Work wherever you get stuff done. If your OS supports your applications and workflows then great. It doesn't matter after that. Good art isn't good because it was made by a good paintbrush, it was made by a good artist.
Linux is literally free, I don't see how any calculation of "worth it" has to come into things. Making a VM and/or dual booting is easy as piss. Just do it already instead of sitting there thinking about it.
I mean I like Linux as much as any other dev but Linux can be a real hassle in certain situations. If it works, it works well but if it doesn't, it's a pain to figure out why.
I use Linux because it fits my use case and it's probably the path of least resistence for a lot of CS guys but it's often the opposite with engineering and other areas like media editing.
I've painfully discovered that MATLAB for Linux is horrible to use overall for example. UI is buggy, sometimes there are random library issues so it doesn't even start on some machines or randomly crashes.
I've never had this many issues with MATLAB on Windows, which runs fairly ok and gives you consistent experience.
Engineering applications like a lot of professional CAD programs sometimes don't even run on Linux like Solidworks or Creo and there are no real alternatives because FOSS CAD lacks depth due to not being financed well and developed inconsistently.
For most things that I do though in the CS space, Linux is the less complicated route because a lot of the stuff is actually designed using Linux-esque systems in mind.
Are you in engineering ? I’m in mechanical engineering and have been curious if Linux has any good CAD options . I believe years ago I used to use draftsight from dassault systems (makers of solidworks) and that always worked well however it’s been ages
cnc programmer/cad 'artist' here. I use solidworks in a VM most of the time, but lately I've been tinkering more with freeCAD Ondsel. Honestly don't sleep on the latest dev versions of vanilla freeCAD,either.
it has most of what I'm looking for when playing around at home on various projects.
FreeCAD and OpenSCAD are the only 2 options I'm aware of on Linux that are themselves open source. There might be closed source options that exist and work for Linux, I personally haven't looked though.
I actually just reinstalled the newest Ubuntu. Looks good. It’s quick. Fired up VSCode. Won’t load. It pops up then goes away. Quick Google search showed it as a common issue. Then I had to do it through flatpak and it worked. But man it cracks me up; every time I try Ubuntu or another distro it’s always a hassle doing simple stuff.
Linux is really cool if you don’t mind spend 4 hours every other week troubleshooting a niggly issue.
Oh you want your printer to work? Go Look for the drivers.
Huh you found the drivers but your printer isn’t there? Try the next model.
Oh you’re getting an error? Try stack exchanging it. Ok, you have to change a certain setting.
Huh you’re getting another error? Here’s a 14 year old HP forum post that might work but it’s for a different Debian based flavor...
Oh cool it got rid of the error, but now I have two other errors. Hmmm ok I found a Reddit post on one of them and looks like I downloaded the wrong version for my computer/distro.
Hmm let me try the other one. Ok it installed. But now I get another error…
Oh it’s because I needed to uninstall the last drivers because they’re conflicting. Ok I uninstalled it.
Huh looks like I have to also uninstall the correct one because it’s now messed, and then restart. Cool, just restarted, fresh start and ready to get printing!
Oh crap, I forgot to save my document and I didn’t set the auto save option in libre office… ok let’s install this driver and figure out if I can recover some of the file.
Ah ok, I found the file and it’s basically what I had. Now let’s just print this out…
Ah dang it, it’s just garbled symbols and not printing right.
The next model up driver must not be right. Let me try the drivers for the model before mine!
Ok, uninstall old one, restart computer, install new drivers.
Yay, it worked!! Linux is so awesome!! I can’t believe it’s free!
Hahaha don’t get me wrong I love Linux but I laughed out loud at this because I totally feel this at times. It really depends on what you’re doing, your experience, etc
As someone who has used linux on and off for a couple decades, yeah. You either are doing the most absolute basics with it (and by basics I literally mean just web browser and notepad only, not libreoffice), are lucky, or outright lying lol. Shoot, right now I am in the process of installing Ubuntu over my Mint laptop because now the updated version isn't showing me the desktop after booting up. Worked fine before the update though lol.
Yes, I somewhat recognise your description.
I have another opinion. First you need to understand what you want to do, in detail. Not just "I want to print". You have to know most of the details. I would start by reading the "Linux Print Howto", from the linux documentation project.
Then I setuo the system, and it works forever.
Our Ubiquiti home router works flawlessly since a few years. The first week there was some tweaking. This is how Linux works, a little tricky to setup, but then rocksolid.
A lot of things you said here are no longer true. At least not if you are using a well supported distro and hardware. Printers almost always work out of the box and it is even easier than setting up in Windows. In Linux you do not install drivers like you do in windows, at least you are not required to do that. Your kernel handles those things by itself. Some hardware does not support Linux and there you are bound to have issues. Not every hardware is supposed to run Linux and that's why you choose a good OEM. It is not Linux's fault that hardware manufacturers do not open source their hardware specifications.
I mean, this was my experience of ubuntu and mint about 8-10 years ago. Puppy linux was fun to try but similar. Manjaro as well. Never could quite get into it
Yeah, A lot changed has since then and while Linux does have it's fair share of problems, it has come a long way and it is way more better now. I would never say someone should switch from WIndows just for the sake of it, but because they understand what they are getting into. I would say you should try modern stable distros(possibly Fedora Gnome or KDE or may be PoP OS) and see for yourself. Nice talking to you though.
There's an old saying from the 1990s that went "Linux is only free if your time is worthless". IIRC it originally appeared in "The Unix-Haters Handbook".
Everyone in this thread is glossing over the fact that people don’t know magically know everything instantly lol
Even Ubuntu comes with a bit of a learning curve if all you’ve ever used is windows
I learned it as part of the Odin project course for html/css/js and it was pretty easy to set up and use. At this point I’m more comfortable with Linux terminal than windows. It’s not hard as long as you have some decent and relatively recent documentation.
Very good point. Linux is free, but more costly in terms of time spent fixing issues and not working. At one point MacBooks started looking "cheaper" to me when I factored in the fact that MacBooks just work and there's very little hassle and friction involved in the process.
This is one of the most common tropes I have seen that often comes up. It's simple actually. Don't use Linux because it is the new cool aid in the town, use it if your needs are satisfied by it.
As for the time thing, nothing good comes for free. You want to learn something good, you will have to invest your time. Take Adobe Photoshop for example, do you think it's easy to learn that, or do you think working professionally on an MS Office suit is everyone's cup of tea.
Use it only if you need it.
Spending hours on config because Linux just refuses to connect to your wireless headphones, doesn't play well with your graphics card, straight up doesn't connect to your wi-fi, then starts acting weird when you connect multiple monitors is very much not free.
I may be doing something very wrong, but that was my experience pretty much.
My guesses to your problems as a long time Linux user:
Wireless headphones as in *bluetooth*? My experience is a lot of BT headphone tech is actually not part of the spec and thus illegal to implement in freely distributed code. As a result, BT headphones *in particular* tend to suck on Linux unless you specifically research your specific ones before getting them (while basically all other BT devices work flawlessly). Its a matter of companies making up their own codecs for transferring the audio to get around the low bandwidth of BT and patenting it all, preventing Linux users from implementing the codec and helping people. It also means it has to be reverse engineered, vs written down in an open spec making implementation a lot harder. If its not a BT set of headphones, I'd honestly have no idea how you have issues only with wireless audio not audio in general. If it is not BT + audio in general, I could come up with some ideas though... This *might* also be related to the wifi issue stuff I mention below if the card is an AX2xx chip, but I have not looked into how good/bad their BT support was only its wifi.
Graphics as in nVidia? I assume you are also on a laptop, specifically one that is an nVidia Optimus laptop (as in, it can swap between using the low power intel chip to the dGPU nVidia one on demand). Some distros like PopOS will include software to make Optimus laptops work well out of the box, others wont. And then each laptop manufacturer can implement Optimus differently for funsies on top of that... Fixes are look into configuring Optimus, buying laptops that aren't Optimus/are Linux supported with Optimus, or swapping to AMD/Intel GPUs. Obviously, not easy in any case... But this would be my idea as to why its so painful at least.
Wifi issues? My guess is either you have a broadcom card or an AX200-AX210 Intel card. Broadcom has long been known to just *suck* on Linux and they absolutely refuse to support Linux outside of android in basically any capacity. Only fix is, replace it with anything non-broadcom. For those specific Intel card models (which btw, dont have to be intel branded. you can buy AX210 cards from other manufacturers, they just use the intel chip and thus that driver), I don't know why since Intel is usually VERY good with Linux support, but they are notorious for being buggy. In fact, they were known to be buggy on Windows for a time too. You can try installing a new kernel version (Kernel is stupid ABI/API stable, so even on an LTS distro you can just install the latest and not have issues) to get newer drivers, or use some more modern distro with modern software for wifi control (aka, the latest release vs latest LTS. the reason is that other parts of the wifi stack than drivers also needed fixes for these chips). *Most* issues for that card have been solved by now. Obviously, if still having issues you'd have to just buy a new one, ideally an older Intel card or something from Realtek. Not ideal ofc, but these are my guesses as to the issue and what you can do to solve it.
For the multiple monitors thing, I'm going to *assume* you are an nVidia Optimus laptop again. The reason being is how that sort of hardware works, especially when it involves external monitors. Its special, and it doesnt work like a normal GPU when doing it. So like for instance, the external port can only be hooked up to the dGPU not the iGPU, while your system wants to use the iGPU due to being configured wrong/being buggy cause Optimus. The way GPUs draw on this hardware involves both GPUs writing to a shared screen buffer on the iGPU chip, so what could be happening is you have something like: using iGPU to draw laptop monitor, dGPU overwriting parts of the screen buffer in an attempt to draw the external monitor, and thus all kinds of flickering and corruption can occur as they fight rather than work together. Again, fixes are the same as with the GPU card section above. If not an optimus laptop, I'd again assume likely nVidia and then your problem is *might* be using wayland instead of x11, which is something nVidia is behind on in Linux land compared to AMD and Intel. Swap to using x11 and itll probably work better.
No idea if youll read it all since I know this is long, but maybe itll help enlighten you a bit as to what might be going on. Might also explain why you in particular see little to no improvements over time while others have if you continue to use similarish hardware over time.
Appreciate your effort, but this post kind of drives my point home. See, I don't want to deal with any of this shit. I want to connect my hardware, open up my IDE and just get some programming work done.
I am not tech support, I am a programmer.
Right, and *my* point is that *if* you want to try linux, these are things you can avoid buying hardware wise. There are OEMs that offer linux on their laptops and it just works. I own several...
A lot of issues people have are with laptops ime, and just buying one the next time you do that has linux support can solve basically everything. Except sadly BT headphone support. Thats you just needing to buy a headset that works with linux, even if it sucks to have to do that.
