With Linux, I can change just about everything. If I want a real-time kernel, I can switch. If I want a different desktop environment, change. If I want more control from my keyboard, Linux has my back.
As much as I agree with the sentiment of the article, this is a terrible reason and more likely to scare people away from Linux rather than get them to install it.
If you know what a “real-time kernel” is, you’re probably already using Linux and you are a highly technically literate user. Any “normal person” user is going to look at that and think “Oh, I guess I need to understand technobabble in order to use Linux”. Normal users care about easy, preset defaults, not customization.
Once again, Linux adoption is kneecapped by its own users, who forget what normal people really care about.
Linux adoption is kneecapped by its own users, who forget what normal people really care about.
Yep. My primary goal has always been: ‘It just works’. I’m fairly techy, but I don’t want to fix shit constantly.
What finally got me to switch was Windows no longer ‘just working’. Every update was another assault that required active effort on my part. PiHole, debloating, O&O Shutup, etc, etc. This coupled with Steam bringing Linux gaming into the prime-time, means the OS that most resembles ‘is just works’ is no longer Windows.
For most users, Linux just works. That is the angle that should be pushed. Particularly right now there is a massive opportunity to swap your family members over. No reason for Gran to throw away her facebook machine just because it doesn’t like Windows 11. Throw Mint on there, point her to the Firefox icon, and she is good to go!
The computer savvy folks don’t need to be reminded. The non savvy folks who don’t have time to learn Linux are stuck with windows/apple.
Many tech-savvy people just haven’t made the switch to Linux - often out of convenience rather than capability. Focusing on broader adoption first could make it easier to introduce Linux to less technical users later.
Yeah, I haven’t switched cause I just haven’t felt like I’ve had the time
still have game holdouts that need windows, waiting until they are dropped by the friend group
Yeah I’ve only switched two of the 20 I need to do. It’ll probably be months after Win10 loses support before I get it all done.
Security: Linux doesn’t need antivirus, just don’t install infected software. Riiiight? Sorry, but this is silly.
Centrally managed repositories help a lot, here. Linux users tend not to download random software off of sketchy websites; it’s all installed and kept up to date via the package manager.
Yes, Linux malware and viruses exist, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. The usual reason for installing Linux virus scanners is because you’re hosting a file/email server, and you want to keep infected files away from Windows users, tho.
Linux users tend not to download random software off of sketchy websites;
Search for “sudo curl … | sh” and let me know how many hits you get.
Every time I see this a part of be dies inside. It is always a cursed install script that makes problematic changes to the system.
It’s even worse. The server can detect if you are piping it straight into a shell or just downloading the file. It can then send different scripts based on that.
How can it see that? If possible, isn’t that a flaw of curl? I don’t see a good reason for the sever to know what you’re doing with the file
Curl has a limited buffer and bash reads a line and then executes it, before reading the next line.
So first you need a command that takes time if executed. So a delay, downloading a big file, user input work. Next you fill up the buffer. Just your normal script. Maybe some comments etc.
Now the server can detect if after the first kB the stream stops.
Even package managers are vulnerable to many security problems - can they guarantee that apps are not infected either directly or indirectly (through a library)? There is also flathub. Windows have also an option to verify apps through certificates which isn’t the case with Linux AFAIK. If you want to stay safe on Windows to some degree you can, but the real problem IMO is that Windows is hugely more used and run by less technical persons. 🤷♂️
This isn’t true
Linux package managers typically use GPG which is a much better solution. It is simpler and doesn’t have the unnecessary complexity of certificates.
What security problems do you think package managers are vulnerable to? If the upstream repo is compromised all bets are off regardless of the system.
You are right, GPG signing is good as well. But in both cases you still have unsigned apps.
What security problems do you think package managers are vulnerable to? If the upstream repo is compromised all bets are off regardless of the system.
Yep. And in such case an antivirus software might come handy.
Antivirus software would be totally useless since the problem is your own system.
There is also the issue of trust in the antivirus. This programs are typically high privilege and mostly snake oil.
Linux users tend not to download random software off of sketchy websites; it’s all installed and kept up to date via the package manager.
