Does Linux on a Desktop Feel Like a "Cheap Hack"?

[Marie SWE]

Completely agree, I have been run off some Linux forums for heresy. Not this one though. Love watching the Chris Titus videos, also try Thor Hartmannson's videos on Mint. Welcome aboard.

sad to hear that you have been driven away from forums .. computer community's can be a hostile place sometimes it apples to win-forums too..
and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.
Unfortunately, this also applies to workplaces. But I don't care to much, ignore things and most of it flows off me like water on a goose.

yes Chris seems like a nice guy, I've chatted with him a couple of times, when he have live streamed on Twitch.

[Moem]

computer community's can be a hostile place sometimes it apples to win-forums too..
and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.

Yeah, this is one of the points where we (the Linux Mint forum) strive to do better than average. And luckily we have several female moderators, which can't hurt.

[Marie SWE]

Yeah, this is one of the points where we (the Linux Mint forum) strive to do better than average. And luckily we have several female moderators, which can't hurt.

I have not encountered that problem on this forum.
But I have not been so active since I got started with Linux as a daily driver the summer of 2019. The first year of Linux was a pure hell.. It made me crazy that I couldn't figure things out as easily in Linux as I was able to do in windows. I was ready to give up a few times and go back to windows... and then i remembered.. I hate win10.. so I tried and tried and tried, until one day in late 2020, everything just seemed to make sense and I got it.
I still have a lot to learn because I don't grasp everything yet.. I can't expect to get 32 years of windows knowledge with Linux in just 4 years.
It is really fun to look back on my first two years of Linux as i was really struggling to figure it out and to understand how f*ck does it work.
Some of the newbie post I made here and on a Swedish forum are almost embarrassing to read today.. But they give me a good laugh.
My friend who has been using Linux for almost 20 years had a lot of fun at me sometimes when I asked about things. But today it's switched roles, now he is asking me for help sometimes, so it's fun to be able to help back, as a thank you for the help.

[RollyShed]

and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.

Women and technology? Would I get my daughter to do some welding for me? Of course not. Why? Because she took her lathe and her welder and moved 1000 km away. An artist with a welder is what she really is.

Would I get my mother to do any electrical appliance servicing? No. Why? She died a couple of decades ago leaving me to do all of that plus fixing sewing machines which she was better at than me.

Why am I in technology, probably because of her, giving us Meccano as kids because she had it in the 1920s. Car servicing? Because she would strip her 1930s cars down.

[MikeNovember]

- Mathcad is not available, you should use Smath Studio (a Windows program (!) running on Linux with mono).

Mentioning "Mathcad" together with Adobe products and Microsoft Office is either a personal hang-up or would seemingly want to be categorised malicious cherry-picking: the much more widely used Mathematica, Maple, MATLAB, ..., do most certainly provide native Linux versions after all.

Hi,

Compared to other maths packages, Mathcad offers the unique feature to have an intuitive interface (you write formulas as you wrote it n a sheet of paper, but it is a "living" sheet), with the smallest learning curve. In the maths category I could also mention Minitab (statistical package) and other ones not existing for Linux.
I don't know any professional graphist using Gimp or Darktable but Photoshop or Lightroom, and even in home users Gimp is not the 1st choice.
Personally, as a home user, I am happy with LibreOffice, Thunderbird and Gimp (that I use on Windows since much more plugins are available than for Linux version). I also use Mathcad, Minitab, Tablecurve, and some other programs available only on Window such as StereoPhotoMaker, Microsoft Image Composite Editor etc.
And I use them in a Windows 10 guest (running in VMware Workstation Player).
Regards,
MN

[RetroRemix]

Yeah, this is one of the points where we (the Linux Mint forum) strive to do better than average. And luckily we have several female moderators, which can't hurt.

