Why Should You Switch to Linux, (Mostly) Wrong Answers Only

[silveradept]

The Document Foundation, responsible for the LibreOffice suite of office tools, posted a blog post in anticipation of the end of Windows 10 support with 10 reasons to ditch Windows and go to Linux instead. I appreciate their advocacy for such things, but I think their ten reasons are not actually good ones for the adoption of Linux, but realizing this means that I'm probably going to have to put down a blog post about it, rather than a social media quip. So, here we go once again, and I'm going to once again be a regular Linux user about this, rather than some superuser sysadmin.

1. No Forced Updates. Windows often interrupts your work with updates and sometimes restarts your system without permission. With Linux, you have full control over when and how you update. No surprises. No more restarts during a Zoom call!


They're right, you get to decide when you update your machine, but to say no "forced" updates is not correct. You can schedule in Windows when you want them to update by setting your work hours, so those of you who have a scheduled shift are unlikely to get your computer restarting in the middle of the Zoom call.

But you do have to update. The good thing is that there are a plethora of graphical tools that work as wrappers for the command-line tools and scripts that do updating, so that you don't actually have to see the guts at work if you don't want to. But just about every Linux insists that you update at least once every Debian Stable release or so, even if you don't do the in-between updates.



2. It’s Really Free. Linux costs zero in any currency. Most distributions are open source, meaning you can download, install and use them for free forever, with no licence fees or activation keys. There are also no “Pro” versions that hide features which are only available for a fee.
   


This is the "free as in beer" argument, usually, and while most distributions are indeed gratis, and most of the utilities they use release their source code, they are also very much as-is software in their licensing. The "Pro" version of most distributions is an actual professional, or whomever you're paying to manage and make sure that your systems are up to date and running smoothly. At least, if you're using this in business operations or any other situation where uptime or currency or other such applications are critical and need that kind of attention. So you don't pay for the operating system, yes, but you may end up paying for the people who are going to help you support it, or you're going to learn a lot about Linux in the meantime.



3. Speed and Performance. Linux is generally faster than Windows, particularly on older PCs. It starts up faster, uses less RAM, and does not slow down due to background processes. Your old PC will be given a new lease of life and will continue to function well for years to come.
   


Well, that's if you choose the right distribution. There are some versions of Linux that can run on a forty year-old processor and the amount of RAM a forty year-old computer would have with it, but those are generally considered to be for people who want to do that kind of thing, and are therefore at least moderate computer touchers. Most of the current distributions do want a relatively modern computer to work with, and they still do have background processes potentially slowing things down. Many of the major players in the Linux world have several different spins of their distribution, from one that's for computers that might not even be up to the task of drawing graphics all the way through a very shiny bells-and-whistles one that wants a very modern machine with some extra horses in graphics and in processor. Much of what's going to improve your speed and performance on older hardware is choosing wisely about what kind of GUI you want, so expect to have to take a few lumps trying things out on your machine to see if it actually goes as quick as you want to.



4. Privacy Built In. Unlike Windows, Linux does not track users, collect data about your connection or send your data to the cloud for “diagnostics”. What you do on your PC stays on your PC — as it should be with all operating systems.


This is true, but it's very narrowly true. Software that you run on Linux machines may have telemetry options, or you may be browsing sites that do a lot of ad fuckery, fingerprinting, and other privacy-invasive practices as their defaults, and so, just by installing Linux, you're not suddenly immunized from scummmy practices. You still have to engage in good privacy practices with your software and your Internet habits. After all, Chrome, the advertising platform that masquerades as a web browser, exists for Linux.

Now, a lot of Linux distributions and software will ask your permission first before collecting data to improve their processes or otherwise, which is a much better practice, but there are plenty of ways that you can still surrender your data.



5. No Useless Software. Windows comes with pre-installed software that you never asked for, such as games, shopping apps and trial versions. Microsoft also suggests Edge as if it were the only browser available. In contrast, Linux distributions allow you to choose exactly what to install, based on your needs.


