this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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edit: hey guys, 60+ comments, can't reply from now on, but know that I am grateful for your comments, keep the convo going. Thank you to the y'all people who gave unbiased answers and thanks also to those who told me about Waydroid and Docker

edit: Well, now that's sobering, apparently I can do most of these things on Windows with ease too. I won't be switching back to Windows anytime soon, but it appears that my friend was right. I am getting FOMO Fear of missing out right now.

I do need these apps right now, but there are some apps on Windows for which we don't have a great replacement

  1. Adobe
  2. MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.
  3. Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
  4. Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won't have any luck installing them on Linux.
  5. Apparently windows is allowing their users to use some Android apps?

Torrented apps would be my biggest concern, I mean, these are Windows specific, how can I run them on Linux? Seriously, I want to know how. Can wine run most of the apps without error? I am thinking of torrenting some educational software made for Windows.



Let me list the customizations I have done with my xfce desktop and you tell me if I can do that on Windows.

I told my friend that I can't leave linux because of all the customization I have done and he said, you just don't like to accept that Windows can do that too. Yeah, because I think it can't do some of it (and I like Linux better)

But yeah, let's give the devil it's due, can I do these things on Windows?

  1. I have applications which launch from terminal eg: vlc would open vlc (no questions asked, no other stuff needed, just type vlc)
  2. Bash scripts which updates my system (not completely, snaps and flatpaks seem to be immune to this). I am pretty sure you can't do this on Windows.
  3. I can basically automate most of my tasks and it has a good integration with my apps.
  4. I can create desktop launchers.
  5. Not update my system, I love to update because my updates aren't usually 4 freaking GB and the largest update I have seen has been 200-300 mbs, probably less but yeah, I was free to not update my PC if I so choose. Can you do this on Windows? And also, Linux updates fail less often, I mean, it might break your system, but the thing won't stop in the middle and say "Bye Bye, updates failed" and now you have to waste 4GB again to download the update. PS: You should always keep your apps upto date mostly for security reasons, but Linux won't force it on you and ruin your workflow.
  6. Create custom panel plugin.

  1. My understanding is that the Windows terminal sucks? I don't know why, it just looks bad.

I am sure as hell there are more but this is at the top of my mind rn, can I do this on Windows. Also, give me something that you personally do on Linux but can't do it on Windows.

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[–] dlove67@feddit.nl 86 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like Linux better

All the other reasons don't really matter.

[–] Subject6051@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I need new friends, I am gonna replace my best friend with you.

[–] Samihazah@programming.dev 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Friends shouldn't be platform exclusive.

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[–] django@discuss.tchncs.de 67 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • boot from a btrfs snapshot
  • run docker without running a second kernel
  • boot an older kernel, in case something fails
  • run the system completely without a gui, to save video RAM for other tasks
  • distro hopping
  • use multiple desktop environments
  • use your computer without a mouse
  • create a directory named CON
  • use old hardware painlessly
  • have your system not spy on you without extra effort
  • create weird stacks of software raid, volume manager, disk encryption and filesystems and then boot from it
  • read the kernel developer mailing list and be hyped for new kernel features like bcachefs, which will hopefully come someday
[–] Naich@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo Click

Can you play Bash Roulette in Windows?

Seriously, you can hack it with one liners and scripts to do anything. I know you can do scripting with windows, but it just doesn't have the sheer number of nifty little tools. The Linux philosophy has always been "do one thing and do it well", so you can chain the simple but powerful tools together and knock up a little script to do something amazingly useful in seconds.

[–] skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]

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[–] betwixthewires@lemmy.basedcount.com 36 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Open a link in any browser i like. Say "no" to updates. Have a main menu that doesn't look like a kiosk at the mall. Have my habits on my computer kept to myself. Install applications from outside an application store. Not need an antivirus software.

[–] Aatube@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Install applications from outside an application store

Ofc that’s possible in windows

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[–] ReakDuck@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Soon with Plasma 6 and Wayland, you can let your Desktop crash but still keep all your Windows after the new Desktop spawned. This also means you can replace your KDE desktop with Gnome, XFCE Hyprland and some others whithout needing to logout or close applications.

Additionally you can save current states of the application with Wayland. Shit is getting so interesting right now.

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=sAlIcn5meSCDKq3K&v=jlDhpFjBWiw

[–] featherfurl@lemmy.ml 28 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I can declare the complete state of my systems in a config file that I store on sourcehut with git and pull down to have a fully configured system on new hardware whenever I want it.

I can use tiling window managers.

I can work with native containers easily.

