But they layer so many unwanted services and bloatware on top that it makes it hard to use. Being forced to be online to log in and forced use of OneDrive confuses new users just as much
Why would you skip online login? It protects your laptop from being stolen, it syncs settings between devices, etc. Do you skip online logins for Android and iOS phones too? Of course you don't!
It sounds like you've read about but not used windows for a while tbh. The going online thing is true, but its not exactly confusing. Not sure what you mean by onedrive, I uninstalled it years ago.
I installed Windows on a device yesterday. I had to switch to the command prompt and type in "OOBE\BYPASSNRO" in order to just not connect it to the internet and skip the Microsoft sign in prompt. And that seems to work for the most part. Sending diagnostic data is still required and not optional but ah well.
A few days ago on another friend's setup, he didn't know that this option existed (who does really), so he signed up for a Microsoft account, logged in and his Documents and other folders were automatically getting synced to OneDrive. Now, for you and me, we understand that just uninstalling OneDrive should fix that or even just disable that feature itself. But this is opt-out and not opt-in. And he doesn't really understand it's getting synced, he simply sees that there's oddly increased data usage. This is the kind of person who will have recall enabled without ever realising it exists or even using it, but will still have it as a potential security issue waiting to happen on his setup.
It's all the opt-ins that Microsoft does. Everything defaults to "yes, do that worst thing possible". And you and me will probably switch it off, but we're not the average person. The average person doesn't understand or care.
Linux Mint and Zorin OS work out of the box for most users. Usually the most complicated part is just the installation process (which can be an absolute pain if the starting system has Intel RST, Secure Boot and Fast Boot all enabled). Of course, more advanced users always can run the risk of breaking something (I accidentally broke my system irreparably at one point when I did a dumb and formatted my Swap for some reason and had to reinstall) but that's also true of Windows.
Okay, zorin os , not complicated part is not true.
On any Linux 1., try to find where is program main executable is 2. Put that at startup, so thatbsoftwre starts at login 3. Connect HDD and ensure that it's available in ALL programs , without touching terminal.
These things are trivial in windows.
Linux or the v n zonrin works out of box if you just want to surf Internet.
Isn't surfing the web the main use case for a large portion of the PC/Laptop user base? Pretty sure for wide swaths of people, "executable", "startup program" and "HDD" have no meaning. Not saying that's "right" or "wrong", just that that's my observation. You could make the argument that they might as well switch to Chromebook, and in fact, many do.
For intermediate users, there's a graphical startup program menu for selecting startup apps, at least in Mint Cinnamon. Usually programs for me won't be able to access my HDD only if I did an even more advanced thing and made a docker instance without permissions - other than that, I've been able to connect programs like Steam (Flatpack) to my external HDD without issue. But maybe that's just Mint, idk.
You can get both on Linux. KDE Plasma 6 with Wayland supports HDR, and you can even run some Adobe apps through Wine (Photoshop on Linux, Illustrator on Linux).
I agree that they are effective programs for getting work done. There are some drawbacks in a professional setting though, the biggest being the data scraping that has been introduced. It's hard to explain to clients that any licensing of their images has been violated before it has even been applied. Either Adobe are going to get away with exactly the kind of IP infringements that they are so against when it comes to their own work, or they're lining up a buggerload of legal problems for themselves further down the line.
Then there's the price-gouging that they've gotten into with their online subscription model and instability on some hardware.
How to trust them?
For people starting a new business in a creative industry I don't think Adobe is the obvious choice that it once was.
Can you not use premiere if you have a virtual machine running windows? I really want to switch over but I'm so engrained with premiere that learning Davinci just seems like a nightmare
Have you tried Xfce? Usually it's pretty damn stable and bug-free in my experience (outside of one time I found a bug which had a perfect workaround anyway) in my past 7 years of using it.
i was asking about the passkeys specifically tho, not the biometric auth part of it
linux only supports hardware security keys like yubikey, not on-device passkeys atm
Could you elaborate please? What aspects are you referring to? Biometrics for pam? Facial recognition support? Genuinely curious, since I saw the bounty to streamline keepass and pam auth for instance, or howdy for biometrics. Looking forward to both but do you have more information?
