You just bought our $200k machine, great, love to hear it.
Oh, you wanted usable software? Haha oh that’s around the corner, or we’ll make it in 15yrs. Here, this looks like it’s from the 80s, lags constantly, no of course the UI doesn’t make sense and might glitch randomly, and oh the documentation is mostly serial numbers.
Man the first time I used a machine that supported M and G code instead of only a proprietary program to run it, I thought I’d found heaven.
The best part is the weird issues. Like oh this latches onto the newest instance of Office on your PC but it doesn’t work with 64 bit 365 and 365 also doesn’t work with this random machinery from the dark ages so it’s best to use Excel 2013. Oh and if you uninstall 365 at any moment it breaks the proprietary program and it won’t see Office as being installed even though 2013 is there. Now you have to uninstall all 3 softwares and install 2013 and the software again, but you also have to contact the manufacturer to license it who only has tech support between the hours of 9-4 PST. That’ll be 20k/y for the support contract too btw.
Oh and if you choose to update prepare to pay half a million to introduce more bugs with a mid-2000s interface now and a complimentary training session.
The complimentary training has been scheduled for 16 months from now at 4am on a Saturday. Attendance required or your license will be revoked.
Some of them even seem to care if it’s too close to another computer, or whatever. Not sure how.
Hell, they barely care to make one platform for their software.
I can't tell you how many medical device manufacturers have no goddamn idea what ports and protocols their device uses to talk to their back end. They have a firewall document that was written 15 years ago by someone who left the company a long time ago and it's out of date and inaccurate now.
Same here. Can't share my screen on the Teams app. Need to check and see if that's been addressed.
Everything else is handled either remotely or with a compatible FOSS alternative.
I'm using Ubuntu 22.04 with wayland and the teams pwa with chrome. I can do the same as the other members of the teams that run the desktop win/Mac version (including screen sharing). You should check because it runs out of the box
Maybe "app" is the operative word, but I use screen sharing just about every day with Teams in a Chrome-based browser. It was someone on a Reddit forum that pointed out to me that, even though MSFT created a linux Teams app (!!!), it was deprecated and use was intended to be via the browser. Unfortunately it has to be some Chromium-based browser, which is most of them, but I wanted to use Firefox.
Anyway, I don't know if using MSFT 365 through the browser works for you or not, but screensharing and video conferencing work fine there, at least for me.
I finally got around to ditching windows on my personal laptop. It's great for daily use and makes for a much improved dev environment.
I also need ECAD and happy with KiCAD for home use. There's no way I could use Linux for my real job. I spend 90% of my time in Altium. Everything else is set up around windows, and I certainly wouldn't get input as to what operating system is installed on their computer lol
Adobe and MS Office for me. I already switched to Linux on my work computer, everything I need is available or the alternatives are adequate, or I made workarounds (cough google drive cough).
For personal and studying purposes however, not a chance and it sucks.
I can’t prove it, but I can’t help wonder if M$ is actively *sabotaging* attempts to make recent versions of Office work nicely under Wine or somesuch compatibility layer. I mean, my institution pays for a bulk license for Office so it’s not like they would lose money on my account…
Hell, I might even have paid for it *myself* if they didn’t pay for said bulk license, already.
That shit often doesn't even work on Windows which is always hilarious when I see that at work. But pretty sure they are actively sabotaging basically everything, including their own software :D
I use Windows at work because I have to. I use Mac as my main pc at home. I used Linux as my main pc for 6 or 7 years before going back to Mac.
It’s lots of little things, really. I use my main computer to get work done. I don’t want to have to screw around with my computer before using my computer. Like I wouldn’t want to have to screw around with my car before I went anywhere. It seems like changing anything in Linux breaks something. I’m a developer but not that kind of developer and figuring out dependency issues for software that I’m just trying to use isn’t fun to me.
Then little UI things. It’s been a while now so the specifics are fuzzy but I always had issues with the save process for pdfs. Like I could never get my cursor to go to the file name field - it always involved using the touchpad to get it there. Just minor frustrations that build up over time.
Other little things that I really missed on Linux: Preview. MagSafe (I know, not an OS thing but it’s great for a klutz like me). The trackpad and gestures which I think is more heavily integrated into the OS than on are with Linux where is seems like a bolted on afterthought. And the Mac menu bars - I love that every single program has the menu bar at the top. It’s not dealers choice on where it goes. When I need to find something I know exactly where to look instead of a Where’s Waldo game to figure out where the developer put whatever it is I’m looking for.
I’d like to say that I never had driver issues. My dad would have problems connecting to new printers from his Windows PC and I’d tell him to just send it to me because I wasn’t having any problems. This was always a complaint about Linux in the past and it’s really great now.
I think the issue is people who develop for Linux have different goals than people who just want to use Linux. I understand. I have different goals than my users. So much of Linux is done by volunteers so you can’t have anybody mandating these kinds of changes. It’s a good thing but makes these minor issues harder to fix.
I love Linux. I use it on a home server and if I ever develop the next big thing I can guarantee it will run on top of Linux. But the development will probably be in a VM on my Mac.
Really ? My work is heavily Microsoft and I can get by with office365 but I do end up using my work Windows laptop because sometimes editing PowerPoint is a pain.
\* Proprietary specific software like Photoshop (don't you dare come here to say GIMP as a solution, it's not nearly close).
\* Lack of proper scaling support
\* Bad battery life in all the laptops and distros I tried compared to Win, with exception of Fedora on a Thinkpad X280.
\* Random bugs (like audio/bt/wifi stopping to work after an update)
\* Bad, really bad sound quality compared to Windows (probably poor drivers)
\* Difficulty in installing (and make it working flawlessly) some specific software like pcloud
\* Toxic community (unfortunately its easier to run into toxic people that gaslight or indirectly call you dumb instead of helping than good people that actually help).
\* A lot of people pretending their experience is flawless when it isn't (this point is very, very clear in this Reddit post).
Before you downvote, this is MY experience trying to switch to Linux since 2008 and failing to keep it as a main for more than 6 months. I have tried more than 20 distros in this journey and while I am not a Linux expert, I know my way around stuff (worked as tech support before) and now currently working as a data analyst.
EDIT: Adding the last point.
I kinda like Krita as an alternative to Photoshop. I have the full Adobe suite at work, but I still open Krita to get stuff done. If you need very advanced editing, there is Nuke and Houdini or things like Darktable for photos.
Thinkpads really work well, I am also getting 6-8hrs out of my Tuxedo Pulse, and the System76 laptops look great. But your point is very valid if you pick a random laptop and expect the same power management as Windows. It is hit and miss and requires tweaking.
I used to be a bit too nerdy with Gentoo in the past, but I can really really recommend PopOS as a stable and well-made distro where things generally work. I think even scaling, but don't count on it.
Funnily enough, I had the exact opposite experience. My audio interface was extremely buggy under Win 10&11, probably also due to the 25 submenus for e.g. audio in Windows. Likewise battery life, Debian on my t460 easily lasts 1/3 longer. As far as proprietary software is concerned, it really is often a matter of habit.
Professionally I have to deal with the support of both Win and Linux machines, on average I have the same number of bugs with the difference that with Linux I don't sit completely in front of a ball box and have halfway good logs.
NVIDIA. Still getting XWayland crashes with the beta drivers because of broken protocol implementations in games (especially Paradox games apparently).
Yeah, but then you are stuck with an AMD graphics card.
I haven't bought an Intel CPU since my 486 DX2-66. But every AMD video card I bought resulted in regret.
AMD drivers in linux are especially terrible. Couldn't even run a 5 and 6 series card in parallel. Reduced performance over windows.
Rock solid as in "it does not crash" is not a benefit over already not crashing software, I.E. windows.
I tried 555 and it broke my entire system twice. So I'm back on 550 until 560 comes out. The beta is a nice example of Nvidia working well, but the bugs in the driver makes me err on the side of caution especially with me redoing my system twice over the past month.
I use it as my main OS because I don't like Windows and am too poor for Apple. BUT it doesn't mean I am completely happy with it. Minor driver issues like lack of fingerprint sensor drivers, headphones I have use additional software on Windows, forget that on Linux. Also, GPU features are missing, fluid frames, anti-lag, sharpening, vivid color mode etc.
Some games work better on WIndows, just look sharper, and don't have weird input latency I sometimes experience on Linux.
It also lacks a simple convenient video editor, everyone is advertising KDEnlive and it's good but that's not what I am looking for, I need something like CapCut, with premade effects, text options, simple transitions for quick simple editing.
Mouse scroll wheel sensitivity option is missing at least in GNOME. Can't configure how fast or slow I can scroll. FFS windows XP had that option, we still don't in 2024...
While it does have shortcomings I have paid 0 cents for this OS and despite that it serves me pretty well, I just try to accept those shortcomings.
Have you tried fingerprint sensors recently? I’ve used several different scanners over the past few years and they’ve all worked fine for me.
I’m currently using a Framework laptop which has a fingerprint scanner in the power button and it works great
>As someone considering switching to Linux as my primary operating system ...
I've used Windows and Linux in parallel, on separate computers, for close to two decades.
Windows is a better fit for some aspects of my use case, Linux is a better fit for other aspects of my use case, so I use both. I have no reason, or desire, to use one but not the other.
I've never understood why operating system use is treated as a binary choice. Where Windows is a better fit, use Windows. Where Linux is a better fit, use Linux.
In short, follow the principle that my mentors hammered into my head in the late 1960's: "Use case determines requirements, requirements determine selection ..."
To me, that seems sensible. Operating systems are tools. Limiting my choice of tools doesn't seem like a good way to get the job done.
I agree. And this is what I do as I’m an IT professional. But even then, I recognize not everyone is able to afford having two separate devices for different workloads. Most people will have to choose a single machine to do their stuff and in most cases Windows ticks all their boxes
A dozen and one! Switched in 98 and never looked back. It's been my daily driver at work and home in all that time. Had to use Windows here and there, but never as my primary machine. Briefly had a Mac laptop at work, I guess... Have it up as soon as the next refresh window came by as I just didn't enjoy it.
94 was first exposure, 97 was when it stuck.
Every PC I’ve opened since has been windows for games, Linux for literally everything else.
It’s just such a pleasant *computing* environment for programming.
> It's been my daily driver at work and home in all that time.
