- cross-posted to:
- linuxmemes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- linuxmemes@lemmy.world
PewDiePie made a video on why he installed Linux and explained why everyone should do it too. Due to his number of followers, this might be the year of the Linux Desktop? Hooray?
I don’t know if this is what they meant, but what’s stopping me from fully switching is that I have a bunch of peripheral devices with windows-only drivers
Ah, that makes sense. I thought they were talking about laptop, desktop, kids computer, tablet, etc. and was like ¿…? Linux works next to everything better than anything else.
Anyway, I see what you mean. I got a temperature monitor that needed to be set up using their proprietary software that they only made for Windows, wine didn’t work so I actually ended up setting up a tiny win 10 VM so I could set it up. Easier and safer than dual booting with Windows around. Besides that though, I’ve always been able to find a workaround.
I was surprised to have a fairly unusual setup with fairly unusual peripherals, and everything pretty much worked out of the box, except for one software (philips hue sync) for which there is an open source alternative (huenicorn, and it wasn’t built-in as Linux drivers are, because it’s specialized and requires a special interface)
Many of them work without having to install anything. You could try a live boot USB and see what of them doesn’t work to get an idea how difficult it’ll be.
(possibly needless) anecdote
My dad is a Windows “power user” and it’s funny trying to talk to him about Linux because there are so many things unique to Windows that were essentially OS problems foisted onto “power users” that he is concerned about and a lot of them don’t really apply (e.g. anti-virus, drive letters, installing drivers for everything, etc.).
Oh yeah I’ve already dual booted. Its mostly musical instrument related stuff that’s stopping the full switch over. Like the programs to edit presets on my guitar pedal and synth are not huge fans of Linux. I would say for most people though, you could probably switch them to Linux and they wouldn’t even notice
TBH I kinda like the whole “drive letter” thing. But I also understand mount points, so I don’t really miss it, but still. It’s nice to have one single window to see all of your internal & external drives, home folders, and network shares. And yes, I’m aware I can do this in Linux as well. Just needs extra configuration - which is not a bad thing.
Nautilus shows me that stuff next to each other out of box on Ubuntu. It just doesn’t have drive letters.
Nemo can as well. I forgot how, but it’s in there.