Comment by fsflover
2 years ago
> Windows and Linux are OSes that are downloadable from the web or buyable from stores
Virtually no (offline) stores sell devices with Linux. Being downloadable doesn't imply compatibility with all hardware in the world.
> Virtually no (offline) stores sell devices with Linux.
I did not specify offline, I was mainly catching Windows as an individually purchasable product.
> Being downloadloadable doesn’t imply compatibility with all the hardware in the world.
I did not say that it does, but there are plenty of distros that strive to be a consumer desktop OS, and part of that effort is working with a broad range of hardware, and for me they continually fail. I would rather install an OS where all my hardware works and then I can tweak it to behave the way I want than install an OS where the hardware doesn’t work and I still spend my time tweaking it to behave the way I want.
Even ignoring hardware support and things like sleep and hibernate, every Linux desktop user I know spends more time customizing the OS to get their desired setup than I do getting rid of the things they complain about in Windows.
It is fine to have a preference, there’s no perfect OS for everyone, but I think it is silly when people decide this is a hill they want to die on. There are valid reasons for tech literate users to consciously choose Windows over Linux.
I you stop trying to play armchair systems integrator and instead buy computers with Linux preinstalled fully supported by the vendor, you'll have a much better time of it.
Modern hardware is complex enough that it supports Windows or Linux. Not both, though.
So I thought when I bought my Asus 1215B netbook (remember those?), and had my share of headaches related to the 3D support (when AMD drivers got rebooted), video acceleration (still doesn't work), and a wlan driver that keeps losing connections to my home router, forcing me to use a LAN cable instead.
Ah, and rebooting occasionally requires taking the battery off as workaround to take it out of an UEFI zombie state.
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First, I never tweaked the suspend or hibernate on my laptops and they always've been working flawlessly (Librem 14 and 15).
> every Linux desktop user I know spends more time customizing the OS to get their desired setup
You were asking wrong people perhaps. My non-technical relatives are just using Linux for their tasks and don't even know what a console is. People who like tweaking, do it. It's definitely easier on Linux anyway.
> but I think it is silly when people decide this is a hill they want to die on.
Most people are unaware that subjecting all their life and security to a for-profit, huge corporation is a bad idea for many well-known reasons. I am willing to dedicate my time to explaining that and promoting Linux, especilly when there are harmful myths about it like those you're propagating.
> Librem 14
While I understand that this isn’t the only way to achieve a great linux experience on a laptop, using an example with a nearly 4.5 year old CPU, a 1080p screen, and no GPU at a substantially higher cost than any other comparable hardware isn’t exactly a strong sales pitch for me.
> People who like tweaking, do it. It’s definitely easier on Linux anyway.
No, it isn’t. They’re both “tweakable” in different ways, but setting some group policy objects or registry setting is not inherently more challenging than tweaking a config file.
> Many people are unaware that subjecting all their life and security to a for-profit, huge corporation is a bad idea for many well-known reasons.
Nothing digital is “all my life.” If Microsoft turned my access off and remotely wiped my hard drives today, and made it impossible for me to recover from backups, I’d be inconvenienced, but absolutely fine. But they won’t, because they like my money. I’m okay with that clear, transactional relationship.
Microsoft is nowhere near the top of the “outside entities that could wreck my life” list.
> especially when there are harmful myths about it like those you are propagating.
Desktop Linux is worse at out of the box hardware support than Windows, especially new hardware and laptops. I don’t even think this is controversial. Even laptops like frame.work that explicitly support Linux have year long threads in their forums with people trying to get the behaviors consistently right.
Probably more controversial in this audience, but I feel strongly is true, is that the computing “upper middle class” - those who do more than surf the web, check email, or edit documents but don’t feel comfortable dropping into a console without explicit directions - are almost always better served by MacOS or Windows for their desktop.
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