Let’s not cherrypick scenarios to try and pretend Linux is easier than Windows. Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options, never mind putting them into a terminal window where they could seriously fuck up their machine. What about clicking the download link on a webpage, clicking next a few times and having them software on your machine, compared to having to build something from GitHub (how many people here have never had to do that?).
Let’s also not conflate “ease” with historical behavior.
Taking previous experience out of the equation, it is easier to type
apt upgradeand reboot to update your entire system than to click through 300 times in the system and multiple apps with reboots.That is a fact.
Like 3 clicks lol
Huh? 3 clicks to update Windows, Adobe, Office, that random text editor, VSCode, Steam, on and on and on…
- Open powershell
- Type Winget upgrade --all
- Hit enter.
It’s the same as most Linux distros, just different commands / syntax.
Huh, looks like that would do my list above except the Adobe Suite. A shame that’s not on by default. Good info.
You don’t even need the terminal. There is a interface to update if you are using a DE.
Unless you have a system without a GUI, you don’t need to open a terminal in order to update or install stuff. There is a GUI for that. And no, you don’t need to build stuff from GitHub for normal user stuff…
I tried that on linux, it doesn’t work if you want to do more than browse the web and other basic stuff.
You can do some seriously advanced stuff on windows using only GUIs
We were talking about normal user stuff that normal users do, not “seriously advanced stuff”… And I agree that most normal users probably don’t want to use terminals because they are not familiar with them. But normal users probably don’t and shouldn’t do “seriously advanced stuff”, no?
Yes, if you are trying to do “serously advanced stuff” (whatever that means), chances are you will probably need a terminal (or a terminal will at least be easier), but you shouldn’t be doing “seriously advanced stuff” unless you know what you are doing anyway…
I just wanted to install steam, but it wasn’t in the package manager list.
Then I tried apt-get and that didnt work, I forgot why.
You don’t have to do seriously advanced stuff on linux to run into issues without using the terminal.
My point was, even if you actually do some advanced stuff on windows you still don’t have to use the terminal.
It’s not realistic that you don’t have to use the terminal on linux if you want to do any more than web browsing and some text editing, etc.
That doesn’t mean that linux is bad, but let’s be realistic about what it is.
Weird, I would expect Steam to be in the Ubuntu repos (assuming that’s what you were using, since you mention apt), but maybe not. As for apt, or apt-get, they are just the terminal equivalent of the GUI package manager (synaptic? it’s been a minute since I ran ubuntu), so if something isn’t in the repos, apt at the terminal won’t find it either. If it’s not in the repos, you should be able to download and install steam from the website just like you would in windows. It gives you a .deb file which will launch just like an executable installer in Ubuntu. But to your point, yes, sometimes things in linux take a little extra thinking to get to work. Getting accustomed to the way Linux works can help overcome hiccups like this. Windows has many quirks as well, it’s just that if you use WIndows often you know your way around them.
That experience is highly dependent on the Linux distro you’re using. Steam comes preinstalled on gaming-centric distros like Nobara or Pop!_OS. More “general purpose” distros like Mint or Ubuntu might require adding an apt repository before you can install steam from their GUI package managers, but adding an apt repo can be easily accomplished with a GUI as well.
Basically, if there’s no guide for installing steam for a given distro, or the process of installing steam is more than a couple easy steps, that specific distro probably isn’t well suited to run steam.
been using linux for a few years both on servers and my pc and I never had to build sth myself
This applies to pretty much all “Linux good, Win/MacOS bad” memes. I just assume that people either aren’t really serious about them and it’s just tongue in cheek, or they don’t have any contact with regular people.
I used to work as a(n assistant to the) sysadmin and the things I got called over never stopped to amaze. For instance, there was a case when software was updated on the work machines and I got called because some lady couldn’t use Adobe Acrobat. “It is asking me something, I don’t know what”. I come over and it’s just a TOS Accept/Decline window.
Some people do not understand computers to an extent that they can lock up in a state of confusion when a button has been moved 100px in any direction from its usual position.
or they don’t have any contact with regular people.
