What can you do on Linux that you can't do on Windows?
What can you do on Linux that you can't do on Windows?
edit: hey guys, 60+ comments, can't reply from now on, but know that I am grateful for your comments, keep the convo going. Thank you to the y'all people who gave unbiased answers and thanks also to those who told me about Waydroid and Docker
edit: Well, now that's sobering, apparently I can do most of these things on Windows with ease too. I won't be switching back to Windows anytime soon, but it appears that my friend was right. I am getting FOMO Fear of missing out right now.
I do need these apps right now, but there are some apps on Windows for which we don't have a great replacement
- Adobe
- MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.
- Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
- Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won't have any luck installing them on Linux.
- Apparently windows is allowing their users to use some Android apps?
Torrented apps would be my biggest concern, I mean, these are Windows specific, how can I run them on Linux? Seriously, I want to know how. Can wine run most of the apps without error? I am thinking of torrenting some educational software made for Windows.
Let me list the customizations I have done with my xfce desktop and you tell me if I can do that on Windows.
I told my friend that I can't leave linux because of all the customization I have done and he said, you just don't like to accept that Windows can do that too. Yeah, because I think it can't do some of it (and I like Linux better)
But yeah, let's give the devil it's due, can I do these things on Windows?
- I have applications which launch from terminal eg:
vlcwould open vlc (no questions asked, no other stuff needed, just type vlc) - Bash scripts which updates my system (not completely, snaps and flatpaks seem to be immune to this). I am pretty sure you can't do this on Windows.
- I can basically automate most of my tasks and it has a good integration with my apps.
- I can create desktop launchers.
- Not update my system, I love to update because my updates aren't usually 4 freaking GB and the largest update I have seen has been 200-300 mbs, probably less but yeah, I was free to not update my PC if I so choose. Can you do this on Windows? And also, Linux updates fail less often, I mean, it might break your system, but the thing won't stop in the middle and say "Bye Bye, updates failed" and now you have to waste 4GB again to download the update. PS: You should always keep your apps upto date mostly for security reasons, but Linux won't force it on you and ruin your workflow.
- Create custom panel plugin.
- My understanding is that the Windows terminal sucks? I don't know why, it just looks bad.
I am sure as hell there are more but this is at the top of my mind rn, can I do this on Windows. Also, give me something that you personally do on Linux but can't do it on Windows.
- boot from a btrfs snapshot
- run docker without running a second kernel
- boot an older kernel, in case something fails
- run the system completely without a gui, to save video RAM for other tasks
- distro hopping
- use multiple desktop environments
- use your computer without a mouse
- create a directory named CON
- use old hardware painlessly
- have your system not spy on you without extra effort
- create weird stacks of software raid, volume manager, disk encryption and filesystems and then boot from it
- read the kernel developer mailing list and be hyped for new kernel features like bcachefs, which will hopefully come someday
[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo Click
Can you play Bash Roulette in Windows?
Seriously, you can hack it with one liners and scripts to do anything. I know you can do scripting with windows, but it just doesn't have the sheer number of nifty little tools. The Linux philosophy has always been "do one thing and do it well", so you can chain the simple but powerful tools together and knock up a little script to do something amazingly useful in seconds.
- run the system completely without a gui, to save video RAM for other tasks
- use your computer without a mouse
To be fair you can do these things with Windows too. There is a Windows server core edition without GUI.
Interesting, I don't know much about current windows, so this did not cross my mind. But you have to install a separate OS for this and can't just decide to stop your display manager I guess? So playing games and running without GUI would require to different installations?
I am an idiot. I've heard a lot about bcachefs and I only just realized the name is about a cache, not a bunch of cooks.
Knowing that it originates from bcache probably helps to prevent this confusion.
It's not only what you can do, but what it won't do to you.
Using your computer is not wrong. You shouldn't be punished for it.
Using your computer is not an imposition on someone else. You don't owe anyone for the privilege of using it. You have already paid for it. The OS vendor doesn't have a lien on it; they aren't paying you to rent ad space on your desktop.
You bought it, you own it, you can break it if you like but it's not anyone else's place to tell you what you're allowed to do with it.
Your computer is yours -- just yours -- and it shouldn't be spamming you with ads, filling itself up with junk, or telling you "you're not allowed to do that because of the OS vendor's deals with Hollywood".
I'm not anti-commerce or anti-corporate. My preferred browser is plain old Google Chrome (with uBlock Origin). I buy games on Steam. The game I spend the most hours playing on my Linux system is Magic Arena, hardly an anti-commercial choice. But that's my choice. I buy computers from Linux-focused vendors (currently System76) and I expect my computer to be mine, not the vendor's to do with what they like.
Others have already answered your specific points, which are all (sort of) possible on Windows. I would like to present a quick list of things are not possible on Windows, this is split in 3 parts: Truly impossible, Possible but so convoluted it might as well be impossible, and possible but much harder than what it should.
Truly Impossible
- Choose your preferred program for things. Sure you can do it for simple stuff like text or video, but what about my graphical interface backend, my file explorer or my DE.
- Choose your disk format. Again you can use an incredible array of (I think) 3 formats, and while I also only use ext4 on Linux I know BTRFS is there for me if I ever want to switch to a modern filesystem.
- Customise your system. Again people are going to claim that this is possible on Windows via regedit, but it's not on the same level, I can't have a Windows version stripped of controller support or wireless support if I know I'll never plug a controller or a wireless card on the machine.
- Upgrade every single component of your system in one go. Because the way programs are installed on Windows you need to upgrade each one on its own.
