Image text: “Fact: 90% of Linux users switch back to windows right before all their problems are about to be fixed”

  • Usernamealreadyinuse@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Ok so I am probably gonna curse in the Linux church but please enlighten me

    I have one laptop with windows 10 for the simple stuff: internet, movie, ms office. It functions perfectly. Yes it needs a reboot sometimes. I don’t understand what people are saying about how terrible ms in regard for easy users.

    I mean I get it that it probably using my data, which would be actually enough to change.

    However: all these post about how easy it is to fix stuff in Linux (and thus saying it is not working properly)… Keeps me in ms.

    What are you guys doing that needs so much tinkering that needs to be fixed constantly?

    • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      me?

      okay so sometimes you need to run a twenty year old game made for another OS or cpu architecture

      which… weirdly, easier in Linux than win7; Linux has better backward compatibility with windows than windows. was like three clicks to install.

      but sometimes that game uses broadcast UDP packets for LAN multiplayer.

      and this is where our problem comes from, because broadcast UDP packets are deprecated, and also most modern routers don’t love them, I don’t think.

      so, I needed to find a way to manually readdress outgoing UDP packets from broadcast to a specific set of multicast addresses, which…

      also, some issues running USB as serial for some exotic peripherals. and by ‘exotic’ I mean ‘I don’t know for sure the PC is the problem; I might have soldered this wrong’.

      also some issues in qubes, but that’s literally all virtualization, and not a distro for anyone who hasn’t both been using Linux for a while and considered the cost of making their apartment a Faraday cage.

      a few issues with bare arch, which is the ‘do everything from scratch 0 automation bleeding edge tech nerd, no, seriously you need to manually download a file system’ distro. don’t use arch if you don’t know what youre doing.

      • psud@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        For the UDP broadcast, you should be able to catch and change them with simple firewall rules, you’d catch packets with a destination address of the broadcast address and send them to a chain that rewrites the destination

      • Usernamealreadyinuse@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Ok cool, so you do very specific things (and I lost you at UDP). So since I don’t have a very specific use case, I am sadly still not convinced that I need to switch

        • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          no I’m saying weirdshit that made me fudge things in Linux. and I could. it was easy.

          in windows my issues were all ‘this isn’t supposed to work, this isn’t allowed’ and I had to fight the system rather than finding the right config file and changing a couple lines.

          so my windows problems were much simpler shit. things like getting the taskbar to to what I want, or getting windows to not explode on top edge of screen (literally a checkbox in KDE plasma)

    • monkeyman512@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      A lot of the people who are drawn to Linux want to be able to tinker with things. For your use case you would probably be perfectly happy with installing Ubuntu, getting the apps you need, then not messing with it.

    • TangledHyphae@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I don’t really have to fix anything in Linux, I do a lot of advanced things though (I’m a software dev) where I will manually change executables’ paths, swap them out with symlinks, use custom newer GCC compilers, etc, but even with all of that I still rarely ever have to “fix” anything. I have been waiting, prepared, for when this Ubuntu install craps out so I can finally wipe it out and switch to Arch for this PC… but it still keeps going and going without a hiccup.

      I’m not sure what people are referring to that they have to fix all the time, but no two people have the same experience overall obviously, and there are so many variations of a linux system. like take 10 different desktop environments or window managers or different pieces of software or hardware and every permutation is going to have either more problems, or less problems.

      Ultimately I would recommend anybody just giving all of the distros and DE/WMs a try. A good try, give it a few weeks and see how each of them feel, you’re not going to know what you’ve been missing, or if anything ever has bugs or quirks at all period, until you do.

    • sag@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      You don’t need to tinker so much Linux if you are just gonna use it for Internet and Movie stuff. We tinker with it so much because we want to make our desktop the way we want it

    • Moorshou@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      Honestly? I fixed windows as much as i do linux

      I just web surf and play video games on my machines, I had to open terminal once to install printer drivers, the printers a MFC-490CW otherwise, nothing needed to be fixed

      It’s just nice to HAVE the terminal, lets me go under the hood of my computer if need be.

    • UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      No software is perfect, you are going to run into some issue, somewhere, eventually. However, I would say when talking about Linux spcifically, there is a high chance that people talking about stuff being broken are people breaking stuff.

      It’s simply fun to try riscy, experimental things. Naturally, people also like to write about it.

      • psud@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        However, I would say when talking about Linux specifically, there is a high chance that people talking about stuff being broken are people breaking stuff.

        I’m sure you’re right. It used to be complicated to set up printers, bluetooth, audio, but even then once set up they were fine. Now all those and just about anything else you need to manage on the machine has an easy GUI

        My wife’s computer runs Linux and she’s never had to use a terminal (she’s not a techie type)

    • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      In windows you can’t fix it. You leave it there. In linux you can fix, you may try to fix it.

      Also the real issue to fix must be at install time for drivers. You wouldn’t face that in windows since the devices are preinstalled and configured by manufacturer. If something doesn’t work on windows it would be called manufacturer’s fault and not windows’ fault, so manufacturers make sure its working correctly

      • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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        8 months ago

        You’re talking about Mac, if something is wrong there like an app being too old, you can’t do anything about it.

        Windows allows you to mold it to make it do what you like, but usually the default setup is pretty decent. Even if it can be the manufacturers fault, you can still install older versions of drivers, install open source third party drivers, or compile your own if you are so inclined.

        The database that comes with Windows is to make it easy for the user, so they don’t have to go around searching for drivers when they attach a new device. Most of the time it works flawless.

        • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          Windows allows, yes. But its difficult imo. Its not open and configurable so you have to do hacks if you want to place taskbar vertical or somethin. Then it becomes unstable and i guess that has a chance to get reverted with an update

        • mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          It already just works in linux. But what people constantly want to “fix” is not fixable in windows. If you don’t need that, you still can use linux without so called “fixing”