This gets my vote, the memes are so disconnected from reality they feel forced and not funny
Let’s not cherrypick scenarios to try and pretend Linux is easier than Windows. Most normal people are…
Let’s not cherry pick users then. I don’t care about your normal users. My experience is better on Linux.
Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options
Sadly no. They should be nervous if it’s about making changes to their system. In reality however Windows conditioned them to just click the button labeled “Yes” or “Okay” without even reading the pop-up in the first place.
Most normal people are nervous interacting with a GUI pop-up that gives them two options, never mind putting them into a terminal window where they could seriously fuck up their machine
Maybe this is a problem that we should be addressing, rather than just making technology more of a black box, and raising generations of people who have no fucking concept of how any of it works.
Lots of people don’t care enough to learn
There’s also many people who can’t afford technology, you know?
and raising generations of people who have no fucking concept of how any of it works
Only two generations were got to be technologically literate.
Greatest and Silent generations helped create computing, Boomers helped create important software such as DOS, Gen X and Millennials helped develop the Web, Gen Z is still going into computing and development jobs and Gen Alpha is too young to consider
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This kind of reads as being addicted to the smell of your own farts?
Nothing in that godawful, arcane, confusing black screen with white text is ever going to be better than clicking on buttons that have English words I can actually understand.
If you were raised by the matrix and like doing things the hard way with memorized commands, that’s fine with me and kind of cool in a way, but it is definitely the hard way.
Come get me when games are as easy to play on Linux as they are on windows
Moving the goal posts from OS handling to games is an admission that you know you are wrong.
Bro, all I do on my computer is websurf and game.
I usw Debian and all my games run just fine and are easy ti install. I have a 1k+ lib with various titles.
They are. I have about the same success rate with Proton and WINE(via Heroic Launcher) as to when I still duel booted Windows. If you’re talking about games with rootkit anticheats, I never played those in Windows anyway.
Okay, I took a quick glance at proton and it seems to be something you put on top of a Linux install. What OS do you actually use
Proton comes with steam, and you can get other versions on top of it if you want.
If you’ve got steam, you can run games through proton very easily
I just use Mint. Just think of Proton as a feature of Steam. I just pick a game from my Steam library and select Force Compatibility mode on and install. Heroic Launcher (for GoG and some other things) is a few more steps, but I didn’t need a guide to figure it out. Heroic lets you choose either Proton or WINE, so I installed Steam first to minimize confusion.
Oh, and another nice feature of Heroic is that it will grab the Linux binary if it’s available somewhere even if that binary isn’t available on GoG. I was surprised that it grabbed the native client for Factorio instead of the windows version that’s on GoG.
Are there ever any performance issues from proton compatibility?
It doesn’t get much better than Digital Foundry’s coverage on the matter.
Spoiler alert
Performance is about similar. So no significant performance issues.
The overhead added by Proton, compared to the CPU time consumed by the actual game, is minimal. The greatest benefit is that you don’t have dozens of Windows services hogging half of your memory and CPU.
Some games have some quirks that can cause performance issues when running under Proton. Deathloop, for example, was good on Windows, but unplayable on Linux with the same hardware (Ryzen 5 2600, 16G RAM, RX 6750 XT). There was massive stuttering even on minimum graphics, and every level took several minutes to load. It works now, but since then I’ve upgraded to a 7800X3D, so I’m probably just brute-forcing my way through the same issues.
Probably, but I’m already running ancient hardware and I tend to favor retro and indie games, so I’m not the best to ask about that. Some people do report better performance under Proton though. Windows has a lot of bloat that doesn’t exist with WINE/Proton running in Linux.
That completely depends on the game. Many play just as well if not better, some play worse or not at all. Check out a site called ProtonDB for a huge list of games and their level of playability.
I mean they are. I game constantly and use a Linux only machine. The only games that don’t work are crappy anti cheat games from Epic. And they are crappy. So who cares?
