Windows, Mac or Linux?

[raymanHUN]

Oops. Well then I'm the second Linux user!

And so it seems the third one - me - has arrived.

I'm currently on openSUSE Tumbleweed with Gnome on my personal laptop at home, which I use for pretty much everything - studying, coding, media....

And then on my work laptop - provided by the company I work at - is windows 10, and I pretty much hate it. I keep mashing the windows-key, in hopes it brings up the overview like in Gnome, but no, it just opens and closes the stupid start menu. I mean, it's supposed to do that, but I just can't get used to it. Gnome is just so much better when it comes to productivity and looks. I wish MS Office was available for Linux, so I could use my personal laptop for school stuff as well.

I think with openSUSE I've found the distro I will use in the foreseeable future, I don't plan on distrohopping anytime soon. I'll still keep my eyes on ClearLinux, it looks promising, and it looks clean enough. Might just buy an extra SSD to install it and test, without having to modify my current OS.

Other Linux users, what distro and DE/WM are you guys on?

[PluMGMK]

I'm using a Linux from Scratch installation that I've spoken about before, and I have GNOME installed but I mainly use Sway. I was an early adopter back at the end of 2015, when it was still really crashy and didn't draw titlebars on windows (since at the time the author was on the Client-Side Decoration side of the Wayland debate). It's been great seeing it mature to the point that now I can use it even when gaming! (Although getting an AMD GPU in 2020 helped a lot with that too, since it doesn't work with the proprietary NVIDIA driver).

Btw we have a Linux thread too

[Steo]

I'm just on Arch at the moment because maintaining the LFS installation for me became a bit much and I essentially gave up on it (unfortunately), but I will get back to it again one day. I'm doing a course in Python currently so maybe I can learn something and make my update scripts in a more practical fashion next time.

[arnoldfranklin]

Well, I'm a Linux dude. I'm typing this on Linux. A problem with Linux is that some programs aren't really compatible with it and then you have to use Wine program or stuff to run it. It just doesn't have some programs Windows does. Luckily, it has some of your basics and I can browse pretty nicely.

[PluMGMK]

It's nice to see another one of "us" around here When did you start using Linux?

[arnoldfranklin]

It's been a thing I originally used a pretty long time ago. Have you ever used Debian? I don't use it currently but I did at a point.

[PluMGMK]

I dabbled in Debian back in 2007 when I still mainly used Windows, it didn't really speak to me. Then I used it again from late 2014 to early 2016 (before switching to Linux from Scratch).

I also used it to set up some minimal configurations on eight computers in my university in 2018, to run some models I was working on for my undergrad thesis. The tools made that really easy!

Apparently there's a new distro debuting today: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Serpent-OS-First-Release

[arnoldfranklin]

Have you heard of puppy Linux?

[Steo]

Well, I'm a Linux dude. I'm typing this on Linux. A problem with Linux is that some programs aren't really compatible with it and then you have to use Wine program or stuff to run it. It just doesn't have some programs Windows does. Luckily, it has some of your basics and I can browse pretty nicely.

The good thing is that Valve Proton helps a ton with this stuff. A lot of programs work pretty well with Wine, and I used to play GTA V Online all the time on my Linux system. I haven't been using Linux now while I'm back for the holidays, as it isn't even my computer and I'm just using it temporarily, but I'll be using LFS when I'm back home. There are usually always alternative programs for what Linux doesn't have, and there are a lot of programs being made for Linux these days too.

[PluMGMK]

Have you heard of puppy Linux?

That's a lightweight distro, isn't it? I don't think I've ever used it...

[Tribelle2026]

I use Windows 10. I have only used Linux once.

[petit12]

Windows 10. I don't like Windows 11

[Steo]

I honestly don't like either Windows 10 or 11, that's why I use Linux when I'm on my own computer.

I feel like Microsoft declined when it comes to the style of the OS alone, but then so have a lot of things. Even the Pringles logo has become flat. I especially don't like their forced telemetry where they can collect data and lie about what they really use it for, but it is what it is.

[PluMGMK]

Yeah, I don't happen to think the Windows kernel sucks by any means. It's a pretty solid OS, and for the most part maintains backwards compatibility (apart from breaking with Win16 once the OS became 64-bit, for a few reasons that have more to do with hardware bugs and limitations). It's just the stuff on top that turns me away, like the interface like Steo said, and then the telemetry stuff is just exactly what the Free Software fundamentalists have been warning us about for years! (We don't have to assume they're lying about what they use it for, but on balance we probably should! )

So yeah, I'll stick with a free-software OS where I can install whatever desktop environment I damn well want

[Steo]

That is definitely the best option, and open source is the future!

[PluMGMK]

Well, have you heard the French government is trying to bring in legislation that will basically force bits of browsers to be closed-source? https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2023 ... -blocking/