I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Windows, is in fact, Adware/NT, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Adware plus NT.
Haha (but in all seriousness, his lack of understanding of the issue was embarrassing, even if he did apologise afterwards; it's like Ballmer: everyone remembers him saying "Linux is a cancer", yet nobody remembers him apologising, when he saw Satya Nadella found a way to make money off Linux, rather than look for ways to tear it down as competition). In both cases these men saw that a change in their stance would allow them to achieve their goals (of promoting free software, and making money, respectively) much more easily).
So here you can see me behaving like the average Linux user, hating on Microsoft and being elitist about my distro, and I'm done ranting about M$.
Neon is more of a testbed than a proper distro (they don't actually even use that word).
Is this "the KDE distro"?
Nope. KDE believes it is important to work with many distributions, as each brings unique value and expertise for their respective users. This is one project out of hundreds from KDE.
Not quite, it's a package archive with the latest KDE software on top of a stable base. While we have installable images, unlike full Linux distributions we're only interested in KDE software.
Which is....still not an OS. It's a distribution. Specifically, it's a fork of Ubuntu. To reiterate what the OP was saying, they're catering to the Windows audience, who understand the concept of a "new Windows version," but who wouldn't understand the concept of a distribution.
What exactly is an OS to you? All distros are operating systems because they ship all the tools and utilities need for the system to function (on top of a package manager).
The fact that the KDE devs didn't write that code themselves doesn't disqualify it from being an OS.
An OS is the interface layer between hardware and software. It's the first code that runs after the boot loader, and it exposes an API for syscalls that allow user processes to allocate typically restricted resources, while also tracking and maintaining those allocated resources, doing process scheduling, and a bunch of other critical tasks.
All distros are operating systems because they ship all the tools and utilities need for the system to function
All distros contain operating systems (or, more accurately, kernels), or, rather, are built on top of them. A distribution is a collection of curated software, along with an init system and, for linux, package manager, and, frequently, a particular desktop environment. These pieces of software are, on some level, superfluous. You can have an OS without them. They don't comprise the OS as a distinct conceptual layer of a computer system, of which there is the hardware, operating system, application, and user layers. The operating system is just Linux - because that is the interface layer between the hardware and software.
Saying "all distros are operating systems" is like saying "all cars are engines." It's just wrong. And I don't care what wikipedia has to say about it.
It's actually not even a distro, according to their own description at least
Is it a distro?
Not quite, it's a package archive with the latest KDE software on top of a stable base. While we have installable images, unlike full Linux distributions we're only interested in KDE software.
They probably feel like the name distribution means more than just slapping a DE on it and basically a PPA. Then again, haven't stopped loads of distros from doing that hah.
Could be another way to discourage people using it as a beginner distro or something.
I found since people are used to app stores, I've had a much easier time convincing people to try out Linux. My mom even said that she always wished her windows PC had a proper app store.
I think it's still important to explain the key difference between an "app store" and a package repository: the latter isn't a "store" because everything is free.
Well hey, as long as these participating devs maintain that their software remains FOSS, I'd pay up. They do a lot of good work, can't do it all for free.
I don't think getting instagram, or photoshop off the microsoft store is giving anyone a virus. And I've never gotten a virus from it in the few times I've used it.
Of course, and much of it is on the app store now (which I rarely use myself), but for someone like OPs mom who just wants an easy app store, well there is one.
When I clicked on new app image, the OS told me, that program /name of app/ will be launched, I clicked "Continue" and it runs! No meddling with "chmod" or anything like that.
Same, I love AppImages for that. I just wish they also had way to contain configurations instead of putting it on the system. That would make it even more portable.
also for non-KDE, non-Gnome systems, there’s appimaged – requires a little more setup, but handles the set executable, automates the AppImage integration (.desktop files and menus), keeps a watch on specific folders for new AppImages, and provides a way to check for updates
I'm saving this. I don't use any appimages (except a cracked Minecraft bedrock launcher but we dont talk about that one), but I'm still going to save this.
I installed Linux a few weeks ago and it was on Tuesday I wanted to add some programs I had installed (it was mGBA and melonDS) to my steam launcher, I went through the hassle of making a . desktop file for both of them (I was dumb and used a Ubuntu based distro, so it installed as a snap, which sucks hard on a hdd) and then it wouldn't launch, I searched up again (I was using chatGPT for all of this, I asked it a lot how to do stuff, it's like this was it's purpose beacuse it always worked first try), did the chmod x+ command and then I was done
There is no install needed, you can just edit permissions and make the file executable and then when you open it or click it the app runs.
What won't be created by default is an application menu to run it from whatever desktop environment you use. You can create those if you wish. You can create a launcher in the menu manually, or you can use a tool called AppImageLauncher to create these for you.
Honestly, if all you've ever experienced in regards to terminals is windows CMD, then you really haven't seen much. I mean that possitively. Actually, it will give you a far worse impression on what using a Linux / Unix terminal can be like (speaking as someone who spent what feel's like years in terminals, of which the least amount in windows CMD).
I suggest to simply play around with a Linux terminal (e.g. install VirtualBox,.then use it to install e.g. Ubuntu, then follow some simple random "Linux terminal beginner tutorial" you can find online).
Package managers are cool right until the moment you need several versions of the same app or several instances of the same version of the same app. Or something is fatally outdated in the repos. I'll stick to my standalone apps, thanks.
If that's a common requirement for you than sure do whatever works for you, I'm more than convinced that Linux has solutions for this, from the top of my head appimages, flatpaks and pkgbuilds. I'm rolling arch without a worry and it's smooth sailing.
On the rare occasions that becomes necessary, I would install the additional versions through the package manager — I think that's easy, at least it's easy for different versions of programming language environments
I'd install additional copies of the same software as standalone or I'd run the additional copies in containers — but I can't think of a use case for that that couldn't be served by running the one copy multiple times
But can it run proprietary software used in the industry? From Excel to Photoshop, if you are in a collaborative professional environment, you can't run away from those, and don't tell me you can use the alternatives in Linux, because no, you can't. This is not linux fault, but it's still an issue you can't handwave.
I love linux, but you can't expect people to adopt it just because it's objectively better than windows.
Work use. The are hardware requirements (XRD machines, potentiostats, CNC machining) and software requirements (3D design). My workshop asks for files in Autodesk Inventor, if I send it in any other format, they just won't fabricate my pieces, and I completely understand, who am I to change the workflow of a complete department just because I refuse to use Inventor (which is provided at work).
You just gotta make an effort. The one who are too lazy will never be free of Microsoft's clutches. Which probably just means pretty much everyone will stick to windows.
It depends on your industry. I'm in an agile development team, working in AWS in Java. I'm not a dev, so my work is in spreadsheets, word processor documents, web utilities like Azure Dev Ops
All that is platform independent, though we have to work on the organisation's computers, so we work in the office on windows PCs or from home on whatever, remoted into a windows machine or VM
The devs work in VMs which are variously windows or GNU/Linux depending on what the person's previous project was.
@desconectado@glibg10b Wine exists... And that's all I have to say. There is a good installer in lutris for creative cloud that works pretty good if you own it. And if you have a NVIDIA graphics card, it works even better, almost like on windows. It's not 1:1 but we're getting close. For excel you have wine again or a great free alternative is WPS or softmaker if you want to buy it.
I wish Wine worked well enough to use Excel. We are not talking about adding up numbers in a cell. Once you include macros, or a reference manager in Word, Wine is not good enough. The same can be said about propietary software, like autocad, or software used to control equipment. Also, good luck convincing a regular user to get familiar with wine.
WPS is great for simple files. Again, not good enough for complex files, especially if it is a corporate collaboration environment. I have lost count on the amount of ppt files that didn't display well when it used WPS.
Every other year I try all the alternatives you mention, hoping they got better, and I always come back to use a dual boot or a virtual machine, which is not a thing your regular user wants to do.
Microsoft has built a proprietary moat around their operating system. The reason why it’s hard to switch from Windows is by corporate design. A mix of early adoption, network effects, and just plain cold hard cash makes them dominate the operating system market. Of course it’s infeasible for your 60yo coworker to switch; but KDE presents an alternate reality, an opportunity, for people fed up with big tech’s bullshit. Yes, figure out how to run and use alternatives you fucking nut. Way to go disparaging countless volunteer hours spent on open source projects so that people like me can switch to linux.
Comments like these make me irrationally angry. Why complain about open source software and give bad PR? It’s open source; contribute.
Read my other replies. 1 and 2 don't really work, the performance of using wine, or the alternatives, is just not there, if you do amateur work, maybe that's fine, but for professional collaborative work, good luck using freecad instead of autocad.