I have not encountered that problem on this forum.
But I have not been so active since I got started with Linux as a daily driver the summer of 2019. The first year of Linux was a pure hell.. It made me crazy that I couldn't figure things out as easily in Linux as I was able to do in windows. I was ready to give up a few times and go back to windows... and then i remembered.. I hate win10.. so I tried and tried and tried, until one day in late 2020, everything just seemed to make sense and I got it.
I still have a lot to learn because I don't grasp everything yet.. I can't expect to get 32 years of windows knowledge with Linux in just 4 years.
It is really fun to look back on my first two years of Linux as i was really struggling to figure it out and to understand how f*ck does it work.
Some of the newbie post I made here and on a Swedish forum are almost embarrassing to read today.. But they give me a good laugh.
My friend who has been using Linux for almost 20 years had a lot of fun at me sometimes when I asked about things. But today it's switched roles, now he is asking me for help sometimes, so it's fun to be able to help back, as a thank you for the help.

Even though I started way back in 2009 with Ubuntu, I still consider myself a Linux noob today and still have to use Google, man pages and the forums to figure out what most things do and mean even. I suppose I'm a much better noob than I was back then though... because I used to click everything to see what it did and I changed settings I probably shouldn't have, just because it sounded cool! It was not cool when I ended up messing up the GRUB dual boot LOL

I was such a noob back then that that I though sudo apt-get meant that you could point it to any site and have the OS download the program and install it for you, I tried using this to download Windows games off websites thinking it would just download them and play them natively, but damn I had a shock of a lifetime near enough, when it spat out a weird error at me instead. (I didn't even know that WINE existed when I started with Linux, or that even Linux was incompatible with windows programs!)

Today I'm very much still a noob, but at least I'm a noob that manages to not mess up the dual boot anymore or mess it up and have it boot to a black screen with an error.

It doesn't help that I've always had a memory like a sieve though... so that is one big factor that will prolly keep me eternally nooby!

[rambo919]

The thing is it's much easier to "learn" Windows with trial and error because you need the cli for the bare minimum..... Linux is the other way around.

To stop being a "Linux noob that googles everything" you pretty much need an excellent random memorization skill..... and not make typos.... this unfortunately is NOT the majority of the human race these days.

No one practices memorization as children anymore, they are taught to take shortcuts with a calculator and browser.... and spreadsheet manager probably these days.

[rambo919]

Completely agree, I have been run off some Linux forums for heresy. Not this one though. Love watching the Chris Titus videos, also try Thor Hartmannson's videos on Mint. Welcome aboard.

I for one do not get run off of such disgusting forums.... I raise a stink and walk away with my middle finger in the air complaining loudly.

Yeah, this is one of the points where we (the Linux Mint forum) strive to do better than average. And luckily we have several female moderators, which can't hurt.

Dunno how much female moderators have to do with it but I have noticed forums with female mods do run more smoothly, might have to do with the superior female instinct of "how matters as much as what" regarding arguments.

and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.

Personally I really dunno how true that is these days.... I think that view is more prevalent with younger men than older? When you get older you really don't care who has the knowledge.... you just want the damn light to blink when it should and not when it shouldn't.

[MurphCID]

Completely agree, I have been run off some Linux forums for heresy. Not this one though. Love watching the Chris Titus videos, also try Thor Hartmannson's videos on Mint. Welcome aboard.

I for one do not get run off of such disgusting forums.... I raise a stink and walk away with my middle finger in the air complaining loudly.

Yeah, this is one of the points where we (the Linux Mint forum) strive to do better than average. And luckily we have several female moderators, which can't hurt.

Dunno how much female moderators have to do with it but I have noticed forums with female mods do run more smoothly, might have to do with the superior female instinct of "how matters as much as what" regarding arguments.

and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.

Personally I really dunno how true that is these days.... I think that view is more prevalent with younger men than older? When you get older you really don't care who has the knowledge.... you just want the damn light to blink when it should and not when it shouldn't.

I agree completely with your points #2 and #3. #1, it is not worth my time or aggravation so I knock the dust of those forums from the soles of my shoes (figuratively) and just never go back. The Manjaro forum is IMHO very over moderated, and apparently that is a knee-jerk reaction from days gone bye. Some others are just filled with Jack-wagons and not worth my time.

