For like a month or two I decided, screw it, I am going to use all the programs I cannot use on Linux. This was mostly games and music making software.
I guess it was fun for a bit, tries different DAWs, did not play a single game because no time.
Basically, it was not worth it. The only thing I enjoyed was OneDrive, because having your files available anywhere is dope, but I also hate it because it wants to delete your local files. I think that was on me.
Anyways, I am back. Looking at Nextcloud. Looking at Ardour. I am fine paying for software, but morally I got to support and learn the tools that are available to me and respect FOSS. (Also less expensive… spent a lot on my experiment).
Anyone done this? Abondoned their principles thinking the grass would be greener, but only to look at their feet coverered in crap (ads, intrusive news, just bad UI).
I don’t know. I don’t necesarily regret it, but I won’t be doing it again. What I spent is a sunk cost, but some has linux support, and VSTs for download. So, I shall see.
Great article, have a few issues with it though:
Google docs are free (as in beer) and collaborative and just about as good, and Minihard’s web interface also works. This still doesn’t account for all use cases, bur that should be about 80% of people who think they can’t live with LibreOffice.
KeepassXC is cute, but not modern because of it’s lack of cross-device sync. I use Bitwarden and it works great. Having options is great. I get their frustration with flatpaks self-contained package formats have only ever given me headaches. Also flatpak isn’t a feature that windows does either.
I have no clue what their problem is with virtualization, but I’ve used virtualbox, vmm, and just the CLI for qemu, and I’ve never had the issues of cumbersome installation or a virtualization disabled error
Speaking of virtualization, I’ve run old software and games with wine all the time. I’m sure there’s some performance hit, but it’s pretty negligible unless you’re one of those people that meticulously tracks performance metrics instead of just relying on feel (cough "5-15% performance hit in games boohoo cough)
*some developers and sysadmins. I know people who act as counterexamples and use linux personally and professionally
Aaaaaaaaaaaand all the previous examples go out the door. All of the aforementioned “benefits” of windows cost money. Adobe is all SaaS, MS office is SaaS, AutoCAD is SaaS, windows itself is arguably SaaS, that hypervisor that isn’t jank is SaaS; those annoying janky hardware solutions that have drivers only for windows charge for those drivers and the bespoke UI programs that control the hardware, the securitybrisks of running XP for the aforementioned costs money, those sysadmin and developer solutions cost money (usually also on a subscription). If you want the well-documented and supported software that brings the streamlined experience that fanboys prattle on about, you don’t go with freeware; windows freeware sucks just as hard in the UX sense while also being proprietary and spying on you/designed only to upsell you to paid. And don’t make me get into the monetary worth of all the data the above programs and windows itself harvests. This rose-tinted windows experience isn’t “cheap” unless you’re in the global top 10-20%, the rest of us make do with freeware that sucks harder than linux. I’m one of the few who are lucky enough to be able to save 25% of my monthly income and some dick behind their keyboard is trying to convince me to throw 2 months worth of that away every year on software that doesn’t do the job better, just more conveniently.
Not to mention the spying! What is this? Stockholm syndrome? Battered user syndrome? Blink 3 times if Windows hits you!
As far as I can tell, most of the actual arguments that hold weight boil down to “For desktops, Windows is superior for businesses and jobs” and that’s not a failure of linux. That’s fine by me if it isn’t profitable, that’s not the point of FOSS. In fact that misses the point entirely.
For what’s worth I think LibreOffice is way superior to Google Docs and in Calc documents can even be shared. Maybe we’ll see more of that in the future?
This is right and wrong at the same time. KeepassXC does allow for cross-device sync, the keychain file is saved and created in a way to handle real time syncing across devices. Most people use Synching or some even public clouds for it. There are also multiple features to share items across users https://keepassxc.org/docs/KeePassXC_UserGuide#_database_sharing_with_keeshare.
KeepassXC is simple, secure, audited and reliable and unlike Bitwarden it doesn’t require a service running and wasting resources in order to get the job done. It is all filesystem based very portable and bullshit less. Also unlike Bitwarden it doesn’t require 4GB of ram and 25GB of storage to host a simple sync service. I’m aware there’s an alterative implementation of the Bitwarden written in Rust that is way more reasonable but still what kind of garbage software requires that amount of resources just to sync passwords?
Yes, so what? All of the aforementioned “benefits” of Linux cost time that is guess what, money.
Unless that freeware is WinSCP that is effectively better from a UX and performance standpoint than any similar client for Linux as described ahah
As you said, you’re one of the lucky ones, maybe your workflow can be 100% productive under Linux + alternatives as it is, but it doesn’t change the fact that for everyone else that works with other people who use the proprietary solutions can go that route. There are a ton of cases listed on the article.
The point of the article is to consider ROI above all instead of being a blind follower that worships Linux desktop as religion and a solution that will fit all and everything.
There’s group policy to fix that and W10Privacy if don’t want to spend the entire afternoon… Not perfect yes, but guess what Ubuntu also snitches on you, Firefox includes unique identifiers on each installation and contacts Mozilla’s servers frequently and at least a 3rd party analytics company - even after manually disabling everything known and suspicious under settings and config editor.
What’s the point of FOSS if it can’t properly and actually replace proprietary stuff in the job in order to free our “2 months worth” of work? You yourself use it like that.
How do you run a containerized web browser and password manager in Windows?
If you aren’t then I see the complaint ridiculous, because outside of flatpak it works fine.
Look, Flatpak is great and solves the packaging problem of Linux desktop apps once and for all for all distros.
That doesn’t answer the question.
I agree, they are great, but they are also new and have bugs to work out.