this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Linux is a far more reliable operating system at the kernel level, which is why the vast majority of the Internet runs on Linux, and is very stable compared to anyone's personal computer (no matter O.S). It's also lighter weight at its core, which is a big plus for servers.
The thing about Linux desktops that tend to be finicky is interop with some proprietary software (e.g nvidia drivers) or desktop environments (gnome can freeze/crash if you like running bleeding edge before bugs are ironed out). Windows has issues too however, free software often literally doesn't run on Windows (requiring WSL, the same way games on Linux require wine), and the desktop environment is essentially indistinguishable from the base operating system. When you get a desktop environment crash on Windows, your system will BSOD and restart with no recourse, in Linux I can ssh into my still functioning computer and kill my DE, or drop to the TTL and do the same thing.
The end might not seem like a big deal for some people (who cares if you have to restart by a button press or kill your DE and login, they'll take a similar amount of time), but for someone like me where reliability is a big concern (as in, uptime for the half a dozen services/containers I run for people), this is great. People watching media off of jellyfin don't have to stop because of a DE bug, but on Windows a BSOD would stop their media (and within the last week we've had several BSODs on Windows PCs due to bugs relating things like adaptive sync or sometimes just unknown reasons).
For what it's worth I also game exclusively on Linux, vk3d, dxvk, and proton are godsends. Somethings don't work, developers who won't flip the switch for EAC (e.g Fortnite), but for me the games I play always worked. This will actually change soon, Vanguard is coming to League and that only works on Windows, but also probably not my last install of Windows (I tried W11 when it came out because I'm just curious about new tech), but I had to do a TPMBypassCheck despite having ftpm enabled in the BIOS, and afaict, at least from people I know with similar builds to me, if this happened then firmware TPM probably isn't being picked up by W11, and that means I need to buy a TPM module or drop to W10 to play League. Plus, vanguard is an intense rootkit with full 24/7 access to your O.S so I probably don't want that installed anyway, even if it happened to work on Linux. Just going to stick to SoD for now in my free time lol
I have a steamdeck and it's a brilliant bit of kit and if the whole Linux eco system had this same sort of cohesion and "out the box" working experience then it would probably be far more adopted.
Your point on stability is great, but for most people I would say they rarely see BSODs, windows is pretty stable too, I think a lot of the reasons that corporate servers use Linux over windows is more to do with licensing and permissions, I have seen plenty of windows server setups which works fine 24/7 so I don't think windows is any less stable, it's just more faff to setup things which are based on Linux conventions/features (i.e docker).
If Windows went back to how it was in window ls 7 where it didn't ram garbage down your throat every update I wouldn't have any problems with it.
Exactly this. To both points actually. I have a home server on debian and after a bit of setup woes(partly linux still being so reliant on CLI, partly my inexperience with it), it's been running super smoothly. Have multiple dockers and it has been a joy. And same for the steam deck, it just works. Some glitches here and there with controller support but that's just PC gaming. But I installed it on my laptop as well and that was a shitshow. All biometrics wouldn't work, wifi kept dropping in and out, phantom touches now and then. Sure I could have done some cli technical wizardry but I gave up after trying to make it work half as smoothly on my workflow as in windows. And the windows 11 on it is utter garbage. Partly this is manufacturing not having linux drivers available and partly it is linux just not having guis for essential functions. Hope steam is able to have enough of a push to get much needed consumer friendly guis for more system functions.
Really? Busybox is more-or-less feature equivalent to a BSD userland (FreeBSD userland can be a bit more bloated, see the ls man page), but how many people have picked that up? Still using GNU coreutils, haha.
I saw many *BSD developers told Linux kernel developers to hang their work for a while and fix quality problems.