this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (8 children)

I don’t have days of free time anymore to mess with Linux as my main OS.

I get paid to deploy and troubleshoot Windows. I use Linux at home. Do I do this because after spending hours forcing Windows to behave as desired I want to come home and do the same to my Linux box? No, I do it because Linux is reliable and easy, and it's not built on a premise that someone else knows how I want my computer to work better than I do.

Having to fight against what MS wants (or throw up your hands and accept it) is now baked into Windows. Even if I had to spend hours to use something else, I would.

I don't intend this to disparage you, I say this because comments like quoted always ruffle my feathers. As if everyone who uses Linux has said, "Welp, I know this takes hours a day of my time to use, but dammit I'm just stubborn."

NO, this is not what using Linux is like for the majority of people who choose to use it, even for gaming. If it's like that for you, then you need a different distro, or different hardware, or you aren't actually as comfortable with Linux as you think you are.

And it's OK not to be comfortable with it, no one sprang from the womb knowing Linux - but to imply that Linux requires hours of time to use vs Windows is IME very false. Yes, it requires people to learn new things, but no one came from the womb knowing Windows either - most of us have just been exposed to it continuously and have invested that learning time without even realizing it since we've always been "forced" (to one degree or another) to use it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (4 children)

So have you tried music production with Linux? Installing VSTs is exactly that: hours upon hours of banging your head against a wall with Wine.

There simply are usecases that don't work out of the box with Linux that do on Windows because the companies don't support Linux.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

There simply are usecases that don’t work out of the box with Linux that do on Windows because the companies don’t support Linux.

I know this to be true, but generally folks who are in a corner case know they are a corner case and express it as such when they make such comments. 99.999% of people will never have to experience what it's like to produce music on any platform, for example.

I tried to explicitly capture this in my comment:

NO, this is not what using Linux is like for the majority of people who choose to use it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I think you vastly underestimate how many edgecases there actually are. Every one edge case might be a small userbase, but combined, all those small userbases make a significant userbase for whom Linux is less than ideal. And (just a hunch) on Lemmy, this % of users is actually larger than the population at large. Tech-savy people tend to use more obscure programs.

Some edgecases I happen to know(because I happen to fall into three edgecase groups!)

  • VR
  • adobe stuff
  • Many music plugins

Those are two creative edgecases. And I believe using your PC for creative work is actually quite a significant userbase.

And sometimes even IF a product is supposedly supported on Linux, it doesn't work straight up. I recently tried to install Ubiquity's Unify program on my Pop!OS, but nope, errors before even installing. Happened to need all kinds of weird dependencies that are outdated and are hard to install. Even when following Ubiquity's install guide. On windows it just worked. Another edgecase, but it adds up.

So I disagree on your "majority" statement. Especially on Lemmy, I don't believe that to be true at all.

But meh, maybe agree to disagree.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

But meh, maybe agree to disagree.

Fair! I have some rebuttals, but they are likely to end up with a conversation that would be fun in person over a beer but cumbersome and a lot of typing via text. 🙂

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