Linux UI is far worse than Windows. It's not even close. I use Linux but definitely not for its UI.
Windows can out-of-the-box do HiDPI, multiple monitors, multiple desktops, trackpad gestures, hardware accelerated UI rendering, facial recognition logins, and more. It was designed as a desktop OS.
On Linux some things are getting better if you stick to the Wayland+GNOME stack, but it's still so bad I can't recommend it to people on technical grounds. Use it if you believe in free software, not because you think it's "better" (it's not).
I am seriously wondering why Linux UI development is lagging so much considering it’s at the forefront of many developments, and probably with the worlds best devs using Linux. I can only come up with that it’s console centered approach doesn’t attract a lot of UX designers of caliber to take it to a new level.
Most of the money being thrown at Linux is to make it better on a server. The laptop/desktop market is dominated by Microsoft, with Apple a distant second.
Arch is only a recommendation for people with a fair bit of experience. I have some experience, and I still needed to check some webpages to find out what I was missing when I tried installing Arch as the official manual doesn't spell out every step that is needed.
For "easy" for people who don't have time or experience, I would instead recommend Pop!_OS https://pop.system76.com/ flash a liveusb stick and you can try it out on your hardware without needing to install it first.
I've been using Ubuntu for over a decade because my days of fiddling with my computer to get things to work are over. In general, Ubuntu just works without much configuration on the user's end.
I've noticed a trend where people who are new to Linux will jump on Arch because they believe it'll give them more power, or that they'll learn more by using it. Or people will install Kali because they think it is what hackers use, and completely miss the fact that Kali isn't meant to be installed at all.
It's all Linux under the hood, and you get the same amount of power no matter which distro you use. And when you use a distro with sane defaults like Ubuntu, you're able to dig into the internals whenever it suits you, and not because an update broke your computer.
Arch is neat, and their documentation and forums are amazingly great. However, I have zero desire to be my laptop's sysadmin. Pop! OS runs great on my Thinkpad.
If the only concern is the install process, I would recommend Manjaro. It has its own installer, but you still get the powerful pacman package manager and the Arch repositories which are the most cutting-edge around.
Photoshop works pretty well in Wine, and Windows runs quickly using KVM.
Linux also has native support for hardware pass-through if your machine has an IOMMU, so you can give virtual machines direct access to graphics cards and get GPU acceleration in your VM, along with USB devices, etc. VirtIO is built into the kernel and can provide you with paravirtualized network and storage access, which can speed things up considerably.
Linux UI is far worse than Windows. It's not even close. I use Linux but definitely not for its UI.
Windows can out-of-the-box do HiDPI, multiple monitors, multiple desktops, trackpad gestures, hardware accelerated UI rendering, facial recognition logins, and more. It was designed as a desktop OS.
On Linux some things are getting better if you stick to the Wayland+GNOME stack, but it's still so bad I can't recommend it to people on technical grounds. Use it if you believe in free software, not because you think it's "better" (it's not).
I am seriously wondering why Linux UI development is lagging so much considering it’s at the forefront of many developments, and probably with the worlds best devs using Linux. I can only come up with that it’s console centered approach doesn’t attract a lot of UX designers of caliber to take it to a new level.
Most of the money being thrown at Linux is to make it better on a server. The laptop/desktop market is dominated by Microsoft, with Apple a distant second.
My thinkpad works very well with linux, I recommend Zorin or Arch
Arch is only a recommendation for people with a fair bit of experience. I have some experience, and I still needed to check some webpages to find out what I was missing when I tried installing Arch as the official manual doesn't spell out every step that is needed.
For "easy" for people who don't have time or experience, I would instead recommend Pop!_OS https://pop.system76.com/ flash a liveusb stick and you can try it out on your hardware without needing to install it first.
I've been using Ubuntu for over a decade because my days of fiddling with my computer to get things to work are over. In general, Ubuntu just works without much configuration on the user's end.
I've noticed a trend where people who are new to Linux will jump on Arch because they believe it'll give them more power, or that they'll learn more by using it. Or people will install Kali because they think it is what hackers use, and completely miss the fact that Kali isn't meant to be installed at all.
It's all Linux under the hood, and you get the same amount of power no matter which distro you use. And when you use a distro with sane defaults like Ubuntu, you're able to dig into the internals whenever it suits you, and not because an update broke your computer.
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Arch is neat, and their documentation and forums are amazingly great. However, I have zero desire to be my laptop's sysadmin. Pop! OS runs great on my Thinkpad.
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If the only concern is the install process, I would recommend Manjaro. It has its own installer, but you still get the powerful pacman package manager and the Arch repositories which are the most cutting-edge around.
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How do you run photoshop?
Photoshop works pretty well in Wine, and Windows runs quickly using KVM.
Linux also has native support for hardware pass-through if your machine has an IOMMU, so you can give virtual machines direct access to graphics cards and get GPU acceleration in your VM, along with USB devices, etc. VirtIO is built into the kernel and can provide you with paravirtualized network and storage access, which can speed things up considerably.
People working in Linux will use GIMP, but you can also use Photoshop in a virtual machine, or possibly even natively using WINE. Here is a link for someone who did just that: https://www.archviet.com/how-to-run-photoshop-on-linux-with-...
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