LINUX What Linux is and why it has persisted By Sandra Henry-Stocker When all your friends are using Windows and the desktops at work are all running
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What Linux is and why it has persisted
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Thanks for this comprehensive and easy to read article that explains very well what Linux is and why it is used for so many people to do so many different things with their computers.
This is my favorite paragraph in the Newsletter article, because it explains the main reason I like to use Linux:
” It’s what they [the users] can do on the command line. When you open a terminal window on a Linux system – not completely unlike the window that appears when you open the command shell (cmd) or use PowerShell on Windows — you get access to thousands of commands that allow you to view and manipulate data. ”
I should add that it also allows, among many other things, to install and use such valuable things as the GNU’s extensive library of compilers that, same as most things available at the tip of one’s fingers from the command line, that one is also for free.
Linux also has also much in common with UNIX, FreeBSD and macOS, so many things developed for one of these OS often can be used with any of the others with minor or no modifications, as long as, when necessary, one has the source codes to compile and create the corresponding executables, because the binaries are different.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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Really missing a reference to GNU in this overview. Linux is just the kernel, most of what people consider to be ‘Linux’ is actually a form of the GNU Operating System which comes from the Free Software Movement.
While not a really good comparison it would be like if you referred to MacOSX as Darwin or to Windows10 as ‘NT’.
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I probably didn’t emphasize Linux as being just the kernel quite strongly enough. Thanks.
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Something that has always eluded me is the economics of Linux, in particular, and open-source software in general.
Aside from the odd exceptions, like Red Hat, which has figured how to get people to pay for otherwise free software, how do all the programmers who work on open-source software pay their bills – rent, utilities, food, ISP charges? Some are, presumably, independently wealthy, but I imagine the great majority of them are not. So, how do they provide for themselves and their families?
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Thank you for the link. It was very informative but writing open-source software, unless your company pays you to do so, still sounds like a pretty sketchy way to keep milk in the fridge.
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Some people do earn a living developing open-source software. Google has many paid developers working on the open source Chromium, Chromium OS, and AOSP, and they are all open source. Lennart Poettering created, and now leads development of the (somewhat controversial) systemd and PulseAudio projects, and he’s paid by Red Hat (IBM). Those are open source too. There are a lot of examples of this kind of thing in open source.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)
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OS should provide boundaries, in which specialized apps are working. Then you can create SW for which you can charge money. OpenSource community earns money by SW developped for the OS. Unlike Windows, where there is one obvoius schism – Do they want to create OS or they want to create applications/SW? MSFT literally fights with other SW developpers (or buy their companies), so users will use MSFT software, instead of 3rd party SW (chrome/edge, Webex/Teams, Office/OpenOffice). Instead of being “healthy competitors environment”, Windows is MSFT playground with harsh rules for developpers.
Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise
HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29
PRUSA i3 MK3S+
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I’m on Linix Mint and am using Open Source software so that’s all coming without any up front costs unless I donate to my distro or the software maker’s project. But look at the Firefox Browser and they have their business model and it’s not very good but that’s what they have. Most of the Enterprise Distros have their Business Model for consulting services and whatnot but really Linux has persisted because it’s a reasonable option for folks who do not what to become so completely the end product of someone’s OS/Ecosystem and with a loss of end user control over their own PC/Laptop, and of course server, hardware.
I was completely happy with Windows 7’s UI and MS had to go and play with that while Linux Mint’s UI is similar to Windows 7’s and better in a lot of ways that Windows never was. Linux is not perfect but that’s more because the laptop that I using it on has really only been tuned in its firmware for Windows mostly and there are a few issues there that are the fault of the laptop’s OEM and not the fault of Linux/The Linux Kernel.
Linux has its usual hardware support issues that usually get remedied within 2 years of the newer hardware’s release but then that hardware is not abandoned so soon on Linux like it got with Windows after after 7 was replaced with Windows 8/later. But I’m mostly using only opensource software and do not have the need for any Proprietary software that’s not available on Linux. But all of my laptops are in a Windows 7/Linux Mint and one Windows 10/Linux Mint dual boot configuration. So I’m good for any Windows only legacy usage and spend the majority of my online time booted into Linux Mint, for security reasons for my 7(EOL)/Mint dual boot laptops as 7’s EOL and privacy reasons for my one 10/Mint dual boot laptop that’s running nice and quiet on Mint without the background telemetry of Windows 10 eating up CPU cycles and causing the laptop’s fans to have to needlessly ramp up to cool the laptop down.
