back to article CutefishOS: Unix-y development model? Check. macOS aesthetic? Check (if you like that sort of thing)

One of the reasons Linux has never caught on as a desktop operating system, as Linux fans know, is that Linux isn't a desktop operating system, it's a kernel. And assembling it into a coherent package users can install is the job of a distribution. This is a very different distribution model than the one Apple or Microsoft …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The reason "Linux" never caught on as a desktop, consumer level OS is it's still nigh on impossible to configure the most basic of things without falling back into typing complicated commands into a console. It might be a million times better today than it was in the past, but it's still a far cry from Windows when it comes to ease of use for the average user. Even MacOS since transitioning to FreeBSD underneath has succumb to that issue. The old System X OSes from Apple were a lot more user friendly when it came to configuring things.

    Also, how many people around here were complaining about the full screen start menu in Windows 8 but then happily look the other way when pretty much every Linux desktop out there today has exactly that: A full screen launcher.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      What an odd comment.

      All KDE settings are handled by the System Settings GUI. S/W installation from the distro is handled by Synaptic. Admittedly I usually handle upgrades from the command line because apt update;apt upgrade is simply slicker than fiddling with a GUI. Definitely better than messing with that registry thing.

      And I've only seen one full screen launcher - that's on Ubuntu. I suppose there has to be one for those who like the app-centric smartphone approach to working but there are alternatives for those who have a document-centric approach to working, minimalists or pretty well any way you want. One size doesn't fit all and, in the Unix/Linux world, it doesn't have to.

      You should give it a try instead of relying on random internet posts you might have read.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I have to use Linux for work sometimes, and the version I have to use is... Ubuntu.

        It may be the only garbage Linux out there (though I seriously doubt that), but it's the one I am stuck with.

        Windows might be the fat kid, but in my experience Linux is the slow kid who needs everything explained to them three times over. Five times if printers are involved.

        1. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

          You can add Mate to Ubuntu. Then you get a desktop for adults.

        2. martinusher Silver badge

          >Five times if printers are involved.

          Yes and no. I run networked printers and configuring a printer under Windows 10 is a real chore. Hooking up the same printer under Linux was a non-event.

          Its not the printer or anything like that. I recently got tapped to help install a new inkjet for an older couple we know. It was a new HP connecting to a brand name Win10 PC. It was an absolute pain. It wasn't so much the driver installation -- the driver comes with Windows, anyway -- but all the crapware that came with the printer; you had to go to the HP site, download a voluminous application, navigate your way past all the crapware just to ignore it.

          I've had innumerable problems with Windows USB drivers. There's something fundamentally broken about them, in particular the way that the driver is physical port dependent. Its a table issue, a bug that probably dates back to Day One. Linux just works (and you can invoke the command line/editor if things get really bad but that's like popping the hood of a malfunctioning car, its a bit pointless messing with the engine if you don't know what to look for or how to fix it).

        3. lsatenstein

          When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

          Stick to Windows 11. Oh, by the way, if your computer does not have a TPM chip included, you may have to buy a new computer. Because MS has stated that computers without TPM chips may not be getting updates.

          My Linux use is mainly Word processing (LibreOffice), Emails, Youtube and viewing videos sent to me.

          I do have a few games installed, but that is for entertainment.

          So far, for 15 years of Linux, I was able to everything without needing to use Windows. And I did it with both laptop and desktop being upgraded some 10 years ago. Hardware update then, was market prices. Zero additional cost for software these past 10 years. Can you tell me what you spend to have Windows 11 at home?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            I'm not bothering with Windows 11. I suspect I have a few machines around here that could run it (and it would be free to upgrade), but my main work PC is too old and I like Windows 10. I don't see Windows 11 as worth it in any way, shape, or form. Windows 12 will more than likely fix everything Windows 11 breaks, so I'll wait and see. It won't be the first time I've skipped a Windows release, and it won't be the last.

