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theluggage

macrumors 604
Jul 29, 2011
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I find your comment interesting as I have heard many people prefer Linux GUI because of its "responsiveness" and bloatless GUI.


As @556fmjoe said - it depends a bit on what you mean by "GUI" - which is all a bit pick-n-mix on Linux.

There's at least two 'display servers' - that handle the basic graphics rendering, "naked" windows and I/O - in circulation: X.Org and Weyland (I think XFree86, the original, is pretty dead). Then, on top of that, you have the "window manager" layer, which handles how you open, close, move, resize windows, then sort-of-joined-at-the-hip with that you have the "desktop" systems (Gnome, KDE, Mate etc.) which combine the window manager with all the trappings of a complete desktop environment - widget libraries, application frameworks etc. usually up to and including file managers, system configuration utilities and even common apps like media players or web browsers (...although the latter are now mostly Mozilla or Chromium variants). Then, you (or a distro creator) can take all that and start playing pick'n'mix with it.

...have I offered you enough "choice" to leave any hope of "it just works" far behind yet? :) Of course, its all vastly more customisable than anything Mac or Windows can offer... if you know the right configuration file to edit and what line of hieroglyphics to enter (both of which vary with disro and version).

There are ultra-light-weight "window managers" such as xfce - which can be quite bloat-free and responsive and are particularly brilliant for old/underpowered hardware - but are rather spartan compared with Mac or Windows - then there are behemoths such as KDE and Gnome which tend to be the opposite of bloat-free (and depending on what apps you use, you can easily end up with the libraries/frameworks for both on your system).

I've mentioned issues with multi-monitors and 4k scaling (there probably exists a combination of distro, display server, driver and window manager for which it works - but 150% scaling, pretty much the goldilocks zone for 27"4k displays, is still 'experimental - here be dragons' in the latest Ubuntu, for example and you'll need to google for the magic invocation to enable it).

Also, I find that things like hourglasses, visual indications of when you launch an application etc. are lacking especially compared with MacOS.

Then, if you want to use the GUI interface to configure your system... Well, the answer used to be: forget it, ignore the GUI, find the appropriate text file in /etc, edit it and 9 times out of 10 the comments in the file will tell you what to do, just back up the file first, or leave the original line as a comment - and frankly that was a far better way of handling all but the most trivial of config changes. Now we have systemd - which potentially is a far more effective way of letting point-and-drool GUI apps configure the system... and one day, when the Gnome and KDE folk have written point-and-drool GUI apps that work for anything but the most trivial of configurations, it may be brilliant. For the moment, gone (or, more often, still there but ignored) are the old familiar /etc/whatever.conf files and instead its editing an obscure JSON file (bletch!) and/or issuing a "systemctl" command that is friendly and obvious in the same way that "unlight lamp" was friendly and obvious in 1980s text adventures...

I'm not exactly knocking Linux - I use and like it - but I prefer to keep it on the end of a command line where it is happiest and use Mac/PC for my "visual computing"...
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 17, 2008
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Is there any particular software you're wondering about a replacement or compatibility for?

[automerge]1575260357[/automerge]

As far as office apps go - a 365 subscripion if you need to be compatible with Office users - or Libreoffice. Even a lot of Windows businesses are using either the web apps or mobile apps these days because of cloud data availability. Office is not an issue at all.

This is not about me, I was wondering daily linux users what are they missing to get a general idea.
I use Mac currently, there are some apps non-existing on Linux for example backin and syncing iOS devices. I have an app that lets you access iOS devices and download data from it. I believe there is no official Evernote app on Linux either.

I am missing some stuff on the Mac though. Some games I would like to play, and ImgBrn. There are probably some others too.

Web MS Office is the "simplified" version and you can have it for free, I don't think its the one "professional" users want. TBH, most people can get by using TextEdit.
[automerge]1575347140[/automerge]
@MacBH928 I'm curious, what computer/OS are you currently using and what are your most used/primary applications as well?

It appears that you're exploring a switch and looking for options by asking these Linux questions. I think that's great and it shows you're doing your homework to make informed decisions.