Linux would have never caught on without a need and a user base and the active developers joining together to maintain all that and improve over the years and that was driven by many factors on the economics side for the Enterprises that adopted the Linux Kernel based options. So Linux filled a void there for sure being open source and readily available sans any really bad licensing costs, that’s for sure! And even on the home user side where the end user wants more control over what’s installed on their PC/Laptop hardware. So now more than ever Linux will persist what with Windows 7 not an option for home users any longer without some extra expense there.
Now that I’ve made the switch comes the realization that I could have done so much earlier and avoided a lot of hassle there! But that’s a done deal and I’m still a dual boot fan and whatever I need to serve my needs I’ll have available. .
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In any discussion about the origin of Linux I believe that Richard Stallman’s contributions should be mentioned.
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I’ve always been drawn to Linux, but was put off from “jumping camps” due to me not having a coding background (..it all seemed so complicated and kind of reminded me of using DOS back in the day..). Then there’s the fact most Distros are free, which is always an attractive option compared to Windows.
From time to time I would find myself installing some new flavor of Linux and testing it out, but I guess I was looking for another Windows, having been a DOS / Windows guy since I first switched on a PC..and then I discovered Mint and it just clicked with me..I loved it from the very moment it loaded on my system for the first time! But I’m still using Windows..
Why?
..because I compose/produce/make music and I’ve spent a huge amount over the years on software and most of those programs don’t come made for Linux out of the box..you need to run WINE, but even then my experiences haven’t been so good with that setup. I guess what I’m saying is when it comes to making music, either I don’t understand how to use Linux well enough or the issues I’ve run into with WINE just don’t make it practical for me to make the move over from Windows.
A while back I remember there was some talk about Microsoft allowing Linux to use some of it’s code (forgive my ignorance here) that had resulted in some speculating online that this would result in maybe being able to run my Windows VSTs directly in Linux, but that seems to not be the case. If only it wee, then I would move over to Linux in a heart beat.
But let’s not forget the matter of Security, which it by far perhaps a more important selling point these days, more than ever before. In all the years I’ve been dabbling with Linux distros, I don’t think I ever encountered any kind of virus or Trojan infection on my system, which isn’t something I can say when it comes to using Windows..and to my mind that makes Linux the better OS choice hands down any day.
Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the article and share my own limited experiences with you guys and girls.
All the best to everyone.
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Tip: Install Oracle VirtualBox on Linux. Free-cost; will run anything from Win95 to most of the newest. When I run a Windows flavor, on VBox, maximized window, on my LinuxMint install, it’s just like sitting at my old PC running that same M$ system 20 years ago. Oracle VBox has its own quirks, but it will do the job for me.
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Another solution is to use CodeWeavers .
CodeWeavers modifies the Wine source code, applies compatibility patches, adds configuration tools that are more user-friendly, automated installation scripts, and provides technical support. Yes, it is fee based (so you have to pay for it), but it does allow a free trial, and they do maintain a database of windows software that works on linux using their solution.
Wine can be a bit of a pain to use, but this makes it a lot simpler and more reliable. It’s worth checking out!
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The fact that some vertical apps are tied so intimately to Windows can be a deterrent. I have depended on AutoCAD and other CADD apps based in Windows since 1995.
Regards,
Ron
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Sandra Henry-Stocker touts the wonders of the Linux command line, but from my perspective as a user the fact that it’s sometimes needed is precisely one of Linux’s drawbacks.
DOS was the only thing around when I began working with computers, and I loved it. In fact, I disdained Windows for years after it came out, half-jokingly telling people that “I don’t do Windows.” I remember feeling validated in my preference by a circa 1987 article in the CompuServe magazine (yes, they had a print magazine back then) reporting on a study that claimed to show that users of the command line had higher IQs on average than did GUI users (a group limited mostly to Apple customers at the time). I didn’t start using Windows regularly until the mid-1990s with version 3 (which was already obsolescent at the time), and that was only because my business needed to keep its customers.