[rambo919]

I agree completely with your points #2 and #3. #1, it is not worth my time or aggravation so I knock the dust of those forums from the soles of my shoes (figuratively) and just never go back. The Manjaro forum is IMHO very over moderated, and apparently that is a knee-jerk reaction from days gone bye. Some others are just filled with Jack-wagons and not worth my time.

TBH these days I just don't bother anymore.... half the time you are interacting with insecure self-justifying bleeps that get off on friction for friction sake.

I state my opinion and if the forum is hostile it's hostile, not my problem.... though it does tend to decrease my respect for the project hosting the forum if it's moderators are allowed to be grown children throwing temper tantrums as if someone just swore at their mother.....

[MurphCID]

I agree completely with your points #2 and #3. #1, it is not worth my time or aggravation so I knock the dust of those forums from the soles of my shoes (figuratively) and just never go back. The Manjaro forum is IMHO very over moderated, and apparently that is a knee-jerk reaction from days gone bye. Some others are just filled with Jack-wagons and not worth my time.

TBH these days I just don't bother anymore.... half the time you are interacting with insecure self-justifying bleeps that get off on friction for friction sake.

I state my opinion and if the forum is hostile it's hostile, not my problem.... though it does tend to decrease my respect for the project hosting the forum if it's moderators are allowed to be grown children throwing temper tantrums as if someone just swore at their mother.....

I completely agree with you here. Most are reminders of just how toxic the Linux community can be with their self inflicted holy wars that are full of sound and fury signifying nothing. They actually do more to damage the Linux adoption by being jerks.

[RetroRemix]

The thing is it's much easier to "learn" Windows with trial and error because you need the cli for the bare minimum..... Linux is the other way around.

To stop being a "Linux noob that googles everything" you pretty much need an excellent random memorization skill..... and not make typos.... this unfortunately is NOT the majority of the human race these days.

No one practices memorization as children anymore, they are taught to take shortcuts with a calculator and browser.... and spreadsheet manager probably these days.

Yes, and maybe it's also because I grew up with Windows, and the earlier generations also grew up around DOS too, which Windows 32 bit edition still has some backwards compatibility for and even in the OS itself a lot of conventions are still carried over like having "A and B" as the floppy drives and "C" as hard drive and having backwards slash as directory separator. So that DOS/Windows legacy is strong in a lot of people that grew up around computers.

learning Linux I think is like the difference between learning a language growing up, and learning it later in life. If you grew up with it, your parents spoke it, your community spoke it, and it's the first thing you learn in school to communicate with then it's basically ingrained into your subconscious, so you then speak and know it without a second thought. If you learn that language later in life then it's harder.

Windows/DOS for the majority of us is like the native language we grew up with and around... Linux is like the secondary language that is going to be much harder to learn because we didn't grow up around it (Or didn't start out with it).

I might be wrong though, but I think that's another big reason why it can be a struggle.

[Marie SWE]

The thing is it's much easier to "learn" Windows with trial and error because you need the cli for the bare minimum..... Linux is the other way around.

To stop being a "Linux noob that googles everything" you pretty much need an excellent random memorization skill..... and not make typos.... this unfortunately is NOT the majority of the human race these days.

No one practices memorization as children anymore, they are taught to take shortcuts with a calculator and browser.... and spreadsheet manager probably these days.

Yes, and maybe it's also because I grew up with Windows, and the earlier generations also grew up around DOS too, which Windows 32 bit edition still has some backwards compatibility for and even in the OS itself a lot of conventions are still carried over like having "A and B" as the floppy drives and "C" as hard drive and having backwards slash as directory separator. So that DOS/Windows legacy is strong in a lot of people that grew up around computers.

learning Linux I think is like the difference between learning a language growing up, and learning it later in life. If you grew up with it, your parents spoke it, your community spoke it, and it's the first thing you learn in school to communicate with then it's basically ingrained into your subconscious, so you then speak and know it without a second thought. If you learn that language later in life then it's harder.

Windows/DOS for the majority of us is like the native language we grew up with and around... Linux is like the secondary language that is going to be much harder to learn because we didn't grow up around it (Or didn't start out with it).

I might be wrong though, but I think that's another big reason why it can be a struggle.

