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I wouldn’t put all these options together, but rather focus on a few distributions that are easy to setup and work well. If we want ppl to move to linux, we should focus on them. Present them with a few options that work really well, with guides on how to start up coming from windows/mac and solving their problems. Just presenting a list of options doesn’t make the decision easier.
Personally, I’m using Pop_OS! because its easy to setup, works well on laptops, gets out of your way, and its more or less Ubuntu underneath, so its much easier to find software and help for it. But the distribution that really converted me over was Manjaro
The linux kernel is a huge success because there is exactly one kernel and its monolithic architecture ensures that the only way to accomplish anything is to cooperate with everyone else so you can get your thing added in. If you want to do your own thing, that's fine, but it will never be a part of linux.
If the linux kernel had a micro kernel design, with different competing projects for the different layers of the kernel, the linux kernel would not be the success it is today. It would be a niche tool, like the linux desktop. In linux userland, the plethora of distributions, GUI toolkits, desktop environments, init systems, applications and so on ensures that none of the projects can ever succeed.
I think that's the wrong way to look at it. We should not look at the distributions as a choice people have to make once they have decided to use Linux. It's a choice people always have to make when deciding which operating system to use. Windows is one option. Debian is one option, and so on. They are all different operating systems. The only difference is that the Linux distros are compatible with each other and that's a good thing.
I guess the other thing that I love about Manjaro is that it's configured with XFCE by default, which, after some configuration gives me a better minimalist Windows-like experience than Windows itself. I no longer have to fight Windows and hack the taskbar with 7+ taskbar tweaker to get features like dragging taskbar buttons around - all the features I want are built into XFCE. Anything that was missing I added by scripting xdotools, wmctrl and other supported tools.
With WSL 2, there's very little reason to use Linux desktop any more. The windows cleartype, touchpad driver and sleep work a lot better while giving you a regular Linux environment and you don't have to dual boot to get Office and creative software
You're an important part of the community that can help report bugs during installation, boot up, drivers, etc.
Consider switching back to help grow the community.
My personal reasons to stick to Linux:
- my DE is fully keyboard-driven (Windows is mouse-centric to be point of being unusable to me)
- better support for complex networking (NAT, multiple route tables/VRFs/netnses, etc - just last week I had to run my entire network uplink through USB tethering, which was a breeze on Linux)
- system update when I want it, zero system-mandated reboots
- easy debuggability of software failures (Windows, when fails, is a black box and your only option to fix things is to enter black magic commands from random forum threads - without possibility of actually understanding what failed, looking at source code, etc)
- no feeling of always fighting against malicious, privacy-disrespecting software (it's not that I can't disable ads and tracking, but I really don't want to have to do that)
I find that very relateable. I have gotten used to doing everything with my keyboard and windows just doesn't allow that to the same extent.
[1] - https://q3k.org/u/96613e57e6d630e35c8872f2fe970331fa327cd501...
Windows ramming its updates down my throat whenever they feel like it is totally unacceptable among other things.On iPad or iPhone, when I get an update, it installs overnight and my device is immediately available to use after restarting.
On every Windows device I've ever had since Windows 8, I have to sit there and wait for some reason. (I've already selected the 'use my sign-in information to speed up...' option)
Every single time that Windows updates, there is no way to get it to perform the entire process when I'm not using the device. As soon as I restart or log in, there is more lengthy 'configuration' or 'working on updates' to be done. It's unacceptable.
One of my favorite macOS applications is "ShortCat", which allows you to chord a shortcut (cmd-shift-space) and gives you a "GUI search" wherein any text that is on the screen (on any monitor) becomes selectable by typing it and choosing a selection...kind of like the way Vimium works in the browser, but for your multi-application context. I am comfortable with vim bindings generally but don't really care as long as there is consistency (pre-baked preferable, but configurable works). I've tried Linux years and years ago and my biggest gripe was that there was no unified "system" for handling setup of keyboard shortcuts / macros. "One system to rule them all" would be ideal, or at least "one system for each context layer, consistent between applications."
I am getting option paralysis since I know there will be a learning curve, and I don't want to spend a lot of time customizing just to find that the distro I picked is not going to meet my needs without a ton of deep customization. What Linux distro and/or window manager is going to get me multi-monitor HiDPI support with good keyboard-only navigation? From lurking HN i3 looks like it might be favored in my situation?
I want a workflow that allows me to easily jump from window-context to window-context, tab-to-tab, sub-window to sub-window, independent of monitor or applications.