But that was then and this is now. In the 30+ years since then, operating systems have become immensely more complex. The number of things that they do, and that you can do with them, has increased astronomically. With a tip o’ the hat to that 1987 CompuServe report, maybe I’ve gotten dumber in the decades since, but I truly have become a convert to the GUI. The commands are laid out in a (usually) logical, discoverable manner. Instead of having to scroll endlessly through monotonous screenfuls of CLI listings, I can see at a glance most or all of the commands relevant to the current context. I don’t need to remember the command to show other commands, and I don’t need to worry that I mistyped some arcane command. There is just no comparison in the user experience.
Sooner or later, I will abandon Windows completely. (And then I’ll once again be able to say that “I don’t do Windows.”) However, the less need to go into the Linux CLI, the better. Fortunately, Linux GUIs have developed considerably and are now fully suitable for daily use. But if Linux were still CLI-focused, I’d be switching to a Mac.
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Scrolling down endless man pages and lists of commands can be no joy, but I find that, for me at least, reading well-organized books on Linux and Unix commands, where these are listed and explained with some examples, is no big chore. And, the same as when looking for a word in a dictionary, while on my way to the one I am looking for, I sometimes catch sight of other useful commands I did not know existed.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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Your experience was much like mine. I thought Windows 3.0 was a neat toy back in the day, but none of us PC users back then thought it was a tool for real work. We all knew MS-DOS was where the real work was done, and it was common to think that while the GUI was great for beginners, once you had your sea legs, so to speak, it just got in the way.
When I was in computer science classes back in the day on UNIX machines (Sun SPARCs), everyone else was using graphical editors, while the first thing I would do was open a terminal window and use vi, which I learned to use on the fly as I was using it for the class assignments. I was good-naturedly called a dinosaur by one of my classmates, and I took it as a compliment. I learned the basic stuff about UNIX shells and such back then, but admin stuff… no, not on the university’s machines. I certainly didn’t have su privileges!
When my MS-DOS applications started to be discontinued in favor of the Windows versions, I was dragged reluctantly into Windows on a more or less full time basis. The key one at that time was AOL, which was not an internet provider then. The fastest one could set the modem was to 9600 bps, while I had just acquired a blisteringly fast 14.4kbps modem for only $300, which was a steal at the time.
Now I’m a convert to the GUI too. That mostly happened in 1996, when I first used Windows 95.
I had always questioned the value of pre-95 Windows… it had hardware abstraction and allowed the use of extended RAM seamlessly, and those were valuable, but I thought the GUI was just weird. I was not sure it really had a reason to be other than putting window dressing on DOS (pun intended), like the character DOS shell (which I never used) except that it took much longer to load.
Windows 95 was the first Windows that I thought really justified its own existence. From the start, it just seemed like a real way to actually use a computer. It just made sense in the way things were organized and worked. That was when I first began to see GUIs as being beneficial even for someone who could remember and use lots of commands from the DOS prompt.
Now that I use Linux as my desktop OS, I am able to use the command line without any intimidation factor, but I still prefer not to most of the time. I pretty much always have the terminal window open (as I do now on the PC I am using to write this, my Dell G3), but my general preference is to use graphical tools where possible.
When I set up the GUI for myself, it’s still patterned after that Windows 95 interface as much as possible. The Win2k UI is for me the final evolution of the 95 GUI, and remains the high water mark for MS Windows GUIs, and GUIs in general, with one exception, and that’s the inclusion of the search field that is focused by default as soon as the start menu is opened, which is something I really appreciate (and fortunately, Classic Shell had this option when I used 7 and 8.1).
I use the KDE Application Menu instead of the default Application Launcher, since the Application Menu is based on the cascading submenus like the Classic Start menu in Windows. Both are available by default in KDE, and they both have the “search focused by default” feature.
