- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- linux@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- linux@lemmy.world
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Scoffs derisively at the new popular thing and switches to BSD…
Admit it already, we know you run Arch.
Arch is mainstream now, gotta go with something like NixOS of you wanna be cool and still use Linux.
I’m doing my part! Switched to Linux earlier this year because Microsoft started showing ads in the start menu. I tried Nobara but ran into some glitches that I didn’t want to troubleshoot so I switched to Bazzite. So far so good.
congratulations, you now walk with the righteous.
They’ve been showing ads in the start menu for years now. Since windows 8 honestly.
I hadn’t seen a single ad until a few months ago. I had snagged a copy of Windows 10 Pro (and Windows 7 Pro before that) from my workplace so I imagine it was debloated to an extent.
I did the same this month. My hardware wasn’t supported by Win11, so I installed Bazzite. It works so smoothly that I’ve already installed it on another PC and will do so on every PC in my household. I’ve been able to run every single game so far, whether they were from Steam, Ubisoft Connect, GOG, Battle.net or the EA app. I had no idea we were at this point already.
Right on! I’ve had a similar gaming experience, except with VR. Can’t seem to get my headset working with Bazzite. I’ve heard that there’s some workarounds but I need to sit down and poke at it.
sparky linux LXQt was the one i settled to in the end. Despite having a top spec laptop and desktop PC, i wanted a light weight Linux, based on Debian, with no “fluff” at all. PC boots fast, shuts down in 2 seconds, no updates, secure, every program is instant. Windoze is plain stupid now with ads.
I just transitioned to Linux. Fully removed windows.
I’m doing my part!
I consider myself a trans ally, but I’m behind on the latest pronouns. Congrats!
I identify as Linux and my pronouns are root/0.
Somebody has a root complex, jeez.
It’s not perfect but there are different values
The funny thing is there are lots of things that are designed better on Linux vs Windows/macos too.
My memory is fading on some of them since I primarily use Windows for work and a steam deck for gaming now, but keyboard shortcuts was definitely one of them. Easier to get shit done automation-wise from simple scripts. CMD is so basic and PowerShell feels like my fingers are exhausted from doing a simple thing, and like you always need to write a paragraph to get a simple thing done.
Yeah, command lines just feel native on Linux, where in Windows it feels like it’s running off behind the scenes to fetch a grown up.
Afaik from my limited interaction with bash: At least you have proper datatypes.
Isnt bash essentially treating everything like a string and it’s up to you to resolve that?Pretty much, though I use a lot of jq these days and many tools support json output and input. I’d love to see that paradigm expanded for more Unix tools. Maybe a new kind of pipe symbol for shells that implies strict json objects.
I hopped on the Linux train when Microsoft began pushing hard for AI integration and Microsoft accounts. I fucking hate AI and I don’t need some corpo cunt looking over my shoulder and taking notes while I use my computer.
Welcome! Because we Linux aficionados are incorrigibly nosy and passionate, which distro did you pick and how are you liking it so far?
I went with Mint because my technical knowledge of Linux is very basic at the moment. I imagine I’ll jump to a more hands-on distro as my familiarity with it increases. EndeavorOS looks interesting.
EndeavourOS is fantastic. It’s my default distro because I love Arch, but CBA installing it manually these days. I’ve done my time with the Arch installer over the years 😂
And the community is great btw.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Mint.
There’s a small army of Linux “snobs” that look down on it for recondite and mostly silly reasons. Mint is a great and user-friendly OS. The only thing I can say against it is that many of the binaries in the distro app manager are very out of date, but this hardly matters now because AppImage and Flatpaks are so on top of it and great.
You don’t have to. I’m a long time Linux user and extremely well versed. I still use Mint and Debian because I’m an old fart who likes things that just work.
Same. It should be illegal for them to be forcing this shit on us. At least I only have to endure it on my work pc. No windows on personal devices
Proton is a big deal for the change. Think back 5 years ago and switching to Linux was much less approachable because you needed to be an enthusiast to get your games running. Nowadays, you just click download on the Linux Steam client and >90% of the time, it’ll just work.