Personally, I use 3 and 4, but you have to understand that the regular user is not going to go through that much hassle to set up a virtual machine.
Meh I had a dual boot machine ages ago. Still here collecting dust. Basically I only switched to use the Linux for down time, movies, and study, most day to day tasks from engineering software to anything I considered important enough that you do not want the results hacked or broken I would use Windows.
I think of modern machines kind of like a hammer. These days almost nobody actually remembers the guy who made the first hammer, or who discovered fire, but there's a price tag for the bow, the paper and the hammer, not so much the making of the hammer, because the actual skill involved or required to learn about it has become challenged if not cheapened to the degree that there are now multiple paths to obtain or create a hammer, yet the benchmark quality of the hammer as well as the process for creation itself as a whole is now more of an authority than the actual original statue or monolith of "hammer man" himself.
This is why I think the many flavours of Ubuntu including the many esoteric Linux distros are still interesting but still lack the diversity of use and specialization. The fact that whole blockchains are built for XYZ while sitting around pumped then dumped to trading at cents with no use goes to show how cloud computing systems and lower level computing is still very disconnected and becoming further thrown aside to uphold ponzi schemes.
I'll give you an example, more money is wasted on onlyfans per year than for people trying to use system XYZ for solving problem A, or curing cancer. Consider that to be one of the "good" reasons many men and women are so misogynistic, even without looking down on sex workers.
Look. Everything is like a hammer, in terms of specialization. From Linux distros to gender roles, if you want to understand the world, just look at the hammer. We live in the Hammer Age. It is hammer time.
You can look up beer recipes and buy equipment and ingredients from it though. And use web based or spreadsheet calculators on it to do beer related calculations
That beer is also not free, but assuming you make beer for a long time the price per pint (half litre to split the difference between UK and US pints) tends toward about 20c (though highly hopped beers like hazy pale ale can get towards a dollar a pint) which is pretty cheap
This is kinda how I feel about Windows these days. It's interface, directory structure, shudder the registry, user specific apps (from MS Store or Winget), buttons being inserted into the menu bars on some apps, but not others, button sizes being different sizes, some parts still using the Metro interface. The whole thing either needs a re-write, or should be dropped and something new to replace it. Don't even get me started on things like the eventvwr hanging for 20 seconds after it opens, event tracer API, their in-house abandonment of powershell modules once powershell was open sourced, Windows containers being a disaster, etc.
The problem is that so much critical infrastructure around the world relies on ancient Windows software. I’m pretty sure their backwards compatibility is one of the reasons there’s so much inconsistency in Windows, and every iteration seems to just add more bloat on top.
They hired the man behind systemd (controversial, I know, but he does have a vision). I hope they listen to him and/or he starts directing how they should do things from the ground-up.
There was a TCP/IP bug that shared it's exploit on versions of windows from windows for workgroups 3.11 (which you ran from the DOS prompt by typing 'win') through to windows 7 (which was the new hotness at the time)
That's a bug conserved from the very first Microsoft implementation of TCP/IP through to the state of the art at the time
People were surprised at the time that it wasn't a windows NT bug
Yeah, but that old technology is what still lets me run a 13 year old version of Adobe creative suite. If that ever changes I will have to learn something new!
So basically ever since I first tried Windows 7 I held it as the "Gold standard" for desktop OS's. Half my tweaks to Windows 10 were trying to get it as close to Win7 as I possibly could.
When I finally start experimenting with Linux early this year KDE quickly got me to reconsider my "Gold standard" and finally switch my main machine fully to Linux.
No regrets and certainly ain't switching back even if Microsoft gave me updated Windows 7 with every extra feature I wanted back then.
I've been a Linux user for a decade and a half now, but still use Windows on my corporate laptops. Honestly, it's baffling how Microsoft seem to consistently manage to miss the mark with the UI design. There's lots to be said about the underlying internals of Windows vs Linux, performance, kernel design etc., but even at the shallow, end user, "is this thing pleasant to use" stakes, they just never manage to get it right.
Windows 7 was...fine. It was largely inoffensive from a shell point of view, although things about how config and settings were handled were still pretty screwy. But Windows 8 was an absolutely insane approach to UI design, Windows 10 spent an awful lot of energy just trying to de-awful it without throwing the whole thing out, and Windows 11 is missing basic UI features that even Windows 7 had.
When you look at their main commercial competition (Mac and Chromebook) or the big names in Linux (GNOME, KDE, plenty of others besides), they stand out as a company that simply can't get it right, despite having more resources to throw at it than the rest of them put together.
To me it's absurd how Microsoft gets beaten by a free desktop environment when windows is like their main product. They have billions of dollars. How do they manage to not do better?
It seems like a big company's problem. They have a well-paid design\marketing department that can do whatever they want to create the best-selling interface for the new version of Windows, but before it's released, no one tested it yet for anything but bugs, and who'd argue with a flock of top designers anyway? Add here the board of directors who are here to sell them ideas and who won't use it either – I'm sure they applauded to the idea of unifying mobile and desktop experience with WinPhone&Win8, but especially Tablet-Laptop transformers they saw as the future. It sounds great on the paper, right? At that time it could've even sounded obvious for their business. And so it happened like it did.
Linux counters it by constant feedback and competition between easily switchable DEs, users being prepared even to jump distros; Apple has a fetish for style and experience (that's a half of their pricetag), they build their business model about looking and feel nice, so you'd build an ecosystem of their products, you can't even see error windows here and their garden is gated af; and ChromeOS\Android aren't shy of looking what others do (like iPhone's design findings) and conservatively taking what works, also having tons of vendor-created restyles\forks on their own platform as a testing ground for new ideas to make them then a standard. MS lack all of it, and their creative process is guided by external interests and ideals, it's just an afterthought. And as they have their stable market share, they probably won't even care. It took whole internet's screams to return their traditional start menu in win8.1, then w10.
That'd probably stay the same until their new CEO would happen to be an art college graduate - like the current one pushed for accessebility and building special controllers because she has a child with a disability. A top-down signal. I won't bet on it anytime soon.
What drives me crazy is how they can't update all their configuration interface to the same standard, if you go deep enough you still fine things that are unchanged since Windows 98
The fact that Windows 11 has removed the ability to move the taskbar and has no intention of adding it back is just baffling to me. It's a small thing but so jarring every time I try to use it that I've barely used my desktop in the last few months.
Haha, I remember buying Mandrake Linux CDs...
I'm a FreeBSD user these days (for the past 20-odd years) but still run KDE. Plus they're still trying to remain fairly *nix agnostic which is nice.
Oh shit, I remember LiteStep and spending hours and hours to just fiddle with how my desktop looked. I personally felt Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of MS OSs (except so many games etc. wouldn't run because rightly the OS reported it was Windows NT and a lot of games shat themselves at that)
Idk if I would say it's looks > usability, and it's certainly not gaudy... There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the "riced" look.
It's an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a "beautiful utilitarian" - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.
I came back to KDE after a long absence because I never liked it back in the day (I found it ugly and bloated). I was really surprised by how good it has become. It's now my favourite desktop environment on Linux, and I'm looking forward to version 6. So to any other oldies still avoiding KDE because of how it used to be, it's worth another look.
I second your experience.
It was not so impressive back then and 2indo2s was much nicer, but not anymore.
I'm feeling it, this year Linux will be on top!
Here I am thinking there's some obscure Linux project using a name that's somehow a sequel to Windows, like a Windows 2, but also a play on the 2__4me meme.
Oh, this is good news for me. I remember trying KDE years ago and feeling that it was just way too heavy. My goto is usually Cinnamon, but the lack of Wayland support has made me hesitant to go all in with out on my gaming PC. Def gonna give KDE a try, thanks!
Cinnamon was where I had ended up too. So now I have a couple of Linux Mint/Cinnamon machines and a Tumbleweed/KDE machine. It surprised me that I like KDE more.
I have been enjoying OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a rolling distro unlike the Ubuntu and Debian derivatives, but the updates hardly ever cause problems and it's very easy to roll them back if they do. It also gives you a choice between X11 and Wayland, and Wayland is working well for me on Intel graphics.
I jumped into Tumbleweed recently and have really been liking it. Last time I used Linux with a desktop environment I was using Gnome and KDE was a lot unglier. Things have definitely changed.
KDE Neon gets the latest package updates regarding KDE first but it is not official in any sense, as listed on their website. In fact, Neon is just a package archive built on top of Ubuntu that offers more up to date KDE stuff.
I have used the distro as a daily driver in the past. It uses it's own pkgcon package management system.
I'm using Kubuntu as my main OS and it has been very stable for me. You can remove snapd and install the deb Firefox repository. You should look up tutorials on how to do it, I did it and nothing broke
I for one hope to move from kubuntu to debian with KDE, I assume that won't have snap shit or systemd shit, but I might be painfully mistaken right there, I haven't checked it out yet.