As in recent versions of Windows, I immediately get rid of the large-icons display in the panel (taskbar in Windows) with the two-line time and date, and then I get rid of the automatic program grouping with no captions, and then I put in the quick launch bar/icons. The KDE devs seem to be trying to make Plasma as friendly as possible to Windows users, but this was one of the things I think MS got worse on over time, not better.
I also turn on the classic File, Edit… menubars if they are not already on, which on 8.1 or 10 meant installing Old New Explorer to get rid of the ribbon. I have the colors set to be quite close to the gray setup of the classic shell of 2k (by default) and I prefer UI widgets (common controls in Windows) that are as classic as possible, though I have made-do with the more “modern” KDE Breeze widgets for their better commonality with GTK+ programs like Firefox.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
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If you do not run specific Windows only applications or do not use macros in MS Office Linux could be a very viable alternative and much cheaper than a Mac. There are many desktop Linux distros that are very user friendly. Also, not mentioned the official distro level documentation is usually very through and complete and once you get use it pretty easy to understand. Also if you know the lineage of the distro you can use the parent distro’s documentation as an additional refernce.
On point about running the terminal, when I do some more serious work on a Mac often the instructions include a line about opening ‘Terminal’ and type in the command. Very Linuxy.
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Well. Current MacOS actually is UNIX® … Linux is merely “Unix-like”.
So in that sense it’d be more appropriate to say that Linux’s command line is very much like what you can get on a Mac.
(Sure, back in the 90s various Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, etc workstation users would’ve gone “huh” if told that Apple is the last actual full-stack style UNIX workstation vendor… though you can still get Solaris on a PC-based workstation if you really need to.)
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Nos cons to Linux, really? No mention of Office compatibility? No, the alternatives are not good enough when you have to exchange documents with others that use Office or when you are a power user.
For Linux to eat much more PC desktops shares, it would have to improve vs gaming or it would have to easily support Office, at minimum. If it gained enough traction among power users and had to be considered when software is being developed, then it could help it gain more market share. Right now, it is still irrelevant on the desktop for the vast majority of users.
The issue of uncertainty with each distro is also a big negative. Do you think CentOS 8 admins are happy after what IBM did to Red Hat’s free offering? Yes, maybe due to the nature of Linux, Rocky will get those users and maybe it won’t be that bad of a ride to get there, but not many sysadmins have enough time to loose migrating to a new OS when it is not necessary. Plus they didn’t need the stress of seeing this happen and wondering how/when they will be ok with no ETA projected for Rocky.
Of course, you could say Microsoft is doing a bit of the same by removing features from Windows Pro to strongly invite business users to use versions that are much more expensive but are supported for longer. Linux model makes it easy to fork, which is both a blessing and a curse, since it protects from control, but can ends up with distros that feel like they are in a perpetual state of hobbyist dream, since not many like to code boring stuff that is required for stability and support. We end up with new fun features and regressions.
However, Windows 10 brings lots of negatives that wasn’t there before and that Linux doesn’t suffer from. For an amusing story about a triple-boot system:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/lenovo-ideapad-3-review-second.html
If Microsoft wants Windows back as they say (although I don’t think it went away that much in usage despite the negatives), they will need to do more than Windows dressing, but Linux desktop is farther away from mainstream adoption. The deliberate effort of a big corporation could make that happen like it did for Android and MacOS but who is going to do that and why?
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Linux is used as the main OS in some large government organizations in Europe, for example some I deal with: in Germany BKG, the Federal Bureau of Cartography and Geodesy, and DLR, the German Aerospace Agency, as well as in some universities i Germany and in other European countries. This is why I need to use my own Linux capability to deal with executable files, among other things, that I get or send, now and then, from or to these organizations. Windows is no help for that because it is little used in them (this does not mean that no MS products are used). So it is quite possible for even large and important”Enterprise” type of entities to use Linux primarily. The problem with switching to Linux is for those organizations and businesses, large and small, where Windows has been the prevalent, or the only, OS used for a long time, as often happens, for example, in the USA.