- Fix issues with the system, say you found a bug on Linux if you have the expertise you can 100% fix it, on Windows the best you can do is report it and hope for the best.
Almost impossible
- Using a tiling window manager
- Virtual desktops that actually work
Harder than what it should
- Customise Super+ commands
- Prevent auto updates
You've hit all the critical ones.
Headless may be the biggest one for me. I run multiple VMs in the cloud on tiny servers entirely without GUI bloat. I can, and do, automate anything that I do more than a couple of times, which I can do because there are decent command line interfaces for most things.
With Linux, it's possible to replace every component except the kernel - for example, Chimera Linux even replaces the GNU tools with FreeBSD ones. A wide variety of filesystems, init systems, window managers, display managers (well, two) - and nearly everything is free.
Which is another thing that is impossible on Windows, that you can do on Linux: use this enormous library of software, legally and without piracy, for free.
You can also replace the kernel though.
You didn't mention the ability to mount different drives and partitions to different directories. For example, I always keep
/homeon a different partition so I can reinstall my OS without worrying about data loss. You also can use tools like LVM to combine volumes into a single storage volume. Have a lot of games and want to install them all to one place? You can set up multiple large drives to act as a single volume. I guess you can do this with RAID utilities or something in Windows, but it's really not the same.NTFS has supported mounting drives to folders for decades. The Windows LVM equivalent would be LDM (which powers the deprecated Dynamic Disks), or Storage Spaces.
What's wrong with Virtual Desktops on windows? They work perfectly for me.
No argument with your other points.
I answered that in another comment:
But they're not flexible enough, afaik (and you seem to know more so please correct me if I'm wrong) you can't move virtual desktops from one monitor to another or choose whether each monitor should have their own set, or even choose whether you switch virtual desktops on only one or all monitors at a time. Which is why I specified as "that actually work" because the ones that exist work in only one way, so if you're okay with that great but if not it's the same as not having them.
Personally I don't care so much about the things that Linux does better but rather the abusive things it doesn't do. No ads, surveillance, forced updates etc. And it's not that linux happens to not do that stuff. It's that the decentralized nature of free software acts as a preventative measure against those malicious practices. On the other side, your best interests always conflict with those of a multi-billion company, practically guaranteeing that the software doesn't behave as you. So windows are as unlikely to become better in this regard as linux is to become worse.
Also the ability to build things from the ground up. If you want to customize windows you're always trying to replace or override or remove stuff. Good luck figuring out if you have left something in the background adding overhead at best and conflicting with what you actually want to use at worst. This isn't just some hypothetical. For example I've had windows make an HDD-era PC completely unusable because a background telemetry process would 100% the C: drive. It was a nightmarish experience to debug and fix this because even opening the task manager wouldn't work most of the time.
Having gotten the important stuff out of the way, I will add that even for stuff that you technically can do on both platforms, it is worth considering if they are equally likely to foster thriving communities. Sure I can replace the windows shell, but am I really given options of the same quality and longevity as the most popular linux shells? When a proprietary windows component takes an ugly turn is it as likely that someone will develop an alternative if it means they have to build it from the ground up, compared to the linux world where you would start by forking an existing project, eg how people who didn't like gnome 3 forked gnome 2? The situation is nuanced and answers like "there exists a way to do X on Y" or "it is technically possible for someone to solve this" don't fully cover it.
Not be spied on by microsoft
I get the sneaking suspicion that this is the kind of response OP mean by "biased answers," but it's also just true. Some distros will harvest data, but it's much easier to avoid than with Windows
Soon with Plasma 6 and Wayland, you can let your Desktop crash but still keep all your Windows after the new Desktop spawned. This also means you can replace your KDE desktop with Gnome, XFCE Hyprland and some others whithout needing to logout or close applications.
Additionally you can save current states of the application with Wayland. Shit is getting so interesting right now.
Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=sAlIcn5meSCDKq3K&v=jlDhpFjBWiw
I can declare the complete state of my systems in a config file that I store on sourcehut with git and pull down to have a fully configured system on new hardware whenever I want it.
I can use tiling window managers.
I can work with native containers easily.
I can run an operating system that is designed to be the most useful tool it can be, not the most profitable product it can be.
How do you do this and on what distro? I truly need to know.
Probably referring to NixOS.
Arch apparently can do this too. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/archinstall
If you want to learn Ansible, you can get a similar experience with most distros.
Haaaave you met Ted, er, Ansible?
Haha it's very easy now: I have an os with no adds.
I am the one telling the os when it updates or not and when it reboots or not.
I have a working terminal so I don't need dozens of shady softwares to do basic stuff like transferring a file on a local network.
And the biggest ones: I can disable my firewall and no defender will erase files from my computer without my consent.
Video games work surprisingly well today. Recent ones at least.
Open a link in any browser i like. Say "no" to updates. Have a main menu that doesn't look like a kiosk at the mall. Have my habits on my computer kept to myself. Install applications from outside an application store. Not need an antivirus software.
Update the OS and all installed applications using a single command.
Also, none of this "stop what you're doing, Microsoft is doing updates now" bullshit.
Just the other day I woke up my windows laptop, but instead of the lock screen I get several minutes worth of confirmations and check boxes after a surprise update. All of these screens were asking me in various ways to send all of my data to Microsoft and tie up my entire machine in their data harvesting and ad platforms.
Snap and flatpak would like to disagree.
Add to bashrc “alias update=’sudo flatpak update && sudo apt full-upgrade’ “ linux best
sudo flatpak update -y && sudo dnf update -yWhat you would install from flatpak and why
Topgrade would like to disagree with Snap and Flatpak disagreeing.
