← Back to context

Comment by perching_aix

5 days ago

> If you are a developer you should have switched to Linux years ago anyway.

This is so often repeated, but I genuinely don't understand why. Could you try selling me on it? I ended up going the sysadmin/devops route instead after college, but the more I learn about Linux, the less I understand why anyone would choose it for personal, active manual use.

I can understand server deployments, it works well enough. It's available at no cost, Windows Server is way out in the far other end in terms of current desired behavior, and whatever pains it has you get paid to make up for. None of which applies on a personal device level.

The most common selling points I see are more performance and less "spying". I find neither of these very persuasive, and I'm not interested in ideological rationales either (supporting free software). If you have anything else, I'm all ears.

8 comments

perching_aix

Reply
skydhash  5 days ago

Not selling you on it, as I find that, if you're using IDEs, OSes don't really matter. And windows can be actually beneficial as you'll get prime support from most vendors. Where Unix shine is adhoc automation. Almost everything is fully hackable and that makes some solution easier to implement.

As in case for the desktop, you can switch out your audio stack, alter the display of any element and many other things. Using windows is borrowing some shoes while Linux can be your favorite slipper.

  • perching_aix  5 days ago

    Do you have any easy automations in mind that would be broadly appealing and one really needs to go out of their way to implement on Windows / is impossible to do so?

    I have a few things here and there, but it's more a scheduled script or two than anything more elaborate, and I don't think they were difficult to make and deploy.

    > you can switch out your audio stack

    Why would I want that? Isn't this more for someone doing live audio production (e.g. due to latency concerns)?

    In general, the customizability angle is also another that doesn't resonate with me much. It's less that I want to customize my stuff, and more that I want my stuff to be to my liking from the get-go.

    • skydhash  5 days ago

      > Do you have any easy automations in mind that would be broadly appealing and one really needs to go out of their way to implement on Windows / is impossible to do so?

      There’s no broad stroke here. It’s more about the possibility to adjust something here and there. I don’t have anything against windows technically (I’ll use it with no complaints if it’s work provided).

      When I notice something I don’t like (workflow mostly instead of appearance), I want to be able to fix it instead of suffering it (unless I’m being paid).

  • wolvesechoes  4 days ago

    > if you're using IDEs, OSes don't really matter

    Unless you are using Visual Studio that blews out every other IDE out of the water if you consider debugging and profiling experience.

    > As in case for the desktop, you can switch out your audio stack, alter the display of any element and many other things. Using windows is borrowing some shoes while Linux can be your favorite slipper.

    Ah yes, biggest Linux advantage - being a mud hut.

Aeolun  5 days ago

Well, the thing I absolutely love about my linux setup, is that I can literally leave my computer running for a year, come back after that one year, and find it in exactly the state I left it. The system will never attempt to do anything for my own protection. No updates without me confirming them, never suddenly having it shut down because there’s a “critical” vulnerability. When it updates it never magically reverts a setting I had set.

Everything it does or doesn’t do is my responsibility.