Let’s not cherrypick scenarios to try and pretend Linux is easier than Windows. Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options, never mind putting them into a terminal window where they could seriously fuck up their machine. What about clicking the download link on a webpage, clicking next a few times and having them software on your machine, compared to having to build something from GitHub (how many people here have never had to do that?).
been using linux for a few years both on servers and my pc and I never had to build sth myself
Unless you have a system without a GUI, you don’t need to open a terminal in order to update or install stuff. There is a GUI for that. And no, you don’t need to build stuff from GitHub for normal user stuff…
I tried that on linux, it doesn’t work if you want to do more than browse the web and other basic stuff.
You can do some seriously advanced stuff on windows using only GUIs
We were talking about normal user stuff that normal users do, not “seriously advanced stuff”… And I agree that most normal users probably don’t want to use terminals because they are not familiar with them. But normal users probably don’t and shouldn’t do “seriously advanced stuff”, no?
Yes, if you are trying to do “serously advanced stuff” (whatever that means), chances are you will probably need a terminal (or a terminal will at least be easier), but you shouldn’t be doing “seriously advanced stuff” unless you know what you are doing anyway…
I just wanted to install steam, but it wasn’t in the package manager list.
Then I tried apt-get and that didnt work, I forgot why.
You don’t have to do seriously advanced stuff on linux to run into issues without using the terminal.
My point was, even if you actually do some advanced stuff on windows you still don’t have to use the terminal.
It’s not realistic that you don’t have to use the terminal on linux if you want to do any more than web browsing and some text editing, etc.
That doesn’t mean that linux is bad, but let’s be realistic about what it is.
Weird, I would expect Steam to be in the Ubuntu repos (assuming that’s what you were using, since you mention apt), but maybe not. As for apt, or apt-get, they are just the terminal equivalent of the GUI package manager (synaptic? it’s been a minute since I ran ubuntu), so if something isn’t in the repos, apt at the terminal won’t find it either. If it’s not in the repos, you should be able to download and install steam from the website just like you would in windows. It gives you a .deb file which will launch just like an executable installer in Ubuntu. But to your point, yes, sometimes things in linux take a little extra thinking to get to work. Getting accustomed to the way Linux works can help overcome hiccups like this. Windows has many quirks as well, it’s just that if you use WIndows often you know your way around them.
To install Steam on most distros with popular DE’s, you click the software store to open the software store. If Steam isn’t listed in the front page then just click the search box and start typing Steam.
When you see it, click the install button.
When it is done open it by clicking the Open button or pressing the Windows (or Super) key and type Steam. Click it when you see it.
Even if it is, for whatever reason, not part of the repository you have installed, you can still go on steam’s website and download the package from there… In other words, the worst case scenario is literally the same experience as you would have on windows…
I just wanted to install steam, but it wasn’t in the package manager list.
Maybe you used Debian, which only allows free software in their default repo? But then you won’t be able to just install it with apt either. But even if it is not in the repository, you could still go on steam website and download the package from there, so literally the same experience as on windows…
You don’t have to do seriously advanced stuff on linux to run into issues without using the terminal.
Like what?
It’s not realistic that you don’t have to use the terminal on linux if you want to do any more than web browsing and some text editing, etc.
10 years ago, or maybe even 5 years ago, I would have agreed with you. Not anymore though, not if you use a half-way beginner friendly distro…
Yup, it was debian. I think I tried adding another repo, but gave up before I got it to work. I didn’t try to just download the file, because I had done that before and all I could do is extract whatever is inside the file, but not install it.
It was around 2 years ago, maybe Linux has gotten that much more user friendly in the last two years, but I doubt it.
I use and love debian a lot for servers because it is super stable and relatively lightweight, but I definitely would not recommend it for desktops/notebooks, especially not to people new to linux based systems.
It’s super purist about foss, which means you only get free and open source software (no steam, discord, etc) per default and it uses an older kernel (which makes it more stable, but less feature rich and less compatible with new hardware).
If you use something like fedora, linux mint (as far as I heard) or even ubuntu, your experience would probably be a lot better.
Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options
Sadly no. They should be nervous if it’s about making changes to their system. In reality however Windows conditioned them to just click the button labeled “Yes” or “Okay” without even reading the pop-up in the first place.
Compiling from GitHub is cherry picking the worst case especially for “most normal people” and frankly they should be using the software store GUI in their DE to install and update software with nice easy buttons to click.
Frankly software management for a normal person generally is easier on Linux than it is on Windows for stuff made to run on Linux.
But don’t worry someone will respond with nvidia’s shitty proprietary drivers.
Most normal people only ever use the browser. Even image or video editing is niche for the average person
I haven’t had a DLL issue in Windows in like 20 years.
