I’ve seen a trend where people move the goalposts on the reasons they’re not able to switch. “If only this program worked I could switch”, but when that program is ported it’ll be a new excuse next. Sooner or later you’ll have to draw a line and say “99% of my stuff works, the 1% that doesn’t can get bent”.
Moving goalposts is a concept that applies to debates. Choosing an operating system shouldn’t be a debate. It’s a personal choice, or sometimes a professional choice. Convincing people who don’t want to be convinced shouldn’t be anyone’s goal.
I didn’t mean my post to be read as trying to convince someone to use Linux, but as someone trying to convince themselves to use Linux. It’s fairly common that people want to switch but have convinced themselves that unless they have their exact same workflow from Windows they won’t be able to.
It’s scary. Straight up. You don’t know if changing it will put you into a situation where there is no one there to help. All your information is on these machines and Windows for all it’s faults is a bought product with customer service.
Making a change without a safety net or someone to walk you through it is ballsy. Research is important and no offense, hard to find for Linux. Sure there are many “how to” videos and scenarios. But what if I play a game and I cannot absolutely live without it. And all of its plugins?
Well, no duh.
M$ has been the dominant OS for the majority of a lot of peoples lives, accordingly a massive, massive ecosystem has grown up around it.
My IT career has taken me some weird and wonderful places, and there is a lot of extremely specialised software that will only run on windows, and wine unfortunately still has a bit of a stigma with its interoperability. When you’re running shit a business literally relies on to exist, you don’t play games with it.
Fortunately m$ are shooting themselves in the face, which is driving a lot of vendors to rethink their software., but it’s still a slog.
Or better yet, that 1% can run in a VM
or on wine
Wine is so much better these days it’s not even funny
Yeah, they’re doing great work.
I switched to Ubuntu a few months ago and the only thing that doesn’t work are a few online games due to anti-cheat software and those games I’ll just play on PS5 now. I don’t see myself ever going back at this point. Every issue I have encountered I’ve been able to resolve with a quick google search. Google search has been getting kinda shitty so that’s the next thing I’m looking to replace.
If you’re willing to pay for a search engine, I highly recommend Kagi. I’ve been using it for a few months and I like the results better than Google or any other search engine I’ve tried.
Time to host your own SearXng instance
At this point I have used duckduckgo for years with no issues.
And the reason is going to be “enterprise” software, which is usually a pile of a flaming wreck that barely runs in its native Windows environment in the first place. So it is with the point of sale/inventory software I have to use for work. I can run it in a VM, but it explodes spectacularly in Wine.
I had used Linux before so I wasn’t too worried, but gaming for me was the reason. With Proton I had the desire to switch, but I needed something to just push me over the edge. I wasn’t taking the leap on my own. For one Windows update it put the search bar back on the Taskbar, which I had told it to remove. Microsoft, once again, ignoring what I had told it before to try to force me to use something is the thing that pushed me over. It’s such a small thing, but it’ll be different for everyone.
I don’t blame anyone for not switching. It’s a fairly large change (though not as large as some imagine). Most people will just stick with what they know until something comes along that makes them trip up, and then the thing they know is seen as a hindrance. That’s going to be different for everyone. We just need to inform people that, when that thing comes, there is an option for them that will handle pretty much whatever they need.
Sometimes that’s reasonable. If the stuff you need doesn’t work, fighting it or pushing that boulder up hill is not worth it.
You may not realize certain things are deal breakers until they are stating you in the face.
Diablo 4 and 3. Thats my dealbreaker
Diablo 4 works on Linux, PlayStation and Xbox. Diablo 3 works on the same plus Mac and Switch.
Diablo 4 works perfectly with proton experimental on my steam deck tho
https://www.protondb.com/app/2344520 - Platinum
And from what I can see Diablo 3 works fine with Lutris.
Diablo 3 has worked with wine for a very long time.
I haven’t tried D4 but D3 works fine.
A real Linux boi would rewrite the program from scratch custom tailored to his personal needs.
I run Arch , by the way.
I use gentoo, fyi
sploosh
i feel so incompetent compared to other linux users, like i didnt even know flatpak had a repair command until today
If it makes you feel any better, I’m a total fraud. I’ve used Linux Mint a few times, so now I can say I’m a Linux user.
Exactly the same with me. Very occasional Mint user. I will never touch Win11, so when Win10 hits EoL I’m screwed if I haven’t learned to deal with the friction of learning Linux.
I may end up regressing to a PC-less monke until I figure it out. Windows can kiss my primate ass.
Same (after reading this comment). Flatpak is some new fangled contraption. /s
A person can’t know everything.
Meanwhile I’m over here, not used windows on my own machine in more than 1.75 years and I don’t even touch the terminal most of the time, I know how some commands work, but I hardly touch them
I should really learn to do more with it, but I have my system setup and working how I like, So I don’t really have motivation to learn to do all this other cool stuff
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Until remember patient exists and legally cannot create another copy. Sure you made one yourself but can never release it to the public.
If you aren’t creating custom software to address one-off needs, are you really a Linux user?
Even without that, things can go really bad:
- You’re the only developer, then you burn out on the project.
- You underbake the UI so much your project becomes infamous for how hard it is to use, complete with an elitist userbase that just screams “git gud” memes at everyone asking for help (most often happens to dev tools).
The rare occasion, it’ll become like Krita, modern Blender, Audacity, etc.
