Should You Declare Windependence? I Switched to Linux to Find Out.

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
petersutton213 Said: P.S When Win7 does become obsolete I WILL SWITCH TO LINUX!
Click to expand...
From MS web site and I quote "Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015."
So what are you waiting for, MS support for Windows 7 is already ended, therefore the product is obsolete and unsupported, therefore you should already be on Linux..

Claims, are one thing, but like chrisbryant so eloquently explained, close to 80-90% of the "infrastructure systems" are a variant of BSD , Unix or Linux, and that is reality.

Sure windows is the likely solution for the desktop gamer on pc (though its loosing traction against consoles more and more), but as more and more the "interface" moves to tablet, phones and other device; more and more android will be the OS of choice. (yes I am not speaking of Apple Inc. products for the sake of clarity as they hold a small market that doesn't affect this conversation).

Should the desktop and laptop users migrate to linux? Unless your doing office work, running a subpar system (duocore2 and such), do not want to pay for upgrades or software licenses and/or not a gamer I would suggest not.

But, if you want to learn more about it, keep windows and get VirtualBox and run Linux in VM mode and get familiar with the "flavor of the month" your prefer to use.. Once your familiar enough with it and accept it is what you need, then you can jump ship and become a purist Linux user.

I personally opted for that years ago, and I run 11 OS inside windows. (And only 4 are linux) on my main system, run a laptop running OS/2 Warp, and a Desktop Running only Linux.

Yes I know you can run virtual desktops and Wine applications making linux with windows inside it. Same could be said with Apple running windows & Linux in VM, and this is digressing the point.

Ease of and OS usage is only a matter of programming and a very good gui interface. Does Linux out of the iso provide this... ? sure? does it do it as well as Windows or apple... nah.. but, if you started a kid on their first computer and made them use Linux, with running games in wine, you might realize that the beauty or ease of use of a device is in the eye of the beholder.

Has Linux over the last 25 Years made progress in the eyes of the home user, I would say yes, Ubuntu (to name one) and their effortless team, have worked very hard at making an OS that is one of the first to rival Windows with ease of use,incorporating massive hardware identification and drivers support (ever looked on their forums?)

Is it windows? of course not, can it be made to look like it?, sure but a theme doesn't make it the same.
 
Well, golly! The comments are even better than the article. I used to play code racer against IBM. It was easy to win, because I had better H/W (Comten) and knew how the software worked, from analyzing actual network traffic, not reading the big blue docs. Business is business. Technology is fun. We each follow our muses 😉
 
Instead of using Pendrive Linux tool, use Rufus and make a GPT/EFI install disk from the downloaded ISO. Linux boots just fine with UEFI and can chainload windows from the GRUB menu. Ubuntu and its derivatives support secure boot as well.

While everyone says Linux Mint is the best, having tried many flavors, I prefer Ubuntu and its lightweight sibling Lubuntu because it has the most vendor support.

Battery life is much better with Windows.
 
Use Rufus instead of Pendrive Linux tool and set it for GPT / EFI to turn the download iso into UEFI boot stick. This will let you dual boot properly. Ubuntu linuxes support Secure Boot as well.

The Linux problem is the anarchy around design philosophy. Everyone has a different idea of how things *should* work and that is reflected in the flying formation of the backend apps that make up linuxes.

Having used many Linuxes I settle on Lubuntu most often, as it has Ubuntu as its base, being the one with the most vendor support, and is extremely lightweight on resources.

For laptops, Windows has much better battery life. Linux is not as efficient at running stuff as Windows, despite what everyone says. Windows is just better optimised, even though it is a heavyweight OS in RAM usage these days.
 
uhm, this is written by a person who doesn't even use windows the correct way, he is a writer, I am surprised he doesn't use MacOS tbh. Linux does many things way better than Windows, and vice versa, depending on it's use. I am a system admin, and we use linux way more than any windows server for it's robust server tech. While Windows Servers are weak. However, in application form? ofcourse any one will prefer windows for it's ease of use. It depends how you use the OS you are working with. Please ignore this article, as it is written from the wrong perspective.
 
