Like when you send a .7z instead of a .zip or .rar to a friend or a teacher because that’s what your computer has installed and they’re like “Oh No, not one of those, now I have to install 7Zip” even though the same program that opens .rar also opens .7z I feel like people are way more annoyed when they receive a .7z
I did this, picked a stable distro (Ubuntu) and had endless problems. Each time I was told that I just picked the wrong distro (and they recommended a different one each time), or that I shouldn’t want to do what I wanted to do, or that it’s my fault for not having compatible hardware, or that if I want something I should just code it myself. Switched back to Windows eventually. Linux is great for server but I wouldn’t touch it again on desktop.
Enjoying life in 2003?
Damn, when was this? I can’t remember the last time I installed Linux on a machine and had this experience.
I understand the frustration. Except the point about hardware. I mean, yeah, of course you need to pick hardware that’s compatible with the OS you want to run. Can we blame HP for not being compatible with macOS, or an iPhone for not running Android? Hardware needs drivers, so if your hardware isn’t compatible, that’s just… reality. 99% of the time I hear this complaint it’s either a wifi card or an Nvidia GPU lol
Earlier this year. I was using a thinkpad x1 carbon laptop, supposedly a good laptop for that but still had problems. I was using an nvidia gpu, granted and one of my issue was related to WiFi
Majority of my problems have by solved by not having Nvidia graphics. Personally Linux has been great at extending the life of old computers for me. Linux mint runs a million times faster than windows 10 on my old machines. But it also helps I am fairly tech literate so problems that come up don’t register as a bif of a deal to me compared to others.
Yeah, I was using nvidia graphics so a lot of my issues were definitely caused by that.
When was this? When I finally went full time a year ago, compatibility and ease of use had improved greatly since the previous time I tried to leave Windows. And it sounds like the people giving you advice were gate-keeping assholes.
Any distro can install and run any software, choosing one is really just a matter of getting something that is already as close to the config you want as possible.
Not to discount your experience, but you’re only one data-point. The vast majority, in my experience, encounter few, if any, issues. And the ones they do can be solved by someone who knows even just the basics of linux. I’ve made the jump on several systems, for myself and other users.
A lot of windows know-how is useless, and linux newbies who are used to windows may look for solutions in the wrong places, and hence don’t find any. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, or are more complex than on windows. I did this myself, bashing my head on problems with simple solutions, simply because I didn’t know those solutions. Windows would seem pretty “complex” too if you didn’t know the control panel exists, or what it’s for.
For windows, the know-how for solving problems is simply more accessible. If you don’t know someone who can help with linux, and don’t want to learn, then yeah, by all means, stick to windows.
But linux can absolutely be a good experience on desktop. And who knows, any given person can give it a try, and chances are, their system wont run into any issues at all!
This was earlier this year. Last time I tried it before that was in 2013 and I had heard that Linux had advanced a lot since then so was hopeful for giving it a try. I think you’re right to a degree that I don’t have as many issues with Windows because I know how to fix most issues there. However, one of the first issues I ran into on Linux was trying to increase the scroll speed on my mouse and searching showed me the only solution was a 3rd party program that listens for scroll events and just doubles them up which was far from ideal.