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
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.
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.
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).
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.
Well, that was the idea, looks like.
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.
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.