I have been on Linux for over 15 years and even I don’t want to go back to the old days of manually installing Wine and having to create different prefixes to get different games to launch without sound. or some missing textures.
not manually, yeah, but bottles and such are still really useful. it shows how much good GUI tools help with usability for everyone
Not just UI, but simplicity of operation. The closer to “it just works” a system/program is, the more palatable it is to adopt.
Hear, hear!
There is nothing wrong, and in fact there is something good, with FOSS being polished and user friendly out of the box.
Historically that has not been a priority, because FOSS has been by the computer nerds, for the computer nerds. But if that priority shifts to being a bit more “by the computer nerds, for the normies” then that is a good thing as long as the developers don’t prevent the power users from accessing any part of the system they want. Fortunately that completely against the point of the FOSS world.
I first learned Unix in the 90s, I use my Linux desktop more than my phone, I’m an engineer on embedded systems digging through C and C++ code all day, I have terminals open all day, and… I have Linux Mint Cinnamon installed on all my machines and love it. Change My Mind, lol.
I ended up wading into the world of WINE prefixes when I tried to mod some older games. I got it working in the end, but it sure made me grateful for how easy I have it with Proton
I, on the contrary, prefer it when everyone uses mainstream Wine with winetricks and prefixes so if something doesn’t work, you can at least fix it using someone’s advice posted on winehq. With Proton it seems that everyone expects stuff to either just work or doesn’t bother. The Proton advice is usually as valuable as Windows problems advice.
What are you on about? ProtonDB is full of such advice
Like I said, similar quality to googling for Windows problems. Reports on WineHQ are sorted by Wine version, OS version, usually involve specific actions taken.
That’s exactly how protondb works. And you also get hardware and distro information.
You can search and filter reports by all of the aforementioned criteria for any game that’s listed.
OK, it just has utterly degenerate webpage design. I thought those were voluntary additions by users telling what they use, not common format. Inconvenient.
It’s okay, we don’t actually care that you were wrong about something.
Proton is just Wine under the hood. I even use winetricks with it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
100% this. I’ve been on Linux for 27 years now (ffs I’m getting old), and until proton, I just wrote off gaming as a hit or miss experience, usually not worth the trouble. Now I’ll buy Windows only games without even checking compatibility in most cases. Unless it’s a full price AAA game, I’ll risk the off chance that it doesn’t work.
If we can get close to that kind of support for productivity software, I think Linux usage would explode. One of the problems with business adoption is that specialized software almost always skips Linux. The Affinity suite, for example. I’m hoping we see some snowballing now that Linux is growing so quickly, but getting Wine/Proton working with more non-game software would also be an enormous win.
I think it’s less Proton, more Vulkan/DXVK. Proton is just wrapping these amazing things. Before DXVK, games in Linux used to suck big time.
now is a good time to switch. Im so glad im off windows and their bullshit. a lot of games just work, including many online games, which is super cool. often there’s no difference between launching a game on Linux vs windows.
Honestly, 5 years ago Proton was already in pretty good shape. 2018 is when I switched to Linux, and already had very little trouble gaming.
Yes but nobody knew about it. SteamOs brought that to the surface.
The journey of Linux has been one of slow but steady progress, accelerating in recent years. It took eight years to go from 1% to 2% (by April 2021), then just 2.2 years to reach 3% (June 2023), and a mere 0.7 years to hit 4% (February 2024). Now, here we are, at over 5% in the USA! This exponential growth suggests that we’re on a promising upward trend.
The article was written this month, so it’s conveniently ignoring the fact that the rise from 4% to 5% took 18 months. That’s actually a huge slowdown in uptake, not an acceleration.
But I’m glad it’s at 5%, even if it’s only in the US. Now let’s get there globally, and keep it going…
Mind you, the usage on the desktop, as the article says, is probably actually a significant bit higher than 5%, thanks to Unknown, and if you include ChromeOS, which personally it should be IMO.
Thanks to Trump, there appears to be some initiatives in Europe for governments to switch to open source. It seems they want to try and get out of relying on US companies for their technology. That would make a large jump in the user base.
