Heyho, recently someone asked for the silliest reasons, but as someone who has suggested linux to many people, I often encounter people having valid reasons for staying with Windows or switching back.
The most boring but valid one is “I have to use Windows for work. It is a requirement (of some software I have to use)”. But there are also other answers that fit. My sister for example tried Linux, but while installing software constantly encountered issues that I helped her solve and eventually switched back because she felt like she had less control than over windows. While I am aware that this is fundamentally wrong, it is valid that some amateur users do not want to invest enough time to get over the initial hurdles of relearning how to install software.
What are the best reasons people have given you for not wanting to try Linux?
I can give you reasons I have for not installing Linux on one of my laptops:
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Intel graphics support, or the absence of it;
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decent touchscreen support (Windows Ink);
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WSL which I use with NixOS, and it does simplify most of my dev needs;
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unfortunately, Adobe apps which I still heavily rely on (I’d wish I had an alternative),
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PowerPoint (again, I’d wish I had an alternative).
If you want to comment: "oh but have you tried Affinity, Pixie, Only Office, Libre Impress, reveal.js, {enter your fav presentation/photo editing tool} – yes I have, and no, unfortunately, it’s not even close. Also, to be clear, I’ve never paid, and never will for the Windows/Adobe products.
(e) PowerPoint (again, I’d wish I had an alternative).
Oh for ducks’ sakes… just make pdf slides, do you really need animation and/or transitions? They are going to be a proufoudly horrible and disconcertingly awkward mind searing experience anyway
i use neither animations nor transitions. but i do extensively use movies (which have a horrible support in Impress), and i use lots of equations (which you can enable using third-party plugins in Impress, but working with them is very difficult).
i’ve been bitten twice when i’ve been traveling on a conference and had to quickly put up slides in Impress, and ended up not being able to do what i wanted because of all of its limitations. i ended up using reveal.js, but that also has its own drawbacks, e.g., the lack of UI, which i can use to quickly fine-tune arrows, text positions etc.
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Solidworks not being supported.
The solution I’m working on is to connect to a Windows computer via moonlight for their solidworks stuff, hopefully freeing up the potential to do Linux on their main machine
They didn’t want to constantly rely on me to fix every little thing they break instead of learning how to do it themselves.
No wait, that was my reason for not switching them. 😆
… Do you not have to deal with that already?
Thats why I switched them. And didnt give admin rights.
(I manage updates remotely)
I feel like we shouldn’t call them “admin rights”, it implies you should automatically get them.
My mum used to say “it’s a privilege, not a right” when I was young and I reflect on that when she calls me up because she can’t install some virus on her laptop without my password and I explain that the system is performing as expected.
I’m referring to certain people. I’ve transitioned people over and help them out with it, like my dad for instance who I have no expectations that he’d learn what a dotfile even is much less troubleshoot a problem.
This except I convinced my parents they didn’t actually need a computer in their lives anymore. It is win-win.
“I really only use the PC for gaming. Mostly, I play Valorant.”
There ya go, you’re not getting that working under Linux even if you are a master tinker. 🤷♂️ He did eventually switch, but not until long after he stopped playing Valorant regularly.
Some reasons are silly, some are incredibly valid. Sometimes it’s just “I don’t want to” and that’s OK too, lol.
For one of my friends its just cause she has a shitload going on and enough problems to deal with without trying to figure out a new way for her computer to work and whatnot
Plus I think art stuff she uses doesn’t support linux and she found krita unsuitable for how she likes to work
I am very pro Linux but “I like Windows” is valid enough for me. I might ask why but I am not going to act like that reason is invalid.
If they like Windows 11 I’d distance myself and watch my back while I’m doing it. Windows 10 was OK, 7 was great, 8 was at least not completely shit but the vibe coded mess of 11 can only appeal to serial killers or Hellraisers.
The people that say this probably never upgraded from Windows 10. Nobody who uses Windows 11 likes Windows (except my friend who works in software development, I don’t know what’s going on in his head).
I have windows 11 on my gaming PC and work laptop and don’t think it’s any worse than 10. Some UI is confused between old style and new, but Windows has done that since Vista. 11 doesn’t have so much of the awful drop-downs without borders and so on where you can’t tell where one component ends and another starts.
He’s a Windows security researcher. I felt dumb.
Couldn’t he still use Linux for his personal system?
He could, but he documents a lot of stuff including artifacts, so it just makes more sense to do all on a single machine. Also plays LoL.