No experienced/power users do that. Those are who just so happen to install Linux.
If you want Linux for everyone then you will get the users who will install anything, and you need a way to keep them reasonably safe.
Until you have random people install manjaro, enable aur in their package manager and install any package that’s effectively a random github repo
Yes, this is user error, but it amazes me how many people claim the AUR is better than sliced bread
Linux does have some issues with social engineering since any file with the executable bit will run when clicked
Outside of that, you are right
Antivirus software is a joke
MAC (SElinux) is a much better solution
SELinux doesn’t help much when it comes to desktop apps. AFAIK it’s more geared towards server apps and its configuration is complicated. At least that’s my impression.
One of the biggest things keeping me from jumping into Linux as my primary OS is because of nvidia’s performance issues, particularly with DX12 games on Linux. I’d be taking like a 10%-30% performance hit. I know the games will “run” but I want them to run well, that’s why I spend so much money on my GPU.
Real-time Kernel?
Like my popcorn?
Desktop environment
Jimmy I work in an office. What are you talking about?
- Your average Windows user… Probably.
The first paragraph alone filled me with so much emotion because my very first computer was a Pentium 75 too! If I hadn’t switched over to Linux earlier this year I would do it again in a heartbeat 💓 best decision I’ve ever taken!
I’ve said this many times here, but I was a Windows fanboy for close to 30 years. I hate that Windows got so bad, but I’m happy that I switched. Linux is great.
5 reasons you should not ditch Windows:
-
Your hardware is incompatible or you do not want to fiddle with settings or command lines
-
Your applications/games only work well on native Windows (and not wine)
-
You need serious group policy support or other device/software lockdown methods
-
Your company policy requires it
-
Makes helping Windows users harder if you cannot walk them through the same things they are doing
Of course if any of these apply you can always dual-boot or use a VM. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use Linux at all.
you do not want to fiddle with settings or command lines
Kinda the reverse for me
I need to fiddle with Massgrave and various debloat scripts to run win
Your applications/games only work well on native Windows
Windows for docker, winboat, etc
serious group policy support or other device/software lockdown methods
I would argue sudo and normal file permissions do the same
Makes helping Windows users harder
???
Your company policy requires it
The only legitimate thing on this list. Also the most obvious and pointless.
I don’t think anybody is saying to format Linux over the company computer against their Windows policy.
Your hardware is incompatible
I think you’ll have an extremely hard time finding any hardware that supports Windows but can’t run linux. With Win11 requirements it’s much more likely to be the other way around.
Your applications/games only work well on native Windows
Personally, every game I care to run works perfectly fine on my Steam Deck. I refuse to play any games that require kernel-level anti-cheat. It’s officially distributed malware if you ask me.
I think you’ll have an extremely hard time finding any hardware that supports Windows but can’t run linux
My previous laptop couldn’t boot linux for like 2 years until kernel patches came out. It still to this day doesn’t support bluetooth in linux due to an unfixed/wontfix kernel bug. And the wifi only uploads at 1mbps under linux.
By incompatible I don’t mean “won’t boot at all” (even though I’ve had that multiple times, including with my Surface tablet), but it’s all the little stuff that often doesn’t have a 100% working driver (either yet or at all). Maybe you don’t experience this but there’s still lots of people that do.
Personally, every game I care to run works perfectly fine on my Steam Deck
Almost none of my TeknoParrot games work under linux, no matter what version/patch/fork of wine/lutris/proton/etc. I try. Plus there’s tons of people that still want to play those newer games with kernel-level anti-cheat, even if you don’t.
What’s with all the downvotes? Anyone care to explain?
This is community, where major portion of users only criticize Windows and praise Linux.
And rightly so! 😇
-
Any Tipps on how to do that in a business environment? Preferably from people who are actually using Linux in a professional environment? I’m using Linux at home for more than a decade now, and I don’t miss Windows at all, but transforming a smallish company to use Linux in a way that is remotely as comfortable as the Windows stuff seems impossible for now. I need to find solutions that don’t make it harder for our staff to get their work done, because they are busy enough with actual work.
