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

  1. Adobe
  2. 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.
  3. Games ( a big one although steam is helping bridge the gap)
  4. Many torrented apps, most of these are Windows specific and thus I won’t have any luck installing them on Linux.
  5. 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?

  1. I have applications which launch from terminal eg: vlc would open vlc (no questions asked, no other stuff needed, just type vlc)
  2. 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.
  3. I can basically automate most of my tasks and it has a good integration with my apps.
  4. I can create desktop launchers.
  5. 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.
  6. Create custom panel plugin.

  1. 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.

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
    1·
    1 year ago

    KDE is better in this regard, but it’s still unnecessarily difficult to create a shortcut. Do not click the button that says “link”, because that will often actually create a soft link, which behaves like a shortcut in some ways, but spectacularly breaks things in many other ways. The way the Linux ecosystem is a set of loosely connected tools makes things like “drag and drop” or “shortcuts” very difficult to implement in a user-friendly manner.

    Ubuntu ships a Gnome shell extension for desktop icons by default. Creating shortcuts still isn’t easy, but at least you have them. By default, the desktop is just a picture.

    Then again, Gnome made the conscious decision not to have desktop icons to deal with. Adding them back in is like trying to force Windows to open links in Firefox, you’re fighting a system that’s not designed to do what you want it to do. At least on Linux you can easily switch!

    • Aatube@kbin.social
      1·
      1 year ago

      How do symlinks spectacularly break things? Drag and drop works just fine and creating .desktop’s are easy at least in mate

        • Aatube@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          Double clicking a symlink will execute the file as if it resides in that specific folder rather than altering the current working directory like a normal shortcut would.

          Well, I never made use of that case in Windows, I only used Windows shortcuts for graphical apps so it didn’t make a difference. That isn’t “failing spectacularly” either.

          • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
            1·
            1 year ago

            I have, and it spammed my desktop with log files and temp stuff. Hence the “failing spectacularly” in some ways.

            Of course other operating systems also have soft links, but I’ve only seen Linux file managers try to use them instead of normal shortcuts, which distorts the expectations a bit, perhaps.