Is Linux As Good As We Think It Is?
Is Linux As Good As We Think It Is?
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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No. It really isn't.
Windows with the proper license and configuration is more stable, more productive, and that configuration takes less than an hour once for the life of the machine.
In 2024 if you're still bashing Windows for BSODs, stability, updates, etc, you're doing it wrong. You can bash all day long for privacy violations and corporate greed but both of those are fixed with the proper version like Windows Enterprise. Costs more, but you are less of the product.
I really wish I could BASH windows 🙂. Per customization, it's a moving target. How TF do I get rid of the icon asking if I like the picture on my desktop? Registry edits? Go F yourself
I'm sure if you edit the registry inside emacs from a live iso boot from 6 burned CDs, it will unlock all the golden rainbow features you require.
... for the next 3 months, until a security update makes its way onto your device and also coincidentally breaks GRUB, hey look Recall is now enabled and opt-out.
Wait, you seriously think Windows is more stable?
It 100% is in a desktop environment used by users.
In an embedded locked system not in space, it's the same.
Ah yes, Windows, where you buy a licence for around 100€, still get ads (WTF) and bloatware you cannot get rid of, still are the beta tester for their shitty software, because they fired their QA department. That's on top of a shitty OS that still does not allow multiple users being logged in simultaneously (only in Windows server) and AI shit baked in alongside spying tools (Recall is coming back soon).
I could go on...
Or... Read what I said. Spend the $300 on the enterprise license. No ads. No forced notifications. A single computer with multiple users at one time in a home environment is not a use case that would get any thought. Those that want it, can do it. And it's easy, and free. Hyper-V is free and the licenses for the virtual machines are free too because the container host is windows. Lock an instance per output and voila. Recall won't be coming to enterprise or server and if it does, it will be disablable. Just like forced updates are disabled in enterprise. Forced reboots disabled. Etc.
If you want that experience you buy that experience.
Sorry, but no. 300 USD for an OS is absolutely absurd. Just to be "on the safer side" from MS and its shitty tactics?
"Recall won’t be coming to enterprise or server and if it does, it will be disablable"
Sweet summer child, I pity you. How anyone can still have any trust in MS is beyond me, but so be it.
$300 for the most important piece of software on the hardware that you interact with every day, sometimes all day, for years? That's a steal.
And again, as an OS, Windows just works and Linux doesn't. Even if you wanted to set things manually in the registry to disable the bad consumer "features", you'd still spend less time than configuring a standard Linux install and it would be more stable.
It's like Apple fan bois nowadays. Ridiculous.
Yeah, keep paying ransom to a company that does not even manage to get the basic security right, it's your money after all. I'm happy without Microsoft and with an OS that works and works for me, not some greedy CEO.
Funny someone downvoted you.
Clearly that person has never managed a 10,000 pc domain. Or hell, even a 10 pc domain in an SMB.
"The license is worth the cost" - I literally had this conversation with a peer not two hours ago. They have a client who's previous IT management built a domain using Linux. Yes, you can do it, but I'd only do it if your IT is fully in-house and stable. This was an IT vendor. It saved them (the client) licensing...like $250 or so.
Imagine how quickly they're going to burn $250 for a support issue because there's something odd about how the Linux software isn't exactly duplicating a windows DC? Or the next IT vendor doesn't know what you implemented, so have to find out about which packages you used and how they work. (In this case they're building a new domain and migrating everyone, because it's currently unsupportable. Glad they saved $250 to spend $20k today).
You don't use Linux desktop in a business to save licensing costs, unless you know the use-case inside and out. The first time your business has a need for something that doesn't exist in Linux land, all those savings are gone as you build a virtual host for Windows, and deal with the lost productivity.
And I use Linux every day for things like Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, etc. Even there the difference between design approaches is really problematic.
Yes exactly. I love Linux. I build embedded systems devices with it. I run it on some of my rack appliances. But I'm also not a blind fan boi.
Windows made leaps and bounds into stability with XP. And since then it's been a slow cog into being an excellent enterprise grade OS even with users bashing it all sorts of ways.
Most (all) of the complaints except price focus on money grabs and features for the docile masses. Forced updates, reboots, integrations, etc. My 80 year old relatives can use it and you know what it works great when they type into the "computer question box". Click start menu and type. It brings up their files, folders, apps, answers to web questions, etc. That makes sense to someone who doesn't understand a computer. It's not pandering to the IT folk, it's pandering to Karen.
If you're IT folk, you can just spend a little more money on the proper license and all that goes away. Or you spend some time hacking the registry and get it for free usually.
The only BSODs I have had in the last decade are graphics driver related usually when pushing beta drivers hard. My Linux OS's have had way more stability issues with less interaction.