Simply replacing MS Office with LibreOffice and Nextcloud for example does not cut it. The tight integration of MS Teams, Office and Cloud functionality is seen as a huge benefit there and I can’t just take that away from them unless I find a combination of tools that work in a similar fashion. Using Google products instead is obviously not a viable alternative. Every cloud based solution I have found so far is underwhelming at best and lacks a good integration.
Serious answers appreciated.
As it stands Linux isn’t really viable in a business environment. You can make it work but it will involve lots of pain and suffering along with toms of custom scripts and configurations.
It is great for servers but Linux desktops are hard to manage and are unfamiliar to most folks.
With that being said, supposedly fleetdm can manage Linux devices
Any Tipps on how to do that in a business environment?
Simply replacing MS Office with LibreOffice and Nextcloud for example does not cut it. The tight integration of MS Teams, Office and Cloud functionality is seen as a huge benefit there and I can’t just take that away from them unless I find a combination of tools that work in a similar fashion.
You just answered your own question; you can’t. Add in Group Policy Management and Active Directory and there is no windows replacement in any other OS.
Now mix in O365 and it just got more complicated.
If anyone knows of a 1:1 Linux equivalent for AD, GP, and DFS (both replication and namespace) I’d love to learn about it.
I’ve toyed with this in the past - is heavily lacks development. I personally would just use Ansible with SSSD configured to authenticate against active directory.
Friends don’t let friends use DFS
Seriously though it is prone to combustion
Distributed File System?
That’s… that’s what I said.
When has DFS caught on fire?
Only answering your last paragraph. You will not, ever, find a 1:1 equivalent for a few reasons, but mostly because:
- Windows quircks do not have to be accomodated in Linux distros
- Microsoft has very much encouraged massive software where everything is done in a single application, whereas in UNIX world the philosophy is to do one thing and do it well.
- Not sure how DFS works, but with the myriad of networked filesystems available I’m sure there’s an exact requirement match.
Users can be centrally managed in a myriad of ways, but the most used software seems to be following the same X.500 standard - OpenLDAP, FreeIPA, etc.
Machines can be centrally managed via Puppet, Chef, etc.
Company software is managed by having your own repo.
SELinux can be used for incredibly granular access controls, but I can’t see most companies actually needing that.
To sum it up - you’ll always have trouble if you’re solving a windows problem in linux and vice versa. Just for a moment, try imagining a situation where you want to switch a 100% linux company to windows.
Ok, so, no. There’s nothing that exists that’s a 1:1 for Active Directory and the services that come along with it.
This is why companies aren’t switching to Linux in mass.
OpenLDAP does.
There’s not much to replace GPOs, but you can conditionally provision most settings on NixOS. Would be nice to build an MDM around Nix.
FreeIPA only really covers authentication and authorization. It also don’t work well for remote devices such as someone’s work device at home.
To properly manage a fleet of Linux devices you need some way of keeping all devices configured the same
To sum it up - you’ll always have trouble if you’re solving a windows problem in linux and vice versa. Just for a moment, try imagining a situation where you want to switch a 100% linux company to windows.
I can’t imagine that; not that it doesn’t exist but it’s rare.
I think you’re missing the point of what I’m saying. Unfortunately, words are difficult enough to produce for me, I don’t have a better way to express it.
That it doesn’t exist?
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Nextcloud has Nextcloud Talk, and you could add the Collabora or OnlyOffice plugins. There you have it all.
Nextcloud is such a pain in the ass. I would never deploy it in production due to its monolithic design
Been using it for years without trouble.
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The first one (MS account) is so weird to me…
I mean, I get it, people are just allergic to “anything MS”, but it’s just silly.
Set up a “burner” MS account. Use it to set up the OS, get your BitLocker recovery key and the OS license backed up automatically for easy use. Create your regular local account, switch, remove admin rights from the MS account, never use it again.
Job done, problem solved.
The third one (better performance) is disingenuous. Better performance… where? On what hardware? Nvidia drivers are notorious for causing issues. Many games, even on Proton, run like crap or just… don’t run.
