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I’ve been planning to switch my PCs at home to Linux as a winter project this year.
I just installed a new SSD and put Mint on the main newer machine yesterday. Nary a speed bump in the process, and it’s so nice to have the snappy desktop and update experiences I’m used to from running Linux all day at work.
I said this in another thread but I set up a windows vm for someone because they needed it to run literally one scam tax software, otherwise they had no reason to switch back from Linux.
Even stuff like icue that uses windows drivers for peripherals will run in a VM with USB pass through.
And even then there's a nice open source alternative for icue; you only need it if you want to edit hardware profiles.
US? Here in scandi tax seems to work well automatically, as in, we just log into the government website and click OK most years. Corrections are easy enough too, if you need it, but it's usually not required.
My reason is that VR gaming is not feasible on Linux, so I need to keep a Windows VM to play VR games.
Let me give you 2 big reasons:
- It's a PITA to just do basic stuff.
In my experience basic stuff like browsing files, editing documents, launching apps, installing apps, and obviously a million things using a web browser, are all easy and snappy in a fresh out of the box install of Linux Mint.
Point 2 is wrong. It's very easy to basic stuff. I'd argue it's easier than Windows, which is a convoluted mess. You're just used to it being shit.
Point 1, maybe. The fact you just keep repeating "particular hardware or software that does not work" without actually giving an example shows you're talking out of your ass though. Sure, there are a few cases, but not many anymore. Most, if not all, of those cases can be handled by a VM though.
I can't agree with you tbh. It depends on the distro. On Windows I can basically one-click install OpenMW and it Just Works™. I can't even play it on my distro because for whatever reason it's broken. I ended up having to flat out purge it and install the daily build to get it working. Maybe it works better on other distros, idk. Worked fine until my distro updated some months ago. When I was still running Lubuntu I had to build it from source to get it to work.
This is the nature of open source and decentralized platforms. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if anyone expects the mainstream to adopt it when ease of use has been the name of the game for the last 20 years then they're mistaken. As good as Linux has gotten, there are still kinks that need worked out before the average user will adopt it. One step towards that is government adoption. This will almost certainly lay out a stable baseline standard that can be built off of for a more coherent experience. I can see Linux competing with Windows provided it comes up to par on UX.
You keep implying Windows has ease-of-use on its side. That is just blatantly not true. I don't know a Windows user that hasn't had to edit registries, for example, and that's a pain in the ass. Windows is just a piece of shit that people stepped in so long ago they stopped smelling it. They don't pay attention to how bad it is to work with because "that's just the way it is." The one benefit is the software mentioned above (with just a vague notion of "some software" when the vast majority is fine), though again most work with a VM if Wine isn't enough. Support is an issue of getting users there though. If people keep assuming that what you're saying is true they'll believe you and not try it. If they switch the software developers will start targeting Linux.
Playing old games is also often really painful on Windows, and requires a lot of hacks. On Linux I've had a very good time with that honestly. Maybe I've just gotten lucky, but Wine with Proton has made the experience with old games pretty easy.
Sampling bias. The people you know are likely more technologically inclined than the average user. Really, effectively anyone who uses Linux is simply due to the nature of the thing. To people like you and me, the average user is a literal idiot. And that's something we forget. The average user doesn't ever have to finagle with registries and probably doesn't even know they exist. Hell, they probably don't even know how to change their default browser from Edge. And don't get me wrong, Windows is a piece of shit. But it's undeniable that its standardized protocols and coherent ecosystem make it easier for the average person. I do concede that this is due in part to software developers targeting Windows primarily, but I don't see a world where Linux is used by the masses unless some distro sees adoption and standardization by some larger body.
As for old games, if I played Morrowind via Steam it would work fine but the reason I play OpenMW is because it modernizes the engine. 1080p isn't even possible in vanilla. 100% improvement imo, but it causes me problems on occasion.
Linux Mint is very simple to use these days.
Ubuntu is even easier. If we're trying to convert windows users on ease we really should be sending them the beginners kit
Mint is Ubuntu, minus controversial Canonical stuff, plus an extra layer of polish and a very nice DE that is Windows-like out of the box.
That depends entirely on what you're trying to do.
Most things work without hiccups.
Once again, that's fine so long as you don't need the things that don't work.