            As for cost, I think I've bought maybe one licence for Windows (95 iirc) over the years. All other copies I've received through MSDN subscriptions (which I did pay for*, but considering the software available for "free" more than made up for the price of the subscription), except for one Windows Vista licence which was given to me by one of the guys at Microsoft for putting up with the mountain of shit dropped on me when trying to integrate their new (and very alpha) Games Explorer system into our game.

            As for what I do, my main application use of Windows since Windows 95 has been Developer/Visual Studio for developing games, applications, and websites. I've almost always had Office installed, but to be honest in the last 25 years I've probably used Word maybe 50 times and the rest of Office almost never. (Except OneNote - I quite like the quick and easy syncing of notes to my phone these days.) Paintshop Pro has been another piece of software I've used regularly throughout that time too. I played games quite a bit in the past too, but more on consoles than PCs.

            Over the years I've been tempted to try and use Linux, but always failed to see the appeal. From back in the late 90s when I couldn't even get the installer to run to the end without crashing, to maybe 10-15 years ago when the available software just seemed antiquated and decidedly lacking.

            A feeling that I still have today to be perfectly honest. VSCode is mostly usable but it has its quirks which irritate the shit out of me sometimes, but it's a hell of a lot better than anything else I've tried on Linux over the years. Back in some past jobs the way we developed on Linux was to develop on Windows, sync the sources over to Linux (we had an in-house tool that auto-synced any changed file), and compile and run them there. The alternative was far more painful to even consider.

            You see, the thing is, I'm a software developer (architect, designer, engineer, etc), not a sysadmin. I don't want to have to waste my time configuring every last little thing for weeks on end. I just want the machine to work with minimum fuss and hassle so I can get on with my work. If I buy a new piece of hardware, I expect it to just work. Same with the OS. It's a tool. Nothing more, nothing less that either lets me work, or gets in my way. I've had to write assembler for machines without any OS in the past and while it's fun for a while I don't want to live in that world. Interaction Design is a far more interesting topic of conversation for me.

            1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

              So what you are saying is...

              "You see, the thing is, I'm a software developer (architect, designer, engineer, etc), not a sysadmin. I don't want to have to waste my time configuring every last little thing for weeks on end. I just want the machine to work with minimum fuss and hassle so I can get on with my work. If I buy a new piece of hardware, I expect it to just work. Same with the OS."

              ... at your employer you have a sysadmin who configures your Windows development machine to *just work*. Me too, it's nice.

              However, if you buy a home computer with Windows, it's not true that you can just turn it on and have it "just work" -- particularly not true for a developer. If you accept all defaults, the best you can say is it works to Microsoft's satisfaction.

              At home it's *me* who has to be sysadmin, no getting around it. It's a question of wasting time in macOS, wasting time in Windows, or wasting time in Linux. What I find is the time wasted in Linux is only wasted once (or more precisely, once every time I make a change to the system). The time wasted in macOS and Windows is endless, at the whim of Apple and Microsoft, depending on what ridiculous OS changes they make that I have little interest in.

              Edit: sorry for the late reply, didn't notice you posted 3 days ago.

    2. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Upvoted for poking a hole in the smugness of the Linux fanboy community even if some of what you said is not technically correct. There are definitely things in Windows that are Just Easier, and the proliferation of Linux desktop environments means that the CLI is ultimately the most dependable and consistent way to accomplish common tasks.

      Not to say that Windows is without its warts, mind you. The truth is that all software sucks in some fashion, and, much like our friends, the software that we love is the software whose bullshit we've decided to accept.

      (For the hardcore Linux geeks, a "friend" is a person with whom you have particular reciprocal affection.)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        > Not to say that Windows is without its warts, mind you.

        You get 10 points for the Euphemism Of The Century. And it's only 2021.

        Windows is not without its warts?

        How about pustulent gangrene? Yeah, the kind that not even amputation will save the patient.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why oh why...........

      @Def

      .......do we continue to get folk wedded to the idea of "best in the best of all possible worlds"?

