For like a month or two I decided, screw it, I am going to use all the programs I cannot use on Linux. This was mostly games and music making software.
I guess it was fun for a bit, tries different DAWs, did not play a single game because no time.
Basically, it was not worth it. The only thing I enjoyed was OneDrive, because having your files available anywhere is dope, but I also hate it because it wants to delete your local files. I think that was on me.
Anyways, I am back. Looking at Nextcloud. Looking at Ardour. I am fine paying for software, but morally I got to support and learn the tools that are available to me and respect FOSS. (Also less expensive… spent a lot on my experiment).
Anyone done this? Abondoned their principles thinking the grass would be greener, but only to look at their feet coverered in crap (ads, intrusive news, just bad UI).
I don’t know. I don’t necesarily regret it, but I won’t be doing it again. What I spent is a sunk cost, but some has linux support, and VSTs for download. So, I shall see.
Welcome back. Good decision.
What you have learned about Linux is that the most important thing is FOSS/Libre computing.
Namely, that the user is no.1 and everything that the software does must always respect the freedom of the user and be to their benefit, and NEVER harm them.
THIS is what makes GNU/Linux special. Not the fact that it’s generally free of charge.
Now you’ve learned this, you will know why it’s impossible for any true Libre Linux user to ever go back to proprietary software. It doesn’t respect him or his freedom.
Now that you’re back, you have a ton of distros to choose from. Personally I use LMDE 6 but regular Mint is also great.
As for software, you may have to give up on some proprietary stuff if there is no FOSS equivalent but it’s worth it because you get your freedom in exchange.
If you depend on that software to make a living, simply install Oracle Virtualbox and run Windows in a VM just to run that software.
At least it can’t affect your Linux system and your main OS will be FOSS and when you’re done using your proprietary program, shutdown Winblows and it goes away until next time you need it.
Everything you typed out was a painful rediscovery on my part. I basically had to ignore my principles at every moment, but using Windows eventually became too gross, I had to get out.
For the money I spent experimenting with proprietary software, I could have donated to projects making the alternatives.
This is not a lesson I will need to learn again.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. The Linux path can be frustrating because you just wish the stuff was there that you need. And the pull of proprietary is the seeming ease with which you can get that stuff over there.
But it’s a bitter sweet trap. We all go though this until we realise we aren’t willing to take that crap anymore and we’ll just make due without that program/app and find another way to get stuff done.
Eh, I can’t use windows for any longer amount of time. I am WAY too paranoid. I always get the feeling of being spied on when I use windows. Like this slight nagging feeling in the back of my head. Never at ease as I am with linux.
Fixed this issue with Windows 11 Ameliorated. Now I can play VR in peace and also scroll through firefox without feeling this terror. Usually I felt very soon disgusted and booted up my usual Linux OS as soon as I stopped playing, but the ameliorated version fixed this feeling.
I had the same feeling too, like I had to strip off all my clothes just to enter a the party.
I will not be doing that again.
Running FOSS is practical for the long term, even beyond moral judgments. Proprietary software starts strong with lots of funding, but it only gets worse and worse as it goes along. Open source starts slower but plays the long game. You can take a look at something like Windows itself for an example of the gradual infestation of ads and user-hostile features/tracking. It’s never going to get better. The only hope for proprietary users is for a new proprietary app to be created and start off more user-friendly because they need to attract users. Once they have the users they’ll restart the cycle again.
That is what I am starting to realize. Every paid program that I used to desire is now subscription based.
Also, I am coming to terms with how truly powerful FOSS programs are. People seem to pay for the workflow, the user interface, more than the capabilities. At least I feel that way with DAWs. Ardour does everything. Vital makes every sound. I can be happy with that. I need to focus on making music.
The term you and @Yote are looking for is enshittification. Cory Doctrorow wrote a blog post about this.
Rent-seeking. That is a term I finally see defined.
I do not mind buying software, it is continuously paying for it that feels wrong.