Well, no, that's not actually true at all. Lots of Linux distributions have opinions about what software should be installed and what shouldn't be, all the way down to the question of what init system to use, and whether systemd is a demon from the lowest reaches of Redmond or a perfectly good way of managing a lot of the background tasks of a working system. So unless you go for the minimal installs, which are usually the ones recommended to people who know what they're doing and know what software they want to install, and in what order they have to install it to make it work, most people are going to have software installed with their distribution that they don't need or they find useless.

Where Linux actually shines in this regard is that just about anything that can be installed in Linux can be uninstalled in Linux. (You might break the system doing it, but you can.) So if you don't use the games suite that comes pre-installed with your distribution, you should be able to nuke all of it, without any of it having some kind of privileged status that means it can't be uninstalled, or that it will silently reinstall itself after you try to get rid of it. If you don't like a particular piece of software ,you can probably uninstall it and install something else. And there are some decent graphical tools for doing this packaged with most distributions. But it's not "there's no useless software here" as much as it is "when you have become comfortable enough with this distribution to have opinions about the software installed, you can uninstall what you disagree with and install what you agree with, and Linux will respect your choices in these matters." (When you start having opinions about system-level things, like the kernel used, init systems, compositors, window managers, desktop environments, and the like, you'll start looking for a distribution that aligns with your opinions and go from there, having used your knowledge to form your opinions.)



6. Security Without Issues. Linux is less targeted by malware because it has more robust user authorisation systems, meaning that an antivirus is not always required. It is more secure from the outset, especially for experienced users.


Unless, that is, Someone tries to compromise a widely-used set of utilities by posing as someone who will help out with those utilities and it takes someone investigating why their computer wasn't going as fast as they wanted it to discover the compromise. Once again, the relevant xkcd about what digital infrastructure actually relies on, and so, while it may be harder to run malware on Linux systems because of the greater protections between regular users and the superuser, or because some processes are sandboxed better, or other such things, Linux is not immune to compromise, and especially not compromise through non-technical means. And again, Chrome exists for Linux. So anything that runs solely in a browser doesn't care what system is underneath it.

Security in Linux is sufficiently important that people get certifications for it, because anything that's configured incorrectly is vulnerable to exploitation, even if the underlying libraries are not compromised, or the system itself doesn't have a system-level backdoor put into it by the manufacturer for ease of governmental spying. Good standard computer security practices will still be needed and useful on a Linux system.



7. You Own Your System. Linux enables you to customise every aspect of your desktop, from the user interface to the kernel. Windows locks you into its ecosystem, whereas Linux puts you in control.


Windows is pretty flexible in how much it lets you customize things. No, you can't change the kernel, but you can change just about all of the look and feel, and the default applications, and a fair number of other things, because plenty of open source programs and the like have been ported to Windows as well. And, again, all of that customization power comes with the high likelihood that you will break your system in some way at least once, if not more. Or that some update to an underlying library will break your system in some way. Because we're not talking about people who will examine every line of a diff to see if it will cause problems.

Microsoft does want to keep steering you to Microsoft things, the same way that Apple wants you to keep having Apple things, so you can take advantage of how much synergy they've put into it. Linux has synergies in distributions, and while you can choose different things for those distributions, (or, in pure Arch or systems like Gentoo, basically build your system from the ground up and make your own choices about your synergies) there may be some graphical wonkiness or some slight issues that come from using something other than what the distribution has suggested to you.

This is really a repackaging of the "free as in libre" argument, where Linux represents having a system where Microsoft or Apple or Google isn't standing in the way and insisting that it has to approve of everything that can be installed on its system, usually with some amount of financial demand for themselves for the privilege of being distributed in their app store or having access to a proper installation mechanism. (Or not having your code only run for seven days unless you pay for the developer license.) And that you don't have to pay anyone else for (or outright get refused access to) the code that runs the operating system or any other kind of situation where a corporation gets to dictate to the users how their computers and software are used, and to insist that nobody is allowed to peek under the hood and see what's going on. For people who are really about breaking monopolist, or oligopolies, and wanting to wean people away from corporate-controlled environments, this is usually their leading argument, and it tends to flop against someone who wants a system to Just Work, Thank You.



