this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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@Sinclair-Speccy That's such a bad Operating System, really bad. Poor features,buggy as hell.
Must really have been super shit if you remember how awful it was 20+ years later
Anything in particular that sent you over the edge?
I'm not that person, but most smaller distros back that weren't the major ones (RedHat, Suse, Mandrake) had issues. Driver support from distro to distro was also very spotty, I remember having to hunt through three of them in 2002 to finally get one to recognize my Ethernet chipset. Yes, Ethernet, not Wifi, which would have been understandable.
This is why Ubuntu was such a big deal when it came out, it was one of the few where things more or less "just worked" without having to chase proprietary or reverse engineered drivers down
Back in the day there was 'software NICs' on the market which required separate (driver-ish) software to do anything. Also there was RTL chips which required propietary parts from a driver and all the fun stuff. On wifi it's still a thing now and then, but everything works far better today, and it's at least partially because hardware is better too. Of course even in late 90's when ethernet started to gain traction you could just throw something like 3c509 or e100 to your box and call it a day, but standards were far less mature than they're today.
I remember that even a graphical Installation was rare amongst distress which is why I briefly used Mandrake as one of my first.
@tourist I tried it back in the time and it didn't really work well. It was just a pain. None of the hardware I owned worked well enough. Graphics card only VESA mode, lack of compatibility issues, Wine was crappy at the time, a better approach was SuSE Linux which was the start for me to dive into the Linux world. Since then I took the hard tour and enjoyed playing around with SuSE on a second partition. Nowadays I use Linux only, except for company's PC at the office, there I'm bound to Win.
@tourist See this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=K9LjvXKA0DM&feature=shared 12:42
Its gimmick was that it was compatible with Windows apps, and an easy transition for Windows users. It didn't really live up to that promise. Wine was not nearly as mature then as it is today, and even today it would be pretty bold to present any Linux distro as being Windows-compatible.
@GenderNeutralBro Instead of being Windows compatible: Microsoft 365 is Linux compatible (They have MS Edge on Linux and everything is running in a web app), so for me there is no need to use Windows ever again. What is it that you really need to use Windows? I think 90% of normal users could deal with Linux nowadays.
Short answer: Enterprise bullshit and Adobe.
On the home computing side, I can't think of much that has specific OS requirements besides gaming and DRM'd 4K streaming. For better or worse, most desktop apps nowadays are glorified web sites. It's a different world today than it was 20 years ago.
On the enterprise side, nah. Way too many vendors with either no Linux support or shitty Linux support.
Microsoft is working hard to shove "New Outlook" down everyone's throats despite still not having feature parity with old Outlook. Nobody in my company will want to use it until it is forced because we need delegated and shared calendars to actually work. And then there's the "you can take my 80GB .pst files when you pry them from my cold dead hands" crowd. Advanced Excel users are not happy with the web version either, and I don't blame them.
I hate new Outlook. Might as well switch the whole company to Yahoo mail or Hotmail. :D
CAD software.
@NauticalNoodle Yes, indeed, that is a special use case that is not covered well by Linux software.
Edit: There are some apps for it but I never heared anyone using it.
Sounds like Windows.
Microsoft sued Lindows because it was too similar to Windows (and lost)
I don't think that. Yes, only one letter is different. Yes, both are operating systems for PC. Yes the UI somewhat looks similar. But I think even the average joe would be baffled by your statement (because they think it is Windows).
@Sinclair-Speccy
https://youtu.be/SWmvtdyXlTA?feature=shared
Yikes.