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Comment by geophile | Hacker News Reader

From perusing reddit, I see some Windows users tempted to consider Linux, often because of Windows 11. But then, many of them won't move because: it doesn't work just like Windows; there is some Windows application they must have, or maybe they just don't want to learn the alternatives. Or they use word/excel/powerpoint and have to interact with others who do also.

The brainwashing, high tolerance for pain and misery (and expense!), and lock-in makes it close to impossible for ordinary computer users to escape.

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For me the apps that don’t exist on Linux are Fusion360 (3d printing modeling) and OneNote (shared notebook with my non-technical wife that syncs to mobile). I also have zero tolerance for needing to tweak settings to make a game work on Linux. So I’m stuck on windows for now.

Every month I have to spend an hour fighting some new asshole behavior concocted up by some ambitious Microsoft product manager. The latest one was them adding Windows Store results to the start menu search. I use start menu search to launch applications and suddenly some games from the store started showing up when I did my usual searches. The only way to stop it was to uninstall the windows store entirely using a power shell command.

Is it really that much easier to fight Microsoft? Say what you will about tweaking settings in Linux but it lets you do just about whatever you want. And the settings changes are at least understood and documented. I’d hate to use an OS that you repeatedly have to fight with over its user hostile changes. Every time I boot Windows in a VM I’m reminded of how much harder Windows users have it because they can’t just do whatever they want with the computer, it has to be done with Microsoft’s blessing.

It's probably my last Windows. It's getting harder to undo the shenanigans each time they push out another update. The moment I can't undo it, I'll move to Linux. I'll learn FreeCad and use Onenote in a browser.

I have a long backlog of games that I finally have time to play, and for now they all just work on Windows. They probably 95% just work on Linux too, but it's that 5% that gives me pause.

If the games you want are on steam, check if they are on this list: https://areweanticheatyet.com/

If there is no anticheat (or the anticheat is supported), and the game is on steam, then I would wager that it would "just work". My feeling is that it's more like 99% now. Non steam games can be more problematic (I had issues with the blizzard/wow launcher for instance, it can be made to work but definitely doesn't "just work").

Happy gaming!

Thanks for the link, yeah I'm pretty much entirely on Steam. I'll play Diablo 4 one of these years, and that appears to be running fine. Sometimes I'll try out a game on my steam deck for fun and so far everything I run has worked. Maybe it is 99%+ for me. I looked through the "Denied" and "Broken" lists and saw a few games that I've played in the past (street fighter, guilty gear) on the Broken list. Guess I could always just play those on Playstation.

I understand that everyone has their own needs and Linux still might not be a great fit, but just in case it's helpful, here are some possibly-comparable Linux-friendly alternatives to what you mentioned:

> Fusion360

Depending on your needs, Onshape could be a good portable option since it runs in a browser. I use it for all my 3D printing pursuits and have made some fairly complex parts. And it's free if you don't mind people theoretically being able to search for and see your work. Not a problem for me since I'm not doing anything proprietary or making BDSM gear or whatever---if my shitty projects help somebody else with theirs, I'm all for it.

> OneNote

I don't think Obsidian does synchronous collaboration well (could be wrong) but for asynchronous collaboration it ought to be fine; their sync product works very well and I haven't ever had to fiddle with anything. My non-technical wife could use it with no issue (but in practice we use Apple Notes).

I don't think it's a drop-in replacement for OneNote, but it might serve the purpose.

> zero tolerance for needing to tweak settings to make a game work on Linux

This has gotten a lot better. With a distro like Bazzite (which I just use as my general purpose desktop now), pretty much everything works out of the box unless it has an anticheat that's specifically blocking Linux.

I would not have been willing to say this a year ago (and I know plenty of people have been saying it for a long time, and I generally disagreed with them), but today I really think gaming on Linux is ready for general adoption. In the last few months I've totally abandoned Windows for gaming, which was the last thing I was using it for (in a VM).

> I don't think Obsidian does synchronous collaboration well (could be wrong) but for asynchronous collaboration it ought to be fine.

If you want to do real-time collaboration in Obsidian there are a few plugins available. relay.md (mine), peerdraft, screengarden, and YAOS are some options.

Thank you for the recommendations!

I'll check out OnShape. Between that and FreeCad (which recently got a usability update) I can probably kick AutoCad/Fusion360 to the curb.