Docker! I have never experienced a more unpleasant software than Docker for Windows.
I think I read somewhere a while ago that Docker is only really "native" on Linux, because on Mac and Windows it spawns some internal virtual machine or something like that. Not sure if i remember it correctly but that would probably be a reason for worse performance i guess.
There is a native windows docker as well, where you can run windows containers inside it. But no one uses it, everyone just wants to use the linux containers which require a linux kernel and thus virtualisation on windows. Performance should not be worst on it though, but the layer of a VM added to it adds a layer of jank to make it appear to work like the native linux version (ie mounting host folders need to be mounted on the VM first before they can appear in docker, and while that is mostly transparent it can cause a few issues with some things).
Do you not use it with WSL?? I've found the experience is almost identical to linux.
Funny that you ask, WSL was what made me switch to Linux. I previously used Hyper-V because that was what was available back then and it was a nightmare. Slow to start, slow to run and constantly needing a reset after a reboot because "something happened™".
I switched to WSL when it was new and it was much better than Hyper-V but it had major issues with volumes back then. Performance was abysmal when mounting a volume on a Windows drive and when using the WSL filesystem you had the reverse issue under Windows with your IDE and git.
There were also two big issues with reproducibility on Windows (both with Hyper-V and WSL), namely:
- Line endings changing to /r/n, breaking all shell scripts with it
- File permissions changing to 777, breaking many applications with it
Line endings changing happened a lot because git on Windows defaults to changing line endings on pull and/or if someone on your team commits a file opened by an IDE on Windows it will change the line endings a lot of times as well.
In the end I spent so much time inside of WSL that I started wondering why I was running Windows in the first place and just switched over. Proton played a big part as well but Docker was the main point.
Don't try Podman on a Mac... it's not pretty.
So you haven't used Microsoft Teams then?
When Teams doesn't work I restart it and try again. When Docker doesn't work I spend an hour debugging why my pipeline fails only to realize Docker for Windows messed up my permissions.
Not to say Teams is good, Teams is pretty horrible as well.
wait, you can run .exe files using docker? while being on linux?
I don't think that's what the person you're replying to meant, but to answer your question, yes you can via Wine (or Proton, I guess)
Be the only user that can run code as root.
Microsoft and their "trusted partners" do not deserve closer access to my hardware than I have.
Have an actual sane developer experience? There is a reason why almost every developer that uses Windows actually uses WSL.
Yup, that's my coworkers as well. Constantly complaining about how shit windows is, already developing in docker on wsl anyway, but they never want to switch to anything that would solve all their complaints.
Use a system that's not a personalized ad billboard
Feel Free and secure with privacy
this is a big one too. I love the feel of using FOSS software!
Connect a printer and have it just work.
Bought a Brother printer. Opened up "printers" on Windows 11, it picked up my printer wirelessly, I clicked "add" and it was done.
No garbage software or anything.
So printers definitely do just work on Windows.
I think its a brother thing. Brother printers also work automatically on linux (fedora at least)
I plugged my Linux Mint computer into my main home network for the first time and it immediately detected and installed my wifi Brother laser printer. I didn't even need to click anything.
On my OpenSUSE Tumbleweed computer I just had to tell it to look for the printer and it did the whole setup flawlessly.
I have several Windows PCs and I'm forever trying to persuade them to reconnect to the printer. They fail to find it, fail to print, give incorrect status reports, create duplicates of it, and so on. Linux has been amazingly unproblematic by comparison.
Same with my printer.
On Linux, I had to configure CUPS. This meant finding out which of the 30+ different drivers for my printer model actually worked. Then it meant determining which of the dozen or so different "devices" would actually work. And until I got it working correctly, it randomly crashed.
There are plenty of things Linux is better at but it isn't that great at handling standard devices with any ease. I'm sure that I can do a lot more now with the Linux driver, but sometimes I just want to tell my computer that's my printer and I just want this printed.
My shiny new printer will not work with windows. The drivers a pain in the ass. Even if it did, the drivers are bloatware.
With linux there is no garbage drivers and scanning. Copying and printing just work. With native dialogs no less.
My printer doesn't work. Though tbf it doesn't work on windows either.
Wrong
My printer "just works"
On all computers and phones in my home
Same but with scanners. Plugged in a canon protable scanner, which requires their software to work on windows while it just works on linux. The cherry on top was that when I then had to make a single pdf of the things i scanned, I just ran
pdfunite file1.pdf file2.pdf ... output.pdfand guess what... it also just worked.
It's easier to run C/C++ compiler (GCC) on GNU/Linux
Getting a C/C++ compiler on Windows is a menace. To my knowledge, there are two ways to do it. Either install Visual Studio which will also install the MSVC compiler, or wrangle with MinGW to get GCC.
In the first-year CS classes I attended, the instructions were usually to either get WSL and install the
gccpackage or to connect using SSH to the engineering server (CentOS 7) which has it pre-installed.Lmao my university also uses centos 7 for their ancient-ass SSH server. Even the professors just told us to use a VM because they didn’t want to use an old version of clang anymore.
Yeah gcc and mingw took ages back when I learned cpp a few years ago. This was back in high school when I barely knew what Linux was, so it never occurred to me that I could do that. Eventually gave up on setting it up in VScode and used codeblocks and spent the semester dealing with that GUI.
Most if not all of these seem very easily done on windows. You can create scripts as you like and set up environment variables like vlc. Control of updates I’m not so sure about, I haven’t messed with it I just let it auto update.
