AI data centers sucking up all the digital oxygen - SSD prices leap 25% in a week! 🤯

[Crease]

@habib

I know that Linux and it’s variants are powerful OS environments, but beside Web surfing what are you guys using them for?

For me it’s essentially a daily desktop OS and Microsoft Windows replacement.

@Crease

The desktop PC I use most frequently was originally delivered with Windows XP Pro (downgraded from Vista Business), and I ran Vista on that for as long as could before switching to Linux.

@habib

Again, this is my ignorance talking, but from what I know only Windows and Macintosh have commercial and productivity apps? Are there equivalent apps for Linux?

The question I’d ask is equivalent for what? There are all kinds of open source solutions for various kinds of productivity applications that are cross platform, and there are few things I’ve found that I want to do but have been unable since switching to Linux. (One exception for me is older proprietary software I use to connect to a particular NVR. I think it requires a Windows client, so when I want to access that I generally use RDP to connect from my Linux PC to an old Windows laptop, but I might just replace that with a mini PC running Windows at some point. (Probably what I really should do is get newer/better hardware and then just run Windows in a VM on that.)) There is commercial software available for Linux, but open source stuff works well enough for me that I haven’t seen a reason to explore that much. I also like the flexibility I get with Linux regarding so many available desktop environments, and I cut my teeth on the command line, so getting stuff done in a terminal session isn’t intimidating. (Even on Windows machines that I routinely use, I drop shortcuts for both standard and administrator command prompts so that I can open an appropriate console with a few keystrokes. GUIs are nice, but the command line is often the quickest and easiest way to accomplish some things.)

I don’t know if that really answered your questions, and I don’t want to completely hijack @peepeep’s topic (he creates so few, you know, so we must treat them as precious gems! ), but I’m glad that there are solid alternatives to Windows and macOS.

@StevenA

Windows I still keep around because I have a program that only runs on Windows.

This for sure. It’s annoying, but I do still use that older hardware and like being able to continue to connect to it remotely.

@StevenA

I am getting tired of Windows asking me to sign into a Microsoft account and asking me to backup to One Drive.

That’s annoying. I prefer just using local accounts.

@StevenA

Zorin OS 18 and Linux Mint might give a Windows user the most comfortable transition.

It’s been years since I’ve tried either of those. Lately I’ve used mostly stock Ubuntu, Trisquel, KDE neon, and Solus. For a Mac user like @habib, I’d probably look into something like Solus (or another distro running Budgie; I used Ubuntu Budgie for a while and liked that) or elementary OS, and there are likely several other reasonable alternatives depending on one’s desktop environment preferences.