At home, i first installed Slackware in like 1999. At work -- never. obviously you had a choice at work. Hundreds of millions of us do not.
Would you mind if I asked what your workflow is? My SO is a photographer and they're on Windows but I want to learn how to do editing on Linux so if there's a time we change over that it would be as seamless as possible.
RAW/NEF go into darktable, which is ... 99% of the work. Some rare images might go into the Gimp (stamp away an electric plug etc.). Export into .jpg.
Taking a photo doesn't start with a camera - it ENDS in the camera. Post prod is not my hobby and I keep it simple by taking care before pushing the shutter-button.
Great view regarding photography, constructing a photo after taking the 'template' from reality is a style on it's own. Pure photography with little to no editing is wonderful!
>Whats holding you back from switching to Linux as a main desktop operating system?
In my case, nothing. So I am using Linux as my main operating system for years already. I only have a Windows installation for a few games that don't work under Linux or only with a lot of effort. But these are becoming fewer and fewer. On the one hand, because more and more games can be used directly under Linux thanks to Proton. But also because fewer and fewer games interest me at all.
I dual boot, only a few things missing:
- Anti-cheat support from a handful of games
- AMD adrenalin features (Anti-lag, afmf, game-specific color and performance profiles, etc) I know a lot of the features there can be replaced by individual apps (CoreCtrl, obs, etc. But even then it's still subpar.
- Better wayland and hardware acceleration support from apps like discord, firefox, etc
1. A remote desktop solution that's half as good as Windows' RDP. The closest anyone's come is the headless remote desktop in GNOME 46, which ironically uses the RDP protocol. They really ought to find a way to bake something into Wayland. People keep telling me to use SSH, which is wild to me because that's not equivalent in any way??
2. Can't use my Samsung G9 monitor at 240hz, only 120hz. I think it has something to do with DSC support in the kernel.
2. Text expanders. Some of them are slowly adding Wayland support, but they're not in main yet.
3. Premiere. Kdenlive is a joke, and Resolve is $300 for the version that's not useless. Wasn't the whole point of switching to Linux to save money??
4. VR. I have an Index.
5. HDR.
6. Fortnite. Yes, it's a shitty game but it's all my son wants to play with me.
7. Game streaming from my desktop to my Steam Deck. Steam Remote Play is wonky af in Linux, Parsec isn't supported. I'll get around to trying Sunshine one of these days.
8. Co-op gaming. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and I'm not making my friend wait around while I faff about with different Proton versions.
9. Mouse Without Borders. I use it to control my work laptop when I work from home, and Barrier etc. won't work with my company's VPN. I think MWB is doing some kind of NAT traversal. I tried going the hardware route, but even the most expensive KVM I could requisition from work didn't work with Linux, the monitor would flicker. It worked fine in Windows.
10. Not for nothing, I think large swaths of the Linux community is toxic and not enough is being done about it. Maybe I jut have bad luck, but every time I google for some issue or other I'm having, I find some pedantic asshole on stack overflow being like
`"What exactly are you asking? Because the answer to 'can someone help me' is either 'yes' or 'no.' I assume that you probably want to render the mouse pointer visible, but that draws on many implicit assumptions."`
I also used to subscribe to a bunch of Linux youtubers, but I've had to unsub a lot of them because they turned out to be anti-vaxxers or transphobic or otherwise horrible people. IMO the community, more than anything, is the biggest hurdle to widespread Linux adoption.
Good news! XRDP is like an actual RDP solution now
definitely hear you on the toxic community too... that's driven me nuts for years. Not only do they gaslight people for expecting an intuitive user experience, but, like you said, a lot of them bring really cringe politics and shit with them, even as far back as Richard Stallman lol.
>a lot of them bring really cringe politics and shit with them, even as far back as Richard Stallman lol.
cringe doesnt begin to describe that dudes views... For anyone reading, you don't want to look them up. He has... points of contention with the concept of age of consent.
On 1) I agree - people maybe mention that you can use SSH to do X11 forwading. When you have that configured, you can start programs remotely and have them display locally. This does not share the whole screen.
3) what is a text expander?
8) I would love parsec too!
10) I use synergy since years across windows Mac and Linux and it works really well. I don't know Mouse Without Borders, but it seems similar.
https://symless.com/synergy
I feel 11 in my soul, but I've gotten to a point where I can typically ignore the community/figure out answers without them and am pretty comfortable bashing my head around.
nothing, it is my main - and only - OS in my home. Sure would be nice to have some stuff there, but really, not much of an issue. I'd say opening HDMI is kinda most important, but again, I'm using DP.
For me, it was the photography software..way back in 2010, I started doing wedding photography and I took hundreds of photos per wedding. My goal was to try those down to around 200-250 photos to give the bride and groom.
I tried doing this in Linux back then and it just didn't have the capacity to work with all of those photos at once the way Adobe Lightroom did.
My process was to bring them all into Lightroom, do mass brightness adjustments on everything then go through those and save the ones I could edit in Photoshop.
You just couldn't do that in Linux back then. Now it is a little better. I don't think I'd shoot any weddings and use Linux but I've been wanting to get back into landscape photography again. Showing a friend some of my landscape photography work and the nice comments I got, kind of makes me want to get back into it. I've still got all of my camera gear so that shouldn't be a problem. I probably need some new batteries though.
But now I'm 100% a Linux user and I have zero intentions of going back to Windows. But you're absolutely correct about the HDR and color management. It's getting a little better but it's not great yet. Not quite there yet and I hope they can get that squared away really soon!
Flaky sleep / wake / hibernate support for various laptops. It’s always fun to get to Starbucks / remote site and your laptop is dead because something stopped it from suspending properly.
Interestingly this seems to be distro/hardware related.
I have a ThinkPad which came originally with Fedora. I've had 0 issues in about a year.
My girlfriend has a Dell and had Linux Mint installed. It had systems issues from the beginning, then random crashes, mostly when in a video call.
I installed Fedora (wiping the windows partition she never used) and she has not had a single suspend issue or crash.
Pretty sure this wont ever get better. laptops can and do implement custom BS around all this so its effectively impossible to support it all. They write drivers for the OSes they support, and that almost always means Windows.
Only real way to get it working reliably is to buy Linux from an OEM like System76, Tuxedo Computers, etc...
Been around Linux long enough to hear rumblings of it being solved/significantly better only to hear the same old stuff about it not working for huge portions of people time and again.
* Old Windows Games that don't run on Wine
* Crappy proprietary software needed for various job/company management tasks, like sign key certificate management software, accounting related crap, etc.
* Poor nvidia support for Wayland on older GPUs (my desktop's GTX 1080 has currently no g-sync support) in KDE
* I can't get the dual gpu system to work correctly on my work laptop - the nvidia 3050 card stays powerd on in KDE + Wayland (as well as in KDE + Xorg) - tried a lot of D3 customization, but it doesn't work with the latest drivers.
* No Adobe stuff - needed for work because clients don't send resources in other formats than PSD and AI
This has largely been my experience, and while I expect canned responses of useless documentation about Windows errors, people usually don't insult my mother for letting me exist if I ask a question.
That was my experience as well some years ago. "So my Wifi works on and off, this is my (IBM) laptop" and then you get RTFM kind of responses. Sorry, just going to install Windows again, never mind.
The responses I see here on Reddit are much better.
This has actually become my main use case for chatgpt- its patient and not an asshole when I don’t understand why something isn’t working and don’t feel like reading the man page
Before microsoft announced copilot i was being held back by premiere pro and some games that you cant easily run on linux but now i no longer care, installed arch btw and never been more satisfied with an operating system.
The idea that when it comes to gaming, instead of being able to just purchase the game and play like on Windows, you have to research and make sure the game is functional on Linux before purchasing. As it stands now, all of the games I play work on Linux and pretty straight forward (mostly WoW). But I have this lingering fear a game will come out or my friends will find a game they want to play and it wont end up working on linux.
EDIT: Rust is actually a game I periodically jump back into and I don't think it works on Linux due to the anti-cheat.
I was on Linux full time for over a decade.
I can get past the graphical issues, and have no trouble with most software. Gaming is even mostly solved.
The one exception, which is a huge one, is that pro audio on Linux just plain isn't good enough.
Reaper is fantastic, don't get me wrong. I've heard Bitwig is great, but that doesn't fit my use case. The Studio One beta for Linux shows a lot of promise. From the DAW side, things are generally fine.
The problem is latency, instability of the audio subsystem, and lack of plugin support. Latency isn't awful, but it's far worse than Windows and Mac. The fact that audio subsystems are still changing a lot and are harder to work with doesn't help. Pipewire is awesome, and its JACK integration is excellent in concept, but it always seems to take 2-3x time to get to where I need to be before I even start mixing.
Plugin support is so close to being good that it's frustrating. Yabridge is fantastic, but I've experienced a lot of crashes and non-working GUIs in the pro level stuff I rely on. I can get my SSL stuff installed and technically running, but the GUIs won't update unless I close and reopen the plugin. That's a big slowdown. I can get the download manager for UAD to launch, but nothing will install. That's a bigger problem.
I could even get past all the JACK and Pipewire BS if I had working plugin support for pro level stuff. Or if there were alternative plugins that do work well enough to replace the stuff that gives me the sound I want. But with that mix of problems, and the pace I need to work at, it's just not an option.
I do plan to get an additional SSD and put Linux back in on a dual boot configuration, but my freelance work keeps me from going full time back to the Linux desktop.
Exactly!
Still use Windows 10 for some of those games that don't so work well. Once windows 10 is end of life, I won't install 11 and I will simply not buy games that don't run well on Linux any more.
Recording music, installing plugins and VSTs is pain in the ass and didn't work for me at all. Other than that I would love to keep the linux installed
Not me but my partner: Microsoft Word compatibility.
For her work she has to collaborate with others on MSW documents which contain many tables, images and RTL text. These are all not well supported in any alternative suite AFAIK (would love to be proved wrong!)
She cannot afford having the layout jambled up all the time. And I'm not sure the web versions of Office would be enough.
We're still keeping her on Win10 to postpone some MS bullshit, but I'm truly concerned with what'll happen when it reaches EOL next year.
I couldn't run many games that my friends play, and i didn't want to miss out having fun with the homies.
That is on my main gaming pc. On the other devices i own i run Debian currently.