Adobe software, autoCAD, and anticheat are the top 3 reasons I usually hear. While there are alternatives for the first two, people who need these specific tools professionally don’t really have the choice.
Anticheat for gaming is a big one too. Personally I didn’t even consider switching until I finally quit Destiny 2 for good. If the main game someone plays just doesn’t work, they’re not gonna switch.
Do you work with CAD programs and if so, do you know a full feature alternative? I grew up with Linux because my father had unix at work before CAD program makers moved to windows and nowadays he has windows because that is where his CAD programs work. He is in retirement already, but very much a creature of habit. So while he has time to learn something new, radically different controls or such wouldn’t work out.
I use commercial CAD. CATIA for car bodies. There is no FOSS alternative that comes close for my work. But the light at the end of the tunnel is, many CAD systems, including CATIA, are going web based. So users just need a browser on any OS. And the back end can be what it wants.
My father worked in machine development, I believe AutoCAD was actually one of the programs they used. I am sceptical when it comes to browser based versions utilising the full power of the system, interesting development for sure though.
Yes I have no interest in having a browser in the way. But 2 things. Firstly CATIA in a browser is just the same CATIA running on a remote PC somewhere. It’s the same program. And secondly, as longvas the UI looks and works the same, with no delays, then it’ll be fine. Sure you can’t use it when your wifi or Internet is down or slow, or the provider has power or Internet issues. And your customer is not a military or super secrecy case. But its clearly expecting to find a market.
I mean the bigwigs often have some kind of licensing that needs internet access if some kind anyway. So no internet is often an issue, even with the program on the pc itself.
Unfortunately not, just something I hear a lot from folks.
Thank you for taking time to reply anyhow!
Depends what he’s looking for. I think Onshape (browser based CAD) has a free version. Your data is public though unless you go with a paid version.
If he wants a free Linux CAD there is FreeCAD and a few others.
If he is attending a university, as some retirees do to audit courses or enrich life, then Siemens NX (what GM, Stellantis, SpaceX, etc use) have an academic license for around $100 a year. It is now Windows only based, unless you run Linux headless version, but if you use any version NX12 or below there is a GUI LInux version that runs on REL or SUSE (or openSUSE since it shares SUSE binaries)
Are any of those comparable in power to things like AutoCAD?
FreeCAD is a step below the AutoCAD suite. On shape is comparable for mechanical design. Siemens NX is top tier only matched in high end functions by CATIA. NX and CATIA dominate in Automotive, and Aerospace.
Thank you for the detailed answer. Maybe there is a way to find NX like you said, will certainly let him know.
It is very expensive, so ideally join a uni or school program that has acedemic licenses.
Personally I didn’t even consider switching until I finally quit Destiny 2 for good. If the main game someone plays just doesn’t work, they’re not gonna switch.
I’ve been running Linux as my main system for about 30 yers. During that time I’ve had a Windows partition or disk, on and off purely to run steam. Having to wait an extra thirty seconds to run a game was never an issue. And I could still do my stuff in a comfortable environment (once you’ve gotten used to a Unix desktop, you’ll suffer so much in Windows).
They are not ready. They took several years to master Windows to just a minimum of use. They don’t have the money to pay for help if problems occur. They don’t have someone in their network that can help them. They need a specific app to work flawlessly for either job or hobby. There’s a lot of good reasons. But there are getting less of them, while Linux is evolving.
Something equivalent to…“I just want to drive the car, not learn about the intricacies of internal combustion”.
Funnily enough, driving a manual car is interacting with intricacies of its drive and the internal combustion
@VoxAliorum accessibility is not as good as others OS. This is really the most legitimate reason I was given.
My silly reason is when it comes down to business the ms office suite works the best out of any office suite.
Sure that is because Microsoft spends more time making it incompatible with any other editors than actually developing decent software but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t trust people on the other end of the email to perform even one step of troubleshooting if the document doesn’t open for them on the first try.
ODF support is in MS Office as well, but if you want to be extra sure you can export as .doc from any office suite (Libreoffice should also tell you if a feature you are using can’t be exported).
That’s the thing, Microsoft intentionally breaks formatting of files exported from libreoffice.
Hmmm, don’t Libreoffice devs test it with actual MS Office instead of guesstimating the format?
Another thing that helps is baking in the fonts or using metric compatibles to MS ones.
