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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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Compiz Fusion wiggly windows/cube

[–] [email protected] 11 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

[–] [email protected] 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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[–] [email protected] 11 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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (4 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

The object nature in PowerShell is pretty powerful though. Piping JSON in PowerShell is, IMO, quite nicer than having to put ~~new ~~ jq commands as very other stage of the pipe in Linux.

edit: just noticed autocorrect changed 'jq' to 'new' in my original post.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Is it just me, or is powershell fucking horrible?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (11 children)

I found something I couldn't easily do on Linux...

I wanted to create a Shortcut to a GUI application directly on my Desktop on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04), and after fucking with Gnome extensions and googling multiple terms, I thought I was going insane. There is seriously no easy, standard, or simple way of doing that.

On Windows or macOS you can just click & drag to make a shortcut to a file, and then put the shortcut on your Desktop. Done.

On Gnome you have to manually create a .desktop file, fill it with the parameters to run the application (usually by opening a different .desktop file and copying & pasting the contents), ensure you also have Gnome configured to even allow desktop icons, and then copy the .desktop file to the Desktop.

The Gnome experience was the most-rigid, least user-friendly or user-customizable interface.

I guess the problem is that I shouldn't be using Gnome. I liked how simple & clean it is by default, but I hate how inflexible it is.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Sounds like you want to use KDE.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Make posts and comments about how much better it is to spend a ton of effort.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (7 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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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Install quickly and without license hoopjumping.

[–] [email protected] 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!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Use the command line to do everything instead of using mouse clicks for everything. It's so annoying how much mousing you have to do on Windows even for stuff only admins/programmers would touch.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Enjoy my workflow.

It may sound glib, but I REALLY mean it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It may sound glib

I prefer KDE, but to each their own.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Upgrade without reformatting. Update without restarting.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Pulseaudio's networked audio devices are sick, and similarly getting your computer's headphones/mic on your phone by just connecting your phone to your computer over bluetooth is fantastic.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)
  1. You can start applications from windows command line. Depending on the program you might need to provide the full path to the executable though. Eg: Start chrome.exe
  2. Windows has a (preinstalled in Window 11, optional in Windows 10) software called WinGet that will update all recognized applications via command line. Covers stuff from Windows Store, and most popular software installers. Basically acts as a Windows package manager.
  3. batch files, software like autohotkey... automation can definitely be done in Windows too.
  4. You mean shortcuts?
  5. Pretty certain you can defer updates until the time suits, but Windows is definitely more forceful in pushing updates than Linux. There are ways of turning off updates too, but probably not without third party software or digging in regedit blindly.
  6. Rainmeter could provide something similar.
  7. Do you mean Command Prompt, or Windows Terminal? Terminal is actually pretty nice, and very customizable, both in terms of theme and functionality.

I run Arch Linux (btw) and have a very neglected Windows 11 partition.

I have a command set up in linux using ddcutil that allows me to tell my second monitor to swap source from HDMI (Chromecast) to DisplayPort (PC) and back as desired. No clue how I'd do that in Windows.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Start/update your computer in seconds.

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[–] [email protected] 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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can be root on GNU/Linux, you cannot on Windows or any other nasty proprietary OS.

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