I’m going to very carefully poke the hornet’s nest here and ask this basic question that I never really explicitly formulated. It seems apt here on Lemmy in particular because people take as a given the superiority of Linux as the starting point of conversations involved computers generally.
I’m not here to refute this, but I am thinking I should interrogate it a bit more. I’ll start with an “average” user, to which I’ll have to give some sort of definition.
Imagine somebody with a low to moderate concern about privacy, more than none, but not much more and will happily trade it for useful or enjoyable services. Imagine the use case of a desktop computer for this type of person is productivity software they use at work/school, and occasionally for their own purposes too because they’re familiar with it. They also like to watch movies, browse the web, and communicate with friends and family using popular free software packages. Security isn’t much of a worry for them, but they do engage in private communication and also banking and will pour a lot of personal information in to the machine in exchange for a lot of useful abilities like paying bills and organising their life.
Now also picture this person is open minded, at least a little and willing to hear you out on the concept of operating systems and of Linux in particular. Is it automatically in such a person’s interests to switch to Linux? And is it always a good idea to start with supposition that it is and that the only barrier is hesitancy and ignorance? Would any of their needs actually be better met should they switch? A lot of this discussion tends to devolve in to whether it is or isn’t hard for such a person to use Linux should they make the switch and whether using Linux is inherently more difficult than for example Windows but I think what’s missed here is, assuming it’s super easy to switch for an “average” user and perfectly easy to operate thereafter, is it actually better in such a case? If the needs are so basic, what has been gained? Is it mostly an ideological preference for the philosophical concepts behind the open source movement? That could be enough in and of itself perhaps, you could pitch Linux as “better” within that framework at least for the ideals it promotes. I feel like I sense there’s a desire to push Linux for this reason on the thinking that if just one more person joins the fold so to speak, then it generally pushes the world at large vaguely in the right direction in some small way. But is there anything more tangibly superior for an “average” user? It seems like nowadays hardware has long surpassed the needs of users like these such that things like “performance” don’t seem all that relevant considering almost any available platform could fulfill these needs so thoroughly that theoretically superior performance from the software would seem not to play a role. There is the security and privacy aspect, certainly for me, that definitely puts me off Windows but if an “average” user says they don’t care about this things, can you really say they’re being foolhardy in a practical sense? In a wider view, arguably, in the way that it pushes the world in a generally worse direction, but for them directly in the near to medium or even long term, what’s going to happen if they just don’t even worry about it? People say Windows has poor security, but for the number of people using it, just how many will personally experience actual measurable harm from this? Despite pouring so much personal information in to their computer, I suspect they could likely go a lifetime without experiencing identity theft, or harrassment from authorities, or tangible/financial losses. I suspect they probably know that too. That seems to me again like it really only leaves more of a “digital veganism” approach to Linux’s virtues. That’s appealing to some, to me a bit even but it’s a much narrower basis for proclaiming it “superior”
Now at the other end of the spectrum, the users that are not the least “average” who run Linux on their home systems and probably at work, use open source alternatives for every possible service and do not need conversion as they themselves are Linux preachers. What is it that they typically get out of Linux? I’ve heard many say they enjoy “tinkering”. I get that, is that the main benefit though? It seems then that the appeal is that it’s kind of “hard”, like a puzzle, but I don’t think any of this crowd would like that assessment. What do you want to tinker with though that closed systems would prevent you from doing? This probably goes to the heart of it because it’s the point at which I think probably most diverge from say an IT professional or programmer that loves Linux, I am too ignorant here to know what I don’t know and I just can’t really conceive of a scenario where I might for example want to personally modify the kernel of an operating system. Most examples I see if that type of thing is people making hardware work, and it’s ingenious and impressive but the hardware is usually that part of the setup that’s not democratised and not open source, it’s usually something off the shelf it seems to me that that hardware would have worked already on a more popular platform. Likewise when you eke out of last bit of performance out of a system, what are you actually doing with it? I mean I get that it’s a crying shame for hardware to be hobbled by lousy software but if the use for the hardware, the need for computing to be done can be met with existing platforms, what is done with the savings from the better software?
Using Linux now is like using windows before it got bad.
No forced online accounts, no bloatware or ads, no forced subscriptions, runs amazingly even on old hardware. Full functionality with full customization and no forced apps. I can do whatever I want with it.
Windows 7 was really the last windows version like this, and has since gone to shit.
For me, windows 2000 was the last good version
Windows XP was an acceptable step backwards… Everything after that was utter shit… Windows 7 was when i started dabbling in linux
XP wasn’t the prettiest but damn, it was rock solid.