And we also have the biology factor. A young brain have easier to learn.. and when we all lived at home, we had a lot of time to waste each day on our computers and other hobbies.. as grown ups we have a home to take care of, we have jobs, family's, bills to pay and so on.. so we have less time and the evil biology factor of learning.
And the fact that Linux is a bit harder then windows.
So we should have done it backwards.. Linux when we ware young and windows on older days.

[rambo919]

Come to think of it, making children use a less GUI intensive version of Linux exclusively might actually be a good way to develop certain currently neglected cognitive functions.... there is no better encouragement to learn hoops than to put them in front of games.

[MurphCID]

Come to think of it, making children use a less GUI intensive version of Linux exclusively might actually be a good way to develop certain currently neglected cognitive functions.... there is no better encouragement to learn hoops than to put them in front of games.

Both of you have a great point. We learn when things are difficult.

[Marie SWE]

and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.

Personally I really dunno how true that is these days.... I think that view is more prevalent with younger men than older? When you get older you really don't care who has the knowledge.... you just want the damn light to blink when it should and not when it shouldn't.

It is different on different places.. in one company it can be totally true, but not in another. Sometime the problem lays in the management, and sometime it's on the floor among the workers.
Some company's and agencies even has a quotation system to create gender equality.
I think it should be the right person for the right job regardless of gender, skin color and nationality.
Unfortunately, the world is not working perfectly everywhere yet, but it is better now than it was 50 years ago.

[iliketrains]

“I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it’s the only area where Linux hasn’t completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.” ~ (Linus Torvalds).

Torvalds is a funny guy so likely had tongue planted in cheek but there's truth in that quote.

At this stage in my life I can open a terminal with the command 'apropos' and be entertained for hours. It's a luxury and aging isn't all downside.
btw: anybody who really understands the Windows Registry has my utmost respect.

[Marie SWE]

Even though I started way back in 2009 with Ubuntu, I still consider myself a Linux noob today and still have to use Google, man pages and the forums to figure out what most things do and mean even. I suppose I'm a much better noob than I was back then though... because I used to click everything to see what it did and I changed settings I probably shouldn't have, just because it sounded cool! It was not cool when I ended up messing up the GRUB dual boot LOL

I was such a noob back then that that I though sudo apt-get meant that you could point it to any site and have the OS download the program and install it for you, I tried using this to download Windows games off websites thinking it would just download them and play them natively, but damn I had a shock of a lifetime near enough, when it spat out a weird error at me instead. (I didn't even know that WINE existed when I started with Linux, or that even Linux was incompatible with windows programs!)

Today I'm very much still a noob, but at least I'm a noob that manages to not mess up the dual boot anymore or mess it up and have it boot to a black screen with an error.

It doesn't help that I've always had a memory like a sieve though... so that is one big factor that will prolly keep me eternally nooby!

I see myself as a noob in linux too.... and I will keep doing that until that day i solve some big Linux problem or I start working in Linux environments.
We all have probably sabotaged Grub, I think it's "Lesson-1A" in Linux
As my dad told me when I was a kid, it's just as important to make mistakes in life, so you learn what's not working and how to think outside the box and how to solve them.
I am self taught in many areas. computers, hardware, msdos-windows and IT security. But I also studied for 5 years to fill in the knowledge gaps that self learning creates.
My English is also self taught, as you with english mothertongue guaranteed notice.
I also have mild dyslexia, so that doesn't improve the situation directly. ha ha

Computers and machinery has one thing in common.. is built on logic.
The difficult thing is to figure out how the architect was thinking when he/she put it together. Once you figure that out, you start to understand how it works and what works how and why.
I do first learn the easy way to just make it work so i can use it... then when I have time, I sit down and learn it right way. (Edit. and what is the right way.. as everyone else say, or the new way you just have found.)
So you can say that I cheat, when I look for the shortcuts first.
It's going to be very interesting when the quantum computers start to become common, as the logic principle probably won't work in the same way, when it can be both 1 and 0 instead of either 1 or 0

no way RetroRemix I don't think you will be an eternal noob, you just haven't found the right way cheat yet.