Debian does use systemd, but what's so bad about it? I'm just curious, I'm using Arch with KDE, and that also uses systemd. Never had any issues with it.
Debian doesn't use snap by default though.
KDE nerds: Is there a way to get a normal app launch indicator (cursor with a loading icon/hourglass) instead of either nothing or the little hopping icons that don't animate right?
I don't know about an hourglass specifically, but there are some options. Should be in system settings, applications, launch feedback and/or busy cursor.
No. Some people wanted to change it to that for Plasma 6, but on Xorg there's apparently no way to make that happen, as the cursor is always decided on by the window you're hovering over...
Oh, I see, thank you! Never noticed the cursor changing back when I put it over another window in XFCE, but I also never looked for that. I really just want that brief feedback, especially when I'm using a touchpad.
Unlike Windows and MacOS, the Linux ecosystem is a lot more modular. For example, graphical user interfaces. There are a few types, ranging from ruthlessly simple tiling window managers to more complex desktop environments that more closely resemble the Windows or MacOS experience.
Linux users may take their pick between about a dozen desktop environments (DEs), including Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, xfce and LXQT.
KDE (once standing for Kool Desktop Environment, now merely KDE) is a community/organization that produces open source software. They made Krita, a raster art program, KDENLIVE, a video editor, and many other such utilities. They also make the Plasma desktop environment, which is often referred to simply as "KDE" by distro maintainers. For example, you might download Fedora GNOME or Fedora KDE.
KDE Neon is an operating system maintained by KDE which features the Plasma desktop.
The kind of thing you interact outside of installed app/programs. Like the panels, window decorations (titles, close buttom, maximalize button), the way windows float and behave, system settings, etc.
Unix systems (like Linux) are very modular and you can install different desktop environments if you want. And even within those desktops are modules, like you can install different "start menu" or file manager on KDE Plasma.
raises pendantic finger Ah-hem, sorry, but KDE Plasma isn't an OS. It's a desktop environment. For an OS bundled/built-around Plasma then Kubuntu or KDE Neon are both Linux distributions that would better fit that description.
Things are more interesting in the Linux world. Plasma is just a user interface, a desktop environment. The actual operating system is Linux. And we have so many choices for how we want our desktop environment on Linux, but Plasma is the most advanced one.
Oh sure, defending people who aren't even willing to read the text of the post while also attacking the one who complains about that circumstance is better, right?
Well, although usually it's a good idea to read the original post first, in this instance the original post is at best misleading because it refers to Plasma as an "operating system" rather than a desktop environment.
(Or for those who want to use even more precise terminology: its full name is either "Plasma Desktop" or "KDE Plasma Desktop", because KDE also has some non-desktop environments such as Plasma Mobile and Plasma Bigscreen... none of which are as popular as Plasma Desktop, though, so usually Plasma Desktop is colloquially called just "Plasma".)
I never said anything regarding the truth of the original posts claim; it's just irritating when people start asking questions without even reading what was initially written.
Yeah like they (the Windows sheeple) celebrated a CLI package manager as if it was their best invention since sliced bread. Every Linux user was like yaaawwwn... "finally"
Like, I get the self-reinforcing bubble that Linux communities exist in and all, but... nobody did that.
The vast majority of Windows users are random people that never touch anything beyond the Start menu in their entire computing lives. What segment of the Windows userbase is out there celebrating any features, let alone command line anything? This is not a thing. At least not in numbers large enough to matter.
Sorry, I try not to get involved in these arguments. Frankly, grown adults taking sides on operating systems of all things like it's Sega vs Nintendo in a 90s playground seems very strange but I don't begrudge people finding communities wherever. It's just... you know, come on.
As someone who needs to do initial installs on computers with 10-20, I celebrated. It is much easier to type names of the programs and the manager do anything instead of manually downloading installers.
But turned out WinGet is really badly done.
As for preferences, for some this is actually Nintendo vs Sega unfortunetly. But don't underestimate moral decitions too.
Sysadmins very commonly make a lot of use out of automating things with Powershell and various utilities that work with it.
Given that a pretty decent sized portion (I'd assume at least, no numbers to back that up sadly) of the Linux user base tends to be "cut from the same cloth" in terms of having the passion to automate (and heavily customize) their system - I would think this is why you see this sentiment repeated often.
Currently, dual booting Fedora and Windows 11 on my Asus gaming laptop, and I love Fedora, but it's still not full sailing. Every other boot the wifi card doesn't register and I have to reboot, others the OS freezes even though Grub doesn't but nothing actually opens or closes, and lastly if the laptop is on battery and goes into hibernation, waking it up takes around 5-10 minutes. To add that gaming is still not as smooth as it is with windows, and I still have a use for Windows pOS.
Can I use MS Office natively with that? Also, can I use it as a non-techie lay man in a way that is similar to the way most office bottom-feeders use Windows?
I know there is Open Office but I am lawyer and the free office alternatives just don't have the rich formatting options I need to do my job. I have tried and they just won't do.
Last I used it, it seemed to lack a lot of more advanced features. I think I especially stumbled over the bibliography, though I did not use any add-ons.
First of all, libre office is very competent but I understand that it'll always be very behind whetever Microsoft decides to do next.
Office is available on all systems at office365.com if you must use Microsoft tools.
For the non-tech usage, very much yes. Most of the problems your hear about with linux stem from people trying to make it do stuff that you can't dream of doing on windows because it will stop you. Simply installing a system and using it to browse the web, edit documents, maybe install a few popular programs like VLC or Discord is set-and forget. System installers have recently gotten much more noob-friendly as well, imo the debian and Pop!OS installers don't really allow you to mess up. KDE is a good choice of DE, but you might be more confortable with others. Good news, you can decide later, as switching desktop Environments is easy and preserves your files.
In my opinion, it stacks up VERY well, even better, except the toolbar is by-default a mess for some reason while there's a very easy option to set it to tabbed.
How does the UI size work out for you? I recently took a look at it on a windows pc and the tiny size of most things is the one problem I have with it. Then again, I read something about being able to scale different programs individually somewhere (not for windows though)
My take: Linux users (including myself) are biased. While we would love to share our enthusiasm for Linux with others the simple truth is NO, you cannot just use Linux in the same way you would use Windows. We would argue the Linux way is just as easy not easier in a lot of ways. But it is a different system with a different way of doing things and if you are not prepared to learn anything new then it will bite you eventually.
And you can't use MS Office natively either. And no, Office 365 is not exactly equivalent nor is LibreOffice.
That being said I haven't used Windows outside of work in years and if you're interested and have some kind of technical knowledge or interest I would highly recommend it. It usually takes a couple of attempts before it "sticks".
ToC via Styles formatting and Table of authorities - these are from the top of my head, which I remember not working properly with Open Office. They need to work when I do them and also should be displayed correctly when I receive them from colleagues in docx format.
Format painter, track changes, spell checker in two languages, intendation adjustments, page breaks, and paste as text - I use these like crazy but I don't remember if they were OK in Open Office or not.
honestly Libreoffice is not on par with MS Office. I use MS at work and Linux at home and Libreoffice is great for general use, but it is very rough around the edges, and does not have all the capability that MS does. I wish it were not the case but lack of an excellent office suite is one weaknesses of Linux.
Me still trying to figure out how to get it to auto start / auto login on boot on my fresh new Raspberry Pi 5 without locking up at a flashing cursor screen: 😩
What about other software? XD, Illustrator, Lightroom, etc. What about cross communication between them? Can I see my imported vectors change instantly in Photoshop when I change them in Illustrator? The problem with industrial applications like tools from Adobe is that just running one app alone is not enough.
Photoshop is now available in the browser. Just Excel (not always, sometimes LibreOffice Calc with VBA compatibility does the trick), the other Adobe Creative Cloud applications, and some other Windows-only software (for example I dual boot Windows, because of advanced game macros written in AHK that don't work on Linux via wine or ahk_x11, and I have failed in porting or rewriting them (it's too big of a task, there is a whole team behind the actual macro). So... still some reasoms to run Windows, but fhese reasons are decreasing.
Adobe software, MS Office, CAD software, video editors, audio editors, etc. Pretty much none of the industrial software works on Linux. If you do any kind of work on a workstation, you need either Windows or Mac. The only exception to this rule is Blender.
You'd be surprised how much Linux is growing in the video & audio production industry. It may not be the defacto but it's certainly gaining popularity.
For example, we got PreSonus not too long ago.
!