Personally, I am not concerned about the smaller PC market share of Linux. Its market share makes no difference to what I do and it also makes someone like me somewhat less of a target of malicious attacks (so safer, if certainly not invulnerable), because, as it is well-known, Linux’s smaller share makes it less interesting to cybercriminals than the far more used Windows. Certainly not a virtue of Linux, just the way things are.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV -
ends up with distros that feel like they are in a perpetual state of hobbyist dream
Indeed!!
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Thank you for your reading.
Nos cons to Linux, really?
Yes there are. Linux has far more requirements on the user. At least the one who wants to run and install other applications then FireFox or VLC media player. But the best part for me is – Linux does not understand me as a customer. I am user and I am the overlord on Linux PC.
PC with Linux simply obeys my rules. It does not bring bunch of features which I was was not asking for, thus eating my resources and time.
Im not Linux Guru, I have experiences with Fedora and Mint, which I use on daily basis. I roughly know Ubuntu and OpenSuse. And I sometimes dont know how to do things.. but recently with Windows 10 experience I incline to Linux. Apart my job, I do not use Windows anymore.I know, that Linux is also used in Enterprise sphere, but thats where Linux is not free anymore. Enterprise solutions are charged regullary.
If someone comes to me that he wants to have PC only for surfing and multimedia (usually older people), I put Fedora on an older machine. Then I learn them where to click to access the web. Also I learn them where to click, if they want to turn their PC off.
And thats the way it will remain. Mission accomplished.
This is not possible with windows, since this “ultra-modern-half-baked-service” is changing its coat twice a year. Also it overwhealms users with unusefull information wihich they were not asking for.Windows is still the top of the tree, but more and more we feel, that the direction Widows goes is not perfect.
Im glad that there is competition, it can make things better. If programs like MS Office or whatever did not have such inertia, Windows would not be users number one choice at this time. Its the past, which “is to blame”.Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise
HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29
PRUSA i3 MK3S+
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Doriel: ” I am user and I am the overlord on Linux PC.”
That is it. Exactly. That used to be the logical and normal way, also with Windows, until it started to come, in new versions after XP, first with Win 7 built on the assumption that I was some employee toiling away in a cubicle in some big room filled with like partitions and my non-existent boss’ sysadmin was the ruler of my home office PC and the possessor of a, to me, secret password to my very own machine. And then, later, the flurry of developments, when both useful and used things both in the OS and its main MS applications started to get changed frequently through “upgrades” that added little or no new functionally, just eye-candy clutter, even if one liked to keep those things exactly as they were, or might wanted to see a few things added, but the rest left alone. Some features in Office come to mind: I don’t remember asking for those ribbons.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
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The Linux Out of the Box experience is not there for hardware, especially laptops, where the Hardware/Drivers is concerned. And If one Looks at the non OEM instillation of that Linux OS process as on AMD’s Ryzen APU based laptops then that Out of the box experience is not there if one wants the Linux Kernel shipping with OpenCL drivers along with the usual MESA OpenGL and Vulkan drivers that ship with the Linux Kernel for AMD’s Ryzen APUs. That’s not an Issue on Windows as the OEM’s designing the Laptop/Laptops firmware with Windows 10 in mind and that comes ore-installed and OpenCL working for Open Source Software like Blender 3D, Gimp, Other Opensource software with Windows versions.
Now not having the OpenCL drivers does not affect gaming that much, if at all, but as far as opensource software that needs OpenCL working on Linux out of the Box(Via The Live USB/Live DVD install) then that OpenCL is needed as Bender 3D’s GPU Accelerated Cycles rendering will not work without OpenCL(GPU Accelerated Compute workloads) For Cycles Ray Tracing/Rendering. And Gimp, Darktable and other open source applications that need for some tasks OpenCL installed.
So I have one Laptop and I’m running a Hardware Enablement(HWE) Kernel in order for that Laptop’s newer AMD APU hardware to work properly but AMD’s OpenCL drivers are for LTS Kernels mostly and that’s not gotten around to the later Linux(HWE) kernel builds, or even the newest LTS Builds just yet, and so that laptop’s OpenCL driver install has to be deferred until things catch up.