I would consider something minimal like NixOS or Arch if someone could recommend a good playbook/setup for someone like me, and Manjaro and Pop_OS both look cool, but otherwise will probably default to Ubuntu for beginner google-fu.
But their tiling window manager extension is the real gem in my opinion. It's very clearly a v1.0, but I am still surprised by how much I enjoy it: https://github.com/pop-os/shell
Try sway. There isnt as much documentation online as I'd like, but the included man pages are good.
Well, that was the idea, looks like.
On my ThinkPad the official touchpad driver for Windows is worse than the default one on Linux. And sleep/suspend does not work reliably on Windows 10 since it may wake up your PC at any time and run a system update, closing your session in the process. I still find forced updates unacceptable and nothing will change that. There's not much I hate more than software that tries to act smart. It always backfires in some way.
You should look into if you have the official Microsoft touchpad driver aka Microsoft Precision Touchpad Driver as that is much better than any third party driver.
https://www.howtogeek.com/325347/how-to-enable-microsofts-pr...
On Linux it just works™ like it should. Creates a middle mouse click when clicked, scrolls when I drag the TrackPoint.
The person in question was really quite attached to their Laptop and after a failed HDD, we just took another one we had lying around, tried to save Windows (but to no avail), and finally decided to put LinuxLite [1] on it.
People who mostly utilize a browser in their day-to-day computer usage don't have any advantage in using Windows whatsoever.
I haven't yet used Linux for that long, (only around two years as may daily driver) but I can't imagine ever going back to Windows, except for very few select games, which aren't yet supported natively or via Proton/Wine.
And I keep hearing about the touchpad driver issue, but I really can't find a single difference between my Windows and Linux boxes, maybe I'm not sensitive enough, or have much lower standards in that regard, I really can't tell.
Sure, Windows Office and some Adobe software isn't there yet when used via Wine, I'll give you that. I personally do just fine with Blender, Gimp and Inkscape on the graphics front. I can't speak for the usability of the Libre-office suite, but it's done the job for the few times I had to use it.
I would agree with that, but then they also don't have any advantage in using a Linux Desktop when any web-kiosk Chromebook or tablet would do.
Maybe i`m just getting old and dual booting etc. isn`t my thing anymore but i don`t see myself setting up another distro anytime soon after 20 years.
WSL2 for me is the arrival of the Linux desktop.
I don't want to get into details about what's missing, although I could go on for a while on that. I'll only share one small use-case.
Linux spoils you with the belief that you can just set up your work environment once and find everything exactly where you left it. So imagine that you have 8 desktops and you've spread and organized things nice and tidy: browsing on Desktop1, work environment for app1 (git, log, tests, editor, etc) on D2, work environment for app2 on D3, media on D4, email on D5, experimental stuff on D6, on and on, you catch the drift. That setup out of the way, you can just show up and work on whatever you want, each day, every day, for months.
Now the Windows experience. Everything works at install, but then you try to turn Windows into Linux, you tweak at it and you get maybe 80% of the way in. Not bad, you can get some work done. Then you're reminded of the Windows reality: the dreaded updates. You basically never stop updating. Firewall, antivirus, drivers, apps and rebooting.
That's just one thing, I could go on with others (someone else pointed, no pun intended, with Windows obsession's with the mouse).
I know it has been controversial in the Linux community and among long-term Ubuntu users, but Snaps are what made my switch relatively painless. Everything I need on my daily driver (Firefox, VSCode, Slack, Spotify...) is just there waiting for me. Don't need to fuss around with a package manager, third-party repositories etc.
I am not completely Linux however, I still maintain my MacBook Pro for on-the-go work and an iPad down-time/multimedia purposes.
Let alone how to figure out which desktop environment to choose from...
It's not that I don't enjoy it. It's just a question of where I need to be spending my time.
All those niece distributions are nice, but I wouldn’t recommend them to newcomers as it’s harder there to get support.
So, you may find things like Pop! easier to get things done with because you're ok staying within the realm of what they support, but once you try to do something outside that, I guarantee you will quickly get very frustrated.
I’d rather say Linux gives you choices. Choices that you have to make, rather than options with (sensible) defaults. This is a big reason for why I’ve been unable to switch from macos to Linux as a daily driver every time I’ve tried in the past ten years.
Ironically, it’s simply too costly. Macos has been degrading over the past 6-7 years, but it’s still pretty good at standing out the way.
