Rather than continuing to struggle against these features which will continue to be added, why not use an operating system that respects your freedom?
Considering the state of Ubuntu, probably the "easiest" to use desktop out there at the moment, my freedom is second to my ability to get a working desktop.
Reminds me of this video (Free as in free time; the freedom less mentioned by free software evangelists.) by Louis Rossmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOjCJXHJhPg
Windows routinely would take hours to install, -and that would be a "pre-installed" image from the vendor.
Lately things have gotten a lot better but I have never chosen Linux because of freedom but rather always because of simplicity and usability .
Then again, usability is in they eye of the beholder it seems.
It's just not there. But yes, if you want to run Python, GCC or Ruby from the commandline, Linux is very capable of giving you a faster experience.
Well, yeah, but I never claimed that Linux would be suitable for everyone's uses; just mine.
Image editing: I've never needed more than the Gimp. Why would I pay for something like Photoshop, full of features that I'll never use? It'd be like buying a power tool to assemble Ikea furniture.
Video project: I did a little in Windows XP with Windows Movie Maker, pasting together porn videos about 15 years ago, and conversions with stuff like Handbrake since then. I've never been inclined to do anything more advanced. It's not a need that I've had...but I've got Windows available if I did.
Try to master audio: Audacity covered all that I used to do, but honestly, I haven't used it in 5 years or so. Oh, plus some of my own waveform-generating and mixing software (simple stuff like generating audio for video game emulators).
LibreOffice: It, and previously OpenOffice, have covered every single need that I've had in the last 15 years. Granted, my needs have been simple, but I've never claimed differently.
It's as if I claimed that Windows is all I ever needed, and you came in asking how I intended to hack on the Linux kernel from Visual Studio...
"Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, even video editing and game creation."
Now its not the most intuitive pieces of software and you'll be spending a lot of time on youtube following tutorials, but its freely available and opensource.
Out of those, I recognize "mathematical equations" as something I've ever tried, regardless of which software I've been using, and LibreOffice Math always fit my needs. The truth is, outside of programming, I don't use enough of the features of office software for it to make a difference which suite I use.
I'm not sure what you're trying to prove. That there are features in some Windows software that aren't in Linux software? Granted, but I don't see how that's relevant to my original comment.
Anyway, LibreOffice has been able to do all these things for a long time with Graphite fonts, and, since version 5.3, it can also do them with OpenType fonts.
I'm not the kind of guy who would found a Free Software Foundation because of some Xerox printer drivers.
I'd guess that any *nix user who reverse engineer their own drivers in 2017 does so because they want to and/or have a job that pays them to do so (most likely handsomely).
For the rest of us at least mainstream Linux distros are almost as easy as Windows if not easier in some cases (until you come to MS Office, AutoCAD etc which is a whole different story, mostly unrelated to drivers IMO.)
I.E. Unless you need to use mainstream business software.
Right now I only miss MS Office and given recent moves from MS it wouldn't surprise if a preview is available within a year.
Nope, that's just fiction, the awesomely rewarded jobs are boring banking systems written in plain old Windows Forms (or WPF/Angular if you're lucky).
Most jobs would send you with HR to have a serious talk if they found out you lost a week reverse engineering a display link docking station because your multi-monitor setup wouldn't run after installing Fedora in your job laptop.
But that's none of my business. Kids are free to believe in Santa.
> For the rest of us at least mainstream Linux distros are almost as easy as Windows if not easier in some cases.
You usually install Linux because you enjoy working with the terminal, not because it's easy to use, but I certainly understand where do you come from. Ubuntu has done an amazing job to lower the barrier to start using Linux.
That would be reasonable, if Linux development isn't your job.
And if you do it for the fun of it I say of course you should do it on your own time.
> But that's none of my business. Kids are free to believe in Santa.
Unnecessary attempt at an insult IMO.
>> For the rest of us at least mainstream Linux distros are almost as easy as Windows if not easier in some cases.
> You usually install Linux because you enjoy working with the terminal, not because it's easy to use, but I certainly understand where do you come from. Ubuntu has done an amazing job to lower the barrier to start using Linux.
Plain wrong IMO: I can interact with a terminal all I want without installing Linux just by running putty. In fact I prefer gui for most things except sysadmin stuff.
More serious answer: I do use other OSs. But I keep using Windows because I want access to the fruits of millions of man-hours spent in Redmond and elsewhere developing for the Windows platform. It's a non-trivial body of work.
EDIT: ps. I know Linux has great, more or less equivalent, free or very cheap software available but I'm too lazy to learn that other software.
EDIT2: I think perhaps a lot of windows users might fall into my category.