I am a Windows guy, but I occasionally have to work with Linux. I spend a lot of time googling weird problems with cryptic solutions. That’s my experience trying to do anything technical with Linux. I can’t really remember the last time I had a problem in windows, but that’s not to say windows is perfect. It’s taken a hit in usability recently, which is weird since they’ve had decades to refine things. I recently installed pop os as a dual boot and it’s been pretty great with the ability to play games. I haven’t really had to do anything technical and I find myself using it more than I thought.
At least most problems under Linux have solutions and if you are really desperate you have the option to fix it yourself in the source or pay someone to do it. Under windows, if microsoft doesn’t care about your problem, you either find a workaround or live with it.
If it isn’t a Microsoft sanctioned solution, then multiple third party solutions exists that fix it.
That’s not how this works. If it’s not a Microsoft-sancioned solution, it literally cannot be fixed no matter how much effort you put in. You need an API to work with Windows. If Microsoft does not provide you with an API, you can’t do it. And even if you find a way to hack together something, you have zero guarantee an update won’t just come along and fuck it. Linux distros are open source, you can change quite literally any thing about them. That is what that person was talking about.
the thing is, microsoft does provide stable, well-documented and backwards-compatible apis for just about anything imaginable, and even if that’s not enough, you can try interacting with the kernel directly
I can’t say I share this experience as I spend a lot more than half my time using Linux watching documentaries on youtube in a web browser. If you are obsessed with personalization I could see this happening, but I happen to prefer using default (as in “possible to consistently re-apply”) settings on most things.
Regardless, troubleshooting makes you better at resolving trouble that you didn’t bring about on your own, and life is defined by unexpected troubles. It is better to be antifragile than happy!
I guess you’re lucky (or much more tech-savvy than me). I tried to switch to linux once many years ago (pre-COVID, which is like ancient times now). It was horrible. Oh, I now need to learn about file systems and NTFS and ext3/4(?) - i guess i’ll try Linux on a separate, old hard drive. Ok, something didn’t work, I now have to figure out what driver wasn’t supported and what I need to download. Great, people on forums are helpful but they’re asking me a bunch of gibberish. Now I gotta figure out this command line thing. Oh cool some people built GUIs for certain stuff so i don’t need to play with the command line, but then the GUI doesn’t work occasionally and now I have to figure out if it’s the GUI that broke or something else. And then at some point I got stuck because of file permissions.
Trying to use proprietary drivers and NTFS on Linux is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. People work hard to make it work and maybe it does with a little effort but the proprietary model and Linux distros just don’t mesh well together. If you make it a point to purchase hardware that has open source drivers and use open source software (and as a consumer, you probably should anyway), everything does just work. Obviously this may not suit your use case and Linux may just not be for you.
NTFS is okay if you’re mounting a drive that you share with a Windows machine but don’t actually install Linux to an NTFS partition please. Most of the “beginner friendly” distros I don’t think even let you.
Linux: “my users spend half their time troubleshooting”
I am a Windows guy, but I occasionally have to work with Linux. I spend a lot of time googling weird problems with cryptic solutions. That’s my experience trying to do anything technical with Linux. I can’t really remember the last time I had a problem in windows, but that’s not to say windows is perfect. It’s taken a hit in usability recently, which is weird since they’ve had decades to refine things. I recently installed pop os as a dual boot and it’s been pretty great with the ability to play games. I haven’t really had to do anything technical and I find myself using it more than I thought.
At least most problems under Linux have solutions and if you are really desperate you have the option to fix it yourself in the source or pay someone to do it. Under windows, if microsoft doesn’t care about your problem, you either find a workaround or live with it.
Because of the ginormous community, every problem has a solution in Windows.
If it isn’t a Microsoft sanctioned solution, then multiple third party solutions exists that fix it.
Windows has a hell of a lot more support than any Linux distribution does.
That’s not how this works. If it’s not a Microsoft-sancioned solution, it literally cannot be fixed no matter how much effort you put in. You need an API to work with Windows. If Microsoft does not provide you with an API, you can’t do it. And even if you find a way to hack together something, you have zero guarantee an update won’t just come along and fuck it. Linux distros are open source, you can change quite literally any thing about them. That is what that person was talking about.
the thing is, microsoft does provide stable, well-documented and backwards-compatible apis for just about anything imaginable, and even if that’s not enough, you can try interacting with the kernel directly
I can’t say I share this experience as I spend a lot more than half my time using Linux watching documentaries on youtube in a web browser. If you are obsessed with personalization I could see this happening, but I happen to prefer using default (as in “possible to consistently re-apply”) settings on most things.
Regardless, troubleshooting makes you better at resolving trouble that you didn’t bring about on your own, and life is defined by unexpected troubles. It is better to be antifragile than happy!
I guess you’re lucky (or much more tech-savvy than me). I tried to switch to linux once many years ago (pre-COVID, which is like ancient times now). It was horrible. Oh, I now need to learn about file systems and NTFS and ext3/4(?) - i guess i’ll try Linux on a separate, old hard drive. Ok, something didn’t work, I now have to figure out what driver wasn’t supported and what I need to download. Great, people on forums are helpful but they’re asking me a bunch of gibberish. Now I gotta figure out this command line thing. Oh cool some people built GUIs for certain stuff so i don’t need to play with the command line, but then the GUI doesn’t work occasionally and now I have to figure out if it’s the GUI that broke or something else. And then at some point I got stuck because of file permissions.
Trying to use proprietary drivers and NTFS on Linux is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. People work hard to make it work and maybe it does with a little effort but the proprietary model and Linux distros just don’t mesh well together. If you make it a point to purchase hardware that has open source drivers and use open source software (and as a consumer, you probably should anyway), everything does just work. Obviously this may not suit your use case and Linux may just not be for you.
NTFS is okay if you’re mounting a drive that you share with a Windows machine but don’t actually install Linux to an NTFS partition please. Most of the “beginner friendly” distros I don’t think even let you.