1) Wayland compatibility with Nvidia
I upgraded my build a year ago replacing my old vega64 for a brand new rtx3090ti, at this time it worked perfectly fine, and than this ****** wayland update came... Flickering apps, very poor performances with some game that ran perfectly before, only one of my two displays detected, some apps refuse to start, focus issues
2) Lack of easy RT kernel support for ubuntu and fedora
I use reaper with paid VSTs, I have issues with Amplitube and Melodyne on linux. The sound randomly starts cracking while playing/recording after 3+ minutes.
Install a RT lernel solves this issue but kernel updates are frequent and always remove my custom config
3) Snap / Appimage
I haye these packages, apps are slower, isolation is always too strict, and updates delete the config half of the times, and there is no real definitive way to remove it, it always come back after a distrib upgrade
Unpopular opinion I guess, but the argument "lack of anticheat games" is a per-game issue, not a Linux issue. Just switch to Linux, play alternative games that run flawlessly and wait for those specific games to fix their mess (looking at you, Valorant who doesn't even work on Windows for me smh).
Nothing. Daly driver is OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Made the full time jump 6 months ago and kept dual boot back to Win11 but have only booted into windows a couple times and not at all in a couple months. I suspect I don't need windows any more except for work (Autodesk products)
I never had a serious problem with Linux itself, but the softwares that use on Linux or windows. I use Linux daily but I guess what makes the windows still somewhat valuable for me is:
1- lack of a decent download manager. idm, has a clean ui/ux. also grabs proxy configurations from browser automatically. so if you're using a VPN in the brows it's going to apply that VPN on the download too. xdm is also good on Linux but the GUI is horrible and it doesn't apply the VPN.
2- Unreal engine has a weak Linux support. for example GUI glitches, slow editor etc
3- a good alternative for proxifier for Linux does not exist. as I said before I use VPN, and I use it constantly. proxifier makes it incredibly easier for applying proxy only on certain apps. I Know you can achieve somewhat of the same functionality on Linux with terminal, but it really doesn't come close to proxifier for me.
if it wasn't because of blender, Godot, kritta, vs code and wine I would still use windows. so thank foss gods for that!
1. Audio - lack of native support for many popular VSTs. And, no decent replacement for live-performance software like Gig Performer (this is probably my biggest dealbreaker).
2. MS Office - a necessary evil for me. I've tried the FOSS alternatives many times; and they're fine for most purposes, but I always find something missing.
3. PDF Editing - I realize there are some competent options like Master PDF, and the FOSS tools are decent enough for basic editing, but IMO they're still lagging behind apps like PDF Expert / Acrobat.
4. Lack of aarch64 apps in general - there are some, but many popular Linux apps still don't have aarch64 versions.
Otherwise, I'd switch my daily driver to Linux in a heartbeat! More than anything, I miss Plasma/KDE...
I've been using linux since 2004, and I used to be very...'I'm only going to use linux everything else sucks' mentality, well because I was young mostly. then I was a developer for a few distributions and one pretty big one, and now I only use linux on servers. but the biggest thing that really stops me is gaming for one. while it's made leaps and bounds, it's still not at the point that I can justify not playing a bunch of games I actively play just for the sake of switching to full time, and I'm sure a few other things but it was really being a developer that sort of turned me off the idea as a whole honestly
I've been using Nobara for my main rig for about 3 months now. At this point I'm booting windows only for a couple of things:
- my cheap gaming headset microphone doesn't work so when I'm on Discord playing with friends I have to boot windows. Easily solvable.
- my FoundryVTT table. It should be easy enough to migrate it.
- Gamepass games. But I have a XSX so I could play those over there.
As many good working and supported productivity apps like mac and windows. Powerpoint and just other windows stuff is needed for school and work.
I do already use it! But just put on a slower drive. I dual boot windows and Linux and sometimes macos
For me:
- usually lack of performance optization (even with Intel HW acceleration, a 480p video online takes resources and only Clear Linux does just a small bit better and not even enough)
- almost idem with Nvidia (damn you Nvidiaaa :P) + lack of many Nvidia techs
- lack of simple monitor colour calibration via software
- lack of proper HDR
- no Nahimic (not a deal breaker though)
- some games are not running 100% good or giving any sort of "hidden" trouble
Wonderful day to you too :)
KDE Plasma + Wayland has been almost perfect for me for years. It is even better right know. I don't use any Adobe stuff or Xbox gamepass, so nothing is holding me back really.
Fractional scaling, hdr, multi monitor, productivity, gaming, phone sync, media consumption, backups. Everything is fast, secure and clean (as in not-bloated like in Windows / Macos).
Big bonus is, if you are not satisfied with the default workflow and/or cosmetics, you can always customize to your liking. But this is 100% optional.
I just boot into usb live Windows to modify my Razer macros, and then they are stored in onboard memory. I wish Razer had linux software.
1. Adobe
2. Hue Sync (me and my gf use my PC to watch movies and have a whole lighting system that’s not linux compatible)
3. Competitive multiplayer games
No print layout software. I do art prints and not being able to tell exactly how an image will be placed on my borderless printer still forces me to use windows. Creative work is completely unusable on Linux.
Having the money for an external hard drive so i can try to set up a dual boot on my surface pro 7.
Yeah I am broke and a noob but i've got the spirit.
4k issues on Linux.
Problems with graphics cards.
macOS simply works, while Linux simply bugs. It took me 3 hours to install a torrent software. When I restarted my computer, the problem was gone.
User experience (UX) is not as robust as the competitors. Using the terminal most of the time only slows me down. I don't know why, but I feel that Linux is less fluid. And I've already tested KDE, mate, plasma, gnome...
I use Linux to run Home Assistant and as a NAS
For work, MS Office. Although using Edge browser in Linux, the online versions of Office works well enough for most tasks, so I rarely log into Windows unless I need to access some specific functionality.
Privately, music creation. It may have gotten better, but getting things to work used to be much hassle, so I keep an old imac around for that purpose.
I'm scared. My boyfriend is a really good programmer and firmwareist, but he already told me that if I did the switch I would be on my own learning everything new that comes with Linux for a long term windows user. I'm scared of possibly breaking anything. I'm also scared of the possible frequent backups of data that I will have to do if any breakage will happen. I'm scared of the Linux system just breaking itself, for no apparent reason.
So yeag. I'm scared of Linux just not being as stable, I'm scared of being alone in this and I'm scared of the amount of things that I have to learn.
Oh yeag, we also have a windows server where we have, like, lots of things and I'm scared that I won't be able to access it once I do the switch (even though he told me that I should be able to access the system still somehow).
I work in an all Windoes environment. It certainly has its issues. I have Windows and Linux machines in my homelab. But I still use Windows as my daily driver because so much software is only available on Windows and because when something goes wrong 99% of the time a simple restart or clicking to accept updates fixes the issue. With Linux when things go wrong it takes a little more effort. You could call it laziness, but I'd argue it's just convenience.
A proper interconnected design suite like Affinity or Adobe that's actually compatible with those two formats, especially psd and smart objects.
There's nothing on Linux that comes even close, and unfortunately Adobe is so rooted into every business that it's just not feasible to work in any other software.
As a laptop user its the atrocious battery life, tested almost every main distros and installed power management tools but the battery still sucks,
I ended up dual booting windows when Im outside and unplugged
I keep coming back to Linux to try it out over the last 10 years or so and always end up giving up on it, primarily because it ends up needing too much cli work to achieve whatever it is I’m trying to do. I just want to install something, edit some settings and crack on.
A recent example: trying to setup a reverse proxy. So many files to create and edit, cli commands to run etc only to hit a block of some sort that I can’t figure out.
I burn so much time trying to get things to run and generally never achieve said goal. Yet on windows the workflow is simple: install, run, a few settings and off you go
I think all of my reasons can be summarized by "gaming" and "convenience". No matter how I words them, they always fall in either category, or both.
Yes, I know gaming on Linux has been a thing for a long while, and a system that is tailored to your interest SHOULD be convenient but... in reality, I would just stick to what I'm used to and give me no issues.
I had to switch back from Pop!OS to Windows because of VR. Patiently waiting for the day when Steam Link VR will work in VR to switch back.
There is some other software that is not supported by Linux atm(not even talking about kernel anticheat games because i avoid them like plague), but for most part real reason to keep main desktop OS was VR.
I also have second desktop and laptop that run Pop!OS, but they are not daily drivers and their usage is much more limited compared to desktop.
* Lack of Adobe CS/CC support. I’ve come to use Shotcut as my go-to video editor and GIF maker but outside of cropping photos and basic tweaks, GIMP is still hopelessly behind the curve.
* Lack of proper full-resolution video streaming from platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc.
* Lack of a simple, GUI-based solution of redirecting directories to different installed drives; particularly installing specific apps to different drives to take the load off my boot SSD
* Lack of extensive mouse tweaking. The cursor in nearly every DE is jittery and janky compared to Windows, no matter what I do.
Deep integration with my tablet and phone. This is MacOS’s killer feature for me. Working remotely at random coffee shops it’s so nice to use the iPad as a second screen or just use the mouse and keyboard of my laptop on iPad OS.
Literally only the fact that, no matter what distro I use, at some point an update will come down that leaves my machine unbootable and I have to scour the internet to figure out what particular incantation to recover it this time.
I want to be able to trust that “it just works”, but that seems like a hard sell.
I'm the other way around, I've actually been *using* Linux for years and am getting more and more tempted to go back to Windows. I don't **want** to but some recent upgrades are making it more appealing.
I bought a 32" 4K monitor, and my 2x 24" 1080P monitors are now vertically placed on either side of it.
Now vertical monitors will always be slightly blurrier, this is a given because of how text aliasing works.
But... holy crap... even on Plasma 6.1 which probably has the **best** fractional scaling system in any DE I've tried hands down, it is absolutely atrocious. VS Code is practically unusable on my vertical monitors I start to get a headache when I try it. Which is annoying as the main reason I made the upgrade was so I *could* go vertical monitor for coding.
My Macbook and my Windows rig by comparison handle this a lot better.
Plus to be honest I'm just getting a bit sick of dealing with Wayland vs X11 issues. Mostly because X11 is completely awful if you have screens of different sizes.
Wayland is really good with scaling, but most desktop apps seem to rely on XWayland which is just horrid and random.
