Re: Founder of Gentoo Daniel Robbins: "I actually try to avoid using Linux on the desktop"

On 2024-12-17, CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

Le 2024-12-17 à 15:25, RonB a écrit :
>

Getting the hardware to work as it should from the moment you're done
installing the operating system. A fresh installation of Windows does
that. Linux comes close, but you will inevitably be forced to find
workarounds for some of your hardware. On this PC in particular, there
is no way to get the fingerprint reader to work, you won't get the audio
to play at its highest potential volume, and you won't be able to use
any of the advanced trackpad gestures. Apparently, it's possible to get
the reader by overwriting the firmware and doing a bunch of other
complicated junk in Arch alone, but there is no remedy for the sound and
none of the desktop environments do too well with simple gestures like
two-finger flick to the left or the right to go back or forward on
webpages. They give you lots of gestures to do tons of other things like
switching virtual desktops, but the most basic thing seems to elude them.

 
Your "experience" with Linux doesn't match mine. When I moved to Idaho to
help care for my wife's aging parents, we traveled light. I had a laptop
but I wanted to use a desktop. I bought one at the second hand store without
a hard drive. I ran that computer on a Live Linux Mint USB for about two
months, install took a couple minutes. Try that with Windows. Get back to me
with your results.

>
Part of enabling hardware encryption on Windows requires you to use
Windows To Go in much the way you would Linux on a LiveUSB stick. It's
doable, but Microsoft doesn't give you a direct way of creating such an
installation the way that Linux does. I'll say this much: I do believe
that you ran a live Linux environment for months rather comfortably and
that the installation took little time. That's definitely a strength of
the operating system.
>

As for fingerprint readers, specialized GPUs, etc., I can't say one way or
the other. I don't use fingerprint readers (even where I have them), nor do
I care about trackpad gestures. I get rid of tapping on my trackpads and
want to use them for two things, moving cursor and scrolling.
 
As for sound, your problems with it are not mine. I guess there are
advantages to using business machines as opposed to gaming machines. No
issues with sound on my computers. No Arch ever needed.

>
The sound chip uses something called Dolby Atmos in Windows. Without it,
the sound is no different in Windows than it would be in Linux. With it,
the volume is augmented and you can set it up for the type of sound you
are using. It increases the sound without causing crackling and it is
definitely a feature people aren't likely to want to sacrifice. As for
the fingerprint reader, the issue stems from the manufacturer doing
nothing to open its hardware for open-source developers. However,
manufacturers have no obligation to support Linux and they aren't
compensated in any way if they decide to.

Maybe my computers don't have this "Dolby Atmos" because I can't tell any
difference between Windows and Linux when I play music on the same computer.
I know I don't have any crackling (as it would drive me nuts).

I realize that a lot of people like the fingerprint reader, but I saw how
these could be used to steal your identity (right when they first came out)
and I decided I never wanted to use them.

I just spent about three hours getting my wife's desktop to boot and update
to the newest Windows 11 update (which is why I suspect it locked up in the
first place). Once I got Windows to boot (by disconnecting the hard drive
and removing it from the "boot choice" in the BIOS — it took an hour and a
half to download the update and install it — than about another ten minutes
after rebooting... doing something or other. This is on a 10th generation
Intel CPU, with 40 GBs of RAM, using an NVMe SSD, with an Internet speeds of
about 650 Mbps. Heaven knows how long it would have taken with slower
Internet, an older CPU and 8 GBs of RAM.

>
I wouldn't want to find out. If she doesn't update regularly as she
should, I have no sympathy for the fact that she had to go through one
long update which took hours. My wife is the same way and I don't bother
to help her anymore since she keeps doing it to herself despite my warnings.

 
Yes my wife does update when she's informed that one is necessary. This is
just Windows being Windows. Microsoft's updates suck.

>
I can't say that I like them either, but 11's are definitely better than
10. The fact that it essentially reinstalls the operating system on big
updates is a bonus for me since it cleans out the crap. It's obviously
much slower than a Linux one, but I don't dislike it.

I've updated Windows 11 a couple times and do think, generally, it's better
than Windows 10. So I'll give you that. Still take way too long, though.

So, one of the "basic things" for me is being able to start and update the
damn computer without it locking up and taking over an hour a half just to
download and install an update. I have never had to deal with something like
this in the 18 years I've been using Linux (except when supporting my
family's Windows' machines).

>
I admit that this isn't ideal. However, once that update completes, you
know that your desktop will work as it should preserving all settings
and software. I would rather that be the expectation and what Microsoft
promises than the fast alternative requiring you to fix (if you're
capable) a Linux installation or completely reinstall it. I'm sure that
you've had nothing but good luck in eighteen years of using Linux since
I have no reason to doubt your sincerity, but I've experienced way too
many broken installations which crashed because some obscure library
went from 0.32.8.1 to 0.32.8.2.

 
No you don't know that. (Maybe more so now then in the past, I don't know.)
My wife has had BSODs after updates. And didn't a recent application update
kill Windows machines with BSODs all over the world?
 
As I've mentioned now (several times) I've never had a single Linux update
fail. Just to see if it would work, I recently upgraded a 2007 Dell Latitude
D430 from Linux Mint 18.2 to Linux Mint 21 — without rebuilding anything.
This required three major point upgrades (18 to 19, 19 to 20 and 20 to 21)
and three minor point updates (from 18.2 to 18.3, 19 to 19.3, 20 to 20.3).
This took hours (mostly while I was doing other things in the background),
but it was done. The D430 runs on 2 GBs of memory (its maximum) and uses an
old Core 2 Duo CPU.
 
Since I KNOW this works (I don't go by what I read from Windows FUDsters) I
KNOW that all these supposed issues with Linux upgrades are BS. That said,
would I do this on a regular basis? No. It's fast an easy to back up your
data, and rebuild your computer with Linux. Takes about a half an hour
total. (Try that on Windows.)

>
Good points either way.

--
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy
what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”  —J.R.R. Tolkien