Look, Linux isn't all bad. Linux is way good at some sectors but not good at a lot sectors. It's five years since I call myself a Debian user.
I was perfectly good with Linux as a web developer and automation engineer but got some issues while starting game development. Assets development is a lot hard, especially for 2d games.
Also, editing videos, and making graphics is a lot hard.
I once installed Linux on two of my friends' computer, they both complained to me, Word Processing software, image editing and gaming is a headache in Linux. We were science students, but both of them complained and forced me to install Windows back.
So, here we can see Linux is not for everyone.
If you are a tech-savvy person who loves to tinker, you'll probably have great fun using it. Also, Linux is considered to be more secure than Windows, and in many ways, it's more customised.
However, if you're the type of user who likes to press the power button and have everything just work smoothly and without hiccups, you should give it a wide berth. If you think Windows occasionally gives you a headache, you haven't seen anything yet.
And, if you think Linux is not a controversial, silent and peaceful piece of Operating system, then Linux is surely not for you. Here is a controversial (DO NOT CHECK IT, IF YOU'RE A HARDCORE LINUX FANBOY), yet good to discuss/post in the forum.
Linux based OS has some bugs, they pop while you're doing something important. You need to find the solution yourself, sometimes you could not be able to use your GUI of the PC, all you have to do is use CLI, only CLI. So, using Linux makes you strong, brave and smart. It gives you more connection with the backend of your OS.
Why Linux is not for you?
- Game Development
- Graphic design, photo editing and tweaks (For fans of Krita and GIMPS is also available in Windows, so why switch?)
- Gaming
- Video Editing
- Normal web browsing and emailing
- Word Processing
Why Linux is for you?
- Web development
- Bot development
- Docker and Kubernetes
- Machine Learning and MLOps
- Linux do have good FPS but lacks the actual games to play
- Normal web browsing and emailing
Simply, what I am trying to say is:
Use Linux only for development purposes (except Indie Game Development, because you have to struggle for simple things related to game assets, also most of the games in itch.io are built for windows, let's not talk about VirtualBox because at the end of the day we will be using windows.).
Latest comments (89)
by saying LINUX you know this includes ANDROID, CHROMEOS and MANY other OSes ? and not just some Linux distro right ? LInux is not an OS, Linux is a KERNEL.
So things like "normal web browsing and emailing" does this mean that Android cannot be use for that ? Or Gaming ? Are you saying only iOS is for gaming ? :D
I'm sorry but I will never be comfortable with some algorithm forcing me to update my hardware on their timetables. Windows 2000 was the last decent Windows - pretty sure it was the last one that did not require activation with the Mothership.
eh? not good for Normal web browsing and emailing Word Processing?
this is just clickbait, reality is Linux is for everyone except gaming in general (and few pro apps for editing videos MAYBE)
I have been running Linux at home for a decade now and I:
Seriously, if you think Linux is for 'development purposes' you are fucking stupid. Linux is a great replacement for windows or macos.
I agree Linux isn't for everyone — I can point to quite a few cases where Windows is a good solution — but I think you're being a bit overbroad. I've installed Linux (Ubuntu specifically) for many average, and even novice, computer users, almost all of whom loved it.
As to myself, I do a lot besides coding.
If you want to use Unity3D or Unreal, sure, use Windows. Not all game developers do. In fact, a lot of game developers, including myself, are not fans of the pre-packaged game engines.
Krita, Glimpse (fork of GIMP), Darktable, Blender, Inkscape and many others do work on both. "So why switch?" That depends on what workflow works for you. Linux certainly does crash less often in many people's experience. Windows is not inherently superior or inferior for graphics design.
If you're on Adobe, you've got bigger problems than your OS.
The old stand-by argument for Windows, but fact is, WINE's gotten really good. I mean really good. So much so, that most Steam games work smoothly on Linux now. If you've got one of those rare games that really doesn't work on Windows, eh, use Windows. Same of Linux.
I do quite a lot of serious video editing, all on Linux. I used to use Windows-based software for this, like Roxio, and given the choice, I'd always use Kdenlive now.
Moot point. Chrome and Firefox work everywhere. Linux is objectively superior here besides, because the likelihood of getting drive-by viruses is exponentially lower.
I'm a professional author and editor, and have typeset three professionally published books and counting on LibreOffice alone. I'm far from alone. The only reason you'd have to use Windows is if you absolutely need Microsoft Office locally installed. Microsoft 365 (in-browser) and Google Docs work well anywhere.
That's not to say "Linux is a panacea". It's to say that none of the things you say are better on Windows objectively and automatically are. In the end, your article is as guilty of Windows "fanboying" as you say Linux people are in their articles. ;)
I am not sure that it's because of the processes I've done or what but photoshop doesn't function well on Wine. I am not allowed to copy images from clipboard to photoshop.
Yeah, nope, Adobe does not work well on Linux by any means. Like I mentioned, if you absolutely have to use Adobe, use Windows (or macOS, I'll add). However, I'd also encourage everyone to find alternatives to Adobe, whatever OS they choose to work on, as Adobe has some of the highest prices and most predatory practices in the industry.
