this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Because Windows just works. And yeah I need non-open source software shock horror and I dislike Linux's "oh no your accidentally installing some proprietary software you silly billy don't worry I've prevented it".
But also it's really not my choice if the program I want to install doesn't actually work on Linux and does work on Windows then realistically I have to use Windows.
They are probably referring to distros that for legal reasons don't include things like Codecs or proprietary drivers and stuff... and then you need to first research how to manually install those, after figuring out that you even need to do that at all...
OP is a silly billy and doesn't know how to properly use Linux.
That's exactly the issue... you need to properly use it. Most people don't, and can't be bothered to when Windows is just pre-installed and mostly doing its job alright...
Linux never prevents you from installing anything. What distro was this and what happened? :)
The one where the library the program needed had to be required from source, and the source had dependencies not in the distro's repo. Flatpacs might finally be solving this, but for some reason Linux folks still think bundling a few hundred kb of libraries and dependencies with the program is a big nono, so software install is really really hard for anything not in the repo, whereas on Windows it just works.
If you only need Firefox and VLC, Linux is great. If you use a wide variety of programs, expect most to either not work, or only be usable as the Windows version through Wine.
Oh look, a person whos never used linux but complains
Ever heard of wine?
Yeah but of course but with Windows I don't need a third party program to install things onto the OS.
When you actually think about it is bizarre why don't they just let people install things.
I don't think you understand how Linux and software work. Windows software doesn't work on Linux because it depends on other Windows software. Wine tries to supply these missing pieces. Linux isn't stopping from doing anything.
Yes I do understand how Linux software works. I don't like it, I'm allowed to understand it and still not like it. What's with the gatekeeping?
I want my computer to just work I don't want to have to mess around with it I don't want to have to try and manage drivers and find versions of drivers that work with a particular operating system I just want to install the program and then use the program.
Windows offers me that. As does Mac accept it comes with a stupidly expensive computer.
Linux is just unnecessary busy work for people who like that kind of thing but I don't really care about all of that stuff I care about using the programs not the underlying computer stuff. If you like that kind of thing great. But I just want the operating system in my case to get out of the way.
As I said the programs I need to use do not work on Linux I've tried to get them to work on Linux and either they straight up won't run, or they run with terrible performance even with Wine. So it was never really my choice to like Linux.
At that point I gave up and just went back to Windows because realistically I just don't actually care that much. The point is if it isn't easy to use out of the box 99% of people are just going to consider it not worthwhile.
Besides I would only end up remoting into a Windows computer anyway in order to get work stuff done, so it just seems like unnecessarily adding a layer of complexity. Just so I can go "screw you Microsoft". It's not like they'll notice.
Linux is veganism for computers.
Veganism for computers.
How can you tell if somebody is a Linux user? Because they tell you, immediately, upon meeting them for the first time. Then they tell you you're a stupid subhuman for using windows.
It's great fun.
There's WSL on windows, I don't wanna say it's the same thing as wine, but yeah, you may need other programs to install linux software on windows.