only doing basic patching via the GUI, Ubuntu is 'operable' by avg. Joe. But app installs and beyond are fraught with problems.
@FooHentai: “I've had Ubuntu running on a few cheap desktop machines for some years now used for light duties in a few living spaces. So far we're at 100% failure rate on version upgrades: Both LTR release upgrades have bricked both the machines.”
Bricked you say, I don't recognize that from my experience, as for 'light duties' it's a little more useful than that:
"Ubuntu Linux Demo"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI-YIO0OKz0
"Using Play On Linux For Windows Games On Linux!)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YVCY0rnI90
Illiterates need support on Windows too, and the Genuis bar at the Apple store.
You know, when I go shopping for tools what I do is I find people who know nothing about tools and ask them what they use.
So for the purposes of discussion, there are technical people and non-technical people. The claim up-thread was that technical people are fine on Linux. So then this commenter comes along and points out that there are non-technical people who do fine on Linux. In this context, this assertion is completely relevant and useful.