Mac guy, and I remember trying Linux inside Windows and installing it while using it. For someone with 30 years of experience with Windows, Linux was a fucking joke — as in the mockery it made of everything I knew about Windows. It felt like magic. It’s not very deep though — people need to realize Linux is still very much a project. macOS is a complete product, but it’s not free and it’s tied to proprietary hardware. Still, these days I see the choice between macOS and Linux. Windows doesn’t even make the ballot for me.
Tell me you haven’t used a Linux desktop recently without telling me.
“I remember”. Using that phrase tells me it wasn’t recently enough. And “using it inside windows” tells me you tried to fit a round peg into a square hole or that you don’t know what you are talking about.
You may be a MAC fan and that’s OK if that works for you, but I haven’t needed to use anything else but Linux since 2004 (initially there were always pickups, though) and I’ve been runing it without issues since probably 2010.
They said that Linux is really good, and they are not wrong that for the regular person, who struggles with even the most basic IT shit, there still isn’t a full “finished” option for them, really. Power users and more savvy people grow the technology but it’s the masses who fund it and the masses need something reliable or at least a close enough friend who can help them.
My what is literally commenting? My phone? My computer?
And yes, I’m aware a lot of highly technical people use Linux. This whole “next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop” is silly. We can talk for days about what highly specialised platforms use Linux. It doesn’t matter until Boomers are using it and not questioning. Which they have been for years since Android is mobile Linux.
Desktop anything is down, statistically, worldwide. I’ve been using computers for over 40 years. When I started, only nerds and geeks used them. The cool kids only used them when they had to, in computer/typing class… which was an elective when I was in school. It was never required. At some point, computers became cool. Then smartphones came out, and all of a sudden everyone’s running Linux (Android) or UNIX (iOS), only they don’t know it. They don’t need to know it. And now computers are suddenly not cool anymore, because it’s all about smartphones these days.
So it’s not a push for Linux (the kernel, Linux is a kernel, not an OS, Android, Arch, Gentoo, Fedora Core, Mint, Ubuntu and others are distributions that bundle the Linux kernel with other stuff), it’s a push for Linux on the desktop. But even that’s not good enough, it’s gotta be the command line. And Boomers are never gonna use the command line. Neither are kids. It’s a moving target that will never be reached. The original idea? Give Linux a market share? We did that 15 years ago. The only reason Windows has any market share left is some schools and businesses and governments use them. *nix has been the majority for over a decade now. But it’s never been “the year of Linux on the desktop.” *nix has been in the palm of everyone’s hands since 2007 (iPhone; Android was 2008, so close enough for Linux specifically). And 2008 was 17 years ago. Next year, there will be kids old enough to vote (in the US) who, for their entire lives, have existed in a world where *nix dominated.
Server OS is in no way comparable to desktop OS…saying Linux is king of servers means nothing to users, because Linux is not even close to having any significant market share on desktop. Linux desktop still have tons of quirks and weirdness that needs to be fixed before it has a chance of mass adoption, not to mention the vast compatibility issues with especially corporate software.
I encounter quicks and weirdnesses on the windows laptop for work, which won’t even fucking properly sleep or don’t fucking update by itself even after trying to stop it for a while, rather than on Linux.
Can you name any such quirks and annoyances on Linux specifically? Because I can give you plenty on windows, while Linux the past 10 years or so maintains my sanity.
Sleep mode that doesn’t work consistently, WiFi driver issues, printer driver issues, touchpad driver issues, several different wonky ways to install programs instead of just double-clicking an .exe and pressing “next-next-OK”, random shutdown of programs for no reason or error codes…the list goes on. And on topnof that, all the stuff that people are used to using that just doesn’t run on Linux at all.
The hardest person to convert is a “power user”. I guess you should let Red Hat and SUSE know their main product is a project. Oh and Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc…
Can regular users even use Red Hat anymore? Fedora Core is the open source spinoff. I loved using Red Hat in the 90s and I never warmed up to Fedora Core.
Fedora Core hasn’t been a thing in decades, it’s just Fedora or the Fedora Project now. CentOS Stream is ABI compatible with RHEL If you create a free Red Hat Developer account you can get 16 free RHEL licenses. So, yes you very much can run RHEL.
Of course, it made a mockery of everything you know of Windows because it’s not like Windows. Neither is it meant to be used like one nor is it heading in that direction (not to mention that Windows is one monotonous thing, like if you know your hands across one install of Windows, you know it all. The same is not true about Linux. A Void Linux user might still not be as adept at a Gentoo install).