      *

      Pretty much every environment I've ever used is sub-optimal in some way or another (that would include CP/M, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1 through 8.1, RedHat 5 through 9, Fedora 5 through 34, elementary5). Then in the Linux desktop world there's been enlightenment, Gnome2, XFCE4, and a few others.

      *

      To get to the point......it's absolutely not the defects that matter......all of the above have problems. It's the environment which is most productive for the user which matters.

      *

      Speaking for myself, Fedora5 through Fedora34 have been fine. Gnome2 and XFCE4 have been fine. Others will make other, personally productive, choices..

      *

      Along the way Gnome3 has been an abomination. Along the way Windows8 was an abomination. Your mileage will vary!

    4. martinusher Silver badge

      Actually, the reason why Windows gained traction was a number of factors of which 'ease of use' was never one of them. The real advantage it had to offer was support for software licensing. Linux developers were fundamentally opposed to the concept which effectively cost them the entire gaming community.

      Microsoft had another ace which was their Office suite. Its inter-connectivity was always of dubious utility but it served its purpose of locking business management, and so business, into Windows.

      Microsoft's command line support has always been there as most of their applets are really either clones of command line utilities or program launchers. Command line support has always been poor which led to various aftermarket solutions; more recently they've got into the game with Powershell because allowing non-Microsoft products to get significant traction may erode their business (so what you get with Powershell, like every other Microsoft product, is something that's almost the same as the standard utility but with a uniquely MSFT twist that makes it not only their own but also unique).

  2. Steve Graham

    When was the last time you saw a Linux desktop? This century?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If you're asking me, yesterday. (And if you're not asking me, still yesterday.)

    2. devin3782

      I'm using it right now, and the OP is correct, its still not there yet, well not enough for the normie at least.

      It's the little things which should have a good UI like the screen resolution and multiple display layout, trying to layout multiple screens is a lesson glitching frustration, there's still no driver configuration for display drivers that's reliable.

      If you want to play a DVD/Bluray or MP3's you'd better have gone through the 8 week correspondence course (Fedora does at least have the necessaries for MP3 playback, but most don't). These are the sorts of things which prevent Linux adoption, I still can't work out how the hell to play a bluray in Fedora I have to keep a Windows VM and a USB adaptor for my Bluray player on hand.

  3. fnusnu

    HelloSystem

    It will be interesting to compare this with HelloSystem: https://github.com/helloSystem/

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: HelloSystem

      Interesting. I haven't touched FreeBSD in about two decades, so it would be fun to see what the state of the art looks like.

  4. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

    > embracing the chaos of choices in the Linux world and using it to build something that's well-designed and user-friendly.

    When I can simply plug in a printer and it just works, then I will know that Linux is getting there.

    When I can install any new package with just one click and maybe the occasional "OK", it will have arrived.

    I've been using Linux almost daily since the beginning and to be blunt it started off as a test of hacking¹ skills and hasn't progressed much past that.

    [1] when being a hacker was a good thing (at least, within the hacker community)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

      Installing software is a prime example of how piss poor the Linux user experience can be. Linux still doesn't have a unified way to install software downloaded from a website. I downloaded an rpm file the other day for something (it might have been the latest VSCode - I don't remember).

      Double clicking it opened some config file in a text editor. I mean, seriously?

      1. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

        Downloading an installer from some random web site is (a) a Windows relic, and (b) an excellent way of introducing malware.

        Your distribution has a package manager. Use it.

        -A.

        1. Warm Braw

          Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

          The other great thing about Linux is that you can be sure that, if some developer had just run afoul of Apple or Google's App Store rules, there'd be a post praising the lack of a Walled Garden and the benefits of your absolute freedom to install the software of your choice.

          So many distributions, so many opinions, so many rough edges...

          Having said that, the Linux desktop has come a long way and Windows seems to be regressing at ever-increasing speed and, even for the casual user, there's probably not a lot to choose between them on an actual desktop. The Linux laptop experience is still rather vendor-dependent - I put up with tearing video and a lack of support for the inbuilt microphone array and finger-print reader on mine. And the fact that the workarounds for the buggy WiFi hardware aren't quite as slick as the Windows workarounds. I can imagine others might not be as accommodating.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

          Your distribution has a package manager. Use it.