If you own a Windows 10/11 Pro version, you can set a group policy for control of updates. If you own a Home edition, you need to change a Registry entry. It's not hard, but just as you I like Auto update more because I tend to forget to manually update
And if you like, you can skip and even disable Windows Update completely, and use a PowerShell script to download updates manually and install them whenever you like. This is a good option if you don't trust Microsoft and decide to block all their IPs via a hosts file or a firewall or something, so you could download the updates from a trustworthy computer (like a Linux machine) and install the updates offline.
The joy of creating powershell or cmd scripts. I'd rather do everything by hand. I get so irrationally angry whenever I have to even look at a script on windows.
You may be more used to bash, but after having tinkered with both and converted some scripts from one to the other, I arrived to the conclusion that both are bad.
I've been geeking about since the 80s. BASIC on an Atari, msdos, windows, vax, *bsd, Linux. Done a ton of scripting in a bunch of languages.
Right now, I prefer powershell above anything else. But, honestly it's all personal preference.
The procedure to create shortcuts, as an example, is rather convoluted. I originally looked this up because I was 90% sure that you could just use
New-Itemand it'd just work.The problem is that even if you install things with a package manager like Chocolatey and do not hunt for installer wizards on the Internet (the default Windows way to install software), applications don't commonly add themselves to the PATH and it's just a pain to get it working.
scoop manages the whole PATH problem when installing apps. Winget on the other hand installs with the app's installer if I'm not mistaken, thus should also have no problems with that.
Yeah, some of it may not be as easy on Linux, but I think the question was just if it’s possible or not
Modify the software.
I can actually use my computer on Linux!
Install software updates when you want, and not lose half the day while they install.
- adjust the drift speed of a thinkpad trackpoint
- stream audio from one computer to another one (or a phone) with ease (thanks pulseaudio)
btw 1 is literally impossible, there's no gui driver setting, there's no regedit switch, no nothing. on linux you just need to write to this file /sys/devices/platform/i8042/serio1/serio2/drift_time
- Have a really good keyboard-driven desktop environment.
- Many good options for tiling desktop environments.
- Extremely good logging, enabling you to diagnose most problems.
- package manager-first approach: I don't want to manage package installations, routine updates, and dependency resolution myself. Package managers do the work for me
- extreme customizability: I choose which kernel features are turned on or off, and compile them. For example, I can compile in PS4 controller drivers
- first class support for the terminal and terminal-driven workflow
- Enhanced security system: being able to sandbox apps easily, for example.
- Enhanced transparency into the system: can easily get into the weeds of seeing why my Internet is not working.
With logging, one thing I deal with at an MSP is BSODs. Maybe I'm just not experienced enough, but it feels like the event logs in Windows only help if it's something obvious like a poorly written or buggy application. If it's a driver issue they just are near useless. I usually end up downloading WinDbg (which has such an archaic UI on Windows 11) and read the minidumps, and it's like a 75% chance it's helpful.
In the meantime on *nix, yeah there's literally logs for just about everything if you look in the right places.
Use only the amount of CPU power I need, and have my stuff be top priority, rather than picking up the dregs when Windows indexing and updates and other services have a little bit of CPU to spare.
Make posts and comments about how much better it is to spend a ton of effort.
amen wo/man! I love Linux alright, but for the first few years, it's a lot of effort. You do learn stuff alright, but yeah, the effort is high.
I used Windows exclusively for 10+ years, and I still have to use it at work, but for me the experience is the opposite.. Windows regularly causes issues, and it usually takes a lot of effort fixing them because it doesn't give useful error messages and due to the OS' proprietary nature. Almost every week some Teams meeting is delayed because some participant's sound is suddenly not going to their headset. Another frequent problem I have at work is that networking for the virtual machines stops working either fully or partially, and IT's solution is "just reboot your computer when that happens". Or when I upgrade my computer, and Windows refuses to authenticate despite me having a valid serial number. At least Microsoft used to have good support that you could chat with, but it seems like they've replaced that with some interactive troubleshooter app (which btw. didn't solve my issue, redirected me to a different online troubleshooter which eventually redirected me back to the first troubleshooter).
That's not saying that I never have issues on Linux, but at least for me those are generally much easier to fix.
Sanely use multiple workspaces.
unlink
Specifically the operation of removing a file from a path without requiring the file to be unused. Open references to the file can still exist by processes.
Good think. AFAIK when all programs are closed file is deleted automatically.
It's not that it's deleted automatically. If you define deleting as "not being referenced by the file system," then it's deleted as soon as it's unlinked.
Fun story - create a big file, and hold it open in an application. Unlink the file. Then compare the output of du and df for the mount point the file was on. It will differ until the app closes and the inode of the file is finally freed.
FYI you can use LibreOffice with a ribbon-like toolbar or better yet experimental contextual groups.
Find my hosts file without googling where it is.
C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc
Its as easy to remember as everything else once youve replaced it a couple of times
????
dir hosts* /s
Not update if I don’t want to
https://youtu.be/jdUXfsMTv7o?si=aPzpD_44whs0Tg_P I love this guy, nice meme give it a watch
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://youtu.be/jdUXfsMTv7o?si=aPzpD_44whs0Tg_P
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Arch linux disagree with you
In a nutshell:
- Have (real) user control.
What a great way too summarize all the garbage I was thinking to spew. This is really it. Freedom and control. Or "whatever I want it to".
Yup. I can completely destroy my system with a single command, and that is a good thing.
I found something I couldn't easily do on Linux...
