We need some serious Linux to compete with Windows

Win10 is too intrusive with updates, and Microsoft has monopoly on desktop PC’s.

I’m sick and tired of Windows and all the shitty updates, telemetry and surveillance.

However, the only alternative, Linux, is outdated/old. Way outdated. I mean, when you have to remember a line of code longer than this sentence just to mount a network drive, and furthermore have to spend time figuring out how to mount it, and the fact that many linux installations don’t even come with the mouse drivers pre-installed (and other sorts of stuff that Windows has installed automatically, since… well, the 1990’s) I believe I am fully right in saying Linux is an outdated OS.

You rarely, very rarely use the command line in Windows. Why does it have to be any different on Linux?

To mount a drive in Windows, few clicks is enough.

Why does it HAVE to be different in Linux? Surely the “easy-click”-method is not patented by microsoft. Well, then Blender and lots of other software is breaking patents.

I wish some geeks would think seriously about this, and at least wonder why so many people want to use Windows.

I wish I had a real alternative to Windows.

1 Like

it’s a dream that will not happen, too many distros and separate effort
and not forget drivers… :no:

But I wonder: Why do Linux people like to use command lines to even the simplest tasks when click-method is way faster?

For every two clicks in windows (one click takes about a tenth of a second or less) you write 3 command lines in Linux. It makes no sense!

delete this

one of the facts is: nobody in their right mind wants to invest billions & take the responsibility of failing for catering to idiots
even Musk is not that altruistic… such act is plain dumb
majority simply uses what comes pre-installed

only few take real care of themselves others put their trust in god

The closest thing in all of Linux to the ease-of-use of Windows.
https://linuxmint.com/

The distrowatch site has this as the number 1 ranked variant for a while, and I say it is for good reasons.

REALLY?

Come on. Ubuntu is EASIER to use than Windows by leaps and bounds.
It boots faster, renders WAY faster.
Wacoms works out of the box. Just plug it in.
Most printers, the same. (Try installing a HP printer in Windows…)

The only area ubuntu is REALLY behind windows is software availability. No Adobe CC, No Corel… But instead we have Blender, Krita, Inkscape…

Besides, you should learn the CLI, and Linux and most Unixes have powerful CLIs since the seventies… Not that Powershell crap.

OH! And you can get linux pre-installed from most major computer-makers. I’ts just that the majority is simply afraid to try anithing new.

However, the only alternative, Linux, is outdated/old. Way outdated. I

i beg to differ!!!

linux has had virtual desktops for the last 20 years
windows just now added them

linux has many different Desktop Environments
like: KDE , Gnome , xfce , lxed ,and E19 and so on

Microsoft has ONLY one "windows explorer "

on Win 3, win 95, and 98 and XP i used the terminal A LOT!!!

“point and click” is a Microsoft user thing ( well Amega and ibm did back in the 80’s and 90’s )

now the non free Red Hat RHEL 7 is a bit old but BEDROCK STABLE and NEVER!!! crashes
back when i was using XP i EXPECTED!!! "windows explorer " to crash TWO TIMES A DAY!!!

if you want the newest of the new , and some times SO NEW that a lot of software will not YET build on it then install Fedora 27 or 28

but i like OpenSUSE , it is STABLE and almost nothing crashes
( well i am hacking a program and it is segfaulting in part of it , but that is my skill in c++ code , so MY FAULT )

But I wonder: Why do Linux people like to use command lines to even the simplest tasks when click-method is way faster?

no it normally is not faster

a GUI normally dose not have ALL the options as the CLI
there are also a LOT of imaging programs that do NOT have a GUI and are terminal only

i use G’Mic for most of my image processing – including denoising renders
and it is typing only

a terminal is NOT OLD

it is just normally the BEST tool for a lot of things

for example if i want to run an update on the os it is a simple thing ( at the time OF MY CHOOSING )


su -
-- type in the root password when asked for ---

zypper up

---- then if i like what i see ---
y
--- the y is for "yes "----

It has to be asked: philosopher, when was the last time you actually installed and ran a Linux desktop? Which distribution did you choose?

I am on Linux since MS force download Win 10 when I was happy with 8.1. (Pre-instalked 8)
It ran in the background. The internet was good in the office 2Mbps, at home 384Kbps. It redownload silently without permission.
Sucking $$$/bytes and finally killing my SSD.

i moved to linux in 2003 and stopped using windows xp in 2005
finally removed the VM that a “copy” of 7 was on 4 years ago ( the ONE!!! program it ran now works under W.I.N.E. )

the KDE desktop manager is very configurable and UNLIKE Microsoft the next update will NOT!!! undo the hack ( to the theme *.dll) that Windows needs to edit the desktop

basically almost ALL the “eye candy” that is on win7,8 ,and 10 all were FIRST in Linux

and it WORKS BETTER than windows ever did

BUT as the saying goes " Linux is NOT Windows"

things ARE done a bit differently

I’m gonna second Fweeb’s question, when did the OP last try Linux, and what distro? Mint is ideal for new Linux users, and you cam happily use it without touching the terminal.

Fundamental drivers, such as mouse and keyboard, are built into the kernel and xorg, and don’t need any separate driver. The same is true of most hardware. In fact, the only things I can think of that may need a separate driver for full functionality are graphics cards and graphic tablets. Pretty much everything else just works.

The reason we use the command line is because it’s a hell of a lot faster to get stuff done than the whole click clicketty click click of using a GUI, but it’s certainly not mandatory these days.

Seems like many people here actually do run Linux, so here’s my perspective as someone who continues to run Windows after trying Ubuntu. There are three hurdles that keep me from moving from Windows 8.1 to Linux:

  1. I have terrible internet at home. It’s ridiculously easy to download Windows updates and software on my laptop at the office, and then install it on my PC when I’m home. This seemed a lot tougher with Ubuntu. I’ve heard that Windows 10 doesn’t let you disable updates, so maybe when 8.1 is dead this will even out.