I duel booted just for those and it wasn’t worth the headache. Linux is far superior in every way.
Most games on Steam work just fine when you turn on Proton. Gaming on linux has come a long way.
Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) don’t
do underfall short of Windows. Heck, I’d argue they might even be easier.The real issue is anti-cheat. But that’s just the next hurdle we’ll have to overcome.
Edit: TIL that the expression “to do under” has no place in English.
SteamOS don’t do under Windows.
I’m really trying to figure out what you meant here.
Apologies. Allow me to clarify.
I meant that it’s not harder than Windows, when it comes to playing games. And I even made that claim stronger by proclaiming that it’s probably even easier.
Edit: SteamOS is the operating system found on the Steam Deck. It’s basically Arch Linux (btw), but with Valve’s (very) special sauce. It’s what you’d expect from your average game console; which is a good thing*.
Can you run league on Linux? I can’t run it on my windows anymore cause if some security thing lol
We were able to, up until Riot chose to mess it up for everyone (including us).
Another alternative for your expression might be ‘to do less’ as i steamos doesn’t do less than windows. Or ‘do worse than’. I would say even ‘steamos doesnt under-do windows in terms of gaming’ would work but it sounds more awkward. Mind if i ask what language the expression ‘do under’ is from? Its neat, i like it. English sucks in a lot of ways. Also agree with everything you said about OSes. I had tried linux in the past but mostly stuck to windows for gaming, then i got a steam deck and ill never install windows ever again.
Or ‘do worse than’.
I think I like this one as well. Basically, as you’ll see later on, the expression is (probably) best translated as ‘to be inferior’. Combined with the negation that’s brought with “don’t”, we could rephrase the sentence as ‘Honestly, in terms of ease to play, SteamOS (or clones like Bazzite) aren’t inferior to Windows.’.
‘steamos doesnt under-do windows in terms of gaming’
Another one that I like 😜. But, the double ‘do’ is indeed a bit awkward.
Mind if i ask what language the expression ‘do under’ is from?
Sure! It’s an expression found in Dutch. Heck, to be more precise, it’s a verb that can be split: ‘onderdoen’, but also ‘doen onder’. The literal translation would be, as you’d expect ‘underdo’ or ‘do under’. Here’s the (English) wiktionary entry.
Also agree with everything you said about OSes. I had tried linux in the past but mostly stuck to windows for gaming, then i got a steam deck and ill never install windows ever again.
Valve has truly outdone itself. While I only started using Linux after Proton’s release, the horror stories from the pre-Proton era still send shivers down my spine.
Missing dependency? Don’t you like living away from your parents?
You people always come off as old people on infomercials.
Anyways Linus desktop is a mess. You are delusional if you think it’s easier. Maybe more efficient workflows for certain things but easier is a lol.
I appreciate Linux for how well it can handle single-purpose tasks, like if I wanted a media centre or such, but after daily driving it for 3 years on my Desktop I’ve had enough. Anyone who thinks it’s easy has a lot of spare time they wish to invest into a thing that’s supposed to just work.
I love it for long running services eg *ardar + Plex but the desktop is nearly unusable.
Ubuntu out of the box requires you to install pulse audio, grab your device id via cli, and then run a script at bottom to set that device as the default speaker.
Ubuntu out of the box needs scripting just to deal with an audio source that gets turned off and on. And zealots will scream it’s ready for everyone on steam to use.
When was the last time you installed Ubuntu?
I’ve installed Ubuntu a bunch and never had to do that
3 months ago. You don’t have an audio source that gets removed.
Lol never had that issue either
Anyways Linus desktop is a mess. You are delusional if you think it’s easie
Use it before saying shit that’s so blatantly stupid
Have a nix box upstairs. It’s much more of a pain in the ass than any windows install. Year of the Linux desktop in year 20xx 🤣
Windows side of things is getting better though, thanks to winget. Not perfect and it f’s up with certain packages but already a lot better than updating by hand.