          Do you equally advocate developers only use the Windows Store for distribution? Or how about the Apple Store for macOS applications?

          1. Lars Silver badge
            Coat

            Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

            @Def

            "Do you equally advocate developers only use the Windows Store....".

            You don't sound like a developer with your problems so he did not advocate if especially for developers.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

        You don't think that have been something to do with whoever put together the RPM file?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

          If it's possible for someone creating an installer to screw it up so fundamentally that the only thing it does is open a text file, then that's a problem with the underlying system, not the person making the installer.

          And I know this because I eventually figured out the "correct" way to install an rpm, which is to open a console and start typing commands. See my original point about how user unfriendly Linux is.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

            If it's part of the distro the correct way is to open the distro's S/W installer (Synaotic in my case), search and click. You only run the install as admin, unlike some of the S/W on my old Windows VM (I occasionally look to remind myself on what I'm missing).

          2. Swarthy
            WTF?

            Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

            You have stated that you're using Ubuntu. Of course an .RPM file isn't going to work. You might as well try installing an .APK on a windows box.

            Get the .DEB file and your desired "double-click to install" functionality will appear.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

        > Installing software is a prime example of how piss poor the Linux user experience can be.

        Yep.

        %> dnf upgrade

        Or

        %> dnf install <name>

        Too Hard.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

          Or, for software not in the distro's repository, it could be something like

          $> cmake; make

          which can then spew out a shit ton of failed dependencies it has no intention of resolving for you.

        2. phuzz Silver badge

          Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

          If I have to remember random punctuation characters to make something work, then yes, it's too hard.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

        Strange I tried installing that same .rpm on Windows and it failed there too, maybe you should try a .deb on your Ubuntu machine you cock. Oh, I just noticed the silvery disk thing next to your handle, that explains everything thing.

    2. Zippy´s Sausage Factory
      Flame

      Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

      I don't yet know *any* OS where you can plug in a printer and it "just works".

      I know plenty of OSes where you can plug in a printer and it sort of works, but really wants those hard to find drivers that are on the manufacturer's website, nowhere close to the product page, but hidden on a downloads page where only the third drop down contains the name of your printer after you correctly guess the seemingly random values contained in the first two... ("is this an all in one printer, or a multifunction one? Let's try 'all in one'... so now, is this a 'J series', a 'J+ series' or a 'J+ series (French)'?)

      1. W.S.Gosset

        Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

        > I don't yet know *any* OS where you can plug in a printer and it "just works".

        Every single Mac OS.

        The original, that is. Pre the painful massive backwards step in user functionality that was, and remains, MacOSX.

        1. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

          Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

          OK, then "any OS still in mainstream support" :-P

          Seriously though, manufacturers seem to love making that harder and harder. Probably so that, in the case of one particular offender, they can annoy the user with adverts for their ink "subscription" service.

    3. katrinab Silver badge
      Flame

      Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

      Windows is by far the worst for installing software.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: Which do you choose a hard or soft option?

        Windows is by far the worst for installing software.

        Erm, except when you don't want it to... Windows update in a meeting, or presentation, trojans and malware by simply browsing the web and reading email... bloatware from a simple installation that does succeed.

  5. karlkarl Silver badge

    I am still not quite convinced by this trend to clone macOS. If people want to use something that looks like macOS, they just use macOS.

    Personally I can't help but feel that something like the following, looks infinitely more useful and productive: https://distrowatch.com/images/screenshots/fedora-7-desktop.png

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Simple. The object is to bluff people into thinking they're running a Mac. In those terms the objective is met (or maybe not). Productivity is for peons.

      1. katrinab Silver badge

        Does iMessage, FaceTime, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc work?

        Airdrop, AirPrint, AirPlay?