Perhaps Linux can handle all of my computing needs. "pretty much everything works out of the box" is my bar. I don't play any of the games that use the linux-blocking anticheat. Death Stranding 2 is what I'm playing now and it looks like folks were able to get it running well on Linux. I'll probably move over within a year, assuming Microsoft continues on their current path.

Call it brainwashing or whatever. But the reality is that even one single popular app not working out of box is enough barrier preventing people from switching.

I've tried to convince people to use Linux. The conversation usually ended when they realize Photoshop isn't natively support Linux. And after many attempts, I ended up being converted to Windows + WSL.

Linux Mint is super easy to use. I've personally battle tested it with my elder parents.

Given all the nagware present in Windows 11, I'd even say Linux Mint is easier than Windows.

The most difficult part is probably the installation itself.

Not if you are coming from windows and are not a tech nerd. I don’t want to end up being tech support for some non techie I coerced into Linux. It is nowhere near as seamless as zealots like to believe. Been having this discussion since 1997.

> It is nowhere near as seamless as zealots like to believe.

Perhaps not. But it's still more seamless than Windows these days. Microsoft keeps lowering the bar.

It's not just that Microsoft keeps lowering the bar, although they do. Linux desktops have also improved A LOT, especially in the last 10 years.

We're at the point where UI-wise they run laps around Windows, and often even MacOS. They're intuitive, simple, and powerful.

The problem is that they're not windows. People know how to use Windows, including how to work around the layers of jank. When you remove the layers of jank, expectations get broken and users get confused.

Have you actually tried a modern distro like Linux Mint?

Seriously, you don't even need to touch the terminal, everything is neatly organized in a single control panel (unlike the messy >2 control panels situation of Windows).

You can easily install all the applications you want; even games thanks to Steam and Proton.

It's easy to use, there are no ads, no preinstalled adware, no nagware, everything is fast and clean.

> modern distro

Let them cook...

> Linux Mint

Oh. :(

Modern != brand new shiny hipster thing. Unless you're a devotee of rolling release or unconvential things like Nix, Mint is not obsolete.

Depending on your age, "brand new shiny hipster thing" could be Enlightenment Desktop, Mate Desktop, or it could be Cosmic or Hyprland+.

Mint is a steady distro like Debian is. It certainly hasn't changed much in the last 15 or so years. For better or worse, depending on your POV.

Mint lags upstream by years. Lol

I don't know the last time you tried - I made numerous attempts to migrate to Linux since 2003, until I finally made it for good in 2022.

Modern beginner friendly distros are genuinely more user friendly than Windows nowadays.

I”ve been installing Linux desktops for decades (mostly Ubuntu, but in the day: Suse and RedHat, and Qubes, and FreeBSD and NetBSD, Nix, Arch, etc…) I always check out the latest LTS release of Ubuntu. I tried Mint and didn’t see a huge difference. Same sort of belly flops into the shell to make things work, but with a difference skin. It is not fundamentally different than any other distribution with a desktop in my opinion of staring at this for 30+ years.

Honestly I've had more technical problems installing Windows than Linux Mint recently, not to mention the multiple hours spent hunting down and disabling all of the telemetry and ads in Windows. Still can't believe they put ads in File Explorer.

> maybe they just don't want to learn the alternatives. Or they use word/excel/powerpoint and have to interact with others who do also.

If they're on Office 365, they could be on Linux.

The browser version of excel is vastly inferior for power users

Or winapps/cassowary/<latest tool>

I try to use libreoffice when possible but sometimes the performance takes a nosedive for opaque reasons when excel is ok

Every time I try to edit my cv containing many disconnected tables I want to scream from the frustration.

In Ms Office it's always the breeze and 2 minute job. In Libre office it's 15 at least, multiple fights with pages suddenly breaking, cells and rows refusing to stick to my dimensions or something perfectly fine in the print preview lose edges of the cells (ie missing letter, etc) when actually on paper/pdf.

Infuriating.

And I didn't even started about printing in Linux. What works in android ootb didn't consistently work for me across two distributions, several years and many versions. Papercut is the worst but cups is close second.

For the office apps, the cloud versions work well enough... I think even Visio (additional fees) cloud/web version actually works okay now, I haven't used it recently. At least well enough for the occasional interaction if Libre/Only Office don't work well enough for you.

> The brainwashing, high tolerance for pain and misery (and expense!), and lock-in makes it close to impossible for ordinary computer users to escape.

Or opposite of the house, the arrogance and presumption.

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