Windows is not getting better,
CoPilot, Recall, all more unwanted spyware…UniGetUI is a good way to maintain software on Windows in a Linux fashion through package managers,
however that does not change that the underlying OS is pure spyware.Sure, but since the meme was talking updates my response is about updates only as well.
The Windows updating experience, both the system and apps via the Microsoft Store is so fucking bad it’s unbelievable. Shit just stops working all the time, updates fail, grinds the whole system to a halt etc.
For several years now I’ve been unable to update apps in the Microsoft store in one go, I have to open it, click “get updates” and the circular progression bar goes to about 1/5 and then just stops. So I have to close the app, wait a few minutes, open it again and then press the “play” button for every single app that has updates for the download to actually start, nothing else works. It’s been the same for Windows 10 and 11 across four different computers.
There was a Windows 10 update several months ago, might even have been last year that just failed for a ton of people and it took months before it was fixed.
I don’t like windows either, but updating with Winget in terminal works pretty good. Not as good as with Linux, but better than downloading every app via browser.
Chocolatey is the best option I’ve found for this on Windows:
Chocolatey was created by Rob Reynolds in 2011 with the simple goal of offering a universal package manager for Windows. Chocolatey is an open source project that provides developers and admins alike a better way to manage Windows software.
You can install & uninstall software from the command line and update everything installed through it with one command.
It’s not a real package manager of course. It can’t update the operating system, and Windows applications aren’t built for modularity and shared libraries the way Linux applications are. But it does automate application management like nothing else. I highly recommend this if you use Windows.
There’s winget now too, which is the official Windows package manager. I’ve used it a couple of times now and worked as expected, not sure how it compares to chocolatey outside of simple app installs though.
I love winget, at least for the initial installation. No more having to search the the download and click through a gui. Just one or two commands (two if searching for the id) and done.
I always prefered scoop with which I had fewer issues and which installs everything without needing admin rights.
installs everything without needing admin rights.
I hate installers that do this because they don’t install the apps in the right place. Apps should be in Program Files.
Not really, except if you install for all users on the machine: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/installation-context
No restart require on Linux is a joke, right? Because I get updates that require restarts as often as I get them on Windows when updating Mint.
Yep. Every kernel update. Granted that’s less often than Windows requires a reboot.
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Redhat is not the original. Just of the ongoing projects, there is both Slackware and Debian, which are both older than Redhat. Redhat stands out because they are a commercial, for profit company, so they have more money and resources to invest in Linux development than most organizations, and they have a vested interest since it is their product base.
Besides a kernel update… Which one?
Honest question, as I usually just restart to be sure I haven’t missed to restart a service or something, but theoretically I could restart every program and service, that got updated.
Maybe Mint is very conservative here…
Fedora requiers them all the time. Sometimes there is a driver update in there.
they’re not required, only the update manager thing wants you to. if you update via dnf you don’t need to restart 90% of the time
Probably driver update, like nvidia?
Ah yeah, mostly kernel module updates go along with a kernel update. But you are right, yeah.
Although, should be possible to just reload the module and restart X/Wayland, no?
Afaik mint just says you have to restart but don’t forces you. Iirc it was there to avoud any glitches which could be caused by apps interacting with each other in different versions(say some system app got updated and desktop environment is still the old since its loaded before update then cause gui mismatch due to different versions of ui toolkit)
I mean, in this case Windows doesn’t force you to restart either, you can just keep chugging along with the restart icon at the bottom right… That icon can stay there for weeks on my girlfriend’s laptop
Really? I need to restart my Windows less often, Fedora asks me every other day restart my PC to install updates
Fedora issue. I restart my Debian machines maybe once every 4-6 weeks.
I have the save experience with popos
“Issue” implies that there is something wrong with it it’s simple a different release model, Fedora just got the newer packages, for example Gnome 43 on Debian vs Gnome 47 on Fedora (obviously I’m talking about the stable releases). If you prefer the Debian way of doing things that’s great but I don’t.