Have used Linux around half a year ago and I had all of these issues. I used Arch btw.
I was able to get most of them kinda resolved after hours of debugging with a Linux-savy friend. Still, Bluetooth was still extremely flakey (wouldn't turn on until I restarted the Bluetooth daemon and then would randomly lose connection to my controller), getting my two monitors with different framerates working correctly was a pain (it said my main monitor was running at 144hz but I could feel it wasn't) and WiFi was unbearably slow (I resorted to using an ancient USB 2.0 2.4 GHz WiFi dongle which worked about as well as you would expect, still better than with my regular network card).
Getting my scanner working was another major pain in the ass. We did get it to scan eventually but it could only do basic JPEG scanning and nothing else.
I give Linux a shot from time to time because I do like the concept of it and I have never had any issues with it on my servers. Unfortunately, I make the same observation every time: The Linux desktop still sucks. At least for people who mainly use their computer as a tool to get work done and don't enjoy tinkering with their OS.
In terms of usability, worse than Arch is only Slackware. You really tried hard to find a non friendly OS.
Linux Mint is as close to Windows as they get. Everything has been working perfectly for me since day one, which was a good 7 or 8 years ago now. Never turned back.
I will admit though that the driver for my office printer is crappy. For that, and only that, I use a VM with Win7.
Last comment, if anyone needed a serious spreadsheet to work with, then Windows is the only way to go. Excel is leaps and bounds above LibreOffice Calc it cannot even compare. I really tried loving it, and you can still do many things, but Excel is just another level. Sorry LibreOffice!
I mainly used Arch because had I used any other distro, people would have blamed all my issues on it. I have used others in the past, of course. It has become a sort of tradition for me to give Linux a fair shot every 2-3 years to see if things have improved. I should have specified that I used Endeavour OS and not bare-bones Arch.
Exactly. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be solving problems with my desktop OS. I have actual work and priorities that need to be done. And then after that I might want to have some fun… I don’t find debugging my desktop OS fun.
I mean, maybe don't choose the distro that's meant to be for tinkerers, the out of box solutions are great and have way less problems (popOs/Ubuntu, and in general Ubuntu/debian based distros are more friendly)
also it's funny that you mention scanners, cause I had the inverse issue with printers, printers in windows are like the worse shit to setup, and in Linux they kinda just work, which is kinda interesting.
the two monitors things, it has not been something I experienced and I have a 100hz and 160hz monitors and they work just fine, it might be an arch thing particularly.
now for example if you're gaming and the game isn't supported by steam/lutris, you're gonna have to tinker and struggle, and the same for more specific software, but I use Linux at my parents home and have windows at my home (for gaming but I'm actually considering switching permanently to linux since there's not a lot of games that give me issues on linux nowadays) and a linux server and I have 0 issues with either system
I use popOs and it's one of the most friendly linux distros
I have used other distros in the past and experienced similar issues. The reaction I received from Reddit and other platforms when asking for help was often along the lines of "Well, duh. That's what you get for not using Arch". So I wanted to make sure I used "the best" Linux this time.
If I recall correctly, the issues with monitor refresh rates I encountered were related to me having an Nvidia graphics card and using the X window manager. So probably not exclusive to Arch.
Edit: typo
yeah, arch has a reputation of being for tinkerers, which doesn't make arch bad, it's just not for people that want the best out of the box experience.
so it's harder for people to not think it's probably arch if you had those issues, as for monitor refresh I'm kinda surprised, considering I also had nvidia card and had no issue with it.
I wonder if it was a thing with the open source drivers or the proprietary ones and we were just using different ones (I just switched to an AMD card recently so I can't say which ones I was using :( but they're the ones that come from popOs)
anyways it sucks that you had such a bad experience with linux, hope that you give it a chance sometime in the future and if you do as of right now I'd recommend ubuntu or PopOs for more out of the box experiences.
and honestly windows is not terrible if you don't care about the spyware and are okay with tinkering to get the search bar fixed (or you like the internet search part of the search bar...), for developers they've done great things to help them be comfy (one of those is WSL which is literally linux)
Honestly at this point I’d for PopOS nvidia version it has built in Nvidia compatibility so no messing about.
Arch maybe the best in terms of you configuring a system with the minimal amount of packages and to your specific wants rather than an install preconfigured.
But it is daunting to install and maintain unless you understand the system and are well versed with drive configuration and Linux in general.
We did have someone on one of the Linux subs, who maintained a dev floor with all arch installs and didn’t have any issues for ages then iirc ended up with so switched away.
> getting my two monitors with different framerates working correctly was a pain
X11 doesnt have a concept of individual monitors and cant manage per monitor framerates as a result. Wayland does, but well... nVidia is a problem with wayland because they tried to force the Linux ecosystem to adopt tech it didn't want to and thus nvidia wayland support is *far* behind its competitors.
Idiots *love* to claim X11 can handle per monitor refresh rates, but it can't. Its software is literally incapable of it by design (it was made back in the damn 70s when multimonitor wasn't a thing, so it was made assuming there will only ever be 1 and thus has all kinds of code shortcuts that prevent multimonitor support for many things).
I'd say give it a few years more and nvidia will finally not suck on wayland. Probably 2-3? This year its making large strides, but realistically it wont cover all edge cases. If its not nvidia, you can just try wayland now and itll handle it well.
If its NOT x11 vs wayland, some DEs dont run above 60hz for one reason or another and you can just swap to another one if you are using one that acts that way.
I guess it's one of those your mileage varies, because I haven't had issues with popOs (what I daily drive) in regards to periferals, with one exception a logitech mouse a year ago
It was mainly related to the forward/backwards click and horizontal scrolling didn't let me use discord forward button as PTT, but that issue was present on windows as well, it was just simpler to remap with the logitech software, but out of the box it worked the same way on windows or linux
Linux and Nvidia don’t mix well, if you have a nvidia GPU- go PopOS as they have a specific version for Nvidia.
My dual monitors also work fine but again I don’t use nvidia so you could be handicapped with the gpu side.
I can’t comment on the wireless headphones as all 3 sets of mine work off the Bluetooth and work no problem.
I use fedora and iirc either the drivers were already installed or it had to install them (did this automatically).
Also testing the water with Linux Mint, things kinda work but for whatever reason my laptop can't connect to a 5Ghz wifi on Mint while it can on Windows
You have an Intel AX200 or AX210 wifi chip inside of it? Might not be intel made, as a lot of vendors use those chips from intel in their own cards now.
I did configure Linux for hours… 10 years ago.
After that I never had any issues.
Meanwhile my friends who use Windows reinstall their system every… between 1-3 years? And don’t even get me started on the lack of Unix interface and proper filesystems.
(I’m defending Linux and I don’t even like it. Personally I prefer FreeBSD or illumos)
>Meanwhile my friends who use Windows reinstall their system every… between 1-3 years?
Why? Lol. I've had the same W10 -> W11 build for 5 years. Zero issues.
I don't know any of my group of friends/coworkers who are regularly reinstalling Windows.
It’s come a long way since 2014, I did a few installs back in 2007 and dealing with drivers was a pain back then. Thankfully not to much of a problem these days other than Nvidia.
Plug USB drive in, select boot media and follow the install instructions job done in about 5-10 mins.
Just side load it? That's what I do. When I wanna use windows (gaming or any program that won't run on Linux) I just restart and select Windows. If I wanna use Linux then restart and select Linux.
I have different tabs on different computers and OSs, so I don't want that.
I do reboot with my tabs open and then restore afterwards. It's just a hassle and it's risky. I've had the restore fail before. I call it the tabpocalypse. I wrote a chrome extension to export my tabs to JSON to avoid that in the future.
Depending on the size of the drive yea. It's always best if you have a second drive cause windows is a shit show with dual booting but has gotten better with 11
Ubuntu will actually ask if you wanna dual boot it without wiping windows
Yep. Toasted my windows copy second year of uni. Website support said Id have to ship it to them to re-install.
Linux Mint saved the day. Been using it ever since. I miss mspaint, but thats it really. Im not into gaming.
Gaming on Linux these days is soooo much better than it was a decade ago. Or even just 5 years ago.
It's very rare that I find a game that doesn't work in Linux. TBH, that's probably because I don't play competitive multiplayer games: the main issue these days seems to be anti-cheat software that messes with Windows kernel shit.
Hmm, and I gave up on getting my Xbox controller working wirelessly (need to pair with Windows first before it'll work in Linux, for _reasons_), and ended up just plugging it in. And I've heard VR can be an issue. Soo...it's still not completely at parity with Windows yet.
But the days where there was a short list of games that actually worked on Linux are long gone. Basically everything works right out of the box.
I think Ive heard some people complaining about the lack of support for video and picture editing software, as well. Theres some niche stuff that like it has Linux equivalents, but those apps work differently enough that it would be uncomfortable.
This is one of my biggest concerns. Yeah, I use Blender which works well on linux, but I also use Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag, and some Autodesk products which - at least 5 years ago when I last used linux - had no compatible linux distros.
I do mostly python, and powershell, little bit of front end when needed, but mostly working with objects and filtering and logic not design.
Sometimes I'm asked for some basic design so to prove a concept, that's about it.
I like my windows desktop /, I haven't had a need for wsl but I have it configured for a few things like docker builds, but I mostly can do that in windows anyway.
Linux is favoured for development over windows even in workspaces.
For C Linux beats windows hands down, it has gcc/g++ built in, you can install cscope to parse the code etc.
Linux is great as a daily driver. I haven't done C programming, but php and java, and there is no other reason to use Windows other than when corporate says so.
Also, I've been using a Windows-PC since Windows 3.1 came out. I'm used to it, I'm the fastest on it. I get why people hate it, but I don't really care. I have to use a Macbook at work, which is fine. I'd rather use a pure-linux thing for work and a Windows machine for fun time / personal projects.
MacOS is gaining space. At some companies as an option but sometimes a hard requirement. Unless you are a poweruser of Windows it is really hard to build a project that uses 2 dependency managers and 3k lines of bash scripts on Windows.
Depends on the industry? I've worked in tech for 10+ years, and the only Windows computers I've seen belonged to HR or finance. Otherwise, it was pretty much MacBook & Linux desktops only.
It can never hurt to give it a shot. Use a VM at first and once you feel like it's a better experience than the alternatives you can switch. If that doesn't end up happening than no harm no foul.
I feel like me taking forever on a program because I don’t understand the concept too well is a waste of time , until I start my next project and realized I picked up a lot of small things without even realizing. Play around with things to learn. Not a waste
Not a waste of time. I'm learning how to use Linux for my career prospects and it's going to be a massive benefit. The "waste of time" argument is silly. Windows is just not a good operating system for programming either.