I wanted to create a Shortcut to a GUI application directly on my Desktop on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04), and after fucking with Gnome extensions and googling multiple terms, I thought I was going insane. There is seriously no easy, standard, or simple way of doing that.
On Windows or macOS you can just click & drag to make a shortcut to a file, and then put the shortcut on your Desktop. Done.
On Gnome you have to manually create a .desktop file, fill it with the parameters to run the application (usually by opening a different .desktop file and copying & pasting the contents), ensure you also have Gnome configured to even allow desktop icons, and then copy the .desktop file to the Desktop.
The Gnome experience was the most-rigid, least user-friendly or user-customizable interface.
I guess the problem is that I shouldn't be using Gnome. I liked how simple & clean it is by default, but I hate how inflexible it is.
right, the real answer is that on Linux you can just use a different de if you don't like one
Sounds like you want to use KDE.
I never liked GNOME, too inflexible as you said. My favorite is XFCE and it couldn't be easier, right click on the entry on the app menu and select add to desktop.
And if you want a custom one, right-click on desktop, create launcher, give it a name and click browse to select the file you want to run, that's it. Create link if you want to link to a folder.
If by adobe you just mean photoshop, that works fine on linux, or you can get the version of GIMP with the photoshop menus. Wider adobe, that's a vm.
MS Word, I reckon Libre's fine but YMMV, there's office 365 anyway.
Games as noted are mostly there.
Many torrented apps : If you mean the *arrs etc, they go fine, better even (more contained, safer) in docker
Android apps: We've had Waydroid for a while now.
Hopefully that puts the FOMO to rest...
Many torrented apps : If you mean the *arrs etc, they go fine, better even (more contained, safer) in docker
yeah FOMO was there for a lil while only, do most apps run on docker/waydroid? just asking
I don't really care about MS Word, it would have been a good addition, but now I use Google suite (sorry libre)
Also, thank you for your reply! it's good
MS Word, I reckon Libre's fine but YMMV, there's office 365 anyway.
OnlyOffice has a much better compatibility with MSO formats compared to LO. But even then, it lacks VBA support, so a better option for folks who actually need Office for work, would be to run it in a VM. Maybe use something like WinApps for seamless Linux integration.
Interesting, thank you!
I could never get waydroid to work with a maimemo app
-
sudo dd if=never_gonna_give_you_up.mp3 of=/dev/sda
-
Say "It's a UNIX system! I know this."
-
Make your capslock LED blink along with network activity using a built-in kernel driver
-
Fix bugs yourself
-
Pass-through hardware in Docker.
Desktop customization; I am using KDE Plasma, and I have two panels: one on the right, which has a "task manager", and the top panel which has an app-launcher, pager, clock, cpu load, and the system tray. I don't know if you can even have two panels in Windows.
Modularity: Switch whatever component with whatever you see fit. You can switch out the desktop environment you're using, switch out the sound server, the init system, the bootloader, etc.
You can update flatpaks using a bash script, you can even make a command to update system packages and flatpaks, by just adding
alias update="sudo pacman -Syu && flatpak update"to your ~/.bashrc file.Compiz Fusion wiggly windows/cube
Possibly dumb question, but... can Windows pipe things? Like, can I pipe a grep to a text file, or send stdout to a text? Or, like, tee a command onto the end of a config? I don't use this a lot in Linux, but I have never done in Windows and literally don't know if it can be.
In powershell, kinda -- but it's unpleasant. Everything is an object which you pipe between commands, but it's not a text stream so the receiving end has to explicitly understand what it's receiving.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Pure FUD. Worse, it's wilfully stupid.
Are you in the habit of picking pipeline commands at random? Do you not usually have a purpose in mind? OBVIOUSLY the receiving end has to understand what it's receiving, or what the fuck are you even doing?
Do you believe that your text processing commands don't have to understand what they receive?
Let's get the ports of the node container.
Bash:
docker ps | grep node | cut -n 6 -f ' 'Pwsh:
docker-ps | where name -eq 'node' | select portsFirst the grep command shits the bed because at some point you started a new container running a nodejs image.
Then the cut command fails because you had a container with a space in the name, so it outputs mounts instead of ports.
That's a non-issue with sematic tools. Semantic tools are also legible. Yeah, I can figure out what that awk command does, but it's meaningless unless I also know the shape of the data is supposed to operate on.
You don't write "USE 2nd DATABASE; SELECT 3rd COLUMN FROM 10th ROW", do you? Why would you want to do that in a shell?
I use bash and fish natively on Windows and it obviously works in those. You can also use nushell natively and that has piping as well.
I'm explicitly saying natively because most people assume that I'm talking about WSL when I say I use bash on Windows. I am not, msys2 allows you to use these things natively without a VM.
No, and it makes inter process communication a removed. You're basically forced to use a tcp or udp socket on local host.
- MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.
Have you tried onlyoffice? Its interface is closer to ms office and an online version can even be self hosted and integrated with nextcloud or seefile.
It has apps for Linux and Android
Edit:
Here is the link to the standalone desktop app (not the online version): https://www.onlyoffice.com/desktop.aspx
And here is the link to the supported OSes for the desktop app (incl download links): https://www.onlyoffice.com/download-desktop.aspx
Finally, here is the link to the github repo of the desktop app: https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/DesktopEditors
Manage multiple windows efficiently.
Alt + click to move and resize the windows exactly the way I want. Also, throwing windows into specific virtual desktops is smooth, efficient, fast and you can use keyboard shortcuts to jump straight to the point.
If someone knows a way to do this on my windows work computer, please please please tell me. Sluggish window management under Windows is driving me nuts.
