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Forbes.com has published a piece by contributor Jason Evangelho entitled "5 Reasons You Should Switch From Windows To Linux Right Now".
When I published the highlights of my journey switching from Windows to Linux on my everyday laptop... it became one of my most viewed pieces this year. From where I'm sitting, that tells me a ton of people are interested -- are at least actively curious -- about ditching Windows and making the jump to Linux.
With that in mind, I wanted to present five reasons that may lead you to consider switching. Know that these are subjective, and they're targeted at the average Windows user and not folks who rely on Windows-exclusive applications for a paycheck.
One thing to know right up front: the modern Linux desktop OS is no longer the obtuse, bewildering and command line driven thing it used to be. Not remotely.
It's nice to see a free operating system getting some love in the mainstream press. Forbes running this article is more the story here than desktop Linux having advantages over Windows.
Be sure to read TFA to find out what the five reasons are. (Or see spoiler, below.)
1: Linux Gets Out Of Your Way
2: You're Not A Slave To The Terminal
3: Installing Software Is Even Easier
4: Updates aren't a headache. They're glorious
5: The Linux Community
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilsa on Tuesday July 24 2018, @08:54PM (3 children)
Your argument is ridiculous and the GP is not spreading FUD.
You seriously expect the average user to go through the effort of a software bounty? If they are stuck, they are going to ask their local geek for assistance, and if that doesn't work, they're going to say "This is crap I want Windows back." If someone is knowledgeable enough to even know what bountify is, they are not an average user.
The value of a repo full of software drops precipitously when there are 5-10 different applications that purportedly do the same thing, but each one is finicky in it's own way and the user has no way of knowing ahead of time which one is most appropriate for them to use. One example: I want to open a PDF form that contains javascript calculated fields. Which application do I install? (Trick question... NONE of the PDF readers in the default ubuntu repo support such PDFs. I had to do a bunch of googling and experimenting to find that the commercial tools Master PDF and Qokka PDF Studio could. And no, installing a 9-year old, abandoned, security riddled, acroread is NOT an acceptable option)
I can give you an entire essay worth of examples where Linux falls catastrophically on it's face. I mean hell, I just tried Budgie Ubuntu 18.04 and apparently it can't even be bothered to bring up a progress window when copying a file. It just went along merrily in the background with zero notifications. When I googled about it, I found forum posts where people actually said to just use rsync "cause it's better anyway". Seriously?
Linux is absolutely unusable in a non-curated environment. Linux is so unpolished that the average user absolutely cannot use it without having a technically adept person to back them up. Heck, there are times where even a technically adept person might unexpectedly struggle with something. Linux (specifically Gnome) won't let you do something as simple as drag an application to the programs menu.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:34PM
That sounds like an entirely undesirable feature that exists only in proprietary garbage.
Ultimately, if users don't value freedom above all else, then they are going to be tricked into using proprietary software at some point, even if using such software is bad for society.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by el_oscuro on Wednesday July 25 2018, @12:30AM
I want to open a PDF form that contains javascript calculated fields. Which application do I install? (Trick question... NONE of the PDF readers in the default ubuntu repo support such PDFs.
That sounds like a feature, not a bug.
Given all of the exploits [nist.gov] that current versions of Acrobat have, why would you ever want to run scripts in a PDF? PDFs have exactly one purpose: printing. All of that extra crap is what makes Acrobat a steaming pile of shit.
I'm sure there are better tools for performing field calculations and they probably have print to PDF functionality too.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:40PM
Mupdf supports javascript. Maybe the Ubuntu package doesn't, but it is supported.