No, you are write! Daily driving Linux isn't for everyone. But in my view it's a must for developers, I only survive at work using Windows due to WSL. I tried to use PowerShell or CMD to use the tools I needed but the ability to have bash or other unix shell makes life much easier. But don't take me as reference because I sometimes open Vim inside VSCode shell just because 😅...
For anyone interested to giving it a try, get a ""beginner friendly"" distro like PopOs, Mint or Elementary. They are great to start and get familiar with how things work. 😉
I dunno about indie game development, Godot is Goodot
Linux, as a desktop system, is light and fast, not bloated. It's free, and is packed with free software. It's generally speaking more secure. And it's also more private, since there is less of a big brother co scraping out all your user habits with telemetry. For using a browser, the experience is on par with other OSs if not better. LibreOffice is also a decent replacement for word processing. A developer does not need Linux, he will be best served with the environment he is developing for, but if developing for a linux server (all web dev included), than linux is the clear winner. Also good development tooling is one package manager click or command away.
Yes, Linux is probabbly not for you. You need to have an open mind, if you are too used to your current system. Also each ecosystem has the software that runs on top of it. So of course if you need a certain tool and it's only available on this or that OS, stick to it.
I am a happy Linux user, having used Windows and Mac, not looking back. Each systems has it's pros and cons. For me Linux is the best.
Uh, huh; if one goes by the level of displayed knowledge and concomitant categorical syllogisms, presuppositions, sentence structure and grammar, misspellings and overall flavour, the author of this article likely has an IQ of roughly room temperature.
In Celsius.
In an igloo.
BTW, just as with any relationship, that with one's computer will be better if one works at it rather than being complacent; Linux invites this, resulting in a better relationship than most.
Linux powers more devices than one could possibly imagine. When you really think about it the market share of devices running Linux overwhelms even that of MS and Apple. Just counting Android devices alone it's basically taken over world. The biggest strength and weakness of Linux is it's fragmentation between distros, userspace tools and kernel which causes a lot of the problems people seem to experience. At same time that fragmentation offers great customization for tinkers and an extensive ability to provide utilitarian applications. The lack of ubiquity, however makes it a not so good replacement for something as ubiquitous as MS Win/Office, which we have become familiar with. People often confuse distros with Linux and a disliked distro could ultimately give bad impressions of Linux as whole. Chances are that you already use Linux and it is for you, you just aren't recognizing the form it takes on. If you were to slap a penguin 🐧 on every device running Linux you'd be surprised to say the the least.
Yeah, but I am here talking about the Linux based desktop OS.
I disagree, Linux isn't just for developers. Yes Linux may not be for a lot of people, but that doesn't mean only developers should use it. There are some users who don't develope but would prefer Linux for various reasons. For example: not having to upgrade to a new os that you don't even like because yours is now insecure from not being maintained, being able to customize your computer, being able to actually troubleshoot your own computer, having a community you can go to if you do have trouble, being able to set up printers with less trouble, being able to take advantage of command line without paying money to apple, not having your data constantly sent to a corporation for whatever uses they want, actually being able to choose when you update or restart, and more. Also Linux does have games and more are becoming compatible, so it's not anti gamer either.
Yeah, I know a artist who uses Linux based OS. But guess what he loves being techy. But he does have a windows PC as well, for word processing and video editing.
What do you think about word processing in Linux?
Honestly even when I was using windows I was using free and open source programs for word processing. I've actually found out since switching that the one I used to use is considered out of date now. So I think I can say confidently that word processing is pretty good on Linux. As for video processing, there's quite a few different programs for that and they all look pretty well developed. The thing about being a Linux user is that the more people that are on Linux and need something the better developed the programs for it will be, because the users get to have real input on the development of them.
I used to use windows, actually I used it all through schooling. But I've switched to Linux and it can do everything I ask it to without problems. If any problems come up it's really simple for me to either Google why or just ask the community. The only time i really had an issue was installing, and that wasn't the os, my computer was so old that trying to wipe and install a whole is corrupted my drive. One new computer later and I have a very useful computer.
That all said I will admit that if your unwilling to use non proprietary programs then Linux isn't for you. There are many good alternatives to almost any program on windows, but if you are unwilling to switch you'll never be happy on Linux
That covers 99% of daily usage. And most popular linx distros win this easily just by having Firefox as default.
Funny, I swapped out "Linux" with "other browser" and "Windows" with "Internet Explorer", and found a duplicate on Wayback Machine ;-)
I have similar views. While linux is an awesome server side OS
It is not a desktop software. Considerable investment has already put by companies and Open source communities to write software on Windows and Mac. Now that windows is essentially free once you buy windows PC for future upgrade, there is no real reason for them to invest on multiple flavors of desktop distros.
my linux as yet to resort to serving me ads via the OS.
It's always confusing to me when operating system choice is proposed as some kind of marriage or loyalty program. Use what you need when you need it. I do, it's not a big decision. Linux distros are free and Windows is inexpensive. It's not a spouse, house or even a car. You can have as many as you want and no one will arrest you or even notice.
Exactly.
The best tool for a job is the tool which does the job best, and that varies from job and site to site.
Try Fedora or a distro that suites you better. 20years on Linux and I won't go back. Recently installed Windows 11 on my Gaming rig and turned it on after months. I like Win11 but it's still a night are compared to what wonderful world I have on Linux.
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