Wundows 11 (my work's pc), has adequate window management. It's still mostly accessed by mouse (drag to the top of the screen) instead of having the keyboard power of, say, i3wm, but it has more variation than the "left half, right half, maximize, minimize" of prior Windows'.
Can’t wait for the company to upgrade. In the meanwhile I’m stuck with 10.
Use the command line to do everything instead of using mouse clicks for everything. It's so annoying how much mousing you have to do on Windows even for stuff only admins/programmers would touch.
PowerShell makes that a lot better these days. It's still not perfect, but a lot better.
Upgrade without reformatting. Update without restarting.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Technically, kexec will allow you to switch to a new kernel without performing a complete reboot. In practice, it may have issues.
Install quickly and without license hoopjumping.
ssh (out of the box)
Client or server?
The client should be available out of the box. The server should be available as a feature that you can toggle on.
Windows has had SSH built in for a while now
Start/update your computer in seconds.
My computer takes longer to get through POST than to boot Linux. It's a little frustrating.
That's the real issue, isn't it. Yeah, my system boots in 7 seconds, and that's while not even using an nvme drive.
But POST? Dear god. I don't even have that many devices, I swear.
Yes it's insane. I actually dual boot, and anytime the windows partition needs to update, i cannot roll my eyes hard enough.
Using Apple/Windows feels like using frustrating, old tech when Linux is right there as an alternative.
Or like using a locked phone with unremovable bloatware instead of a rooted phone.
The paradigm of computing pushed by Linux is just plain better. Package managers, FOSS, variety of software, terminals, contribuiting, etc... these exist in Windows/Mac but idk its like they are side stuff, not the main focus.
It's simple answer, my Linux (Arch Linux) is my OS with my choice what of app I have, faster, privacy (very important), just my, not from Windows or Apple, it's my choice what I will delete, install, use, how look my desktop... And my comp is ten years old and working like new.
Pulseaudio's networked audio devices are sick, and similarly getting your computer's headphones/mic on your phone by just connecting your phone to your computer over bluetooth is fantastic.
Explain
So I personally use two computers on a daily basis, a personal desktop I use all day long, and a laptop I use during work hours. Both are running Linux with pipewire and the pipewire-pulseaudio extension. I do my best to keep everything work related on the work device and everything personal on the personal device, so discord chats with friends stay on the personal machine etc. I occasionally need to participate in work meetings and the like, so I would like my audio interface to be shared between the two devices. Turns out this is exceptionally simple.
On my "host" machine with the audio interface I always use I have a pipewire config file at
/etc/pipewire/pipewire-pulse.conf.d/50-network-party.confthat containscontext.exec = [ { path = "pactl" args = "load-module module-native-protocol-tcp listen=0.0.0.0" } { path = "pactl" args = "load-module module-zeroconf-discover" } { path = "pactl" args = "load-module module-zeroconf-publish" } ]And on my work laptop I similarly just load the module-zeroconf-publish module. Once that's done all of my desktop's audio devices show up on the work laptop and I can set them as my defaults, and everything just works! Didn't even require installing any extra software or anything, both systems worked out of the box when I learned about this module.
As for using my desktop's audio devices for my phone, turns out pulseaudio also supports connecting android devices using a2dp and simply pairing my phone and computer had my phone streaming its audio to my desktop and using its microphone for calls. Honestly wish I'd looked in to this sooner, having everything going through my desktop's audio setup is so nice.
Hold the meta key and click+drag to move applications around
this varies depending on Desktop Environment
But holy crap do I accidentally select text or drag files randomly around when intending to move a window (on windows)
edit: in case I wasn't clear of when my issues arise
Seems to be the Alt key in Cinnamon.
Enjoy my workflow.
It may sound glib, but I REALLY mean it.
It may sound glib
I prefer KDE, but to each their own.
Has anyone made a Linux dad jokes community?
@Subject6051 download and install at no cost, customize/change DE or not use one at all and opt for a simple window manager, use a packet manager to download and install applications
Windows has it's package managers. Winget and of course chocolatey and others
@Aetherion that’s actually really cool to know, i haven’t used Windows 10/11 much on personal desktops but i’ll def take it for a spin
Nothing. Also everything.
You can probably do most of not all of the things I do on Linux on a regular basis on windows just as well. But at this point I feel like I have a reverse "Windows is the default" effect going on since for me Linux has been and is the default for over 10 years.
When I start work in the morning I turn on my Linux laptop to ssh into some Linux servers (and RDP to the occasional windows servers/desktops).
After work I play games on my Linux handheld or do some work on my Linux desktop. Maybe move some files on my Linux Nas.
Like I said I could probably do all of this on windows. It would be a major change and in would have to relearn some things in addition to figuring out how to do some stuff on windows that I just never do. But at this point why even bother. There are a lot of ideological reasons to move to Linux there might be some technical reasons on either side but I just don't have any pull to use windows unless I need to (some special program/firmware updater whatever) for which I do have an install hanging around, which I boot once in 6months or so
You can install Cygwin in windows and do everything you list but if you don’t NEED windows for something why use it?
I do need some apps alright. I mean, there are some apps on Windows for which we don't have a great replacement
- Adobe
- MS word (yeah, I don't like Libre and most of Libre Suit) it's not as good as MS suite, of c, but it's really bad.
- Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
- Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won't have any luck installing them on Linux.
But yeah, I don't need Windows rn and even if I need it, I won't leave Linux
- You can start applications from windows command line. Depending on the program you might need to provide the full path to the executable though. Eg:
Start chrome.exe - Windows has a (preinstalled in Window 11, optional in Windows 10) software called
WinGetthat will update all recognized applications via command line. Covers stuff from Windows Store, and most popular software installers. Basically acts as a Windows package manager. - batch files, software like autohotkey... automation can definitely be done in Windows too.