I personally use Windows 10 at home even know Im on Linux all day at work admittedly with Classic shell installed. I just like the ease of use not having to tweak/configure things and the GUI imo is far superior to any Linux distro. Plus I like to play games and simply don't want the hassle with Linux compatibility issues or having to run games via a compatibility layer like Wine/CrossOver.
 


I see this article as a more average user type. That to me is the downside to Linux. For the average user a better distro would be overwhelming. It is probably why it has not taken off in the mainstream desktop market.

Sure people can point out MacOS. However MacOS locks the OS downand keeps it simplistic, no need to fiddle with the in depth settings. Then you could point out Android. Again it is a predesigned OS that is simplified for the end user, much like Microsoft.

Thats the one benefit Microsoft has. Windows 10 is Windows 10. The OS itself will act the same minus hardware differences that may change it but at its core it runs the same on every machine just like Android or MacOS (minus of course performance due to low end or high end systems).

The other side is support. While some distros are pushing towards a centralized support most are not. They may have a forum where the "experts" can help but those same experts can also overwhelm the end user. This is a major reason why most enterprises have not fully switched to Linux. Support is a major factor in IT.



Mainstream meaning major patches such as service packs. Extended support is security patches which are still going till January 14th 2020.

And I doubt PC gaming is losing any traction to consoles. Last year there were more PC games released than console. And on the flip side the consoles are just becoming more and more PC like every year.
 
I prefer Android Over Linux TBH ... I really wish that Android X86 Version becomes more popular. it is far better than any Linux Distro today and the App store is enough reason.
 


Linux isn't perfectly malware free. The only reason you see it as free as you do is because Linux doesn't hold nearly as much desktop space as Windows does. (Same for Apple's modified Linux called OS-X)
 
Your UEFI boot issues might be nicely handled by installing 'rEFInd', a UEFI boot manager produced by Roderick Smith. Once you have your Linux installed & bootable (dual-boot or not), you set rEFInd as the default boot handler, then change your BIOS back to UEFI boot. rEFInd will provide a graphical menu to select between Linux, Windows, other OSes, EFI shells, memory testers, diagnostics, rebooting, or shutdown. It will remember what was selected the previous boot and default to that. For Linux booting, it can take advantage of the stub-loading feature of kernels since 3.3, which makes configuration fast & easy (and auto-adapts to kernel upgrades).
 
For those talking about de-Googleing and Android being a pain point (I wholeheartedly agree), you might want to check out Purism's Librem5 coming out Jan 2019 running PureOS: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Hopefully they will do what Canonical backed out of doing, providing an actual open source, privacy focused, and reliable mobile platform. Probably will be close in functionality to early versions of iOS and Android, but should have enough features to convince people to switch over and start contributing to drive up feature parity. :)

And then we need deal with manufactures trying to include Alexa in everything and have everything always listening, even if it doesn't make much sense...
 


Ubuntu already tried to make mobile version and failed. Linux is not suitable for mobile . and Mobile OS needs a huge company behind it for updates .
 

An interesting set of claims. Ubuntu did make a mobile version, but was forced by investor interests to abandon it before it was complete. (It's up to the armchair quarterbacks to debate whether they would have ultimately succeeded or not.)

Linux is not suitable for mobile? Yet 80% of smart phones shipped last year were Linux smart phones. That's Linux as in Android, which uses the Linux kernel. Canonical's phone OS was equally based on the Linux kernel. And neither phone OS used "Linux" as in "GNU/Linux" or the "Linux user space"; they are both operating systems tailored for mobile devices.

Canonical has proven themselves quite capable of creating, testing, and publishing OS updates.

 
As soon as I read the title of the article, I knew there was going to be a divisive conversation in the comment section.