        Those are the reasons why people run MacOS.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @katrinab

          *

          OK with that........except for the cost!! And not just the cost to get started, then there's the tap dance when the Apple "support" people tell you that the next version of the package YOU ALREADY BOUGHT will require two things:

          1. The purchase of a new box (because the new version won't run on your "old" hardware)

          2. The purchase of a new licence for the package YOU ALREADY BOUGHT (because the old licenced software won't run on the new box)

          *

          Yup....keeping up to date and "in support" is a cash cow for Apple.

          *

          So....to change your quote a little: "The are reasons why people with a lot of money run MacOS".....

          1. chivo243 Silver badge
            Happy

            Cost? Call me an outlier, but I've only spent a few hundred credits on Apple gear in 20 or so years of using Apple, I've been lucky my employer has provided all the gear I've needed professionally.... and plenty of freebies for personal use when other people upgraded. I guess I can chalk this up to being an insider.

          2. timrowledge

            Nope.

            My 2012 iMac is still happy. I get updates to all the base apps regularly for free. I pay for occasional updates to indigodomo to run my Insteon setup. I’ve paid for a couple of updates to RapidWeaver over the last 15 years. Oh, and likewise for my accounting package.

            Never yet been told to replace the machine. I probably *will* once a large screen ARM64 iMac appears.

            Basically you appear to be doing it wrong.

        2. karlkarl Silver badge

          Yes, they do work. Of course they go by different names in the open-source world.

        3. Bartholomew

          > Does iMessage, FaceTime, Photoshop, Final Cut, etc work?

          > Airdrop, AirPrint, AirPlay?

          > Those are the reasons why people run MacOS.

          Photoshop is a cloud based subscription these days (~$21/month ; ~$250/year)

          So for most people in typical use cases GIMP/Krita/Pinta/Darktable/Shotwell would be a better fit.

    2. 45RPM Silver badge

      I dunno. Every other UI for Linux at the moment seems to be cribbing Windows. It’s all a bit variety though, and I’ll give it a crack - just because I do like to piss around with a computer.

      I do find it somewhat sad that the other UI paradigms of the past are now largely ignored. I mean, how about a beautiful polished UI which borrows from Amiga but isn’t AmigaOS? Ditto Archimedes, or GeOS, or NeXT, or CDE, or olvwm? Or something else? Or something excitingly original and other.

      At this point I’d argue that it doesn’t necessarily even need to be a crowd pleaser (the crowd will go for what they know). It just needs to be well thought out and innovative.

      And that’s a huge ask.

      1. AJ MacLeod

        My desktop has been NeXT inspired for a few decades now... the good old WindowMaker. Utterly reliable, negligible resource usage, highly configurable (without even resorting to editing text files, not that I would mind that either.)

        1. karlkarl Silver badge

          The Wayland project is trying hard to frig up your sweet existing environment and workflow!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We need a Windows simlation plugin

    To make people more comfortable with switching to Linux, add a script that randomly loads up the network with TB-sized downloads, and then suspends the ability to get anything done for anything between a minute and half an hour, with the odd reboot on top (the TB downloads can be discarded).

    Add to that a process that randomly freezes and/or reboots the system and some serious usage telemetrics sent to Microsoft, and migrating users will be hard pressed to tell the difference.

    And yes, that's sarcasm. It's Friday.

    1. Zolko Silver badge

      Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

      a process that randomly freezes and/or reboots the system

      no no, not randomly: preferably when you are launching a presentation in full-screen, that's an appropriate moment.

      1. captain veg Silver badge

        Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

        Also, when you have to leave in a hurry or risk missing your flight, refuse to shut down for several minutes while non-negotiable updates are installed.

        -A.

      2. chivo243 Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

        Not quite a windows update, but Zoom flashed up a update needed dialog during a conference today... Since I was the only IT guy in the meeting the joke was lost on everybody else!

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

      You forgot random control panels to control random things and the occasional need to hack the registry. Without those you're fooling nobody.

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

        which control panel? Settings or the hidden (real) one... or msinfo? so many panels so little control!

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

        I forgot the progress dialog that jumps randomly between 99%, 2%, 110% and 84%. This isn't and ordinary progress bar, it's an MS progress bar.

