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You Should Switch from Windows to Linux Right Now, Says Forbes Contributor

posted by martyb on Tuesday July 24 2018, @06:55PM   
from the welcome-to-the-party dept.

requerdanos writes:

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.)

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

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

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Original Submission

• Re:...command line driven thing it used to be Re:...command line driven thing it used to be (Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday July 24 2018, @09:35PM (3 children)

  by Alfred (4006) on Tuesday July 24 2018, @09:35PM (#711946) Journal

  I mostly agree with you. I think that most GUIs don't need any documentation after a few hours of here is how you use the OS. Once familiar with the basic OS you can throw a program at me and I don't need to read the documentation because it already fits the mental models I have for working within that OS. CLI is a black box. If you don't know the command how do you find it without google? A man page won't help there either.
  
  Now if the GUI is, like you mention, inconsistent, then all bets are off. It can be a total PITA. And those unilateral changes are even worse. Then a GUI would be a pain, but that is definitely an edge case.
  
  Unfortunately this is something I have to give credit to Apple for. The UI widgets do the same function version after version but they moved from aqua looks to gray looks. Not a problem. Disappearing scroll bar is a problem unless you use a scroll wheel all the time so 50/50 on that. They have functional consistency down better than anyone else and they reap the user love because of it. I have a lot of reasons to hate Apple but user experience isn't one.

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• Re:...command line driven thing it used to be Re:...command line driven thing it used to be (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:02PM (2 children)

  by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday July 24 2018, @11:02PM (#712007) Journal

  If you don't know the command how do you find it without google?

  By using apropos.

  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

  Parent

  • Re:...command line driven thing it used to be Re:...command line driven thing it used to be (Score: 2) by Alfred on Wednesday July 25 2018, @01:52PM (1 child)

    by Alfred (4006) on Wednesday July 25 2018, @01:52PM (#712328) Journal

    I had to google how to use that :-P
    
    Now I'm back to deciphering cryptic man page descriptions.

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    • Re:...command line driven thing it used to be (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 25 2018, @06:54PM (#712573)

      ... and you could have just typed 'man man' at the shell...

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