Well, for me and everyone else. I hate ignorance when there are people who put the hard work in for a solution but people just don't know about it, this is most evident with Chrome and Brave browser which is AFAIK is a 110% replacement, since its does the exact same thing except its better that its FOSS, Privacy Friendly, and blocks ads.

Currently my use is mostly for browsing, but say I used a computer for work I will find it very hard to replace a 3D application or some business suite that probably has a Windows only version.

I use Mac and very happy with it, but the future is not clear with Tim on the Mac side. If Apple decides to neglect the Mac or "monetize" the users. You are also limited to their hardware and prices. Say you want to run a side machine like a Home Theater PC. Maybe you are a Linux user so you don't about this, but big tech went crazy with monitoring and data hoarding. Its basically surveillance systems now so much its disgusting. Some services like Twitter are actually requesting your phone number as emails are no longer good enough to let you "Tweet". Paypal requested legal ID scans to "unlock" my account. We have to break from this.
 
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throAU

macrumors G3
Feb 13, 2012
8,772
6,935
Perth, Western Australia
Web MS Office is the "simplified" version and you can have it for free, I don't think its the one "professional" users want. TBH, most people can get by using TextEdit.

I actually work in enterprise IT and a lot of our users are using the 365 online tools. They do 90% of what you need office for, and if your data is in 365 its a convenient way to access it from anywhere.
 

SandboxGeneral

Moderator emeritus
Sep 8, 2010
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Detroit
I believe there is no official Evernote app on Linux either.
That is correct, much to my disappointment. I think Evernote is the best and most versatile notes app available. The native apps on Windows and macOS are great and we can use the Evernote website on Linux, but it's not the same at all - not even close.

But, I've learned to live without Evernote and get by. I've used what is probably one of the more popular notes apps on Linux called Joplin, but it lacks a lot of polish. It mostly gets the job done, but syncing it to the cloud and my mobile device is difficult and clunky at times. This is a case of lackluster or non-existent developer support.

I've built my own cloud server using droplets on Digital Ocean and Debian Linux for my files to be backed up and remotely accessible. I'm using NextCloud to manage it and it works really well with active development too. Recently I found an official plugin app to NextCloud for notes and started using it last week. It's still not as robust as Evernote, but it is far more polished and easy to use than Joplin is.
Well, for me and everyone else. I hate ignorance when there are people who put the hard work in for a solution but people just don't know about it, this is most evident with Chrome and Brave browser which is AFAIK is a 110% replacement, since its does the exact same thing except its better that its FOSS, Privacy Friendly, and blocks ads.
I'm a big Firefox person, but the last few weeks I've been giving Brave a try and I do like it. Chromium is what I use on my office PC's and I stay away from Google's Chrome browser. Chrome and Brave, as I'm sure you know, are both based on Chromium. I use all of them in combination with Pi-hole to mitigate the privacy and tracking concerns with being online.
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 17, 2008
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Looking at some of the responses, it's clear that I forgot auxiliary third-party functionality like Evernote. I sort of take this type of support for granted.

This is the point of this thread is to ask these kinds of questions.

I am quite irritated with the Linux/FOSS community. They tend to have the mindset of "If it works its good enough" and "keep it to a minimum capability". They do not go the extra mile to make the software superior, better, or simpler for the average user. They tend to have the logic of "You want 3D software? Here this thing can make 3D models" with no care about quality control or intuitively. I had to learn this the hard way when I gave GIMP a shot.

We do not see this type of mindset with FireFox or VLC both of which are open source and free, because the creators behind it care to make the absolute best software for the average user and indeed many people do prefer FireFox over Chrome, Edge, and Safari. Meanwhile the Linux/FOSS community are busy re-inventing the wheel with each one of them trying to build the exact specifically designed distro for his own personal preferences with all of them claiming to be the "user friendly" "Easy to use" "rock solid" distro... where there are other areas which are extremely lacking instead of them all putting their efforts to re-fix the same issues.