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Maybe if I try it this way around. If you suddenly had to switch to using Windows from tomorrow onwards, besides the usual teething period of adjusting to something different, would your capacity to do your work be impeded in a meaningful way that would be inherently impossible/not worth it to overcome?
Also, though you didn’t say it yourself I gather some like the idea that if they wanted to try something unusual they could tinker with the kernel even if they probably wouldn’t, but even in the unusual case, why would you?
Going back to the car analogy I think that puts it very well, but actually it does also circle me back to my initial source of interest. I mentally always put Linux as the highly capable sports car with Windows as the Yaris, but I realise that I am just assuming that’s the case without knowing exactly what makes that inherently so. With cars for example I will assume that the “sports car” is faster and has a lot of features to make driving fast work better like increased safety structures and better handling so when you’re actually going fast you can steer without crashing. What’s the broad and general basis of comparison in the context of computing?
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This one’s interesting to me because I haven’t really used Linux since about 2009 and that’s because I had to start using Mac for work around that time and found that I liked it and after running a “real” Mac into the ground, I ran a hackintosh for many years to replace it so Mac OS is more my personal wheelhouse.
I’ve found it to be simultaneously one of the most restrictive and “free-est” platforms I’ve used other than Linux since a surprising amount of stuff is initially disallowed in a very noticeable and in your face way when you start using it and other capabilities seem not restricted but sort of… hidden, because of a general gist of a push towards Apple’s way of doing things and Apple’s walled garden (although it’s a nice comfortable pretty garden). But then at the same time I find that you can pretty much just ignore all of the gentle nudging towards certain ways of doing things and tell it NOT to restrict you when you find that it has and it just steps out of the way dutifully. I’m surprised then that your colleagues found an actual hard limit but it does sound quite beyond anything I’d be doing.
While I say it steps out of your way if you tell it to, that does somewhat beg the question though of why bother with it if you’re just going to ignore the whole Apple side of Apple Mac OS when it is kind of the main thing they’re offering with the platform? Actually I find I have an answer for that which is that’s it’s just really nice to use and I can dabble with Terminal and adjusting things here and there and using open source command line tools from package managers via terminal or with front ends and then also on the same system go completely commercial and use very mainstream software and tools. As you said it feels like some kind of Linux distro although certainly not in spirit and in your estimation a downright “shitty” one.
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but even in the unusual case, why would you?
Custom made embedded systems, low latency audio workstations, GPU optimized graphics rendering. Truly there are a lot of things you would want a fine-tuned kernel.
But what you are missing in your view of the analogy is customization. The real problem is that Microsoft sells Windows as the OS that is supposed to do everything. This is akin to Toyota selling the Yaris, for everything. Off road driving? try a Yaris, high speed competition? the Yaris is the car, drag racing? why not go with a Yaris. For the average Joe doing a commute to work and back home with the occasional grocery run, the Yaris is fine, and he thinks he has a deal in hands. Nevermind the car has features behind paywalls and the speedometer shows ads regularly obstructing the view of the speed.
In this analogy Linux is not one alternative car. It’s a fleet of multiple different brands, types and styles of cars. You can choose anyone you like, but still have the option to customize it further to fit your needs. What is appealing about Linux for the average user? Ask the people who daily drive Land Rovers or prefer a CrossOver when a Minivan would better fit their needs. You don’t see UPS delivering from a Yaris, they use the tool they need, a van. Just like data centers don’t use Windows Home Edition to serve cloud services, they use something like Red Hat.
Why should average Joe use Linux? It is up to him. Not to Linux. Linux offers the wide array of options and opportunities. If he wants the Yaris, he should use the Yaris. But if he wants something other than traffic and highway driving, Linux is always there. But, that said, Linux also offers affordable everyday appliance options like Linux Mint that just works and doesn’t show ads in the notifications.
It seems apt
May trigger some folks here by using apt. :)
I’ve been a linux user off-and-on for about ten years. In the last two years, I’ve worked to switch to it exclusively, with the last holdout being my gaming rig that has been Windows-free for 1-1.5 years. I rely on Arch, Debian, and Pop for my daily drivers, but I’m also always trying to suggest that distro doesn’t matter a whole lot, except to simplify setup for certain use cases.
But as to the crux of your question: for me, the appeal comes down to a few different factors.
Freedom
This is the one absolutely everyone says. It’s true in some senses, but not in others. For example, I do have more or less complete freedom over my own hardware if I am using a purely FOSS setup. There is a certain power in that, but moreover, it feels like a necessity – I paid for the hardware, and am wholly opposed to handing over usage rights to it to some software black box that could be doing things outside of my best interests. Is that tinfoil hat-ty? Yep. But I also do think it’s realistic.
