Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm half-joking because I think the superior operating system is a personal matter, but I'm also half-serious in that I personally think Linux is superior. This post is meant as an attempt at starting a humorous discussion for us Linux users to conceitedly pat ourselves on the back for being superior at choosing the best operating system because being on an autism board, surely there are other Linux users on here.
Freedom!
- You can investigate the code and adapt it however you want because no one owns it. It belongs to the people.
Control!
- Since it's free, you have control over how the operating system functions.
Aesthetically gorgeous!
- Since We can control all aspects of the system, we can make it look amazing, Look at how nice my desktop is!
Speed!
- It's super fast due to limited to no bloat depending on your setup. There are even distros for less powerful machines so that older computers are still functional and speedy.
Security!
- You have control over it. Additionally, since it requires someone to actively learn how it functions, users tend to be better educated and reduce mistakes that result in hacking/viruses.
Privacy!
- Your operating system use isn't being collected and used or sold for commercial purposes
Apps!
- There are so many apps to choose from. Have a task you want to complete? 99% of the time, someone has already created an app for it and is freely sharing it through the software repositories, GitHub, or elsewhere online.
Online support communities
- There are lots of online communities to help even the most novice users. There are so many communities, that there are multiple separate communities for nearly each distro and desktop environment.
It's cool!
- What can be cooler than controlling your machine by creating the operating system you want for yourself that looks however you please?
- Also, the name GNU's Not Unix is a recursive name that points out a paradox in our language and logic. That's super cool!
Limited drivers and gaming
- Because Linux is not commercialized for-profit and widely adopted like Windows and iOS, there is less incentive for companies to spend resources on developing drivers and games for it, so brand new machines may have difficulty with drivers and there are less options for gaming. However, I will note that there are some workarounds and emulators that help Linux users play their favorite games, such as Wine, Play On Linux, and Proton.
Can be annoying to discuss with normies
- Since Linux is a niche community, we can be annoying when the topic of operating systems comes up because people don't like to for us to point out they use an inferior operating system.
While we're on the subject, I would love to get better as using Linux. Currently, I use it similar to Windows, so I'm certainly not taking advantage of the possibilities. I'd like to learn to code so that I can personalize even more. If you have any resources on learning to code in Linux or how to really personalize it, I'd love to see them.
I’m an Apple user now but I’ve tried many different operating systems over the years. I like how all my interconnected devices are all synchronised together seamlessly now. I have a smart home and I can even use my watch to turn my light off for example. However we have something In common, both have our roots in UNIX.
I avoid anything Apple because I find it restrictive and a bit expensive for my taste, but I can see how if the setup works for someone and they have the means to afford it, it's totally worth it. Apple products integrate with themselves so well and seem to just work right out of the box with barely any effort. It's a smooth seamless experience. It makes sense for a lot of people, and I hear that it is pretty well-tailored for people in audiovisual/computer graphics fields. Again, it's not for me, but I can see it's value.
I agere. We both have the same roots: UNIX
I really don't think Apple products are well-tailored for the audiovisual/computer graphics fields. I think they spent a lot of the 90s aggressively making their products the default for the industry. Example 1. Final Draft. Final Draft is word processing software. It only works on Apple hardware. It's a word processor. That's what it does. It's optimised for film scripts. The requirements of a film script are that it should be in courier font and centre-aligned. That's it. Any word processor can do this. Yet Final Draft is the industry standard. When I took an evening class in film-making 15 years ago we were told that the film industry only accepts scripts in with a Final Draft filetype. Theatre scripts, btw, are actually much harder to format but there is no industry standard word processor for theatre scripts.It only makes sense as a way for Apple to make money by monopolising a glamorous industry. Macs are glamorous, people who aspire to work in film are often aspiring to a certain social status, and the sleek aesthetics of a Mac make the perfect status symbol.Example 2. The track-pad. I'm on a Macbook right now, it's over 10 years old so the iOS stopped working a long time ago, so the previous owner gave it to me and I put Linux Mint on it.
Last night I tried working on some graphics on it for the first time using GIMP. The trackpad has no buttons. Apple hates buttons. Buttons are not sleek. So you tap once for a left-click and twice for a right-click. When you're working on graphics you're doing some fine motor control with your mouse/track-pad. For me, if I'm using a trackpad on some delicate work with my dominant hand, automatically my secondary hand is gonna want to come in to help stabilise. But what happens on an Apple trackpad? A right-click. Suddenly graphic design that was easy on an old 2008 Thinkpad is infuriating on an Apple. Because it's not actually designed like a tool. If something is really optimised as a tool for a craft, it has to be ergonomic and functional. Buttons really help functionality, but Apple hates them because it doesn't fit the look. Conclusion: It's a scam. Yes they are well-built, the keyboard is actually great and I do use this machine for writing but so was the keyboard on the Thinkpad T60. _________________________________Final Cut, the video editing software is of course the clincher for Apple. And there is still no Video Editing equivalent to GIMP (Open Shot maybe?). But I really think it's a case of Apple using Final Cut to keep a grip on the film industry and anyone who wants to make films or video; rather than actually caring about making machines that function really well as tools for artists. Yes it's UNIX based, but isn't their software still proprietry? If that really meant anything in terms of the philosophy of Linux and FOSS then I'd be able to use Final Cut on Linux, but I can't.</rant>
the very core kernal of OSX used to be open source because it used open source code [not because apple wanted it to be], I don't know if it still is. The (as standard) packages and the (gnu like) comandline tools are not as far as I know.