Okay, lots of other comments I didn’t read, and this might have been mentioned.
👏Syncthing👏
You mentioned OneDrive. I also jumped around storage solutions as I explored the FOSS world, and nothing hold a candle to Syncthing (in my opinion, but I want/need to try nextCloud). I won’t drone on about it, but if you’re looking to ditch another big data company that’s probably scraping your files, check out Syncthing
When I was still new to Linux I also had these phases from time to time where I went back to Windows, used mainstream software, like Microsoft Office, etc… I was still undecided if Linux was really worth all the hassle and I wasn’t quite settled on either side.
But I always returned to Linux for whatever reason. Probably because using Windows just didn’t feel right … The times where I returned to Windows got rarer and shorter the older I got. The last time I used Windows for an extensive amount of time was during the Windows 10 beta period. I even had a Windows Phone for a year! I returned to Linux roughly once Windows 10 was released as stable (funnily enough).
I believe that you are likely in a very similar situation at the moment as I was. I think you might just need some time to settle with something and get comfortable. ;)
I just wanted to see if I was missing something, but the programs I trialing are either way too expensive or do not do anything better than what is available to linux.
Nowadays switching to Windows isn’t really an option for me anymore, as I am just too invested into the Linux ecosystem.
It’s always funny hearing about how difficult it is to switch from Windows to Linux, because you have to relearn how to use a computer and all your favourite software isn’t available.
But for me it’s the same, but the other way around! I would have to relearn how to document my installation (scripts, etc.), what program to use for which task or how to force a game onto a certain monitor (the last time I looked into this, the only way on Windows was switching the primary monitor before starting said game; on Linux I can just tell KWin how to make the program behave).
It would be a lot of work with little or no benefit to me and I’m not even sure if all my hardware is compatible with Windows, as I did all my software and hardware purchases in the last decade with only Linux in mind and I usually didn’t purchase something if the manufacturer offered no support for Linux (money talks).
For the forcing games in monitors, loading the game in window mode, dragging it to the monitor of choice and making it fullscrern back usually works. And games remember the screen usually, some even have a selection panel (PoE).
With the games from SCS Software neither of these things worked unfortunately.
But to be fair, they are also buggy on GNOME (Wayland) in combination with my dual monitor setup. The only way I get them to display properly in fullscreen on GNOME is to set them to windowed mode, as the titlebar is then off-screen for whatever reason and the games appear as if they were fullscreen. If I enable fullscreen mode, the upper half of the game gets shifted upwards and I only see the lower half of the game and half of my wallpaper. Since this issue on GNOME appeared with a game update, I believe this is a game issue and not a GNOME issue, but I haven’t spent much time diagnosing it further. Other games, like BeamNG.drive (native Linux version), work just fine on GNOME.
On KDE (Wayland) both games from SCS display properly in fullscreen mode and the only thing I need to do is to force them to the monitor in front of my steering wheel with a window rule.
All games tested are not native Wayland clients and rely on Xwayland unfortunately.
Studio One is coming to Linux. It is imo one of the best DAWs.
Studio One looks amazing! I am super interested in spatial audio.
I have so much to learn.
Technically, I’ve done as you’ve described several times over. Did it with IOS and Android - I approached both with an open wallet and open to doing things differently than I was used to. Could say the same for several gaming consoles and Chrome. ALL have required concessions on my part that left a bad taste in my mouth - speaking strictly from a User Experience perspective.
The worst of it has been all the apps that dissappeared from the IOS Appstore - apps I paid for and now all that’s available are pale imitations full of ads and demanding subscriptions.
I’m not asking the same apps to work across multiple decades either - the gap between my first iPad and my second was less than eight years.
I do gaming and music production on Linux without much issue at all these days.
Most games are pretty easy to work with these days thanks to Steam, Lutris, and Bottles.
As for audio, there are 4 key ingredients to my setup: Pipewire, Bitwig Studio, Wine and Yabridge.