Linux has a polarizing effect on computer users. Linux users SWEAR by it and they'll try and sell it to you when the conversation comes up.

-Linux is free.
-A significant part of enterprise hardware runs Linux.
-You never need to restart Linux and it never breaks and never crashes.
-Its super efficient, requires half the memory and a fifth the disc space as Windows
-You can customize every aspect of the UI, every menu, every icon, every pixel on the screen
-Linux so invulnerable to viruses and malware that using it long enough will cure any of your own biological aliments

The you hear anecdotes like, "I've been using Linux since 1972. When Windoze came out in the 80's, I threw up so hard that I became malnourished and I had to go to the hospital and get IVs to restore my body fluids. I reserve a week long stay in the hospital every time there's a new release of Windoze just in case."

Or better yet, "I tried to use Windows once but it destroyed all of the electronic appliances in my house"

Or even, "Windows is bad. Linux is good."

There's an expression tossed around the dark web that you might hear every now and then: "Smart enough for Linux." I never knew what that meant until I installed Ubuntuu Linux on my computer a few years back. My experience was a lot like the author's. All of the basic functionality seemed to work without too much fuss, but doing anything with Linux beyond web surfing is like pulling teeth. I made a list to help illustrate this:

Wanna browse the web? Easy.
Wanna listen to an MP3? Easy.
Wanna do anything else? Command prompt.

Linux users blame the victim when the experience goes south. They tell you to stop complaining. The command prompt is super simple to learn. Its your fault for not making the effort to memorize a new language. Then you hear about their own computer history like, "I started as a tech support agent for IBM in 1988 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... and that's how I ended up as the lead engineer at NASA." LINUX IS HARD TO LEARN IF YOU'RE COMING FROM WINDOWS.

This is a segue into the Windows section of my rant. Windows, by comparison, is:

-Expensive
-Not great for the enterprise environment.
-Does weird stuff all the time.
-Bloated and requires tons of resources.
-Kind of customizable sometimes.
-Needs its vaccinations or it WILL contract polio.

So that means.... crap... where was I going with this? Oh yeah, Windows just works. That's what idiots like me are looking for in an operating system. There are no forks of Windows you need to research. No separate GUIs to pick from. No WINE. No dual booting. No terminal. Thank God no terminal. If you want to add something to Windows you download it and double click it. Done.

Some people in these comments say that they would install Linux on a friend's computer instead of Windows. Well, the question is who is going to format the hard drive and install Windows for them afterwards? If someone doesn't know how to build their own computer, then they probably aren't willing to get a bachelors degree in Linux Terminal.

Linux is excellent software that serves its fan base well, but its inappropriate for 95% of the PC community. I'm glad you guys like it, but I'm very happy with crappy Windows.

 
Lots of Mint users apparently. I've got a Plex server running on Mint, which is nice because I can leave it up and running for weeks without rebooting or demanding maintenance updates *cough cough Windows 10* but I've had issues setting up things like SSH, Samba, and remote desktop connections whereas with Windows those things are fairly easy.
 
It's all about preference. It's the same today as it was ten years ago. Linux is a fine end user operating system, no different than Windows or Mac. It's all about the user. What they want to do, how they want to do it, and if they hate 'X' enough to use something else out of sheer spite.

I'm alo sure it's also no different than it was 10 years ago where there is a diehard community certain that *now* Linux will kill Microsoft/Apple/Whoever. It won't.
 
The reason I left Windows 10 for good was when to play Solitaire I was asked to login using my XBox user id. I've never played console games, so I had none, and I created one. But it seemed to me that was very intrusive.

Also, networking was just terrible (I had upgraded from Windows 7, where I got everything working nice). Sometimes none of the other computers in the network were visible, sometimes only those running Windows 10 as well. I had other older computers running Win7 and XP.