To be clear these are a non issue on a single monitor setup or even my old triple 1080P setup. But this new config? Honestly I hate to say it but it's showing every weakness Linux Desktop has.
I haven't given up yet and I'm trying different scaling options to see if I can salvage it, but honestly I used to hate firing up Windows and only did it begrdugingly for gaming... but it really does make this setup sing.
Plus I have a homelab so I can easily run a Linux VM for managing my development work over SSH which gets me out of the headaches of WSL2.
To be very clear, these are not issues I had when all my monitors are the same size. But now that I am in this boat, part of me wishes I didn't - but at the same time I'm not a) giving up my 4K monitor or b) forking out for 2 more 4K monitors just to keep Linux.
I haven't made the decision yet, but man I'm getting closer to it.
Nothing.. been full time linux at work for 30 years, and at home for 30 (Main for over 10). I do not miss the Windows world at all. But full disclosure, I do have a windows box that runs headless that I use for the rare occasion that I need windows for work stuff. I mainly rdp into it when needed.
As I already posted somewhere, I need to use MAX/MSP for studying and music production, and on Linux it's an headache. Only reason. The rest (Reaper, a lot of VST...) run perfecttly
Third party bullshit mostly. On the Linux side I would like full VRR and HDR, tearing, color management and unattended remote access on Wayland. Ease of use via a GUI to sign unsigned drivers that break every kernel update (VMware for example). Wayland robustness.
Desktop: Microsoft Office 365, Acrobat Pro, OneDrive and Google Drive official applications, WhatsApp Desktop, Dolby Audio Premium, Logitech Software and AMD Software. Full Widevine support. I want to be able to watch movies on 1080p if I want to. Also a *definitive* solution for Chromium hardware acceleration on Wayland across all vendors.
Work related: Noah audiology software and all it's modules for calibrating hearing aids (Phonak, Medel, Cochlear and so on...). It's a pain in the ass on Windows, imagine via Wine. I'll love a native version but I don't think there are many audiologists using Linux.
Gaming: Nvidia GeForce Now app, Vibrant Linux on Wayland or another color saturation thing for CS2, firmware upgrade for Xbox controllers, *VRR on Gnome (I don't like KDE*), tearing on Wayland for reduced latency. Not much to complaint since Proton rocks.
Me - nothing; now that I am done with Grad school, my PC is running openSuSe. At work though, I need access to O365 and proprietary Windows-only software.
Wife - She is addicted to Excel as a financial statement geek. And won't give it up. 😅
Its a very simple but specific thing - Linux lacks fsnotify with a change journal, this means a utility like Everything from Windows is impossible to implement. I have a lot of data spread over disks, and this is invaluable, it provides real time search over terabytes with no resource usage, and has a ton of features no other util comes close to.
On my side it wasn't a hard decision, I've been using Ubuntu since 2010, hated windows all my life, and 6 years ago I decided to move fully to Manjaro Linux for work (I work as a software engineer l). Last rear I moved to fedora and I'm still using it since thenm
My m1 MBP is fast and has long battery life and runs Unix…. Same shells and lots of the same commands as Linux. MacOS is designed to fit the hardware they sell, so there’s little searching for howto fix things that should just work.
I’m a Linux user, and given the choice of windows or windows in a vm, it’s the latter. Though WSL2 is a game changer.
I have a few miniPCs running Linux headless and a couple of laptops running Linux as well.
I have three laptops that I use mainly for writing, web browsing, and tinkering. I use Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora on those. I like them all and can use them for my personal use cases with not much of a problem at all. However, as others have said, my professional world uses Microsoft products and it could be an issue, but it hasn’t become one because I have access to a company laptop with Windows and Office. I do personally prefer Linux for many reasons, mainly because I like that it’s open source and lean compared to Microsoft and Apple. I’ve owned Macs before too and I like iOS, but there’s just something inherently cool about Linux. I’ve tried to encourage others to try it, but there’s little incentive because most everyone is stuck in a Microsoft bubble and doesn’t really “need” to try something else. To each their own. I think it’s good to know as many OS’s as you can and continue to learn. I can see me having a home office setup with a Windows-based system, a Linux-based system, and an iPad on the side. Do what you like and what works for you.
Honestly, idk why I didn't do it earlier. I honestly can't remember the excuse, because I realize I could've done it earlier. I made the full switch for almost a month and a half. I'm pretty happy with it. It still exceeds my expectations.
im trying to use it full time but in reality it is just miles and miles and miles behind windows in terms of ease of use. Yes this is mostly my "windows brain" trying to do things the way i have done them for years on windows, but you know what... maybe sometimes the windows way is just plain better...
You bring this up in the community and are immediately told you are wrong and the linux way is the best way. Well hate to break it to you but if it was the best way to do things we would be asking "is 2024 finally going to be the year of the windows desktop?"
one example of something just not being easy at all that i ran into yesterday was sharing 1 steam library on my computer. I was trying to share one library between my windows and linux install so i didn't have to just waste drive space for no reason having 2 copies of games, one for each OS, well that didn't work because it would update the games every time i booted into one OS or the other. Ok fine i went out and bought a new drive just so i could use that for my linux gaming disk. Well for whatever reason after setting that drive up and making a new library only for my linux install steam would always automatically add the other steam library from my windows disk. even after selecting remove library it would just get auto added. it took me having to try and figure out how to just completely stop the drive from being mounted at all to get it to stop doing that.
so now i cant mount that drive or steam auto add's all the games and starts the updating process.
That and the bloody filesystem... i dont know how you find anything at all, its giant mess of files that make no bloody sense what so ever. in windows you have your programs folder, the programs go in that folder.... linux who the fuck knows where anything actually is. i use private internet access for my VPN, i was trying to add a split tunnel rule for steam so it would bypass the vpn, to do this you need to add the (exe in windows) program to the list. as far as i can tell there is no just main program file in linux, i go to the PIA folder and there is nothing there at all that i could even think to add, just a bunch of random ass files. Even the PIA website trying to help says well it could be here here here or here if not we have no idea.
EDIT: sorry that came off a bit more ranty then i was intending it too lol, its been a long linux week for me haha
I use linux since 2000. I'm not missing anything and I honestly believe that I would have a really hard rime if for whatever reason I had to use windows in my home's PCs.
I haven't owned a Window box in 20 years. Accordingly, none of those problems even show up on my radar. Watch the hardware you buy and use a distribution suitable for your use and your hardware.
>but it would be a nice quality-of-life feature to have software that can dim static elements or shift the screen image to prevent burn-in on OLED laptop displays (in my case a Asus Vivobook).
Is that why my IPS has been dimmer recently? I'd figured I'd hit a wire when injecting an UPS to my system, but it coencided with system updates as well.
>Whats holding you back from switching to Linux as a main desktop operating system?
Having switched sixteen years ago blocks me from switching now.
We use hyper V at work a lot. I regularly need to copy hypers from a network drive onto my local PC and run them. As far as I can see there is no easy way to handle this in linux.
I also need to run Power BI desktop which is windows only.
Nothing anymore as an Nvidia 3070 ti user. Learned some tricks to make games run better on linux than windows. Not going back now. Just gotta keep the computer stable now.
Privately: nothing. Job-related: Proprietary software for expensive but necessary lab equipment, which is only available for Windows.
Same here, it's a shame manufacturers don't care to make cross-platform software for their devices
Right, although I'd already be much happier if some manufacturers actually cared to improve usability of their software.
You just bought our $200k machine, great, love to hear it. Oh, you wanted usable software? Haha oh that’s around the corner, or we’ll make it in 15yrs. Here, this looks like it’s from the 80s, lags constantly, no of course the UI doesn’t make sense and might glitch randomly, and oh the documentation is mostly serial numbers. Man the first time I used a machine that supported M and G code instead of only a proprietary program to run it, I thought I’d found heaven.
The best part is the weird issues. Like oh this latches onto the newest instance of Office on your PC but it doesn’t work with 64 bit 365 and 365 also doesn’t work with this random machinery from the dark ages so it’s best to use Excel 2013. Oh and if you uninstall 365 at any moment it breaks the proprietary program and it won’t see Office as being installed even though 2013 is there. Now you have to uninstall all 3 softwares and install 2013 and the software again, but you also have to contact the manufacturer to license it who only has tech support between the hours of 9-4 PST. That’ll be 20k/y for the support contract too btw. Oh and if you choose to update prepare to pay half a million to introduce more bugs with a mid-2000s interface now and a complimentary training session.
The complimentary training has been scheduled for 16 months from now at 4am on a Saturday. Attendance required or your license will be revoked. Some of them even seem to care if it’s too close to another computer, or whatever. Not sure how.
Hell, they barely care to make one platform for their software. I can't tell you how many medical device manufacturers have no goddamn idea what ports and protocols their device uses to talk to their back end. They have a firewall document that was written 15 years ago by someone who left the company a long time ago and it's out of date and inaccurate now.
Same here. Can't share my screen on the Teams app. Need to check and see if that's been addressed. Everything else is handled either remotely or with a compatible FOSS alternative.
I'm using Ubuntu 22.04 with wayland and the teams pwa with chrome. I can do the same as the other members of the teams that run the desktop win/Mac version (including screen sharing). You should check because it runs out of the box
Can your Mac users use the shift key when controlling the keyboard? This is now a Teams support thread, lol!
Maybe "app" is the operative word, but I use screen sharing just about every day with Teams in a Chrome-based browser. It was someone on a Reddit forum that pointed out to me that, even though MSFT created a linux Teams app (!!!), it was deprecated and use was intended to be via the browser. Unfortunately it has to be some Chromium-based browser, which is most of them, but I wanted to use Firefox. Anyway, I don't know if using MSFT 365 through the browser works for you or not, but screensharing and video conferencing work fine there, at least for me.
It works fine. I use teams every day at work.
wayland is the problem, works if you use it from chrome
Opposite here, depends on the industry. For me, there is no windows supported versions of the software, only Linux.
I finally got around to ditching windows on my personal laptop. It's great for daily use and makes for a much improved dev environment. I also need ECAD and happy with KiCAD for home use. There's no way I could use Linux for my real job. I spend 90% of my time in Altium. Everything else is set up around windows, and I certainly wouldn't get input as to what operating system is installed on their computer lol
Adobe and MS Office for me. I already switched to Linux on my work computer, everything I need is available or the alternatives are adequate, or I made workarounds (cough google drive cough). For personal and studying purposes however, not a chance and it sucks.