8. Easy Application Management. Linux uses package managers that enable you to install and update apps from trusted sources with a single command. This makes it much cleaner, safer and faster than Windows.


Windows also has an update sequence for the operating system, and for any apps installed from the Microsoft Store. What package managers actually do well is allow you to use one command sequence to update the entire system and all the installed software, instead of having to run Windows Update for the OS, and then to click into each of the pieces of installed software and run their update commands, possibly having to download new versions of the software from the website, then install them, and then also to install and graphics drivers, you have to use their program, and so forth. A package manager handles all of that by itself, and also makes sure that any software the program you want to sue depends on is also installed. Graphical package manager interfaces are all right, but they could use a lot more work to make it easier for people to find what they're looking for.

There's also a question in Linux circles about the use of things like AppImages, Snaps, Docker containers, and other things that, instead of relying on the operating system's package manager and packages to provide the underlying dependencies of a specific program, which may introduce inconsistencies between distributions, they package up a program and all of its dependencies into a single unit and then use only the things that have been packed with the executable without any need for the system libraries. This, theoretically, means that those kinds of programs should run regardless of what is or isn't installed on the target system, but there are, of course, variances. It's also possibly to completely segregate programming or scripting environments from the system and have them work in their own little worlds without touching anything on the system. This has benefits and drawbacks. So application management is not quite as easy as is stated here, but each of the various ways to manage packages are pretty good about being easy to use.



9. Freedom of Choice. The fact that not all Linux systems are the same is a good thing, as it allows you to choose the distribution that best suits your needs. While Windows offers a single version, Linux offers dozens.


The tradeoff, of course, is that you will burn significant amounts of time distribution-hopping and trying out software until you find something that works for you and that you are happy with. And it also generally means that no two Linux systems are exactly alike. A solution that works for Windows will work on all versions of Windows (usually), while a solution that works for one distribution of Linux or one installation of Linux may or moy not have any general applicability at all. You have a strong possibility of running into the jam choice problem with Linux, which is why so many distributions are highly opinionated about the software they choose and the methods they employ to accomplish their tasks.

Software that works for Windows generally works for Windows. Same for Macs, and they Just Work. Software for Linux is getting a lot better at Just Working, and most of that has to do with package managers and good metadata so that things don't break because something's missing that's crucial, and that we are not expecting the end user to seek out and install all the dependencies manually.



10. Community Matters and Helps. Linux boasts a global community of passionate users who love to help others. Stuck on something? Chances are someone has already solved your problem. The support is genuine and is often superior to that offered by Microsoft’s official channels.


If you're an information professional, you might be able to find the solution to a problem by searching forums, blog posts, and other such things, and knowing when you're staring at an 11 year-old StackOverflow post that won't be helpful, even though it seems to get referenced everywhere. Theoretically, there are also manual pages (the "man" pages) that describe how you can use software and the various options that it has. Some software even has documentation that has common issues and their fixes available. Not all software is well-documented, in code or otherwise, however, and so you may have to go to the forums with your issues even after you've done a thorough search and gotten your librarian friend to do the same.

That "passionate community," however, can sometimes be…sticklers for procedure, where you have to ask them for help the right way before they'll lift a finger. What's being asked for is supposed to be helpful to finding and solving problems, but gathering the required data often means dropping to console and running commands, and sometimes the commands being run offer up information that you don't actually want to post in a forum or online, but you have to know that in advance so you know to redact that away when you paste it all in.

Even then, recall that much of open source software and people is, as noted here, people who have time to offer assistance or work on projects. That generally means that you're looking at a very specific segment of the population that are computer toucher types with big enough salaries that they can afford to spend time doing something like open source software. So your average Linux user and/or developer of open-source software tends techie, rich, white, and male, because rich techie white males are usually over-represented among people who have free time and the access to resources that you need to run Linux well and especially to write software. Which can produce people generally denigrated as "FOSSbros." But also tends to produce people in forums who are not being helpful to people coming in with questions, but instead being insulting or otherwise extolling how easy it is to RTFM to someone who doesn't know where the manual is, much less how to interpret it to fix the error message they're getting. Or that issue requests get closed because they're not in proper form with nobody helping them get into proper form to work on.

