this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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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[–] MasterNerd@lemm.ee 137 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Kinda weird that they're calling it an OS, but ig they're just trying to cater to the windows audience

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[–] glibg10b@lemmy.ml 90 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Windows 11 takes your money, gives you ads, sells your information and ignores your bug reports and feature requests

KDE is free, ad-free and open to contribution

I think we have a clear winner here

[–] desconectado@lemm.ee 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (7 children)

But can it run proprietary software used in the industry? From Excel to Photoshop, if you are in a collaborative professional environment, you can't run away from those, and don't tell me you can use the alternatives in Linux, because no, you can't. This is not linux fault, but it's still an issue you can't handwave.

I love linux, but you can't expect people to adopt it just because it's objectively better than windows.

[–] Holzkohlen@feddit.de 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You just gotta make an effort. The one who are too lazy will never be free of Microsoft's clutches. Which probably just means pretty much everyone will stick to windows.

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[–] aldalire@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

List of things to consider

  1. There are alternatives
  2. You can use wine
  3. You can run a windows VM and install it there
  4. Dual boot windows
  5. Microsoft has built a proprietary moat around their operating system. The reason why it’s hard to switch from Windows is by corporate design. A mix of early adoption, network effects, and just plain cold hard cash makes them dominate the operating system market. Of course it’s infeasible for your 60yo coworker to switch; but KDE presents an alternate reality, an opportunity, for people fed up with big tech’s bullshit. Yes, figure out how to run and use alternatives you fucking nut. Way to go disparaging countless volunteer hours spent on open source projects so that people like me can switch to linux.

Comments like these make me irrationally angry. Why complain about open source software and give bad PR? It’s open source; contribute.

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[–] hyaudreyzane@mastodon.social 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

@desconectado @glibg10b Wine exists... And that's all I have to say. There is a good installer in lutris for creative cloud that works pretty good if you own it. And if you have a NVIDIA graphics card, it works even better, almost like on windows. It's not 1:1 but we're getting close. For excel you have wine again or a great free alternative is WPS or softmaker if you want to buy it.

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[–] ultra@feddit.ro 18 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Not to mention free as in freedom.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

Also free as in beer.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 11 points 11 months ago

And anytime you mention that anywhere when somebody is being fucked again by windows, people find you annoying

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[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 58 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Linux is the modern OS and windows is just a bunch of old shitty technology in a trench suit.

[–] allywilson@sopuli.xyz 5 points 11 months ago

This is kinda how I feel about Windows these days. It's interface, directory structure, shudder the registry, user specific apps (from MS Store or Winget), buttons being inserted into the menu bars on some apps, but not others, button sizes being different sizes, some parts still using the Metro interface. The whole thing either needs a re-write, or should be dropped and something new to replace it. Don't even get me started on things like the eventvwr hanging for 20 seconds after it opens, event tracer API, their in-house abandonment of powershell modules once powershell was open sourced, Windows containers being a disaster, etc.

[–] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 42 points 11 months ago (3 children)

So basically ever since I first tried Windows 7 I held it as the "Gold standard" for desktop OS's. Half my tweaks to Windows 10 were trying to get it as close to Win7 as I possibly could.

When I finally start experimenting with Linux early this year KDE quickly got me to reconsider my "Gold standard" and finally switch my main machine fully to Linux.

No regrets and certainly ain't switching back even if Microsoft gave me updated Windows 7 with every extra feature I wanted back then.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 29 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I've been a Linux user for a decade and a half now, but still use Windows on my corporate laptops. Honestly, it's baffling how Microsoft seem to consistently manage to miss the mark with the UI design. There's lots to be said about the underlying internals of Windows vs Linux, performance, kernel design etc., but even at the shallow, end user, "is this thing pleasant to use" stakes, they just never manage to get it right.

Windows 7 was...fine. It was largely inoffensive from a shell point of view, although things about how config and settings were handled were still pretty screwy. But Windows 8 was an absolutely insane approach to UI design, Windows 10 spent an awful lot of energy just trying to de-awful it without throwing the whole thing out, and Windows 11 is missing basic UI features that even Windows 7 had.

When you look at their main commercial competition (Mac and Chromebook) or the big names in Linux (GNOME, KDE, plenty of others besides), they stand out as a company that simply can't get it right, despite having more resources to throw at it than the rest of them put together.

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 11 months ago (3 children)

To me it's absurd how Microsoft gets beaten by a free desktop environment when windows is like their main product. They have billions of dollars. How do they manage to not do better?

[–] pbjamm 14 points 11 months ago

Because they dont have to.

[–] cygnus@lemmy.ca 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

windows is like their main product

TBF it isn't really - only about 12% of their revenue. It's more of a means to lock people into their other products.

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Well, that's the thing, it's the core part of their entire business. The glue that sticks everything together. Or at least used to be until Azure.

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[–] Damage@feddit.it 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What drives me crazy is how they can't update all their configuration interface to the same standard, if you go deep enough you still fine things that are unchanged since Windows 98

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[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 11 months ago

Almost all my desktop gets used for anymore is gaming. The windows only anti cheat shit leaves me not messing with splitting what I boot up for.

[–] jeremyparker@programming.dev 4 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I hate to say this, because I know how cringe it is, but... Windows 7 actually removed a lot of features that made Windows fun. And yeah, I'm talking about ricing and I'm unironically saying ricing is valid.

The mid 2000s was an awesome time to be in the ricing community - between litestep, blackbox, foobar2k, rainlendar/rainmeter etc, you could actually make your experience look however you wanted.