But I’d really like for the Linux community to become more focused on the Opensource Applications that need GPGPU via OpenCL and not just Games that can get by with OpenGL/Vulkan that ships with the opensource driver stack on Linux Kernel based dstros For AMD’s Ryzen Processors. Most of the Games running on Linux are Proprietary and Gimp, Blender 3D, DarkTable, etc. are opensource and for some their functionality OpenCL is required. So it’s rather ironic that Opensource Application software that’s needing OpenCL gets so little attention on Linux(Opensource OS/Kernel) while Gaming(Mostly Proprietary) gets so much efforts from the Linux/MESA development community.
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I tried 3 different Linux distros back in the early or mid ’90s, and I was really excited about getting to know them and work with them
However, (and I heard this from numerous friends and acquaintances who had tried it as well) the Linux community was unhelpful to the point of being hostile to anyone who tried to come in and get help with the learning.
It wasn’t as if I didn’t know how to turn on a computer. I’d done COBOL and PLll programing in the late ’70s with a bit of Basic, though the only thing I was working with in the ’90s was HTML. But still, I wasn’t a rank newby.
It seemed as if the Linux community really reveled in their specialness and wanted to keep that to themselves. So, I gave it up, reluctantly, and haven’t gone near it since.
I hope that has changed. I would love to see more people using it and not having their whole lives owned by some corporation the way Google owns mine now.
Great article though. Hopefully it will persuade a few more to give it a try.
"She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined.
She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot."
--Mark Twain -
” She was not quite what you would call refined. She was not quite what you would call unrefined. She was the kind of person that keeps a parrot”
Cybercrone, going by that quotation of Mark Twain in your signature panel, I hope your parrot can sing on demand to regale your guests with some off-color songs of your own choosing.
As to the friendliness of Linux Web sites, things are different these days: there are sites and WebPages run by Ubuntu, for example, explaining how to do many things and deal with many problems. There are some very good and up-to-date books on Linux that teach, step by easy step, how to use it, progressing, chapter after chapter, from the rock-bottom to the advanced level. There are also forums where even naïve questions might be answered in a comprehensible, if rather hit or miss way. So you might, occasionally, be left less than perfectly satisfied. Still, worth a shot.
And last, but not least, there is a Forum here, in AskWoody, dedicated to Linux, where questions are answered with mostly useful suggestions, as well as politely, else the answerer might not have an uncouth answer left very long where it can be seen.
Besides AskWoody, these sites can also be helpful,some for answering higher-level questions than others:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/ (It is about closely related Linux and Unix, not just about Unix)
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV3 users thanked author for this post.
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When I tried to get help from Ubuntu help forums I basically got some variation of: “You’re too stupid to live, but if per chance you’re not quite that stupid, go back where people who need help with Linux belong and should stay, namely Windows or macOS.”
That’s really disappointing. I really don’t get why people are like that. Everyone has to start out not knowing about something new, including themselves. I want people to use Linux and to hopefully find that it meets their needs! That makes Linux more viable for me, as it increases the odds that software publishers will release Linux versions of their products if there are more people using it on the desktop. I surely don’t wish to shoo Linux beginners away. And in an Ubuntu forum, even… Ubuntu was supposed to be oriented to regular computer users from the start.
I’d rather hang in a forum full of Linux ‘noobs’ than to be in one with a bunch of elitists who hang out in a Linux help forum and then make fun of people who ask for help.
Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
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I have used Linux, I have programmed in Linux, but Linux still is not Windows. And as for cost, I haven’t paid for Windows in over 10 years. I ran Windows 7 from its release until 2015, when Windows 10 was introduced as a free upgrade.
For good or ill, there remain some things that can be done on Windows that cannot be done on Linux. And yes, problems exist with Windows on some hardware, but I have yet, personally, to experience any of those problems.
Windows is amenable to a great many mods and tweaks, and can be made to run as a very solid, stable platform that lets me get on with the things for which I first started using a PC without the OS getting in the way.
Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.We were all once "Average Users".3 users thanked author for this post.