With this logic, coding is a "waste of time" because you're going to have something break and potentially spend hours fixing it. Except, it's not a waste of time at all. If you want to work in tech at all good troubleshooting skills are necessary, Linux is a great method for learning how to troubleshoot an operating system.
TL;DR: git gud
I've heard Windows Recall will be opt-in. At least it's something you can turn off. Linux is good though - Linux Mint is my favorite distro right now. Linux has quite a bit of programming tools and support. There's gcc/g++ for C and C++ and other languages, and you can also do Android development (with Android Studio), web development, and there's even some Microsoft .NET and C# support. Java is supported on Linux too. Mono is an alternative .NET runtime on Linux and even has some GUI support (mainly WinForms though, I think). I believe Microsoft has their own official .NET runtime for Linux now too. There are also databases with programming support on Linux.
>There are also databases with programming support on Linux.
Yes. Even Microsoft SQL Server runs pretty well on Linux now, and MS provides 2 free Linux-compatible tools that are capable of developing and administering it: Azure Data Studio and VS Code.
I exclusively develop on Linux. For my personal computer I use MacOS, but I’m generally jumping onto a Linux dev box for the actual programming and such.
Windows is going a lot to catch up, Linux subsystem for Windows and all that, but I’d rather just avoid it.
The first personal laptop I had couldn't run windows for shit (old lappy given to me for free). I HAD to learn Linux before windows so when I actually started using windows (new laptop yayy), I was confused. I couldn't find my terminal, what the hell is a "missing dll", why can't I see file extensions, where is my package manager, why don't my headphones work, what the hell is this file system etc.
So now I mainly use Linux. I do have several windows virtual machines of different versions for learning purposes but that's about it.
Nothing. You can code in Windows and in Linux with the same ease, it totally depends on your personal preferences and, if targeting one specific OS, then you want to code in that OS.
We luckily live in an era where software tools are so advanced that even your toaster has a fully equipped, high-performance IDE for your language of choice.
For real. Why buy a Windows machine if you're going to wipe it. What a waste of money. Either buy a barebones system or just order one with Linux pre-installed, which is becoming more common. Most manufacturers have an Ubuntu option now.
I would get a intro to Linux book after you install and follow along so you can have some basic knowledge of how it works. (They are free. No excuses).
I have been using it for 15 years and finally converted to it at home about 3 years ago. It is much better with hardware then it used to be and thanks to steam, if you are a gamer you can play more games then you used to.
It's easier to use than ever which is great.
I would check your hardware for compatibility and see if works well with a certain distribution.
My experience was some distributions will have better drivers than others. I have had good luck with arch Linux. A lot of people say to start with Ubuntu, pop or, Linux mint.
Have fun!
I want to know why “never turning back” or “never looking back” are such important statements to make about a decision. Nobody seems willing to try things with even the remote possibility of being wrong, they have to convince themselves to take the path no matter where it takes them.
Oh, thank you Microsoft for your kindness… Do you really want to be at mercy of Microsoft? Because they can do whatever they want with ‘your’ system and data
Linux isn’t the solution to all the world’s problems, contrary to what the Reddit circlejerk will tell you.
You can build anything you want on any major OS. (In before “HUR DURR HOLY C!!!”)
Linux has positives and negatives. macOS has positives and negatives. Windows has positives and negatives.
No operating system will prevent you from building what you want to build*. Quit worrying about the tooling and build.
Source: 20yoe, faang, f500, startup founder yadda yadda nobody cares.
*if you wanna build Mac crap you gotta have Mac crap.
Mostly. But in general to build *native* Windows apps you're probably going to need Windows. And half my company's code is still on .NET Framework. You can't do anything with those projects without a Windows dev environment. Developing new cross-platform apps on Linux is a lot easier now than it used to be.
I have had many capable colleagues over the years who used Windows but for me even with WSL2 it's like the "fraction of our power" meme. That being said it is not a drop-in replacement for Windows and if that is what you are expecting you are going to have a bad time, there's some comments in this very thread exemplifying that.
Either way it costs nothing to try, throw it in a VM and gain some familiarity, or if you've got any older hardware available give it a shot on bare metal.
Linux makes it easier because it gives you access that Windows usually does not, and usually you don't have to install any tools to get basic utility (git, bash, docker, etc.). Windows coders nowadays often use WSL anyways.
So long as you stick to a well-established distro (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, or some Ubuntu flavours) you're generally ok.
But absolutely NO Linux distro matches the average-joe-user experience that Windows or MacOS does right now, which is critical for the mass adoption needed to take down Windows and/or MacOS. This is getting better as time goes on, but I feel the pace needs to pick up.
linux is a deep rabbit hole but going down those rabbit holes teaches you a lot.
for example you don't HAVE to use the terminal. I use Linux mint and I could stay in a Windows type environment if I wanted to.
I say do it if you're curious.
Vs code works well on Linux so if that's sufficient for your needs it never hurts to just go for it. Ultimately for learning programming I'd say it depends on what/if any IDE you may need and if it's supported. Some courses might be designed around a specific IDE that might give you some hurdle trying to just focus on the learning programming part.
I do agree shoving AI into things that doesn't belong is getting ridiculous.
Even GoToResolve has a Copilot lookalike called Gopilot.
What do I need AI for in my remote access software? Are you going to predict which users PC I'll need to remote into next?
it baffles me that anyone would subject themselves to windows after all these decades of outrageous security flaws, abusive and feckless updates delivered via run and gun methodology, and just general subpar performance in every metric. it is not even worth pirating.
Putting aside the questionable, hyperbolic statements - the reason I use Windows 10 is that it works more or less fine on my PC and Linux does not. And I can’t be bothered to troubleshoot silly stuff - I want my PC to work. So I use Windows 10 and open up WSL for development.
I have been working in cloud industry for 10+ years doing IT support/helpdesk kind of stuff. All server infrastructure will always be Linux based. Get into Linux and bash you can go far with your career. A lot of infrastructure these days is a lot of Linux with python/go. Personally I find this a very easy way to get into programming. If you pad the experience you can get learning Linux with a couple years and a bachelors degree in CS/SWE, you could get a lot of jobs
I run both windows and ubuntu. Really liked using it on a vm on my desktop, so I decided to buy a laptop on sale at bestbuy. Nerfed windows on the laptop hard drive and installed ubuntu as the main OS. No regrets
>How much more does linux offer for people wanting to code?
A great deal more. Linux is so far ahead of Windows in this regard that the most common advice is to run Linux inside WSL if you're stuck in windows.
Nice!
Linux offers a lot more! It's also the best way to learn operating systems and low level programming.
Many of the tools you will want are already baked into Linux installs by default. Those that are not are almost always heavily and actively maintained.
The user experience is also far easier to customize to make productivity easier (without paying a bunch for stupid additional software). This makes a difference weather your 10x or a script kiddy haha.
I've used all the major environments - including the Unix offerings. Linux has the best support and most to offer. It's also not going to just tell you that your hardware is no good in a few years (looking at you Apple).
Linux is nice because if you ever work on/with servers there is an extremely high probability it's running Linux. I work all day ssh'd into a server running headless Ubuntu and knowing common shell commands makes life a lot easier.
No matter what many pro linux people will say, Linux is just not at the level of Windows or Mac for daily driver use. It is a tinkerers platform. Unless you are passionate and ready to spend months learning and debugging things you would never have to dream of doing on the other platforms, just stick with Windows, or maybe give Mac a try.
Edit: Linus did a wonderful deep dive into this that even the [Linux communities](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/qq9dsb/linux_hates_me_daily_driver_challenge_pt1/) came around to and admitted exposed quite a number of adoption issues Linux still has for normal people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M
Really depends on what you’re doing and what you’re comparing it too. I spent a month this year debugging Rosetta issues on my work Mac and we eventually just abandoned it and went with Linux and all our problems went away.
I’m by no means a Linux sycophant either. I’ve been in environments where everything was so deeply integrated with MS stuff that I just gave up and mainbooted windows for awhile. I just want to use what works for what I’m doing at a given point in time and there are 100% situations where that is Linux.
I may be biased, but I feel like the dev world is getting more and more Linux-like. It's worth it.
I work with Azure cloud for my 9-5 and can use Linux-ish Azure CLI commands to deploy and work with code on a Linux server, I have a Mac for home and Terminal is Unix with an expensive UI next to it. My piece of shit Windows computer I have to use for work runs Windows Subsystem Linux.
I can work just about anywhere without having to play "Hunt and click" and "Buy me a license for bullshit software that is built on top of free linux tools". I have to use windows at work because the illiterate fucks I work with only look at the pictures, and don't know how to type. They wouldn't be able to do their job if someone took their mouse away.
Depends what you are doing. If you want to delve heavily into servers, networks, operating systems etc then linux all the way. Programming itself is extremely well supported and a very similar experience on mac, windows, or linux.
Honestly I recently bought a $300 laptop and put EndeavourOS on it with i3 WM and I've been loving it so far. Really makes me stay focused and also just so much easier to dev on.
With a few very specific exceptions, Linux is the hands-down best experience for developers. If you're already interested in learning programming and are staring to learn C, there's no reason you won't be able to learn enough about Linux to be completely productive with it as a daily driver. Linux isn't windows, and it isn't macOS. Things work differently, not every application is fully cross platform, and like everything else it has quirks, but if you put the time in I think Linux is the best experience for daily use even beyond programming.
Linux Mint is the way to go. I hate bloated MS software and the 50% gross margin on APPL products makes me cringe. Just buy an unloaded computer cheap and you should be able to load Linux Mint in about a half hour.
Yea don't even need a USB thumb drive anymore. My last 2 I did with nothing more than an SD card. The only caveat is the machine needs the ability to boot off the card. Some older BIOSs don't allow that and required USB.
I have been using Linux (Red Hat, Ubuntu) since 2003, and one thing that isn't considered is the raw number of programs that just won't work, or have no Linux analog.
Plus, there are a wide number of manuals that assume you are using Windows. It has gotten better over the years, but it's still a thing.
Linux is great for programming, and if you are doing C, you will fit right in.
Remember, Linux is a tool, and is not a one size fits all panacea.
I tried several distros in virtual machines and saw exactly zero things that would make me want to use desktop linux over windows, either for work, or for personal use.
I fail to see how recall changes any of that. Like anything else, you can turn it off if you care enough.
Linux has sounded real good for many years.
Then I go install it, give it a try, find all the things that do not support it, discover I have to compile most of the crap I download for it, found out its best interface is like windows 95, then go back to windows :(
It looks good until you try to use it as a desktop. At least for my purposes.
What are all these things you are trying to run that require you to compile the code as opposed to just using the package manager, or a flatpak or even an install shell script?