Yep. I’m on EndeavourOS which is about as far as you can get from Mint without going to like Slackware, LFS, or BSD. Basically every single run of pacman prompts for a reboot. I’m sure I could restart individual services or subsystems instead, but that’s not what the OS popup says.
Unless you’re updating the kernel itself, there is little chance you actually need to reboot your machine. Just restarting whatever service or application you’re using should do the trick.
This is the same on Windows, you can just carry on and then complete an update when you go to shut down the machine. Can’t remember the last time an app install or update required the whole OS to be restarted immediately.
I remember what it’s called, but at some point there was an app for windows that would check if your machine actually needed a restart or not. Basically the “restart your machine” prompt is mostly just a boilerplate. It’s very rare that those installers touch anything that can’t actually be loaded without a restart.
Even with kernel updates, you can use something like ksplice or kpatch to update it without rebooting. It’s usually only used on servers though.
And on some distros you can also just reload the kernel without rebooting
Yeah, but you’re going to pay for that.
Not necessarily, you can use
kexecYeah, when you use Arch, you may not pay in money, but you are going to pay, lol.
That’s just a doc, kexec is also available on Fedora, Debian, Centos, etc.
Just following the update manager instructions
Kde neon made me reboot Everytime it updated. Turns out there was a setting I could disable. Afterwards I was never bugged about rebooting.
Used discover for updates
Maybe you have such a setting?
You do you, it can’t hurt to reboot and work on a fresh restart. But if for some reasons you need to keep your machine up, you’ll know it is less of a problem than on windows typically
somepackage requires otherpackage version >10.1.79
otherpackage is already at latest version
Have fun compiling it yourself and messing up what is managed by the package manager and what’s not. And don’t forget that the update might break some other package along the way
Most of the time you can just download a release and place the binary in path (or a symlink).
Compiling it yourself should not ‘messing up’ anything, it should build locally:
./configure make -j$(nproc)Now it’s just built, nothing on your system has changed.
make installwill place requisite files where they need to go, but this generally configurable viaprefixor equivalent. You may need to install dependencies, but that’s usually a simple exercise in reading the output from the configuration step.Compiling software is easy as fuck and is incredibly flexible.
I sometimes just give up and use Docker or a Flatpak (depending on if it’s a CLI or GUI app)
Manjaro, is that you?
If your distro maintainer’s do a good job, that situation never happen’s.
Or just use gentoo where that problem doensn’t exist at all.
Don’t use apostrophes wherever you see an “s” at the end of a word. If you’re unsure about whether or not to use an apostrophe, just don’t. Because statistically, there are far fewer cases where you need 'em than there are cases where you don’t. Plus if you missed the apostrophe where it should be, people will just assume you didn’t bother to type it or it was a typo. Whereas if you do type it where it shouldn’t be, it’s a clear case of “this person doesn’t know how apostrophes work”.
Shut’s the’s fuck’s up’s.
There’s no need to get upset, the entire comment was typed on a keyboard; I didn’t say a word.
reddit’s tier’s response’s
I merely tried to provide a response in the same tier as yours.
Huh, pacman always seemed to automatically work out those dependency loops, or whatever you want to call them, when I was on EndeavourOS. The only time I had an issue with updating was when I went like two weeks without updating, and then ran out of harddrive space halfway through installing the 600 updates.
I’ve been running Bazzite for several months now, and updating is absurdly easy and unintrusive. It’s basically impossible to fuckup (and if you do, it’s extremely simple to rollback). I can really see immutable/atomic being the future of Linux.
Well not if you’re on Ubuntu and need the latest version of e.g. npm for some nvim plugin, because that version is not in the repository.
WinGet: Am I a joke to you?
Winget-ui is great, except Microsoft hasn’t figured out to conceptually make two installs of the same product get treated the same – absolutely pathetic that if you install VLC from their website you can never ever ever use Winget VLC without uninstalling the other.
WinGet, choco, scoop, &c, they all have strengths and weaknesses, which is why I had to write this: https://github.com/brianary/scripts/blob/main/Update-Everything.ps1
It’s also why I use Linux at home.
