- cross-posted to:
- programming@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- programming@programming.dev
And Linux isn’t minimal effort. It’s an operating system that demands more of you than does the commercial offerings from Microsoft and Apple. Thus, it serves as a dojo for understanding computers better. With a sensei who keeps demanding you figure problems out on your own in order to learn and level up.
…
That’s why I’d love to see more developers take another look at Linux. Such that they may develop better proficiency in the basic katas of the internet. Such that they aren’t scared to connect a computer to the internet without the cover of a cloud.
Related: Omakub
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DHH saying something not ridiculous? What is today, April Fools Day!?!?
Thank you! I’m a staunch believer that most of you don’t think about how much prior knowledge you need just to be able to use Linux, let alone not break things.
When we started, none of us had any prior knowledge and quite frankly, if it broke all the time none of us would have stuck with it. It’s the same for people when they started with Windows or Mac OS
At the same time I think most people don’t think about how much prior knowledge you need to just be able to use Windows or Mac. And for someone without ANY prior knowledge all of them are the same.
Story time, my MiL is a zero when it gets to computer literacy, to the point that every week I had to solve something for her. Eventually I gave her a laptop with Linux in it to make it easier for me to do support, and to my surprise she had lots of problems the first months when setting things up and until learning the ropes, but afterwards there were almost no problems.
The thing is that people have a lot of Windows knowledge, so when they try Linux they expect it to be Windows and get frustrated when it’s not.
Why don’t more distro use LibreSSL? Why don’t more distro use mandoc? Why don’t more distro use clang?
It’s because they’d have to install it to use it. I put my boomers on Fedora with GNOME over a year ago and there hasn’t been a single Linux-related issue since. Most people use their computers as Facebook and YouTube machines and Linux doesn’t make that any harder than Windows/MacOS. It’s not like it’s 2010 where you’d need to install some desktop app that doesn’t have a Linux version and you’d have to fuck around with WINE, which was a massive pain in the ass and often buggy even if it did work. Now in 2024, those apps are in the browser (barring more niche use-cases) and we have access to Firefox and Chrome like everyone else. If Linux shipped on most pre-builts, then I think the average person would be fine.
That’s why I’d love to see more developers take another look at Linux.
I’d love to see more developers taking a look at writing portable cross-platform code.
Super easy to do nowadays, everything I write is cross platform just by virtue of every programming language I use being that way provided I’m somewhat mindful about it
every programming language I use being that way
Are there interpreted languages?
Python is the gold standard for cross platform interpreted languages
If what you meant was are they all interpreted, no C# rust and python are the main 3 I use rn and are all cross platform
Because people are not willing to do more than the bare minimum for most things.
Why don’t more people use Linux?
Because Linux breaks randomly, in many cases without user interaction. New driver update - external monitor stops working, games break, etc. Official desktop widgets - tend to break without any reason. Apps don’t follow desktop theme.
I’m a software engineer and I work a lot and I want to spend my free time using OS, not fixing it. After my recent issues with graphic drivers I decided to buy a Windows PC just for gaming. I will stick with Linux for my home server and work.
Interesting, I have a complete reverse of this story with windows. It kept breaking randomly until I had enough of it’s shit.
Same for me. Additionally it’s just super slow
For gaming, I honestly agree. Things are better with Lutris but running programs in their native OS is always going to be a better experience. Still, I think it’s very cool that you can run any of that in Linux. Valve is making some awesome progress with that…
If it came preinstalled it would overtake Windows
I just installed Manjaro over my windows 10 drive and the effort so far has been way easier than I thought.
KDE Plasma reminds me a lot of WIn 10, and nearly everything I did on my windows system works under Linux without hassle. The only issue I had were certain technical things like overlooking my GPU and setting up my LED lights.
Those are the usual problems in Linux, they can be summed up by “Third party companies don’t support Linux”, and they are especially annoying because with time you learn that there’s no reason that thing shouldn’t work, other than because the company either purposefully figures out if you’re running Linux and crashes the program (e g. DRM, anti-cheat, etc) or because they created their own closed proprietary protocol and refuse to share the public API for it so it needs to be reverse engineered.
Yeah I didn’t find Linux install any harder than installing windows from scratch.
Edit: the only thing was multiple choices for home filesystem, which made me do some research on why I would want ext3 or 4 of xfs, or btrfs.
What about ChromeOS?
It is Linux, but the machines are low apec and depend on cloud based google stuff for storage etc. Not quite the same as Desktop or powerful laptop
This is the answer! Most people will not ever install a new operating system.
I just wish we could have less ways to do things in Linux.
I get that’s one of the main benefits of the eco system, but it adds too much of a burden on developers and users. A developer can release something for Windows easily, same for Mac, but for Linux is it a flatpak, a deb, snap etc?