Practicality
This might seem out of place given Linux’s history. It’s better known as a tinkerer’s OS with lesser known procedures and mechanisms than as an easy, practical OS. But Linux has changed by leaps and bounds since its earlier days. It’s no longer difficult to set up (unless you want some crazy shit, but that’s true on the Windows side too and thus can be factored out).
I measure practicality in a few different ways. Does the machine do what I need it to? Does it waste resources doing so? Does it do things I don’t want it to do? Is it hard to do the things I need to do on the machine?
In my own experience, Linux does what I need it to do. It does it without wasting as many resources as Windows (I was still on an i7 4790k until last week, because it was plenty – I only upgraded for gaming performance). It doesn’t do things I don’t ask it to, and even if it did, I could adjust it.
The common annoyance of Windows Update being constantly in your face is a thing. Ads in the start menu. Bloatware. All of those things I don’t want the hardware that I paid for to be doing. All of those things make Windows less practical for daily use.
But what about software support? What if I need something that only runs on Windows? First, these instances are fewer and fewer. Gaming was the biggest of elephants in the room, and frankly, I find Linux gaming superior to Windows now. I can run DX12 games and pre-cache the shaders, causing less stutter in general as a result. For AMD, the graphics drivers are in the Linux kernel – never do I need to worry about manual video driver installs again. Yes, some games do not perform as well through Proton – but some perform at parity and others run better than on Windows.
There are some clear examples of software with no real Linux alternative, e.g. Adobe suite: You could use GIMP instead of Photoshop for many tasks, but not all. You could opt for Inkscape instead of Illustrator, except it doesn’t support CMYK and some other features. Need Premiere? Then you probably actually need Premiere. There isn’t really a good way to run the Windows versions (unless they now work in WINE or even Proton – I haven’t looked into it in some time), so if you need them, you may be SOL. But many people do not need them, myself included, and the alternatives work great for the limited use cases I have elsewhere.
The new reliance on web apps for so many things has been an obvious boon for Linux. You can have the same browser experience but without the extra overhead in the back.
All of this adds up, in my view, to an experience that is superior on the Linux side, and thus I stick with it.
Community
Believe it or not, this is a big one. Stereotypes aside, the Linux community (and FOSS community) in general is amazing to be a part of. You usually don’t see people discussing the finer points of Windows outside of corporate events. But Linux still rides that line between hobby and necessity. The community is one of the things that keeps computing fun, but at this point Windows just feels like the soulless. corporate option. In contrast, for as stable and easy as modern Linux can be, it can also still be a tinkerer’s playground at heart.
All of these things taken together – the freedom, the practicality, keeping the fun in computing – make Linux an obvious choice in my opinion. I really have not looked back.
Lots of good points have already been made, so I’ll just share a different one. IMO Linux is a lot more conducive to sane systems administration. It is designed to be used and maintained, not to sell licenses or collect marketable data or grow a media/software platform or all the other things that shape Windows.
When you start poking at the underbelly of Windows, you see decades of aged, decayed infrastructure in various stages of functionality, largely undocumented and closed-source. There are ungodly webs of inscrutable APIs and drivers and frameworks and DLLs and bullshit that is just kind of a pain to think about. Windows sys admin is at least part of my job and I still find it annoying. Venturing outside the happy path is painful.
On Linux, it feels more like a normal part of life. You might run into obscure issues, but chances are there is documentation that could help, or maybe source code, and maybe there’s a forum post about it (with replies from humans, not Microsoft spambots). It feels more like you’re working with the community instead of working against Microsoft.
It feels more like you’re working with the community instead of working against Microsoft.
Getting my education in Microsoft IT Environments and this is spot on. I’ve been using Linux on and off for about 10 or so years and now and getting around to learn Microsoft Server, Azure, Powershell and other Microsoft products.
It all feels like a constant pain of trying to read jumpy and unclear documentation, getting through obscure hoops, not finding anything when searching for errors. It’s like I have to either be hand-held by Microsoft against my will or contacting a senior sysadmin who’ve stumbled across it from his senior or messed about for long enough to get a solution going.
There’s always speedbumps no matter how easy you’re trying to make it. Instead of universal solutions it’s so targeted you have to save your own. In the end you have a cluttered library of obscure powershell scripts that configures the most weird things that are either very poorly documented or only referenced once somewhere else or not at all. In the end, it never feels like you have control of the system. The only thing that makes things secure are hopes and prayers and that one setting doesn’t affect the other because you’ll never know.
