I don't think there has been one of these so let's start one. If you aren't familiar with Linux, this is a nice description. Basically, it is an alternate operating system to what your computer comes with. Sometimes it works better, other times it doesn't. I have been on and off using Linux for a while now but since August last year, I have been using Arch Linux full time. Arch works well for me for a few reasons. First off, it is bleeding edge. I tried stable distros like Ubuntu and had just as many, if not more problems on them. Arch requires the user to do a large amount of the work instead of hiding it behind installers. There are problems with Linux on my laptop, but Arch has taught me how to fix them. Finally, arch is like Windows in that updates come when the developers intend for them to come. Having experienced Debian and trying to get a remotely recent version of eclipse running, I want to avoid that in the future. On my Arch Linux install, I am running Plasma 5 and its packages. To this day Gnome 3 has been painfully slow for me and most other distributions don't strike the balance I like between customization and looks. Here is a screenshot of my desktop: All of the things at the bottom of the screen autohide leaving me with a fullscreen window. Along with this, I also have been using the terminal more and more. I use tmux to add some nice features to any terminal and vim with a ton of plugins for development stuff. How do you use Linux and do you have any tips for others?
*Cough* I use android on a desktop with edited firmware to run PC applications. Its a Windows/Android hybrid. Don't know what its called I found it 2 years ago and it works with the 1080TI flawlessly as I get Windows graphics drivers.
I have played with Linux off and on over the years. Every time I use it though, I get the same impression. It's light, fast, and very capable, but it requires a technical knowledge and a little bit of "elbow grease" to get it working correctly. To put it in perspective, let us take the example of installing minecraft. On Windows, to install Minecraft you only have to download the installer from Minecraft.net then run it, wait for it to install, and then log in and you are ready to go. On Linux, it is not quite this simple. In order to install Minecraft, you first have to install Java. Now, to most people they would assume just download the Java installer and run it, and then you just install Minecraft. But in order to install Java on Linux, it requires a bit more work than just running an "installer." (To start, there isn't one) More than likely along the way, when using Linux, you will have to open and use the terminal, and actually use commands to set up the system. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, not at all. However, this throws "user friendliness" right out the window. Now, I am familiar with using a command line interface, and have used it on multiple occasions across multiple OSs. However, somebody who does not have a technical background might only be able to copy/paste commands from a website in order to accomplish a task. (This assumes they can find the website and don't immediately quit when they see the terminal). This limits them and frustrates them, preventing them from being able to fully enjoy the OS. I believe this requirement of a technical background in order to correctly use linux is what keeps it from being able to compete with Windows, macOS, and other OSs available, such as Chrome OS, Android, and iOS. I love the idea of linux and the possibilities it offers, but until somebody offers a distro that is truly user friendly (for any user), it will not be able to truly compete with other OSs in the market.
On Arch, I installed Minecraft by running the single command: "yaourt Minecraft" and clicking yes a couple of times. Installing Minecraft on other distributions is going to be pretty much the same as Windows. The new launcher makes it nearly identical. For most other software, I have found Linux to be generally easier. With Ubuntu's software center, you can install most things, including Java, through an appstore-like interface. As for avoiding the terminal, I think distributions like Ubuntu are getting extremely close to allowing one to ignore it.
This was a few months back I tried to install Minecraft on a Linux distro, so if things have changed since then, that is awesome. And I agree, many distros like Ubuntu have come a long way in user friendliness and providing people with alternatives to the terminal. But they still lack the same level of user friendliness other OSs have.
I agree that they tend to sacrifice user friendliness for other things. Simply not having Linux as the default OS will hurt its adoption for most people. Steam seems to be pushing it harder now so we'll see where that brings us in a few years.