They have tried before, and not had the best luck in dropping US vendors. Things seem to run out of steam at some point and they switch back. It will be interesting to see if things stick more this time.
I’m pulling for them to succeed.
I put Ubuntu on my year old Windows laptop and to my surprise, everything is just better. I mean better than Windows AND better than Linux ever was before when I used it previously. I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing some major manufacturers shipping PCs with Ubuntu pre-loaded in the coming years.
I bought a Dell with Ubuntu preloaded in 2019. I think it should still be possible (It’s their “developer edition” models).
better than Linux ever was before
I did Linux on the desktop for 15 years. I was primarily Windows at home, Linux at work. With a job change, I took a detour through Mac for a couple of years, then WSL hit, and I ran Windows for quite a while.
I dropped back in, but only at home when Bookworm landed. I was playing Steam games with video acceleration right out of the gate. For a lot of people, it’s just going to work right out of the gate, and updates are just going to work. Now that a lot of shit’s going Electron, a lot of apps that had an edge in windows are now identical through their web interfaces.
If you’re not playing games with a lot of anti-cheat, using proprietary hardware or don’t need access to some windows-only apps (or you can put up with Wine), all the distros are up to the point where they operate just as you’d expect them to.
As pointed out on hackernews, this is likely attributed to (a) decrease in desktop usage by non-linux-users, and (b) the gaming hardware industry embracing linux (steam deck etc.)
I’d honestly be curious to see what percentage of Linux is steam decks now
This doesn’t give a complete answer, but according to Steam’s Hardware and Software Survey, 31% of Steam’s Linux users are using “SteamOS Holo”. It’s the name of SteamOS 3, used by Steam Decks. 2.57% of Steam users are using some Linux distro.
That HN thread was such a shitshow lol. Also I dont think there is anything credible to suggest this increase from 4.6% to 5% is due to ‘non linux users’ or steamdeck. Steamdeck has contributed sure but desktop linux is growing but every single metric (steam hardware survey, PH Desktop user survey, US Gov traffic, tech youtuber trends, etc).
useless antidote: My friend who is a non techie gamer and she plays a lot of anti cheat type multiplayer games ASKED me to help her switch to linux mint and even when I said thats a bad idea she shouldnt switch she still wanted to. She ended up loving it even though there was a few pain points (fucken nvidia dual screen config on x11) and i think a few of her other friends have even switched after hearing her say it works well.
I’ve been using Linux since 2006, and been gaming on it exclusively since maybe 2018? Seen reports it’s even kicking Win 11’s ass now performance-wise. Yall are just mean.
I think the fastest way for Linux to spread is for there to be a cheap gross dirty disgusting commercial version pushed at bestbuy/walmart…etc where people can become familiar enough with it to switch to other distros and out still feel familiar.
I think the fastest way for linux to spread are a) a state-sponsored (totally open source) product that sees a free and open OS as part of a commitment to a free and open society. or 2) one of these fuckhead billionaires drops $200M or so into a trust, rather like the Poetry Foundation, which has the singular commitment to create an OS for people and to support it indefinitely.
I don’t think the answer to any of society’s ills is to get Wallmart involved. ed: walmart however its spelled WGAS.
Im a long time Mac user but recently got a steamdeck. Desktop mode uses a version of kde and I really like it, if I had to switch from Mac I would definitely go with linux instead of windows. I think the steam deck will introduce a lot of people to linux.
I remember when Walmart sold boxed releases of RedHat and Mandrake. My first installs were fueled by $20 boxed releases at Walmart. I was so bummed when they stopped. But I could send away for Ubuntu releases on a CD for free.
Do you think ChromeOS could fit that role? At least it shows that an alternative to Windows exists.
Google will merge Android and ChromeOS.
Thank you Pewdiepie!!
He single-handedly changed a lot of people’s impression of Linux with a single video, and he did it gently enough to not intimidate and scare them away like many others did. I respect that.
