this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ndlug.org/post/1064425

And Linux isn't minimal effort. It's an operating system that demands more of you than does the commercial offerings from Microsoft and Apple. Thus, it serves as a dojo for understanding computers better. With a sensei who keeps demanding you figure problems out on your own in order to learn and level up.

...

That's why I'd love to see more developers take another look at Linux. Such that they may develop better proficiency in the basic katas of the internet. Such that they aren't scared to connect a computer to the internet without the cover of a cloud.

Related: Omakub

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[–] cRazi_man@lemm.ee 67 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I love Linux. I'm so glad I switched both my PC and laptop to OpenSUSE and got rid of dual boot Windows. Using Linux exclusively for months has really opened my eyes to the truth:

Linux

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[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Linux is second nature to us IT people, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows basic shell scripting and how to build programs from git repos.

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] datelmd5sum@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago
[–] aramus@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They don't even know that.

[–] lengau@midwest.social 35 points 1 year ago

In case you missed it, it's an xkcd reference

[–] abbadon420@lemm.ee 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'd love to use Linux, but I just don't have the legs for those socks

[–] dephyre@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

You only have to start wearing them once you become a programmer.

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 34 points 1 year ago (23 children)

Linux isn't minimal effort. It's an operating system that demands more of you than does the commercial offerings from Microsoft and Apple. Thus, it serves as a dojo for understanding computers better. With a sensei who keeps demanding you figure problems out on your own in order to learn and level up.

Guy says this as if it's a good thing lol. That's the real reason people don't use Linux, nobody making Linux seems to care about user experience for normal people.

Yea I agree. Good UX is a lot of work, and I think FOSS projects rarely prioritize it. Even good documentation is hard to come by. When you write software for your own use case, it's easy to cut UX corners, because you don't need your hand held.

And good UX for a programmer might be completely different from good UX for someone that only knows how to use GUIs. E.g. NixOS has amazing UX for programmers, but the code-illiterate would be completely lost.

I believe that the solution is "progressive disclosure", and it requires a lot of effort. You basically need every interface to have both the "handholding GUI" and the underlying "poweruser config," and there needs to be a seamless transition between the two.

I actually think we could have an amazing Linux distro for both "normies" and powerusers if this type of UX were the primary focus of developers.

[–] QuadriLiteral@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

What you say describes my experience 10 to 15 years ago, not my experience today. Compare the settings dialog in KDE Plasma to the windows settings dialog for instance. Or should I say myriad of Windows settings dialogues.

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[–] OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I mean coding is difficult enough as it is, I wouldn't choose to use an OS that makes it even harder.

I use Linux because it makes my life easier. It has better support for development. Some of the other stuff is maybe not as easy or polished, but the support for dev tools and the ease of deploying to from local machines to servers that are also running Linux makes up for it.

If I wanted more effort I'd still be using Windows. It would force me to work on cross platform development and deployment. The idea that there's value in making things unnecessarily hard is just weird. I want Linux to be as simple as possible to use, so I can spend that effort on things that actually matter.

[–] ParetoOptimalDev@lemmy.today 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use Linux in part because it makes building software easier.

[–] 3H3x36tBElshOa@feddit.nl 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree, it's usually much easier to install required dependencies with Linux. I also recently noticed that some stuff, like compiling Rust, is much faster, but I haven't timed it.

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[–] silkroadtraveler@lemmy.today 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For 99% of Windows or MacOS users who work in their browser and within simple applications, day-to-day Linux usage is as easy or easier than Windows. Microsoft’s monopolistic practices and lack of government intervention/regulation led us to this point plain and simple.

[–] koalaSunrise@programming.dev 11 points 1 year ago

I just a few weeks ago successfully switched my father-in-law's mid-2011 iMac (out of support for years) to Nobara 40. It took some finagling with the SIP settings and some other macOS specific stuff before it would boot the liveUSB but once it did, it works flawlessly OOTB.

Pretty incredible how frictionless the transition was for him. He even chose to switch from chrome to the default firefox, despite me having setup chromium for him to compare (but he knows its there if a website doesn't load right in Firefox). He's in his 60's and not a techy person at all. Everything is so intuitive with KDE these days he picked it up no problem.

Only downside is background sync for KDE connect doesn't work on iOS yet, seems this is a sticking point for most FOSS apps for some reason. It was causing disconnect/pairing issues for us. But I showed him localsend for now and it works flawlessly for transferring photos from the phone to the computer.

He's happy with all the default apps and onlyoffice (which I switched out from libreoffice as I've found much more consistent formatting when sending/receiving to MSoffice users)(maybe this is outdated, haven't tried the new release). Printing and scanning was plug and play. Apple trackpad and keyboard auto-paired. I showed him how to setup widgets and he went nuts. Overall 9.95/10 would convert a normie again.

[–] SwordInStone@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago
[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's why I'd love to see more developers take another look at Linux. Such that they may develop better proficiency in the basic katas of the internet. Such that they aren't scared to connect a computer to the internet without the cover of a cloud.

The developers I have come across mostly use Linux if they can, or another OS if they can't (e.g. when developing specifically for Apple or Microsoft platforms). Are there many that haven't even looked at it?

I think there's a pretty big overlap of gamers and programmers who use Windows or WSL because they don't want to have to dual boot.

[–] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Games. The answer is games.

The day COD, Dota2, CS2, Overwatch 2 and all that crap runs on Linux with anti-cheat and no performance issues is the day Windows dies.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

a sensei who keeps demanding you figure problems out on your own in order to learn and level up.

Ain't nobody got time for that. I don't need or want to spend my time debugging my OS for it to do what I want, I already did that and I did not exactly "level up" but I did waste a lot of time.

[–] FizzyOrange@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago

This is just an excuse. A poor one.

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