It works in KDE + Wayland.. mostly.. for applications that support it.. and there was this update that ruined my color profile for a while but they fixed that now!
first game I played in HDR was mass effect legendary. I don't care that the game itself is close to 15 years old, the 4k remaster + HDR blew my mind and set a new standard for how good games could look.
I'vw become so brainwashed by the FOSS Difference™ that if I see something exclusive to proprietary OSes, I assume it's 99% marketing and not actually an important nor useful feature. I have no idea what HDR is, but it sounds like a marketing acronym for something that's done worse than the FOSS equivalent
Also, my life is objectively better since I stopped using Adobe outside work.
Eh, I keep a Windows 10 machine because Linux won't run Reason even in wine. Everything else gets done on my laptop running Mint. Adobe does things that aren't easily replaced. No point in shaming folks for the tools they use.
Linux support is a magnitude harder than Windows/Mac. Even Linus himself complained about that multiple times. If the Linux crowd wants to become serious about the desktop, then everything should be standardized. Userland, boot, APIs, everything. It shouldn't matter which distro the user is running, I should be able to compile once and run my app everywhere.
Here is to barge of negative votes but why linux sucks
A user has to use terminals for lot of cases when they have to install softwares
There is no single way to add program to startup on different distors, even in some distros you have to go terminal route
Its 2024 nobody wants to use terminals like Olsen days , while using os at fullest not possible in Linux
A user who wants to do something can/will cone across rabbit hole. You want to install xyz , then can't run cause it has depend view, you installed those but there are this thing missing , that thing missing............
I only care about Minecraft, if you search if moneycraft runs on Linux , third results shows you rabbit hole , second is question which distro can't run Minecraft...... REPEAT I AND DOZENS OF US , DONT CARE ABOUT STEAM AT ALL.
6.i plug in HDD it's availablity to me throught apps across anything , I don't have to MOUNT -A-B-C xyz anywhere at all
I will paste a full reply from another thread
Till then linux dudebros linux does not work for ordinary users no matter what market share it has .
Courtesy user :bearoftime
Lol, right. Linux ain't even close to replacing windows - just look at the gaming issues that persist, or other compatibility issues.
It's great for specific use-case scenarios, but I'm not dealing with supporting friends and family when stuff doesn't work because I told them to install a Linux distro.
Besides, business doesn't have this issue - it's only on home (not Pro) installs, because for business we do all sorts of system management that would preclude this, even is MS tried to push it.
This just reflects how MS sees home users - there's no profit there (never has been, it's always been about getting people used to Windows at home, to capture the audience).
No one in my family is allowed to use Windows Home versions. They either buy pro when they get a new computer, or I get it for them.
My standard response to "just go Linux" :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it's still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I had my first UNIX class in about 1990. I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I'd stuck with Cobol).
I run a Mint laptop. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won't even boot. Windows would never do this, unless you went out of your way to config power management to kill the battery (even then, to really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows will not let a battery get to zero).
There no way even possible via the GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions.
There are many reasons why Linux doesn't compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let's look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that's just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying "you should manage data in a proper database app". No, I'm not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That's just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn't realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there's that print monitor that's on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? In the 21st century?
Networking... Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn't say "save creds"? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. Smh.
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won't even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of windows since 2000, at the least, and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Every time I've installed Linux as my main OS (many, many times since I was younger), it gets to an eventual point where every single thing I want to do requires googling around to figure out problems. While it's gotten much better, I always ended up reinstalling Windows or using my work Mac. Like one day I turn it on and the monitor doesn't look right. So I installed twenty things, run some arbitrary collection of commands, and it works.... only it doesn't save my preferences.