Oh man, Teams +Outlook + Office 365 + onedrive +Copilot?
So good for office shit. So bad for hood practices.
“Hey copilot I’m pretty sure I got an email asking if I had an SOP on X. Can you find that email and the SOP?”
“Copilot, using the recording of the teams meeting ‘Training from Vendor X’ and my notes on ‘Tool Y’ can you compile that into a FAQ sheet for us?”
Sure it misses stuff and is only so good because none of the data is private, but man that’s 90% of my work load for SOP making. Worth the $400 a year corporate pays for it.
Come back after a vacation. Asked for all emails that I had actions in. Handled those. Later started going though my emails manually and discovered an important email with “ACTION NEEDED” and work someone directly mentioned me and the action I needed to do and a deadline. Don’t trust it that much now.
“It’s not compatible with all games”
“VR on Linux is trash”
“I can’t play XYZ game because Linux isn’t compatible with anticheat”
“Program XYZ doesn’t have a Linux version, I don’t want to learn a new program”
“Windows bloat never bothered me, I just ignore the AI/advertisements”
“I’m forced to use Windows because of my job”
“Linux is to complicated/troublesome. I just want something that works”
last one is not a good reason
Is it? For most users, windows takes care of absolutely everything and if something lacks, just google, download and done, especially because most software is written for windows. With Defender they even removed need of antivirus for a normal user.
If something lacks on Linux, half the time you need to say hello to console. You also need to learn about software alternatives, because there’s high probability that the default, well known option won’t work.
To both of which most people will say no to from the very start.
Honestly software management on Windows is trash. Oh missing a feature? Go fuck yourself, maybe tweet them, they might listen (lmao). Oh you want to tweak something? You can with this 27 step process and it will revert back in the next update.
Honestly, there is something to experience on a given OS, but every time I’m stuck doing stuff on Windows I get slapped in the face with how fucking tedious it is do anything simple. Like to be update to date for games takes seriously 3 different installers, two of which you have to research and find yourself (game store and drivers app). That’s what it is good at…
Hey, what you descibe is a power user. And that’s valid, but power users also don’t tend to have problems with linux, and they ain’t anywhere close to majority of computer users. Also, to even download a game nowadays you need to have store installed so that’s crossed out, and then game drivers are installed by the store so (or added to cd installer in ye olde times) so wtf you on about.
But again. You are power user. Linux is, IMO, better than Windows for power users because you can do whatever with it. Windows is, however, better for granny, weird office lady and that quite dense kid who, while wanting to use computers, cannot be bothered to learn anything more than where the web browser icon sits.
Drivers are for the hardware. Its a separate app on Windows I think AMD adrenaline and whatever Nvidia does is their driver manager otherwise it’s another web hunt like most apps on Windows.
The biggest advantage for those groups was decades of ads and being the default. Trust me work IT for decades none of those groups are good with Windows, its arguably worse for them
They use nothing but an iPhone. Not even a tablet. Just the phone.
TL;DR: Basically gaming compatibility and additional complications, on top of all what is new due to Linux.
I have a brother trying to convince him to use Linux over Windows (or at least dual boot). I could make him use Manjaro (back then when I was using Manjaro myself) on a laptop. That was his first experience and he is a gamer who likes multiplayer games. So the experience was a bit mixed. Later I borrowed him my Steam Deck for 2 weeks and it was a torture to myself, as it was the launch period of the hardware. And then I convinced him to buy Steam Deck instead a laptop.
He still loves the Steam Deck and uses it here and there, especially on vacation. But as lot of primary multiplayer games he play do not work on Linux and because of complications with some non Steam games and lot of applications he had, such as Discord, he went back to Windows on his new PC. Some complications arised because of the Steam Deck and its limitations, but that did not change the fact how games he plays are not working.
But he admits that SteamOS is the better operating system. And he understands why it is what it is, but as said, that does not change the fact he cannot play some of his favorite games on Linux. But that is not all. You have to understand that newcomers who experience LInux for the first time, and switched reluctant without research, don’t know what Wayland is, don’t know differences between desktop environments and has to deal with compatibility layers on top of all other new Linux stuff for them.
Why your sister felt she has less control is just a feeling, because she know less, therefore can control less. It makes sense from her perspective, so I would not say its entirely wrong.
Btw, not that it’s gonna change him or whatever, but discord works pretty well now, as well as on windows. You can share screen no problem Wayland/X11, audio is smooth and it basically works.