The last one, security, is also a bad reason. Linux is not inherently more secure than Windows, it’s just less attacked due to a lower desktop market share. What Linux does have, however, is that it’s massively easier to break by a clueless user, especially when following online advice when something isn’t working - and that’s going to be a common occurrence, especially with freshly-switched newbies. Windows will prevent noobs from breaking or exposing a lot of stuff.
The urban legend that Linux is more secure than Windows needs to die.
I’m always amused at the hoops that some Windows users will jump through in a vain attempt to sidestep Microsoft’s telemetry and surveillance—rather than just using an OS that respects your privacy to begin with. It’s gotta be Stockholm syndrome or something.
It’s the nvidia performance issues that keep me on Windows. I’d love to use an operating system that values and respects my privacy. But I’m not willing to take a large gaming performance hit to do it. That day this gets fixed I am dropping Windows and never looking back.
I can totally see that. Maybe it’s something to consider in advance for your next graphics card.
I’m always amused at people just randomly talking about telemetry (without understanding what it is), even unprompted.
Pray tell, why did you feel the need to say it, especially say it this way? I never mentioned anything about telemetry in the first place…
Oh, wait! Do you believe that the existence of an MS account on your device changes something related to telemetry…?
I mentioned telemetry because Windows (by default) regularly shares information collected from your computer with Microsoft. Some people try to work around that when they could instead invest that time elsewhere (say, installing Linux).
Yes, it does, but telemetry is not what people think it is.
Remember how Microsoft regularly kills those “cool features” for “no reason at all”? That’s because those that use them have telemetry blocked, so - from MS point of view - it seems like nobody is using them. Why waste dev time on something that nobody uses?
That’s telemetry. It’s anonymous. It tells them which parts of the OS work, which cause issues, which features are utilised, which aren’t. It’s not spying, it’s diagnostics.
- You’re trusting Microsoft’s word that telemetry is anonymous, because you can’t inspect the Windows source code to find out what they’re actually sending.
- Microsoft’s word isn’t worth very much, especially on the topic of privacy.
You’re trusting Microsoft’s word that telemetry is anonymous
Do you honestly and truly believe that nobody has ever analysed these packets? That nobody in any security position, especially in business, has ever checked if sensitive information wasn’t being transmitted? That the entire IT and Data Security world just goes “huh, I guess they’re spying on us, nothing we can do about it”?
Microsoft’s word isn’t worth very much:
Microsoft doesn’t publish detailed breakdowns of telemetry collection, which is a red flag in itself
especially on the topic
Oh yeah, Recall, the absolutely horrible… ummm… *checks notes* fully local and encrypted system… That isn’t even implemented yet… but when it is, you’ll need to manually turn it on…
Yeah, truly, the death of privacy is upon us.
of privacy
Have you read the article you linked?
Do you honestly and truly believe that nobody has ever analysed these packets? That nobody in any security position, especially in business, has ever checked if sensitive information wasn’t being transmitted? That the entire IT and Data Security world just goes “huh, I guess they’re spying on us, nothing we can do about it”?
Windows telemetry is encrypted, which as you can imagine, makes it hard to analyze.
Huh?
I don’t know exactly what that’s referring to, but maybe it’s the fact that some (not all) of the bullet points in this telemetry doc are super high level, leaving much to the imagination: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/optional-diagnostic-data
Also, even if every last bit of telemetry was completely documented, that doesn’t make it cool to send all that information to a company known for abusing user data.
Oh yeah, Recall, the absolutely horrible… ummm… checks notes fully local and encrypted system… That isn’t even implemented yet… but when it is, you’ll need to manually turn it on…
Again, without source code, you’re taking Microsoft’s word about all of this. But let’s say it is 100% what they say. An earlier version leaked the user’s private information to other processes on the machine and failed to filter out sensitive user data. I have a hard time trusting an organization that is so clearly reckless like this. Either they don’t care about user privacy—or they do care and they’re just incompetent. I’m not sure which one is worse.
Have you read the article you linked?
Yup.
Linux is more secure than Windows
Linux-desktop is less attacked than Windows.
