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 perfectly with proton experimental on my steam deck tho
Diablo 4 works on Linux, PlayStation and Xbox. Diablo 3 works on the same plus Mac and Switch.
I haven’t tried D4 but D3 works fine.
Diablo 3 has worked with wine for a very long time.
https://www.protondb.com/app/2344520 - Platinum
And from what I can see Diablo 3 works fine with Lutris.
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.
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Same (after reading this comment). Flatpak is some new fangled contraption. /s
A person can’t know everything.
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.
Ha you think I can possibly code a UI ? Command line only. Maybe curses if absolutely necessary.
Still under baked…
S2g linux users are their own worst enemies
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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
And we’ll fight to the death to decide which ones those are!
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.
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.
For me it’s…
- Visual Studio Enterprise (VS Code with a hundred plugins still doesn’t come close)
- SQL Server Management Studio (though with extensions, Azure Data Studio has gotten me pretty damn close)
- Full-featured Office 365 software (Edge web versions are somewhat sufficient, but not quite there)
- Teams with multi-tenant. The desktop Windows app lets me quickly switch between the 6 orgs I need to, unfortunately on Linux I have to have 6 different browser profiles and use the web version which just doesn’t fly.
- More responsive RDP. Unfortunately for server management I’m juggling 3-4 RDP instances daily and I’m not typically allowed to install AnyDesk or VNC or anything. I’ve tried a couple RDP alternatives and there were just all sorts of problems from keyboard issues to rendering issues to general sluggishness.
- There is one weird VPN program a job forces me to run and unfortunately it isn’t available on Linux.
But! All the above said, I run Linux and have a Windows VM. And I also run Windows and have a Linux VM - so it’s almost there for me. If work & clients all ditched Microsoft’s ecosystem, it’d be a lot easier for me to but, unfortunately, they pay my bills.
The first condition already are In practice tru proton and wine (even the principal anticheat work). But the second is probably impossible, people will try to convince you to use the distros that they believe is good
Saying that, Linux mind is a good option for a Windows user
Exactly. I have my setup just the way I like it for final fantasy. ACT (a packet capturing DPS meter) doesn’t work without windows. Once that’s supported I may hop ship.
If a piece of software requires you to re-buy itself for a different platform why would you use such an application? I don’t get why people choose to torture themselves when there are SO many alternatives to literally anything.
@nolight @CheeseNoodle I believe one use-case for those licensed paid programs are the business who truly need some trustworthy software and dedicated support. The FOSS might be great for personal use, but maybe LibreOffice doesn’t fit every company’s needs
I agree, though I think LibreOffice is not a great example as there’s very little room for error and something that you would need “dedicated support” for. That’s how I see it anyway. Never worked in an office.
However, the majority of companies that require using paid proprietary software also require the use of Windows itself. A safe bet in this situation would be to just set up a VM for work and use Linux for everything else.
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.
QEMU has native 3D support.
Hmm, that sounds good. After all, it seems I’ll have to learn using QEMU soon anyway.
Read the arch docs and setup the virt-manager and you’ll have windows in a VM faster than virtualbox at near native speeds.
Isn’t that only for Linux guests?
Nope it’s passthrough.
Don’t you need a second GPU for passthrough?
Nope you just can’t switch in and out once the GPU passthrough starts.
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.
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.
Not quite a program but I fricking love KRunner. And Kate and Dolphin, though available in Windows, don’t work as well.
How else am I supposed to run Bonzi Buddy?
Awww man I miss that purple lil asshole, I used to make him swear all the time when I was a kid.
Plus now I can’t think of that Daisy, Daisy song without hearing his creepy little robotic voice.
It’s a pretty simple Visual Basic 6 app so I’d be surprised if it didn’t work using WINE.
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.
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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
I’m paying the tech debt of not switching sooner.
I’ve run Linux for years on servers and in VMs in VMware Workstation, but not my main OS because of games. I’ve tried before but games just didn’t work well. Tried again recently and the games I’m playing now worked with no issues with Lutris and Steam. I could already do “everything else” on Linux so this is the longest I’ve gone without booting back to my Windows disk. Already have a Kali VM in virt-manager and will add a Windows VM if I hit an application snag. But so far haven’t had any app issues. If this continues I’ll be wiping the Windows disk to make more space for Linux.
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.
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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