And, litestep in particular, for me, was a gateway drug to openbox and therefore Linux - when you finally hit The Windows Wall, where, to go any further, you had to step into Linux, Ubuntu was there, and then Mint, and then..idr what.

I still have my 2007 Ubuntu installation cd that they mailed to me for free. Sure, you could just make your own installation cd rom, but, if you couldn't, they would happily mail you one - or, as in my case, you felt motivated to evangelize, they'd send you a bunch that you could give out to people. I gave mine to friends and left some others at the local anarchist bookstore (I don't remember the name of it but this was Washington DC just north of Chinatown).

Windows 7 was a big step backwards. You could still do a lot of ricing, but less - and it was very clear from the direction that Windows 7 went, that whatever came next would be worse.

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[–] BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml 37 points 11 months ago (5 children)

In the newest windows, it is even possible to hover the volume icon and change it with the mouse wheel!!!

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 22 points 11 months ago

Does clicking on it open the mixer, or still the useless menu which should be accessible with a right click instead?

[–] flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 16 points 11 months ago

KDE had that pretty much since the invention of the mouse wheel.

[–] starman@programming.dev 7 points 11 months ago

I have the same functionality on my waybar

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[–] Pantherina@feddit.de 37 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Plasma is not a system, but I see how they didnt want to confuse people here

[–] oce@jlai.lu 23 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It is a desktop environment system.

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[–] const_void@lemmy.ml 25 points 11 months ago

KDE is the best desktop environment.

[–] MaxPower@feddit.de 21 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Yeah like they (the Windows sheeple) celebrated a CLI package manager as if it was their best invention since sliced bread. Every Linux user was like yaaawwwn... "finally"

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 31 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Who in the world celebrated that?

Like, I get the self-reinforcing bubble that Linux communities exist in and all, but... nobody did that.

The vast majority of Windows users are random people that never touch anything beyond the Start menu in their entire computing lives. What segment of the Windows userbase is out there celebrating any features, let alone command line anything? This is not a thing. At least not in numbers large enough to matter.

Sorry, I try not to get involved in these arguments. Frankly, grown adults taking sides on operating systems of all things like it's Sega vs Nintendo in a 90s playground seems very strange but I don't begrudge people finding communities wherever. It's just... you know, come on.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 11 months ago

As someone who needs to do initial installs on computers with 10-20, I celebrated. It is much easier to type names of the programs and the manager do anything instead of manually downloading installers. But turned out WinGet is really badly done.

As for preferences, for some this is actually Nintendo vs Sega unfortunetly. But don't underestimate moral decitions too.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

People who do not use the dominant system/program/etc. often feel the need to tear down everyone else in order to validate their decision instead of just letting the results and their daily happiness with the decision speak for itself.

[–] TimeSquirrel@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is me, just getting shit done. If you are constantly thinking about what OS you're using, you're doing it wrong.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 5 points 11 months ago

Because I am too lazy to make an actual thread on mastodon I’m going to corner you and ask you a quick question if you don’t mind! Feel free to ignore haha.

I’ve recently dipped my toes in Linux and it’s been really fun learning about all of it, but I still haven’t really settled on an OS. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel or trying to predict everything, I decided to use what I have right in front of me: my steamdeck! I figured playing around on SteamOS in desktop mode is a great way to acclimate myself to Linux a little bit and figure out what I really like and such.

What are some essential programs and QOL things you would recommend? I am interested in trying to host my Plex server off of it, maybe even fiddle around with video editing since that’s what I do professionally (resolve runs on Linux so not worried there), maybe some audio tools. I just want to kind of see what it would look like as a daily driver, though I am very aware that Steam OS has limitations as one.

I’m coming from Mac and I am pretty comfortable doing terminal commands, troubleshooting tech issues, and I’m pretty privacy concerned. Hence why I’m trying to migrate a little bit away for macOS potentially haha. Any and all suggestions are welcome! Even just good website or resources for learning more would be very welcome.

[–] natecox@programming.dev 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You don’t even need to quality it. Some people just feel the need to tear down others to make themselves feel good. It’s low self-esteem, misplaced onto whatever happens to be near them.

I think we’re all vulnerable to it, too. Part of being a good neighbor is checking yourself to see if you’re being a dick about your preferences, and just letting people enjoy what they enjoy (unless that thing is harming others; you know, common sense).

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[–] aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social 16 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[–] MazonnaCara89@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Do you known kde has discover to install and update applications with a gui right?

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[–] Titou@feddit.de 19 points 11 months ago

not a kde user but huge respect to them

[–] heygooberman@lemmy.today 15 points 11 months ago

It's not my primary driver, but I would gladly choose KDE over Windows.

[–] RuikkaaPrus@lemmy.ml 15 points 11 months ago

Fully based

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I came back to KDE after a long absence because I never liked it back in the day (I found it ugly and bloated). I was really surprised by how good it has become. It's now my favourite desktop environment on Linux, and I'm looking forward to version 6. So to any other oldies still avoiding KDE because of how it used to be, it's worth another look.

[–] k_rol@lemmy.ca 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I second your experience. It was not so impressive back then and 2indo2s was much nicer, but not anymore. I'm feeling it, this year Linux will be on top!

Edit: I tried to write Windows 🤷‍♂️

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[–] yoz@aussie.zone 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What's plasma ? Is it a browser? Sorry, I dont understand computers

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[–] SGHFan@lemdro.id 6 points 11 months ago

And you can't get de-crufted Win11 outside Europe! Another win for Plasma!

[–] AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago

Because I need Windows to run old C&C games. Get Generals world builder working on Linux and I'll delete my dual boot

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)
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