Productivity with a Linux OS

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
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Search: most distros have these functions, Unity is very much like Windows search in that it's equally useless and messy, but the search functions of Gnome, KDE (many choices there, you can pick the one you prefer), XFCE (Catfish and Whisker), etc... are much easier to use and give better and especially more relevant results, and don't slow down the system by indexing it for hours on end. Some search functions are only available on linux, like the image or sketch based search or face recognition (of the privacy aware kind) in Digikam, that's technology that Windows doesn't even come close to.

Gparted is one thing, Gnome disks, the KDE partition manager, or even the CLI drakxconf utility, are all more powerful, more reliable, and more user friendly than the Windows partition manager, not to mention that the Windows partition manager is a joke, because it doesn't even work with modern non-fragmenting fast and secure file systems, and can't even make a partition of more than 2 GB, etc... and the graphical representation of the partitions in Windows partition manager is very confusing, and if you want to get real work done, you have to hit the command line in Windows and use chkdsk /f.

On linux, you get automatic notifications of updates centralized, and you never have to worry about software sources, and all software operations, installs, deinstalls, updates, upgrades, are all easily and clearly accessible in a central GUI software center, whereas Windows is complete chaos, you have to spend time updating every application separately, the Windows update functions blocks the computer pretty much and is not transparent in what exactly it does, you need to restart for the slightest change, and you need to always check for patches and anti-malware updates manually, without any form of centralized software management application.

All my friends use Linux, and my father (70+) is an active community developer for a few linux-based open source projects that he really likes. Every time I ask a Windows user a question, it seems that they have no real answer, the most popular answers seem to be "try restarting the computer" or "try reinstalling windows", but other than that, if I want a real answer, I have to search the KB for hours, the KB which doesn't even have a decent search function...

22

Pretty much everything has a linux alternative, some may not be as mature YET but there is pretty much everything you need. Libre office is much better than ms office, nicer interface and just was easier for me personally to learn to use. Sure I had to learn a bit after switching from ms office to that, but now thats all I use even on my windows gaming machine.  Audacity is great for audio editing, gimp is great for photo editing, eclipse and code::blocks work in linux, although a lot of the time you may be better off just using bluefish text editor to write your code in and compile form the command line just what I prefer to do anyway. For video editing theres a LOT of options to use so I wont list them all here.

 

Gaming, well there steam on linux, and humble store's drm free games are mostly all on linux, the frostbite engine(freaking EA even) is being ported to linux, and even gog is working on supporting linux.   With frostbite on its way I suspect cry engine 3 and origin will not be far behind. Unreal engine 3 had a linux port, dungeon defender's linux port used it, so theres already that, I expect UE4 to get one soon if its not already in the works. There is a reason for this, these are not stupid companies they  can see the writing on the wall. Even I only use windows for gaming, if not for that I wouldn't use it on my boxes. I have a linux laptop and yes I have steam on it and game on it.

 

The software is almost there for day to day linux desktops to rule. What is NOT there? Easy of use for linux distros themselves. I will not lie and say they are not fairly user friendly, ubuntu and mint are easy enough for my 60 year old father who had hardly ever used a computer and could barely use windows to jump in to and with a fair bit of my help he can now use a linux laptop easier than he could when it had windows 7 on it, but linux is not as easy for a non computer savvy person to just jump in to as windows is.   It is ALMOST there is sooo close, but the thing holding it back is the terminal. not so much the terminal itself but that you pretty much HAVE to use it if you want to use linux. On windows in my 22 years of life, and 18 years of using a computer there were 2 times when I *had* to use the command line on windows, on linux I have lost count of the number I times I have *had* to use the terminal. Now I may be okay with using the terminal, and are probably most people here, but most of the general public aren't.  They want to just be able to click and go, and until linux desktop distros allow that I don't think it will gain the user base, not without force. I'm not saying get rid of the terminal, but it needs to be optional. 

 

My $.02 anyway. Linux production software is pretty much there, but linux itself isn't quiet for normal people to use.

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You summed it very well. That Linux is great for people who don't know anything about computers and power users. The average user will almost have a panic attack if you tell them to use a terminal.

The other big issue with switching for many people is that they don't understand you use a package manager and not the Internet for software. I have seen so many thread with why can't I install some .tar file even though it exist in the easy App Store. Android and IOS are helping destroy the manage all software independently mentality.

The other is the file system. I know plenty of people who tried to switch to linux that didn't understand why programs were in different directories and not in a programs folder.

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Can someone objectively explain why and how Libre office is better than MS Office?? Today in class i was annotating data from an experiment and then i had to plot  it to see if it made sense..

So when i want to plot something on MS Excel i just select the data and click insert then choose the type of plot..the next moment i tried to do the same in Calc and i had to struggle to find the pot section and then when i tried to plot i had to choose the type of chart in a different window....man, this took a lot longer and a lot more steps than excel! How is this productivity! it's the exact opposite.

 

And then we have word...Dont even try to make a case for Libre Office Writer, word is better at everything you can think of in terms of productivity. The ribbon bar is a godsend that makes formating reports much faster and is also much more robust in terms of features in comparison to Writer. Want to make a citation for a thesis or a paper? MS Word has a bunch of important referencing standards available ad a much more robust reference library when you have to choose the source you are using....

I dont want to bash on open source, i have already switched to linux on my laptop (my gaming destop remains in windows 8.1 and will do so for a long time), but i inevitably have to use Windows applications to be able to work. (i'm a physics engineer student btw)

And then there is software like matlab and origin pro that are just unmatched by their open source counterparts...