A Sombre Goodbye to Linux(kevquirk.com)
kevquirk.com
A Sombre Goodbye to Linux
https://kevquirk.com/a-sombre-goodbye-to-linux
8 comments
If Windows were really that great compared to Linux, you wouldn't need to write an entire essay on why that is so.
I agree with the points made.
Windows will just work as a desktop experience, and snappier to boot.. with one big caveat.. their monthly patches are very buggy and often fail installing outright for some users, and often come with bugs that trash a formerly working feature like printing or vpn or something else. It's bad enough that I actually haven't updated Windows 10 in 2+ years. No, I'm not worried, I've been using computers for decades, it's not necessary to be absolutely the latest version if you know what you're doing and I want the setup to just keep working smoothly.
Now about Linux.. flatpaks are the future of packaging as are immutable distros.. BUT..
Flatpaks have their own issues.. sometimes there are weird glitches where one in particular takes over 5 minutes to open on a system with twice the CPU cores than a years-older system which only takes 20 seconds in Windows. Still early days yet though for flatpak but very promising. Ridiculous how so many distros have to compile their own app repositories separately.. what a waste of electricity and duplication of effort.
Inconsistencies with fonts-Just an utter mess. The QT toolkit has a regression where it doesn't respect the OS anti-aliasing setting (includes on Windows). Apps like browsers also ignore the OS settings and do their own thing where they use AA also even when you don't want them to (except for one).. then there is the mess that is fractional scaling that only KDE was able to manage, until very recently.. Gnome was all "you'll do blurry and like it because we are the experts!".. pfft. Whereas it all just works with Windows. AA setting is respected, all apps pay attention to the system, scaling works, etc. There's just minor stupid stuff around fonts in Linux too.. for example, if you want to know the version number of a font, you have to type an arcane string in the command line.. you can't just open or click on the properties of the file like you can in Windows.
Hardware issues.. other than the driver issues which are absolutely the manufacturer's fault, some of them can be a challenge.. on Windows if you want to change your refresh rate or define a custom resolution/refresh it's easy.. with Linux you have to faff about in the command line, etc.
Linux is a bridesmaid.
Windows will just work as a desktop experience, and snappier to boot.. with one big caveat.. their monthly patches are very buggy and often fail installing outright for some users, and often come with bugs that trash a formerly working feature like printing or vpn or something else. It's bad enough that I actually haven't updated Windows 10 in 2+ years. No, I'm not worried, I've been using computers for decades, it's not necessary to be absolutely the latest version if you know what you're doing and I want the setup to just keep working smoothly.
Now about Linux.. flatpaks are the future of packaging as are immutable distros.. BUT..
Flatpaks have their own issues.. sometimes there are weird glitches where one in particular takes over 5 minutes to open on a system with twice the CPU cores than a years-older system which only takes 20 seconds in Windows. Still early days yet though for flatpak but very promising. Ridiculous how so many distros have to compile their own app repositories separately.. what a waste of electricity and duplication of effort.
Inconsistencies with fonts-Just an utter mess. The QT toolkit has a regression where it doesn't respect the OS anti-aliasing setting (includes on Windows). Apps like browsers also ignore the OS settings and do their own thing where they use AA also even when you don't want them to (except for one).. then there is the mess that is fractional scaling that only KDE was able to manage, until very recently.. Gnome was all "you'll do blurry and like it because we are the experts!".. pfft. Whereas it all just works with Windows. AA setting is respected, all apps pay attention to the system, scaling works, etc. There's just minor stupid stuff around fonts in Linux too.. for example, if you want to know the version number of a font, you have to type an arcane string in the command line.. you can't just open or click on the properties of the file like you can in Windows.
Hardware issues.. other than the driver issues which are absolutely the manufacturer's fault, some of them can be a challenge.. on Windows if you want to change your refresh rate or define a custom resolution/refresh it's easy.. with Linux you have to faff about in the command line, etc.
Linux is a bridesmaid.
The way to choose:
Pick your application(s), then pick the OS that the application runs on, then pick the hardware that the OS runs on.
If you try to do any of those steps in reverse, you will have endless trouble.
I pick the apps I use. They run under Linux, so I pick the Linux distro that I prefer. Then I buy the hardware that is most suited to Linux (Lenovo with Intel chips). I don't have problems. If I do, it's because of something I've done wrong.
Pick your application(s), then pick the OS that the application runs on, then pick the hardware that the OS runs on.
If you try to do any of those steps in reverse, you will have endless trouble.
I pick the apps I use. They run under Linux, so I pick the Linux distro that I prefer. Then I buy the hardware that is most suited to Linux (Lenovo with Intel chips). I don't have problems. If I do, it's because of something I've done wrong.
Just use Windows then! What's the big deal? You don't want to invest time when something does not work like expected, so don't do it.
Please mind that a lot of things with Linux are developed, packaged and run by volunteers in their spare time. They invest their time and see value in it, you don't.
Why do you whine about that in such way? You make it sound you somehow regret your decision, do you?
Please mind that a lot of things with Linux are developed, packaged and run by volunteers in their spare time. They invest their time and see value in it, you don't.
Why do you whine about that in such way? You make it sound you somehow regret your decision, do you?
tbh there’s know reason not to dual boot win/lin.
use two drives and switch with the bios boot selector.
as far as gaming platforms go, windows is not so bad.
use two drives and switch with the bios boot selector.
as far as gaming platforms go, windows is not so bad.
Author still runs Linux on their servers.
(2021)
Your second mistake was to think a distro = linux, that's a misconception, linux is the experience you craft for yourself, not something someone made for you
If you expect things to be made just for you, then you shouldn't use a linux distribution, you should buy whatever product that was made for you
You didn't buy SystemD, Flatpack and all the other crap, so why do you use them?
Linux is about scaling from microcontrollers to datacenters, it's not made to just be "the perfect desktop", that's not compatible, and it's great the way it is
Things like ChromiumOS or macOS sounds like the unix environment you need, but since you went back to Windows, i feel like you just wanted Windows, and that's fine, expectations should be defined, not complain about something not made for you
I am a long time linux user, all i need is a window manager, a status bar, a terminal and bash, anything else: i cherry pick or i script myself, and that's what i love about linux