Let's talk about Linux

I wanted to share this with you guys. What do you love the most about Linux and freedom of the software?

Comments

[Roelof Jan Elsinga]

I absolutely love Linux! The fact that there is a distro for every use case is amazing. If there isn't an option out there, you can create it yourself. Linux to me puts the "personal" back into PC. I own my hardware and I decide what software I want I'm there. I have full control over my workflow and it's not forced into me like how I personally experienced Windows.

I'm not putting Windows down though. If it works for you and it does what you need, use it! Use the right tools for the job and for me that happens to be a variety of Linux distros!

Here are my favorites:

• Ubuntu (going strong for 4 years)
• Peppermint OS (wow it makes me productive)
• EndeavourOS (makes the first experience with Arch very light hearted)

[anon987654321]

The great thing about Linux, and this is largely why it got so popular in the first place, is its support from the hardware industry. Another great thing is ofcourse the kernel itself. However, compared to other modern-day Unix-like kernels (ie. the BSDs -- OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, MacOS X etc.), it's mediocre at best.

What's definitely not great about Linux though, is its distributions. What ought to have been one complete OS with one competent leadership and one coherent brand, is instead split into thousands of distributions with varying degrees of quality, with the overwhelming majority all including unnecessary and overly complicated stuff by default, such as systemd, bash, OpenSSL, or iptables/nftables.

In the words of a great friend of mine:

Choose OpenBSD for your Unix needs. OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, and the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland and the cleanest configuration syntax.

[Roelof Jan Elsinga]

That's a very interesting take! I'll have a look and see what it's like, thank you for that comment!

[y]

Jij lijkt echt op iemand die ik ken, ben je familie van Andries?

[Roelof Jan Elsinga]

Ja!

[y]

Wat een toeval haha ik heb met hem gewerkt een jaar geleden! jullie lijken echt op elkaar. Leuk om te weten dat er een dev in de familie zit!

[Roelof Jan Elsinga]

Haha dat hoor ik vaker inderdaad! Ik heb hem ook al met het Linux virus aangestoken 😅

[y]

Lekker bezig, Linux for the win!

[Syed Faraaz Ahmad]

I use arch btw (I don't, I'm just always looking for opportunity to say this though).

I think Pop_OS! is dope

[Jayesh Kale]

yeah it's not just customized ubuntu... it's optimised one🤘

[Ryan Dsouza]

The best part of Linux according to me is the alternatives are so much that it literally spoils you :P

Don't want to use KDE, you might like Gnome, Cinnamon or XFCE. Text Editors, loads of them! The amount of choice that we have and the customizability that it provides is truly amazing.

Another point that I think is great is the development experience that Linux provides. Bash/Zsh is an absolute beast and the utility it provides is awesome! Windows just launced a new CMD with features that were in Linux 1 years ago. The forceful updates and the baggage that comes with Windows is completely gone with Linux. I use a rolling release distro and the only thing that I have to do to update my system is sudo pacman -Syyu.

Also another advantage is building for CI. Building native modules and being able to test them is simply easy and you can match the CI environment as you're using the same native modules that the CI server uses i.e. Linux :)

[Jimb0tr0n]

Has anyone here considered installing a linux distro on their aging parents' computers to protect them from the exploit-happy Windows environment?

I was thinking about this recently for my dad who keeps getting "hacked" and only really uses his PC for a lightweight gaming client so he can play backgammon online (and an additional add-on utility that analyzes his gameplay).

He absolutely won't use anything that requires learning something new, but I could probably simulate his Windows experience with the gaming app in Wine, if the rest of the OS had a Windows-like interface.

What do y'all think?

[Aniganesh]

LinuxMint is supposedly Windows like. It could be what your dad needs.

[manav1234]

I completely agree with all the people writing here Linux is love 😍 ever since I started using Linux I have felt so freakin powerful. finally in years I have all the power I want over my computer. also AUR is amazing
my fav distros
1.Arch
2.Fedora
3.Opensuse

[Aniganesh]

What is AUR?

[Boris Jamot ✊ /]

ArchLinux User Repository I guess.

[Yash Karandikar]

Its the Arch(Linux) User Repository. Similar to a PPA, users can upload their own PKGBUILDs (Basically a script that installs a package).