You are contradicting yourself. First you call it magic and then you call it not very deep. If it’s the latter, why do so many production servers run on Linux?
Some Linux distros like Debian have a fantastic reputation for stability. Sure, bugs still exist. I personally struggle with a distro agnostic bug that breaks workflows often on my current setup. But things have come a long way. And it’s better than Windows non customizable privacy invading approach any day.
The twin advantages Windows has is wrt games (though that is slowly being covered) and more importantly, specialized software. I know folks IRL who have to use Windows just because their work requires it.
On iPhone, absolutely. On Mac, I’m not sure. I know I can use the disk manager to make a new partition, install whatever OS on it I want — though, my Macs are both ARM64, so I’m quite limited there — and boot to it. I’m not sure if it’s fair to say “the bootloader is unlocked” though. Since it’s Apple’s bootloader. I don’t know if I can change it. Like on Android, when I used to mess with custom firmware ~10 years ago, we’d replace the garbage Android bootloader with TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project) and that would give us the option to make backups and to flash custom forks of Android (e.g. CyanogenMod, AOKP, etc.). And some of those bootloaders were locked down pretty tight (like HTC’s) where some were wide open (like Samsung, before Knox was a thing).
Yes. However, it’s not super difficult to get a signed image to meet the requirements. To my knowledge they aren’t actively trying to prevent the installation of other operating systems. The bigger issue is the software supporting their unique hardware.
I understand there’s quite a few missing drivers on the latest Macs. It’s possible to run Linux but I don’t think it’s especially user friendly at the moment. Apple does a lot of custom stuff and not all of their hardware has open source drivers available.
Don’t they have a bunch of kernel changes that they can’t merge upstream?
Ah, it appears that it’s indeed a work in progress. If I was going to try it, this is definitely the distribution I would use. But I don’t think a whole lot of people are able to run Ubuntu for example. It’s going to be a more limited selection because of the hardware.
Linux: No ads, it’s free and easier than ever to install.
Install??
Mac guy, and I remember trying Linux inside Windows and installing it while using it. For someone with 30 years of experience with Windows, Linux was a fucking joke — as in the mockery it made of everything I knew about Windows. It felt like magic. It’s not very deep though — people need to realize Linux is still very much a project. macOS is a complete product, but it’s not free and it’s tied to proprietary hardware. Still, these days I see the choice between macOS and Linux. Windows doesn’t even make the ballot for me.
Tell me you haven’t used a Linux desktop recently without telling me.
“I remember”. Using that phrase tells me it wasn’t recently enough. And “using it inside windows” tells me you tried to fit a round peg into a square hole or that you don’t know what you are talking about.
You may be a MAC fan and that’s OK if that works for you, but I haven’t needed to use anything else but Linux since 2004 (initially there were always pickups, though) and I’ve been runing it without issues since probably 2010.
They said that Linux is really good, and they are not wrong that for the regular person, who struggles with even the most basic IT shit, there still isn’t a full “finished” option for them, really. Power users and more savvy people grow the technology but it’s the masses who fund it and the masses need something reliable or at least a close enough friend who can help them.
Your literally commenting using a Linux server right now. A vast majority of the fediverse is hosted on Linux systems.
My what is literally commenting? My phone? My computer?
And yes, I’m aware a lot of highly technical people use Linux. This whole “next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop” is silly. We can talk for days about what highly specialised platforms use Linux. It doesn’t matter until Boomers are using it and not questioning. Which they have been for years since Android is mobile Linux.
Desktop anything is down, statistically, worldwide. I’ve been using computers for over 40 years. When I started, only nerds and geeks used them. The cool kids only used them when they had to, in computer/typing class… which was an elective when I was in school. It was never required. At some point, computers became cool. Then smartphones came out, and all of a sudden everyone’s running Linux (Android) or UNIX (iOS), only they don’t know it. They don’t need to know it. And now computers are suddenly not cool anymore, because it’s all about smartphones these days.
So it’s not a push for Linux (the kernel, Linux is a kernel, not an OS, Android, Arch, Gentoo, Fedora Core, Mint, Ubuntu and others are distributions that bundle the Linux kernel with other stuff), it’s a push for Linux on the desktop. But even that’s not good enough, it’s gotta be the command line. And Boomers are never gonna use the command line. Neither are kids. It’s a moving target that will never be reached. The original idea? Give Linux a market share? We did that 15 years ago. The only reason Windows has any market share left is some schools and businesses and governments use them. *nix has been the majority for over a decade now. But it’s never been “the year of Linux on the desktop.” *nix has been in the palm of everyone’s hands since 2007 (iPhone; Android was 2008, so close enough for Linux specifically). And 2008 was 17 years ago. Next year, there will be kids old enough to vote (in the US) who, for their entire lives, have existed in a world where *nix dominated.
