“But can Linux install things via a single .exe file? HAHAH EAT IT NERD!”
- 10’ish years ago past me, before discovering the magical wonders of the package manager
I found since people are used to app stores, I’ve had a much easier time convincing people to try out Linux. My mom even said that she always wished her windows PC had a proper app store.
I think it’s still important to explain the key difference between an “app store” and a package repository: the latter isn’t a “store” because everything is free.
True but it helps get the concept across so much.
But Windows does have an app store, and has for ages now.
Yeah but it’s awful, and can only install UWP apps which are just plain bad
When is the last time you’ve used it? Microsoft opened it up and now you can find all types of non UWP apps in it.
With app images it’s easier than installing. Although the chmod step will deter the typical windows user
What chmod step?
When I clicked on new app image, the OS told me, that program /name of app/ will be launched, I clicked “Continue” and it runs! No meddling with “chmod” or anything like that.
Same, I love AppImages for that. I just wish they also had way to contain configurations instead of putting it on the system. That would make it even more portable.
Windows 11 takes your money, gives you ads, sells your information and ignores your bug reports and feature requests
KDE is free, ad-free and open to contribution
I think we have a clear winner here
But can it run proprietary software used in the industry? From Excel to Photoshop, if you are in a collaborative professional environment, you can’t run away from those, and don’t tell me you can use the alternatives in Linux, because no, you can’t. This is not linux fault, but it’s still an issue you can’t handwave.
I love linux, but you can’t expect people to adopt it just because it’s objectively better than windows.
Wine can run most of those, not all. You can still dual boot Windows if you need to (VMs are an option, but they aren’t always the best).
I mean, that’s what I do. Will I be able to convince my 60 yo colleague that had been using the same workflow for decades? No, not a chance.
Meh I had a dual boot machine ages ago. Still here collecting dust. Basically I only switched to use the Linux for down time, movies, and study, most day to day tasks from engineering software to anything I considered important enough that you do not want the results hacked or broken I would use Windows.
I think of modern machines kind of like a hammer. These days almost nobody actually remembers the guy who made the first hammer, or who discovered fire, but there’s a price tag for the bow, the paper and the hammer, not so much the making of the hammer, because the actual skill involved or required to learn about it has become challenged if not cheapened to the degree that there are now multiple paths to obtain or create a hammer, yet the benchmark quality of the hammer as well as the process for creation itself as a whole is now more of an authority than the actual original statue or monolith of “hammer man” himself.
This is why I think the many flavours of Ubuntu including the many esoteric Linux distros are still interesting but still lack the diversity of use and specialization. The fact that whole blockchains are built for XYZ while sitting around pumped then dumped to trading at cents with no use goes to show how cloud computing systems and lower level computing is still very disconnected and becoming further thrown aside to uphold ponzi schemes.
I’ll give you an example, more money is wasted on onlyfans per year than for people trying to use system XYZ for solving problem A, or curing cancer. Consider that to be one of the “good” reasons many men and women are so misogynistic, even without looking down on sex workers.
I… what? What does Ubuntu have to do with misogyny?
This post reminded me to take my meds.
But can it play Starfield with an Nvidia GPU? I originally had popos on my PC until Starfield came out, I had to switch to Windows to play.
Kinda weird that they’re calling it an OS, but ig they’re just trying to cater to the windows audience
KDE neon is what they’re selling
Selling as in advertising, I might add. Neon is free
Linux is the modern OS and windows is just a bunch of old shitty technology in a trench suit.
This is kinda how I feel about Windows these days. It’s interface, directory structure, shudder the registry, user specific apps (from MS Store or Winget), buttons being inserted into the menu bars on some apps, but not others, button sizes being different sizes, some parts still using the Metro interface. The whole thing either needs a re-write, or should be dropped and something new to replace it. Don’t even get me started on things like the eventvwr hanging for 20 seconds after it opens, event tracer API, their in-house abandonment of powershell modules once powershell was open sourced, Windows containers being a disaster, etc.
The problem is that so much critical infrastructure around the world relies on ancient Windows software. I’m pretty sure their backwards compatibility is one of the reasons there’s so much inconsistency in Windows, and every iteration seems to just add more bloat on top.
So basically ever since I first tried Windows 7 I held it as the “Gold standard” for desktop OS’s. Half my tweaks to Windows 10 were trying to get it as close to Win7 as I possibly could.
When I finally start experimenting with Linux early this year KDE quickly got me to reconsider my “Gold standard” and finally switch my main machine fully to Linux.
No regrets and certainly ain’t switching back even if Microsoft gave me updated Windows 7 with every extra feature I wanted back then.
I’ve been a Linux user for a decade and a half now, but still use Windows on my corporate laptops. Honestly, it’s baffling how Microsoft seem to consistently manage to miss the mark with the UI design. There’s lots to be said about the underlying internals of Windows vs Linux, performance, kernel design etc., but even at the shallow, end user, “is this thing pleasant to use” stakes, they just never manage to get it right.
Windows 7 was…fine. It was largely inoffensive from a shell point of view, although things about how config and settings were handled were still pretty screwy. But Windows 8 was an absolutely insane approach to UI design, Windows 10 spent an awful lot of energy just trying to de-awful it without throwing the whole thing out, and Windows 11 is missing basic UI features that even Windows 7 had.
When you look at their main commercial competition (Mac and Chromebook) or the big names in Linux (GNOME, KDE, plenty of others besides), they stand out as a company that simply can’t get it right, despite having more resources to throw at it than the rest of them put together.
To me it’s absurd how Microsoft gets beaten by a free desktop environment when windows is like their main product. They have billions of dollars. How do they manage to not do better?
windows is like their main product
TBF it isn’t really - only about 12% of their revenue. It’s more of a means to lock people into their other products.
Well, that’s the thing, it’s the core part of their entire business. The glue that sticks everything together. Or at least used to be until Azure.
Plasma is not a system, but I see how they didnt want to confuse people here
It is a desktop environment system.
Konquered
Microsoft will probably never truly catch up with KDE
Plasma 6 is approaching fast
What’s plasma ? Is it a browser? Sorry, I dont understand computers
an linux operating system made by the KDE team
raises pendantic finger Ah-hem, sorry, but KDE Plasma isn’t an OS. It’s a desktop environment. For an OS bundled/built-around Plasma then Kubuntu or KDE Neon are both Linux distributions that would better fit that description.
And then I have to install a windows vm to be able to play all my games properly. And the practical benefit of switching is basically zero for the normal user
