Had enough of Windows 10’s hassles? Unless you plan to install Windows 7, which is going to lose support from Microsoft on January 14, 2020, or have the cash to spare for an Apple device, there aren’t many other options for a computer operating system except some flavor of Linux.
Although you can expect a learning curve when changing platforms, Windows users who are curious about the state of Linux for mainstream computing might come away surprisingly satisfied after finding a suitable distribution for their machine and spending time getting familiar with the new environment.
Here are five-plus reasons why you could easily wind up preferring Linux instead of Windows as the default operating system on your desktop or laptop.
Regardless of any preferences you think you might have, assuming you have the means to do so, it is always a good idea set some time apart every now and then and take a good look at the system you’re using, possible alternatives, and how difficult it would be to switch. This fosters the kind of thinking that prevents you from being locked into a platform or ecosystem too easily.
Come on now, there are an endless amount of articles like this about Linux. The general opinion is still the same, use it for a few weeks and then practically everyone goes back to Windows or Mac. I do take particular issue with the “Highly curated software catalog” point though. These in particular have a search that’s total garbage where you can type in the name of the software and it still refuses to find it until you know the exact package name, or returns multiple results and doesn’t tell the user the difference between them. They are really terrible compared to Google Play or the App store, and little more than a GUI hiding the package manager, only making a terrible solution for software management worse. The fact that Android, iOS, and OSX are successful is because of design decisions that Linux won’t abandon, primarily what’s going on with package managers as a fix for non existent problems such as not wasting disk space in the era of 3TB hard drives for less than $100 USD. Even if one Linux distro abandons it and does something like create their own SDK (including GUI and any desktop APIs) for all other Linux desktops to use, none of the other Linux distros will follow. So here we are with Windows 10 and no real competition on x86, while Apple looks to be switching to their own custom ARM chips for everything soon. Desktop Linux could be fixed to be commercially viable in a year, but there’s no way to put a business man in control to do so.
i guess the question I have is what do you actually expect it to tell you about software that’s similar? If they’re just different versions of the same thing, the version number is telling you that right? Do you expect a change log? Do you expect a vague, user friendly statement about what it’s purpose is?
There’s a lot of missing metadata with source code. Someone has to create that, update it and maintain it for thousands of packages. It’s a lot of work even to get icons in to be honest.
People don’t even rate packages on my app store site for my OS. That data feeds back into the GUI app.
Generally the only difference is package A is native, package B is a docker app or some other container, but the only difference to the end user is a slightly different name with no indication of the why it’s different.
dark2,
For a company that prides itself on search, I absolutely despise the google play app store. Even for the simplest damn thing I can spend an hour wading through installing/uninstalling utterly useless spamware. Granted linux repos can have their share of problems, but I genuinely think the google and apple stores that (used to) pride themselves on how many apps they have need to take some time to reflect on how much of it is crap.
https://www.lifewire.com/how-many-apps-in-app-store-2000252
Millions of apps is just too damn many, most belong in the trash and their authors know it. I have a new phone and finding new applications is just a time consuming nightmare. Many reviews are paid for, making all the harder to find good apps.
So say what you will about the linux repos (again I’ll be the first to admit it can improve), but at least FOSS developers are not generally motivated to pump out low quality apps day in day out as a business model.
When you’re searching for desktop software, you already know the name of it and this does not apply. The fact is all to often you can type in the exact name and nothing will show up in these GUI front ends, or the’ll freeze on something for 20 minutes, etc. I can still find tons of useless apps in repos when searching for the correct one, just without ads.
[quote]The fact that Android, iOS, and OSX are successful is because of design decisions that Linux won’t abandon, primarily what’s going on with package managers as a fix for non existent problems such as not wasting disk space in the era of 3TB hard drives for less than $100 USD.[/quote]
I think that Android, iOS, and OSX are successful for the same reasons that Windows is successful: They are installed by default. Most people I know do not care about operating systems and therefore just use whatever was installed by default. And I often see that people who do care about operating system still refuse to install one and instead just buy hardware based on what operating system it comes pre-installed with.