I’m out of the loop. What did he do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVI_smLgTY0&t=7s
He made a video encouraging people to try Linux.
be a racist piece of shit with the emotional maturity of a 12 year old with fetal alcohol syndrome?
Oh wait, sorry, thats just what he is normally.
He stopped being edgy more than five years ago after backlash from his own community. No racist joke, no rage baiting, no channel wars.
His content this days is just wholesome family interaction, art journey, or tech experimentation.
I appreciate your earnest answer. I hope that it’s organic and legitimate growth on his part. My fear is that he simply decided not to pursue right wing stupidity openly. I seriously want to be wrong about that, but not everyone leans into the right wing lunatic grift economy and all that.
Nice try mr. dipwepie
What’s up with your username homie?
too delicious for you?
deleted by creator
Damn tasty username right there
Is he really the reason? I just started trying a bunch over the past month through vm’s to see which one I like the best because I want to take the leap soon. I am doing it mostly due to the video game performance and compatibility reaching high enough levels that I don’t think it will be a big issue anymore. I also listed out all my current Windows apps and looked up what the alternative is, and from what I see, there is nothing left that won’t run on Linux anymore. The next step is seeing how some compare to what I am used to.
I can’t be the only one who is noticing its current state and just wanting to try something different. I don’t hate windows like everyone talks about it online, but I am at the point where I am noticing they are only going to get worse with privacy and continue to make awful built in features that do more to benefit themselves over you. So the 2 lines have crossed paths, and I think it’s the perfect storm for Linux soon.
He has a large audience and used his position to publicise it.
There have been countless volunteers and enthusiasts who have worked hard to make Linux worth publicising.
Keep in mind quite a lot of online games have recently banned linux players, in case there’s an important game for you like that.
Nah, I am more of a single-player kind of person. I was barely any good in my prime 25 years ago and I have only gotten worse since so I stick to mostly RPGs or other action style games.
I use arch btw
It wasn’t immediately clear, I think you need to change your username to IUseArchBtw so we all know off the bat.
This guy uses arch btw
Real men and women run Slack. Tarballs Yum!
To head off the zealots-- ./././
Gentoo with allllllllll the custom cflags while hanging a 20 lb weight off your scrotum
I did Gentoo for a bit also. Ain’t enough hours in the day…
That’s not even close to a proper test of Linux womanhood/manhood.
I briefly looked at LFS with the thought to try it a long time ago. No… Just no…
That’s not an OS, that is a psychotic break with reality. Fortunately, you can take shots for it…
I will mainly switch to Linux whenever I feel ready for the headache of setting it up for the first time too. Already got another M.2 SSD to run it alongside my existing Win 10 for anything that doesn’t run on Linux.
It really depends on your hardware. I have a Dell XPS with an 11th gen Intel i5 that I’m running Fedora (Gnome desktop environment) on and it was rock solid from minute one. Things to check:
-
Make sure your network card is supported. Intel network cards are some of the better choices for open source compatibility. On most laptops this can be swapped out if necessary.
-
Camera
-
Touchpad
-
Fingerprint sensor
-
Sound driver
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Any niche functions or modules. Think things like a secondary display on the keyboard, speciality ports etc.
Support is much better now than in the past and remember you don’t need everything to work to have a good time. My fingerprint sensor doesn’t work but it didn’t work well under windows so no big loss for me.
- You can always use a live bootable USB drive to test your hardware without having to commit to anything. This will tell you a lot about the experience you might have after installation. Heck, if you’re board you can try this right now and it won’t touch your current hard drive or operating system.
-
It’s so much easier than I had anticipated. Funnily enough, the most complicated thing was organizing a 16Gb USB stick to boot because I only had 20 year old ones with 4Gb. On a newly purchased bare AMD PC, I was able to set everything up after work and play games with my buddies the same evening.
I opted for Bazzite and everything ran right out of the box without any additional hardware drivers: gaming mouse, wifi, wireless PS4 controller, printer, NAS, Android phone. The game libraries from Steam, Epic, gog etc. can all be easily connected via Lutris and so far all the games I’ve tried have run. For programs that are only offered for other distributions, I have installed BoxBuddy, where you can create Distroboxes. For most Windows native programs Wine just works.