The vast majority of the internet is hosted on Linux.
Server OS is in no way comparable to desktop OS…saying Linux is king of servers means nothing to users, because Linux is not even close to having any significant market share on desktop. Linux desktop still have tons of quirks and weirdness that needs to be fixed before it has a chance of mass adoption, not to mention the vast compatibility issues with especially corporate software.
I encounter quicks and weirdnesses on the windows laptop for work, which won’t even fucking properly sleep or don’t fucking update by itself even after trying to stop it for a while, rather than on Linux.
Can you name any such quirks and annoyances on Linux specifically? Because I can give you plenty on windows, while Linux the past 10 years or so maintains my sanity.
Sleep mode that doesn’t work consistently, WiFi driver issues, printer driver issues, touchpad driver issues, several different wonky ways to install programs instead of just double-clicking an .exe and pressing “next-next-OK”, random shutdown of programs for no reason or error codes…the list goes on. And on topnof that, all the stuff that people are used to using that just doesn’t run on Linux at all.
Which reminds me. I can’t even move the taskbar to the left of the screen anymore since windows 11 was forced upon me. Pffft.
I love my Mac for development work, but the Mac window manager is more buggy than i3 window manager in Linux.
The hardest person to convert is a “power user”. I guess you should let Red Hat and SUSE know their main product is a project. Oh and Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc…
Can regular users even use Red Hat anymore? Fedora Core is the open source spinoff. I loved using Red Hat in the 90s and I never warmed up to Fedora Core.
Fedora Core hasn’t been a thing in decades, it’s just Fedora or the Fedora Project now. CentOS Stream is ABI compatible with RHEL If you create a free Red Hat Developer account you can get 16 free RHEL licenses. So, yes you very much can run RHEL.
Edit: If you or anyone else is interested https://developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux
You heard what he said he installed every distro at once as a joke, what a project. Then he paid Steve jobs $3k to step on his balls.
What
the
fuck, over?
Ah, I knew someone would misread that. What I meant as “a fucking joke” was that it made a mockery of everything I thought I knew about Windows.
Of course, it made a mockery of everything you know of Windows because it’s not like Windows. Neither is it meant to be used like one nor is it heading in that direction (not to mention that Windows is one monotonous thing, like if you know your hands across one install of Windows, you know it all. The same is not true about Linux. A Void Linux user might still not be as adept at a Gentoo install).
You are contradicting yourself. First you call it magic and then you call it not very deep. If it’s the latter, why do so many production servers run on Linux?
Some Linux distros like Debian have a fantastic reputation for stability. Sure, bugs still exist. I personally struggle with a distro agnostic bug that breaks workflows often on my current setup. But things have come a long way. And it’s better than Windows non customizable privacy invading approach any day.
The twin advantages Windows has is wrt games (though that is slowly being covered) and more importantly, specialized software. I know folks IRL who have to use Windows just because their work requires it.
Is bootloader locked on mac or apple products?
On iPhone, absolutely. On Mac, I’m not sure. I know I can use the disk manager to make a new partition, install whatever OS on it I want — though, my Macs are both ARM64, so I’m quite limited there — and boot to it. I’m not sure if it’s fair to say “the bootloader is unlocked” though. Since it’s Apple’s bootloader. I don’t know if I can change it. Like on Android, when I used to mess with custom firmware ~10 years ago, we’d replace the garbage Android bootloader with TWRP (Team Win Recovery Project) and that would give us the option to make backups and to flash custom forks of Android (e.g. CyanogenMod, AOKP, etc.). And some of those bootloaders were locked down pretty tight (like HTC’s) where some were wide open (like Samsung, before Knox was a thing).
Yes. However, it’s not super difficult to get a signed image to meet the requirements. To my knowledge they aren’t actively trying to prevent the installation of other operating systems. The bigger issue is the software supporting their unique hardware.
I understand there’s quite a few missing drivers on the latest Macs. It’s possible to run Linux but I don’t think it’s especially user friendly at the moment. Apple does a lot of custom stuff and not all of their hardware has open source drivers available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asahi_Linux
https://asahilinux.org/
Don’t they have a bunch of kernel changes that they can’t merge upstream?
Ah, it appears that it’s indeed a work in progress. If I was going to try it, this is definitely the distribution I would use. But I don’t think a whole lot of people are able to run Ubuntu for example. It’s going to be a more limited selection because of the hardware.