Not to mention that Hollywood prefers Linux; why Maya, Houdini, Softimage, etc. are on Linux
!<
Hollywood doesn't use Linux, Hollywood offloads rendering to render farms, which run on Linux. Thus my point: the only professional use for Linux is servers. No one in their sane mind want to fuck around NVIDIA drivers on Linux to colour grade a scene.
The claim that Hollywood doesn't use Linux and only offloads rendering to Linux-based render farms is false. In reality, 95% of the desktops, laptops, and servers used at big-budget movie production studios such as Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks Animation/SKG, Sony, and ILM run on Linux.
Linux is considered state-of-the-art in Hollywood, and a lot of the internal proprietary software created by these studios are either cross-platform or Linux-only. Major studios have ported millions of lines of proprietary code to Linux and continue to develop primarily for Linux. Additionally, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has teamed up with the Linux Foundation to launch the Academy Software Foundation.
Regarding the claim about NVIDIA drivers on Linux, while it's true that dealing with NVIDIA drivers on Linux can be challenging, professionals in the industry custom build their systems to minimize issues and still use Linux for tasks such as color grading scenes.
It's unlikely they use DaVinci Resolve in their major production workflow, they develop their own internal tools with patients up the ass. These Major studios are in direct competition with each other, they're not going to freely give away their trade secrets just like that; it'd end up getting reverse engineered. We know they primarily use Linux because they've (each) publicly stated so on multiple occasions.
As well as their public contributions to Open Source that point to this conclusion. For example, the previously mentioned Academy SoftWare Foundation(ASWF) provides a platform for open source software developers in the media and entertainment industry to share resources and work together on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation, and sound production. The founding members of the ASWF include Blue Sky Studios, Cisco, DreamWorks Animation, Epic Games, Google Cloud, Intel, Walt Disney Studios, and Weta. Over 80% of the film production industry uses and produces open source software, most especially for visual effects and animation.
You're casually blowing off two of the main reasons why I still have to use Windows.
Is there a Linux alternative to Excel that will allow me to reliably write and execute VBA macros that I can then deploy to my windows using co-workers?
Is there a Linux alternative to Photoshop? Doesn't even need to be the most current version. I'd be happy with something that is functionally comparable to Photoshop 7.
I'm not being glib with those questions either. It's been probably ten years since I've really used Linux. If there are legitimate alternatives I'd absolutely give it another go.
And then I have to install a windows vm to be able to play all my games properly.
And the practical benefit of switching is basically zero for the normal user
Kinda weird that they're calling it an OS, but ig they're just trying to cater to the windows audience
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Windows, is in fact, Adware/NT, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Adware plus NT.
Adware + New Technology (from the 1990s)
It's time to write free software and defend rapists, and I'm all out of programming talent
Haha (but in all seriousness, his lack of understanding of the issue was embarrassing, even if he did apologise afterwards; it's like Ballmer: everyone remembers him saying "Linux is a cancer", yet nobody remembers him apologising, when he saw Satya Nadella found a way to make money off Linux, rather than look for ways to tear it down as competition). In both cases these men saw that a change in their stance would allow them to achieve their goals (of promoting free software, and making money, respectively) much more easily).
So here you can see me behaving like the average Linux user, hating on Microsoft and being elitist about my distro, and I'm done ranting about M$.
I use Arch BTW.
I don't :(
You can't say that without explaining the reference. How can they be one of the lucky 10 000 when they still don't get it?
What if you're running KDE stuff on *BSD. Or on Windows, for that matter...
(eg: I use Kate on windows as my primary text editor on my work computer...)
KDE neon is what they're selling
Selling as in advertising, I might add. Neon is free
Neon is more of a testbed than a proper distro (they don't actually even use that word).
It's a proper distro, that's just saying it's not THE official one
Uhm
https://neon.kde.org/faq#is-it-a-distro
Oh ok
Which is....still not an OS. It's a distribution. Specifically, it's a fork of Ubuntu. To reiterate what the OP was saying, they're catering to the Windows audience, who understand the concept of a "new Windows version," but who wouldn't understand the concept of a distribution.
What exactly is an OS to you? All distros are operating systems because they ship all the tools and utilities need for the system to function (on top of a package manager).
The fact that the KDE devs didn't write that code themselves doesn't disqualify it from being an OS.
An OS is the interface layer between hardware and software. It's the first code that runs after the boot loader, and it exposes an API for syscalls that allow user processes to allocate typically restricted resources, while also tracking and maintaining those allocated resources, doing process scheduling, and a bunch of other critical tasks.
All distros contain operating systems (or, more accurately, kernels), or, rather, are built on top of them. A distribution is a collection of curated software, along with an init system and, for linux, package manager, and, frequently, a particular desktop environment. These pieces of software are, on some level, superfluous. You can have an OS without them. They don't comprise the OS as a distinct conceptual layer of a computer system, of which there is the hardware, operating system, application, and user layers. The operating system is just Linux - because that is the interface layer between the hardware and software.
Saying "all distros are operating systems" is like saying "all cars are engines." It's just wrong. And I don't care what wikipedia has to say about it.
It's actually not even a distro, according to their own description at least
Sounds like a distribution that they don't want to call a linux distribution.
They probably feel like the name distribution means more than just slapping a DE on it and basically a PPA. Then again, haven't stopped loads of distros from doing that hah.
Could be another way to discourage people using it as a beginner distro or something.
I mean, there's over a thousand linux distributions already and it feels like they just don't want it to be another drop of water in the ocean.
I feel like they intended to mention KDE neon (which is the official KDE distro).
"But can Linux install things via a single .exe file? HAHAH EAT IT NERD!"
- 10'ish years ago past me, before discovering the magical wonders of the package manager
I found since people are used to app stores, I've had a much easier time convincing people to try out Linux. My mom even said that she always wished her windows PC had a proper app store.
I think it's still important to explain the key difference between an "app store" and a package repository: the latter isn't a "store" because everything is free.
True but it helps get the concept across so much.
Thst might change with Flathub's ambitions to become an actual app store though
Did I just heard that right? Flathub wants to charge for software?
Yes. Flathub wants to become a platform where people and companies can sell their software
Well hey, as long as these participating devs maintain that their software remains FOSS, I'd pay up. They do a lot of good work, can't do it all for free.
But Windows does have an app store, and has for ages now.
Yeah but it's awful, and can only install UWP apps which are just plain bad
When is the last time you've used it? Microsoft opened it up and now you can find all types of non UWP apps in it.
Still ass though.
Just install/update App Installer and use winget.
Most of them are, but there are non UWP apps on there too.
Sure, but pretty much every common application most people use is available, which is fine for the majority of people such as OPs mom.
What crap machine are you running? I can open the store on my Surface 3 I've had for nearly a decade.
I don't think getting instagram, or photoshop off the microsoft store is giving anyone a virus. And I've never gotten a virus from it in the few times I've used it.
It’s not that good. It’s ok (especially now that it’s been unshackled from the hell of UWP), but it’s not as good as most Linux options.
For someone like OPs mom it would be more than good enough is my point. She's saying she wished something existed that does indeed exist.
Windows has also had a variety of freeware since before there was never an app store
Of course, and much of it is on the app store now (which I rarely use myself), but for someone like OPs mom who just wants an easy app store, well there is one.
With app images it's easier than installing. Although the chmod step will deter the typical windows user
What chmod step?
When I clicked on new app image, the OS told me, that program /name of app/ will be launched, I clicked "Continue" and it runs! No meddling with "chmod" or anything like that.
Same, I love AppImages for that. I just wish they also had way to contain configurations instead of putting it on the system. That would make it even more portable.
ELF and .sh files need to be set executable,
chmod +x file, before they can be run, unless your DE does that for youDunno about appimages
KDE does exactly like that
(I am using MX Linux)
At least for Ubuntu, you do need to set the permissions of the AppImage before it'll launch.
I still haven't figured out how to make .desktop files work yet.
With file managers, for example in thunar, you can select Properties -> Permissions -> Allow this file to run as a program
also for non-KDE, non-Gnome systems, there’s appimaged – requires a little more setup, but handles the set executable, automates the AppImage integration (
.desktopfiles and menus), keeps a watch on specific folders for new AppImages, and provides a way to check for updatesI'm saving this. I don't use any appimages (except a cracked Minecraft bedrock launcher but we dont talk about that one), but I'm still going to save this.
I installed Linux a few weeks ago and it was on Tuesday I wanted to add some programs I had installed (it was mGBA and melonDS) to my steam launcher, I went through the hassle of making a . desktop file for both of them (I was dumb and used a Ubuntu based distro, so it installed as a snap, which sucks hard on a hdd) and then it wouldn't launch, I searched up again (I was using chatGPT for all of this, I asked it a lot how to do stuff, it's like this was it's purpose beacuse it always worked first try), did the chmod x+ command and then I was done
Just to see it not launch :/
How do you actually install an AppImage? I figured out how to use them, but not how to install them.