Pipewire is pretty easy to use and works in a low latency setting just fine, so imo you no longer have to juggle PulseAudio + JACK.
Bitwig isn’t open source, but it’s fantastic and inspiring and supports Linux natively. They’ve also been great about stuff like the new open source CLAP plugin format.
I’ve found that Wine (staging) does a pretty reasonable job handling any Windows VST I’ve thrown at it, but it’s a bit of work getting it setup, especially if you’re new to the concept.
And finally yabridge is a great CLI tool for turning all of your Windows plugin .dlls into Linux .so, that you can easily use in your DAW of choice.
So if you want to do music production on Linux then definitely check out Bitwig and Reaper (along with Ardour, like you mentioned). And personally, I think that if you have a decent chunk of Windows VSTs it’s worth investing a bit of time learning how to getting them working in Wine and then bridged with yabridge.
I still run dual-boot because Linux can be fucky and incompatible with things like Adobe but I am on Linux 99% of the time. But I also run software to strip most of the ads and spyware from Windows. But it feels like paying for a job and then turning around and doing the job yourself anyway 😡
I don’t know your situation. I’m not an graphsit.
But what I’ve discovered,
There is nothing better to apply an self strict boycott, to learn other tools like gimp or others.In the gaming, the boycott work as a filter though, which game I can or I can’t.
And that’s fine, and more the time is going on, and more its better and I don’t feel my boycott hurting me so much. I’ve discovered (by my self, I knew it) apex legends last year to tell you XDto learn other tools like gimp or others.
If you’re doing anything professionally (even freelancing) that’s not often an option. No matter how good you are with gimp if client demands that you deliver PSDs to them. Even if you could model the next Titanic at the most beautiful way on freecad it’s worth nothing if client demands solidworks files. And so on.
Self imposed boycott is of course fine if it works for you. I’ve been using Linux since RedHat 5.2 as a daily driver, but since I make a living with computers as well I need to have Windows around for this and that. More often than not it’s of course paid by the company, but I’ve been doing freelance stuff as well and there I need to pay for my tools.
Yeah clearly, that’s why I did start by saying I don’t know the situation of OP.
I’m speaking as an user/gamer, who do things just for myself mainly ^^
I don’t have the same consideration and focus as an freelancer like you. Clearly.
I get that. I mean, WINE has gone a long way, but it is not perfect. I think I need to buy an SSD just for Windows, and that would be ideal.
I’ve no idea how to use Wine.
My laptop is my main PC and it only has 1 SSD slot and I barely even use any of it anyway so I just split in half. But that works, too!
I’ve no idea how to use Wine.
I think Windows does some things well, that are just worse in KDE
- Ctrl+Alt+Delete, Taskmanager is actually privileged and can force close running apps. On KDE the same apps exist but they are not privileged enough. EDIT: of course it is privileged, but it doesnt even open if the “Desktop” hangs. There seems to be no privilege isolation, nothing left as security space for these tasks.
- The UI is more stable, the bars dont weirdly load, App Windows just open in full size and not fly around. When an app crashes I can still use the cursor (often)
The Rest is crap, like everything. Updates are horrible and intrusive without a single reason. Immutable updates are so much better, regular Linux Distros probably cant compare regarding security.
I have tried to use and like KDE so many times… I always go back to XFCE or GNOME.
Press ctrl+alt+esc. The cursor will change into a red skull and when you click a window, the process running it will be instakilled. Press esc again to cancel. That’s much better than going through task manager, finding the right process and then killing it.
This is X11 only.
Insync supports OneDrive on Linux, been using it for a long time although I don’t touch cloud storage that much. I like having local copies of everything that does happen to be in the cloud.
I will check it out! I do enjoy the redundancy of local copies, which is why OneDrive sucked.
But you can keep your files locally with OneDrive. You can do it on a per folder basis even. I’m sorry, but this is on you.
Oh I know! I cliced the wrong congiguration setting. It was a trifle to get all the files back, but it took some time it make me realize I do not want program that would even do that.