I can run an operating system that is designed to be the most useful tool it can be, not the most profitable product it can be.

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[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 26 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Docker! I have never experienced a more unpleasant software than Docker for Windows.

[–] bzxt@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think I read somewhere a while ago that Docker is only really "native" on Linux, because on Mac and Windows it spawns some internal virtual machine or something like that. Not sure if i remember it correctly but that would probably be a reason for worse performance i guess.

[–] nous@programming.dev 10 points 1 year ago

There is a native windows docker as well, where you can run windows containers inside it. But no one uses it, everyone just wants to use the linux containers which require a linux kernel and thus virtualisation on windows. Performance should not be worst on it though, but the layer of a VM added to it adds a layer of jank to make it appear to work like the native linux version (ie mounting host folders need to be mounted on the VM first before they can appear in docker, and while that is mostly transparent it can cause a few issues with some things).

[–] Saganastic@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Do you not use it with WSL?? I've found the experience is almost identical to linux.

[–] domi@lemmy.secnd.me 11 points 1 year ago

Funny that you ask, WSL was what made me switch to Linux. I previously used Hyper-V because that was what was available back then and it was a nightmare. Slow to start, slow to run and constantly needing a reset after a reboot because "something happened™".

I switched to WSL when it was new and it was much better than Hyper-V but it had major issues with volumes back then. Performance was abysmal when mounting a volume on a Windows drive and when using the WSL filesystem you had the reverse issue under Windows with your IDE and git.

There were also two big issues with reproducibility on Windows (both with Hyper-V and WSL), namely:

  • Line endings changing to /r/n, breaking all shell scripts with it
  • File permissions changing to 777, breaking many applications with it

Line endings changing happened a lot because git on Windows defaults to changing line endings on pull and/or if someone on your team commits a file opened by an IDE on Windows it will change the line endings a lot of times as well.

In the end I spent so much time inside of WSL that I started wondering why I was running Windows in the first place and just switched over. Proton played a big part as well but Docker was the main point.

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[–] s_s@lemmy.one 24 points 1 year ago

Be the only user that can run code as root.

Microsoft and their "trusted partners" do not deserve closer access to my hardware than I have.

[–] pH3ra@lemmy.ml 23 points 1 year ago

Use a system that's not a personalized ad billboard

[–] starman@programming.dev 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's easier to run C/C++ compiler (GCC) on GNU/Linux

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Getting a C/C++ compiler on Windows is a menace. To my knowledge, there are two ways to do it. Either install Visual Studio which will also install the MSVC compiler, or wrangle with MinGW to get GCC.

In the first-year CS classes I attended, the instructions were usually to either get WSL and install the gcc package or to connect using SSH to the engineering server (CentOS 7) which has it pre-installed.

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[–] gamer@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Connect a printer and have it just work.

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago

Install software updates when you want, and not lose half the day while they install.

[–] rah@feddit.uk 17 points 1 year ago

Modify the software.

[–] tho@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  1. adjust the drift speed of a thinkpad trackpoint
  2. stream audio from one computer to another one (or a phone) with ease (thanks pulseaudio)
[–] tho@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago

btw 1 is literally impossible, there's no gui driver setting, there's no regedit switch, no nothing. on linux you just need to write to this file /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/drift_time

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[–] Aatube@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

FYI you can use LibreOffice with a ribbon-like toolbar or better yet experimental contextual groups.

[–] cyclohexane@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • Have a really good keyboard-driven desktop environment.
  • Many good options for tiling desktop environments.
  • Extremely good logging, enabling you to diagnose most problems.
  • package manager-first approach: I don't want to manage package installations, routine updates, and dependency resolution myself. Package managers do the work for me
  • extreme customizability: I choose which kernel features are turned on or off, and compile them. For example, I can compile in PS4 controller drivers
  • first class support for the terminal and terminal-driven workflow
  • Enhanced security system: being able to sandbox apps easily, for example.
  • Enhanced transparency into the system: can easily get into the weeds of seeing why my Internet is not working.
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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Use only the amount of CPU power I need, and have my stuff be top priority, rather than picking up the dregs when Windows indexing and updates and other services have a little bit of CPU to spare.

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[–] staticlifetime@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Sanely use multiple workspaces.

[–] potterman28wxcv 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Program easily and efficiently. Not having to wait 5 minutes for a window to come. Fast boot/reboot times (less than 10 minutes). Native support for many things without having to install them. Installing is usually as easy as running an apt-get command. Not having to kill update processes because they take 100% of your disk bandwidth and starve all your other apps.

Windows feels like an ugly and sloggy system with a ton of duck tapes. Only reason I use it on my gaming laptop is for games.