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Having tried various GNU linux distro’s, more over the last five years than before, I’m certainly happier using ANY of those instead of W10. Yes, there may be compatibility issues with software we are familiar with and use in a work/ home environment and that’s where (for me/us) Win7/ 8.1 come in. I feel more confident using Linux online than I did using W10 when testing. One thing I do find about linux distro’s is progress has increased since the release of W10 and is getting better for homeusers.
And as for cost, I haven’t paid for Windows in over 10 years
In a financial sense no, and I’d agree. Although regarding privacy, trust and mental wellbeing, it’s already burdened a cost for those using W10
Windows - commercial by definition and now function...3 users thanked author for this post.
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mn- : Sorry for not being clearer; I was actually referring only to this sentence that you wrote:
” … well yeah, technically. But show me any end user who uses Linux directly… ”
I agree entirely with the rest of your comment.
Although, apropos of nothing, there may be something also to be said that by “Linux” one might also mean, now and then, “GNU/Linux”, as preached by Richard Stallman:
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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Maybe I dont know who uses Linux directly, I do occasionally run command from terminal. On Android I use ABD to configure mobile devices. Is that “using Linux directly”?
Nah, your terminal commands go through at least the shell and usually a bunch of libraries too before getting to the kernel.
Apropos of Stallman, well, there’s more than just GNU in there… and I do slightly miss the much more streamlined BSD userland suite, just haven’t been bothered enough to switch to it.
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Charlie: Metaphorically speaking, and as I understand this (of course, I’m probably wrong):
To me, the operating systems we use are actually each the marriage of a kernel (e.g., the New Technology” or NT elements common to all versions of windows since NT), that’s the groom. The bride, much prettier, is the GUI that lets you open all those windows, hence the name of the whole MS package, as well as the various bits and pieces of her dowry such as scripts, libraries of subroutines, etc. that enable the consorts to work together in happy marital bliss and allow developers to write applications that can run in the OS and do things for the users, but did not came “out of the box” with the OS. Those are like friends and relatives that like to help the couple. Now, who or what are the children? Good question. What do you think?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV2 users thanked author for this post.
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Now, who or what are the children? Good question. What do you think?
You got me thinking and the first things that come to mind are Event Reports and Log files. There are probably more that are the product of just the kernel and GUI.
Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's1 user thanked author for this post.
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Live and learn. I had always thought the kernel was one and the same for all distros, because Linus Torvalds “leads its kernel development team.”
Well, you’re right in that the kernels are not all the same, but the bit about being three packages doesn’t really relate to that. To update a kernel version, in Ubuntu, it takes 3 packages, and other optional bits may be pulled in too.
The kernel versions that are released by Torvalds and company are “mainline” releases. Distros don’t usually include mainline kernels… each of them makes their own special modifications as they see fit (which they can, of course, because the kernel is open source), and they will often have different compile-time options set as well.
It’s for this reason that Ubuntu recommends that its users do not use a mainline kernel for day to day use, though they do make them all available if people want them. I’ve run mainline kernels on my Ubuntu-based distros (currently KDE Neon) and never had any problems, but Canonical has not tested these kernels with Ubuntu to ensure they work as expected.
There are also specialized kernels for many tasks. There’s a low-latency version for people working with real-time audio and such, and there are all kinds of other versions modified for various purposes by various individuals and companies.
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I had always thought the kernel was one and the same for all distros, because Linus Torvalds “leads its kernel development team.” I’ve heard that said before and understood it to mean that there is one such team that develops the one evolving kernel.
Well from one point of view…
The mainline kernel source code tree is the same one for all the distros, yes.
But you can’t run source code directly so they all take some version of the source and the toolchain, and distribute prebuilt binary kernels. (With some configuration choices locked in at build time, like what CPU models to support and what to optimize for.)
Some have even added extra “out of tree” patches.
And then they usually do the “security only” update thing on top of that, so keep the same kernel major version and backport newer security fixes into it, trying to avoid the “update broke something” kind of issue.
(This is especially needed with closed-source device drivers – nVidia doesn’t seem to keep up with Linus, for example.)This is why I’m on 5.4.something (Ubuntu 18.04 hwe-edge with nvidia-driver package) for example, while Linus is working on 5.11 … and 5.10.10 is the latest mainline “released” kernel.