- You mean shortcuts?
- Pretty certain you can defer updates until the time suits, but Windows is definitely more forceful in pushing updates than Linux. There are ways of turning off updates too, but probably not without third party software or digging in regedit blindly.
- Rainmeter could provide something similar.
- Do you mean Command Prompt, or Windows Terminal? Terminal is actually pretty nice, and very customizable, both in terms of theme and functionality.
I run Arch Linux (btw) and have a very neglected Windows 11 partition.
I have a command set up in linux using
ddcutilthat allows me to tell my second monitor to swap source from HDMI (Chromecast) to DisplayPort (PC) and back as desired. No clue how I'd do that in Windows.I use windows terminal at work. It's okay for a terminal emulator on windows, but I have some problems with it:
- It's not kitty
- When using FiraCode NF, italics are scaled super weird and I hate it. I opened a GitHub issue and was told to use the preview version. (No I'm not going to install a preview version on my work machine just to get something as basic as regularly scaled italics)
- Their mark mode is decent but has weird hotkeys and you can't change them. Must admit that the mark mode interface looks good through.
- I can't use my regular hotkey for the drop-down terminal (normally shift F12, but windows blocks that for some reason)
hear you mate! md looks gud han! Well that's something
thank you for your comment,
- You can start applications from windows command line. Depending on the program you might need to provide the full path to the executable though. Eg:
If you wanna MS Office replacement, you can check out Only office, it looks nice, and also supports Linux iirc
I started using Linux for some Radio Astronomy project. The tools were made with Linux in mind. Running said tools would have needed cygWin. WSL did not exist at the time, but that would still be using Linux.
what's the price of windows these days?
I am sorry, I know to buy the OS cd it costs money, but on a bulk it really doesn't cost that much. Or so I have learned. I mean, I have seen Laptops running DOS have roughly the same price as Windows PC. This only matters if you have want to go back to windows. Since almost all laptops come with Windows 11 these days, it really doesn't cost that much to have a Windows 11 laptop.
It says 145 Euros but when you actually make do the math it costs you a very small fraction of this amount when you actually buy a PC/Laptop.my choice is between
- downloading and installing the linux version of my choice
- paying for an opaque OS that makes things difficult for me
i regularly use windows, macOS and linux. Linux works with its user. Windows can be bent and with macOS you're just a cashCow 🤷
a quick question, how do you buy your laptop? I mean, do you buy it with DOS installed in it. I don't know which country you live in but, how do you get a laptop without paying the Windows Tax?
I am glad you asked. You can just buy a laptop with linux on it: https://linuxpreloaded.com/
In my country you can sometimes select in online shops if you want to have windows inslalled for additional cost.
Framework has the option to purchase a laptop without an operating system.
In addition to the other replies, you can also buy developer laptops from some companies which comes with Linux preloaded - for instance, Dell has the XPS 13 Developer Edition, and HP have the Dev One. Lenovo also generally have good Linux compatibility - some of their laptops officially support Linux (eg Thinkpad Z13) and they generally have an option to buy a laptop with FreeDOS on it (or even no OS).
not all suppliers, but some had the option to choose linux
I use a single gpu that I detach from my host and reattach in a vm when I start the vm (and vice versa). I don’t think windows will enjoy a sudden lack of gpu.
[This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
Flatpaks can be updated via shell scripts with something like
flatpak update -y- what trouble are you having?As for things that Linux can do that Windows can't the list is literally endless. I think the biggest one for me is that the system does what I tell it to do. I'm not begging my computer to do things, I am commanding it. I don't want my OS to think for itself and second-guess me, and I don't want my computer to tell me "no". Also, being able to use a filesystem made within the last 30 years could be considered useful depending on if you value your data. ZRAM is another neat trick that seems obvious in hindsight. Linux has all the cool experimental technology first, and it takes a long time to end up on Windows, if ever.
- Not update my system
You can't do that on Windows, the updates are forced on you.
You definitely can with Group Policies.
Not sure what Windows version is OP referring to but I was talking about Windows 10 (regular, not enterprise) and based on what I've been reading about Windows 11 I assume it's either the same or worse.
So to give you more details, in regular Windows 10 you cannot block Windows updates. I tried everything - stopping and disabling the service, changing system/WU settings, editing registry, editing group policy, blocking Windows Update with firewall, blocking their domains in HOST file and any other advise available online, even setting the connection a metered - Windows just ignores all of it and downloads and installs updates anyway. Just because some settings exist doesn't mean enabling them will work as you would expect. It's fucking ridiculous. Fuck Microsoft.
I'm not enough of a windows cuck to know what that means. I'm guessing some registry nonsense.
- Bash scripts which updates my system (not completely, snaps and flatpaks seem to be immune to this). I am pretty sure you can't do this on Windows.
Can't you just add a line in the script
flatpak updateI don't know what you mean with Adobe. It's a company not an application. Adobe Reader sucks and I don't need Adobe Pro, because I am able to use LaTeX.
Why I need a real distribution instead of a naked operating system like Windows is that it comes with ten thousands of preconfigured packages.
Then the system is transparent. I know what it does and can analyze it easily. When something doesn't work, I am able to find the cause. This is essential for me.
I don't need any shady antinvirus that hooks into the kernel, making the computer overall insecure. I generally trust the OpenSource community more than I trust Microsoft.