Are you kidding? My public facing VMs get ssh brute force attacks like 10 times a minute, that’s not counting http attacks, vulnerability scanners, etc etc. all of the internet is running on Linux.
OK, maybe I’m wrong. Why do you think Linux is more secure than Windows (taking into account user-land issues, mind you)?
Linux doesn’t really have better security. It is actually worse from a purely security perspective.
The key difference is privacy and freedom. A high security prison might be secure but you probably don’t want to be there.
Why worse?
Not OP but - Windows is being bombarded by malware every second of every day. Linux, with its 6% of desktop user market share - not so much. This kinda’ guarantees Windows has a pretty good resilience (these days).
On top of that - in Linux you can change/break anything, which means bad actors could have you run malware by posting “helpful” comments on help threads. You know, “just run this .sh with
sudo”.Then you have situations like Arch has been going through - DDOS attacks on official repos and malware injected into a couple of packages in AUR. Sure, it got caught - but how many users installed the malware? How many other packages are under less scrutiny and are still serving malware in AUR?
And, I’m certain, someone out there is reading this and preparing to write a hot take on how “AUR is what it is, you’re not supposed to blindly install stuff from it” - but that’s exactly the problem. Because 99% of users have no clue what they’re doing.
Windows is being bombarded by malware every second of every day. Linux, with its 6% of desktop user market share - not so much.
Linux dominates the server space. Basically any company with access to lots of capital or trade secrets is running Linux servers. It is a massive, massive opportunity for hackers to hit jackpots. Linux gets bombarded by attackers constantly and holds steadfast. I’m not sure where you get this idea that this isn’t the case…
Edit: Just to really drive this point home, 65% of Microsoft Azure servers are Linux. Let that sink in, the majority of even Microsoft’s cloud servers are Linux. That is the one company you would think would be pushing Windows, yet here they are talking about their high quality Linux offerings!
“With over 65% of Azure workloads running Linux, our commitment to delivering high-quality Linux VM images and platforms remains unwavering.” - Microsoft
Linux dominates the server space
But the discussion is about user-space. Not everything from server-Linux translates 1:1 into desktop-Linux.
For example, there are no anti social engineering security measures in Linux. Just
sudoand break anything and everything. Whereas on Windows, if you try doing something stupid, most probably Windows won’t let you, or will at least make you jump through some hoops.There are no anti social engineering security measurements in Linux, for instance. Just sodo and break anything and everything.
Windows gives you a UAC prompt or needs one to run a cmd prompt as admin, both of which are functionally the same as sudo…
Windows is being bombarded by malware every second of every day. Linux, with its 6% of desktop user market share - not so much.
But, to circle back to the core statement. Yes it is. And Linux holds steadfast.
They’re very much not, that’s the point. There are things that require the
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEMaccount permissions. Admin can do a lot in Windows, but not everything.EDIT: also, Windows throws the UAC prompt around much less than Linux asks for the root permissions. ANY software update on Linux needs root. Even regular users are starting to get that if they see the UAC prompt, something big is about to happen.
You do have a point—Linux does not warn users against running superuser commands constantly and naggingly. Also not the beginner-friendly distros like Zorin, Mint and Ubuntu (as far as I know).
To me that’s fine, because I know not to just run any command, but my grandma who gets an email from a trustworthy-sounding person telling them to run “sudo install this keyboard logger and Rustdesk scripted installer” will not know better.
So then that begs the question, given you seem to know something about it: how should this be addressed? (I assume you know something about this—I don’t even know what an UAC prompt is.)
On the other hand: How does Windows stop users from running the .exe file a trustworthy-sounding person emailed them? You could argue that’s easier to ask people to do than to open the terminal and write a command in there.
Thanks for the summary!
If you want a bit more, also on security, check this comment.
Windows Defender monitors the entire system continuously
Windows is bad for privacy but security is a different matter.
Zorin OS is much more straight forward than Windows 11.
Why are people promoting this, all of a sudden?
Edit: I went to the website and saw the “Pro” paid option. It’s starting to make sense now.