Having to install GNU/Linux before using it is a big hurdle to overcome for most people.
Besides that GNU/Linux is successful. Not in market share but marketing is irrelevant for a free operating system. GNU/Linux is made to be a good operating system for it’s developers and like minded people, not to make money for it’s developers.
” These in particular have a search that’s total garbage where you can type in the name of the software and it still refuses to find it until you know the exact package name,”
I don’t know if you are living under a rock but, it’s been a while since package managers got way better on searching by description and even by filenames if you are brave enough (yum whatprovides /bin/zsh or yum whatprovides */zsh). Try using apt instead of apt-get, and you will get surprised by a better search by description. apt search civilization brings me freeciv and all related opensource strategy games.
And, if you can’t take the learning curve or you are used to fancy GUIs that make you clickbait ads and install poor softwares, maybe using Linux on Desktop isn’t for you.
This isn’t about the learning curve, or learning command lines, it’s about how to make Linux not garbage and about why this article is useless. Your “Just learn the hard way of doing things” attitude is why desktop Linux will always be a pile of hot garbage for end users. What you’re suggesting will always be completely unnecessary for every other commercial OS, and a terrible solution requiring accepting the lie that package managers and software management on Linux isn’t the patched together mess that it actually is.
NO SEARCHING FOR DESCRIPTIONS, NO SEARCHING FOR PACKAGE NAMES, NO COMMAND LINE, EVER. EVERYONE ELSE HAS FIGURED THIS OUT AND DESIGNED THEIR OS ACCORDINGLY.
dark2,
We get it, you don’t like linux and you know what, that’s fine. But your statement doesn’t ring true on modern desktop distros; you really don’t have to use a command line ever if you don’t want to use those tools. As an end user, you certainly don’t have to. As I said earlier, there’s room for improvement for sure, but frankly your arguments don’t warrant the ALL-CAPS emphasis that you used 🙂
Let’s be honest here. Up until Fedora 14 where Gnome2 was the default this argument made sense. After Fedora 14 where the unspeakable mess called Gnome3 started to take over as the default “desktop” for Linux It wasn’t worth the hassle to switch over, especially if you still had Windows 7 around.
“The general opinion is still the same, use it for a few weeks and then practically everyone goes back to Windows or Mac.”
Lets look closer at this line. User by boss who is a Apple user is given usage of a Windows laptop in the first 2 weeks they will normally ask for a Apple laptop because the learning curve has hit them same if you do the reverse.
Like it or not the steepest bit of the learning curve from changing operating systems is the first 4 weeks. The fact Linux is free there is less motivation to cross the 4 weeks. Say someone has bought a Apple machine they have invested quite a bit of money so will have more reason to push over the 4 week learning curve.
“These in particular have a search that’s total garbage where you can type in the name of the software and it still refuses to find it until you know the exact package name, or returns multiple results and doesn’t tell the user the difference between them. ”
This is learning curve. When you see multiple results the same the version number and source are normally different. This is not that much different to using google play and f-droid on a android device. Different sources have different quality control and update policies. Flathub/snap packages will normally be newer than what your distribution provides also have less field testing.
Of course since software packaging is done by humans the descriptions don’t always include the words you wish they did so search by words does not always work. Same is true in fact in google store heck even google search for stuff so a search failing in any thing si not abnormal.
“The fact that Android, iOS, and OSX are successful is because of design decisions that Linux won’t abandon, primarily what’s going on with package managers as a fix for non existent problems such as not wasting disk space in the era of 3TB hard drives for less than $100 USD.”
??? What the hell are you talking about ??? the core to Android, iOS and OSX user application experience is a package manager. APK for android and .pkg for iOS and OSX. Yes the all three OS you listed in fact include a package manager to reduce disc usage and make installing more dependable. Having a package manager is not the difference.