[Thomas Broyer]

If I had to pick one feature, compared to Windows: the fact that you can (and should) install every software you want from package repositories, providing a unified update for the entire system; vs each soft having to phone home to check for updates and bother you with popups, or implementing autoupdating by themselves, or just let users down and they never update after the initial install, becoming vulnerable as security bugs are fixed in newer versions.
Things might have changed with the Windows Store and/or NuGet, but I'd bet it's still true for many Windows users, including tech-savvy ones.

[Adam Staples]

I recently discovered the "scoop" package manager for Windows, and at very least for dev tools it works pretty well! It doesn't have a way to easily update-all, but it does let you install, uninstall, and update most dev tools entirely from the command line. Makes for a really quick setup of a new machine.

[Scott Simontis]

Actually, the command you are looking for is scoop update-all!

[Adam Staples]

C:/> scoop update-all
result:
scoop: 'update-all' isn't a scoop command. See 'scoop help'.

[Adam Staples]

I love Linux as a development environment, and I really like tools like Multipass or Docker that let you pop up a quick Ubuntu VM regardless of what OS I'm running.

I've created scripts to install all of my favorite programming languages and tools, so I can have a fresh Linux install up and running for development in about 20 minutes. Linux is great because it gets out of your way and lets you build great things.

The biggest downside for me is software support. There are so many amazing games that only run on Windows, and the best writing tools are either Mac or Windows. I've found myself dual-booting Linux/Windows on nearly all of my personal computers so that I can have the best of both worlds.

[Eljay-Adobe]

Problems running them on WINE? For example, brand new games or demanding games that WINE can't handle (yet). Or just not a WINE fan, and getting it set up for your game of choice?

My games are ancient, and run just fine in dosbox. But I'm a gamer grognard.

[Adam Staples]

Yeah, WINE is very hit and miss with what it supports. For a lot of the software I use, WINE only supports a version that is years behind the latest version, if it supports it at all.
I've also thought about just using a VM, but that has other drawbacks like performance. Booting to Windows on a separate hard drive has worked well.

[Maximilian Burszley]

WSL: Linux Kernel/CLI when you need it, Windows otherwise. For anything I'd boot to Linux for, WSL has replaced that need to dual boot.

[Aarush Bhat]

I'm using manjaro, but its too heavy, even heavy on my ryzen 7 16 gb ram and ssd, i have no clue why.

I've tried mx, kali, ubuntu.(distro jumperrr)

What do you'll use for web development? I'm thinking of pop os now.... Should i?

[Saurabh Sharma]

I'm just using ubuntu, and it works

[Paula]

fair enough

[Fabián Rodríguez]

For me, the SO's based on Linux is great in the majority of contexts, the problem is when you are using it as a Desktop Computer, you always will have problems with drivers and GUI interaction with the SO, feel a little unstable.

[Roelof Jan Elsinga]

Which ones have you tried? Perhaps I can help you find one that works for you, because I personally haven't experienced this.

[Fabián Rodríguez]

Thanks, I tried Ubuntu and Debian but there many problems with drivers, so, I installed Linux Mint and all is working, but still I can feel the operative system is not so fluent.

In the past, was the same, specially with drivers for graphic cards, network and others.

[Roelof Jan Elsinga]

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, you could try Pop OS. It comes with a lot of software installed already, including a lot of drivers. If you download the version for Nvidia users, everything will be set up for you.

Another very polished distro is Elementary OS. I have it installed on a Nvidia system for a very non-technical person and it works really well.

Then you have Zorin OS, which is really great for people that want to use it as a desktop and never want to touch the terminal (but you could of course).

And lastly, there's Manjaro. Apparently the drivers are really good and it's very smooth. The only thing that's a little scary for me to recommend it is that it's based on Arch, so it gives you a lot of control. I can use it perfectly fine as a more advanced user, but someone I recommended it to didn't really understand it. So try the other three first and this one last.

I hope this helps!

[Kyle R. Conway]

11 years ago I remember distinctly the moment I learned that there was a free operating system, just like the free tools I preferred on Windows at the time like VLC, Firefox, notepad++, and more. It was mindblowing! I soon learned about the GPL, the concept of copyleft, and began to become comfortable with the idea that I maybe wouldn't screw up my computer forever if I tried linux out on it.

10 years ago I switched for good and it's been wonderful.