A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If itâs technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
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I have no problem with Linux, but Iâm worried that the 50 or so applications Iâve installed will not be compatible. And saying thereâs a Linux alternative doesnât fill me with hope, usually Iâll have tried and discarded 10 other programs just to get one that acts how I want.
I just keep a Windows partition on my PCs for those few occasions where I need it. Usually about a tenth of the drive. For most stuff you can mess around with a vm or wine too but this way is easier imo. And realistically Windows 10 will be fine to use for the forseeable future. Itâs still possible to use XP securely even today.
This is a good a start as any to market Linux to the common end-user. Itâs not about the software being better; itâs about the software offering the user some advantage, like not needing to buy new hardware.
Linux is, far from perfect still. It has a metric ton of âfoot gunsâ that cannot be pointed anywhere away from the feet; the user MUST move their feet away to avoid these âfoot gunsâ. It has a lot of pain points and still lacks polish in some ways. Most things mostly just work; but may the gods and goddesses help you if something for some reason does not work, or does not work as expected for any reason. Coaxing it to work exactly as expected might seem impossible for average users.
Then thereâs the issue of Linux having only volunteer support in most cases. Getting help from an overworked and under-interested FLOSS developer is like pulling teeth; even when theyâre literally the only person on the planet who can solve your problem
That being said; Linux is free and mostly usable. 9/10 times it does work and can save you a lot of hassle and headache if all your computing needs are basic and predictable.
for instance, fresh install of debian 12 (using cinnamon, but gnome3 would have the same problem since the issue is in gnome-calculator), try to open calculator - it freezes. why? because some ⌠weâll say, extremely inexperienced developer put a blocking call to a bunch of banks for their latest exchange rates so that you could convert money right in the application!
not only is this not a mission critical feature for a simple calculator, but there is no way in hell that an error to a live service should block the main thread for the application if itâs waiting on a response (successful or otherwise). why would this exist? how has this not been rolled all the way back until said feature isnât there? wild.
One of the interesting conundrums of Linux at large is there are so many flavors of it. If you generically search for âhow to ⌠In Linuxâ youâll probably get things for Ubuntu, maybe Mint or RedHat, but good luck with the 2000 other distros that you see on a list.
Conversely if you do the same for Windows or Mac itâs just a matter of a few recent versions, and half the time fixes would be applicable to any given one of them.
Okay, this is a cute way to push Linux and all, but Windows 10 reaching end of service really doesnât mean we have to give up using it. We could easily have years before the end of support causes compatibility issues for the average home user.
Compatability is less a problem than missing security patches. Nobody needs an army of infected bots attached to the net.
Iâll believe that theyâll stop shipping security patches when they actually do it. It would obviously be a terrible idea for the reason you stated.
Source
I know thatâs what they are saying, I guess I think theyâll blink when a large percentage of users donât buy a whole new computer just for a new Windows version.
Theyâre not going to stop security updates, theyâre going to charge for it. Not sure they really have any incentive to not charge for security updatesâŚ
I canât tell from that text if itâs going to be 30$ a year for up to 3 years per user or if the doubling clause in the How much does ESU Cost? section applies to home users or not - if so, total outlay will be 30+60+120 = 210$.
Itâs batshit
Im using my steamdeck but might try installing Linux on our old 2010 beater that my kids use.
Linux ftw!
Iâve never heard of a ârepair cafeâ before. Would love to visit one of those!