“Even if one Linux distro abandons it and does something like create their own SDK (including GUI and any desktop APIs) for all other Linux desktops to use, none of the other Linux distros will follow.”
There is no need to create own SDK. Flatpak behaves closer to APK and pkg than your normal distributions.
https://endlessos.com/
Try out endless some time in a virtual machine/real hardware and notice how close to a Android device can get in behavior when restricted to just flatpak packaging.
Flatpak also has OCI files what is basically a match to the dmg file of OS X where you can put the application and all required run-time parts into a single file for simple install and if you system containers a new version of a package your application is compatible with both OSI and dmg setups end up not installing the old version. Yes just like dmg these OCI files are not always small.
Notice something here you can use Flatpak with most Linux distributions Basically since the formation of Flatpak saying there is some magical difference with OS X/OS I does not fly since Linux Distributions and OS X have an equivalent packaging system. Have third party software providers got use to this change on linux no they have not.
“Even if one Linux distro abandons it and does something like create their own SDK (including GUI and any desktop APIs) for all other Linux desktops to use, none of the other Linux distros will follow.”
Quite a few distributions are following and researching into the flatpak path. Why because back-porting security updates is a pain in the ass and user complaints about out of date software is also a pain. So this statement is pure bull because distributions are already going down paths to move packaging closer to what OS X/OSi has. Of course distributions with existing user bases cannot just break the world so this change is not a fast over night process but a process that has been progressing for years.
Your argument would hold more water if stuff like flatpak didn’t exist. One package, multiple distros..
Downloaded my first flatpak application about a week ago (Linux Mint host) and it worked flawlessly. No install needed as everything is contained in a single file. 21 distros are currently supported, which covers the top linux distros in addition to quite a few smaller ones.
Overall I like the article, and I use both platforms regularly, however I think the article seems to be a little liberal in it’s assessments, probably to be expected. Firstly, in regards to utilizing hardware I have found Windows 10 is an improvement over Windows 7, a reason we stalled at upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 but skipped straight to Windows 10. So I’m not sure why reverting to Windows 7 would be any advantage. I realize some of the recent Windows 10 Update strategies have jeopardized this situation, particularly in dropping support for some legacy hardware, but in general if you are outside the early release streams you’ll find things run pretty smooth.
The Linux ecosystem is diverse, flexible and enduring, but that has it’s drawbacks, even though problems are often fixable for moderately capable users they are often also very numerous with cures outside the capabilities and scope of typical MacOS or Windows users.
The idea that compared to Windows 10 the Linux systems need less reboots after updates is a little deceptive. In that Linux may not force a reboot, but it’s a big generalization to believe the updates are fully applied without a reboot. A trap that has probably caught many if not all regular Linux users out on more than one occasion. In any case it’s a broad generalization, not just Linux relative to Windows but Linux Distro relative to Linux Distro.
Simple, depending on distro, there is live kernel patching. Plus needrestart will take care of most everything else. So yeah you can feasible keep epic up times.
Points #1 and #2 of article are debatable, #3 and #5 are not really relevant, the only serious issue is #4, yes, Windows 10 take a lot of disk space, memory footprint is not that different to any average modern Linux desktop which would use Gnome or KDE. All in all I prefer to use Linux as my work tool and Windows for R&R, the reason for that is simple – Windows FS performance is abysmall on my case, the same build process of maven java project take twice or trice more time to build and twice as much time to startup than on Linux. Disabling anti-virus software do not provide much performance benefit for me. But that is the my corner case and should not be propagated to all over use cases.
Interesting piece. And interesting that lately this issues does seem to come up more often. I switched to the Mac in 2001 and never looked back to Windows XP. Lately though, I feel that even though the state of macOS is still pretty good, the direction it’s going worries me. So a couple of weeks ago I got myself an old Lenovo T450s, put Solus on it and since then my Mac sleeps most of the time.