Also given how many shells and pluggable infrastructure there is it’s not like troubleshooting on windows or mac, where you can Google something and others will have exact same problem. On Linux some may have same problem but most of the time it’s a slight variation and there are less users in the pool to begin with.
So a lot of stuff is stacked against you, I would love for it to become more mainstream but to do so I feel it needs to be a bit more like android where we just have a singular way to build/install packages, try and get more people onto a common shell/infrastructure so there are more people in same setup to help each other. Even if it’s not technically the best possible setup, if its consistent and easy to build for its going to speed up adoption.
I don’t think it’s realistically possible but it would greatly help adoption from consumers and developers imo.
i think flatpak has done a lot to make this easier, but at the same time… i’ll admit i’m not a fan of it (mostly due to random issues).
the way i see it, more distros need something like arch linux’ AUR. if an application is reasonably easy to build, it really does not take much to get it into the AUR, from where there’s also a path towards inclusion in the official repos.
i don’t know too much about other distros, but arch really makes it amazingly easy to package software and publish everything needed for others to use it. i feel like linux needs more of this, not less - there’s a great writeup that puts why linux maintainers are important way better than i ever could:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230525163337/https://kmkeen.com/maintainers-matter/
Yeah it’d be nice if there was a really standardized Linux distro that gave developers a baseline to aim for, and then those of us who use the nerdier distros could just figure out our own stuff from there. I think Ubuntu was on track for that for a while, but they tend to go off on these tangents (Unity, Mir, Snaps etc.) which sometimes work against them, and now distros like Pop!OS and Mint are starting to fill that space a bit more.
Basically it’s this lol
Yeah that part’s a confusing mess. I moved to Linux on my gaming PC a year ago and have been pleasantly surprised multiple times but not with installers!
I love SteamOS for gaming and I think going forward that may get more and more adoption, but a lot of day to day apps or dev tools I use either don’t have Linux releases (and can’t be run via wine/Proton). I would love to jump over on host rather than dabbling with it via vms/steamdeck but it’s just not productive enough.
One especially painful thing is when certain libs I’m developing with need different versions of glibc or gtk to the ones installed by default on OS, and then I die inside.
I’m on Ubuntu which is supposed to be at the least nerdy. Still hella nerdy, I just want to make memes and play games lol
Package management in central is a bit of an issue. I think nix has the right approach where it’s incredibly difficult to create a package that won’t work on x system. I think appimage flatpak and snap all work in a similar way
Pip is a right pain in the arse though, if I had a nickel for every time a pip install has failed for some specific package with an esoteric error message…
There’s plenty of videos on YouTube of people trying Linux for the first time, and it can be painful to watch how poorly they try to fix something or unintentionally break their system.
That’s not to say windows is any better, because they’d do the same thing there.
But people will only switch permanently if windows really falls off hard, which may or may not happen.
You have to think of it like how people first learned to use a mouse and double click back in the 90s. It’s not immediately intuitive for everyone, they often have to start over.
That being said, having a big OEM ship linux would do wonders, but Microsoft fights hard to make sure that almost never happens.
I don’t know if Microsoft still using restrictions in their license agreement,that only one system can be installed for OEM when deliverying devices to shops.
iirc due to some anti trust lawsuits, they cannot do that anymore.
But it’s still easy to coerce OEMs to run Windows because they offer stuff like quick support and standardized IT support.
If an OEM ships Linux, they don’t want to have to make an entire department to help troubleshoot the OS for users who will inevitably call for help. Ignoring them would only result in returns and loss of sales.
I think some thinkpads actually do ship with some distro like redhat or opensuse as an option, but that’s because thinkpads are very popular in the business space which means lots of CS people use them, so it helps save some cost from a windows license that won’t get used.
Like I said though, if windows really dives into the deep end, I think a potential market would open and some OEM will take a chance on it.
- Doesn’t have millions to market like the alternatives.
- More technical requirement (historically anyways)
- Much less likely to be the default on hardware (which is what most ppl stick to)
Linux sucks
I’ll let myself out
Watch out, using the door requires you to be in wheel group
we all pity you.
I figured I’d squeeze in one anticomment among the circle jerk
if it makes you feel better, that’s good for you.
On desktop, Linux isn’t the best choice.
People use Linux where it’s the best, servers!
Because they prefer to use something else.
Lol IT person here, so many developers barely know how to turn there machine on
As a developer, I have met developers that don’t understand file systems. They could write code and not find it. Like wtf?
I know more than a handful of developers who religiously refuse to learn version control systems, and barely know how to operate a computer in general. It’s more of a mindset issue
That brings a whole new meaning to impostor syndrome.
Not directed at you specifically, but it’s the same with IT and dev people but with security/privacy.