You don't install them. You just give them the permission to run and then run them.
There is no install needed, you can just edit permissions and make the file executable and then when you open it or click it the app runs.
What won't be created by default is an application menu to run it from whatever desktop environment you use. You can create those if you wish. You can create a launcher in the menu manually, or you can use a tool called AppImageLauncher to create these for you.
There's a pretty good explanation here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1311600/add-an-appimage-application-to-the-top-menu-bar
Not to mention Flatpaks.
I still am intimidated by the terminal as I've only had slight experience with CMD
Honestly, if all you've ever experienced in regards to terminals is windows CMD, then you really haven't seen much. I mean that possitively. Actually, it will give you a far worse impression on what using a Linux / Unix terminal can be like (speaking as someone who spent what feel's like years in terminals, of which the least amount in windows CMD).
I suggest to simply play around with a Linux terminal (e.g. install VirtualBox,.then use it to install e.g. Ubuntu, then follow some simple random "Linux terminal beginner tutorial" you can find online).
The Windows Terminal is absolute Garbage. I tried to use it for some very simple stuff and it was such a trash experience. It just feels wrong.
Don't worry about the terminal until or unless you have something to do that needs it, then follow a guide
Incidentally if a guide tells you to run a program in terminal, you can check what that program is supposed to do
Package managers are cool right until the moment you need several versions of the same app or several instances of the same version of the same app. Or something is fatally outdated in the repos. I'll stick to my standalone apps, thanks.
That's gonna be janky on Windows too depending on the app.
Such apps are quite rare.
If that's a common requirement for you than sure do whatever works for you, I'm more than convinced that Linux has solutions for this, from the top of my head appimages, flatpaks and pkgbuilds. I'm rolling arch without a worry and it's smooth sailing.
On the rare occasions that becomes necessary, I would install the additional versions through the package manager — I think that's easy, at least it's easy for different versions of programming language environments
I'd install additional copies of the same software as standalone or I'd run the additional copies in containers — but I can't think of a use case for that that couldn't be served by running the one copy multiple times
Windows 11 takes your money, gives you ads, sells your information and ignores your bug reports and feature requests
KDE is free, ad-free and open to contribution
I think we have a clear winner here
But can it run proprietary software used in the industry? From Excel to Photoshop, if you are in a collaborative professional environment, you can't run away from those, and don't tell me you can use the alternatives in Linux, because no, you can't. This is not linux fault, but it's still an issue you can't handwave.
I love linux, but you can't expect people to adopt it just because it's objectively better than windows.
Wine can run most of those, not all. You can still dual boot Windows if you need to (VMs are an option, but they aren’t always the best).
I mean, that's what I do. Will I be able to convince my 60 yo colleague that had been using the same workflow for decades? No, not a chance.
Are you talking about for work or home usage? And do they have any specific proprietary application/hardware requirements?
Work use. The are hardware requirements (XRD machines, potentiostats, CNC machining) and software requirements (3D design). My workshop asks for files in Autodesk Inventor, if I send it in any other format, they just won't fabricate my pieces, and I completely understand, who am I to change the workflow of a complete department just because I refuse to use Inventor (which is provided at work).
But you understand that's a massive Ballache to deal with on top of your normal workload?
I haven't tried running anything new, but the stuff I have run in wine has worked easily, without any tweaking
You just gotta make an effort. The one who are too lazy will never be free of Microsoft's clutches. Which probably just means pretty much everyone will stick to windows.
That's my point, I use linux as much as I can, but if 80% of your colleagues use Windows... You don't have much choice.
It depends on your industry. I'm in an agile development team, working in AWS in Java. I'm not a dev, so my work is in spreadsheets, word processor documents, web utilities like Azure Dev Ops
All that is platform independent, though we have to work on the organisation's computers, so we work in the office on windows PCs or from home on whatever, remoted into a windows machine or VM
The devs work in VMs which are variously windows or GNU/Linux depending on what the person's previous project was.
I use linux 50% of my time, I'm not going to ditch my job so I can use it 100%, lol. What kind of advice is that for someone who wants to use linux.
@desconectado @glibg10b Wine exists... And that's all I have to say. There is a good installer in lutris for creative cloud that works pretty good if you own it. And if you have a NVIDIA graphics card, it works even better, almost like on windows. It's not 1:1 but we're getting close. For excel you have wine again or a great free alternative is WPS or softmaker if you want to buy it.
I wish Wine worked well enough to use Excel. We are not talking about adding up numbers in a cell. Once you include macros, or a reference manager in Word, Wine is not good enough. The same can be said about propietary software, like autocad, or software used to control equipment. Also, good luck convincing a regular user to get familiar with wine.
WPS is great for simple files. Again, not good enough for complex files, especially if it is a corporate collaboration environment. I have lost count on the amount of ppt files that didn't display well when it used WPS.
Every other year I try all the alternatives you mention, hoping they got better, and I always come back to use a dual boot or a virtual machine, which is not a thing your regular user wants to do.
List of things to consider
Comments like these make me irrationally angry. Why complain about open source software and give bad PR? It’s open source; contribute.
Read my other replies. 1 and 2 don't really work, the performance of using wine, or the alternatives, is just not there, if you do amateur work, maybe that's fine, but for professional collaborative work, good luck using freecad instead of autocad.
Personally, I use 3 and 4, but you have to understand that the regular user is not going to go through that much hassle to set up a virtual machine.
There are enough web based office instances running for Linux to be functional in that regard.
Photoshop on the other hand...
Photopea is a solid replacement.
GIMP will be great once it no longer needs to dodge patents
Audio players work great now MP3 is out of patent (before that MP3 was really only available if you were willing to ignore the patent)
Excel o,O
Meh I had a dual boot machine ages ago. Still here collecting dust. Basically I only switched to use the Linux for down time, movies, and study, most day to day tasks from engineering software to anything I considered important enough that you do not want the results hacked or broken I would use Windows.
I think of modern machines kind of like a hammer. These days almost nobody actually remembers the guy who made the first hammer, or who discovered fire, but there's a price tag for the bow, the paper and the hammer, not so much the making of the hammer, because the actual skill involved or required to learn about it has become challenged if not cheapened to the degree that there are now multiple paths to obtain or create a hammer, yet the benchmark quality of the hammer as well as the process for creation itself as a whole is now more of an authority than the actual original statue or monolith of "hammer man" himself.
This is why I think the many flavours of Ubuntu including the many esoteric Linux distros are still interesting but still lack the diversity of use and specialization. The fact that whole blockchains are built for XYZ while sitting around pumped then dumped to trading at cents with no use goes to show how cloud computing systems and lower level computing is still very disconnected and becoming further thrown aside to uphold ponzi schemes.
I'll give you an example, more money is wasted on onlyfans per year than for people trying to use system XYZ for solving problem A, or curing cancer. Consider that to be one of the "good" reasons many men and women are so misogynistic, even without looking down on sex workers.
I... what? What does Ubuntu have to do with misogyny?
This post reminded me to take my meds.
Get a life and stop trying to diagnose people via any observable behaviour. One day you'll understand child lol
Look. Everything is like a hammer, in terms of specialization. From Linux distros to gender roles, if you want to understand the world, just look at the hammer. We live in the Hammer Age. It is hammer time.
No but yes it's a useful analogy
Because plot twists and funny 🤣 nobody cares
Not to mention free as in freedom.
Also free as in beer.
Sadly there's no beer in it however
You can look up beer recipes and buy equipment and ingredients from it though. And use web based or spreadsheet calculators on it to do beer related calculations
That beer is also not free, but assuming you make beer for a long time the price per pint (half litre to split the difference between UK and US pints) tends toward about 20c (though highly hopped beers like hazy pale ale can get towards a dollar a pint) which is pretty cheap
That's probably for the better.
But not free as in Murica.
You could get Ubuntu in a free like America style
But in America, Freedom isn't free.
Buck'o'five.
Canonical will sell you an Ubuntu
I'm guessing you have no idea what Team America is.
And anytime you mention that anywhere when somebody is being fucked again by windows, people find you annoying
But can it play Starfield with an Nvidia GPU? I originally had popos on my PC until Starfield came out, I had to switch to Windows to play.
https://www.protondb.com/app/1716740
In a nutshell; it works with a lot of tweaks.
I mean Starfield was just terrible optimized for Nvidia at launch and still isn't ideal no matter what OS you use.
I play it on max settings with no problems on windows
Linux is the modern OS and windows is just a bunch of old shitty technology in a trench suit.