To me the biggest advantage of using Linux is that it’s free as in speech. There is no iTunes that tries to lock in my music, no pages that creates documents no other software will ever be able to read and no Photos app that hides my pictures somewhere in a way that makes it really difficult to get them back out. Apple sells golden cages. They’re mostly really, really nice, you don’t have to think about much and everything mostly just works. But they’re still cages.
So far I really like my experience with Linux. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in a couple of weeks 🙂
While i generally agree that it’s good to mix up the OS’s the points about macOS are a little off,
iTunes will manage your library be it MP3 or M4a/AAC, it wont try and convert the files unless you ask it and will keep them as MP3, however it’s narrow in that it only supports those and none or the other audio formats. iTunes music brought is also DRM free however you can still bung a CD in and have it ripped into DRM free MP3. However you can use the same Linux music app on macOS as generally the software dev will usually provide a mac version as well as the linux version, you dont have to use the built in music app.
The same thing can be said for Pages, Photos and the other apps built in. Pages is given away free to get users started with office productivity, however if you would prefer you can install Microsoft Office or Libre Office without a problem.
Photos i quite like, youre correct that it hides your photos in it’s own folder and naming structure, however this was done a long time again to help users download and manage photos. If you wish to store you photos in a file/folder structure of your own you can, photos won’t read this, however you can use the built in image viewer or other imaging app to manage this.
The real golden cage of apple is the hardware, the software is completely open and versatile. However it’s an expensive eco system to get into with the high cost of entry through the hardware, as well as little to no upgrade paths (i.e. adding more RAM or HDD storage) open to end users apart from either paying apple to do it or in most cases now, to buy another computer which is a shame and a waste.
I mostly agree with your points. As I said it’s not the status I worry about but the direction. While ten years ago openness was clearly a goal at Apple, I’m growing ever more careful. Try, for instance, to sync a nextcloud address book. While it’s all pretty much ok now, to me it feels more and more like a cage. That said: I’m not talking about making my mom switch!
And by the way I totally like Apple’s hardware (except the new keyboards). The T2 chip on my new Macbook Air is an awesome idea and totally makes sense. But now I can’t put Linux on it anymore. Cage I hear you rattling!
For me there are a couple of barriers to using Linux full time. First, I use a Dell XPS9560 laptop and Linux doesn’t seem to handle having multiple GFX systems well, I have to run the intel for battery time but switching to Nvidia requires relogging. On windows the switching is just automatic and I can run whatever and it just adapts. The other problem is I sometimes play World of Warcraft which goes along with my G13 game controller for which there are no linux drivers. Warcraft used to work well with Linux but these days it seems harder than ever to get it running well. I know it isn’t really made for laptops but I do wish it was better on them out the box.
None of the reasons listed in the article are compelling enough to overcome the shortfalls. However each year I do install a version of Linux and try it out for a few weeks, Maybe one year it will stick.
In case of forced relogging, you are not using bumblebee, do you?
The most important reason for me to switch to Linux was “package management”. Chocolatey for Windows does a heroic attempt, but doesn’t come close to pacman and AUR. I currently have a text file “install.list”, when I install a new computer I have a bash script that installs everything on that list. Something like “curated software” it not what I want.
Another reason why I switched was more flexible harddisk support. You can take your bootdisk out, place it in another computer, maybe change a BIOS setting, and voila: hardware update done 😀
The third reason was “network”. I run multiple computers. SSH into another box, firing up a GUI application thanks to X network transparency… But Wayland is coming, so maybe I’ll switch back to Windows. If forced to use clumsy remote desktop tools, I still like the Windows support for RDP better dan SPICE or VNC or whatever.
The reasons given in the article… meh… not so convincing.
I’m currently trialing Antergos on my main workstation to see if it’s improved over the years, and it definitely has. Out of the box (if I tick the right settings in installation) it can run nearly any Windows app or game I throw at it via Wine. I literally have no need for Windows at all anymore, though my laptop/tablet (HP Elite X2) is Win10 which runs better on that form factor. If I ever need to do anything in actual Windows I can just grab that device. Being Arch based, Antergos is extremely fast and the package management is miles ahead of apt and rpm based systems. I’m not thrilled to use a systemd based OS, as it still hasn’t reached a maturity level I’m 100% comfortable with, but it’s not given me any problems so far this time around. Perhaps the Antergos and/or Arch folks have managed to tame it successfully (or at least hide any issues).
