Why moving to Linux to avoid Microsoft spying is impossible for most people

I realy love Linux as operating system, but it sux badly when it comes to use as desktop for gamming, joy and usability.

There are some setups that works better then others when running linux. for that some people say "linux is perfect", "linux is better than windows", etc., but its just a fraction of the situations. the majority will strugle to get "the mininum" from linux on desktop. and thats a fact.

edit.:

my point is: I dont want to expend some money setting up my machine just like I want it to be and having an os that will not take full advantage of it as windows take. offcourse, windows is not perfect, but, atleast, it works as it supposed to work (well, my hardware works on windows as it suppose to work).

 

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If you use Windows for playing games there is no way you can switch to linux. Try to use Wine to play GTA 5 or any other directx 11 game and you'll see how fast you come back to Microsoft.
If you use Windows just for internet and office applications then the idea of using linux is a good idea. You'll need just time to learn how things work.

 

@tmbt: A great first post. Makes perfect sense to Me.

Welcome to MDL.

 

well, yes, depending what you mean by "around" though.

If you say so, most people just rant without even trying.

I have and I can't honestly say that apt-get update is better (or teaches you anything) more than yum-update or pacman -Syu or going to control panel and clicking on update..

What Arch did for me is teach me how a firewall works. Arch has the best documentation of any distro (even if you use another). I dropped it though as if I need to edit a Project file I need Windows and honestly running Windows is less hassle.

I still use Arch to run torrents though as a VM under Hyper-V and most of the time when I'm out of the house I use OSX as my battery lasts longer on my MacBook.

 

That's why a dual boot with windows (locked down) and Linux seems to be a great choice. Best of both worlds, unless you online game with windows.

 

you get the point.

linux is for homeoffice and/or enterprise, not home entertaiment...

but even on homeoffice or enterprise linux strugles in some aspects..

 

It depends on what office application. As I said before, there is no and will never be OneNote alternatives on any OS other than Windows.

For me, there are thousands of reasons to switch to Linux, but going back to Windows only needs one reason: OneNote and professional grade pen computing.

 

Neither of those hold much attraction for me, but I do like to play the occasional game - maybe a sim or an FPS - and I like to use circuit simulation software that uses the GPU for processing. I also use Visual Studio from time to time. I can see a dual boot scenario in my future where I use Windows 10 for these things and Uumate for practically everything else.

I ran Uumate for a few minutes off a bootable USB pen drive. Was pleasantly surprised that it worked right out of the box - I could get online, browse the net, play the bundled versions of solitaire and sudoku, read PDF files... normal, light-weight stuff. No trouble at all. I even brought up the console and tried out a few commands from a book recommended in this thread - The Linux Command Line. I'm going to do more of the same every chance I get and hope that some of what's in the book sticks.

I doubt that I'll be able to ever do away with Windows completely, but I think I have a fair shot at being able to work with a dual booting scenario where Windows 10 is totally offline. No internet, no spying. TYVM.

 

Let's face the reality for a moment, folks. At this stage, although Linux made tremendous progress as a desktop OS, Windows is still irreplaceable in certain aspects, especially for some professional software that only runs on Windows platform. So the best bet is DUAL BOOT both Windows and Linux. This can easily be done on even the latest hardware config with UEFI and secure boot.

 

Reboot every time you want to go online? Bugger that

 

Simple reason I can't switch to linux, I'm a developer. Visual Studio doesn't run on linux.

For all the tech savy people, sure Linux isn't that hard (though i only ever use Ubuntu or CentOS Server, I hate 99% of the linux gui's)

Most people however who only ever run windows to do word/excel documents (normal office personel, or just most of the generic users who also use it for internet.) Linux isn't made for those people.

If I were to give my family as example, they know how most stuff in Windows works, how to simply install updates etc.

I do not ever see them suddenly using a terminal to install updates, or using a mount command to read a flash drive. nevermind trying to actually install something from a flashdrive.

My main reason would still be the GUI though, I tried a lot of them and I hate nearly all of em. (thats just a personal thing though)

 

As someone who uses Linux, OSX and Windows on a daily basis:
1. Linux can be great for the very tech-savvy and the very not-tech-savvy (the former being willing to crack out a terminal to sort out issues or configure things, the latter not wanting to do anything complicated enough to need to). It is also an excellent server platform.
2. OSX is great for people who need to use some of the more professional mainstream apps (e.g. Photoshop, Microsoft Office), but prefer an underlying unix base. When working with others, Gimp is not a good Photoshop alternative and LibreOffice is not a good MS Office alternative (especially if using spreadsheets).
3. Windows is great for mid-range power users: people who will install a diverse range of applications, people who are happy to dig through UIs in order to change settings, but people who don't want to have to resort to text editors and command lines. (Also people who need to use Visual Studio).

One of the thorns in the side of Linux is that there are multiple competing UI libraries and multiple competing conventions for UI design. As a result, the user experience can be wildly inconsistent going from one application to another (especially if one is GTK-based and the other is QT-based). Another is that the developers of open-source software are often very competent but are also developing substantially for their own needs. As a result, there can be some fairly arcane language, some very poor documentation, and a lack of will to change either of these things. Users, on the other hand, don't have the development skills to modify the applications to suit them, and indeed if they did they would be developers not users anyway.

Windows suffers from similar inconsistency, but to a lesser extent in major applications. When you are using more niche applications then things can go sideways, but the big ones tend to be reasonably consistent in their UX (in my experience, although that may just be my range of tools being used).

OSX suffers from the issue that if you want to do something some way other than the Apple way, you're pretty much boned.


The idea that open source is inherently more secure than closed source is dubious. The claim that open source means many eyes are checking the code has been demonstrated false again and again by serious security vulnerabilities lingering in code for years. Yes, they may eventually get found, but when they've been there for one or two years it is hard to argue that code gets reviewed simply because it is open source. Think about the amount of code in an OS: who can check all that? Who do you trust to check all of that?
That certainly isn't to say that closed source is more secure. Rather, the extent to which code is secure will depend on the amount of auditing it is getting, and as OpenSSL has shown us (among other packages), just because everyone is using some code doesn't mean anyone is actually checking it. Instead, everyone seems to assume that someone else must be checking it (because it is open source, right?) so doesn't do so for themselves.


Having said all of that, the package management and update systems of Linux (for those packages included in the repositories) completely blow Windows and OSX out of the water. It drives me nuts that most applications on OSX I can't update with a single command (except for those installed using Homebrew, of course).

Coming back to the topic itself: I think it is true that switching to Linux for most people is impossible (although probably impractical would be a better word), as is the comment that Linux is only free if your time has no value. The effort involved in becoming sufficiently familiar with Linux to do anything complex (e.g. anything that would require running up a command line) would outweigh any benefit of using Linux by orders of magnitude for users who are not already quite advanced and so will understand the lingo in a man page or even on user forums. Linux is pretty amazing, but for a very large number of users the effort involved in transitioning would absolutely exceed the value they would get from doing so.
(Note: Linux is also free for those who are curious and just want to learn about it. My comments mainly relate to people who want to use a computer as a tool, rather than learn about it just for the sake of doing so)

In my opinion, which all of the above clearly is.

 

@mxNUFF: Your post is awesome and rings true to Me

That's my opinion.

Welcome to MDL, btw.