I can and have run 5.10 mainline kernels on this thing, but that breaks my graphics features somewhat (nvidia-driver doesn’t work on 5.10 on this hardware, have to use nouveau instead) and other things work differently.
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Ascaris and mn- : Thank you both for explaining in some detail that there are different variants, for different reasons, of the mainline kernel supervised by Linus. For example, the kernel has to be compatible with the CPU of the machines it is supposed to run on. So the kernel for the Amiga is not going to be quite the same as the one for Intel PCs. I imagine there are also different ones for different generations of Intel CPUs, as there is one for the Apple/ARM M1 CPU of the new Macs.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV -
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Linux market share is pretty small, but it is made up of people donating time to developing a Linux OS project or an application that runs on Linux. They are not in the business of making money off of a Linux distribution. Of course that also means not many PC makers buy into the Linux OS and install it by default on their systems. Probably because most users wouldn’t know what to do with Linux. many poorer countries tend to favor Linux more because it is free and runs on almost any hardware. A big plus if you need to hang on to a old PC a bit longer.
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Years ago when Windows 98 was heading to EOL I began researching Linux because I couldn’t afford a new computer. I joined a LUG and tested out some live cds. I used Knoppix for a bit and bought a boxed version of Xandros (what some diehards called a “baby linux” because it used Codeweavers/Wine and the desktop was too much like windows (it was KDE). I dual booted Windows and Xandros for a few years until I got a new computer.
I switched back to Windows because my distro was floundering and games I was interested in weren’t available for Linux. If Xandros had survived or something similar had caught my attention I may have kept using Linux.
I sort of kept abreast of Linux news but didn’t return to it until last years due to Windows 7 ceasing to be supported. I didn’t like the way Microsoft pushed upgrading and changed how updating worked. Furthermore the Windows 10 desktop didn’t appeal to me.
I researched Linux distros and tried live USBs and finally settled on Linux Mint Cinnamon. Things haven’t been perfect but i have managed to do okay and my computer experience hasn’t changed too much. I play online games and chat with friends, and keep to my online routine. Life goes on.
Linux is like anything else in life – you get out of it what you put into it.
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Linux market share is pretty small
Linux market share on desktop is pretty small.
“Linux” rules the world in OS usage (servers, mobile, set-top boxes, TVs…)
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And also a small share of a whole lot is still a whole lot. More interesting than their percentage share of the market is what are the Linux running desktops and laptops used for and by whom. How about that a lot of those working in science and in engineering use it to do their research and their R/D work?
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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GUIs used to be too resource-intensive to be worth it for just about anything.
Indeed. I recall Bill Gates being quoted some years ago to the effect that early PCs spent 90% of their power actually doing work and 10% on the interface, such as the DOS prompt was. At the time of the quote, perhaps Windows NT or 2000, he said that the ratio had reversed. The computer needed about 10% for the computing tasks assigned and could devote the other 90% to the interface, aka Windows.
Another point about nice-to-have vs. need-to-have. I’ve read about organizations that have mail administrators, DBA, user support technicians, network specialists and on and on. Presumably, all these specialists had the narrowness of responsibility and the time to become skilled in the pertinent scripting languages. In such an organization, I suppose GUIs are nice-to-have. They are also the ones who can afford those management systems you mention.
I’ve never worked for such an organization nor have any of the system admins I know personally. On a normal day, I could have to complete tasks in all of those areas and having GUIs made it possible to do so in a timely manner. GUIs do not help someone who has no clue what needs to be done, but they are a great help in getting those disparate tasks done for someone who knows what needs to be done. In this latter situation, GUIs are far closer to need-to-have.
The infatuation with scripts rather than GUIs is akin to thinking no one can drive a car or fly an airplane without knowing how to build or repair them. Very few of the people who can successfully drive or fly can also repair the machines they drive or fly.
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In my own experience with computers I have found that certain things are easier to do from the command line, while others are easier to do from the GUI. So I use one or the other depending on what I am trying to do. For developing and testing software I prefer the command line, for everything else, the GUI. At a guess, that is probably so because, after many years of doing things this way, it has become very hard for me to change my spots.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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