S2g linux users are their own worst enemies
Ha you think I can possibly code a UI ? Command line only. Maybe curses if absolutely necessary.
Still under baked…
Can’t force em, let them live with their choices.
TFW you’ve never heard of a virtual machine
If only Virtualbox 7 didn’t fuck up 3D acceleration.
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Hmm, that sounds good. After all, it seems I’ll have to learn using QEMU soon anyway.
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Isn’t that only for Linux guests?
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Don’t you need a second GPU for passthrough?
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How about VMware?
I didn’t try that one yet.
I use the free version for my Win10 VM. It works well, plus it’s super easy to share folders between guest and host. I’m not sure about 3D though, I use it for Photoshop & Illustrator.
I want to use linux and will use it when two conditions are met:
-All my work software and the games I play the most all work on it (without requiring me to re-buy shit I already own to get a linux compatable version)
-Its user friendly enough that asking which version I should use as a beginner doesn’t result in all the linux users immediately descending into the thread equivelent of a cartoon fight cloud with random limbs flailing around.Having an opinionated and somewhat socially inept userbase doesn’t mean the OS isn’t user-friendly.
There are many linux distros that focus on being user friendly and they really are.
somewhat socially inept userbase
I’m way more socially inept than just somewhat
I second that. The friendliness of the main help forum(s) for the distro is what’s really the key, moreso than the software itself.
And we’ll fight to the death to decide which ones those are!
Oi, but I do agree.
man reading this was like seeing someone kidnap a mcdonald’s employee and expecting the execs to pay ransom
For the last bit, that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s like going to an ice cream shop and complaining there are too many flavors and people arguing over which flavor is best makes you decide to just not get ice cream.
What you should do instead is look at the flavors of ice cream and weigh what you want with what each flavor is. Only you know what you desire. Windows wants to make their system work for everyone, so then it works for no one because everyone has different wants and needs. It’s the ice cream flavor of them shoving every ingredient together and it just creates a mess.
As for games, it’s pretty good now. There’s the issue of some multiplayer games not having updated their anti-cheat, but a lot of anti-cheat is ready. Easy anti-cheat, for example, is fine if the devs have updated it and implemented it. However, it’s not like Proton where it makes most things work without devs doing any work. Check ProtonDB for compatibility.
What work software do you need? There are alternatives for MS Office, including online versions of MS Office that don’t require an OS. Blender is great. There are plenty of code editors. Most of the alternatives are also FOSS so don’t require buying anything, though donating is encouraged.
What games do you play? If you’re playing through steam, you can search protondb.com for your games to see how playable they are on Linux.
Personally 6570 days without windows, and counting.
6461 days for me
But think of all the programs that don’t even exist on Windows:)
Foliate is hands down the best ebook reader
Okular is good enough for me. It has at least 3 dark modes and I can hide all the UI in non-fullscreen mode.
WSL ;)
I quite like both OSs but mostly for different reasons.
Just use a windows VM lol. Only problem I’ve encountered outside of that was a lockdown browser for school but I just put that on a burner laptop because there is no way I’m letting some rando have root access to my main pc
Come on that was half the plot of Skyfall after all.
I’m currently learning FreeCAD so that the one machine I still have sitting around to run Fusion360 can be liberated from Windows at long last. And as a bonus I won’t have to keep updating NoMachine every couple weeks.
Is Rustdesk an option?
Might be, but all remote access software sucks to some degree. I’d much rather not need it all by not having an old windows box I need to remote into.
icome from solidworks and use oneshape now its cloud based but for personal use free and its pretty simmilar to solideworks
I’m not OK with all my models being public unless I pay.
I feel that the no machine updates are insane
FreeCAD is such garbage though. In something like 6 months, CadSketcher blender plugin made something that was far more functional, and FreeCAD has been in development for 20 years and it still can’t provide a logical, cohesive CAD experience.
Honestly, Solidworks is my hangup too, so I get the willingness to castrate yourself in order to just move to Linux finally. I’m thinking of moving over to their 3DExperienceWorks product that runs in the browser. If it handles my workflow, and I can get the cheap “maker” license without them ever asking me to upgrade it, then I’m finally down to switch full time.
The other big problem that I generally have is window-decoration and padding. I need to find a window manager where I can have things with embedded tabs but pixel-perfect edges. I like a single-pixel edge to my applications and as dense as possible window title bars.
Now that Firefox is releasing Wayland enabled by default, it might be the time to try again.
I’m paying the tech debt of not switching sooner.
Just yesterday I updated an 8bitdo controller’s firmware. I just keep a laptop with windows around for this sort of nonsense. And no, it’s one of the older ones that do not work with the android app, not that using the app is any better.
I have a GameSir G7-SE, and despite I still can’t leave Windows for software development reasons, I feel your pain.
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I like running windows in a vm it’s like having an animal in a cage you can poke with a stick. Not that I would do that. Hypothetically of course.
I have a pretty good streak without Windows, I use macOS and Linux, and everything I need is available. If not, I can use Wine, and it works. And Proton is just amazing, the number of games you can play with it without ONE SINGLE PROBLEM is just insane.
sadly my count will stay at zero because my work laoptop has windows 10 on it
That’s what weekends are for. No windows on my PC. The worst thing with this windows stuff at work is that it is needed for running some antique software that still needs win7. At least the win98 machine has been retired.
