How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too

Re:How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too by saagarjha on Saturday January 19, 2019 @11:03PM (#18950953)

> Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, the way Linux works just doesn't jive with a lot of people? Like, everything has a middleman involved. Drivers for your hardware? Have to be merged into the kernel. Applications? Should go through (all of) the distro package repo(s) unless you want it to be a pain

…? This is a really strange perspective, since I've found Linux to remove middlemen. No more searching a manufacterer's website for some garbage closed-source driver that has a dozen vulnerabilities and no support. No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.

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Re:How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too by Godel_unicode on Sunday January 20, 2019 @12:12AM (#18951279)

> No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.

And now you have to, forever, since you're no longer using a package manager to get updates to your custom buggy horror show.

> No more searching a manufacterer's website for some garbage closed-source driver

Please point me to the source for the drivers for my rtx2080. That would be super helpful!

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Re:How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too by simion314 on Sunday January 20, 2019 @04:43AM (#18952200)

>Please point me to the source for the drivers for my rtx2080. That would be super helpful!

There are cases where good hardware has no drivers for latest windows, like I had a Wacoom tablet that the vendfor would not result drivers for newer Windows version but continued to work out of the box on Linux. The fact that NVIDIA are jerks and not providing at least documentation for the community to make drivers is not the fault of the Linux community or the fault of us the NVIDIA customers,

The proprietary driver work well enough for my 970 but my next card will be an AMD one

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Re:How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Saturday January 19, 2019 @11:10PM (#18950987)

Getting the driver from the manufacturer directly is somehow involving a middleman in your world, but having that vendor have to submit kernel patches and hope they're blessed by the community, merged, and eventually distributed by the distros isn't?

> No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.

You don't have to wait, since vendors can roll out new drivers. And what's the equivalent on Linux? Pollute your system with an unnecessary kernel dev environment and compile from source. Personally, I think having to resort to that for such a simple operation when it is almost 2020 is a gigantic failure.

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Re:How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too by bubblethink on Saturday January 19, 2019 @11:22PM (#18951057)

I mean that is essentially how all science is done. It has to go through peer review for it to be worth anything. So that is a strong point. You second point is also an exaggeration. You typically wouldn't compile anything (unless you want to). All supported distros will provide binary updates.

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Re:How and why I transitioned to Linux, and how you can too by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Saturday January 19, 2019 @11:30PM (#18951091)

> I mean that is essentially how all science is done.

Installing software shouldn't have to be a formal scientific discipline. It isn't rocket science unless you make it rocket science so you have an excuse to invent package managers.

> All supported distros will provide binary updates.

Eventually. On their own schedule. If you want (or need) the latest driver as soon as the vendor says it is ready, you'll be compiling. Otherwise you have to wait for the kernel maintainers, then the distributors.

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