I did
I didn’t
I haven’t had to restart to install / uninstall anything since WinME.
Only thing I can think of is installations that include drivers. And even then, not all of them.
Found the guy who never updated his windows since ME
What? An OS install isn’t the same as installing / uninstalling something. Xp, 7, 10… I don’t restart when installing shit.
So you never did windows update
That’s not installing something; that’s fundamentally changing the OS… what is happening in this thread?!
Which is exactly what you can do in linux, live patch the kernel and carry on
When you make fun of something that really isn’t an issue it just makes your side look worse. Windows has real problems, but installing shit ain’t it.
My dad can install anything on windows with clicks, he can’t do shit with a terminal.
I’m a power user and love GUIs. I’ll use git desktop all day everyday, instead of typing shit in a command line. It’s one button press vs typing paths and hoping you don’t misspell shit.
I don’t really get the whole command line fetish, there are no extra points in life for doing things the harder way.
The GUI app centers on most distros are quite usable without command line wizardry and reduces the risk of dodgey download sites
Check the name of this community again.
Power users are just regular users with an ego.
GUI is like fast food, sure you can eat it and enjoy it, and you will live to see another day, but it’s inferior in every way to everything else. The real problem is that people start acting like fast food is the default food and start looking at people who eat raw or cook their own food or pay for food at a restaurant as being full of themselves.
There are countless real advantages to CLI over GUI, but allowing people to use their computer effectively by fumbling around isn’t one of them.
A simple analogy is, would you rather have keyboard with a-z and symbols you can use to build words/sentences, or would you want a wordlist you can scroll and click, while expanding words in groups, and having to find non-frequent words with a lot of difficulty to make up sentences.
Command line use is harder if you come from gui. But the main use case of command line are:
- automation: anything you can do in a command line, can be copied in a script,
- uniformity: every software now has almost the same format of use,
- flexibility: gui almost always has less options than command line, and many times options are hidden within a lot of tabs and options.
- Auto complete: whenever someone complains about terminal being hard to use and spelling mistakes I think about this. I think many people that come from GUI don’t know about auto-completion on terminal. It’s easy to see which options are available, easy to choose files, wildcards for multiple files, and all that
- piping: command line allows you to chain one command with another. You have a command to list all your music files, chain that with a search command to search files within them. Now if you need to search in a python code, you use the same search command, just different command to read the file. You basically have lego blocks (old ones) that can be used to make anything.
I can understand people being afraid of command line when they start, but I think many people come with biases and don’t use good terminal and other tools to make things easier.
I can’t remember the last time I got a DLL error on my Windows laptop, honestly. I don’t think that’s ever happened on my current computer.
The last time I got a DLL error was back in Windows 98 ffs.
I got this when I didn’t have the correct .NET installed
Edge (Microsoft browser) thinks the Microsoft Teams exe installer FROM MICROSOFT SERVER is malware, no joke.
Broken clock and all that
somepackage requires otherpackage version >10.1.79
otherpackage is already at latest version
Have fun compiling it yourself and messing up what is managed by the package manager and what’s not. And don’t forget that the update might break some other package along the way
Most of the time you can just download a release and place the binary in path (or a symlink).
Compiling it yourself should not ‘messing up’ anything, it should build locally:
./configure make -j$(nproc)Now it’s just built, nothing on your system has changed.
make installwill place requisite files where they need to go, but this generally configurable viaprefixor equivalent. You may need to install dependencies, but that’s usually a simple exercise in reading the output from the configuration step.Compiling software is easy as fuck and is incredibly flexible.
NixOS solved this. You can install both deps from two different channels.
IDK, but I more often had issues with installing apps to Linux than to Windows, usually dependency-hell related ones, but once I had trouble enabling snap on Linux Mint.
but once I had trouble enabling snap on Linux Mint.
Seems like a win
Mint activity tries to protect you from using snap.
Been using Linux off and on since 2003-ish. I remember the days of having to compile applications and having to download various dependencies. Linux now is so streamlined and easy. Minus gentoo.
What? Once you set up gentoo properly, its as if not more streamlined than other distros
I don’t know about all the arguing and snark, but… I’ve been using Ubuntu (laugh it up) on my work laptop for the last 3ish years, and the vast majority of the time it really is “click install updates. wait 2 minutes. ok every program on your computer is up to date, just don’t forget to restart Firefox”. Can’t think of a time where updating sucked. Sometimes I even go through the terminal just because it makes me feel cool to be a hackerman.
I dread updating my windows pc at home. Cuts into my WoW time too much.
Coincidentally my windows PC needed to update when I got back to it. It took like 15 minutes and 2 restarts. I legit pulled out my Ubuntu laptop and Sudo apt-get upgraded that bitch just to flex on Bill Gates.
I can’t laugh it up as I use Ubuntu with a K.