Honestly, as much as I love Linux, I’d rarely ever recommend it for the average user.
Why do you love it so much?
I’m a software engineer, and habitual tinkerer. I also like near total control over my desktop behavior and aesthetic. With a handful of tiling windows managers to choose from, and customizable elements and decorations that I can slim down, it’s perfect for me. But that’s a big time investment, and lots of previous trial and error.
i want hybrid tiling/float. i am a single-monitor user over 95% of my time so i have learned to use transparency to view documents (or videos or whatever) through my working window. but i don’t want to deal with aranging the windows on the floating layer. do you know of a wm that can handle this for me? i have some hope in the proposal for gnome.
I don’t, sorry. I use a lot of key bindings to navigate and manipulate my windows. However, I believe most tiling managers worth their sand support layouts and rules. IE, if opening Gimp, always open it on workspace 1, on the top half. Though admittedly, I don’t use that functionality.
Not OP but Im the same.
It solves a lot of use-cases for my profession. I’m a programmer in my 40s.
When I’m coding in Windows, I find that there’s a lot of mysterious black boxes. To get X to work, I have to do Y. There’s so much bloat. There’s so much fussing with GUIs. Microsoft’s work in making sure Windows is stable for grandma means lots of stupid proofing things that I need to get my job done.
Where Linux, you wanna break your system with a command? Go for it! And I need that when I’m programming. It allows me to debug faster. It allows me to fully own the code I’m writing versus wondering if it’s some “magical Windows thing”.
The browser has become a great solution for most problems, and phone apps solve another major set of problems. A week ago, I demoed Adobe’s new cloud Photoshop in the browser. No download. It just worked! My kid fully edited a family video on her phone. All things that I would have done on my very expensive computer back in 2005.
If I wasn’t a programmer, I’d be pretty satisfied with a Chromebook and playing video games off my SteamDeck.
I enjoy all the things you cited for Linux users. But it’s been a spectrum.
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I started out as “Whee everything is free (of charge)”
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As I got more experience it was “Whee, everything is free (of charge) and tinkering is fun, and ZOMG WTF is Windows doing with Privacy??!!”
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And for several years now it’s “Whee, everything is free (of charge) and tinkering is fun, and ZOMG WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU Microsoft?”
Windows privacy has become worse and ads have become worse, and using/supporting it at work has just really driven home what a nightmare it is in comparison.
At some point between the second and third bullets, the free (as in freedom) aspect really hit me. This 3 minute video explains it in the cutest, most non-preachy way I’ve seen.
If/when that aspect sinks in - there’s really no other choice. (Aside from BSD - but now we’re talking about an even smaller pool of likely users.)
Man that truly has been my experience as well with getting to know Linux from my late childhood/early teens to now. Free was fun, tinkering became more fun and then Microsoft doing the worst company decisions for what I need made me feel disgust about it.
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People who prefer Linux generally like full control over their computer, and accept that manual control requires manual work, or are excited about learning the inner workings of their PC. These are the DIY deck builders who crown their joists and use stainless fasteners. The cooks who hone and strop their knives. The swimmers who shave their bodies. The backyard gardeners who send soil samples to the extension service and rotate their vegetables in their 1/8 acre homes. All otherwise normal and average folks who are passionate about getting the most out of some facet of their lives. And all of this stuff is “silly” or “unnecessary” to most people who build a deck, cook dinner every night, swim at the community pool, or have flowers in their yards. And so even if Linux is objectively better, it’s pretty likely the average user isn’t going to see any advantage to it.
In addition to everything else said here, what has crystallized over the last year is how good it feels that Linux and other open source initiatives are Enshitification-proof
This I believe is a big part of what give the warm and fuzzy feeling when using open source software and website. Generally everyone involved wants to make something good, without looking towards IPOs or the next quarterly revenue at the cost of the software
(Sure controversies happen, but they are generally few and far between, and open source licensing ensure forking is a viable last resort, like with LibreOffice and Nextcloud)
You said performance doesn’t matter. It does. If you have an older system or a system that due to Microsoft’s strict windows 11 requirement feels slow or is not able to have the latest OS, Linux can be quite worthy, as it tends to be quite lightweight. For simpler use cases, like general web browsing or simpler file editing, open source utilities are very much usable and delightful to use. In Linux, you will never (unless NVIDIA is thrown to the mix or some pesky Wi-Fi cards) have driver issues. Printers, that horrible nightmare on windows, are actually usable on Linux. For more complex documents, nowadays, with the improvements in wine, you can pretty much just install a better office suite. And for slightly more than basic users, the customisation is more than worth the slight inconvenience Linux may cause. Also, sometimes Linux just gets new features first, like workspaces, something that only came to windows 11, and has existed for years on Linux
Your system has to be very very old for Windows 11 to be sluggish. Like really old
I have a laptop that was around 6 years old when windows 10 came out (i7 Asus ultrabook). It’s basically incapable of running it, even opening a browser takes over a minute. It runs any linux distro I’ve put on it very well and it’s currently 10 years old, I haven’t had any issues with web browsing, writing documents or anything else. There’s no reason to expect a computer that can browse the web when it rolled off the line shouldn’t be capable of doing so 6 years later. Computers don’t improve that quickly anymore.