So then I need to dig into .bashrc or .bash_profile (is bashrc even running? Hey let me investigate that first for 45 minutes) and get the command to run automatically.. but that doesn't work, so now I can't boot.. so I have to research (on my phone now, since the machine deathscreens me once the OS tries to load) how to fix that... then I am writing config lines for my specific monitor so it can access the native resolution... wait, does the config delimit by spaces, or by tabs?? anyway, it's been four hours, it's 3:00am and I'm like Bryan Cranston in that clip from Malcolm in the Middle where he has a car engine up in the air all because he tried to change a lightbulb.
And then I get a new monitor, and it happens all damn over again. Oh shit, I got a new mouse too, and the drivers aren't supported - great! I finally made it to Friday night and now that I have 12 minutes away from my insane 16 month old, I can't wait to search for some drivers so I can get the cursor acceleration disabled. Or enabled. Or configured? What was I even trying to do again? What led me to this?
I just can't do it anymore. People who understand it more than I will downvote and call me an idiot, but you can all kiss my ass because I refuse to do the computing equivalent of building a radio out of coconuts on a deserted island of ancient Linux forum posts because I want to have Spotify open on startup EVERY time and not just one time. I have tried to get into Linux as a main dev environment since 1997 and I've loved/liked/loathed it, in that order, every single time.
I respect the shit out of the many people who are far, far smarter than me who a) built this stuff, and 2) spend their free time making Windows/Mac stuff work on a Linux environment, but the part of me who liked to experiment with Linux has been shot and killed and left to rot in a ditch along the interstate.
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM's on Linux (Proxmox) because that's better than running Linux VM's of a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn't even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it's own way), and that's a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would've had a chance to beat MS, even then it would've required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980's to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
Yeah I also didn't understand the take about Minecraft.
It's literally installed the same way as in Windows. Being a Java game, it doesn't care at all, you can run it on whatever. And Java itself is installed just the same.
I honestly think terminal simplifies a lot of things. It's quick to pick up on the most common commands and ends up being way faster and easier than installing an executable. Every time I find out something isn't available on Homebrew, I just GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH
I agree. I mean I am biased as I’m a software dev, but at my company we use Windows so not too much terminal work, but I prefer it, particularly given that the web browser to find things is becoming more difficult with SEO shit.
Who wouldn’t want to type one line to install something vs clicking loads of buttons and downloading a file, then opening the file, then following all the prompts etc.
Even more so if you’re installing Linux then surely you’re more on the tech savvy side or at least e have a desire to be.
Nah, their right... For people that can see the matrix (If you pardon the analogy) its fine and preferable to a desktop. However, to most people if it can be done from the desktop or menus it may as well not exist. If you try and explain it their eyes glaze over, they dont eant to learn something new, they just want to stare at the ass of the woman in the red dress...
Im expirenced enough to live in a terminal because I host servers locally and Im a fairly recent convertee to full-time Linux desktop for gaming. Ive been shouting from the roof tops that its good enough now, to the people in my immediate meat space it falls of deaf ears, the privacy trainwreck that is windows and the evils of the modern internet are not a concern to them. So they dont feel any need to change things...
No you don't need the terminal in most distros meant for desktop use to install software. Your distro will have a GUI app store, then flatpak and snap which are the most common software repositories after your distro's default also have GUI. You can use the terminal because it is literally faster, you don't have to if you lack cognitive ability to write apt install gimp or some shit.
A user has to use terminals for lot of cases when they have to install softwares
Did you ever used the winget/Chocolatey in Windows? Is fucking awesome, so much better than downloading random .exe on google, clicking next 5 times and unchecking the option to install the antivirus bundled with the program.
There is no single way to add program to startup on different distors, even in some distros you have to go terminal route
??, Tweaks on Gnome and KDE Settings program.
I only care about Minecraft, if you search if moneycraft runs on Linux.