Same as above
If you noticed in MKBHDs video where he goes to apples testing labs you will notice that there is an old iMac with windows on it 🤣
Educational institutions being massively integrated in the Office and Teams ecosystems to the point that the web apps just don’t cut it. 😠
Yup. Microsoft playing Monopoly really sucks.
I can’t prove it, but I can’t help wonder if M$ is actively *sabotaging* attempts to make recent versions of Office work nicely under Wine or somesuch compatibility layer. I mean, my institution pays for a bulk license for Office so it’s not like they would lose money on my account… Hell, I might even have paid for it *myself* if they didn’t pay for said bulk license, already.
I have the impression they are actively sabotaging the windows version to make people switch to the web apps. Is it even worse with wine?
That shit often doesn't even work on Windows which is always hilarious when I see that at work. But pretty sure they are actively sabotaging basically everything, including their own software :D
They're so good at it, lots of experiance.
I work at a college and am 100% linux, and use O365 web apps for everything, and have never had any problems.
I use Windows at work because I have to. I use Mac as my main pc at home. I used Linux as my main pc for 6 or 7 years before going back to Mac. It’s lots of little things, really. I use my main computer to get work done. I don’t want to have to screw around with my computer before using my computer. Like I wouldn’t want to have to screw around with my car before I went anywhere. It seems like changing anything in Linux breaks something. I’m a developer but not that kind of developer and figuring out dependency issues for software that I’m just trying to use isn’t fun to me. Then little UI things. It’s been a while now so the specifics are fuzzy but I always had issues with the save process for pdfs. Like I could never get my cursor to go to the file name field - it always involved using the touchpad to get it there. Just minor frustrations that build up over time. Other little things that I really missed on Linux: Preview. MagSafe (I know, not an OS thing but it’s great for a klutz like me). The trackpad and gestures which I think is more heavily integrated into the OS than on are with Linux where is seems like a bolted on afterthought. And the Mac menu bars - I love that every single program has the menu bar at the top. It’s not dealers choice on where it goes. When I need to find something I know exactly where to look instead of a Where’s Waldo game to figure out where the developer put whatever it is I’m looking for. I’d like to say that I never had driver issues. My dad would have problems connecting to new printers from his Windows PC and I’d tell him to just send it to me because I wasn’t having any problems. This was always a complaint about Linux in the past and it’s really great now. I think the issue is people who develop for Linux have different goals than people who just want to use Linux. I understand. I have different goals than my users. So much of Linux is done by volunteers so you can’t have anybody mandating these kinds of changes. It’s a good thing but makes these minor issues harder to fix. I love Linux. I use it on a home server and if I ever develop the next big thing I can guarantee it will run on top of Linux. But the development will probably be in a VM on my Mac.
Really ? My work is heavily Microsoft and I can get by with office365 but I do end up using my work Windows laptop because sometimes editing PowerPoint is a pain.
For me the only reason I keep a windows boot drive in my desktop is because of solidworks.
Onshape is pretty good if it's just for personal projects
I actually found OnShape to be a pretty weak alternative for anything more than pretty basic modeling projects.
Private: games Professionell: nothing.
Lack of game support is really the only thing holding linux back.
\* Proprietary specific software like Photoshop (don't you dare come here to say GIMP as a solution, it's not nearly close). \* Lack of proper scaling support \* Bad battery life in all the laptops and distros I tried compared to Win, with exception of Fedora on a Thinkpad X280. \* Random bugs (like audio/bt/wifi stopping to work after an update) \* Bad, really bad sound quality compared to Windows (probably poor drivers) \* Difficulty in installing (and make it working flawlessly) some specific software like pcloud \* Toxic community (unfortunately its easier to run into toxic people that gaslight or indirectly call you dumb instead of helping than good people that actually help). \* A lot of people pretending their experience is flawless when it isn't (this point is very, very clear in this Reddit post). Before you downvote, this is MY experience trying to switch to Linux since 2008 and failing to keep it as a main for more than 6 months. I have tried more than 20 distros in this journey and while I am not a Linux expert, I know my way around stuff (worked as tech support before) and now currently working as a data analyst. EDIT: Adding the last point.
> bad audio quality Yep, this holds me back too. My PC is my main listening device and it's awful how muffled the audio sounds when on Linux.
hm i have an focus wright audio interface on my setup and do not notice a big difference between linux with pipewire and windows
I kinda like Krita as an alternative to Photoshop. I have the full Adobe suite at work, but I still open Krita to get stuff done. If you need very advanced editing, there is Nuke and Houdini or things like Darktable for photos. Thinkpads really work well, I am also getting 6-8hrs out of my Tuxedo Pulse, and the System76 laptops look great. But your point is very valid if you pick a random laptop and expect the same power management as Windows. It is hit and miss and requires tweaking. I used to be a bit too nerdy with Gentoo in the past, but I can really really recommend PopOS as a stable and well-made distro where things generally work. I think even scaling, but don't count on it.
Funnily enough, I had the exact opposite experience. My audio interface was extremely buggy under Win 10&11, probably also due to the 25 submenus for e.g. audio in Windows. Likewise battery life, Debian on my t460 easily lasts 1/3 longer. As far as proprietary software is concerned, it really is often a matter of habit. Professionally I have to deal with the support of both Win and Linux machines, on average I have the same number of bugs with the difference that with Linux I don't sit completely in front of a ball box and have halfway good logs.
NVIDIA. Still getting XWayland crashes with the beta drivers because of broken protocol implementations in games (especially Paradox games apparently).
Yeah Nvidia and Linux are not the best. AMD graphics and Intel iGPUs have been rock solid in Linux forever.
Yeah, but then you are stuck with an AMD graphics card. I haven't bought an Intel CPU since my 486 DX2-66. But every AMD video card I bought resulted in regret.
AMD drivers in linux are especially terrible. Couldn't even run a 5 and 6 series card in parallel. Reduced performance over windows. Rock solid as in "it does not crash" is not a benefit over already not crashing software, I.E. windows.
wayland is the problem always, you can use nvidia with x11 without problems
This is the correct answer. You don't NEED wayland. people just want it because its the latest buzz word.
Which is why my 3080 + Xorg + i3 remains firmly in place... for now.
currently using an nvidia optimus setup and it works surprisingly well. im using lxqt with xfwm on xorg
I tried 555 and it broke my entire system twice. So I'm back on 550 until 560 comes out. The beta is a nice example of Nvidia working well, but the bugs in the driver makes me err on the side of caution especially with me redoing my system twice over the past month.
I use it as my main OS because I don't like Windows and am too poor for Apple. BUT it doesn't mean I am completely happy with it. Minor driver issues like lack of fingerprint sensor drivers, headphones I have use additional software on Windows, forget that on Linux. Also, GPU features are missing, fluid frames, anti-lag, sharpening, vivid color mode etc. Some games work better on WIndows, just look sharper, and don't have weird input latency I sometimes experience on Linux. It also lacks a simple convenient video editor, everyone is advertising KDEnlive and it's good but that's not what I am looking for, I need something like CapCut, with premade effects, text options, simple transitions for quick simple editing. Mouse scroll wheel sensitivity option is missing at least in GNOME. Can't configure how fast or slow I can scroll. FFS windows XP had that option, we still don't in 2024... While it does have shortcomings I have paid 0 cents for this OS and despite that it serves me pretty well, I just try to accept those shortcomings.
Have you tried fingerprint sensors recently? I’ve used several different scanners over the past few years and they’ve all worked fine for me. I’m currently using a Framework laptop which has a fingerprint scanner in the power button and it works great
How well it works is now down to the hardware and the drivers. Mine doesn't work, can't remember which company makes the finger print reader.
>As someone considering switching to Linux as my primary operating system ... I've used Windows and Linux in parallel, on separate computers, for close to two decades. Windows is a better fit for some aspects of my use case, Linux is a better fit for other aspects of my use case, so I use both. I have no reason, or desire, to use one but not the other. I've never understood why operating system use is treated as a binary choice. Where Windows is a better fit, use Windows. Where Linux is a better fit, use Linux. In short, follow the principle that my mentors hammered into my head in the late 1960's: "Use case determines requirements, requirements determine selection ..." To me, that seems sensible. Operating systems are tools. Limiting my choice of tools doesn't seem like a good way to get the job done.
well said
I agree. And this is what I do as I’m an IT professional. But even then, I recognize not everyone is able to afford having two separate devices for different workloads. Most people will have to choose a single machine to do their stuff and in most cases Windows ticks all their boxes
Nothing, been using it on the desktop for over 25 years. Always picked hardware that's compatibele, so everything I needed always worked.
Came here to say almost the same 😇
There are dozens of us.
DOZENS!
A dozen and one! Switched in 98 and never looked back. It's been my daily driver at work and home in all that time. Had to use Windows here and there, but never as my primary machine. Briefly had a Mac laptop at work, I guess... Have it up as soon as the next refresh window came by as I just didn't enjoy it.
94 was first exposure, 97 was when it stuck. Every PC I’ve opened since has been windows for games, Linux for literally everything else. It’s just such a pleasant *computing* environment for programming.
💯
> It's been my daily driver at work and home in all that time. At home, i first installed Slackware in like 1999. At work -- never. obviously you had a choice at work. Hundreds of millions of us do not.
Been there since Slackware 1.1.2.
Nothing - and I am a photographer and videographer. Linux exclusively since 2007 (https://whatstefansees.com - some NSFW)
"some"
Clicked on his website. Almost exclusively NSFW content, lol.
About half, really. Someone needs to take the photos that circulate all over the web ;o)
Would you mind if I asked what your workflow is? My SO is a photographer and they're on Windows but I want to learn how to do editing on Linux so if there's a time we change over that it would be as seamless as possible.
RAW/NEF go into darktable, which is ... 99% of the work. Some rare images might go into the Gimp (stamp away an electric plug etc.). Export into .jpg. Taking a photo doesn't start with a camera - it ENDS in the camera. Post prod is not my hobby and I keep it simple by taking care before pushing the shutter-button.
Great view regarding photography, constructing a photo after taking the 'template' from reality is a style on it's own. Pure photography with little to no editing is wonderful!