The culture of replacing devices every 4-5 years is completely manufactured by device manufacturers and Microsoft. It creates so much unnecessary waste and is destroying the planet.
I’m a long time Linux user and a programmer. What I love about it (besides privacy, non-pushiness etc.) is that I can pull pretty much whatever program or tool I need from package manager and that command-line lets me integrate many command line tools with graphical apps.
Just yesterday I made a little script that pulls weather data from a “non-official” weather station that is closer to me and stores it in a csv-file, then I could bind a key combination to fire another script that plots and shows me that data. It’s just a few command line tools mashed together. A few days ago I wrote little scripts that control lighting in my house and I can bind keys to those as well… maybe that’s “tinkering” too but they’re small things that make my life a little bit better :) Is that impossible to do in Windows? No, but Linux has much less friction.
People use mainstream software because they’re used to it or it came bundled with their hardware. We are used to Microsoft bundling it’s software in with most PCs because it aggressively built those relationships with manufacturers and that’s how it got massive market share.
The point about Linux is that is not a commercial piece of software designed to maintain Microsoft’s grip on your life and now your data and sell you to advertiser’s. Linux is just software that does the job and does it well without any compromises to keep a big corporation in control
The point for the average user is not that Linux is better in itself - it is that Linux is just as good but without all the compromises we’ve taken for granted in terms of poor data security, privacy, being sold as a product to advertiser’s or having features locked away or restricted for the benefit of the company rather than consumers. Linux lets you do what you want with your hardware, choose any software you want, and do whatever you like on your device.
We’re so no used to the compromises forced on us by big monopolies like Microsoft with Windows that most people don’t even realise the value Linux gives in restoring those basic consumer rights ans freedoms.
Linux does what Windows does, it just doesn’t ask you to give up your rights, your privacy or your data to do it. For the average user the benefits are hidden which is why they don’t see the point in it.
No OS level adware. Next question.
For hopping into the GNU/Linux, installing any distro in a Virtual machine or testing liveboot is an good way to to start. The first choice of distro has no meaning. My first was Knoppix on Win98 machine. Tried Ubuntu. Linux Mint got me hooked ~2014, moved to Arch Linux after Antergos. I’m still using Cinnamon DE.
Some “funny” realizations I have made over the years:
- Distros are just vast collections of the same software. The choice is simply what includes your subset.
- Most of the bad rep is missing in-kernel driver for device. Once AMDGPU got usable everything changed for me.
- You can “copy-paste” the entire system into different disk, plug it into another PC and it’s like remote accessing the original.
- It will feel like learning a new language, every time you need to something new. This just fact of life.
- If you want to be “bad person”: find the exact lines of source code and who wrote them. Then curse that person and the program.
- If you want to be mediocre: post an bug report. Maybe it is fixed asap or put onto “wish-list” and forgotten.
- If you want to be an amazing: donate code. Like actually write it. But be warned, the other users are also like vampires, really picky and demands are unreasonable for the time required. If nobody does this then the software turns into stone.
- By popular vote, some things have surpassed their black boxed counter part and there is no equivalent black box to be purchased. It has become free-software-only.
From above, the making of bug report/feature request is an introduction point into an amazing community behind the software you used. It is not an black box of faceless shareholders.
The occasional awareness tests for Linux users:
- When is the new kernel released? I must have the newest kernel.
- Update removed the floor you were standing on.
- The horror of installing anything on windows makes my skin crawl.
- The horror of accidentally pasting “rm -rf” into prompt and knowing it was yourself who pushed the button.
- No back-doors, unless you installed one.
I find that it’s easier to fix things (though that’s through the terminal, so it’s subjective). I’d say that maybe the best they could get out of linux (appart from the philosophical aspect or the security) would be more alternatives in software (if they care to have them) and better support for older hardware. Maybe even remove some of the problems that windows usually has like the preinstalled apps and slow updates, though that really depends on if the person finds these things annoying or not. (Also, it can be free, so that’s nice)
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