Again I say this, beggars can't be choosers, but from the perspective of the average user we look to the FOSS community to be our saviours from corporates forcing us to use their software and bending us to their rules. But if your software is making my life more difficult and harder when I know there is a free, intuitive, user friendly, universally supported option like Google Docs, guess what is going to happen? No one will jump on the Linux/FOSS bandwagon->Linux will always be a "hobby" project (at least for home users).

I find it difficult to believe that there are people out there who are smart enough to build a complete OS on par of MacOS and Windows in functionality but have hard time to make the apps user friendly. We already have the major areas covered(complete OS, super browser, and office suite to get you by) but when the moment comes where "My camera doesn't have an app on this OS" or "I need Windows to run the setup for my printer" is the breaking point for most users.
 
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SandboxGeneral

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Sep 8, 2010
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They do not go the extra mile to make the software superior, better, or simpler for the average user.
I think a contributing factor to some programs not having the polish you seek is that almost all of the developers that make programs for Linux also have day jobs. Whereas, writing these apps and applying the polish isn't what they do for a living. Rather it's a side project for them to do a job they need to be done and then shares it online for others to use, to fork, to improve on if they desire.
 
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Spacetime Anomaly

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Mar 9, 2017
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They tend to have the logic of "You want 3D software? Here this thing can make 3D models" with no care about quality control or intuitively.

While I agree with the main thrust of your comment, I would point out that Blender, since version 2.8, has reversed this trend. It is now a very competitive 3D application, not just in functionality but in visual design as well. They took the brave decision to completely overhaul the interface and it’s a lot more intuitive now (although 3D apps are difficult for beginners in general).

Krita is worth checking out, too. It competes well with other digital painting apps on the market in both design and functionality (better in some cases).

But yeah, these are exceptions. I periodically download Gimp, Darkroom, and Libre Office, only to find them a disappointment and not a compelling reason to switch to Linux. Their competitors are inexpensive, more pleasurable to use, and they sync across devices (Affinity, Pixelmator, Photos, iWork, Office, etc). The lack of software on Linux is definitely a barrier for me. I'd rather spend a little cash on the Mac App Store and get on with my life.
 
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Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
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I think a contributing factor to some programs not having the polish you seek is that almost all of the developers that make programs for Linux also have day jobs.

This. The level of polish you see in commercial end-user applications requires a disproportionate amount of work compared to an application that ”technically works”. People - including developers - get bored with the inevitable decreasing psychological return on investment on a product that ”just needs some tweaking”. The solution, of course, is to pay them.
On the server side, this is exactly what you see: Products like the Linux kernel itself, or various well-known pieces of software that have out-competed their Windows counterparts in the server space may have begun in someone’s home computer, but have come to where they are today through corporate funding of people who thus can live on what they do and who get paid to sometimes be bored for the common good. You don’t see many projects directed at end users who manage to interest companies in this way, and even more seldom projects that manage to interest companies who have a better reputation among hackers than what for example Oracle does.
(It has been a pretty common theme that a product got good, got bought by Oracle (or similar), whereupon all technical talent jumped ship, either by forking the last free version of the product, or completely).
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 17, 2008
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I think a contributing factor to some programs not having the polish you seek is that almost all of the developers that make programs for Linux also have day jobs. Whereas, writing these apps and applying the polish isn't what they do for a living. Rather it's a side project for them to do a job they need to be done and then shares it online for others to use, to fork, to improve on if they desire.

I agree with you and this is what I feel like we should fix and find a middle ground for. We have:

1-People advocating for FOSS and talented enough and have the will to write software
2-People willing to jump ship but they can't due to lack of software and complexity

We need to bring the two together, and its not going to happen for free. We need to finance that "polish" . I see 2 very possible solutions:

1-Users must change their mindset from "software is gratis" to "I should support with at least $1/m"
2-FOSS should have a paid version for commercial use. I think its a win-win situation if say companies can get a 3D software , like Blender, that is a real alternative to something like 3D Maya for just $400 per license instead of the current $1400/year price.

Everybody wins, developer gets a nice income, businesses get to save money(and FOSS non-monopolistic software), and home users get free polished software. There is this guy the builds free Reddit Apollo app and AFAIK it is his only job. He makes enough money through donations to be able to do this. We should have more like this model.