I’m gladly proven wrong if you can point at a path I’ve missed.
I use Mint. I pretty much left everything as it defaulted to.
The UEFI boot entries can be configured by the operating system with the "efibootmgr" command (http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man8/efibootmgr.8...) so if a more user-friendly version of it is required then a GUI can be written around that. Whether it's necessary or not is another matter because as far as I know there is no GUI around the GRUB configuration either and it mostly works.
Speaking of GRUB, how it works in Ubuntu land is that there are a couple of scripts that read different configuration files to generate the final GRUB configuration file which is actually a bash-like script (yes, GRUB implements a scripting language) and if you look at it you'd be horrified. The UEFI way of doing things is much simpler.
So the idea would be to 1) check whether the installer is booted in UEFI or BIOS, if UEFI then check if an existing OS is installed and whether it boots in BIOS or UEFI mode (whether the drive is partitioned in MBR or GPT), and then decide whether to skip GRUB (for UEFI-capable configurations) or keep it (for BIOS systems).
There are many bootloaders you could choose from efistub (which you mention), gummiboot, refind ... . Having one with a user visible interface is useful if you either dualboot or want to expose things like previous kernels or filesystem snapshots.
> So the idea would be
Sure you could do that, or you could set grub timeout to zero if multi booting, larger timeout if not and present the same familiar interface no matter whether you use UEFI or BIOS.
systemd-boot only supports UEFI systems, so GRUB would still have to be an option for legacy systems.
Check out the Arch Wiki page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd-boot
I'd consider myself a pragmatist, so I like systemd because it makes my life easier with the declarative configuration and other nice features (although I recognize that it makes some people's lives harder).
I've banned this one for now but if you email hn@ycombinator.com with a better username we'll be happy to change it for you and unban the account.
When I was younger I was very happy to deal with these issues because I learned a lot and probably made me the professional I am nowadays. Over time however I realized much of this knowledge doesn't contribute to my day-to-day work anymore and it's just an annoyance - I now want to turn on my laptop and work right away.
Then off to the command line to try to make it work.
And I think the way Linux was built, (ok this will sound naive but) focusing on the "command line" first makes everything second class.
Maybe every cmdline app should also include a binary api to be able to be used in an automated fashion (yes, you can call "system" but that is finicky)
After trying several distributions. I ended up long-term moving to Arch, it's way more work to setup but it has more of a I built it, I can fix it vibe. I always struggled to fix previous distributions after some update blowing something up.
In my opinion, the biggest thing Mac and Windows has going on is how stable they are.
There's a use case for both distros, but I can rely on RHEL / Centos more.
More often than not, I just don't care about making the optimum choice. Phone provider? ISP? Dentist? Insurance? Linux distro? Ughn, the miniscule upside of choosing something exactly right for me is overshadowed the the huge downside of choosing the completely wrong thing.
This hasn't been my impression at all lately. Even Windows is less annoying.
What do we want?
Freedom from choice!
When do we want it?
You tell us!
Kidding aside, this is one of the keys to Apple's success: we have made most of the choices for you, and we have very good taste. (and yes, they've been slipping).
In essence, that's also the key value proposition of many luxury (clothing) brands. Not so much that the quality is necessarily so much better, or that you're getting better value for money, you're not (in pure product/price terms). A big part of the value proposition of, say, the Armani brand, particularly for men is: "buy from us and it will be good without you having to think about it".
However, the customizability of linux goes far far beyond macos.
scripting is possible with macos (say shell scripts, perl and python), but nothing graphical/ui.
(ignoring tk, also ignoring orphaned applescript)
Even something simple like yad would be nice on macos.
I changed copy and paste to CMD-C and CMD-V. In the terminal app equivalent, I mapped CMD-K and CMD-L to reset and clear screen, and CMD-N to new window.
Those few changes got rid of a LOT of friction points.
"In Linux, you can configure everything. And you will be configuring everything"
Despite all the "inconvenient" sides of Linux, it's really an awesome OS if you know what you are doing
i spend more time configuring windows than linux.
turning off annoying sounds. installing an app to get 4! virtual desktops. (linux (and mac) have unlimited desktops)
searching and installing essential applications and tools is annoying on both windows and mac, whereas on linux it's a trivial operation.
