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Comment by bjelkeman-again | Hacker News Reader

> Linux has never been better

I replace Windows with Linux on my last Windows computer this week. A mixed bag of old motherboard, new-ish graphics card etc. I think I would have had a hard time to get an acceptable usage experience without using an LLM to guide me through the hiccups. (Odd window manager boot problem, sound device issue). But I agree, the Linux ecosystem seem to have something for everyone and on modern hardware it behaves relatively well. LLM as your local tech support works surprisingly well too.

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> LLM as your local tech support works surprisingly well too.

Isn't that partly why I would imagine Linux is better than ever? I'm a relatively technical person compared to some of my peers and without LLMs I just wouldn't have the time to sit and toy around with search up what random errors mean, why things aren't working, why things are crashing, making a forum post and waiting for a response or searching through stack overflow.

But now, it's no longer an issue!

LLMs as tech support is truly the singular new reason causing Linux usage to jump atm. All the other reasons are just slowly accumulative.

LLMs as tech support is the feather breaking the back of the Windows stranglehold.

dunno.

If you gave two people with no other knowledge of computer access: Kubuntu and Windows 11

I'm sure they'd have an easier time with Kubuntu, and this gap has been widening for quite some time in the favour of KDE.

The largest issues seem to be either power users doing esoteric things to their systems, or people who want to work the Windows way.

Drivers (for as much as I can tell) are mostly solved, with some minor touch buttons on some laptops being an issue in some cases.

I'm not comparing Linux of 2007 to now, I'm comparing Windows now to Linux of now- the only real edge Windows has going for it is that it's already installed when you buy your computer.

I generally agree with you (I'm typing this on a laptop running Void Linux), but I do still keep a Windows laptop for gaming and music production - I've tried running Bitwig Studio on Linux, and it's easier on Windows. While I've heard good things about gaming on Linux/Steam on Linux, I've never bothered to try it myself, being content to just use Windows PC for gaming :)

For me the main thing is Windows has gotten so bad that I was finally willing to spend time getting Linux running. LLMs are nice, but not necessary. Claude helped me with a driver issue at least knowing where to look but the answer was ultimately on a Linux forum. I think LLMs help but it isn't that much better than just searching old forum posts.

At least for me, the availability of LLM help had nothing to do with my decision to switch to Linux, it was Proton making it to where games run great on Linux and Windows being intolerably bad.

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