Now imagine if we had enthusiastic user base for other software that are willing to pay handsomely enough to get their FOSS. But its chicken and egg problem. People won't pay for non-existing/half-baked software->developers won't write/polish software for free.

Krita is worth checking out, too. It competes well with other digital painting apps on the market in both design and functionality (better in some cases).

You see this is exactly what I am talking about. If you check their website, they only have 72 donors of 10Euros amounting to 730 Euro/month. This is disgusting. I am going to assume there is at least 10 thousand users of this software world wide. If this is where we can get for 700Euro, imagine how far we can get If each one of them donated half what they pay for Netflix.
 
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Spacetime Anomaly

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You see this is exactly what I am talking about. If you check their website, they only have 72 donors of 10Euros amounting to 730 Euro/month. This is disgusting. I am going to assume there is at least 10 thousand users of this software world wide. If this is where we can get for 700Euro, imagine how far we can get If each one of them donated half what they pay for Netflix.

Oh I agree. I happily contribute to services and software that I use often (as well as charity organisations that, thankfully, I don’t need to use), but I'm reluctant to comment on other peoples finances. Life is complicated and there are a lot of pulls on peoples money.

Large companies and commercial outfits would certainly be wise to invest in Open Source projects. Some already do, I understand. But I admit that I don't know enough about the subject to comment further. I just wanted to point you to some cool stuff.
 

Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
864
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Hey, are inquiries about the Linux compatibility with iCloud integration, Touch ID, and the T2 Security Chip frowned upon in this discussion?

What about basic stuff like syncing your iPhone with a local music library, something incredibly easy with iTunes, Mojave and a USB cable? How about backing up your iDevices? Heck, back in 2005, I used to sync a device called an iPod to my Mac.

Today, I'm still using the same music library. But it's not just music anymore. Videos, TV shows, movies, books, podcasts, photos, documents, etc.

On Photos in Mojave, I can easily see/edit the photos I took on my iPhone. Does Linux have the same (relatively) seamless integration?

Oh, and how about 4K UHD displays? My Mac mini 2018 is connected to a 4K monitor, displays the UI at 1080p resolution but the text is rendered natively as far as I can tell. I didn't do anything to get it to run this way, it just booted up like this. Is it this easy on Linux or do I have to diddle with configuration files?

And what about HDR10? Dolby Atmos? And the next ten years worth of graphic innovations? If I'm a Linux user, do I wait three years until implementation is relatively safe and they include it into a standard distribution?

And what about cloud services between iDevices and Linux Macs? How do I sync Safari bookmarks on my iPad to whatever is running on my Linux box? It's almost 2020 and it's not just about getting my Mac to boot. I spend far more time every day using my non-Mac Apple devices than my computer.

What about two-factor authentication? Or other security measures? I really like my MacBook Air's Touch ID authentication for Apple Pay as well as filling in passwords. What sort of biometric support does Linux offer for Macs?

And what if I want to migrate from one system to another? Migration Assistant makes this incredibly easy. Is there a great Linux alternative? I know how to use tar/cpio. I still use tarpipes: tar -cpO foo | (cd /destination/folder ; tar -xvpf - ) to copy big content from one Mac partition to another, but those days are increasingly rare. Even impotent Finder seems to be able to handle large desktop file copies here in 2019.

And while I don't use it, how is MIDI support in Linux? Not just in the operating system itself but in various popular third-party packages? And what about high-resolution audio? 192kHz/24-bit audio via USB. How easy is it to output that from my Macs if I'm running Linux? Hopefully not by recompiling the kernel!

And how good are push notifications on Linux Macs? Are Linux users wedded to the Death Star I mean Google or are there other viable options?

I know some much of these "Linux on Macs" conversations are focused on basics but it's almost 2020 and the world has progressed far beyond loading an Ethernet adaptor driver or providing X server support for ____ videochip. It's not Red Hat Linux circa 1999 anymore.

"Linux on the Mac" discussions (as opposed to Linux versus macOS for various purposes) are already obsolete. The introduction of a proprietary and undocumented security enclave on Mac hardware means Macs in a production environment should only be used with operating systems explicitly supported by Apple, and preferably only with macOS in case relations between Apple and Microsoft sour again. If you want to run Linux or similar systems your only realistic option really is to use more generic multi-purpose computing hardware.

Unfortunately in the open-source/free software world, there's often a discrepancy between "what's technically possible" and "what's available". With proprietary hardware (like the T2 chip you mention), and with proprietary software stacks (like iCloud), the simple fact is that unless the manufacturer feels like sharing APIs and documentation with developers, support will be limited to what volunteers have been able to backwards-engineer. And even that will be subject to the whims of the hardware producer since they can kill third-party software in the blink of an eye by changing their APIs.

To answer some of your questions:
Cloud synchronization of files, notes, mail, bookmarks, etc, is all possible using open standards on servers hosted by others or by yourself. Software that doesn't support such open standards is usually not well supported.

The support for two-factor authentication is probably better on the Linux side of things than in some more closed systems simply because it's based on open standards and because these standards are generally followed in this ecosystem. If a service supports the PAM infrastructure, it has support for, for example, TOTP ready for use with standards-based authenticator apps. Even more prevalent, support for certificate-based second factors is an ingrained part of the architecture since pretty much forever.

Migrating from one computer to another in Linux is technically trivial but involves some work unless you automate it yourself: Not a migration assistant so much as an assisted migration.

When it comes to graphics, on my gaming computer and on the laptops I've used, I haven't had to touch config files to arrive at my preferred settings in quite some time. My use case is rather limited, though, and I've heard that things may unravel quickly if you need to use multiple different monitors with various DPIs, for example.

I guess the "defenses" for using Linux vs macOS vs Windows are all pretty similar, but cover different use cases:
When Windows users ask us Mac users about the availability of games we reply that if you're a gamer the Mac is - generally speaking - not for you. But we brag about how smooth and "nice" everything is unless you have that particular need. Or the need for extreme performance. Or the need for flexible and upgradable hardware in the sub-$6000 price range. Or the need to run workloads on Nvidia GPUs. And so on.

Similarly, the free operating systems are (still? ever?) mainly for us programmers and tinkerers - or for those that have such a person in their vicinity. In most cases, Linux is a better platform than either Windows or macOS for servers and for some areas of high-speed computing. In the last few years, Linux has also become, I'd say, a significantly better platform than macOS for gaming. It is better than either Windows or macOS for some areas of software development. And if you feel better about open than about proprietary software, there's really no comparison.

What I want to say with these last couple of paragraphs is that the major categories of operating systems approach the subject of end-user computing from radically different perspectives and they are each ridiculously better than the alternatives if you frame your questions from their strengths, and they have each made some ridiculously bad design decisions if you frame your questions from their weaknesses.
Is it possible to use any of these operating systems for any category of tasks? Probably. But to go all Tao on you, each operating system will fight you unless you do things according to its design paradigm. Be the water. But there is no Tao in Windows. ?
 

MacBH928

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 17, 2008
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What I want to say with these last couple of paragraphs is that the major categories of operating systems approach the subject of end-user computing from radically different perspectives and they are each ridiculously better than the alternatives if you frame your questions from their strengths, and they have each made some ridiculously bad design decisions if you frame your questions from their weaknesses.
Is it possible to use any of these operating systems for any category of tasks? Probably. But to go all Tao on you, each operating system will fight you unless you do things according to its design paradigm. Be the water. But there is no Tao in Windows. ?

We kind of want Linux to be the common user OS and not the Programmer OS. The reason is that propriety software no longer is ethical and we do not have a choice except to abide to Microsoft&Google or Apple. For decades Linux was promoted to be a common user OS and I still remember Lindows that was supposed to make Linux as close to Windows as Possible.

20 years later we are still not there. I really feel like the time is now to make this possible...
 

Mikael H

macrumors 6502a
Sep 3, 2014
864
538
We kind of want Linux to be the common user OS and not the Programmer OS. The reason is that propriety software no longer is ethical and we do not have a choice except to abide to Microsoft&Google or Apple. For decades Linux was promoted to be a common user OS and I still remember Lindows that was supposed to make Linux as close to Windows as Possible.

20 years later we are still not there. I really feel like the time is now to make this possible...
It is possible, but there are reasons why I said it requires a programmer or a tinkerer at least in the vicinity of a user:

From one perspective, I wouldn't worry one bit about having my granny use a modern Gnome desktop like Fedora or Ubuntu as their first computer experience, compared to Windows 10 or macOS of today. They all make as much or as little sense to a person new to computers, and provided it was pre-installed, a complete newbie would learn what they need to learn with about as small of a chance to shoot themselves in the foot in Gnome as in macOS, and considerably less than in Windows 10, simply because the relative lack of bloatware and maliciously patterned software.

On the other hand I would seriously doubt the ability of my granny to successfully re-install even macOS from scratch on a computer without knowledgeable support - which, in the case of Apple hardware, could be given over the phone.
But this is still considerably simpler than making granny tell me what manufacturer and version of BIOS/UEFI she has and guiding her through the maze of boot options required to even get her to boot a Linux USB stick. Once in, the task is as simple as that of installing macOS, but getting to the installer would be a nightmare even for paid support unless they knew very specific details about her computer.

That's the first hurdle. Now imagine that she already had a computer from before. With a Mac, she would have gotten a Time Machine hard drive for Christmas a few years ago, and replacing the machine would simply be a matter of restoring the latest backup.
What if she'd been conscientiously using Nero BackItUp in Windows for years and now wanted to switch to Fedora? The reason I make that example is because just a few weeks ago I couldn't - within what I'd consider reasonable time - grasp how to restore exactly such a backup to a new Windows machine. Using Nero BackItUp. Now imagine trying to do the same to a new Linux installation...

Linux is ready for the desktop. At least no less than Windows is. But in many parts of the world, getting a computer with Linux pre-installed is next to impossible unless you're a company. That would have to change. The rest would come with increasing user count.


As for avoiding proprietary software for the principle of it? People have to get paid to do the boring work, and if they get paid they usually have an incentive to make at least parts of their software proprietary. I know it is hard but not impossible to survive entirely on GNU and Free software - but that kind of dedication tends to be associated with neckbeards and bad hygiene.
 

MacBH928

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Original poster
May 17, 2008
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As for avoiding proprietary software for the principle of it? People have to get paid to do the boring work, and if they get paid they usually have an incentive to make at least parts of their software proprietary. I know it is hard but not impossible to survive entirely on GNU and Free software - but that kind of dedication tends to be associated with neckbeards and bad hygiene.

Actually, I am not too much of an advocate of FOSS. I believe people should retain their code for themselves and profit from it. I have 3 problems with propriety software.

1-when they include malicious code not related to the functioning of the software

2-when it becomes a standard, it becomes a monopoly, they they start abusing this power by bloating, price hikes, price models, lack of improvements, bugs...etc(Android,Windows, MS Office, etc)

3-unreasonable pricing. There was a time when Photoshop could cost you $500-1000. Sure that might be reasonable for a Newspaper but as a highschool student I could not buy that.

FOSS solves this, and I rather have FOSS, but so far the model just does not work. When its FOSS people will not donate or support.
 

Stoomkracht

macrumors newbie
Dec 29, 2019
16
6
The thing is, people who choose Linux on their desktop are looking for alternatives and are willing to take apps for a test ride and accept some rough edges here and there. Of course they miss some a the commercial software. Chicken egg problem. Although Steam seems to push Linux a bit last years. It's not the Linux is too difficult for users. Windows has its own share of annoyances and inconsistencies. Once a market is taken, its hard to change it with the whole ecosystem and all.
 

amgff84

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Sep 22, 2019
377
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I know as a mac user sometimes I am let down to know some software is not available for MacOS, I was wondering if Linux users are in the same boat. I know the basics are covered like office suite and browser, but is there anything else you found not available on Linux?

I heard you can run Windows software via wine but not sure if this is a real solution or just half-baked one.

I don't think so. I completed my first 2 years of college on an ASUS machine with Linux Mint. I feel that there is just as much software, it's just not name brand and may have a less user friendly UI.
 

MacBH928

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May 17, 2008
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Although Steam seems to push Linux a bit last years. It's not the Linux is too difficult for users. Windows has its own share of annoyances and inconsistencies. Once a market is taken, its hard to change it with the whole ecosystem and all.

That is when you offer an exact 1:1 product. The time has never been better than to offer a FOSS OS, people are more and more becoming increasingly aware about their privacy and monetization. Apple used to have 1 button mouse to make it least confusing as possible. I think we should have that kind of mentality on the Linux side of things. The tinkerers can always have their Arch.


I don't think so. I completed my first 2 years of college on an ASUS machine with Linux Mint. I feel that there is just as much software, it's just not name brand and may have a less user friendly UI.

Why did you not continue using Linux Mint after the two years?
 

amgff84

macrumors 6502
Sep 22, 2019
377
294
That is when you offer an exact 1:1 product. The time has never been better than to offer a FOSS OS, people are more and more becoming increasingly aware about their privacy and monetization. Apple used to have 1 button mouse to make it least confusing as possible. I think we should have that kind of mentality on the Linux side of things. The tinkerers can always have their Arch.




Why did you not continue using Linux Mint after the two years?

Because I was needed Windows for some IT classes. At that point, I ended up getting a gaming rig. My fav Distro is Manjaro in KDE, but I also used Korora and Apricity, both of those are no longer in development though. I have an early 09 MacBook I will be turning into a PopOS machine, complete with the PopOS Decal. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I have some time off soon, so I think I'll give it a whirl.
 

skaertus

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Feb 23, 2009
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I don't think so. I completed my first 2 years of college on an ASUS machine with Linux Mint. I feel that there is just as much software, it's just not name brand and may have a less user friendly UI.
It may depend on your needs as well. Whenever I tried Linux software, I always found software to be lacking.

There was plenty of software available for Linux, but most of them were lacking in many respects, and were far less polished than commercial counterparts.

Many times, development was very slow. You could expect new features which would not come for years. Then one day development on the software would be discontinued.

I can understand that, as developers were not being paid for developing such software, and many of them were just hobbies. If such software had some funding, it was probably not enough to compete with the big names.

It is totally different from a company which hires developers to work full time on software development. If a company sells software to the public, and relies on the income to pay its workers and to pay dividends to its shareholders, then the software it sells is expected to deliver.
 

MacBH928

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Original poster
May 17, 2008
8,275
3,696
It may depend on your needs as well. Whenever I tried Linux software, I always found software to be lacking.

There was plenty of software available for Linux, but most of them were lacking in many respects, and were far less polished than commercial counterparts.

Many times, development was very slow. You could expect new features which would not come for years. Then one day development on the software would be discontinued.

I can understand that, as developers were not being paid for developing such software, and many of them were just hobbies. If such software had some funding, it was probably not enough to compete with the big names.

It is totally different from a company which hires developers to work full time on software development. If a company sells software to the public, and relies on the income to pay its workers and to pay dividends to its shareholders, then the software it sells is expected to deliver.

I agree, people are the enemy of themselves. Because they do not care to donate, they will forever be stuck in the proprietary and data hoarding-privacy invasive software+services. I have used amazing FOSS software like Firefox, Handbrake, and VLC. If we can continue the implementation with office software and operating systems that will be great.

I think we should advocate for people paying for FOSS software, and we should concentrate the efforts instead of having 42 different versions and forks of the same software all asking for donations.
 

amgff84

macrumors 6502
Sep 22, 2019
377
294
It may depend on your needs as well. Whenever I tried Linux software, I always found software to be lacking.

There was plenty of software available for Linux, but most of them were lacking in many respects, and were far less polished than commercial counterparts.

Many times, development was very slow. You could expect new features which would not come for years. Then one day development on the software would be discontinued.

I can understand that, as developers were not being paid for developing such software, and many of them were just hobbies. If such software had some funding, it was probably not enough to compete with the big names.

It is totally different from a company which hires developers to work full time on software development. If a company sells software to the public, and relies on the income to pay its workers and to pay dividends to its shareholders, then the software it sells is expected to deliver.

Yeah, I can see why you would say that. However, there are the major players. You have GIMP for photo editing, Kdenlive for video, and open shot (both very good applications), theres Libreoffice in place of MS Office, you have firefox or chrome, Thunderbird... I think for email, but hey there are a ton of those and most people use google anyways. VLC for video playback, Steam for gaming, I mean I think those are all the bases for the average user. I mean, if they offered a paid version of linux that was put together well, much like Ubuntu, then I'd consider it. Speaking of which, Conical, who owns ubuntu, has paid developers. At least I think. people knock it, but Ubuntu is pretty good.
 

762999

Cancelled
Nov 9, 2012
891
509
There are easily a half dozen specific applications that I can't get in Linux.

  • Quicken for Windows: I despise the Mac version, so I am forced to run an instance of Windows 10 in VirtualBox, primarily to run the Windows version. Yes, there are other personal finance packages for Mac (e.g. Banktivity) and Linux, but they all have fewer features than Quicken for Windows and all of them suck rocks particularly on the investment side. The online services like Mint.com, Personal Capital, YNAB, etc. are all terrible when it comes to tracking investments, especially for non-equity assets like bonds or real estate.
  • Brokerage investor tool: the one specific to the brokerage I use, ActiveTrader Pro for Fidelity, a 32-bit Windows app. On a Mac, it runs in a customized version of CrossOver (with additional .NET components). There is no Linux version. ActiveTrader Pro provides FAR more functionality than the Fidelity.com web interface and is highly customizable. Fidelity is trying to make it a 64-bit app for Catalina compatibility, but I'll wait six months after its release before I attempt to upgrade to Catalina.
  • Logitech Harmony updater: well, I have one of these programmable universal remotes and I end up programming another one for a family member who lives twenty miles from me. For a while, there was no Catalina support, maybe this has changed. For sure, there is no way to program these remotes with a Linux desktop.
  • Wacom Intuos tablet drivers: they are available for Windows and macOS. None for Linux. Don't expect that to change.
  • Microsoft Excel for Windows: yes, there are other spreadsheet packages for both Mac and Linux (including native Excel on Mac, iOS), but none of them support all of the features as Excel for Window. That means you end up with a dumbed down spreadsheet missing some highly useful feature like conditional formatting. There are still 8-10 major Excel (Windows) features that Apple's Numbers app doesn't support.
  • Hardware firmware utilities: a lot of these are Windows only. It's better than it was 20-30 years ago (when these utilities ran in MS-DOS) but Linux is the last OS to receive support.
There are likely more personal examples I'm missing.

I expect some Linux pundit to barge in and say, "Hey, you can do ___ with WINE on Linux." Yeah, I don't want to sacrifice six hours of Linux system administration to install some workaround for something that I can install in a minute on my Mac or the $170 Windows PC I bought for legacy software support.

My guess is that much of the home automation/HomeKit type of newer technology is missing Linux support as well. I haven't used any of that tech yet.

Not sure if there's a way on Linux to do full backups of iOS devices. At least using iTunes on Mojave, you can still do a local backup of your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, etc.

I have an HP DeskJet MFP. There are apparently Linux drivers but I am not sure if they provide the full range of functionality as the Windows and macOS software (both of which are regularly updated).

I also have a couple of TEAC amplifiers. There's special software to play back certain audio files (like DSD). Again, this software is available in Windows and macOS, but not in Linux.

I'd also like to give a shout out to one of Linux's greatest ongoing failures: notebook PC battery management. It has been like this for decades. Today >80% of personal computers sold are notebook models and Linux device drivers for battery management systems are appalling.

Yeah, you can get 3 year old notebook computer to boot Linux, but how long will it run on battery? LOL

You assume a lot of things, I guess you should use Linux one day or maybe just stop assuming nothings works or exists. Wacom drivers, HP drivers and DSD file playback are all present. For laptop, it depends on the distribution, you can have energy saving profiles for laptop, the same as Windows. Plenty of automation stuff too, very powerful ones.
 
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