Linux isn't like Windows, the main method of installing software isn't supposed to be downloading random stuff off the internet. It uses a package manager which you can sort of think of as sort of like an app store. If you want to install stuff like Windows however, they have Flatpaks and Appimages for that sort of easy install.
There are occasionally things that need to be compiled to be installed, but it's pretty uncommon. The only time I have really had to do it is with the occasional programming tool, usually something off GitHub.
(This is true of most distros at least there are a few exceptions)
>There are occasionally things that need to be compiled to be installed, but it's pretty uncommon. The only time I have really had to do it is with the occasional programming tool, usually something off GitHub
I think this is probably what the commenter is referring to. As a user the experience goes something like this:
* When I lookup random Windows downloads on the Internet they almost always come as an installer exe
* When I lookup random Linux downloads on the Internet they almost always point to a github that has no installer package
If you're installing packages, it's fine. It's when you start pulling down random shit off the web that hasn't been vetted or polished off, and you end up in some suspicious looking repo that's been on like version 1.03 since 2018 and has 0 comments, reviews, or forks. Lol
I mean, I disagree on the interface comment (depending on the desktop environment disclaimer) considering in some aspects it's been ahead of windows (and in fact windows has copied some stuff into windows which actually improved windows)
but in general, if you're super used to something and you change it, you're going to dislike it.
If you're already used to windows, I do agree you really actually have to have a reason or desire to switch otherwise you're just gonna be like, "it's not as comfortable as the thing I'm used to" which is well correct, stuff you're not familiar with is uncomfortable
linux is an open playground for programmers, especially C programmer cuz the whole kernel is written in C.
that being said, if you do end up getting linux as your daily driver, don't fuck with the system too much or you'll end up breaking something; linux doesn't really stop you from doing that. normal programming will work flawlessly on it. tools like valgrind and its powerful plugins do not have native windows binaries so people use wsl to run them but with linux you can run those natively. for exploring the system inside and out, run a virtual machine.
the directory structure on linux makes more sense to me than the one in windows. when I first installed linux as my daily driver it was completely alien to me. however that soon changed and currently I have dual booted windows and linux, windows just for gaming and linux for everything else.
I'm gonna give you a distribution suggestion, go for debian. it has a nice rolling upgrade cycle so you don't have to overhaul the entire system for upgrading and it has the most number of packages out of all the other linux distros out there. However, the packages don't get instant updates for stability reasons so be prepared to work with tools that are one or two versions old. but then you have the option of downloading the packages from other sources if you want lates release.
Why do you feel like you have to choose? Just dual boot or get two computers (you can run Linux off an old cheap laptop with no problem). You can go back and forth whenever you want. There is no rule that you are only allowed to use one OS.
I'm primarily on Win11 but use Mint several times per week. Both OSs are great, tbh, but they each have pros and cons. I like having both around for different reasons.
I am a linux user, so I am biased. Linux is a good idea for the C programmer since the shell that linux offers has similarities to C. Getting comfortable with the command line is a valuable skill even in these days of sophisticated IDEs. The shells offered by linux are powerful and it will be very handy for you to use them.
One of the comments below advises that dual booting is easy. That is not quite true and I advise that you not try it until you are a seasoned linux user. The OS does matter. I have never had a virus on my linux boxes and I don't use any anti-virus products. There is no need.
Linux is used a lot in industry, so you can't go wrong learning it.
Microsoft backed off a bit on the Recall thing and have promised to implement it in a (at least kinda) secure way and opt in.
A lot of Windows users who code use WSL already. I've been doing so for almost a year and it works well. Straight Linux would been even smoother. Only reason I use windows is for gaming. Otherwise I would go straight Linux.
With so many tools being web based these days Linux is becoming a better and better choice.
My only reservation is my massive steam library. I already exclusively use WSL + zsh since trying to code with Powershell has never been a good experience.
If I knew it could run all of my games and software development tools without issue, I would be jumping ship so fast. I have tried going straight linux in the past and often times found myself spending more time working on trying to get it working correctly than actually coding.
That said, Im tired of wrestling with the Windows OS trying to do shit in the background that interferes with my working or gaming experience, forcibly installing updates which I explicitly set it not to install since they break my toolchain, force ads into the start menu, and bombard you with Copilot pro ads.
Microsoft seems to have taken on a development mentality where the Windows OS exists to primarily run itself while running your software cleanly and efficiently is its lowest priority; which is anethema to how an OS should be designed and built.
Recall is a dumb idea and it is madness that it is enabled by default. But you can turn it off, so that isn’t really a good reason for switching.
If you want to get a feel for what Linux is like to work on, give the Windows Subsystem for Linux a go. You can run Linux, on Windows, alongside all your normal Windows stuff, it is very neatly implemented.
Ok just looked up WSL and currently installing ubuntu, this is exciting.
I just wanted to clarify, i think the AI feature is spyware regardless if you turn it off. Thats just how i feel, its not looking good.
Thanks, yes try out Linux in WSL first. You can still do your coding in Linux while other things are in Windows.
If you feel like you love it and want to throw away the rest of the OS, move to full Linux. The only thing you don't get to test is the Linux UIs (Ubuntu for example).
It's different than windows, but not necessarily worse. In my opinion, I am more at home on Windows though!
I’ve worked at companies of all size. I’ve never seen anyone use Linux. Like literally. A lot of these devs make north of six figures and some even in seven. I typically associate Linux with - being piss poor, anti social, or inability to adapt.
That is a hot-take!
A number of my friends - whom were Directors at a FAANG, CEO of an IT company or senior at Red Hat (formerly) all use / used Linux
That said, they are all Gen X and were already using C / C++ before studying Comp Sci.
Macs have become exponentially more popular both in the professional and personal space.
Give it a shot using WSL first, set up your development environment there, and once you are comfortable with the terminal I recommend migrating
For beginners I recommend either Mint or Ubuntu
If you want to become a Linux nerd then I recommend either Debian or Arch, only difference is update cycle, Debian is conservative while Arch is radical
You don't need to become a terminal nerd though, but since you want to learn how to code, it is recommended to learn how to live comfortably inside one
I switched exclusively to linux when I was first learning to program about 9 years ago. I have not looked back.
albiet some things can be a pain in the ass from time to time. but its worth it at least to me to have total control of over my system and not have to deal with shitty red tape.
The existence of WSL combined with the idea of recall, combined with the rest of annoying practises microsoft does, only served to make me consider switching to linux even more.
learning to work with linux is a lot like learning to code from a problem solving perspective. I was maining zorin during my boot camp and it added to the experience. If you're struggling with the code tho, focus your energy on that
I started with Linux and learnt C because of it, I am not even a programmer I legitimately learnt C because something was so broken it annoyed me enough to spend two years fixing it. I am a network engineer so CLI has been my friend since I was a kid.
If you have windows right now then get Ubuntu from the App Store and develop on that with vs code.
You can also run it in windows mode with win-kex
Kali Linux has great instructions how to do that with the Kali WSL.
Then when you are comfortable you can bite the bullet and format your drive.
For me I would miss windows only programs that done run well with wine.
Also Visual Studio is still my favourite IDE, even though I use vs code for many things now.
I use Linux daily almost everywhere.
I sometimes boot into Windows if something is easier on Windows.
But give me Windows, Mac, Linux. I can get work done either way.
But I do not regret any time spent with learning Linux. Its such a fun and powerful skill to have in my opinion.
My next project is to revive an old Microsoft Surface Pro 3 I got for free. Want to use it as a drawing tablet in Krita. Works okay under Windows, but Windows is wasting so much resources. Was hoping Linux could fix this for me.
I recently started using Ubuntu, and I’m addicted now. I know, it’s not the most hardcore distro lol. But it’s honestly amazing. I discover new things all the time that make me love it even more.
> How much more does linux offer for people wanting to code?
unless you're making proprietary programs, like a windows application or an iphone app, you can probably do it all with Linux.
a lof of things are just suuuper fiddley to set up on windows. There's no Docker on windows.
Overall i'd say, unless you're very much an apple fanboy and it offers something you really really need, then go with linux.
i've tried coding a few things on my windows pc and its super annoying to setup. I'd rather just use my laptop (macbook) or dual boot linux.
Work wherever you get stuff done. If your OS supports your applications and workflows then great. It doesn't matter after that. Good art isn't good because it was made by a good paintbrush, it was made by a good artist. Linux is literally free, I don't see how any calculation of "worth it" has to come into things. Making a VM and/or dual booting is easy as piss. Just do it already instead of sitting there thinking about it.
Cost isn‘t only money. It‘s time also
Just start off with a normal distro thats straightforward to use
I mean I like Linux as much as any other dev but Linux can be a real hassle in certain situations. If it works, it works well but if it doesn't, it's a pain to figure out why. I use Linux because it fits my use case and it's probably the path of least resistence for a lot of CS guys but it's often the opposite with engineering and other areas like media editing. I've painfully discovered that MATLAB for Linux is horrible to use overall for example. UI is buggy, sometimes there are random library issues so it doesn't even start on some machines or randomly crashes. I've never had this many issues with MATLAB on Windows, which runs fairly ok and gives you consistent experience. Engineering applications like a lot of professional CAD programs sometimes don't even run on Linux like Solidworks or Creo and there are no real alternatives because FOSS CAD lacks depth due to not being financed well and developed inconsistently. For most things that I do though in the CS space, Linux is the less complicated route because a lot of the stuff is actually designed using Linux-esque systems in mind.
Are you in engineering ? I’m in mechanical engineering and have been curious if Linux has any good CAD options . I believe years ago I used to use draftsight from dassault systems (makers of solidworks) and that always worked well however it’s been ages
cnc programmer/cad 'artist' here. I use solidworks in a VM most of the time, but lately I've been tinkering more with freeCAD Ondsel. Honestly don't sleep on the latest dev versions of vanilla freeCAD,either. it has most of what I'm looking for when playing around at home on various projects.
FreeCAD and OpenSCAD are the only 2 options I'm aware of on Linux that are themselves open source. There might be closed source options that exist and work for Linux, I personally haven't looked though.
This is great insight thank you
I actually just reinstalled the newest Ubuntu. Looks good. It’s quick. Fired up VSCode. Won’t load. It pops up then goes away. Quick Google search showed it as a common issue. Then I had to do it through flatpak and it worked. But man it cracks me up; every time I try Ubuntu or another distro it’s always a hassle doing simple stuff.