Prism launcher flatpak, minecraft running with 5 seconds and the mod support/profiles is fucking dope.
.i plug in HDD it’s availablity to me throught apps across anything , I don’t have to MOUNT -A-B-C xyz anywhere at all
Ok this one sucks, took me quite some time to understand and setup for the first time
This isn't dependent on distro, but your DE, which determines the entire UI. It's like complaining the settings menu isn't consistent between Google's Android and Samsung's Android. For reference, under Gnome, you have to install Gnome Tweaks, then just open that and go to Startup Applications in the sidebar.
Heavily depends on what you want to do. Many use cases (such as Minecraft) don't really need the terminal at all.
Yeah, that's not at all unique to Linux though
Minecraft Java is officially available on Linux, and should be available in your software manager. Minecraft bedrock is not available officially, but a program called Minecraft Bedrock Launcher is available that will let you run the Android version of the game.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but media should be available to mount in the side bar of your file manager
Not really a lot of cases. It only appears that way because the terminal is just efficient so people generally tend to use it over the alternative. Very rarely, if at all, would the average user need to use the terminal at this point. Assuming the end user isn’t using a more advanced distro like Arch or Gentoo.
There’s plenty of ways to achieve that. It largely depends on the desktop env. But the most common ones make it very easy. Though their settings.
Sounds like the end users problem more than Linux’s problem. They don’t have to use the terminal. But a lot of FUD around the subject makes it out like there’s a requirement to use it.
How common is this issue? Package managers handle dependencies automatically so you don’t have issues with needing to install X to install Y to install Z. You just install Z. X and Y are pulled in automatically.
Again that’s the end users issue if they’re incapable of figuring out how to search their issue or how to decide which source is useful to them or not. Installing MC is painfully easy on just about any distro. Just install prism launcher. Every distro should be able to run Minecraft because the game is written in Java. Java’s whole thing is that its code is portable/not platform specific.
Yeah that’s an issue. It should be better than it is. But it’s also not too hard to handle.
1,2, and 3, all boil down to "Terminal." You could have condensed those lol. And get good dude the terminal is ridiculously easy and powerful, you can become proficient enough in an afternoon for all the copy/pasting from stack overflow you may need.
4, Ooohhh you haven't tried any distro since 2006? Dependencies are managed by your package manager for you, unless you're using Slackware and even then I think they have stuff for that now (maybe some nice person will reply with that answer because I actually want to try slackware, but fuck managing my own dependancies.)
5, Oh you were born the same year as the last linux distro you tried? Wild.
6, and we're back to "I've never even heard of Gnome or KDE but they definitely can't do this thing they've been able to do for 20yr." Bruh I mount externals from the file browser or the taskbar every day what the hell are you talking about? I'm gonna do it again in about 4hrs when I get home because all my totally not pirated media is on there.
Dude if you're gonna complain about linux at least try it first, this list reads like something some windows fanboy told you in the XP or Vista days ffs.
So don't use Linux I guess? Just because your some old guy who thinks they know everything doesn't mean that Linux isn't good for people who didn't grow up worshipping Microsoft
Nope, I've installed Linux Mint for multiple people, several different apps, never touched the terminal. I even updated the kernel all through the GUI.
Basically the same on all the most popular distros. Searching "startup" or "autostart" in KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, and Gnome DEs all bring up an easy GUI app for getting programs to start automatically.
Same as #1. You don't need to use the terminal to install most software, especially not anything popular. And guess what, you need the terminal to do hardcore stuff on Windows too. I know because I've worked for years in IT and have to use the Windows terminal for all kinds of random stuff, I literally had to use Powershell today.
This happens in Windows too. Just ask me how many times I've had to install old .NET frameworks or other random drivers/3rd party software to get some piece of software/hardware to work on Windows. Something that I thought would be a 10 minute install turns into an hour because of random shit not working right.