This is kinda how I feel about Windows these days. It's interface, directory structure, shudder the registry, user specific apps (from MS Store or Winget), buttons being inserted into the menu bars on some apps, but not others, button sizes being different sizes, some parts still using the Metro interface. The whole thing either needs a re-write, or should be dropped and something new to replace it. Don't even get me started on things like the eventvwr hanging for 20 seconds after it opens, event tracer API, their in-house abandonment of powershell modules once powershell was open sourced, Windows containers being a disaster, etc.
The problem is that so much critical infrastructure around the world relies on ancient Windows software. I’m pretty sure their backwards compatibility is one of the reasons there’s so much inconsistency in Windows, and every iteration seems to just add more bloat on top.
They hired the man behind systemd (controversial, I know, but he does have a vision). I hope they listen to him and/or he starts directing how they should do things from the ground-up.
I hate Windows and would love to see ruined too.
There was a TCP/IP bug that shared it's exploit on versions of windows from windows for workgroups 3.11 (which you ran from the DOS prompt by typing 'win') through to windows 7 (which was the new hotness at the time)
That's a bug conserved from the very first Microsoft implementation of TCP/IP through to the state of the art at the time
People were surprised at the time that it wasn't a windows NT bug
Yeah, but that old technology is what still lets me run a 13 year old version of Adobe creative suite. If that ever changes I will have to learn something new!
We will perhaps never beat adobe but nowadays there are some amazing tools!
... Which are developed for windows as well. Haha.
So basically ever since I first tried Windows 7 I held it as the "Gold standard" for desktop OS's. Half my tweaks to Windows 10 were trying to get it as close to Win7 as I possibly could.
When I finally start experimenting with Linux early this year KDE quickly got me to reconsider my "Gold standard" and finally switch my main machine fully to Linux.
No regrets and certainly ain't switching back even if Microsoft gave me updated Windows 7 with every extra feature I wanted back then.
I've been a Linux user for a decade and a half now, but still use Windows on my corporate laptops. Honestly, it's baffling how Microsoft seem to consistently manage to miss the mark with the UI design. There's lots to be said about the underlying internals of Windows vs Linux, performance, kernel design etc., but even at the shallow, end user, "is this thing pleasant to use" stakes, they just never manage to get it right.
Windows 7 was...fine. It was largely inoffensive from a shell point of view, although things about how config and settings were handled were still pretty screwy. But Windows 8 was an absolutely insane approach to UI design, Windows 10 spent an awful lot of energy just trying to de-awful it without throwing the whole thing out, and Windows 11 is missing basic UI features that even Windows 7 had.
When you look at their main commercial competition (Mac and Chromebook) or the big names in Linux (GNOME, KDE, plenty of others besides), they stand out as a company that simply can't get it right, despite having more resources to throw at it than the rest of them put together.
To me it's absurd how Microsoft gets beaten by a free desktop environment when windows is like their main product. They have billions of dollars. How do they manage to not do better?
TBF it isn't really - only about 12% of their revenue. It's more of a means to lock people into their other products.
Well, that's the thing, it's the core part of their entire business. The glue that sticks everything together. Or at least used to be until Azure.
It seems like a big company's problem. They have a well-paid design\marketing department that can do whatever they want to create the best-selling interface for the new version of Windows, but before it's released, no one tested it yet for anything but bugs, and who'd argue with a flock of top designers anyway? Add here the board of directors who are here to sell them ideas and who won't use it either – I'm sure they applauded to the idea of unifying mobile and desktop experience with WinPhone&Win8, but especially Tablet-Laptop transformers they saw as the future. It sounds great on the paper, right? At that time it could've even sounded obvious for their business. And so it happened like it did.
Linux counters it by constant feedback and competition between easily switchable DEs, users being prepared even to jump distros; Apple has a fetish for style and experience (that's a half of their pricetag), they build their business model about looking and feel nice, so you'd build an ecosystem of their products, you can't even see error windows here and their garden is gated af; and ChromeOS\Android aren't shy of looking what others do (like iPhone's design findings) and conservatively taking what works, also having tons of vendor-created restyles\forks on their own platform as a testing ground for new ideas to make them then a standard. MS lack all of it, and their creative process is guided by external interests and ideals, it's just an afterthought. And as they have their stable market share, they probably won't even care. It took whole internet's screams to return their traditional start menu in win8.1, then w10.
That'd probably stay the same until their new CEO would happen to be an art college graduate - like the current one pushed for accessebility and building special controllers because she has a child with a disability. A top-down signal. I won't bet on it anytime soon.
What drives me crazy is how they can't update all their configuration interface to the same standard, if you go deep enough you still fine things that are unchanged since Windows 98
Yep. Drill down one level in a few control panel items and you're back in win xp.
that the modern Settings still falls back on Control Panel most of the time
I can understand wanting to replace Control Panel but all they ended up doing was creating a Windows Shell frontend
The fact that Windows 11 has removed the ability to move the taskbar and has no intention of adding it back is just baffling to me. It's a small thing but so jarring every time I try to use it that I've barely used my desktop in the last few months.
I've noticed a trend in modern design where designers will put out garbage to 'keep people on their seats' waiting for it to be fixed.
I've been on Linux for ages and ages.. back when I had to order CDs for new copies of Ubuntu.
Kde is the first desktop experience that I feel is the gold standard.
Every iteration of Linux I've used, solus, fedora, Ubuntu, Manjaro the DE I use is KDE.
I'm not sure why.. but it makes sense to me and is my gold standard experience.
You can make KDE do pretty much whatever you want
Haha, I remember buying Mandrake Linux CDs... I'm a FreeBSD user these days (for the past 20-odd years) but still run KDE. Plus they're still trying to remain fairly *nix agnostic which is nice.
Almost all my desktop gets used for anymore is gaming. The windows only anti cheat shit leaves me not messing with splitting what I boot up for.
Oh shit, I remember LiteStep and spending hours and hours to just fiddle with how my desktop looked. I personally felt Windows 2000 was the pinnacle of MS OSs (except so many games etc. wouldn't run because rightly the OS reported it was Windows NT and a lot of games shat themselves at that)
What is "ricing"? Sounds like you might be talking about theming?
Yeah, ricing is slang for the r/unixporn kind of themeing. It comes from car culture, where RICE stands for "race-inspired cosmetic enhancement"
Fwiw rice is a backronym, it originally comes from just "rice burners" which were the kind of cars & motorcycles that got "cosmetically enhanced"
Yikes, I think I'll just stick to "themeing"
Ricing is usually used for extreme, often gaudy theming and personalization, with emphasis on looks rather than real usability
Idk if I would say it's looks > usability, and it's certainly not gaudy... There are theming styles that are much more unusable and gaudy than the "riced" look.
It's an aesthetic that idealizes a kind of barebones utility, and while it often will lean towards the look over the usability, the look itself is like a "beautiful utilitarian" - minimalistic, uncluttered, etc.
I set my KDE up to look as much like Windows 7 as possible.
I think that was peak desktop design before designers started changing shit just to stay relevant.
Plasma is not a system, but I see how they didnt want to confuse people here
It is a desktop environment system.
But no operating system
Microsoft will probably never truly catch up with KDE
Plasma 6 is approaching fast
So is Windows 12... /s
Approaching at $9.99/month.
Is this sarcasm? I'm out of the loop.
Rumors that win12 would be a subscription rather than a one time buy
In the newest windows, it is even possible to hover the volume icon and change it with the mouse wheel!!!
Does clicking on it open the mixer, or still the useless menu which should be accessible with a right click instead?
Menu
KDE had that pretty much since the invention of the mouse wheel.
I have the same functionality on my waybar
Still not going back to Windows!
LOL!
Wait, they didn't have that before? Heck, even my sway install with Waybar has this.
But you still need to get at the audio settings to tell it that it should use your microphone for a microphone, not the USB camera
KDE is the best desktop environment.
To be fair, forcing a bunch of software on the machine users own was never a good move, and in my opinion, not a new normal.
It was a good move when people had no idea what they were doing and needed defaults to get started.
You mean the defaults that were against anti trust laws?
not a kde user but huge respect to them
I came back to KDE after a long absence because I never liked it back in the day (I found it ugly and bloated). I was really surprised by how good it has become. It's now my favourite desktop environment on Linux, and I'm looking forward to version 6. So to any other oldies still avoiding KDE because of how it used to be, it's worth another look.
I second your experience. It was not so impressive back then and 2indo2s was much nicer, but not anymore. I'm feeling it, this year Linux will be on top!
Edit: I tried to write Windows 🤷♂️
Here I am thinking there's some obscure Linux project using a name that's somehow a sequel to Windows, like a Windows 2, but also a play on the 2__4me meme.