        1. Pirate Dave Silver badge

          Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

          I remember when the progress bars in Windows only counted linearly from zero to 100. Silly concept. Now we've got the Progressive Progress Bar, which has naught to do with what you're installing, but instead displays random stats from Bing searches - frequently it shows the current number of Bing searches for "how to disable Cortana", or the number of hobbits seen in Las Vegas in the past week. Useful stuff that people need to know.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

        Ah, but that's the one thing I think Linux still has covered by making people edit hard to locate textfiles in the wide variety of standards that exist.

        :)

    3. GrumpenKraut
      Pirate

      Re: We need a Windows simlation plugin

      You forgot rebooting while in a video conference.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Could this be the year of Linux on the desktop?

    (Asking for a friend.)

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Of course it is . Has been for years.

    2. Lars Silver badge
      Linux

      The year of "Linux on the desktop" is the year you put it on your desktop. for me it was 1995.

      I haven't had to use the command line once since more than 10 years, which is actually a bit annoying as I have started to forget commands.

      There are things you can do using a script that are far faster than using the GUI, this of course is not part of the normal Windows world.

      Also I have never had any problems getting a printer/scanner up running or any WiFi problems.

      I settled for KDE now with Mageia, not because I consider Gnome or other distributions rubbish but I like to stick to something more European as we need the knowledge here too.

      Comparing Linux to Windows is always a bit silly because Windows comes preinstalled in every possible shop.

      Linux does not, so it will be up to you and perhaps your friends should you have some with Linux experience.

      Steve Jobs understood very well that to compete with Windows side by side in the same shop was no good so he created his own Apple stores.

      We won't find all that many Linux shops around.

    3. Col_Panek

      Mine was 2013.

      Hasta la Vista, Microsoft!

  8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Irrespective of whether the base desktop environment is Gnome or KDE it provides things like file management which are available across all the distros that use it. I simply don't grok the idea of reinventing these wheels.

    1. devin3782

      Try getting Gnome developers to agree with anyone about how a good file manager should behave, as Gnome's (Nautilus) is a great example of how not to do it, but will the Gnome dev's make it more useful? will they hell. The KDE devs simply throw UI panels and options all over the shop with reckless abandon.

      This is why every desktop environment has their own.

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Col_Panek

      Pop!, Zorin, Bodhi, Elementary, Neon, Lite, Peppermint, Trisquel. Plenty more start from Debian.

      There are many which should be voted off the planet, though. Different wallpaper and icons do not make a distro useful.

    2. Toe Knee

      Xubuntu... Been using it for years

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the article:

    "This is both Linux's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness. For those who already understand and use it the options are welcome. I've been a Linux user for over a decade and I've used several dozen distros, some of them so different from one another it's difficult to believe they're built from the same base. This wealth of options is great, but it's both confusing and overwhelming for new users."

    I've been using Linux for decades and understand it pretty well. The diversity of Linux distros is a total ****ing nightmare to support.

  11. Ohooligan
    Linux

    I use Linux to rejuvenate old laptops

    When a WIndows laptop gets too slow, or when it won't meet spec for an upgrade, I revive it by installing Linux. Not as dual-boot or anything, a simple direct install that wipes the entire disk, and it's at once responsive and usable again. I've tried a few distros and settled (for now) on Ubuntu 16.04 Server, plus Mate as a desktop. (If you only know Windows, you might be surprised to learn that the OS and the Desktop are distinct things).

    The result is a laptop that's as good as a ChromeBook for the usual web stuff - shopping, browsing, YouTube, email - and office stuff (using LibreOffice). Printing hasn't been an issue, and the older hardware is generally already supported, so no issues with drivers. I've done this with 4 or 5 of them to date.

    I recently needed Windows (briefly, for a work issue), and installed Windows 10 on one of these old laptops, and was dismayed to be reminded how much Windows slowed it down. It felt like driving with the handbrake on. I can hardly wait to re-rejuvenate it.

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