  2. Video games. I’d love to try Wine, but that’s going to require a lot of downloading drivers and tinkering (see hurdle 1).

  3. Da Vinci Resolve. Yes, there is a way to install it (apparently), though when I tried I completely crashed everything by switching to the nvidia driver (there was an actual button to switch drivers in Ubuntu. so I thought it was safe). It wouldn’t have been a problem to start over, except that would have required re-downloading a bunch of drivers (see hurdle 1).

It all gets back to having terrible internet, which is exacerbated by the fact that, as a Linux newbie, means that I’m constantly Googling stuff, downloading drivers twice because I broke something, etc.

I mean, when you have to remember a line of code longer than this sentence just to mount a network drive, and furthermore have to spend time figuring out how to mount it

This is accurate for new users. Once you’re comfortable in Linux you don’t notice it, but there is a HUGE learning curve to do anything beyond email and office docs (at least in Ubuntu).

When I have a computer problem I usually Google for a solution.

  • With Windows I’m going to get a mini-tutorial with screenshots showing where to navigate to some obscure settings in GUI panels. I usually wonder “how the hell would anyone ever find that?” Especially registry problems.

  • With Linux (or Mac), I’m going to get some commands to copy-paste into a terminal. What about this is such a painstaking process for people? Windows user’s irrational phobia for command lines amazes me.

Windows user’s irrational phobia for command lines amazes me.

This isn’t true across the board, certainly not in my case. I could just as easily say you have an irrational fear of GUI interfaces.

“how the hell would anyone ever find that?”

Same can be said for obscure terminal commands.

It’s quite possible that the terminal is better for advanced users, but for the average user who just wants to install a program and run it, Windows has the upper hand.

For example, which is easier or faster, learning and following this page
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AptGet/Offline/Repository/
Or downloading a .exe and double clicking it?

What is easier: download a .exe and double click it, or follow this page?
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=58668
(without decent internet at home, it would be even tougher.)

For Krita I can download a .exe and double click it. Apparently for Linux there are:

  • AppImage
  • PPA
  • flatpak
    Which means that I, as a new user, need to figure out what each of those are, which is better, whether they rely on extra libraries, etc.

Each of those three examples has a different set of commands to learn on Linux, while for Windows it’s the same process. The fact that Windows has pretty much standardized on the .exe form makes it very easy.

Since command lines involve typing, they can be prone to typos, errors, or even an accidental execution of another command with a similar name. Then there’s the whole thing with syntax and looking up on the API.

I would really be careful with the whole “console-phobe” thing, as it’s become a very common method to shut down debates as well as a common excuse to just flat out ignore points that disagree.

Initially I was frustrated with Linux, but with time and effort I grew to love it. A programmer at heart, I love it to bits for its easily accessed command line.

When I was building my desktop it provided me with a capable OS( Could even play Warcraft 3 and some really old windows games from the late 90s ) until I could afford a copy of Windows 10. When Windows Vista had become unasable on my laptop( bought back in 2008 ), I just replaced it with Ubuntu and I still use it for C programming.

@OP: FWIW I’ve had to CMD mount drives in Windows that automagically appeared under Linux. Mindblowing right? What’s so scary about terminals anyway? Did you know some are customisable and can be made to look like a harmless widdle text editor? Text editors, they’re useful to preview / prepare / log anything you copy pasta to a terminal. From those you can also make shell scripts / batch files which can be made clickable / executable.

Mouse drivers? Word? Tried any distro released in the last decade or is it the hardware that’s ancient? Even then I’d never had or heard of this issue thus far. Congrats.

Other options, not Linux:
Downgrade to Windows 7.
Build a Hackintosh.
Learn to firewall or just unplug the internet.

Most (open source) software is not coded by artists or people who use the tool professionally or on a day to day basis but by software engineers.
Programmers that, while often geniuses in writing beautiful, efficient code, have a very different approach to UI design and functional logic than the “common folk”.

As a programmer I love my command lines and quick scripts but as an artist (or technically less savvy user) I find these things very disruptive.

Another issue I see (sadly more with open source than commercial software) is personal preference, making a statement of being different, plain old stubbornness or dare I say ego of the coder.

This seems to me is a reason why Ton and others are still defending right mouse click for instance.(don’t flame)

In fairness though to Linux I had a few years ago Ubuntu on my private laptop for a while, it was back then already pretty easy to install and maintain.
There were some issues though where much more work than clicking install was necessary.

At work we mostly use CentOS.
Though in smaller shops Windows XP or 7 and Mac’s are also lying around.

Sadly there are just too many consumer applications that run only on Windows PC or Mac, not Linux, including games.

I agree though, windows becomes more and more outrageous…something to be expected from a monopoly…

The command line interface, on any OS, is just another tool. It’s real good for some things that the GUI is not. For instance, if I want to reorganize 700 files on my hard drive, I’m not going to use the GUI for that when the command line will do it so much more easily. If you learn both (GUI and command line) you will be a much more rounded computer user and get far more out of your system then you would otherwise.

Linux is like any other OS, when you invest some time into it, it can do some amazing things. Although the last time I used Windows was about 15 years ago (Windows NT) and I use OsX at work, I find Linux to be so much nicer for my way of computing. I don’t feel hemmed in and stifled by Linux like I do the others which I was always fighting for one reason or another.

One caveat is that I don’t play many games at all, maybe a bit of Minecraft and Angband. :slight_smile: I do recommend Linux Mint and the Cinnamon desktop for new users of Linux. It’s my favorite right now, I used to run Fedora and at work we mostly use Ubuntu and CentOS.