So I moved to Ubuntu and so far so good. Networking is a breeze, ssh is superior, remote works like a charm, and I can filter the whole Internet out but my own network computers from work and home thanks to iptables. I only use my computers for productivity, and I've found Linux to be as good, if not better, than Windows 10.
 
1. UEFI and secure boot worked as designed by MS: aggravate dual boot installs and drive you insane.
2. Linux Mint is based on a light weight UI which uses an old "engine". It is retro on purpose (it is like driving a '60 car and complaining that it is old). pls try Gnome 3 or KDE based distros or other yet known to be more up to date (elementary OS).
3. if you go to a new os of course you will not find familiar things: the learning curve is steep.
4. linux is a rugged car designed to be easily fixed and modified. it is not for show. Internet, under the radar corporate stuff, bioinformatics (genetics stuff), several proprietary OSs are based on or use GNU/linux for this exact reason: if you know what you are doing , the sky is the limit. If not you crash and burn....or you learn a little
5. lack of some programs is not Linux fault. Adobe could make Photoshop for Linux but it does not.
6. for god sake: Linux it is FREE and does not spy on you.
7. one of the reasons MS forced PC companies to pre load their OS, gives to universities almost for free and in the past allowed piracy is to you get hooked so change feel really painful, like going to automatic to stick shift
8. linux sure could become more user-friendly, but it might lose some of the characteristics that make it so flexible. Sorry for typo and not-so-good English
 
The main point I can make here (and it is not "trying to convince anyone") is:
Why switch?
What is the reason, advantage of switching, for mainstream users?
Even if there are few disadvantages with Linux, what are the main advantages that I, as an User, would get?

(Especially when I have no ideology/ideals/convictions one way or the other. Not counting industrial or critical applications also)

PS: bdd1040, Microsoft still allows piracy. It makes absolutely no effort to stop pirates from getting full, updateable copies, I'd guess mainly because they'd rather have one non-paying-but-captive user instead of a non-paying linux user.
 


Sorry your claim is false about the android phones being Linux , if you look at them as a whole system they are not the same.

Even Samsung a Huge Company failed to compete Against Android with their Tizen OS. and it IS a LINUX Platform.

I dont care about the kernel being the same . I care about Support and Reliability and Resources . and this needs a huge company behind it . not a company that asks people to donate . and this will need a huge library of Applications and Third party devs will not waste their time to port their application to a phone that will be 0.0001 of the market share.


Devs want money and the APP store of Linus Mobile did not start yet. and its share of the market is minimal to make Devs add to the new App store.

Linux failed in the APP Store even for Desktop PC if you compare it against IOS Store or Android Store.

Why ? because devs dont care to port their apps to Linux .. they look at the statitstics and how many are using Linux and is it profitable or not for them. and they dont port their apps .. because simply , Linux users are not that big for Desktops and most wont pay money anyways for APPS . most are students and poor people , and this is not good for any APP store.

If the desktop Linux Failed in their App Store after 40 years of existence , you expect them to win in mobile ?

Their Apps library failed to compete ! even in the desktop market.
 

Most Linux distros are geared for desktop use. You can significantly improve battery life under Linux using tools like Powertop and then following its recommendations.

The biggest problem is that most power saving features are controlled through the BIOS (or UEFI) and MANY have been tested against a single version of Windows, and are thus inherently unstable as soon as you switch OSes.

For example, several OEM or embedded systems I know don't play well with Linux due to UEFI incompatibilities... and started crashing on more recent versions of Windows 10. On the other hand, an old netbook I have was horrible under Linux until I installed a BIOS update from the manufacturer that mentioned "EC bin file" (as in, "embedded controller") - and suddenly I only needed a couple settings enabled to have the same autonomy as I had under Windows (and in some cases, even better when I started tinkering with vm.swappiness and zram).
 