Bruh, I play Minecraft all the time. Hundreds and hundreds of hours. It's one of the easiest games to play on Linux. And I play with tons of mods, texture packs, and shaders. I've been playing Minecraft on multiple Linux distros for 4 years, it runs great.
All major distros auto-mount external drives. I have a whole bag of thumb drives, external HDDs, and SSDs that I use in my day job. Never had a problem with them not being picked up and mounted by any of the Linux systems I work on.
I mean, don't use it I guess, but stop spreading these obviously false claims, man. Have fun getting all your personal data farmed by a multi trillion dollar megacorp and fed into AI engines to churn out infinite heaps of sludge. Oh yeah, and all the endless popup ads in an OS that you already paid for...
Unfortunately the free version on Linux doesn't support H.264/H.265 and even the paid version doesn't support AAC so using Resolve requires you to transcode if you're using any normal consumer camera.
The point was probably that if your equipment or sources use aac, you will need to transcode it, losing quality in the process. We don't always control our media sources and the formats they use.
That's it exactly. Most consumer camera gear uses H.264/H.265 for video and AAC for audio in an MP4 container and the free version of Davinci Resolve just doesn't support that on Linux. (But does on Windows)
If it even doesn't support import and export in those formats, you can try externally decode audio and video and store in lossless format. FLAC for audio and something like FFV1 for video.
Yes, but then you would be transcoding an already transcoded video, potentially making the losses apparent. It would be better to just transcode once at the exporting process.
It would be better to just transcode once at the exporting process.
Lossy encoding only happens once in both cases.
How direct import-export works: input file -> lossy format decompressor of editor -> filters -> lossy format compressor of editor -> output
How external codecs work: input -> external lossy format decompressor -> intermediate representation(lossless codec, can be just storing raw frames) -> IR decoder of editor -> filters -> IR encoder of editor -> external lossy format compressor -> output
Both options have only one lossy step - lossy encoder. Or technically two - also filters, but this is editor's intention.
Oh, I get it now, you mean using a lossless format as intermediate. Well, it would work but still it would be better if they didn't require this extra work on linux.
Both work well, but DaVinci is better with color grading, audio post-production, visual effects, collaboration, and format support, just to name a few. It's a professional product made for professionals.
I've had the same experience too. Last I checked, Kdenlive doesn't have GPU rendering either. DaVinci resolve slaps though. And you can get a paid copy. Get outta here with that subscription nonsense, Adobe.
My stream deck, which I use to resize windows, lock my computer, handle Spotify and discord, and more, does not work at all with Linux. Switching to my dual boot option feels like cutting off my left thumb, sure I can still do most things it just takes longer and feels awkward so why would I?
I struggled with this for a while, especially since my stream deck is a newer model with knobs and a touchscreen (streamdeck+) so most of the software I tried doesn't fully support it. Here is some of the software I have tried:
Boatswain -gnome themed, didn't really like it as it has no knob or touchscreen support (yet), and I don’t think it could run shell commands although I could be mistaken
Stream Controller - another gnome themed app and still doesnt fully support the stream deck plus
Streamdeck-ui - a qt app which can do some simple things like triggering keypresses and running shell commands, I used this for a while
Bitfocus Companion - a cross platform app with a web interface with lots of integrations; I’ve been using this as it fully supports my stream deck, knobs and all, as well as offering a lot of customisation with expressions and variables. I haven’t been able to get the discord integration to work correctly (at least with vesktop), but it works perfectly to control my media player, home assistant and mic. I even got it to display my now playing song and cover art, which I couldn’t figure out on windows with elgato’s official software.
If you’ve tried any of these and it wasn’t working, it could be an issue with udev rules, if these aren’t configured the software cannot interact with the device.
I use a Mac for Adobe and music production. Windows for when I need Office app features only found in the Windows desktop versions (looking at you Excel), an occasional game (very rare) and for some corporate clients. TBF, corporate clients with Windows requirements nowadays just ship us laptops configured by them. For everything else, Linux.