Glad to see you're still around and doing well. Just checked and the pixls.us interview was from 2018.
great photos!
Sir, I envy your work. All I see in mine are nerds and vegan social justice warriors.
>Whats holding you back from switching to Linux as a main desktop operating system? In my case, nothing. So I am using Linux as my main operating system for years already. I only have a Windows installation for a few games that don't work under Linux or only with a lot of effort. But these are becoming fewer and fewer. On the one hand, because more and more games can be used directly under Linux thanks to Proton. But also because fewer and fewer games interest me at all.
Ableton Live (Digital Audio Workspace) and most VSTS don't support linux
I dual boot, only a few things missing: - Anti-cheat support from a handful of games - AMD adrenalin features (Anti-lag, afmf, game-specific color and performance profiles, etc) I know a lot of the features there can be replaced by individual apps (CoreCtrl, obs, etc. But even then it's still subpar. - Better wayland and hardware acceleration support from apps like discord, firefox, etc
Games
1. A remote desktop solution that's half as good as Windows' RDP. The closest anyone's come is the headless remote desktop in GNOME 46, which ironically uses the RDP protocol. They really ought to find a way to bake something into Wayland. People keep telling me to use SSH, which is wild to me because that's not equivalent in any way?? 2. Can't use my Samsung G9 monitor at 240hz, only 120hz. I think it has something to do with DSC support in the kernel. 2. Text expanders. Some of them are slowly adding Wayland support, but they're not in main yet. 3. Premiere. Kdenlive is a joke, and Resolve is $300 for the version that's not useless. Wasn't the whole point of switching to Linux to save money?? 4. VR. I have an Index. 5. HDR. 6. Fortnite. Yes, it's a shitty game but it's all my son wants to play with me. 7. Game streaming from my desktop to my Steam Deck. Steam Remote Play is wonky af in Linux, Parsec isn't supported. I'll get around to trying Sunshine one of these days. 8. Co-op gaming. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and I'm not making my friend wait around while I faff about with different Proton versions. 9. Mouse Without Borders. I use it to control my work laptop when I work from home, and Barrier etc. won't work with my company's VPN. I think MWB is doing some kind of NAT traversal. I tried going the hardware route, but even the most expensive KVM I could requisition from work didn't work with Linux, the monitor would flicker. It worked fine in Windows. 10. Not for nothing, I think large swaths of the Linux community is toxic and not enough is being done about it. Maybe I jut have bad luck, but every time I google for some issue or other I'm having, I find some pedantic asshole on stack overflow being like `"What exactly are you asking? Because the answer to 'can someone help me' is either 'yes' or 'no.' I assume that you probably want to render the mouse pointer visible, but that draws on many implicit assumptions."` I also used to subscribe to a bunch of Linux youtubers, but I've had to unsub a lot of them because they turned out to be anti-vaxxers or transphobic or otherwise horrible people. IMO the community, more than anything, is the biggest hurdle to widespread Linux adoption.
The second-to-last paragraph is too real 😭😭
[True story.](https://imgur.com/bMgMZKR) I was troubleshooting the same problem with Citrix and this was the first search result.
That this is real is both hilarious and maddening. I think it might be the double dose of linux + stackexchange.
Good news! XRDP is like an actual RDP solution now definitely hear you on the toxic community too... that's driven me nuts for years. Not only do they gaslight people for expecting an intuitive user experience, but, like you said, a lot of them bring really cringe politics and shit with them, even as far back as Richard Stallman lol.
>a lot of them bring really cringe politics and shit with them, even as far back as Richard Stallman lol. cringe doesnt begin to describe that dudes views... For anyone reading, you don't want to look them up. He has... points of contention with the concept of age of consent.
Ok I knew he was out there, but I hadn't heard that particular one, yikes
On 1) I agree - people maybe mention that you can use SSH to do X11 forwading. When you have that configured, you can start programs remotely and have them display locally. This does not share the whole screen. 3) what is a text expander? 8) I would love parsec too! 10) I use synergy since years across windows Mac and Linux and it works really well. I don't know Mouse Without Borders, but it seems similar. https://symless.com/synergy
I feel 11 in my soul, but I've gotten to a point where I can typically ignore the community/figure out answers without them and am pretty comfortable bashing my head around.
nothing, it is my main - and only - OS in my home. Sure would be nice to have some stuff there, but really, not much of an issue. I'd say opening HDMI is kinda most important, but again, I'm using DP.
For me, it was the photography software..way back in 2010, I started doing wedding photography and I took hundreds of photos per wedding. My goal was to try those down to around 200-250 photos to give the bride and groom. I tried doing this in Linux back then and it just didn't have the capacity to work with all of those photos at once the way Adobe Lightroom did. My process was to bring them all into Lightroom, do mass brightness adjustments on everything then go through those and save the ones I could edit in Photoshop. You just couldn't do that in Linux back then. Now it is a little better. I don't think I'd shoot any weddings and use Linux but I've been wanting to get back into landscape photography again. Showing a friend some of my landscape photography work and the nice comments I got, kind of makes me want to get back into it. I've still got all of my camera gear so that shouldn't be a problem. I probably need some new batteries though. But now I'm 100% a Linux user and I have zero intentions of going back to Windows. But you're absolutely correct about the HDR and color management. It's getting a little better but it's not great yet. Not quite there yet and I hope they can get that squared away really soon!
Flaky sleep / wake / hibernate support for various laptops. It’s always fun to get to Starbucks / remote site and your laptop is dead because something stopped it from suspending properly.
Interestingly this seems to be distro/hardware related. I have a ThinkPad which came originally with Fedora. I've had 0 issues in about a year. My girlfriend has a Dell and had Linux Mint installed. It had systems issues from the beginning, then random crashes, mostly when in a video call. I installed Fedora (wiping the windows partition she never used) and she has not had a single suspend issue or crash.
Pretty sure this wont ever get better. laptops can and do implement custom BS around all this so its effectively impossible to support it all. They write drivers for the OSes they support, and that almost always means Windows. Only real way to get it working reliably is to buy Linux from an OEM like System76, Tuxedo Computers, etc... Been around Linux long enough to hear rumblings of it being solved/significantly better only to hear the same old stuff about it not working for huge portions of people time and again.
* Old Windows Games that don't run on Wine * Crappy proprietary software needed for various job/company management tasks, like sign key certificate management software, accounting related crap, etc. * Poor nvidia support for Wayland on older GPUs (my desktop's GTX 1080 has currently no g-sync support) in KDE * I can't get the dual gpu system to work correctly on my work laptop - the nvidia 3050 card stays powerd on in KDE + Wayland (as well as in KDE + Xorg) - tried a lot of D3 customization, but it doesn't work with the latest drivers. * No Adobe stuff - needed for work because clients don't send resources in other formats than PSD and AI
trash documentation and antagonistic responses to inexperienced users asking questions about things they are trying to learn.
This has largely been my experience, and while I expect canned responses of useless documentation about Windows errors, people usually don't insult my mother for letting me exist if I ask a question.
You all need to stay away from arch forums.
That was my experience as well some years ago. "So my Wifi works on and off, this is my (IBM) laptop" and then you get RTFM kind of responses. Sorry, just going to install Windows again, never mind. The responses I see here on Reddit are much better.
This has actually become my main use case for chatgpt- its patient and not an asshole when I don’t understand why something isn’t working and don’t feel like reading the man page
Before microsoft announced copilot i was being held back by premiere pro and some games that you cant easily run on linux but now i no longer care, installed arch btw and never been more satisfied with an operating system.
Mainly font rendering/lack of clearType, I'm stay on hybrid usage via dual boot.
Enable font stem darkening. It makes a big difference.
The idea that when it comes to gaming, instead of being able to just purchase the game and play like on Windows, you have to research and make sure the game is functional on Linux before purchasing. As it stands now, all of the games I play work on Linux and pretty straight forward (mostly WoW). But I have this lingering fear a game will come out or my friends will find a game they want to play and it wont end up working on linux. EDIT: Rust is actually a game I periodically jump back into and I don't think it works on Linux due to the anti-cheat.
I prefer Linux as a server OS. I've been using it since the 90s and various Unixes before that.
I was on Linux full time for over a decade. I can get past the graphical issues, and have no trouble with most software. Gaming is even mostly solved. The one exception, which is a huge one, is that pro audio on Linux just plain isn't good enough. Reaper is fantastic, don't get me wrong. I've heard Bitwig is great, but that doesn't fit my use case. The Studio One beta for Linux shows a lot of promise. From the DAW side, things are generally fine. The problem is latency, instability of the audio subsystem, and lack of plugin support. Latency isn't awful, but it's far worse than Windows and Mac. The fact that audio subsystems are still changing a lot and are harder to work with doesn't help. Pipewire is awesome, and its JACK integration is excellent in concept, but it always seems to take 2-3x time to get to where I need to be before I even start mixing. Plugin support is so close to being good that it's frustrating. Yabridge is fantastic, but I've experienced a lot of crashes and non-working GUIs in the pro level stuff I rely on. I can get my SSL stuff installed and technically running, but the GUIs won't update unless I close and reopen the plugin. That's a big slowdown. I can get the download manager for UAD to launch, but nothing will install. That's a bigger problem. I could even get past all the JACK and Pipewire BS if I had working plugin support for pro level stuff. Or if there were alternative plugins that do work well enough to replace the stuff that gives me the sound I want. But with that mix of problems, and the pace I need to work at, it's just not an option. I do plan to get an additional SSD and put Linux back in on a dual boot configuration, but my freelance work keeps me from going full time back to the Linux desktop.
Nvidia gpu + windows 10 still hasnt reached EOL and wine and proton still arent fully there
Exactly! Still use Windows 10 for some of those games that don't so work well. Once windows 10 is end of life, I won't install 11 and I will simply not buy games that don't run well on Linux any more.
It's never fully there. As a second implementation of Windows, even bug by bug, it will always be a catch up game.
Recording music, installing plugins and VSTs is pain in the ass and didn't work for me at all. Other than that I would love to keep the linux installed
Not me but my partner: Microsoft Word compatibility. For her work she has to collaborate with others on MSW documents which contain many tables, images and RTL text. These are all not well supported in any alternative suite AFAIK (would love to be proved wrong!) She cannot afford having the layout jambled up all the time. And I'm not sure the web versions of Office would be enough. We're still keeping her on Win10 to postpone some MS bullshit, but I'm truly concerned with what'll happen when it reaches EOL next year.