Oh, this is good news for me. I remember trying KDE years ago and feeling that it was just way too heavy. My goto is usually Cinnamon, but the lack of Wayland support has made me hesitant to go all in with out on my gaming PC. Def gonna give KDE a try, thanks!
Cinnamon was where I had ended up too. So now I have a couple of Linux Mint/Cinnamon machines and a Tumbleweed/KDE machine. It surprised me that I like KDE more.
It's not my primary driver, but I would gladly choose KDE over Windows.
Fully based
What's the current reliable KDE Distro? I've been rolling with Kububtu for a while now, but Ubuntu's Snap mandate has been getting annoying.
I have been enjoying OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. It's a rolling distro unlike the Ubuntu and Debian derivatives, but the updates hardly ever cause problems and it's very easy to roll them back if they do. It also gives you a choice between X11 and Wayland, and Wayland is working well for me on Intel graphics.
I jumped into Tumbleweed recently and have really been liking it. Last time I used Linux with a desktop environment I was using Gnome and KDE was a lot unglier. Things have definitely changed.
Tumbleweed is pretty much the "official" kde distro
Not KDE Neon?
KDE Neon gets the latest package updates regarding KDE first but it is not official in any sense, as listed on their website. In fact, Neon is just a package archive built on top of Ubuntu that offers more up to date KDE stuff.
I have used the distro as a daily driver in the past. It uses it's own pkgcon package management system.
I would recommend the KDE spin of Fedora.
Second but I use Nobara with KDE.
Second. Up-to-date packages and stable at the same time.
Fedora KDE Spin works pretty well
I can confirm. I’ve been running it on my M1 MacBook Pro and it’s quite nice.
Natively. Only major blocker for me using it more often now is speaker support, which is coming soon enough (the M1 Air already has it).
If you want something Ubuntu-based I'd recommend KDE Neon, last time I tried it, it was great. I don't think it has snaps since it's made by KDE.
Debian or MX.
I'm using Kubuntu as my main OS and it has been very stable for me. You can remove snapd and install the deb Firefox repository. You should look up tutorials on how to do it, I did it and nothing broke
Most likely the best distro for KDE is KDE neon, but that doesn't mean that much.
I use it on Debian testing and am very satisfied with it, KDE has never been so stable.
Endeavour switched to KDE as their main DE
I for one hope to move from kubuntu to debian with KDE, I assume that won't have snap shit or systemd shit, but I might be painfully mistaken right there, I haven't checked it out yet.
Debian does use systemd, but what's so bad about it? I'm just curious, I'm using Arch with KDE, and that also uses systemd. Never had any issues with it. Debian doesn't use snap by default though.
MX does not use systemd by default
I use it in Garuda. No complains.
Fedoras flavor with KDE. Fedora never caused an issue for me.
Manjaro is pretty good.
KDE nerds: Is there a way to get a normal app launch indicator (cursor with a loading icon/hourglass) instead of either nothing or the little hopping icons that don't animate right?
System Settings → Appearance → Cursor Theme → Configure Launch Feedback
That only has nothing, static (icon), blinking (icon) or bouncing (icon) though. I find anything involving the icon jarring, especially because it keeps lagging behind the cursor. And yes, this is incredibly minor.
Seems to be some cursor themes that do it that way, like this one for example: https://store.kde.org/p/2103612
I don't know about an hourglass specifically, but there are some options. Should be in system settings, applications, launch feedback and/or busy cursor.
No. Some people wanted to change it to that for Plasma 6, but on Xorg there's apparently no way to make that happen, as the cursor is always decided on by the window you're hovering over...
Oh, I see, thank you! Never noticed the cursor changing back when I put it over another window in XFCE, but I also never looked for that. I really just want that brief feedback, especially when I'm using a touchpad.
Unlike Windows and MacOS, the Linux ecosystem is a lot more modular. For example, graphical user interfaces. There are a few types, ranging from ruthlessly simple tiling window managers to more complex desktop environments that more closely resemble the Windows or MacOS experience.
Linux users may take their pick between about a dozen desktop environments (DEs), including Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, xfce and LXQT.
KDE (once standing for Kool Desktop Environment, now merely KDE) is a community/organization that produces open source software. They made Krita, a raster art program, KDENLIVE, a video editor, and many other such utilities. They also make the Plasma desktop environment, which is often referred to simply as "KDE" by distro maintainers. For example, you might download Fedora GNOME or Fedora KDE.
KDE Neon is an operating system maintained by KDE which features the Plasma desktop.
KDE Plasma is an desktop environment.
The kind of thing you interact outside of installed app/programs. Like the panels, window decorations (titles, close buttom, maximalize button), the way windows float and behave, system settings, etc.
Unix systems (like Linux) are very modular and you can install different desktop environments if you want. And even within those desktops are modules, like you can install different "start menu" or file manager on KDE Plasma.
an linux operating system made by the KDE team
raises pendantic finger Ah-hem, sorry, but KDE Plasma isn't an OS. It's a desktop environment. For an OS bundled/built-around Plasma then Kubuntu or KDE Neon are both Linux distributions that would better fit that description.
Since when has KDE been an OS?
Things are more interesting in the Linux world. Plasma is just a user interface, a desktop environment. The actual operating system is Linux. And we have so many choices for how we want our desktop environment on Linux, but Plasma is the most advanced one.
Well, if you bothered to read the text on the image, you would have found your answer.
Whoosh
woof woof
No wonder lemmy user base Is dropping with holier than comments like this. Let me guess, you use arch too?
Oh sure, defending people who aren't even willing to read the text of the post while also attacking the one who complains about that circumstance is better, right?
Well, although usually it's a good idea to read the original post first, in this instance the original post is at best misleading because it refers to Plasma as an "operating system" rather than a desktop environment.
(Or for those who want to use even more precise terminology: its full name is either "Plasma Desktop" or "KDE Plasma Desktop", because KDE also has some non-desktop environments such as Plasma Mobile and Plasma Bigscreen... none of which are as popular as Plasma Desktop, though, so usually Plasma Desktop is colloquially called just "Plasma".)
I never said anything regarding the truth of the original posts claim; it's just irritating when people start asking questions without even reading what was initially written.
And you can't get de-crufted Win11 outside Europe! Another win for Plasma!
You can, but it takes a little effort
Because I need Windows to run old C&C games. Get Generals world builder working on Linux and I'll delete my dual boot
Do Android next!
Try LineageOS
I'd prefer a solution out of the box. I am well aware of alternative OSes.
https://murena.com/ (no affiliation, do not own one)
Just skimming through the website, I noticed they use their own Drive solution. Quickly glancing at the images, and it seemed oddly familiar.
And holy shit it they use the exact same setup I set up at work - NextCloud with OnlyOffice integration.
This seems nice.
Yeah like they (the Windows sheeple) celebrated a CLI package manager as if it was their best invention since sliced bread. Every Linux user was like yaaawwwn... "finally"
Who in the world celebrated that?
Like, I get the self-reinforcing bubble that Linux communities exist in and all, but... nobody did that.
The vast majority of Windows users are random people that never touch anything beyond the Start menu in their entire computing lives. What segment of the Windows userbase is out there celebrating any features, let alone command line anything? This is not a thing. At least not in numbers large enough to matter.
Sorry, I try not to get involved in these arguments. Frankly, grown adults taking sides on operating systems of all things like it's Sega vs Nintendo in a 90s playground seems very strange but I don't begrudge people finding communities wherever. It's just... you know, come on.
As someone who needs to do initial installs on computers with 10-20, I celebrated. It is much easier to type names of the programs and the manager do anything instead of manually downloading installers. But turned out WinGet is really badly done.
As for preferences, for some this is actually Nintendo vs Sega unfortunetly. But don't underestimate moral decitions too.
Sysadmins very commonly make a lot of use out of automating things with Powershell and various utilities that work with it.
Given that a pretty decent sized portion (I'd assume at least, no numbers to back that up sadly) of the Linux user base tends to be "cut from the same cloth" in terms of having the passion to automate (and heavily customize) their system - I would think this is why you see this sentiment repeated often.
c'mon man
Meh let him lord over people, better to let the mask fall off
Do you known kde has discover to install and update applications with a gui right?
Looking to pick sides I see. Very funny
Currently, dual booting Fedora and Windows 11 on my Asus gaming laptop, and I love Fedora, but it's still not full sailing. Every other boot the wifi card doesn't register and I have to reboot, others the OS freezes even though Grub doesn't but nothing actually opens or closes, and lastly if the laptop is on battery and goes into hibernation, waking it up takes around 5-10 minutes. To add that gaming is still not as smooth as it is with windows, and I still have a use for Windows pOS.