I also don't like ads on my system, except I subscribed to them. I pay for software and give devs money to keep projects running. But I don't want to see unrelated ads.
You know damn well what he meant, give me a break.
You can be root on GNU/Linux, you cannot on Windows or any other nasty proprietary OS.
Aix? Hp-ux?
Customise the displayed clock. I have 3 monitors, a taskbar on each, and at least one clock on each. From left to right my clocks show:
Unix time (1695110535)
Full datetime (2023-09-19T17:32:15 +0930)
12 hour time (5:32)
Abbreviated datetime (Tuesday, 2023-09-19, 17:32).If I wanted to, I could display the datetime as YYYY-hh-MM, ss:DD:mm. I'm fairly sure this is not possible on windows.
I have absolutely no idea what anything you listed is, other than updating the OS and other programs 🤷♂️
I suggest looking glass
You cant install windows without internet anymore. I just saw that yesterday for the first time, win 11 pro instalation didnt let me go further without ethernet cable connected
I like Linux for a lot of reasons, but the reason I was dualbooting the most was more packages for AI and the like just worked on it and I was programming.
The reason I deleted my windows partition though was I had a faulty drive that on windows ment I would crash all the time, but my Linux boot just worked for like another year on the failing disk with no issue. When I got a new drive I just installed Linux and didn't bother getting Windows again.
I have to Linux for work sometimes and the biggest pet peeve for me is that the app search bar is always slow or broken. Like it is so good on KDE, I default to superkey, search app, enter compared to opening any lists of menus.
With Linux you can save money by going 1 tier lower on the CPU (AKA buy a Ryzen 3 instead of a Ryzen 5, and so on) than you would go on Windows, at the same performance.
And of course, you can invest that money on other components or other stuff in general. 💵
You take the money you saved on the windows license and use it to buy a better CPU or GPU.
Who the hell even buys windows license?
Who the heck buys personal windows when nonactivated
I don't understand the downvotes, I guess for some tasks you need almost equal CPU but you are right, as in, if your computing power isnt' being sucked by power hungry and resource hungry machine, you can do more with less.
Haha... that should be the logo of Linux, do more will less
Lmao
okay basically so many things sooo much better, first of all i can change any part of software of the os for any other one i like. I can fix my installation no matter how broken it is as long as the filse system is still intact.
you can do anything without ever using a desktop environment
I've been an on and off Linux user for a long time, but my main OS used to be Windows. I recently switched to Linux (Arch btw) and I love it.
For my use cases, here is what I like about windows:
- Office 365
- Gaming
- Onedrive
- Just works
- touch screen and touch pad
- Hardware support
- Autohotkey (can live without)
- Software compatibility
- VR
- Parsec
Here is what I like about Linux
- Dynamic tiling window managers.
- Customization, I can have my notifications on the top right, the way I like them.
- Smooth as fuck: very fast!
- Very clever solutions (looking into NixOS currently for example)
- Terminal: fun to use and it's fast!
- Much more control over my system.
The things I dislike about windows are mainly that it's stupid slow compared to Linux and the growing presence of telemetry and ads (though I wasn't that affected). Also, I can't replace windows default shortcuts or some functionalities.
What I dislike about Linux is that there is always something that doesn't work properly. I currently have issues with DPMS. My laptop has trouble with the behavior if the touchpad, sometimes the gestures work, sometimes they don't, it depends on its mood I guess. I tried Wayland, but with a nvidia card it has a lot of issues, I had to go back to X which sucks since I really prefer the way wayland works. I'm quite technical, but sometimes the solutions don't really work.
I read a few things in this thread that I disagree with though, namely:
- You can launch apps from PowerShell (terminal)
- You can have package managers, I used scoop, choco and winget. Every app that I use can be installed and updated with those, from PowerShell.
- Pretty sure you can update your system from PowerShell, then you probably can make a script to update everything.
- You can disable auto-updates and auto-reboot in Windows. I never had my computer reboot on me and it stays open 24/7. What I liked is auto-update, but no auto-reboot. I chose when to reboot, only had a notification which was disabled when I was playing a game.
- There are options for launchers, the windows menu or powertoy run.
- You can create shortcuts (similar to .desktop) and you can also make a bat script instead of a bash script.
A lot of comments are about a knowledge deficit, not a capability deficit from Windows.
My understanding is that the Windows terminal sucks? I don't know why, it just looks bad.
Your understanding is wrong. I've tried 8 different terminals on mac, arch and kubuntu, and I miss Windows Terminal every day. It looks good and the config is a pleasure. I don't expect Linux to look pretty, but MacOS had fucking awful font rendering and it's supposed to be this upmarket OS for moneyed pricks in black turtlenecks. Was everyone in unixland busy doing drugs while Microsoft was implementing anti-aliasing? Is clear legible type for losers?
What are you smoking
You verbalized my reaction to this so perfectly!
CMD.EXE is eye cancer. Whatever launched when I searched for powershell was a slightly better blue version. What are you using that you actually like?
I think they are using this: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal
It’s what I use on my Windows machines as well. It’s a huge improvement from the old CMD window.
I like linux for development but for just using the pc for entertainment... windows is just better.
Linux and mac are wonderful for software development. I use a mac with linux VM at work
I like linux for development but for just using the pc for entertainment… windows is just better.
For what exactly? Steam runs on Linux now. With Proton, even trendy new games like Baldur's Gate 3 run great.
Watching video? VLC is the standard video player.
Plug in every USB i find on the ground without fear.
There are USB-killers, which produce voltage spikes to fry your mainboard, or just the USB part of it, if you're lucky.