Or build a hackintosh if you want a fair comparison.
server and desktop have different stability requirements. on a desktop i just need all user apps to work well. on a server i need things to be rock solid.
the newer the less stable things get. the distros i am familiar with i would sort in this order:
RHEL/centos > debian/ubuntu LTS > fedora/ubuntu > debian testing
fedora and ubuntu are stable enough for a desktop or client, but i'd never put them on a server.
The package manager/distro model that Linux employs only ever seems to give you the choice of one or the other, because it doesn't have a clear differentiation between "OS" and "application".
This is probably less common on HN, but I already have so many technology decisions to make, I don't really want to continually experiment with my OS. I just want it to disappear into the background, not be the star (or even really a conscious thought)
EDIT: huh, I added this comment when I saw no others, but it turns out my reaction isn't too uncommon, considering the audience here.
Too clarify, there are lots of situations where the OS should be a real first class concern, I'm just not convinced we'll ever get much traction at the general user PC level.
I wonder what the target group for this page is. Obviously not the main mass of people who use Windows today because if they'd be forced to chose, they'd probably take the first on the top left. If they won't be forced, they'd leave the page right away because it doesn't say why they SHOULD change.
The rest of people probably knows already about linux and don't get any relevant information from this...
Me, personally, this was the tool that really introduced me to Linux OS. Understanding how everything is put together and how it bootstraps will make you a better user of whatever distro you choose in the end. (No, don't use LFS on your workstation.)
I don't think I'll go back to that at any point, as it was far too much effort, but in terms of what I learned it was invaluable.
I should caveat that I would like to do the same with a BSD system at some point, only for fun on a separate machine.
you say not to use it on your workstation -- is it more of an tutorial than a distro?
Arch is actually a nice middle-ground. It's got a lot of learning potential (you still build the system from scratch by installing everything manually and creating the right files and mount points - there is no installer) but it's not as tedious as LFS and can actually be usable day to day (spend years on Arch before moving to proprietary OSes).
The reason for not using LFS would actually be security. It is possible to just install whatever you want and then use it for a long time (akin to LTS Ubuntu distribution). But you still need to somehow notice there are critical security updates and you definitely don't want to miss them.
Another reason is that distro developers create a huge amount of convenient mechanisms and choices for the users.
As an example, getting software X to work might not be a problem, but getting X to work along Y and Z when they might have conflicting dependencies might already be a headache. Distro developers will ensure various dependencies are tested and make sense together. If you install something on Gentoo (sorry, I don't have experience with Arch) and it doesn't work, there is a good chance it is possible to make it work and you can Google the solution. When you install something on LFS and it doesn't work you are pretty much on your own.
It is a distro that has no binaries for you to download. Instead you copy/paste pieces of code and follow instructions.
Instructions are regularly updated like a real distro.
Would be interesting to see how quickly an open back-door is fixed after it's discovered. Is the maintainer available? If not, can the package be replaced? Will it be vulnerable for months, years? So many uncertainties make me not want to rely on Desktop Linux for sensitive work.
if a 3rd party windows application has a security issue, good luck getting any fixes.
Modern Linux is heavily reliant on closed source firmware blobs already.
The issue is every time I buy hardware (primarily laptops) there was a lot of research in to the components and the quality.
I kept finding myself going back to OSX. It was just easier to in many many ways.
But now OSX is bloated nagware.
Do people use NixOS as their main OS? Does it have a "default desktop flavour", like Ubuntu does? (the manual seems to suggest XFCE - https://nixos.org/nixos/manual/index.html#sec-xfce)
(I haven't tried everything, so I don't have firsthand knowledge that they all work equally smoothly.)
> not having a default or preferred one, and you are instead required to pick one.
If you don't mind my asking: how well did NixOS work for you, as a desktop environment, out of the box? Did you have to do annoying IT work when you installed it (screen resolution, wifi, sound, maintenance mode...)? How often do you need to fix issues like that?
If you do encounter an issue it will be more work to deal with, because you both have to figure out the underlying issue and then figure out how to fit that into the Nix way of doing things.
The biggest factor is handling downloaded pre-built binaries that assume various libraries will be in typical locations. Those generally require patchelf and then they work fine. I would only recommend NixOS for now for people who are willing to tinker a bit and learn how it works.
Which isn't a great idea for any business scenario, much less, personal productivity context.
However, if you want to level up in your Linux-fu, it cannot be recommend highly enough.
https://distrowatch.com/Unlike Windows and MacOS Linux gives you options. That is the exact reason why I don't use Linux in desktop.