Remember DLL hell in windows 2000? Damn that was rough.
I think the last time I saw a dll issue was windows 8.
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This kind of reads as being addicted to the smell of your own farts?
Nothing in that godawful, arcane, confusing black screen with white text is ever going to be better than clicking on buttons that have English words I can actually understand.
If you were raised by the matrix and like doing things the hard way with memorized commands, that’s fine with me and kind of cool in a way, but it is definitely the hard way.
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Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) don’t
do underfall short of Windows. Heck, I’d argue they might even be easier.The real issue is anti-cheat. But that’s just the next hurdle we’ll have to overcome.
Edit: TIL that the expression “to do under” has no place in English.
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Apologies. Allow me to clarify.
I meant that it’s not harder than Windows, when it comes to playing games. And I even made that claim stronger by proclaiming that it’s probably even easier.
Edit: SteamOS is the operating system found on the Steam Deck. It’s basically Arch Linux (btw), but with Valve’s (very) special sauce. It’s what you’d expect from your average game console; which is a good thing*.
Can you run league on Linux? I can’t run it on my windows anymore cause if some security thing lol
We were able to, up until Riot chose to mess it up for everyone (including us).
They are. I have about the same success rate with Proton and WINE(via Heroic Launcher) as to when I still duel booted Windows. If you’re talking about games with rootkit anticheats, I never played those in Windows anyway.
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I just use Mint. Just think of Proton as a feature of Steam. I just pick a game from my Steam library and select Force Compatibility mode on and install. Heroic Launcher (for GoG and some other things) is a few more steps, but I didn’t need a guide to figure it out. Heroic lets you choose either Proton or WINE, so I installed Steam first to minimize confusion.
Oh, and another nice feature of Heroic is that it will grab the Linux binary if it’s available somewhere even if that binary isn’t available on GoG. I was surprised that it grabbed the native client for Factorio instead of the windows version that’s on GoG.
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The overhead added by Proton, compared to the CPU time consumed by the actual game, is minimal. The greatest benefit is that you don’t have dozens of Windows services hogging half of your memory and CPU.
Some games have some quirks that can cause performance issues when running under Proton. Deathloop, for example, was good on Windows, but unplayable on Linux with the same hardware (Ryzen 5 2600, 16G RAM, RX 6750 XT). There was massive stuttering even on minimum graphics, and every level took several minutes to load. It works now, but since then I’ve upgraded to a 7800X3D, so I’m probably just brute-forcing my way through the same issues.
It doesn’t get much better than Digital Foundry’s coverage on the matter.
Spoiler alert
Performance is about similar. So no significant performance issues.
That completely depends on the game. Many play just as well if not better, some play worse or not at all. Check out a site called ProtonDB for a huge list of games and their level of playability.
Probably, but I’m already running ancient hardware and I tend to favor retro and indie games, so I’m not the best to ask about that. Some people do report better performance under Proton though. Windows has a lot of bloat that doesn’t exist with WINE/Proton running in Linux.
Most games on Steam work just fine when you turn on Proton. Gaming on linux has come a long way.
Moving the goal posts from OS handling to games is an admission that you know you are wrong.
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I mean they are. I game constantly and use a Linux only machine. The only games that don’t work are crappy anti cheat games from Epic. And they are crappy. So who cares?
I duel booted just for those and it wasn’t worth the headache. Linux is far superior in every way.
The Windows updating experience, both the system and apps via the Microsoft Store is so fucking bad it’s unbelievable. Shit just stops working all the time, updates fail, grinds the whole system to a halt etc.
For several years now I’ve been unable to update apps in the Microsoft store in one go, I have to open it, click “get updates” and the circular progression bar goes to about 1/5 and then just stops. So I have to close the app, wait a few minutes, open it again and then press the “play” button for every single app that has updates for the download to actually start, nothing else works. It’s been the same for Windows 10 and 11 across four different computers.
There was a Windows 10 update several months ago, might even have been last year that just failed for a ton of people and it took months before it was fixed.
That’s actually a major reason I switched to linux. Windows security update kept failing with no solution for like 6mos. Afaik there is still no solution.
Missing dependency? Don’t you like living away from your parents?
Windows side of things is getting better though, thanks to winget. Not perfect and it f’s up with certain packages but already a lot better than updating by hand.
One thing that no one can argue is better on windows is app updates.
On Linux, my apps update through the app store or a terminal command.
On Windows, the app has to create its own auto-updater that usually means it bugs you for permission (sometimes if it’s something like Adobe or Office it’ll keep an update-checker service running!). Otherwise your app is just stagnant forever.
It’s not impossible for Windows to fix, there’s chocolatey and winget but they’re always going to be a niche alternative to the shitty systems Windows gives by default.