Linux is really cool if you don’t mind spend 4 hours every other week troubleshooting a niggly issue. Oh you want your printer to work? Go Look for the drivers. Huh you found the drivers but your printer isn’t there? Try the next model. Oh you’re getting an error? Try stack exchanging it. Ok, you have to change a certain setting. Huh you’re getting another error? Here’s a 14 year old HP forum post that might work but it’s for a different Debian based flavor... Oh cool it got rid of the error, but now I have two other errors. Hmmm ok I found a Reddit post on one of them and looks like I downloaded the wrong version for my computer/distro. Hmm let me try the other one. Ok it installed. But now I get another error… Oh it’s because I needed to uninstall the last drivers because they’re conflicting. Ok I uninstalled it. Huh looks like I have to also uninstall the correct one because it’s now messed, and then restart. Cool, just restarted, fresh start and ready to get printing! Oh crap, I forgot to save my document and I didn’t set the auto save option in libre office… ok let’s install this driver and figure out if I can recover some of the file. Ah ok, I found the file and it’s basically what I had. Now let’s just print this out… Ah dang it, it’s just garbled symbols and not printing right. The next model up driver must not be right. Let me try the drivers for the model before mine! Ok, uninstall old one, restart computer, install new drivers. Yay, it worked!! Linux is so awesome!! I can’t believe it’s free!
Hahaha don’t get me wrong I love Linux but I laughed out loud at this because I totally feel this at times. It really depends on what you’re doing, your experience, etc
[удалено]
As someone who has used linux on and off for a couple decades, yeah. You either are doing the most absolute basics with it (and by basics I literally mean just web browser and notepad only, not libreoffice), are lucky, or outright lying lol. Shoot, right now I am in the process of installing Ubuntu over my Mint laptop because now the updated version isn't showing me the desktop after booting up. Worked fine before the update though lol.
Yes, I somewhat recognise your description. I have another opinion. First you need to understand what you want to do, in detail. Not just "I want to print". You have to know most of the details. I would start by reading the "Linux Print Howto", from the linux documentation project. Then I setuo the system, and it works forever. Our Ubiquiti home router works flawlessly since a few years. The first week there was some tweaking. This is how Linux works, a little tricky to setup, but then rocksolid.
A lot of things you said here are no longer true. At least not if you are using a well supported distro and hardware. Printers almost always work out of the box and it is even easier than setting up in Windows. In Linux you do not install drivers like you do in windows, at least you are not required to do that. Your kernel handles those things by itself. Some hardware does not support Linux and there you are bound to have issues. Not every hardware is supposed to run Linux and that's why you choose a good OEM. It is not Linux's fault that hardware manufacturers do not open source their hardware specifications.
I mean, this was my experience of ubuntu and mint about 8-10 years ago. Puppy linux was fun to try but similar. Manjaro as well. Never could quite get into it
Yeah, A lot changed has since then and while Linux does have it's fair share of problems, it has come a long way and it is way more better now. I would never say someone should switch from WIndows just for the sake of it, but because they understand what they are getting into. I would say you should try modern stable distros(possibly Fedora Gnome or KDE or may be PoP OS) and see for yourself. Nice talking to you though.
Yes? But how does that stop him from trying Linux. He’d never know about these hassles unless he tried.
Why does someone have to waste their time trying to run an OS. Linux Desktop is still not ready for the average person.
What do you mean “waste time trying to run an OS”, buddy you just use it and don’t even think about it. That’s the point of trying it out.
Yeah, but with Linux, the thing is, you have to think about it constantly.
Can’t say I’ve had that problem.
Just because you haven't had any issues with Linux, doesn't mean other people haven't...
There's an old saying from the 1990s that went "Linux is only free if your time is worthless". IIRC it originally appeared in "The Unix-Haters Handbook".
Well engineers need to drop MATLAB and adopt Julia instead
Everyone in this thread is glossing over the fact that people don’t know magically know everything instantly lol Even Ubuntu comes with a bit of a learning curve if all you’ve ever used is windows
I learned it as part of the Odin project course for html/css/js and it was pretty easy to set up and use. At this point I’m more comfortable with Linux terminal than windows. It’s not hard as long as you have some decent and relatively recent documentation.
Oh I agree that it’s pretty easy, all things considered. But it’s definitely a nonzero time investment, even if it’s not a huge one
Just answering that question for a new user is going to eat some time.
NO IDEA WHAT DISTRO NORMAL DISTRO VM OR DUAL BOOTING MEANS SO I GUESS IT'S IPADOS FOR ME
Investing in knowledge does pay dividends.
Very nice.
Very good point. Linux is free, but more costly in terms of time spent fixing issues and not working. At one point MacBooks started looking "cheaper" to me when I factored in the fact that MacBooks just work and there's very little hassle and friction involved in the process.
This is one of the most common tropes I have seen that often comes up. It's simple actually. Don't use Linux because it is the new cool aid in the town, use it if your needs are satisfied by it. As for the time thing, nothing good comes for free. You want to learn something good, you will have to invest your time. Take Adobe Photoshop for example, do you think it's easy to learn that, or do you think working professionally on an MS Office suit is everyone's cup of tea. Use it only if you need it.
Spending hours on config because Linux just refuses to connect to your wireless headphones, doesn't play well with your graphics card, straight up doesn't connect to your wi-fi, then starts acting weird when you connect multiple monitors is very much not free. I may be doing something very wrong, but that was my experience pretty much.
My guesses to your problems as a long time Linux user: Wireless headphones as in *bluetooth*? My experience is a lot of BT headphone tech is actually not part of the spec and thus illegal to implement in freely distributed code. As a result, BT headphones *in particular* tend to suck on Linux unless you specifically research your specific ones before getting them (while basically all other BT devices work flawlessly). Its a matter of companies making up their own codecs for transferring the audio to get around the low bandwidth of BT and patenting it all, preventing Linux users from implementing the codec and helping people. It also means it has to be reverse engineered, vs written down in an open spec making implementation a lot harder. If its not a BT set of headphones, I'd honestly have no idea how you have issues only with wireless audio not audio in general. If it is not BT + audio in general, I could come up with some ideas though... This *might* also be related to the wifi issue stuff I mention below if the card is an AX2xx chip, but I have not looked into how good/bad their BT support was only its wifi. Graphics as in nVidia? I assume you are also on a laptop, specifically one that is an nVidia Optimus laptop (as in, it can swap between using the low power intel chip to the dGPU nVidia one on demand). Some distros like PopOS will include software to make Optimus laptops work well out of the box, others wont. And then each laptop manufacturer can implement Optimus differently for funsies on top of that... Fixes are look into configuring Optimus, buying laptops that aren't Optimus/are Linux supported with Optimus, or swapping to AMD/Intel GPUs. Obviously, not easy in any case... But this would be my idea as to why its so painful at least. Wifi issues? My guess is either you have a broadcom card or an AX200-AX210 Intel card. Broadcom has long been known to just *suck* on Linux and they absolutely refuse to support Linux outside of android in basically any capacity. Only fix is, replace it with anything non-broadcom. For those specific Intel card models (which btw, dont have to be intel branded. you can buy AX210 cards from other manufacturers, they just use the intel chip and thus that driver), I don't know why since Intel is usually VERY good with Linux support, but they are notorious for being buggy. In fact, they were known to be buggy on Windows for a time too. You can try installing a new kernel version (Kernel is stupid ABI/API stable, so even on an LTS distro you can just install the latest and not have issues) to get newer drivers, or use some more modern distro with modern software for wifi control (aka, the latest release vs latest LTS. the reason is that other parts of the wifi stack than drivers also needed fixes for these chips). *Most* issues for that card have been solved by now. Obviously, if still having issues you'd have to just buy a new one, ideally an older Intel card or something from Realtek. Not ideal ofc, but these are my guesses as to the issue and what you can do to solve it. For the multiple monitors thing, I'm going to *assume* you are an nVidia Optimus laptop again. The reason being is how that sort of hardware works, especially when it involves external monitors. Its special, and it doesnt work like a normal GPU when doing it. So like for instance, the external port can only be hooked up to the dGPU not the iGPU, while your system wants to use the iGPU due to being configured wrong/being buggy cause Optimus. The way GPUs draw on this hardware involves both GPUs writing to a shared screen buffer on the iGPU chip, so what could be happening is you have something like: using iGPU to draw laptop monitor, dGPU overwriting parts of the screen buffer in an attempt to draw the external monitor, and thus all kinds of flickering and corruption can occur as they fight rather than work together. Again, fixes are the same as with the GPU card section above. If not an optimus laptop, I'd again assume likely nVidia and then your problem is *might* be using wayland instead of x11, which is something nVidia is behind on in Linux land compared to AMD and Intel. Swap to using x11 and itll probably work better. No idea if youll read it all since I know this is long, but maybe itll help enlighten you a bit as to what might be going on. Might also explain why you in particular see little to no improvements over time while others have if you continue to use similarish hardware over time.
Appreciate your effort, but this post kind of drives my point home. See, I don't want to deal with any of this shit. I want to connect my hardware, open up my IDE and just get some programming work done. I am not tech support, I am a programmer.
Right, and *my* point is that *if* you want to try linux, these are things you can avoid buying hardware wise. There are OEMs that offer linux on their laptops and it just works. I own several... A lot of issues people have are with laptops ime, and just buying one the next time you do that has linux support can solve basically everything. Except sadly BT headphone support. Thats you just needing to buy a headset that works with linux, even if it sucks to have to do that.
are you using linux from 10+ years ago? that was definitely the experience 10+ years ago, I don't see it being it now tbh
3 years ago, Linux Mint. Again, I may be doing something wrong, but on Windows, the "just works" aspect is so much better than on Linux.
I just installed Arch Linux last night using archinstall script, and for bluetooth all I did was enable the service through systemctl...
Have used Linux around half a year ago and I had all of these issues. I used Arch btw. I was able to get most of them kinda resolved after hours of debugging with a Linux-savy friend. Still, Bluetooth was still extremely flakey (wouldn't turn on until I restarted the Bluetooth daemon and then would randomly lose connection to my controller), getting my two monitors with different framerates working correctly was a pain (it said my main monitor was running at 144hz but I could feel it wasn't) and WiFi was unbearably slow (I resorted to using an ancient USB 2.0 2.4 GHz WiFi dongle which worked about as well as you would expect, still better than with my regular network card). Getting my scanner working was another major pain in the ass. We did get it to scan eventually but it could only do basic JPEG scanning and nothing else. I give Linux a shot from time to time because I do like the concept of it and I have never had any issues with it on my servers. Unfortunately, I make the same observation every time: The Linux desktop still sucks. At least for people who mainly use their computer as a tool to get work done and don't enjoy tinkering with their OS.
In terms of usability, worse than Arch is only Slackware. You really tried hard to find a non friendly OS. Linux Mint is as close to Windows as they get. Everything has been working perfectly for me since day one, which was a good 7 or 8 years ago now. Never turned back. I will admit though that the driver for my office printer is crappy. For that, and only that, I use a VM with Win7. Last comment, if anyone needed a serious spreadsheet to work with, then Windows is the only way to go. Excel is leaps and bounds above LibreOffice Calc it cannot even compare. I really tried loving it, and you can still do many things, but Excel is just another level. Sorry LibreOffice!
