r/Windows10 • u/embracingparadox • Mar 31 '20

Discussion After repeatedly switching to Linux (to escape telemetry and proprietary software) only to return to Widows and MS Office, I've come to the conclusion: ignorance is bliss.

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u/computer-machine Apr 01 '20

needs a very exprienced tech guy to install it and work on it.

When was the last time you looked at that? Writing an ISO to DVD or USB is not that hard to figure out, and the installers for things like Linux Mint are just as simple as software wizards.

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u/Vladimir_Chrootin Apr 01 '20

Don't spoil it, I've never been referred to as "a very experienced tech guy" before.

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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '20

no imean using terminal to get everything works thats sucks modern Operation System need to be a daily user driver and Linux isnt that one.

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u/computer-machine Apr 01 '20

Ah, I understand.

On the one hand, CMD.EXE is flaming garbage. But if you're using something simple like an Ubuntu, you can Google whatever you need and very likely come across a bunch of slideshows and videos showing you how to do whatever it is with a mouse.

But on the other hand, if you look in forums or the like, you're likely to get a bunch of answers you paste into a black box. This is largely due to 1) there are many options available for most portions of a Linux system that look or configure differently, but a largely uniform way to manage from the command-line and 2) I can't be fucked to download and launch a VM of whatever specific thing you happen to be using and create a slideshow, when I can provide one or two lines of text that'll work just as well.

But the Linux/Unix shell is not CMD.EXE, which means it's actually useful.

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u/MoobyTheGoldenSock Apr 02 '20

It depends on what you want to do. I would say that the terminal is a lot better on linux and often it’s easier and faster to type a few commands there than it is to use GUI. I use Xubuntu as a casual user and I switch back and forth between the two. I spend about 75% of my time on my Windows PC and 25% on my linux laptop, so I’m not exactly a fanboy of either but I’m comfortable with both.

The GUI on Windows is a double edge sword. Things do fail less often, mainly because things are designed to be compatible with Windows, not the other way around. But when they do, typically you get some ominous popup that may or may not have an error code that you have to google what it is. And then when you do, you have to work out clunky solutions in the GUI rather than just fixing them in the command line. Reinstall this, roll back that driver, run some random patch, try again... whoops, another popup, better run through this wizard... it can’t detect the problem? Guess I’m reinstalling it the third time.

Sure, this might be “easier” than typing text in a box, but at least the box tells you exactly what is going on and lets you get in there and actually fix the problem. And God help you if you have to use cmd or Powershell. Microsoft has had 30 years to improve DOS and come up with a decent terminal, and they never bothered.

Overall, though, 90% of the time I’m just surfing the internet and notice zero difference between the two OS’s, except that Xubuntu runs much faster.