And, as you might guess, with such an over-representation, the politics that get involved in open-source things, and Linux, and other such bits are not necessarily going to be the most progressive kinds. Accessibility tools exist on Linux, but core kernel developers, or distribution creators, or other folks who work on software are not necessarily designing and programming with accessibility in mind, which makes Linux a very dicey prospect for any user that needs accessibility tools and either doesn't already know how to set up their environment or doesn't have an abled person to set up the environment sufficiently to be usable. And if you ask about accessibility, you might get back the same ableist idea about not needing to design for such a small minority of users.

Even less friendly to everyone is that there's more than a few people that have ascended from merely missing stair to active problem. Richard Stallman, for example. Or David Heinemeier Hansson, for another, and the way that particular association has made Framework, the modular laptop creator, look a lot more like a Nazi bar than they may have wanted to be.

There are friendly people, and there are helpful people, and they are not necessarily anywhere near the majority of people who hang out on forums or use Linux. And I look just like a FOSSbro, even though I'm trying to be more helpful and less judgmental.

Ultimately, I think the Document Foundation is well wide of the mark of things that would actually get people to use Linux as a desktop or laptop system and get them to stick with the learning curve (because there is some learning curve) long enough to find a system and programs they actually enjoy. If I were going to pitch the idea of Linux, I'd start with how much the more beginner-friendly and popular distributions are set up to look like either Windows or Mac in their look and feel, and most tasks can be achieved through the GUI or by using a GUI shortcut / tool to launch a script that will handle things. The second thing to say is that it makes a great operating system for a secondary computer. So that machine that you're going to have to replace with something that will run Windows 11 properly, or if you've been curious about these single-board computers and what they can do, then that's your perfect target for using Linux on. You won't have anything affecting your primary computer, and if you break the Linux system, you can reinstall it without messing up your primary computer. (Knowing that you're probably going to shift between a couple different distributions before you find the one you like, knowing that you're going to be wiping and restarting regularly, it's much better to do that to something where it won't matter, than to something where you'll potentially lose data if everything didn't migrate properly.) And then, maybe, mention the fact that it's gratis, so you're not going to be out hundreds of dollars to find out that you absolutely hate it.

Most of the "control" and "freedom" arguments are at the bottom of the list, unless it's to someone for whom those things are likely to be important, because most people what something that works, and they don't care nearly as much about the philosophical underpinnings. It's good for feeling good about your moral choices, perhaps, but it's not going to win someone over right at the beginning. The freedom and control parts of it get introduced gradually, as someone starts to poke around and want to change things, then you can start showing them where the programs are that allow them to do that, or the system settings, or how to use their package managers for things other than just keeping the system up-to-date. (And yes, if you're evangelizing for Linux, that should also be accompanied by a "I will help you troubleshoot things and/or get started in Linux" offer, because nobody wants to learn a strange system by themselves if they don't have to.) Linux is very much one of those places where just-in-time learning should be the operating paradigm - when someone expresses a desire to do something, then the knowledge of how to do it should be furnished to them, instead of trying to front load them with all the knowledge.

So, while I appreciate all the people who have been saying "Now's the perfect time to switch to Linux!" with the end of Windows 10 support, I think the perfect time to have said that would have been to do it six months to a year before this happened. (Which people have been doing.) And preferably, doing so with the offer of buying someone a used machine so they could get comfortable with Linux in time to make the switch. I still think that's the way to go, and I'd like for it to be something that happens in the required schooling years, but I suspect fleet management for computers is a little more difficult in Linux spaces than it is in other spaces for someone who might be a paraprofessional with no technical expertise and who really needs to just push a button to send out updates or to install new software across the entire fleet. (Because, yes, that library paraprofessional might also be the person responsible for all the computers in the school.)

But, as you've seen, even amateur computer touchers such as myself can accomplish all kinds of things with their systems using what's already available and the occasional bit of staring at something and poking at it until it works. And it really has gotten a lot better about being able to play games since I first started on it, which makes me happy.

Comments

[silveradept]

Those are also entirely valid and high on the list reasons for people to switch. It's not quite something you can take for granted, but it is something that motivates.