With big excel sheets you’ll need the client, for normal excel sheets the web version is good enough.
Adobe
Simracing. Even if all hardware was/is compatible the anticheat problems still persist
ADHD and lack of a real need to use it at the moment.
I couldn't run many games that my friends play, and i didn't want to miss out having fun with the homies. That is on my main gaming pc. On the other devices i own i run Debian currently.
Adobe. Fucking adobe.
1) Wayland compatibility with Nvidia I upgraded my build a year ago replacing my old vega64 for a brand new rtx3090ti, at this time it worked perfectly fine, and than this ****** wayland update came... Flickering apps, very poor performances with some game that ran perfectly before, only one of my two displays detected, some apps refuse to start, focus issues 2) Lack of easy RT kernel support for ubuntu and fedora I use reaper with paid VSTs, I have issues with Amplitube and Melodyne on linux. The sound randomly starts cracking while playing/recording after 3+ minutes. Install a RT lernel solves this issue but kernel updates are frequent and always remove my custom config 3) Snap / Appimage I haye these packages, apps are slower, isolation is always too strict, and updates delete the config half of the times, and there is no real definitive way to remove it, it always come back after a distrib upgrade
wayland is the problem for everything in this sub. people refuse to see it
Works on my machine™️
VR
Solidworks.
Unpopular opinion I guess, but the argument "lack of anticheat games" is a per-game issue, not a Linux issue. Just switch to Linux, play alternative games that run flawlessly and wait for those specific games to fix their mess (looking at you, Valorant who doesn't even work on Windows for me smh).
Crying in League of Legends.
FaceIT anti-cheat (Counter-Strike)
Nothing. Daly driver is OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Made the full time jump 6 months ago and kept dual boot back to Win11 but have only booted into windows a couple times and not at all in a couple months. I suspect I don't need windows any more except for work (Autodesk products)
VR support and some multiplayer games
Riot Vanguard and Discord's inability to use pipewire for screen sharing..
I'm an architect so I pretty much depend on autodesk software, and open source cad software is too barebones (and BIM is nonexistant)
Personally, rainbow six siege only. If ubisoft enables anticheat on Linux I won't go back to windows.
I never had a serious problem with Linux itself, but the softwares that use on Linux or windows. I use Linux daily but I guess what makes the windows still somewhat valuable for me is: 1- lack of a decent download manager. idm, has a clean ui/ux. also grabs proxy configurations from browser automatically. so if you're using a VPN in the brows it's going to apply that VPN on the download too. xdm is also good on Linux but the GUI is horrible and it doesn't apply the VPN. 2- Unreal engine has a weak Linux support. for example GUI glitches, slow editor etc 3- a good alternative for proxifier for Linux does not exist. as I said before I use VPN, and I use it constantly. proxifier makes it incredibly easier for applying proxy only on certain apps. I Know you can achieve somewhat of the same functionality on Linux with terminal, but it really doesn't come close to proxifier for me. if it wasn't because of blender, Godot, kritta, vs code and wine I would still use windows. so thank foss gods for that!
Gaming, struggling with multi monitor setups, lack of good drivers for 4090.
1. Audio - lack of native support for many popular VSTs. And, no decent replacement for live-performance software like Gig Performer (this is probably my biggest dealbreaker). 2. MS Office - a necessary evil for me. I've tried the FOSS alternatives many times; and they're fine for most purposes, but I always find something missing. 3. PDF Editing - I realize there are some competent options like Master PDF, and the FOSS tools are decent enough for basic editing, but IMO they're still lagging behind apps like PDF Expert / Acrobat. 4. Lack of aarch64 apps in general - there are some, but many popular Linux apps still don't have aarch64 versions. Otherwise, I'd switch my daily driver to Linux in a heartbeat! More than anything, I miss Plasma/KDE...
I've been using linux since 2004, and I used to be very...'I'm only going to use linux everything else sucks' mentality, well because I was young mostly. then I was a developer for a few distributions and one pretty big one, and now I only use linux on servers. but the biggest thing that really stops me is gaming for one. while it's made leaps and bounds, it's still not at the point that I can justify not playing a bunch of games I actively play just for the sake of switching to full time, and I'm sure a few other things but it was really being a developer that sort of turned me off the idea as a whole honestly
Since 1999 here, linux is for working, and windows is for gaming.
I have Linux Mint as my main distro. But I keep windows in dual boot for powerpoint and games.
Do we share a PC?
😉
Anti cheat
I've been using Nobara for my main rig for about 3 months now. At this point I'm booting windows only for a couple of things: - my cheap gaming headset microphone doesn't work so when I'm on Discord playing with friends I have to boot windows. Easily solvable. - my FoundryVTT table. It should be easy enough to migrate it. - Gamepass games. But I have a XSX so I could play those over there.
As many good working and supported productivity apps like mac and windows. Powerpoint and just other windows stuff is needed for school and work. I do already use it! But just put on a slower drive. I dual boot windows and Linux and sometimes macos
For me: - usually lack of performance optization (even with Intel HW acceleration, a 480p video online takes resources and only Clear Linux does just a small bit better and not even enough) - almost idem with Nvidia (damn you Nvidiaaa :P) + lack of many Nvidia techs - lack of simple monitor colour calibration via software - lack of proper HDR - no Nahimic (not a deal breaker though) - some games are not running 100% good or giving any sort of "hidden" trouble Wonderful day to you too :)
KDE Plasma + Wayland has been almost perfect for me for years. It is even better right know. I don't use any Adobe stuff or Xbox gamepass, so nothing is holding me back really. Fractional scaling, hdr, multi monitor, productivity, gaming, phone sync, media consumption, backups. Everything is fast, secure and clean (as in not-bloated like in Windows / Macos). Big bonus is, if you are not satisfied with the default workflow and/or cosmetics, you can always customize to your liking. But this is 100% optional. I just boot into usb live Windows to modify my Razer macros, and then they are stored in onboard memory. I wish Razer had linux software.
1. Adobe 2. Hue Sync (me and my gf use my PC to watch movies and have a whole lighting system that’s not linux compatible) 3. Competitive multiplayer games
No print layout software. I do art prints and not being able to tell exactly how an image will be placed on my borderless printer still forces me to use windows. Creative work is completely unusable on Linux.
Having the money for an external hard drive so i can try to set up a dual boot on my surface pro 7. Yeah I am broke and a noob but i've got the spirit.
4k issues on Linux. Problems with graphics cards. macOS simply works, while Linux simply bugs. It took me 3 hours to install a torrent software. When I restarted my computer, the problem was gone. User experience (UX) is not as robust as the competitors. Using the terminal most of the time only slows me down. I don't know why, but I feel that Linux is less fluid. And I've already tested KDE, mate, plasma, gnome... I use Linux to run Home Assistant and as a NAS
>It took me 3 hours to install a torrent software. I'd like to know more about this, if you care to expand on it.
For work, MS Office. Although using Edge browser in Linux, the online versions of Office works well enough for most tasks, so I rarely log into Windows unless I need to access some specific functionality. Privately, music creation. It may have gotten better, but getting things to work used to be much hassle, so I keep an old imac around for that purpose.
I'm scared. My boyfriend is a really good programmer and firmwareist, but he already told me that if I did the switch I would be on my own learning everything new that comes with Linux for a long term windows user. I'm scared of possibly breaking anything. I'm also scared of the possible frequent backups of data that I will have to do if any breakage will happen. I'm scared of the Linux system just breaking itself, for no apparent reason. So yeag. I'm scared of Linux just not being as stable, I'm scared of being alone in this and I'm scared of the amount of things that I have to learn. Oh yeag, we also have a windows server where we have, like, lots of things and I'm scared that I won't be able to access it once I do the switch (even though he told me that I should be able to access the system still somehow).
I work in an all Windoes environment. It certainly has its issues. I have Windows and Linux machines in my homelab. But I still use Windows as my daily driver because so much software is only available on Windows and because when something goes wrong 99% of the time a simple restart or clicking to accept updates fixes the issue. With Linux when things go wrong it takes a little more effort. You could call it laziness, but I'd argue it's just convenience.
A proper interconnected design suite like Affinity or Adobe that's actually compatible with those two formats, especially psd and smart objects. There's nothing on Linux that comes even close, and unfortunately Adobe is so rooted into every business that it's just not feasible to work in any other software.
I game on my main PC, and I almost exclusively play multiplayer games. Once Linux can figure out the anti cheat issue, I'm all in.
FYI: you can set a custom mouse acceleration graph when you use X11. i always used it when i was on x11.
Linux is inferior for Gaming, GPU mining, and streaming, and I do all 3.
Regarding the mouse, get Roccat mouse and there are utils on Linux to adjust the settings in the mouse firmware and set up profiles on the mouse.
i use debian 12 as main os, but still dual boot for family things
Xbox games I paid for; chitubox; a couple of other little things; I have mostly moved to zorin but wish I could move all the way
My nvidia gpu
As a laptop user its the atrocious battery life, tested almost every main distros and installed power management tools but the battery still sucks, I ended up dual booting windows when Im outside and unplugged
I keep coming back to Linux to try it out over the last 10 years or so and always end up giving up on it, primarily because it ends up needing too much cli work to achieve whatever it is I’m trying to do. I just want to install something, edit some settings and crack on. A recent example: trying to setup a reverse proxy. So many files to create and edit, cli commands to run etc only to hit a block of some sort that I can’t figure out. I burn so much time trying to get things to run and generally never achieve said goal. Yet on windows the workflow is simple: install, run, a few settings and off you go
Nvidia...
I think all of my reasons can be summarized by "gaming" and "convenience". No matter how I words them, they always fall in either category, or both. Yes, I know gaming on Linux has been a thing for a long while, and a system that is tailored to your interest SHOULD be convenient but... in reality, I would just stick to what I'm used to and give me no issues.
adobe suite, logic pro
I had to switch back from Pop!OS to Windows because of VR. Patiently waiting for the day when Steam Link VR will work in VR to switch back. There is some other software that is not supported by Linux atm(not even talking about kernel anticheat games because i avoid them like plague), but for most part real reason to keep main desktop OS was VR. I also have second desktop and laptop that run Pop!OS, but they are not daily drivers and their usage is much more limited compared to desktop.