“Why are people promoting beginner friendly distros on a post about reasons to switch?”
U are right, lets promote Nix and Gentoo here
Mint was the default suggestion for people switching from Windows until a few days ago, and then Zorin popped up.
Yeah true that mint is the default. But if you look up any beginner distro recommendation then zorin is often also mentioned. Zorin 18 released last week so it’s a getting a bit more mentions then normal. But look up any beginner distro video or article and it’s always mint and zorin. Zorin has been around since 2009
Why are people promoting this, all of a sudden?
They just released a new version a few days ago that’s really solid and aims to be a drop-in replacement for Windows. It’s probably the most beginner friendly distro out there and has stuff like Onedrive/MS 365 integration for people using that stuff.
The paid version is useless unless you need support.
Yeah it’s like, Zorin was the Trendy Distro Of The Month a few years ago. Cachy, Bazzite, at least two others ago. Like Zorin was right after Pop!_OS got a lot of praise for having the Nvidia version of the ISO.
To me, that’s the same as “Five reasons not to invite a renowned scammer and con artist into your home”. Unfortunately, my work colleagues think its normal and what else can they do but shrug.
i worked in a specific financial subindustry and the three software packages that were the best in the industry were not supported on linux (i did not test with WINE). the only software package that had linux support was absolutely awful. interface designed by business majors, not industry specialists.
i wish it were easy to work on linux, but hoping doesn’t get them to change.
I am in a similar situation but in healthcare. Nothing save as the web-front ends are any use in linux. Some information systems are built on linux, but we need a Windows machine to use them, Hopefully the slow European gentle tilt to FOSS might help.
Holy shit, ZDNet is still a thing?
What’s wrong with them?
Oh, nothing on my end far as im concerned. Just an old company name i hadn’t seen in a long time
I just wish games worked fine on Linux.
Good news, an overwhelming majority does work fine, and a significant number of those actually run better than on windows. I just switched to Linux on my desktop pc (because of win 10 EOL and because fuck microsoft) and I’m amazed how smooth the experience has been.
I read people online saying this often. But I’ve neve been able to play things without hiccups on Linux before.
With very very few exceptions.
I wonder why our experiences are this different. What distribution of linux do you run, on which hardware and how recent is your experience? For what it’s worth, I have an AMD cpu and gpu with cachyos (which is a flavor of arch with some gaming optimizations pre-applied at install). I’d urge you to give it another try, Proton/Wine has really advanced a lot in the past few years.
Mostly Debian and arch. But I’ve tried bazzite too at one point.
Experiences range from 5 years ago to like. Today.
And all my hardware is amd as well.
They do
I’ve read people saying this here on lemmy often.
But it really hasn’t been my experience at all with very few exceptions.
What games? Because a lot of games do work fine, maybe even most of them. The problem is that the outliers are often games that a lot of people are playing (see https://areweanticheatyet.com/). Those games are usually not my cup of tea anyways.
The two I tried recently that were problematic were wow and last epoch.
Allegedly they both work fine. They don’t though.
I’m usually playing steam games, and I often will find a solution to make it work on protondb if I have issues. Most of my games I can just install and run though. But I understand it being frustrating if your favourite games don’t work or require lots of tinkering. I have played a few older games outside steam as well. I usually use Bottles for that, as it creates a wine prefix for me that’s set up with DXVK, etc out of the box.
Last epoch is a steam game. And on protondb it’s platinum apparently.
Never had a good experience with it on Linux though. Buggy as hell.
Reading the comments on the protondb page, a lot of them are using startup options and proton experimental for example. Weird that it has platinum rating if tinkering is necessary though.
How is the support for linux on M-based Macs these days?
Is it viable ?
Maybe on M1,but after some heavy dispute, Asahi Lina, main dev of the graphics driver, stopped working on it and does not feel safe coming back. Also, it was in rust
Asahi has made some good strides. Might be worth checking out.
I’ve heard it is getting better. It would be worth downloading and trying a live-usb out and see where it is presently at.
I need something that I can use for work though
It is still considered unstable and unfinished
Wouldn’t use it for work
