[Colchester] 2021 is the year of the Linux desktop

[Wayland Sothcott]

I do think you are overdue to try Mint again. When you say technical 
knowledge and tinkering I'm trying to think of what tinkering I do. 
There is far more tinkering to get Windows set up right than there is in 
Linux. However there is a bit of tinkering to get WINE to run 
seamlessly, but that almost counts as Windows. Clearly WINE could be 
tinker free, look at PROTON in Steam.

One of the things people are familiar with in Windows is downloading a 
file from a website and installing. This is perhaps not the most 
intuitive thing since Microsoft have tried to move people to the app 
store (which is like a Linux repository). However plenty of websites now 
detect you're on Linux and give you the Linux version of the download 
and install experience. This always seems to work with Mint. For example 
if you go to Valve's SteamPowered website it gives you the Linux install 
button.

The other area people seem to think does not work well in Linux is 
peripherals and hardware. It is worth checking if Linux is mentioned 
before buying hardware but mostly it's plug and play anyway. I bought an 
HD webcam and plugged it in and started Zoom and it worked with no 
tinkering. This is normal rather than the exception.

Same with graphics cards, they all seem to work from the oldest to the 
newest. No need to fetch drivers although if you want to mine with a 
VEGA you might want to install the appropriate driver from AMD. Vulkan 
is cross platform and is making many games cross platform. Not only that 
but it's higher performance than Microsoft's DX12.

The technical skills thing is moot since your average user's Windows 
skills are no better than their Linux skills. It can be argued that no 
technical skills are needed to use Linux where as they are needed to use 
Windows these days. What is a user supposed to do when facing a blue 
screen reboot and windows repair? This will happen most times a Windows 
machine crashes or is powered off incorrectly and often results in a 
system so broken only a techie can get it back. This is since Windows 
10. There does not seem to be such a problem on Linux.

We really have had the crossing of two paths. Linux has got so much 
better and Windows has got so much worse. For a person who can't fix 
their own computer, Linux is the better choice.

25 years since I first used Linux on the desktop and it's now the winner.


On 11/01/2021 10:35, James Pain via Colchester wrote:
> I love these xxxx is the year of the linux desktop threads. This is a 
> great conversation to have and recap where we've gotten to.
>
> It depends on the user. For 90% of computer users, I'm not convinced 
> linux is the right choice yet. It still requires technical knowledge 
> and tinkering despite the best efforts of some distros. This is based 
> on my last distro-hopping session about 2 years ago. I'm overdue for 
> another. I think Mint and Manjaro have come a long way and their 
> first-use user experience is great, but they don't have the maturity 
> of a distro like OpenSuse or Ubuntu. MX Linux is a new addition to the 
> scene but had trouble running it on a VM to try it out.
>
> For my use case, if I have one of my mega-privacy conscious moments 
> and want to try and disconnect from 'The Man' as much as possible 
> (which I go through every couple years) I'd absolutely switch out Win 
> 10 for a linux distro. However I won't be recommending it as a desktop 
> OS for normal users anytime soon though.
>
> I'm overdue for a distro hop session. I might start a new thread on 
> this maillist when I do.
>
> James Pain
>
>
> On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 at 01:11, Wayland Sothcott via Colchester 
> <colchester at mailman.lug.org.uk <mailto:colchester at mailman.lug.org.uk>> 
> wrote:
>
>     No really this time. I know we've been saying this for 25 years
>     but two
>     things have crossed paths.
>
>     Firstly Linux has got really really good. It's easy to install and
>     use.
>     It's very very capable. Few things even require windows any more and
>     many that do run well under WINE or VirtualBox.
>
>     Secondly Windows has been getting worse at every update, some even
>     destroy your files. It's impractical to continue on Windows 7 and
>     Windows 10 is creating more and more problems for people. With a
>     great
>     deal of effort it's possible to do a decent Windows install but
>     then you
>     find your efforts get trashed on the next update or some program
>     refuses
>     to run because it does not like what you did to Windows. Why is
>     Windows
>     10 so difficult to network? Windows XP was pretty good at this.
>
>     There are more and more examples where the user is delighted with
>     Linux,
>     Mint in my case. It still bugs me that I can't run MS Access on Linux
>     but then it's getting easier to re-write such things. Moving the
>     data to
>     MySQL is a good start. You can then write a new front end whilst
>     still
>     using the old one.
>
>     Yes we are at the stage where Linux is definitely a better choice
>     than
>     Windows, application requirements permitting. If all your programs
>     run
>     on Linux then you're better off with Linux.
>
>     What are your thoughts on this?
>
>     Wayland.
>
>     -- 
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>     Colchester at mailman.lug.org.uk <mailto:Colchester at mailman.lug.org.uk>
>     https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/colchester
>
>

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