Comment by meandmycode
18 days ago
I will say, for anybody reading and finds it in any way uplifting, I have been a Windows user for 30 years, been a .net developer for 5 years at one point, groaned at how bad the 'Linux desktop' always was, but this year I finally switched to using Linux instead of Windows and I think it's because the inflexion point is starting to hit more of the masses.
AI is the best thing that happened to desktop Linux!
This actually. AI is dramatically better at helping users deal with perennial issues that Linux gets, and using the command line to fix them, compared to Microsoft's fresh new bug introduced last Tuesday or navigating anti-user GUI.
I've been amazed at AI's usefulness for Linux sysadmin tasks.
Last week I installed KDE on a new computer with two identical SSDs. One I wanted to wipe for the OS and the other I wanted to keep the data on.
Unfortunately I couldn't tell which one to install the OS on! ChatGPT helped me open a terminal and run the correct udevadm and lsblk commands to see what files existed on each disk.
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You’re absolutely correct what used to take me hours reading docs and googling now takes minutes to find an answer to. Just this week my new beelink I couldnt get hardware acceleration working for transcoding. A couple prompts lead me to the fact the gpu was new and I needed a newer Linux kernel. I probably would have spent hours and hours fiddling with device drivers and configs in the past.
That is true but I believe he meant it as Microsoft shoving AI down your throat in every part of Windows driving people away into Linux.
>AI is dramatically better at helping users deal with perennial issues that Linux gets
This was my first thought. All Linux troubleshooting with AI resulted in hallucinatory commands that don't exist or work on this version of the OS, and managed to help me trash one system installation.
Has anything changed?
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That sounds... quite bad, to be honest. I never met one single Windows issue that can't be answered by simple google search for years. A desktop expecting the user to ask AI(!) for solutions that require command line(!!) is definitely not for average users.
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AI for help figuring things out and Timeshift for when you accidentally break something. One reboot and it’s fixed.
given that:
- AI is what gave Nvidia reason to finally work on GPU drivers (Linux is premier environment for AI/ML workloads)
- LLMs are more useful on Linux than on Windows (although manuals are still unbeatable)
- Windows users are sick of Copilot bullshit
...yeah, I almost agree. the best thing that happened to Linux is Valve consistently pouring a ton of resources into open-source Linux projects, but AI bubble firmly holds the second place position.
Gamer for a few decades, this year home desktop is finally Linux. (Though my work laptops were already that way.)
I just need a better Nvidia support for something outside Arch niche (cachyos) in this space.
I'm already packed and ready to migrate. Can't wait.
> I just need a better Nvidia support…
Unfortunately Nvidia support mostly depends on Nvidia, they've done their best to keep info about their cards away from the Open Source driver projects.
Never had Nvidia issues on Fedora and Ubuntu so far, 1P a multi computer research lab as well.
Which is why it is relevant to foster a native Linux gaming ecosystem, and not one that depends on running Windows games.
Ditto, but .net dev for ~20 years, now fully Linux for personal compute. Workplace is making a beeline for mac / linux full stack, and completely ditching Windows.
Alas, while all new development is on .net core, the main money maker is a .net 4.8 website, so no way to move off windows for me, for now (no, I don't want to dual boot).
Which distribution?
I personally went with https://endeavouros.com/ in the end, so far working really great, I appreciate Linux distributions will have different audiences which is great, I think regardless of distribution though it seems like a lot more software (and hardware) is 'just working' and it's actually delightful to use the computer again, kudos to many hard working people making free software