"You can have any color you like, so long as it's black." = "Too many distributions"
But look outside. What do you see? One size and color of motor vehicle? Definitely not. There are multiple brands of cars, there are multiple brands of trucks. There are multiple body shapes, there are multiple different seating capacities, there are multiple colors, there are multiple 'add-on' options.
Somehow we never say "There are too many different cars available". Why not?
It's time we got over the denigration of Linux. It's time we got over putting Linux on a pedestal.
Linux is Linux. Select what flavor you want.
Windows is Windows. Some people prefer it.
MacOS is MacOS. Some other people prefer that.
Who cares what other people want and use? As long as YOU are happy with what car you drive, or what computer OS you drive, it's nobody's business but yours. And it's no business of yours what the next guy chooses.
Are the differences between package managers and keeping them really so important that it's not possible to do everyone a favour and agree on using just the best one? Sure, it's nice to have "options" but as the decades fly by, people seem to use that mostly as an excuse for still not having a user-friendly desktop Linux.
This supposes that said tools are broken, which doesnt match my experience at all. Sure, there are obscure bugs in all software, but major issues are rare. If by fixing, you mean "I want tool A to be more like tool B", that's just a matter of opinion, and I personally find the relative abundance of opinionated software on Linux to be a benefit, not a hindrance.
> do everyone a favour and agree on using just the best one
Trying to decide on the "one best tool" and dumping the rest and is like trying to pick the "one best programming language" and dumping the rest.
> It's about time you try Linux
implying that while you did have heard of Linux, you misjudged it.
> Unlike Windows and MacOS Linux gives you options
This is factually wrong, anyone knows that both Windows and macOS give you a lot of options.
> The major operating systems put their users in a box, while Linux allows you to choose an OS that fits your needs and skill level.
implying that you can't run macOS or Windows by choice. No, obviously zombie Steve Jobs forced you to buy a Mac for a lot of money.
> and "free" here refers not to the cost of the software but to its liberty—as no one entity owns the software it essentially belongs to everyone, without restriction
This is factually wrong but okay, copyright law is a complicated thing and it wouldn't make much sense to discuss that here.
> So, in part, making the switch to Linux is an ethical decision about the software you use on a daily basis, and the rights you and others have to the information and things you use.
implying that if I choose to buy a software for money to support its developers because I think they're doing a good job, this is somehow unethical. Actually, there were no ethics discussed in the previous paragraph, so this is a conclusion without foundation.
> Most open source operating systems are completely free both in price & licensing. There are typically no upfront fees, lengthy legal agreements, or restrictive copyright protections.
Um, did they ever see the GNU GPL?
> Free software is developed completely transparently which means the source code is out there in the open for anyone to look at. This means, if you wanted to, you can have a meaningful influence over the software development process.
That is not generally true. If you look for example at SQlite, you'll find that while this is a piece of free software used by millions, they generally don't accept patches or any other kind of influence.
> There are thousands of free software applications available to install without the need to browse the web. All this software undergoes scrutinous review before it reaches you, so you can find and use what you like with confidence.
implying that either non-free software isn't reviewed or that somehow I should trust people I don't know that review free software, but not people I don't know that review non-free software.
> With LibreOffice, you can also open and edit any Word, Powerpoint, or Excel files you may already have.
Anyone who ever tried opening a non-trivial Excel sheet with LibreOffice would disagree on that.
> On other platforms, the creative field is dominated by proprietary applications, but there are several capable free and open source alternatives.
… which also run on Windows and macOS.
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There are a lot of good arguments you can make in favor for Linux. This page totally botches it.
Oooh...! I really want to... But Windows is getting so good! It is where I have my fluff and stuff.
I use it serverside, is that ok? I also own a MacBook which I use frequently, does that count a little?
I use windows as my desktop, it is convenient and pleasant. It works with my games and plays well with my devices.
I have been borderline crossing over to Linux Desktop for many years, but the user experience is not convincing me.
It is not that I haven't tried Linux on the Desktop, but only through virtualization - there is always so much configuration I need to set up in order to get up to a comfortable level, and then something changes or breaks.
I have a few headless Linux servers which is a joy to use and manage, but I do that from my Windows or MacOS computer usually.
I love how Windows and MacOS is starting to become more and more similar, makes synchronization of content and experiences much easier.
- iOS/iPadOS
- Android
- ChromeOS
- MacOS
- Windows
Only if none of these work would I recommend trying a Linux distribution. Even then I’d try a more modern OS like Fuchsia or seL4 first, just for kicks.