I've been using Linux since RedHat 4.0 came out (that's RedHat and not RHEL; we're talking around 1995 here) and used quite a few different distributions along the way. It's a bit of a funny story... Around that time I was the head systems administrator for a small consultancy firm. My operating system of choice (at home) was OS/2 and/or Novell DOS. One department of the company was very busy developing software which centered around a Sybase database running on Sun Solaris, and having read plenty about Unix the Sparcstation which was used worked like a magnet on me. By pure self-study (which wasn't as easy as it is now, the Internet wasn't as evolved back then) I taught myself some Unix basics which managed to pull the company out of a major catastrophe. Looking back it was a mere hassle, but the thing is: back then I was basically the only one who knew more about that Sun box than how to turn it on and off As a result I was sent to a Sun Solaris training (which was totally awesome) and it was then and there where I became totally hooked on Unix. So then I had a problem... How was I going to keep my knowledge and experience fresh? I wanted to buy Solaris/x86 but that sold for hundreds of dollars and I had no idea where I could order it. Enter the Linux At first I only started using Linux to help me keep my Unix knowledge fresh. Over time OS/2 became pretty much obsolete, I upgraded my hardware and ran into all sorts of issues. I used Windows 95 for a short period but then quickly moved to a dual boot between Windows, Windows 2000 and SuSE Linux and slowly but steadily Linux became my primary OS. Eventually I made the jump to Debian, and later Ubuntu LTS because I became tired of the constant updates. Fast forward a few years later and I gave up on Linux as my primary OS because I started a company of my own and started relying more on Windows for compatibility with others. Vista at first (which came pre-installed with a computer I had bought) and later I swapped that out for Windows 7 Professional (which I'm still using today). That was the desktop side... Servers is another story. I managed to get hold of Sun Solaris x86 and I've experimented a lot with it, eventually version 10 came out and my company purchases several licenses and used several Sun servers for internal and partly external usage. We ran dozens of customer websites on the Sun One Java webserver for example Business also increased, and eventually we started looking into VPS solutions and those often came with either Linux or Windows. I ended up with a network of several CentOS machines (6 in total; 4 production, one fallback and one backup/test environment) and one Windows 2k8 server. But then Oracle took over Sun and that was bad news(tm). Where I used to pay around $200 - $300 for a Solaris license Oracle "only" requested around $800 per core. I could have gone with the freely available "open" Solaris variants but those never managed to impress me. In the mean time I also noticed another VPS provider which turned out to be a heck better than what I had. For starters they provided console access to all their VPS environments without any extra fee's. And I also noticed that they supported all major Linux distributions and.... FreeBSD. Around that time I had grown very weary of several Linux distributions because of the seeming constantly changing environments. Thing is, I had grown very used to Solaris which basically pride itself on backwards compatibility. You could grab software specifically made for Solaris 7 and easily run it on Solaris 10 which was approx. 5 - 8 years older. You can seriously forget about that on Linux. Another issue was security. SELinux didn't exist as it does now and in comparison Solaris was waaay ahead of Linux on several aspects. One of which being Zones, basically a way to run a virtual instance of the server yet with the same userspace (same installed software). 'Tis a long story So when I started looking into FreeBSD I discovered that their mindset was pretty much compatible to what I've experienced with Sun. Sure, things will change over time but hardly as fast as it does on Linux. Another massively important feat for me is the support time. Linux used to have LTS versions ("Long Term Support") which IMO were better described as version freezes. When support for an LTS version had run out and you wanted to upgrade to the next version you'd often find yourself upgrading between several major versions of that specific distribution. And that's not always an easy task. At one time I ended up having to install several versions of Ubuntu after each other because there were major problems with the upgrade procedure. Yuch.... Problem is: I approach all this from a company (commercial) perspective. So when I have to spend time on installing extra OS versions I'm basically wasting my time. And time... is money for a company. I started to look into FreeBSD. Did some serious extensive tests and stepped in around FreeBSD 9.0, now approx. 4 - 5 years go. Never looked back. Thing is, FreeBSD sits much closer to Unix and the Unix mindset than Linux does (<cough>, systemd, </cough>) and that is a major issue for me. Next to native ZFS support and some very serious security features which - at that time - weren't supported on Linux other than patches (I've always been a huge fan of the LIDS project for example, yet that's also one of those things which is natively supported in FreeBSD). Right now I still like Linux for what it is, does and has accomplished but I stopped using it myself. My company now fully relies on FreeBSD where servers are concerned. I even replaced the Windows 2k8 / 2k12 server (used later on) with FreeBSD which uses Apache and Mono to provide an ASP.NET environment (part of our web services rely on ASP.NET, the other on Java EE (Tomcat / TomEE, previously Glassfish but because I don't trust Oracle at all we ported our whole infrastructure to Apache)).
I use Windows on my main computer, but I used to have old Chromebook that I had running ChromeOS/Linux side by side, with a keybind to switch between the two. 10/10 would run side by side again