The primary reason Linux keeps failing on desktop is because of the disconnect between what apologists says about its greatness and the real experience. Office clones doesn't work flawlessly. The UI isn't as magnificent and clever as it's said to be. The performance isn't mind-blowing. Setting those unreal expectations puts almost everyone off who testes it as it's just another desktop alternative with a lot less software.

You are free to argue that Android isn't Linux as it's so extremely customized towards a mobile experience.
Like I mentioned above, the reason others are "failing" with alternatives to Google's Android aren't as clear cut as it being impossible. Amazon could still be the biggest tablet manufacturer today had they continued developing their alternative. They just didn't see any value in the bigger picture. It's a drop in the ocean compared to what they make on commerce. The thing they wanted was a way to get people to shop at Amazon and they got Alexa to do that for them. Despite the massive disinformation about how Samsung used their custom mobile OS, that system was never meant as an attempt to take over the market. Well, it was until Android came along, after that they just used their own software for testing new hardware that had no support on Android. Both for convenience and to reduce unwanted hardware leaks.

If a big enough conglomerate/manufacturer decides to fork Android out of Google's grasp, it's not that hard to succeed. Again, Amazon did it to the extent Google basically dropped their Nexus tablets as they couldn't compete.
 


It was still multiple Windows for me when I installed it in Mint.
 
Oh another thing I like about Linux is the directory structure. It's much more predictable than Windows, where it seems each application keeps things in its own folder, and you can have several versions of the same library installed in very different places.

In Linux everything is very logical: you know where you find the binaries, where the configuration files, where the logs, where the files pointing to hardware devices, where the demons, etc. I love that. And there's no registry to deal with. The main reason computers on Windows slow down year after year is the registry, where leftovers of anything you installed always remain, and you'd have to go line by line for over 10,000 lines to remove everything --no registry cleaner is 100% effective.

The main reasons to use Linux, though, are these:

-- You got older computers, where Win10 runs sluggish;
-- You got VERY old computers, you want to use as servers (and for serving files, you want the added security layer);
-- You got a network integrating new, old, and very old computers --if you had some running Win10, others Win7 and yet others still stuck in XP, you'll find a lot of problems with networking;
-- You're focused on productivity: office work, scientific research, controlling lab appliances remotely, etc. --whatever the recent Steam efforts, Linux is NOT a platform for gamers, probably never will be, because of the closed source nature of the most recent advancements;
-- You're the logical type, if something doesn't work, the way to solve it comes to you in a minute or less, and you don't mind trying things out because you have a good idea how to revert it all back if you have to;
-- You love computers, and want to learn at a deeper level how they work, what is the human logic that gives rise to such machines, and have always been fascinated by the original Paper Computers from the time of Turing and Babbage.

So it's basically how your brain works & what you want to do. If you want to do something with the computer without taking the time to know how it actually works and networks, something for which the ideal software already exists and is configured as you like it out-of-the-box, and don't care that much about your privacy and the control you have over the data going around, you probably will be better off with a Mac or a Windows computer.

If you're the logical type who loves digging into the why and wherefore, and dislikes having your machines sending random info about yourself to who knows where, then you should go for it. Linux becomes second nature to us logical types in a matter of weeks, I've been using Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu & Puppy for two years and right now I feel already very confident about solving any problem that comes my way, either on my own or with community help. Also, if you have old hardware you still use for some purpose or another, Linux can be a godsend.

PS: In Linux everything is very customizable. If you don't like how a program, say GIMP, looks, just go and play with the preferences until you find the right 'feel' for you. At worst, customizing may require typing some rather obscure variables in some config file in /etc or in ~/.[program], but you can find info on those online.
 
I just had a good chuckle on the second post in the comments. I don't know why Mint is always recommended to newcomers. Supposedly because it "looks like Windows" Far from it. And as usual going to give the newcomers headaches and cause them to ditch their Linux experiment.

I always state that Ubuntu is the most friendly to first time users. Never had an issue installing Ubuntu and always have had issues and frustrations trying to install Mint.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom