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Paula
Paula

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Let's talk about Linux

I wanted to share this with you guys. What do you love the most about Linux and freedom of the software?

Top comments (68)

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

I absolutely love Linux! The fact that there is a distro for every use case is amazing. If there isn't an option out there, you can create it yourself. Linux to me puts the "personal" back into PC. I own my hardware and I decide what software I want I'm there. I have full control over my workflow and it's not forced into me like how I personally experienced Windows.

I'm not putting Windows down though. If it works for you and it does what you need, use it! Use the right tools for the job and for me that happens to be a variety of Linux distros!

Here are my favorites:

  • Ubuntu (going strong for 4 years)
  • Peppermint OS (wow it makes me productive)
  • EndeavourOS (makes the first experience with Arch very light hearted)
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anon987654321 profile image
anon987654321

The great thing about Linux, and this is largely why it got so popular in the first place, is its support from the hardware industry. Another great thing is ofcourse the kernel itself. However, compared to other modern-day Unix-like kernels (ie. the BSDs -- OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, MacOS X etc.), it's mediocre at best.

What's definitely not great about Linux though, is its distributions. What ought to have been one complete OS with one competent leadership and one coherent brand, is instead split into thousands of distributions with varying degrees of quality, with the overwhelming majority all including unnecessary and overly complicated stuff by default, such as systemd, bash, OpenSSL, or iptables/nftables.

In the words of a great friend of mine:

Choose OpenBSD for your Unix needs. OpenBSD -- the world's simplest and most secure Unix-like OS. Creator of the world's most used SSH implementation OpenSSH, the world's most elegant firewall PF, and the world's most elegant mail server OpenSMTPD. OpenBSD -- the cleanest kernel, the cleanest userland and the cleanest configuration syntax.

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

That's a very interesting take! I'll have a look and see what it's like, thank you for that comment!

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puchkii profile image
Kevin Blank

Jij lijkt echt op iemand die ik ken, ben je familie van Andries?

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

Ja!

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puchkii profile image
Kevin Blank

Wat een toeval haha ik heb met hem gewerkt een jaar geleden! jullie lijken echt op elkaar. Leuk om te weten dat er een dev in de familie zit!

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

Haha dat hoor ik vaker inderdaad! Ik heb hem ook al met het Linux virus aangestoken πŸ˜…

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puchkii profile image
Kevin Blank

Lekker bezig, Linux for the win!

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faraazahmad profile image
Syed Faraaz Ahmad

I use arch btw (I don't, I'm just always looking for opportunity to say this though).

I think Pop_OS! is dope

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jay_js profile image
Jayesh Kale

yeah it's not just customized ubuntu... it's optimised one🀘

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ryands17 profile image
Ryan Dsouza • Edited

The best part of Linux according to me is the alternatives are so much that it literally spoils you :P

Don't want to use KDE, you might like Gnome, Cinnamon or XFCE. Text Editors, loads of them! The amount of choice that we have and the customizability that it provides is truly amazing.

Another point that I think is great is the development experience that Linux provides. Bash/Zsh is an absolute beast and the utility it provides is awesome! Windows just launced a new CMD with features that were in Linux 1 years ago. The forceful updates and the baggage that comes with Windows is completely gone with Linux. I use a rolling release distro and the only thing that I have to do to update my system is sudo pacman -Syyu.

Also another advantage is building for CI. Building native modules and being able to test them is simply easy and you can match the CI environment as you're using the same native modules that the CI server uses i.e. Linux :)

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appmeshi profile image
Jimb0tr0n

Has anyone here considered installing a linux distro on their aging parents' computers to protect them from the exploit-happy Windows environment?

I was thinking about this recently for my dad who keeps getting "hacked" and only really uses his PC for a lightweight gaming client so he can play backgammon online (and an additional add-on utility that analyzes his gameplay).

He absolutely won't use anything that requires learning something new, but I could probably simulate his Windows experience with the gaming app in Wine, if the rest of the OS had a Windows-like interface.

What do y'all think?

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aniganesh profile image
Aniganesh

LinuxMint is supposedly Windows like. It could be what your dad needs.

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insaanimanav profile image
manav1234

I completely agree with all the people writing here Linux is love 😍 ever since I started using Linux I have felt so freakin powerful. finally in years I have all the power I want over my computer. also AUR is amazing
my fav distros
1.Arch
2.Fedora
3.Opensuse

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aniganesh profile image
Aniganesh

What is AUR?

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biros profile image
Boris Jamot ✊ /

ArchLinux User Repository I guess.

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karx1 profile image
Yash Karandikar

Its the Arch(Linux) User Repository. Similar to a PPA, users can upload their own PKGBUILDs (Basically a script that installs a package).

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tbroyer profile image
Thomas Broyer

If I had to pick one feature, compared to Windows: the fact that you can (and should) install every software you want from package repositories, providing a unified update for the entire system; vs each soft having to phone home to check for updates and bother you with popups, or implementing autoupdating by themselves, or just let users down and they never update after the initial install, becoming vulnerable as security bugs are fixed in newer versions.
Things might have changed with the Windows Store and/or NuGet, but I'd bet it's still true for many Windows users, including tech-savvy ones.

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Adam Staples

I recently discovered the "scoop" package manager for Windows, and at very least for dev tools it works pretty well! It doesn't have a way to easily update-all, but it does let you install, uninstall, and update most dev tools entirely from the command line. Makes for a really quick setup of a new machine.

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ssimontis profile image
Scott Simontis

Actually, the command you are looking for is scoop update-all!

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adamstaplesdev profile image
Adam Staples

C:/> scoop update-all
result:
scoop: 'update-all' isn't a scoop command. See 'scoop help'.

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adamstaplesdev profile image
Adam Staples

I love Linux as a development environment, and I really like tools like Multipass or Docker that let you pop up a quick Ubuntu VM regardless of what OS I'm running.

I've created scripts to install all of my favorite programming languages and tools, so I can have a fresh Linux install up and running for development in about 20 minutes. Linux is great because it gets out of your way and lets you build great things.

The biggest downside for me is software support. There are so many amazing games that only run on Windows, and the best writing tools are either Mac or Windows. I've found myself dual-booting Linux/Windows on nearly all of my personal computers so that I can have the best of both worlds.

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Eljay-Adobe

Problems running them on WINE? For example, brand new games or demanding games that WINE can't handle (yet). Or just not a WINE fan, and getting it set up for your game of choice?

My games are ancient, and run just fine in dosbox. But I'm a gamer grognard.

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adamstaplesdev profile image
Adam Staples

Yeah, WINE is very hit and miss with what it supports. For a lot of the software I use, WINE only supports a version that is years behind the latest version, if it supports it at all.
I've also thought about just using a VM, but that has other drawbacks like performance. Booting to Windows on a separate hard drive has worked well.

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mburszley profile image
Maximilian Burszley

WSL: Linux Kernel/CLI when you need it, Windows otherwise. For anything I'd boot to Linux for, WSL has replaced that need to dual boot.

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rush profile image
Aarush Bhat

I'm using manjaro, but its too heavy, even heavy on my ryzen 7 16 gb ram and ssd, i have no clue why.

I've tried mx, kali, ubuntu.(distro jumperrr)

What do you'll use for web development? I'm thinking of pop os now.... Should i?

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Saurabh Sharma • Edited

I'm just using ubuntu, and it works

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terceranexus6 profile image
Paula

fair enough

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fabianrod profile image
FabiΓ‘n RodrΓ­guez

For me, the SO's based on Linux is great in the majority of contexts, the problem is when you are using it as a Desktop Computer, you always will have problems with drivers and GUI interaction with the SO, feel a little unstable.

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

Which ones have you tried? Perhaps I can help you find one that works for you, because I personally haven't experienced this.

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fabianrod profile image
FabiΓ‘n RodrΓ­guez

Thanks, I tried Ubuntu and Debian but there many problems with drivers, so, I installed Linux Mint and all is working, but still I can feel the operative system is not so fluent.

In the past, was the same, specially with drivers for graphic cards, network and others.

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roelofjanelsinga profile image
Roelof Jan Elsinga

If you have an Nvidia graphics card, you could try Pop OS. It comes with a lot of software installed already, including a lot of drivers. If you download the version for Nvidia users, everything will be set up for you.
Pop OS download options

Another very polished distro is Elementary OS. I have it installed on a Nvidia system for a very non-technical person and it works really well.

Then you have Zorin OS, which is really great for people that want to use it as a desktop and never want to touch the terminal (but you could of course).

And lastly, there's Manjaro. Apparently the drivers are really good and it's very smooth. The only thing that's a little scary for me to recommend it is that it's based on Arch, so it gives you a lot of control. I can use it perfectly fine as a more advanced user, but someone I recommended it to didn't really understand it. So try the other three first and this one last.

I hope this helps!

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kylerconway profile image
Kyle R. Conway

11 years ago I remember distinctly the moment I learned that there was a free operating system, just like the free tools I preferred on Windows at the time like VLC, Firefox, notepad++, and more. It was mindblowing! I soon learned about the GPL, the concept of copyleft, and began to become comfortable with the idea that I maybe wouldn't screw up my computer forever if I tried linux out on it.

10 years ago I switched for good and it's been wonderful.

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ghost profile image
Ghost • Edited

You can borrow Windows or iOS, you can learn how to use them, the overlords may even let you change somethings like the wallpaper, maybe tell you what is inside and how it works, maybe. Is never yours, you paid for a house with locked closets, a car with a GPS you don't control and a engine you cannot see. Try to open a panel, to open the trunk or look at it from below and you are breaking the law.

Linux and BSD (and others like Haiku and Redox) are, currently, the only way to own your computer and the only way to really learn about it, free to do what you want with it, others praise themselves because the can change fonts and UI colors; we know better.

I used MS OS from DOS 6.0 to Win XP and after all those years I learned close to nothing, I was very proficient with Windows yet I knew nothing, just the "cute" "user friendly" pseudo-technical terms given by MS, I knew the location of every checkbox and icon, even knew a bunch of useful registry entries; I knew nothing. After a week using Mandrake Linux my world opened, not longer after I installed Gentoo, a week banging my head against the desk (it was in the dark ages) I messed up the installation 6 times, but after that week I learned so much, not Linux stuff, real technical knowledge, no more "home networks" or internet thingies: LANs, TCP/IP stack, DNS, etc. No more useless computer baby talk. I would still use computers as microwaves, as appliances and I would still be frightful of them like mysterious blackboxes if it hadn't been for Linux.

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Riccardo Bernardini

I graduated in the 1990 and since then I (almost) used only Linux. Main drawback at that time was the difficulty of having hardware (printers, modems, ...) working with Linux. Nowadays that is more or less a memory...

What I like about Linux is the feel of total control: I can even change the kernel if I want... Also most of the open source software works pretty well, sometimes even better than the corresponding proprietary software, maybe with less whistles and bells, but it does its job and reliably too! (and if it doesn't I can correct it... I did that in the past)

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ondrejs profile image
Ondrej

Regarding communities - don't forget about keybase.io.

We have the strong and friendly programming & infosec community there. Anyone here - DM for more info if you're interested in participating - the more people |> more knowledge sharing |> more learning together & more fun.

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v6 profile image
πŸ¦„N BπŸ›‘
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mbbroberg profile image
Matt Broberg

This is so cool!

You can add Opensource.com to that list of communities. We write a lot about Linux, and I especially love the stories people share about falling in love with Linux.

If you're interested in sharing your story, shoot me a message here or matt @opensource.com 🐧

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ondrejs profile image
Ondrej

"What do you love the most about Linux and freedom of the software?"

From my, slightly different perspective:

I love that I have been through all of this and realized that Linux kernel is basically a bloatware and (in most cases = default setup ) security nightmare.
One can manage AppVMs (like in the case of the QubesOS) or play with elegant FP (like in the case of NixOS) and / or reproducible builds, but hey, ain't nobody got time for real system hardening.

After all these years, I have realized that I'd rather prefer HardenedBSD box with lightweight UI setup for development / research / daily usage.

Frankly that was one of my best life decisions.

Still I'm on the mailing lists of many Linux-related projects though; we'll see what the future brings!

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