I don’t know about all the arguing and snark, but… I’ve been using Ubuntu (laugh it up) on my work laptop for the last 3ish years, and the vast majority of the time it really is “click install updates. wait 2 minutes. ok every program on your computer is up to date, just don’t forget to restart Firefox”. Can’t think of a time where updating sucked. Sometimes I even go through the terminal just because it makes me feel cool to be a hackerman.
I dread updating my windows pc at home. Cuts into my WoW time too much.
I can’t laugh it up as I use Ubuntu with a K.
Coincidentally my windows PC needed to update when I got back to it. It took like 15 minutes and 2 restarts. I legit pulled out my Ubuntu laptop and Sudo apt-get upgraded that bitch just to flex on Bill Gates.
I’ve switched over a year ago and that’s the thing that, looking back, sticks out to me the most as well. It’s just insane that practically every application I used had its own update routine. Lesser used apps I had to update every single time before using them. Just constant interruptions everywhere.
Winget is a step in the right directions, but it still has to build upon and work around that same shaky foundation, and it shows.
Still pretty ez
This was made by someone who has never used either
Literally
My desktop/laptop experience for both is as follows:
Windows update, at least since the inception of the concept has never required me to go to a browser (unless you count w98 “everything is a website” concept for the desktop or the far in between instances were a PC was offline/having issues and you need to download update packages)
It also updated windows applications (ie office) but yeah it never intended to upgrade other stuff, all other software had their own auto update check
I’ll concede the restart because yeah it does all for that
But yeah Linux install is not without issues, and I’ll just remind everyone of how difficult it was/is to install a component driver when it’s not automatically found (wifi cards, disk controllers, and Realtek drivers anyone?)
Yeah it does update your apps, as long as you have the repos, and restart wise I distinctively remember that you do need to do restarts after updates, be it major distro or not.
Simple commands? I’ll concede that, as long as we remember the average Linux user is used to a less user friendly experience. Complain ask you want but for the average user, windows update experience works
Thankfully I don’t need to deal with all that stuff now
What’s so hard about sudo pacman -Syu
Is easy
No sketchy website like having to go to Firefox.com to download Firefox. Ughhh
Besides missing dependencies or repositories for more nice software this kinda closely matches my experience though.
(Ignoring winget, becaust it is not really the mainstream way to install windows software)
What is your specific issue with this?
Mostly that this hasn’t been my experience with Windows for like 20 years.
They might as well bitch about dropping their punch cards.
I still (have to) download scetchy executables on Windows when I want to install most programms, while on debian I can install most programs via apt and a few repositories. Even when it’s not a standard repo I still prefer it over random executables because while the security is just as bad at least I get updates without having to open the program itself.
But what resonated with me most have been the restarts for updates. Happened way to often that I wanted to stop working but cant just shut down windows without updates and the accompanying reboots. (If I don’t check up in between to decrypt the disk on startups it’ll just sit there and run out the battery and I have to do the restarts on the next workday). On debian I just klick the power button, it hibernates (or I shut it down if I’m in the mood) and os updates are completely seperate from that.
What sketchy executables are you downloading?
What makes downloading steam from valve more sketchy than allowing a Linux repo to run arbitrary code as root on your machine for every single one of thousands of pieces of software maintained by strangers?
Tbh, with stuff like Winget and the respective GUI apps the process for installing or upgrading software is pretty much the same nowadays.
Genuinely the only people who use Winget or choco are Linux users who have to use Windows.
Or anyone that does automation. Pretty much any Windows sysadmin.
You’re forgetting winget. It’s actually really good.
Winget sucks ass. Fails half of the time, lists way too much I did not install through Winget m, even had apps broken because of bad updates through Winget.
Never had these problems with scoop or chocolatey though.
lists way too much I did not install through Winget
That’s one of the features though. You can update apps via Winget even if you didn’t originally install them via Winget.
That sucks. I use it to handle all software on my work dev machine and haven’t had any issues so far. We basically use it to set up clean machines and it’s worked perfectly so far.