In theory it’s always easy, but in reality there will always be some major issue. I’ve tried switching to Ubuntu twice many years ago and there was always something that didn’t work. One time it even bricked my Windows install.
Currently before actually installing it, I’ve installed Pop OS in a virtual machine. I wish I had the screenshot, but entering 4 different commands to try and install VLC player and getting an error that the command is unknown each time is degrading. A lot of the first results for installing software on Linux has commands or repositories that don’t work and you have to keep looking. It was the command on the official VLC website that didn’t work for me…
I had the same experience with Ubuntu many years ago. And I can’t speak for Pop!_OS since I never used it. Most developers only provide commands for Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora on their websites. So they don’t work all the time in derived distros.
At least in Bazzite there is an “App Store” called Bazaar, containing many popular apps as flatpaks --> 1 click install. I generally like using the command line, but it was not necessary at all so far.
Yeah I know of those app stores. Sadly they don’t automatically include anything also found on GitHub. So not everything is on there.
If it was simple and easy to install and play games on Linux as is on Windows, I would have switched over a decade ago.
The biggest weakness is multiplayer games with aggressive anti-cheat. So those are the types of games you play, continue to stay away from Linux.
But for most games on Linux, it is just install and play now through a platform like Steam. I haven’t run into a game that I want to play that doesn’t basically “just work”.
Pretty much this. If you have bought games from GOG or Epic, you can use Heroic Launcher to install and play them.
There has been some talking that Microsoft might remove third-party applications, like anti-cheats, away from the kernel. If that happens some day, it would probably help Linux gamers with some of those multiplayer games. But, there are already many multiplayer games that work just fine on Linux.
I installed Bazzite last month, installed my games on Steam and I just played all my games. Cyberpunk, RDR2, Cities Skylines, Divinity Original Sin 2, no additional setup involved, no turning off the wi-fi just to create a local account. I was ready to reinstall Windows if it got too difficult. I got rid of Mint too. I thought I’d need it as people say it’s easier.
It has been very easy with Steam and GoG for a few yeara now. DXVK kicks ass.
I have Linux on my “gaming” pc and I just stopped gaming, I have like four hours of uninterrupted leisure a month and they’re spent in terminals trying to troubleshoot games
You’re not doing it right, friend.
Yup. Lack of game support is a big roadblock – having just one or two friends on linux makes finding games your group can play together a real headache.
Another weird-ish hiccup, is the lack of good/cheap/trustworthy tax software. Installing windows once a year to do taxes is bonkers. Some solve it by having a VM that runs windows that they only use for taxes, but that isn’t really a fix. You’d still be a microbitch.
I made the switch recently for probably the strangest reason.
I’ve been running win 11 for over a year using a shell tool that allowed me to move my task bar to the top of the screen and some other win 10 functionality.
However win 11 removed the ability to move the task bar and my shell program lost most of its functionality. After that I was done.
I’ve Linux off and on since 2002ish so it’s not scary to me and I’m pretty happy with Arch and KDE right now. Still the occasional crash that appears to happen sometimes when watching YouTube.
Hey, don’t knock customization as a reason. A couple of decades ago, I was sold on Linux by silly Beryl/Compiz videos such as this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=038RHEGu4OYyo compiz is the shit. You can do ANYTHING with it. It took me a while to figure out because where the hell is the manual, but I have my own custom thing going on and it’s brilliant.
Gimme mah Cube!
And the wobblies and explosions are cool too!
If anyone is stuck on windows and not able to switch there’s a program called wind hawk that will let you download customizations in windows 11 including moving the bar
From my reading all ways to move the task bar have been removed.
This is working currently on windows 11 23h2. There are other mods for the top too I just prefer a right side vertical.
Fine… that version, not 24H2
idk how you stayed on windows so long, had I tried linux sooner I wouldve dumped it faster, no software support or piracy for said software if it does have support is rough tho like houdinifx is hard to pirate if not impossible, davinci is easy tho, adobe has no support (no idea if it works well with wine pirated)
