this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I’m with you with (distribution) choice (that’s definitely stressful, especially when you aren’t used to actually having to choose what kind of computing experience you want) but driver/program distribution on Linux is less painful/easier than on Windows on average. If your hardware happens to be supported, everything should work out of the box without the need to install drivers; the biggest problem for more or less average users would be having to install Nvidia drivers if they have a Nvidia GPU. Installing software is generally as easy as opening your distribution’s software store, searching what you need and hitting the install button.
Is not it true with Windows? Plug and play? And while I did not study this, I strongly suspect that it is more true for Windows than for Linux.
I've been using Linux for about a decade now. Windows for even longer before that. We still have some Windows laptops in our house. Even a decade ago when I first started trying Linux out, it was far more plug and play than Windows and still is.
The overwhelming majority of the time drivers are provided by the Linux kernel - install your distro and everything just works.
Windows I always have to go to various websites, download files for various devices and then install them.
Even when I need something specific on Linux, one store (in my case Arch repositories, including AUR), I can use one interface and download and install anything in one step - I skip the looking for the manufacturers website, going to the website, finding the software download, downloading it and then going through the installation process on Windows.
Linux has some things that are more difficult, but overall is infinitely easier to use.
I don't use Windows much, but recently I booted it up and found my graphics tablet didn't work. I needed to install a driver from Wacom, then reboot. It got very confused about whether my tablet or my monitor was the primary monitor, and moving between screens was somehow worse than Linux. On Linux, the tablet driver worked out of the box, but I had to adjust display scaling for both my monitors to co-exist peacefully. I also had to switch from GNOME to KDE and switch to Wayland on my NVIDIA card to get Krita to work properly (interface was split across both monitors and couldn't resize it). GNOME's multi-monitor handling was bad, regardless of whether I used Wayland or X11. Multi-monitor handling on KDE was better than Windows...in the end.
I'm not really sure which of these is worse.
Depends. Game controllers are finicky on windows. A lot of distros automatically map controllers to xinput. Ive also had better luck in linux with printers and Bluetooth dongles