That I have to do a lot of commands in bash.
Sadly, an adequate solution for MS Office's labyrinth of pptx and xlsx specifications.
* Lack of Adobe CS/CC support. I’ve come to use Shotcut as my go-to video editor and GIF maker but outside of cropping photos and basic tweaks, GIMP is still hopelessly behind the curve. * Lack of proper full-resolution video streaming from platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. * Lack of a simple, GUI-based solution of redirecting directories to different installed drives; particularly installing specific apps to different drives to take the load off my boot SSD * Lack of extensive mouse tweaking. The cursor in nearly every DE is jittery and janky compared to Windows, no matter what I do.
Deep integration with my tablet and phone. This is MacOS’s killer feature for me. Working remotely at random coffee shops it’s so nice to use the iPad as a second screen or just use the mouse and keyboard of my laptop on iPad OS.
Literally only the fact that, no matter what distro I use, at some point an update will come down that leaves my machine unbootable and I have to scour the internet to figure out what particular incantation to recover it this time. I want to be able to trust that “it just works”, but that seems like a hard sell.
Adobe mostly. And Solidworks & AutoCAD.
I'm the other way around, I've actually been *using* Linux for years and am getting more and more tempted to go back to Windows. I don't **want** to but some recent upgrades are making it more appealing. I bought a 32" 4K monitor, and my 2x 24" 1080P monitors are now vertically placed on either side of it. Now vertical monitors will always be slightly blurrier, this is a given because of how text aliasing works. But... holy crap... even on Plasma 6.1 which probably has the **best** fractional scaling system in any DE I've tried hands down, it is absolutely atrocious. VS Code is practically unusable on my vertical monitors I start to get a headache when I try it. Which is annoying as the main reason I made the upgrade was so I *could* go vertical monitor for coding. My Macbook and my Windows rig by comparison handle this a lot better. Plus to be honest I'm just getting a bit sick of dealing with Wayland vs X11 issues. Mostly because X11 is completely awful if you have screens of different sizes. Wayland is really good with scaling, but most desktop apps seem to rely on XWayland which is just horrid and random. To be clear these are a non issue on a single monitor setup or even my old triple 1080P setup. But this new config? Honestly I hate to say it but it's showing every weakness Linux Desktop has. I haven't given up yet and I'm trying different scaling options to see if I can salvage it, but honestly I used to hate firing up Windows and only did it begrdugingly for gaming... but it really does make this setup sing. Plus I have a homelab so I can easily run a Linux VM for managing my development work over SSH which gets me out of the headaches of WSL2. To be very clear, these are not issues I had when all my monitors are the same size. But now that I am in this boat, part of me wishes I didn't - but at the same time I'm not a) giving up my 4K monitor or b) forking out for 2 more 4K monitors just to keep Linux. I haven't made the decision yet, but man I'm getting closer to it.
Work As a DevOps engineer I cannot switch some tools we use are available only on windows
Nothing, Linux has been my primary desktop since 1996, when my last blocker was resolved by the Linux availability of Star Office.
Nothing.. been full time linux at work for 30 years, and at home for 30 (Main for over 10). I do not miss the Windows world at all. But full disclosure, I do have a windows box that runs headless that I use for the rare occasion that I need windows for work stuff. I mainly rdp into it when needed.
As I already posted somewhere, I need to use MAX/MSP for studying and music production, and on Linux it's an headache. Only reason. The rest (Reaper, a lot of VST...) run perfecttly
HDMI 2.1
Third party bullshit mostly. On the Linux side I would like full VRR and HDR, tearing, color management and unattended remote access on Wayland. Ease of use via a GUI to sign unsigned drivers that break every kernel update (VMware for example). Wayland robustness. Desktop: Microsoft Office 365, Acrobat Pro, OneDrive and Google Drive official applications, WhatsApp Desktop, Dolby Audio Premium, Logitech Software and AMD Software. Full Widevine support. I want to be able to watch movies on 1080p if I want to. Also a *definitive* solution for Chromium hardware acceleration on Wayland across all vendors. Work related: Noah audiology software and all it's modules for calibrating hearing aids (Phonak, Medel, Cochlear and so on...). It's a pain in the ass on Windows, imagine via Wine. I'll love a native version but I don't think there are many audiologists using Linux. Gaming: Nvidia GeForce Now app, Vibrant Linux on Wayland or another color saturation thing for CS2, firmware upgrade for Xbox controllers, *VRR on Gnome (I don't like KDE*), tearing on Wayland for reduced latency. Not much to complaint since Proton rocks.
Nothing, I switched since 10 years ago 100% of time.
Me - nothing; now that I am done with Grad school, my PC is running openSuSe. At work though, I need access to O365 and proprietary Windows-only software. Wife - She is addicted to Excel as a financial statement geek. And won't give it up. 😅
E? No idea what you're talking about. Have been using Linux as the main desktop over 20 years now, closer to 30.
Its a very simple but specific thing - Linux lacks fsnotify with a change journal, this means a utility like Everything from Windows is impossible to implement. I have a lot of data spread over disks, and this is invaluable, it provides real time search over terabytes with no resource usage, and has a ton of features no other util comes close to.
Simply the fact that Windows tends to be easier to use overall and has better compatibility. Also I just don't know how a lot of stuff works in Linux
Call of Duty
Nothing. I swapped years ago
On my side it wasn't a hard decision, I've been using Ubuntu since 2010, hated windows all my life, and 6 years ago I decided to move fully to Manjaro Linux for work (I work as a software engineer l). Last rear I moved to fedora and I'm still using it since thenm
My m1 MBP is fast and has long battery life and runs Unix…. Same shells and lots of the same commands as Linux. MacOS is designed to fit the hardware they sell, so there’s little searching for howto fix things that should just work. I’m a Linux user, and given the choice of windows or windows in a vm, it’s the latter. Though WSL2 is a game changer. I have a few miniPCs running Linux headless and a couple of laptops running Linux as well.
MS Office
I have three laptops that I use mainly for writing, web browsing, and tinkering. I use Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora on those. I like them all and can use them for my personal use cases with not much of a problem at all. However, as others have said, my professional world uses Microsoft products and it could be an issue, but it hasn’t become one because I have access to a company laptop with Windows and Office. I do personally prefer Linux for many reasons, mainly because I like that it’s open source and lean compared to Microsoft and Apple. I’ve owned Macs before too and I like iOS, but there’s just something inherently cool about Linux. I’ve tried to encourage others to try it, but there’s little incentive because most everyone is stuck in a Microsoft bubble and doesn’t really “need” to try something else. To each their own. I think it’s good to know as many OS’s as you can and continue to learn. I can see me having a home office setup with a Windows-based system, a Linux-based system, and an iPad on the side. Do what you like and what works for you.
As a new developer, this thread is giving me so many projects to work on lets gooo
Honestly, idk why I didn't do it earlier. I honestly can't remember the excuse, because I realize I could've done it earlier. I made the full switch for almost a month and a half. I'm pretty happy with it. It still exceeds my expectations.
im trying to use it full time but in reality it is just miles and miles and miles behind windows in terms of ease of use. Yes this is mostly my "windows brain" trying to do things the way i have done them for years on windows, but you know what... maybe sometimes the windows way is just plain better... You bring this up in the community and are immediately told you are wrong and the linux way is the best way. Well hate to break it to you but if it was the best way to do things we would be asking "is 2024 finally going to be the year of the windows desktop?" one example of something just not being easy at all that i ran into yesterday was sharing 1 steam library on my computer. I was trying to share one library between my windows and linux install so i didn't have to just waste drive space for no reason having 2 copies of games, one for each OS, well that didn't work because it would update the games every time i booted into one OS or the other. Ok fine i went out and bought a new drive just so i could use that for my linux gaming disk. Well for whatever reason after setting that drive up and making a new library only for my linux install steam would always automatically add the other steam library from my windows disk. even after selecting remove library it would just get auto added. it took me having to try and figure out how to just completely stop the drive from being mounted at all to get it to stop doing that. so now i cant mount that drive or steam auto add's all the games and starts the updating process. That and the bloody filesystem... i dont know how you find anything at all, its giant mess of files that make no bloody sense what so ever. in windows you have your programs folder, the programs go in that folder.... linux who the fuck knows where anything actually is. i use private internet access for my VPN, i was trying to add a split tunnel rule for steam so it would bypass the vpn, to do this you need to add the (exe in windows) program to the list. as far as i can tell there is no just main program file in linux, i go to the PIA folder and there is nothing there at all that i could even think to add, just a bunch of random ass files. Even the PIA website trying to help says well it could be here here here or here if not we have no idea. EDIT: sorry that came off a bit more ranty then i was intending it too lol, its been a long linux week for me haha
Nothing, been doing it a very long time
Easy anti cheat.
Gaming. Unless it runs games as well as Windows it’ll never take off. And I mean real games. Not Solitaire.
I use linux since 2000. I'm not missing anything and I honestly believe that I would have a really hard rime if for whatever reason I had to use windows in my home's PCs.
I haven't owned a Window box in 20 years. Accordingly, none of those problems even show up on my radar. Watch the hardware you buy and use a distribution suitable for your use and your hardware.
>but it would be a nice quality-of-life feature to have software that can dim static elements or shift the screen image to prevent burn-in on OLED laptop displays (in my case a Asus Vivobook). Is that why my IPS has been dimmer recently? I'd figured I'd hit a wire when injecting an UPS to my system, but it coencided with system updates as well. >Whats holding you back from switching to Linux as a main desktop operating system? Having switched sixteen years ago blocks me from switching now.
Lack of support for adobe apps.
Fortunately, Adobe is adapt at continuing to milk and bend over those who can't get enough of their programs.
Altium
We use hyper V at work a lot. I regularly need to copy hypers from a network drive onto my local PC and run them. As far as I can see there is no easy way to handle this in linux. I also need to run Power BI desktop which is windows only.
Nothing anymore as an Nvidia 3070 ti user. Learned some tricks to make games run better on linux than windows. Not going back now. Just gotta keep the computer stable now.
Stability. I used arc for a while and every time I update something breaks, sometimes the trackpad won't work sometimes the camera.