Linux on the other hand just works. Nothing fancy, but it's just what someone who wants efficiency needs.

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[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 11 points 1 year ago (6 children)

If by adobe you just mean photoshop, that works fine on linux, or you can get the version of GIMP with the photoshop menus. Wider adobe, that's a vm.

MS Word, I reckon Libre's fine but YMMV, there's office 365 anyway.

Games as noted are mostly there.

Many torrented apps : If you mean the *arrs etc, they go fine, better even (more contained, safer) in docker

Android apps: We've had Waydroid for a while now.

Hopefully that puts the FOMO to rest...

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[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
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[–] phanto@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Possibly dumb question, but... can Windows pipe things? Like, can I pipe a grep to a text file, or send stdout to a text? Or, like, tee a command onto the end of a config? I don't use this a lot in Linux, but I have never done in Windows and literally don't know if it can be.

[–] ipha@lemm.ee 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In powershell, kinda -- but it's unpleasant. Everything is an object which you pipe between commands, but it's not a text stream so the receiving end has to explicitly understand what it's receiving.

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[–] ShouldIHaveFun@feddit.ch 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
  1. MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.

Have you tried onlyoffice? Its interface is closer to ms office and an online version can even be self hosted and integrated with nextcloud or seefile.

It has apps for Linux and Android

https://www.onlyoffice.com/

Edit:

Here is the link to the standalone desktop app (not the online version): https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx

And here is the link to the supported OSes for the desktop app (incl download links): https://www.onlyoffice.com/download-desktop.aspx

Finally, here is the link to the github repo of the desktop app: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DesktopEditors

[–] MiddledAgedGuy 9 points 1 year ago

I think an important thing to talk about here is that Linux is not Windows. Which I know is an obvious statement, but I'll elaborate.

Most deskop/laptop users use Windows. Most deskop/laptop software is for Windows. The way that most people know how to navigate an OS is Windows-centric. Windows does what most people expect a computer to do. A lot of what your focus seems to be on is if Linux can do what Windows can. And while the answer is often yes, I don't really think it's the right question.

Do you want to use Linux? If so, use it. One of things you'll have to accept with that is that you'll lose access to some of those Windows specific pieces of software. Sure, there's wine and steam/proton and you might be able to get any given thing running. But it's not a guarantee you will be able to, or that it will continue to run. If you're really beholden to Windows software, you should probably stick with Windows. If you're willing to explore FOSS alternatives to the software you're accustomed to, even if it may not work the way you expect it to, stick around. And you should, because Linux is awesome!

Desktop customization; I am using KDE Plasma, and I have two panels: one on the right, which has a "task manager", and the top panel which has an app-launcher, pager, clock, cpu load, and the system tray. I don't know if you can even have two panels in Windows.

Modularity: Switch whatever component with whatever you see fit. You can switch out the desktop environment you're using, switch out the sound server, the init system, the bootloader, etc.

You can update flatpaks using a bash script, you can even make a command to update system packages and flatpaks, by just adding alias update="sudo pacman -Syu && flatpak update" to your ~/.bashrc file.

[–] ThemboMcBembo 9 points 1 year ago

Set one mouse to left handed and another to right handed.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Manage multiple windows efficiently.

Alt + click to move and resize the windows exactly the way I want. Also, throwing windows into specific virtual desktops is smooth, efficient, fast and you can use keyboard shortcuts to jump straight to the point.

If someone knows a way to do this on my windows work computer, please please please tell me. Sluggish window management under Windows is driving me nuts.

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[–] markkdark@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

It's simple answer, my Linux (Arch Linux) is my OS with my choice what of app I have, faster, privacy (very important), just my, not from Windows or Apple, it's my choice what I will delete, install, use, how look my desktop... And my comp is ten years old and working like new.

[–] UFODivebomb@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago

unlink

Specifically the operation of removing a file from a path without requiring the file to be unused. Open references to the file can still exist by processes.

[–] thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Enjoy my workflow.

It may sound glib, but I REALLY mean it.

[–] gamer@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It may sound glib

I prefer KDE, but to each their own.

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[–] al177@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 year ago
  1. sudo dd if=never_gonna_give_you_up.mp3 of=/dev/sda

  2. Say "It's a UNIX system! I know this."

  3. Make your capslock LED blink along with network activity using a built-in kernel driver

  4. Fix bugs yourself

[–] scytale@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Upgrade without reformatting. Update without restarting.

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[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

If you wanna MS Office replacement, you can check out Only office, it looks nice, and also supports Linux iirc

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