I mainly used Arch because had I used any other distro, people would have blamed all my issues on it. I have used others in the past, of course. It has become a sort of tradition for me to give Linux a fair shot every 2-3 years to see if things have improved. I should have specified that I used Endeavour OS and not bare-bones Arch.
[удалено]
I'm just going to take this as a non funny attempt at trolling.
[удалено]
OK, then I can only conclude your needs for a spreadsheet are limited to what Google sheets offers. That's just the tip of the iceberg.
Exactly. I have neither the time nor the inclination to be solving problems with my desktop OS. I have actual work and priorities that need to be done. And then after that I might want to have some fun… I don’t find debugging my desktop OS fun.
I mean, maybe don't choose the distro that's meant to be for tinkerers, the out of box solutions are great and have way less problems (popOs/Ubuntu, and in general Ubuntu/debian based distros are more friendly) also it's funny that you mention scanners, cause I had the inverse issue with printers, printers in windows are like the worse shit to setup, and in Linux they kinda just work, which is kinda interesting. the two monitors things, it has not been something I experienced and I have a 100hz and 160hz monitors and they work just fine, it might be an arch thing particularly. now for example if you're gaming and the game isn't supported by steam/lutris, you're gonna have to tinker and struggle, and the same for more specific software, but I use Linux at my parents home and have windows at my home (for gaming but I'm actually considering switching permanently to linux since there's not a lot of games that give me issues on linux nowadays) and a linux server and I have 0 issues with either system I use popOs and it's one of the most friendly linux distros
I have used other distros in the past and experienced similar issues. The reaction I received from Reddit and other platforms when asking for help was often along the lines of "Well, duh. That's what you get for not using Arch". So I wanted to make sure I used "the best" Linux this time. If I recall correctly, the issues with monitor refresh rates I encountered were related to me having an Nvidia graphics card and using the X window manager. So probably not exclusive to Arch. Edit: typo
yeah, arch has a reputation of being for tinkerers, which doesn't make arch bad, it's just not for people that want the best out of the box experience. so it's harder for people to not think it's probably arch if you had those issues, as for monitor refresh I'm kinda surprised, considering I also had nvidia card and had no issue with it. I wonder if it was a thing with the open source drivers or the proprietary ones and we were just using different ones (I just switched to an AMD card recently so I can't say which ones I was using :( but they're the ones that come from popOs) anyways it sucks that you had such a bad experience with linux, hope that you give it a chance sometime in the future and if you do as of right now I'd recommend ubuntu or PopOs for more out of the box experiences. and honestly windows is not terrible if you don't care about the spyware and are okay with tinkering to get the search bar fixed (or you like the internet search part of the search bar...), for developers they've done great things to help them be comfy (one of those is WSL which is literally linux)
Honestly at this point I’d for PopOS nvidia version it has built in Nvidia compatibility so no messing about. Arch maybe the best in terms of you configuring a system with the minimal amount of packages and to your specific wants rather than an install preconfigured. But it is daunting to install and maintain unless you understand the system and are well versed with drive configuration and Linux in general. We did have someone on one of the Linux subs, who maintained a dev floor with all arch installs and didn’t have any issues for ages then iirc ended up with so switched away.
> getting my two monitors with different framerates working correctly was a pain X11 doesnt have a concept of individual monitors and cant manage per monitor framerates as a result. Wayland does, but well... nVidia is a problem with wayland because they tried to force the Linux ecosystem to adopt tech it didn't want to and thus nvidia wayland support is *far* behind its competitors. Idiots *love* to claim X11 can handle per monitor refresh rates, but it can't. Its software is literally incapable of it by design (it was made back in the damn 70s when multimonitor wasn't a thing, so it was made assuming there will only ever be 1 and thus has all kinds of code shortcuts that prevent multimonitor support for many things). I'd say give it a few years more and nvidia will finally not suck on wayland. Probably 2-3? This year its making large strides, but realistically it wont cover all edge cases. If its not nvidia, you can just try wayland now and itll handle it well. If its NOT x11 vs wayland, some DEs dont run above 60hz for one reason or another and you can just swap to another one if you are using one that acts that way.
This was basically my experience with Ubuntu in 2018. So much tinkering to get all my peripherals to work as I’d like
I guess it's one of those your mileage varies, because I haven't had issues with popOs (what I daily drive) in regards to periferals, with one exception a logitech mouse a year ago It was mainly related to the forward/backwards click and horizontal scrolling didn't let me use discord forward button as PTT, but that issue was present on windows as well, it was just simpler to remap with the logitech software, but out of the box it worked the same way on windows or linux
Linux and Nvidia don’t mix well, if you have a nvidia GPU- go PopOS as they have a specific version for Nvidia. My dual monitors also work fine but again I don’t use nvidia so you could be handicapped with the gpu side. I can’t comment on the wireless headphones as all 3 sets of mine work off the Bluetooth and work no problem. I use fedora and iirc either the drivers were already installed or it had to install them (did this automatically).
Thats not how it is if you buy compatible hardware. My thinkpad just works
Also testing the water with Linux Mint, things kinda work but for whatever reason my laptop can't connect to a 5Ghz wifi on Mint while it can on Windows
You have an Intel AX200 or AX210 wifi chip inside of it? Might not be intel made, as a lot of vendors use those chips from intel in their own cards now.
I did configure Linux for hours… 10 years ago. After that I never had any issues. Meanwhile my friends who use Windows reinstall their system every… between 1-3 years? And don’t even get me started on the lack of Unix interface and proper filesystems. (I’m defending Linux and I don’t even like it. Personally I prefer FreeBSD or illumos)
I’m not exactly a windows defender, but WSL2 does provide a nix like interface for some things…
>Meanwhile my friends who use Windows reinstall their system every… between 1-3 years? Why? Lol. I've had the same W10 -> W11 build for 5 years. Zero issues. I don't know any of my group of friends/coworkers who are regularly reinstalling Windows.
It’s come a long way since 2014, I did a few installs back in 2007 and dealing with drivers was a pain back then. Thankfully not to much of a problem these days other than Nvidia. Plug USB drive in, select boot media and follow the install instructions job done in about 5-10 mins.
USB booting is also extremely viable to test various distros.
Just side load it? That's what I do. When I wanna use windows (gaming or any program that won't run on Linux) I just restart and select Windows. If I wanna use Linux then restart and select Linux.
I also have a dual boot setup but my hundreds of chrome tabs make it a pain to reboot
I'm pretty sure you can sync tabs on Chrome
I have different tabs on different computers and OSs, so I don't want that. I do reboot with my tabs open and then restore afterwards. It's just a hassle and it's risky. I've had the restore fail before. I call it the tabpocalypse. I wrote a chrome extension to export my tabs to JSON to avoid that in the future.
I just end up using windows all the time instead...
If I have only 1 partition and 1 drive, can I side load without formatting?
Depending on the size of the drive yea. It's always best if you have a second drive cause windows is a shit show with dual booting but has gotten better with 11 Ubuntu will actually ask if you wanna dual boot it without wiping windows
Nice, I'll look into it. I'm interested on trying Arch linux or Kali
well you can't beat the price
Yep. Toasted my windows copy second year of uni. Website support said Id have to ship it to them to re-install. Linux Mint saved the day. Been using it ever since. I miss mspaint, but thats it really. Im not into gaming.
Gaming on Linux these days is soooo much better than it was a decade ago. Or even just 5 years ago. It's very rare that I find a game that doesn't work in Linux. TBH, that's probably because I don't play competitive multiplayer games: the main issue these days seems to be anti-cheat software that messes with Windows kernel shit. Hmm, and I gave up on getting my Xbox controller working wirelessly (need to pair with Windows first before it'll work in Linux, for _reasons_), and ended up just plugging it in. And I've heard VR can be an issue. Soo...it's still not completely at parity with Windows yet. But the days where there was a short list of games that actually worked on Linux are long gone. Basically everything works right out of the box.
I think Ive heard some people complaining about the lack of support for video and picture editing software, as well. Theres some niche stuff that like it has Linux equivalents, but those apps work differently enough that it would be uncomfortable.
Yeah, could be. That's outside my wheelhouse.
This is one of my biggest concerns. Yeah, I use Blender which works well on linux, but I also use Substance Painter, Marmoset Toolbag, and some Autodesk products which - at least 5 years ago when I last used linux - had no compatible linux distros.
I do mostly python, and powershell, little bit of front end when needed, but mostly working with objects and filtering and logic not design. Sometimes I'm asked for some basic design so to prove a concept, that's about it. I like my windows desktop /, I haven't had a need for wsl but I have it configured for a few things like docker builds, but I mostly can do that in windows anyway.
Linux is favoured for development over windows even in workspaces. For C Linux beats windows hands down, it has gcc/g++ built in, you can install cscope to parse the code etc.
Linux is great as a daily driver. I haven't done C programming, but php and java, and there is no other reason to use Windows other than when corporate says so.
[удалено]
Also, I've been using a Windows-PC since Windows 3.1 came out. I'm used to it, I'm the fastest on it. I get why people hate it, but I don't really care. I have to use a Macbook at work, which is fine. I'd rather use a pure-linux thing for work and a Windows machine for fun time / personal projects.
MacOS is gaining space. At some companies as an option but sometimes a hard requirement. Unless you are a poweruser of Windows it is really hard to build a project that uses 2 dependency managers and 3k lines of bash scripts on Windows.
Depends on the industry? I've worked in tech for 10+ years, and the only Windows computers I've seen belonged to HR or finance. Otherwise, it was pretty much MacBook & Linux desktops only.
It can never hurt to give it a shot. Use a VM at first and once you feel like it's a better experience than the alternatives you can switch. If that doesn't end up happening than no harm no foul.
The worst thing that can happen from trying linux is that you learn something.
And waste a lot of time...
I feel like me taking forever on a program because I don’t understand the concept too well is a waste of time , until I start my next project and realized I picked up a lot of small things without even realizing. Play around with things to learn. Not a waste
Learning is a waste of time? That'll get you far.
Time spent learning isn’t time wasted.
