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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Is Linux As Good As We Think It Is? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Obviously, a bit of clickbait. Sorry.

I just got to work and plugged my surface pro into my external monitor. It didn't switch inputs immediately, and I thought "Linux would have done that". But would it?

I find myself far more patient using Linux and De-googled Android than I do with windows or anything else. After all, Linux is mine. I care for it. Grow it like a garden.

And that's a good thing; I get less frustrated with my tech, and I have something that is important to me outside its technical utility. Unlike windows, which I'm perpetually pissed at. (Very often with good reason)

But that aside, do we give Linux too much benefit of the doubt relative to the "things that just work". Often they do "just work", and well, with a broad feature set by default.

Most of us are willing to forgo that for the privacy and shear customizability of Linux, but do we assume too much of the tech we use and the tech we don't?

Thoughts?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

Each time I go back on windows I realize it's worse than I remembered, even though I never liked it. One thing I quickly realized after getting constantly asked for help about issues on windows : people tend to be greatly biased about how reliable it is, mostly because it's all they've known for a long time.

People often talk about compatibility regarding Linux, but are somehow oblivious to all the devices and hardware made for windows that somehow fails miserably to work when it has no good reason to...while Linux, despite most hardware and software not being made with it in mind, can sometimes somehow work wonders.

Windows only «just works» because it's made by a monopolistic monster of a company, with a ton of software and tools and stuff made for it because of how widespread it is, and despite that their OS is just plain garbage..

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

Just out of curiosity, aside from the good example posted below by @[email protected], could you provide some examples of "devices and hardware made for windows that somehow fails miserably to work when it has no good reason to"? :)

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

This one is more a case of «it didn't work on windows for a reason but worked on Linux for no reason» : More than a decade ago, I got my first Graphic Tablet (yeah another one), it was from a dead brand, their drivers were still online but not supported anymore. But the tablet still worked out of the box on windows 8, only... windows wasn't able to detect pressure so it looked like I was drawing with a mouse, Linux didn't have such issue. At that same period my laptop (wich was the first that I owned) turned half dead after an update, wasn't as tech savy as now but at the time all that I knew was that the disk had some issue that I could not fix..windows would not work on it anymore and that's how I tried daily driving Linux for the second time, I lasted with this half dead pc under kubuntu until windows 10 came out (mostly because by then I got my first desktop and proton wasn't a thing for games).

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