Of course, being the OS nerd that I am, I also have a Mac, a Raspberry Pi, and an older laptop that runs Haiku and OpenBSD. Those are my “fun” machines, but I can also get serious work done on any of them if necessary.
I run Linux as my main desktop for many years. No OS is perfect but compared to Win10 the Kubuntu 18.04 install is much cleaner and can do the job just as well, I have it on a dualboot notebook.
My main desktop with Kubuntu 16.04 is packed with software that keeps up to date, where as with windows one must buy updates.
Win10 that I service for customers has had loads of problems, but business software is usually win-only so one is forced to stay with win10. I just disable as much as possible as not have win call home too much. In this way win10 is quite usefull.
Just my 2 cent.
“Must”? You know, except from some games (which are kept patched for free) and foobar2000 (freeware), all software I depend on is multiplatform and Free, available for both Linux and Windows, updated for free on both…
I’d switch to Linux at home (I use MacOS at work) except for:
* OneNote (seriously, I love this; the web version is no substitute for a native version)
* Video games
Pretty much everything else I use regularly is portable (Thunderbird, Firefox, SublimeText, EnPass, Discord, Mattermost, Telegram).
I was actually looking into OneNote alternatives yesterday (something I do semi-regularly for OneNote and email clients) and Joplin looks promising, despite being yet another Electron app. Importing my OneNote data would be painful (OneNote -> Evernote -> Joplin; I’d probably just copy/paste and fix things up), but I don’t mind writing in Markdown.
And yeah, things are slowly getting better for gaming on Linux, and I’m probably a good candidate because I don’t generally play MMOs or FPSes. An awful lot of my games don’t have Linux versions though.
If you use Steam for getting your games, you can turn on Proton (custom Wine) support for all games in your library. Not all of them will work perfectly, but they are testing more and more games and I’ve found that most of my library is playable. If you use GoG, you can use PlayOnLinux or just plain Wine with Winetricks to get many of them working. GoG has been porting several popular titles to Linux as well, especially older games that can deal with the slight performance hit that sometimes comes with using Wine.
The only MMO I play is WoW (very casually, and on a private server) and it runs _better_ on Linux/Wine than Windows! I play older FPS games as well, like Portal and Half Life, which have native Linux ports. JRPG style games (Cthulhu Saves the World, Breath of Death, etc) work fine under Proton. Most of the rest of my gaming is emulation of 32 bit and older consoles, which has been a solved problem on Linux for nearly two decades.
Déjà vu… this type of article was in fashion some 15 years ago, today is boring. Now to the point:
– “A curated software catalog like mobile platforms” – I thought walled garden application stores were bad 🙂 It becomes quite a mess when the app you don’t want is not available in your distro’s repos. What to do? Search for third party repos? Install a parallel application store (snap, flatpack)? Switch distros? Convert packages? Compile from sources?
– “Smoother update process for the OS and software” – my Linux desktop seems to *always* want to do annoying updates, sometime big ones (like Libre Office, for minor point releases). Honestly, I rarely do them. just disable the notification and do by hand once in a long while. Well, AFAIK a lot of Windows users just disable updates because you never know then some more spyware is pushed 🙂
– “Highly customizable, especially the desktop interface” – sorry, what? Who spends much time customizing the desktop? You do it once and forget about it. Also, sane defaults are important.
– “More lightweight than Windows & less data extraction” – storage space is cheap and for similar features you will get similar RAM and CPU usage. Yes, you can use a more lightweight UI, but will have to pay in usability.
