this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Oh god, this meme. It's not something I've ever seen before, but it's so true.
God, Tor, freaking Tor. Bless it's heart, really, but it's practically unusable. At least for me. I was really getting into it, trying to use it as a daily browser, ran with so much less ram than all the others. But it's practically unusable! All the shitty websites I had to go on daily for School practically didn't work, and half the websites would always take at least 10-15 minutes to get working because they keep thinking I'm a hacker. Or it's just region blocked, and I have to spend SO MUCH TIME making new connections in the hopes it doesn't go to a single blacklisted country. Sometimes even with a phone there to authenticate, it just doesn't work. So I had Firefox anyway, it was literally what Tor was built off of. And because of how unbelievably inconvenient and annoying Tor (Or more accurately, how shitty the Internet in general has got, I really wouldn't mind logging in to every website every time, with a phone authentication every so often) was, I ended up just using Firefox and using Tor for dark web stuff. Essentially, what it's supposed to be used for.
Linux...man, Linux was always one of those things I wanted to get into, but thinking critically, it would be very dumb for me to do. Almost every single thing I do is required by a Windows app. Critical and niche shit, mind you. So essentially, it'd be the Tor situation all over again. I'd be doing effectively everything worthless on Linux while molesting my computer for a VM for windows, which I would be doing on a daily basis for practically as long as I use the computer. So I'm practically stuck being a normie. I try to do everything I can to stop all these companies and shit tracking me and have my machine running faster, like running scripts to debloat windows, but in the end, it doesn't amount to too much. I'm stuck a normie, no matter how much of a poser I act.
Wine and crossover can probably meet the needs of most of your windows app needs at this point, which realistically aren't a lot if you look into it, and keep a windows vm / cloud instance handy. Why not try a vm of Linux on your windows machine (or use WSL) to get your toes in the water to see if your assumptions are still correct today?
I tried. I have very peculiar needs, I'm not joking when I say I use shitty old programs from before the millennium AT LEAST EVERY WEEK. Very specific niches that I have found no solutions for on Linux.
Essentially, I need Windows for it's main selling point. Insane compatibility on software from every field. And until Linux can actually RIVAL windows instead of presenting Fisher price alternatives, I'm forced to stay with the shackles of blasphemy.
I've tried it in the past. The actual UI and the general process of doing things was the least of my issues. I'm not loyal to Windows or anything at all, I can easily get used to that.
Props for even actively thinking about it, that's always the first step! If you want to switch to Linux I recommend first switching to apps that run on both Linux and Windows. They exist for almost every use case, and you can migrate gradually app by app.
That's unfortunately simply untrue. You can't, with a straight face, claim that there is any actual competition to Photoshop, Revit or a myriad of other, non-programming use-cases. It's easy to use Linux when you're a developer, it's almost impossible if you're an architect. Sure, you can use wine. Good luck, half of photoshop builds are borked. All Revit has garbage rating on wine. You just can't professionally escape windows if you're in a wrong profession.
This is sadly just true. At least I as an artist could decide to bite the bullet with Clip Studio and learn Krita instead which is not THAT inferior. But to tell a Photoshop professional to switch to GIMP is simply stupid. If only Affinity ported their crap to Linux...
Hopefully with China moving to openKylin, there may be more adoption for the Linux desktop, and it hopefully maybe will incentivize corporations to port their stuff. But for now, yeah.
I mean, I'm talking about switching IF there are apps for your workflow on Linux. If not then of course this is not (yet?) an option for you. But that's exactly why I say switch app by app, so you can figure out if your workflow would actually work. Afaik many people don't switch because the apps they are used to don't exist on Linux, not because there are no replacements. And as a side effect, most Linux apps are open source, so even switching to just some of those is still a good thing.
First of all, if you want to get into Linux, DO IT! It's truly awesome, I love it. Just get Mint, throw a Windows skin over it and nobody will notice, trust me. Honestly, it's incredibly rewarding.
When it comes to browsers, I now have the best setup I could think of: LibreWolf. It's a hardened version of Firefox. It doesn't use TOR and all websites are accesible. I use Startpage as a search engine. Granted, it can be a bit slow but it gets great results and there is a button that lets you open websites via a Startpage proxy. LibreWolf by default erases all browser data on exit so for logins I use KeePassXC password manager. It has an awesome addon which automatically fills in login fields, it can do TOTP and autofill that, too. It's pretty great.
For mobile KeePassDX is great