Can I use MS Office natively with that? Also, can I use it as a non-techie lay man in a way that is similar to the way most office bottom-feeders use Windows?
I know there is Open Office but I am lawyer and the free office alternatives just don't have the rich formatting options I need to do my job. I have tried and they just won't do.
Also Only office, which appears to have the best compatibility with MS documents (although in my particular case I find it a bit cumbersome).
Last I used it, it seemed to lack a lot of more advanced features. I think I especially stumbled over the bibliography, though I did not use any add-ons.
One can use Zotero ad Mendeley plugins for bibliography, btw.
First of all, libre office is very competent but I understand that it'll always be very behind whetever Microsoft decides to do next.
Office is available on all systems at office365.com if you must use Microsoft tools.
For the non-tech usage, very much yes. Most of the problems your hear about with linux stem from people trying to make it do stuff that you can't dream of doing on windows because it will stop you. Simply installing a system and using it to browse the web, edit documents, maybe install a few popular programs like VLC or Discord is set-and forget. System installers have recently gotten much more noob-friendly as well, imo the debian and Pop!OS installers don't really allow you to mess up. KDE is a good choice of DE, but you might be more confortable with others. Good news, you can decide later, as switching desktop Environments is easy and preserves your files.
Fyi: Libre Office is the actively developed Open Office fork.
Don't know how it stacks up to MS Office though.
In my opinion, it stacks up VERY well, even better, except the toolbar is by-default a mess for some reason while there's a very easy option to set it to tabbed.
How does the UI size work out for you? I recently took a look at it on a windows pc and the tiny size of most things is the one problem I have with it. Then again, I read something about being able to scale different programs individually somewhere (not for windows though)
https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/how-do-you-increase-fontsize-on-the-libeoffice-writer-toolbar-and-dropdown-meuns/7821
Thanks, I think this was removed some time ago from what U remember reading. I'll have to check that again though.
(I should really check my accounts inbox more often ^^')
Interesting. Will have a look on the snazzy package manager and give it a go. Ta.
My take: Linux users (including myself) are biased. While we would love to share our enthusiasm for Linux with others the simple truth is NO, you cannot just use Linux in the same way you would use Windows. We would argue the Linux way is just as easy not easier in a lot of ways. But it is a different system with a different way of doing things and if you are not prepared to learn anything new then it will bite you eventually.
And you can't use MS Office natively either. And no, Office 365 is not exactly equivalent nor is LibreOffice.
That being said I haven't used Windows outside of work in years and if you're interested and have some kind of technical knowledge or interest I would highly recommend it. It usually takes a couple of attempts before it "sticks".
Just out of interest: What are the specific formating options / features you're missing to be able to perform your job?
ToC via Styles formatting and Table of authorities - these are from the top of my head, which I remember not working properly with Open Office. They need to work when I do them and also should be displayed correctly when I receive them from colleagues in docx format.
Format painter, track changes, spell checker in two languages, intendation adjustments, page breaks, and paste as text - I use these like crazy but I don't remember if they were OK in Open Office or not.
https://help.libreoffice.org/latest/en-US/text/swriter/guide/indices_toc.html
https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/can-writer-make-a-table-of-authorities/49015
honestly Libreoffice is not on par with MS Office. I use MS at work and Linux at home and Libreoffice is great for general use, but it is very rough around the edges, and does not have all the capability that MS does. I wish it were not the case but lack of an excellent office suite is one weaknesses of Linux.
Bel nick 10/10
Grazie brother ❤️
Me still trying to figure out how to get it to auto start / auto login on boot on my fresh new Raspberry Pi 5 without locking up at a flashing cursor screen: 😩
I haven't had luck with auto login, as soon as it's logged in it wants a password to unlock its keyring
I wish installers let you set low local security mode. We don't all need strong security, some of us are just playing games
I can't wait until community ADHD picks another inscrutable word to mutter arbitrarily and signal clique membership.
Because I don't want to have to hope that things work on Linux that work on Windows.
What is left? Photoshop? Excel?
Meh
You can literally use photoshop in your browser now, thanks to webassembly.
Looks neat but Adobe's prices are always shockingly high.
What about other software? XD, Illustrator, Lightroom, etc. What about cross communication between them? Can I see my imported vectors change instantly in Photoshop when I change them in Illustrator? The problem with industrial applications like tools from Adobe is that just running one app alone is not enough.
Adobe is working on it : illustrator, lightroom.
It's all handheld in the cloud, so I don't see why they wouldn't or couldn't implement syncing.
I guess it will fruition some day.
Photoshop is now available in the browser. Just Excel (not always, sometimes LibreOffice Calc with VBA compatibility does the trick), the other Adobe Creative Cloud applications, and some other Windows-only software (for example I dual boot Windows, because of advanced game macros written in AHK that don't work on Linux via wine or ahk_x11, and I have failed in porting or rewriting them (it's too big of a task, there is a whole team behind the actual macro). So... still some reasoms to run Windows, but fhese reasons are decreasing.
Proper CAD software :(
Yeah, this. Freecad does not count even though it's slowly getting better. There needs to be industry tools available.
Fusion 360 works pretty well via Lutris
Proper CAD or AutoCAD? Those are not the same.
CAD, AutoCAD is just a CAD program
I meant if it was because AutoCAD or any other CAD program.
Ah nevermind, yeah at home/work I use SolidWorks and Fusion 360
I've been using ARES Commander for a few years now as an AutoCAD alternative on Linux.
An there is also BricsCAD for which the 3d options seem to better developed than with ARES.
Adobe software, MS Office, CAD software, video editors, audio editors, etc. Pretty much none of the industrial software works on Linux. If you do any kind of work on a workstation, you need either Windows or Mac. The only exception to this rule is Blender.
The only professional use for Linux is servers.
You'd be surprised how much Linux is growing in the video & audio production industry. It may not be the defacto but it's certainly gaining popularity.
For example, we got PreSonus not too long ago.
Hollywood doesn't use Linux, Hollywood offloads rendering to render farms, which run on Linux. Thus my point: the only professional use for Linux is servers. No one in their sane mind want to fuck around NVIDIA drivers on Linux to colour grade a scene.
The claim that Hollywood doesn't use Linux and only offloads rendering to Linux-based render farms is false. In reality, 95% of the desktops, laptops, and servers used at big-budget movie production studios such as Disney/Pixar, DreamWorks Animation/SKG, Sony, and ILM run on Linux.
Linux is considered state-of-the-art in Hollywood, and a lot of the internal proprietary software created by these studios are either cross-platform or Linux-only. Major studios have ported millions of lines of proprietary code to Linux and continue to develop primarily for Linux. Additionally, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has teamed up with the Linux Foundation to launch the Academy Software Foundation.
Regarding the claim about NVIDIA drivers on Linux, while it's true that dealing with NVIDIA drivers on Linux can be challenging, professionals in the industry custom build their systems to minimize issues and still use Linux for tasks such as color grading scenes.
Proofs? I mean even Resolve doesn't work properly on Linux and a lot of features are missing.
It's unlikely they use DaVinci Resolve in their major production workflow, they develop their own internal tools with patients up the ass. These Major studios are in direct competition with each other, they're not going to freely give away their trade secrets just like that; it'd end up getting reverse engineered. We know they primarily use Linux because they've (each) publicly stated so on multiple occasions.
As well as their public contributions to Open Source that point to this conclusion. For example, the previously mentioned Academy SoftWare Foundation(ASWF) provides a platform for open source software developers in the media and entertainment industry to share resources and work together on technologies for image creation, visual effects, animation, and sound production. The founding members of the ASWF include Blue Sky Studios, Cisco, DreamWorks Animation, Epic Games, Google Cloud, Intel, Walt Disney Studios, and Weta. Over 80% of the film production industry uses and produces open source software, most especially for visual effects and animation.
You're casually blowing off two of the main reasons why I still have to use Windows.
Is there a Linux alternative to Excel that will allow me to reliably write and execute VBA macros that I can then deploy to my windows using co-workers?
Is there a Linux alternative to Photoshop? Doesn't even need to be the most current version. I'd be happy with something that is functionally comparable to Photoshop 7.
I'm not being glib with those questions either. It's been probably ten years since I've really used Linux. If there are legitimate alternatives I'd absolutely give it another go.
Spin up a Windows VM in Linux for those apps.
Or at least dual boot if you are into Linux.
Or at a minimum put Linux on another device with older hardware...
;(
Change is hard.
And then I have to install a windows vm to be able to play all my games properly. And the practical benefit of switching is basically zero for the normal user
offensive spam account, please ban forever
Ah, yes, the good old goatse, among other amenities.
Reported for spam, btw.