– “Linux is generally more secure & free forever” – that’s the oldest pro-Linux argument and is mostly true, but with a lot of caveats (forced upgrades, bad learning curve, toxic communities)
On the other hand, in the real world, there are serious concerns about using Linux:
– application availability: if you need specific apps and they are not available for Linux and if they don’t work on Wine, you are SOL. Of course, if you need generic apps or specific apps which are available for Linux, then your are gold.
– hardware support is still an issue. You can buy any hardware and expect it to have somewhere some Windows drivers. With Linux, sometimes will work OOTB, sometimes will require you to do a large amount of work, sometimes won’t work at all.
– usability and user-friendliness: while it can be argued Windows is totally unfriendly due to the included telemetry spyware, people usually see it as friendly as any action one can want to do has a GUI available and is relatively easy to find how to do it. In Linux you can do a lot more with the OS, but will have to do a lot of reading and learning even for actions which are trivial to accomplish with Windows. Linux desktop developers have a tendency to reinvent the wheel instead of adding the last mile of polishing.
– stability is often cited as an advantage for Linux. Well, in almost 20 years of using Linux as my desktop I can vouch it crashes a lot and it freezes a lot. Not as much as Win9x but… no, I can’t compare with modern Windows, as I don’t use Windows for anything serious these days.
nicubunu,
That’s true, we’ve seen all the points and counterpoints over and over again (including yours). Yet ironically it triggers just as many pro/con reactions as ever, proving that the debate is still relevant in people’s minds, haha 🙂
I don’t agree on all your points, but it doesn’t really matter. We should all be able to agree on one thing, that everyone has a different opinion. The answer is pretty simple: if you like it, use it. If you don’t like it, don’t use it.
” In Linux you can do a lot more with the OS, but will have to do a lot of reading and learning even for actions which are trivial to accomplish with Windows.”
Stuff I do trivial in Linux I can find insanely hard to perform in Windows as well. This is just the normal change OS learning curve. Changing from Windows to OS X or OS X to Windows is a very huge learning curve. Linux learning curve is really only made little worse by difference in application availability other than that is just the normal 4 weeks of hell from changing OS and learning how this operating system does things.
“that’s the oldest pro-Linux argument and is mostly true, but with a lot of caveats (forced upgrades, bad learning curve, toxic communities)”
Forced upgrades are part of OS X and Windows. Bad learning curve this is also true when you change from Windows to OS X or from OS X/Linux to Windows. Toxic communities those exist for all platforms as well.
Really there is not much difference as one would think.
Yes Linux support s more command line drive but if you have to deal with printer issues and the like under windows you will also get command line directions.
One of the big things is people attempt to run Linux on random hardware. If you grab random x86 hardware and attempt to install windows 10 at times you can be told to bugger off because it not a support cpu or other issues. Random hardware does mean you will have to go deeper into operating system to fix some issues. Even so this stuff is not a super horrible learning curve.
Reality there have been many different parties who have taken up 30 day challenges where they agreed they would use Linux full time for 30 days. Yes this is long enough you get to the other side of the learning curve. Business finding changing versions of Windows also cause a 30 day disruption in productivity as users get use to the new version as well.
“It becomes quite a mess when the app you don’t want is not available in your distro’s repos. What to do? Search for third party repos? Install a parallel application store (snap, flatpack)? Switch distros? Convert packages? Compile from sources?”
Windows download from some random not well validated website and get infected is quite common. So maybe want to have the parallel store option. I put parallel application stores ahead of third party repos in a lot of cases.
Snap, flatpak, Steam, itch.io https://itch.io/docs/itch/installing/linux/ Yes there is a growing list of third party applications sources with their own install solutions for Linux. So install from source is reducing as something you need to-do.
I would like to see more business applications in the parallel applications stores. The current paid for stores for Linux are mostly focused on games.
I’m posting this from a flavour of Debian (Elive) and for me one advantage Linux has over Windows is that in Debian at least you don’t need to disable the system to carry out a system update; you can do this on a single terminal with a pair of commands while you carry on browsing, using a word processor etc.