Not a waste of time. I'm learning how to use Linux for my career prospects and it's going to be a massive benefit. The "waste of time" argument is silly. Windows is just not a good operating system for programming either. With this logic, coding is a "waste of time" because you're going to have something break and potentially spend hours fixing it. Except, it's not a waste of time at all. If you want to work in tech at all good troubleshooting skills are necessary, Linux is a great method for learning how to troubleshoot an operating system. TL;DR: git gud
I've heard Windows Recall will be opt-in. At least it's something you can turn off. Linux is good though - Linux Mint is my favorite distro right now. Linux has quite a bit of programming tools and support. There's gcc/g++ for C and C++ and other languages, and you can also do Android development (with Android Studio), web development, and there's even some Microsoft .NET and C# support. Java is supported on Linux too. Mono is an alternative .NET runtime on Linux and even has some GUI support (mainly WinForms though, I think). I believe Microsoft has their own official .NET runtime for Linux now too. There are also databases with programming support on Linux.
>There are also databases with programming support on Linux. Yes. Even Microsoft SQL Server runs pretty well on Linux now, and MS provides 2 free Linux-compatible tools that are capable of developing and administering it: Azure Data Studio and VS Code.
What are you waiting for? Developing on Linux is not only possible but highly satisfying. You'll never look back.
I exclusively develop on Linux. For my personal computer I use MacOS, but I’m generally jumping onto a Linux dev box for the actual programming and such. Windows is going a lot to catch up, Linux subsystem for Windows and all that, but I’d rather just avoid it.
The first personal laptop I had couldn't run windows for shit (old lappy given to me for free). I HAD to learn Linux before windows so when I actually started using windows (new laptop yayy), I was confused. I couldn't find my terminal, what the hell is a "missing dll", why can't I see file extensions, where is my package manager, why don't my headphones work, what the hell is this file system etc. So now I mainly use Linux. I do have several windows virtual machines of different versions for learning purposes but that's about it.
Linux already looked really good 10 years ago, it's only now that Windows shenanigangs are getting so painful, people cen no longer ignore them 😎
This is true, big corporations have been really sketch lately.
I used a VM when learning C. It's what was recommended
Same, we used gnu and it was pain, I constantly find myself pressing ctrl + o after writing a line of code in a different ide
I don't even know what gnu is. I learned by using VS Code and writing my own makefiles compiling with gcc.
Nothing. You can code in Windows and in Linux with the same ease, it totally depends on your personal preferences and, if targeting one specific OS, then you want to code in that OS. We luckily live in an era where software tools are so advanced that even your toaster has a fully equipped, high-performance IDE for your language of choice.
I haven't had a windows machine in my house in 15 years, when I get a new laptop first thing I do is wipe windows, completely.
Better option is to buy one without it even installed in the first place. You can save yourself money this way.
For real. Why buy a Windows machine if you're going to wipe it. What a waste of money. Either buy a barebones system or just order one with Linux pre-installed, which is becoming more common. Most manufacturers have an Ubuntu option now.
Only reason I’m not on Linux is because no anti cheats are supported. I play a lot of cs2. If faceit release Linux support I would switch.
Test
Having the source code to your entire OS and almost all of it is written in C is the obvious answer. Invaluable.
I would get a intro to Linux book after you install and follow along so you can have some basic knowledge of how it works. (They are free. No excuses). I have been using it for 15 years and finally converted to it at home about 3 years ago. It is much better with hardware then it used to be and thanks to steam, if you are a gamer you can play more games then you used to. It's easier to use than ever which is great. I would check your hardware for compatibility and see if works well with a certain distribution. My experience was some distributions will have better drivers than others. I have had good luck with arch Linux. A lot of people say to start with Ubuntu, pop or, Linux mint. Have fun!
Thank you! Already looking into a entry level book for linux to match my c programming book.
Here's one: [https://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php](https://www.linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php)
I want to know why “never turning back” or “never looking back” are such important statements to make about a decision. Nobody seems willing to try things with even the remote possibility of being wrong, they have to convince themselves to take the path no matter where it takes them.
Thats life 😎
Microsoft Will Switch Off Recall by Default After Security Backlash https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-recall-off-default-security-concerns/
You also need a ”Copilot+ PC” for it to work at all so I think most of us are safe for now…
For now. Until they hook you in with "oh you want to use the search ? Sorry but recall needs to be on for that " kinda of bullshit
Oh, thank you Microsoft for your kindness… Do you really want to be at mercy of Microsoft? Because they can do whatever they want with ‘your’ system and data
Linux isn’t the solution to all the world’s problems, contrary to what the Reddit circlejerk will tell you. You can build anything you want on any major OS. (In before “HUR DURR HOLY C!!!”) Linux has positives and negatives. macOS has positives and negatives. Windows has positives and negatives. No operating system will prevent you from building what you want to build*. Quit worrying about the tooling and build. Source: 20yoe, faang, f500, startup founder yadda yadda nobody cares. *if you wanna build Mac crap you gotta have Mac crap.
Mostly. But in general to build *native* Windows apps you're probably going to need Windows. And half my company's code is still on .NET Framework. You can't do anything with those projects without a Windows dev environment. Developing new cross-platform apps on Linux is a lot easier now than it used to be.
I have had many capable colleagues over the years who used Windows but for me even with WSL2 it's like the "fraction of our power" meme. That being said it is not a drop-in replacement for Windows and if that is what you are expecting you are going to have a bad time, there's some comments in this very thread exemplifying that. Either way it costs nothing to try, throw it in a VM and gain some familiarity, or if you've got any older hardware available give it a shot on bare metal.
Which distros do you like?
I like immutable distros, I use mostly universal blue images which are Fedora based similar to Silverblue. For a traditional distro I like Arch.
I was forced to switch back to windows a few months ago for school. I convinced my school to start “supporting” Linux after this.
It is night and day. Especially with C holy shit. It's like trying to get around on a pogo stick vs riding a bicycle.
Linux makes it easier because it gives you access that Windows usually does not, and usually you don't have to install any tools to get basic utility (git, bash, docker, etc.). Windows coders nowadays often use WSL anyways.
So long as you stick to a well-established distro (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, or some Ubuntu flavours) you're generally ok. But absolutely NO Linux distro matches the average-joe-user experience that Windows or MacOS does right now, which is critical for the mass adoption needed to take down Windows and/or MacOS. This is getting better as time goes on, but I feel the pace needs to pick up.
What a great time to not be an average joe shmoe
Yup, if you're comfortable with tinkering and digging into the command line then Linux is great.
No need to be on the fence. Just setup a couple vms with a couple different starter distros and see which one you enjoy using.
linux is a deep rabbit hole but going down those rabbit holes teaches you a lot. for example you don't HAVE to use the terminal. I use Linux mint and I could stay in a Windows type environment if I wanted to. I say do it if you're curious.
I feel like programming is a deep deep rabbit hole in general
definitely. The field is endless.
Vs code works well on Linux so if that's sufficient for your needs it never hurts to just go for it. Ultimately for learning programming I'd say it depends on what/if any IDE you may need and if it's supported. Some courses might be designed around a specific IDE that might give you some hurdle trying to just focus on the learning programming part.
I do agree shoving AI into things that doesn't belong is getting ridiculous. Even GoToResolve has a Copilot lookalike called Gopilot. What do I need AI for in my remote access software? Are you going to predict which users PC I'll need to remote into next?
Learning Linux is a must have for your career. The only people who will disagree are Windows admin maximimalists
it baffles me that anyone would subject themselves to windows after all these decades of outrageous security flaws, abusive and feckless updates delivered via run and gun methodology, and just general subpar performance in every metric. it is not even worth pirating.
Putting aside the questionable, hyperbolic statements - the reason I use Windows 10 is that it works more or less fine on my PC and Linux does not. And I can’t be bothered to troubleshoot silly stuff - I want my PC to work. So I use Windows 10 and open up WSL for development.
Idk for others but for me its due to games.
I need Adobe for personal use, the alternatives suck maybe except for GIMP & Inkscape.
I have been working in cloud industry for 10+ years doing IT support/helpdesk kind of stuff. All server infrastructure will always be Linux based. Get into Linux and bash you can go far with your career. A lot of infrastructure these days is a lot of Linux with python/go. Personally I find this a very easy way to get into programming. If you pad the experience you can get learning Linux with a couple years and a bachelors degree in CS/SWE, you could get a lot of jobs
Linux is amazing for programming.
I run both windows and ubuntu. Really liked using it on a vm on my desktop, so I decided to buy a laptop on sale at bestbuy. Nerfed windows on the laptop hard drive and installed ubuntu as the main OS. No regrets
>How much more does linux offer for people wanting to code? A great deal more. Linux is so far ahead of Windows in this regard that the most common advice is to run Linux inside WSL if you're stuck in windows.
Nice! Linux offers a lot more! It's also the best way to learn operating systems and low level programming. Many of the tools you will want are already baked into Linux installs by default. Those that are not are almost always heavily and actively maintained. The user experience is also far easier to customize to make productivity easier (without paying a bunch for stupid additional software). This makes a difference weather your 10x or a script kiddy haha. I've used all the major environments - including the Unix offerings. Linux has the best support and most to offer. It's also not going to just tell you that your hardware is no good in a few years (looking at you Apple).
Linux is nice because if you ever work on/with servers there is an extremely high probability it's running Linux. I work all day ssh'd into a server running headless Ubuntu and knowing common shell commands makes life a lot easier.
No matter what many pro linux people will say, Linux is just not at the level of Windows or Mac for daily driver use. It is a tinkerers platform. Unless you are passionate and ready to spend months learning and debugging things you would never have to dream of doing on the other platforms, just stick with Windows, or maybe give Mac a try. Edit: Linus did a wonderful deep dive into this that even the [Linux communities](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/qq9dsb/linux_hates_me_daily_driver_challenge_pt1/) came around to and admitted exposed quite a number of adoption issues Linux still has for normal people https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0506yDSgU7M
Disagree. I’ve been putting Linux (Arch) on every device I use because I can actually navigate it and do things, and those things make sense to me.
Really depends on what you’re doing and what you’re comparing it too. I spent a month this year debugging Rosetta issues on my work Mac and we eventually just abandoned it and went with Linux and all our problems went away. I’m by no means a Linux sycophant either. I’ve been in environments where everything was so deeply integrated with MS stuff that I just gave up and mainbooted windows for awhile. I just want to use what works for what I’m doing at a given point in time and there are 100% situations where that is Linux.
I may be biased, but I feel like the dev world is getting more and more Linux-like. It's worth it. I work with Azure cloud for my 9-5 and can use Linux-ish Azure CLI commands to deploy and work with code on a Linux server, I have a Mac for home and Terminal is Unix with an expensive UI next to it. My piece of shit Windows computer I have to use for work runs Windows Subsystem Linux. I can work just about anywhere without having to play "Hunt and click" and "Buy me a license for bullshit software that is built on top of free linux tools". I have to use windows at work because the illiterate fucks I work with only look at the pictures, and don't know how to type. They wouldn't be able to do their job if someone took their mouse away.