[rene]

Compared to other maths packages, Mathcad offers the unique feature to have an intuitive interface (you write formulas as you wrote it n a sheet of paper, but it is a "living" sheet)

Quite non-unique; Mathematica notebooks have been allowing for that at least for 30 or so years. Anyways -- out.

[Portreve]

Microsoft generally alternates "good" and "bad" versions of Windows...
Bad: Windows 3.0
Good: Windows 3.1
Good: Windows 3.11
Bad: Windows 95
Good: Windows 95 OSR2 (might have been called 97...)
Bad: Windows 98
Good: Windows 98 SE
Bad: Windows Me
Bad: Windows Vista
Good: Windows XP
Good: Windows 7
Bad: Windows 8
Bad: Windows 8.1
Good: Windows 10

There were good versions of Windows? Really? When did this happen, and why didn't I get the memo?

Honestly, the very first version of Windows I ever felt seemed particularly "solid" to me was Windows 2000. I remember it being the first one to impress me with the mouse movement being (finally) as fluid and smooth as what I was used to on a Mac. It also had really decent protected memory and just overall seemed to be very stable and finally worthy as a workstation OS. Windows XP was only ever an updated version of Win2K (from my perspective) and honestly no version of Windows has ever made me particularly happy to use.

Most things in the world is in the eye of the beholder.. Art, Love, Cars, Home design etc. and for the most part even operatingsystem.

And also reality itself, sadly.

... Example: Say you open Fifrefox and you have 10windows and 50-80tabs in each window ...

Who in the name of Linus Torvalds does that? Seriously, is that a thing?

... But it also is differences in there philosophy ...

Definitely. And when you have billions of dollars at your beck and call, then as you say, it's amazing how much focus you can put into every last bit of fit-and-finish. Though of the three companies you listed, only two of them have ever really cared about (or gotten right) that fit-and-finish. ProTip: The odd man out on that list is Microsoft.

- MacOS, LInux, Windows can be used very securely or not, depending on the user, and with more or less difficulties.

The fact that each OS has advantages and inconveniences and different images explains why people choose different OSes.

In the old days I may have been more inclined to agree with you (except for the "depending on the user" bit, more anon) but neither Mac OS X nor Linux has ever been the gaping-security-hole liability that Windows has. In fact, with pretty much any operating system other than those produced by Microsoft, you have to disable or manage to bypass things in order to expose yourself to the same level of risks Windows has by default. In every era, Microsoft's OS offerings have been the substandard (though clearly institutionalized) choices.

In 1987, as an example, I could install six graphics cards, connect six monitors, and span a 256 color (a.k.a. "8 bit color") desktop across them ON A MAC. In MS-DOS on ANY x86 box, users were still having to manually configure IRQ and DMA jumpers on cards, and then manually configure corresponding settings in various different programs, just to get hardware to either work, or to keep it from conflicting with each other. There were HUNDREDS of viruses for MS-DOS at that time. A few years later, the total number of viruses EVER for the Mac stood at perhaps a dozen and a half. And by that point, nearly all of them were already extinct.

So if one wants to talk about "cheap hacks" on the desktop, I'd say every version of MS-DOS, and pretty much every version of Windows up through at least Win ME felt crude and hack-ish, especially if you had the experience (like many of us did back then) of touching the wide variety and array of other computer platforms on the market.

computer community's can be a hostile place sometimes it apples to win-forums too..
and as a woman on computer forums, you often need to prove everything twice as much to get the same respect as a man's knowledge.

Yeah, this is one of the points where we (the Linux Mint forum) strive to do better than average. And luckily we have several female moderators, which can't hurt.

Sadly, ladies, what you said is often true. Also, women (when they identify themselves as such, or when it's possible to discern gender by other means) also have to put up with a lot of harassment. That's BS, and I'll support any well-reasoned, good faith effort to stop that, whether online or "IRL".

I wasn't aware any of the other mods were women, Moem. I guess I should have paid more attention. Alternatively, you could take away from that comment that a user's gender simply isn't something top-of-mind for me when co-habitating an online space or interacting with them.