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Comment by sigmoid10 | Hacker News Reader

Most software is already available on Linux. I've successfully run Linux in corporate jobs where everything runs on the MS/AD/Azure stack. The issue is not that you can't do it, the issue is that you have to spend extra work at every corner to get things running, because unlike Windows Linux doesn't take your hand and hide all the nasty bits from you, while it tries to juggle a million cases in the background. Windows is really great at that - until it breaks. Then you're usually screwed. Like, if the problem is close to the kernel, you can't even fix it theoretically. Best you can do is wait for an official MS patch. On Linux things break more often, but you can usually fix them without having to resort to extreme measures. It's a fundamentally different usage philosophy that plays very hard into the strengths of techies. So non-technical users will always shy away from Linux.

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> the issue is not that you can't do it, the issue is that you have to spend extra work at every corner to get things running, because unlike Windows Linux doesn't take your hand and hide all the nasty bits from you, while it tries to juggle a million cases in the background.

You may have to spend extra work to get things running; but once it's done, it runs forever without a hitch.

I know, I use Slackware. It's regarded as a very technical distribution and some manual configuration is expected but once it's done, it's done. I have configs from > 20 years ago that I still use without a hiccup.

>but once it's done, it runs forever without a hitch.

Yeah... no. If you're dealing with changing systems, you'll need continued support from maintainers. And there's a lot of stuff out there in the business world that is commonly used and breaks all the time. Stuff will break. If not, it is not getting updated. In that case I'd be more worried about security than compatibility.

Yeah... yes. There are systems which are continuously maintained but don't break all the time. Yes, stuff will break but this is way less common in Linux.

Claws-mail has all my email for over 15 years. My inbox is several gigabytes in size, which claws handles flawlessly. And the software is continuously maintained. I'm using version 4.4.0 now, which was released 16 days ago on March 9.

So... yes.

Turns out email clients are quite simple (mostly because the protocol is ancient) and also something everyone in every company uses. But many OSS clients still die eventually. And once you get into the actual business application world, you're in for a world of pain on Linux. Especially if you go near AD/Azure/Entra. Heck, the fact there is not even a stable name for this mess of a software suite tells you enough. And yet every big company relies on it.

I don't know what are these nasty bits windows is supposedly hiding, or what exactly breaks more often on Linux. For me it's exact opposite: my linux just never breaks. I don't do anything special, just plug in the hdd into new box bought when old gets too slow for new tasks, continue as nothing happened.

Uptimes of half a year are not uncommon, the record so far is 400+ days. I just don't shut it down unless there's a serious kernel or hardware upgrade.

It just works, non-kernel updates, stuff being plugged/unplugged, couple times I swapped sata hdds without turning off power (which is simple, they are hotplug by design, just don't drop the screws onto motherboard and don't forget to unmount+detach first).

Now, when I used to and test some cross-builds for windows (win7-win10 era), I had another dedicated windows machine for that. And even though I tried to make it as stable as possible, it was a brittle piece of junk, in comparison.

So in my experience, yes, linux is fundamentally different usage philosophy: you don't need to think about what crap Microsoft will break your workflow with next Tuesday.

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