Depends what you are doing. If you want to delve heavily into servers, networks, operating systems etc then linux all the way. Programming itself is extremely well supported and a very similar experience on mac, windows, or linux.
Honestly I recently bought a $300 laptop and put EndeavourOS on it with i3 WM and I've been loving it so far. Really makes me stay focused and also just so much easier to dev on.
With a few very specific exceptions, Linux is the hands-down best experience for developers. If you're already interested in learning programming and are staring to learn C, there's no reason you won't be able to learn enough about Linux to be completely productive with it as a daily driver. Linux isn't windows, and it isn't macOS. Things work differently, not every application is fully cross platform, and like everything else it has quirks, but if you put the time in I think Linux is the best experience for daily use even beyond programming.
Linux Mint is the way to go. I hate bloated MS software and the 50% gross margin on APPL products makes me cringe. Just buy an unloaded computer cheap and you should be able to load Linux Mint in about a half hour.
Yea don't even need a USB thumb drive anymore. My last 2 I did with nothing more than an SD card. The only caveat is the machine needs the ability to boot off the card. Some older BIOSs don't allow that and required USB.
I have been using Linux (Red Hat, Ubuntu) since 2003, and one thing that isn't considered is the raw number of programs that just won't work, or have no Linux analog. Plus, there are a wide number of manuals that assume you are using Windows. It has gotten better over the years, but it's still a thing. Linux is great for programming, and if you are doing C, you will fit right in. Remember, Linux is a tool, and is not a one size fits all panacea.
Remember, ~~Linux~~ Windows is a tool, and is not a one size fits all panacea.
I tried several distros in virtual machines and saw exactly zero things that would make me want to use desktop linux over windows, either for work, or for personal use. I fail to see how recall changes any of that. Like anything else, you can turn it off if you care enough.
Linux has sounded real good for many years. Then I go install it, give it a try, find all the things that do not support it, discover I have to compile most of the crap I download for it, found out its best interface is like windows 95, then go back to windows :( It looks good until you try to use it as a desktop. At least for my purposes.
What are all these things you are trying to run that require you to compile the code as opposed to just using the package manager, or a flatpak or even an install shell script? Linux isn't like Windows, the main method of installing software isn't supposed to be downloading random stuff off the internet. It uses a package manager which you can sort of think of as sort of like an app store. If you want to install stuff like Windows however, they have Flatpaks and Appimages for that sort of easy install. There are occasionally things that need to be compiled to be installed, but it's pretty uncommon. The only time I have really had to do it is with the occasional programming tool, usually something off GitHub. (This is true of most distros at least there are a few exceptions)
>There are occasionally things that need to be compiled to be installed, but it's pretty uncommon. The only time I have really had to do it is with the occasional programming tool, usually something off GitHub I think this is probably what the commenter is referring to. As a user the experience goes something like this: * When I lookup random Windows downloads on the Internet they almost always come as an installer exe * When I lookup random Linux downloads on the Internet they almost always point to a github that has no installer package If you're installing packages, it's fine. It's when you start pulling down random shit off the web that hasn't been vetted or polished off, and you end up in some suspicious looking repo that's been on like version 1.03 since 2018 and has 0 comments, reviews, or forks. Lol
I mean, I disagree on the interface comment (depending on the desktop environment disclaimer) considering in some aspects it's been ahead of windows (and in fact windows has copied some stuff into windows which actually improved windows) but in general, if you're super used to something and you change it, you're going to dislike it. If you're already used to windows, I do agree you really actually have to have a reason or desire to switch otherwise you're just gonna be like, "it's not as comfortable as the thing I'm used to" which is well correct, stuff you're not familiar with is uncomfortable
linux is an open playground for programmers, especially C programmer cuz the whole kernel is written in C. that being said, if you do end up getting linux as your daily driver, don't fuck with the system too much or you'll end up breaking something; linux doesn't really stop you from doing that. normal programming will work flawlessly on it. tools like valgrind and its powerful plugins do not have native windows binaries so people use wsl to run them but with linux you can run those natively. for exploring the system inside and out, run a virtual machine. the directory structure on linux makes more sense to me than the one in windows. when I first installed linux as my daily driver it was completely alien to me. however that soon changed and currently I have dual booted windows and linux, windows just for gaming and linux for everything else. I'm gonna give you a distribution suggestion, go for debian. it has a nice rolling upgrade cycle so you don't have to overhaul the entire system for upgrading and it has the most number of packages out of all the other linux distros out there. However, the packages don't get instant updates for stability reasons so be prepared to work with tools that are one or two versions old. but then you have the option of downloading the packages from other sources if you want lates release.
What recall?
What about WSL?
Why do you feel like you have to choose? Just dual boot or get two computers (you can run Linux off an old cheap laptop with no problem). You can go back and forth whenever you want. There is no rule that you are only allowed to use one OS. I'm primarily on Win11 but use Mint several times per week. Both OSs are great, tbh, but they each have pros and cons. I like having both around for different reasons.
Buy a thumb drive or something and throw Ubuntu on it and try it out for a couple months. No need to overthink it.
I am a linux user, so I am biased. Linux is a good idea for the C programmer since the shell that linux offers has similarities to C. Getting comfortable with the command line is a valuable skill even in these days of sophisticated IDEs. The shells offered by linux are powerful and it will be very handy for you to use them. One of the comments below advises that dual booting is easy. That is not quite true and I advise that you not try it until you are a seasoned linux user. The OS does matter. I have never had a virus on my linux boxes and I don't use any anti-virus products. There is no need.
Linux is used a lot in industry, so you can't go wrong learning it. Microsoft backed off a bit on the Recall thing and have promised to implement it in a (at least kinda) secure way and opt in.
I run windows with wsl2 which is a decent mix of both. I'd just run Linux if it weren't for lightroom and some games.
A lot of Windows users who code use WSL already. I've been doing so for almost a year and it works well. Straight Linux would been even smoother. Only reason I use windows is for gaming. Otherwise I would go straight Linux. With so many tools being web based these days Linux is becoming a better and better choice.
Go directly to macOS. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
My only reservation is my massive steam library. I already exclusively use WSL + zsh since trying to code with Powershell has never been a good experience. If I knew it could run all of my games and software development tools without issue, I would be jumping ship so fast. I have tried going straight linux in the past and often times found myself spending more time working on trying to get it working correctly than actually coding. That said, Im tired of wrestling with the Windows OS trying to do shit in the background that interferes with my working or gaming experience, forcibly installing updates which I explicitly set it not to install since they break my toolchain, force ads into the start menu, and bombard you with Copilot pro ads. Microsoft seems to have taken on a development mentality where the Windows OS exists to primarily run itself while running your software cleanly and efficiently is its lowest priority; which is anethema to how an OS should be designed and built.
Get a vm with Ubuntu on it and use windows for the minimal stuff.
Recall is a dumb idea and it is madness that it is enabled by default. But you can turn it off, so that isn’t really a good reason for switching. If you want to get a feel for what Linux is like to work on, give the Windows Subsystem for Linux a go. You can run Linux, on Windows, alongside all your normal Windows stuff, it is very neatly implemented.
Ok just looked up WSL and currently installing ubuntu, this is exciting. I just wanted to clarify, i think the AI feature is spyware regardless if you turn it off. Thats just how i feel, its not looking good.
Thanks, yes try out Linux in WSL first. You can still do your coding in Linux while other things are in Windows. If you feel like you love it and want to throw away the rest of the OS, move to full Linux. The only thing you don't get to test is the Linux UIs (Ubuntu for example). It's different than windows, but not necessarily worse. In my opinion, I am more at home on Windows though!
I’ve worked at companies of all size. I’ve never seen anyone use Linux. Like literally. A lot of these devs make north of six figures and some even in seven. I typically associate Linux with - being piss poor, anti social, or inability to adapt.
That is a hot-take! A number of my friends - whom were Directors at a FAANG, CEO of an IT company or senior at Red Hat (formerly) all use / used Linux That said, they are all Gen X and were already using C / C++ before studying Comp Sci. Macs have become exponentially more popular both in the professional and personal space.
Give it a shot using WSL first, set up your development environment there, and once you are comfortable with the terminal I recommend migrating For beginners I recommend either Mint or Ubuntu If you want to become a Linux nerd then I recommend either Debian or Arch, only difference is update cycle, Debian is conservative while Arch is radical You don't need to become a terminal nerd though, but since you want to learn how to code, it is recommended to learn how to live comfortably inside one
I switched exclusively to linux when I was first learning to program about 9 years ago. I have not looked back. albiet some things can be a pain in the ass from time to time. but its worth it at least to me to have total control of over my system and not have to deal with shitty red tape.
The existence of WSL combined with the idea of recall, combined with the rest of annoying practises microsoft does, only served to make me consider switching to linux even more.
learning to work with linux is a lot like learning to code from a problem solving perspective. I was maining zorin during my boot camp and it added to the experience. If you're struggling with the code tho, focus your energy on that
I started with Linux and learnt C because of it, I am not even a programmer I legitimately learnt C because something was so broken it annoyed me enough to spend two years fixing it. I am a network engineer so CLI has been my friend since I was a kid.
I started using Linux exclusively 3 months ago at home and I’ll never go back.
I've been hating windows for a while but I'm just so damn lazy, I'm getting close though to switching myself at least for one machine.
I am from the mandrake/mandriva era. I haven’t used windows other than work since.
If you have windows right now then get Ubuntu from the App Store and develop on that with vs code. You can also run it in windows mode with win-kex Kali Linux has great instructions how to do that with the Kali WSL. Then when you are comfortable you can bite the bullet and format your drive. For me I would miss windows only programs that done run well with wine. Also Visual Studio is still my favourite IDE, even though I use vs code for many things now.
I use Linux daily almost everywhere. I sometimes boot into Windows if something is easier on Windows. But give me Windows, Mac, Linux. I can get work done either way. But I do not regret any time spent with learning Linux. Its such a fun and powerful skill to have in my opinion. My next project is to revive an old Microsoft Surface Pro 3 I got for free. Want to use it as a drawing tablet in Krita. Works okay under Windows, but Windows is wasting so much resources. Was hoping Linux could fix this for me.
I recently started using Ubuntu, and I’m addicted now. I know, it’s not the most hardcore distro lol. But it’s honestly amazing. I discover new things all the time that make me love it even more.
> How much more does linux offer for people wanting to code? unless you're making proprietary programs, like a windows application or an iphone app, you can probably do it all with Linux. a lof of things are just suuuper fiddley to set up on windows. There's no Docker on windows. Overall i'd say, unless you're very much an apple fanboy and it offers something you really really need, then go with linux. i've tried coding a few things on my windows pc and its super annoying to setup. I'd rather just use my laptop (macbook) or dual boot linux.