I Take Back Everything I Ever Said About Windows Being Easier than Linux

Coffee break
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I had an epiphany last night that I would like to share. I was so wrong about this issue.

I am sure many of you will not be surprised by this because I have heard similar from some of you and your comments have probably helped me see it for what it is.

Okay, so as many of you know, I am moving an office of computers from Windows to Linux.

I have 1 OM Rock 6 system up an running like a top after a bit of a learning curve. I am a Linux Noob. This system has low specs but operates on par with beefier systems in the same office. The frustration is getting something new working but then it works once it is set up.

On the other hand, I am a Windows power user from operating on pretty much every version of windows to date.

The closer I get to my deployment, the more issues I keep having with Windows! I am having the most annoying stupid problems with Windows 10 that you can imagine. As I think back, I realized that it has always been this way. It’s just that I was always right on top of it, fixing it as it happened. I am so good at fixing these issues that I barely noticed them along the way. Funny how you can be blind to such a thing.

However, I have been paying less attention to my Windows systems lately because my computer maintenance time has been put towards learning Linux in general and OM specifically. As a result, my Windows systems are basically falling apart around me!

I am sorely tempted to bump up my deployment date and come what may.

It can’t be worse than this half-in half-out thing I’m doing now.

Just wait until I develop half the proficiency with running Linux systems as I did with Windows.

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Did you get smb and printing worked out? What is holding you up right now?

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I am skipping SMB altogether now.

Nothing is really holding me up except additional testing and a Nvidia card I am about to replace at this point. I might just jump in the deep end and learn to swim along the way to be honest.

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As of right now, I can do all the vital daily functions on the OM laptop without any issues at all so I don’t see the need for a lot of extra testing when you factor in the Windows issues I’m having. I might as well funnel that effort into building the new instead of patching up the old.

Plus, the jumping back and forth is giving me a headache.

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Welcome to the club

According to youtuber Joe Collins, the people who have the most trouble switching are the power users. Because we have so many habits and so much muscle memory we’re not even aware of what we’re doing half the time. We just do it on autopilot.

https://www.youtube.com/@EzeeLinux/videos

:smiling_imp:
Now just wait…Cinnamon? Fluxbox? dwm? You can already feel it…the command line is reaching out to you…calling you…

Come over the the Dark Side Billie…We have cookies :cookie: :cookie: :cookie:

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I think I saw on another thread that you will be funneling all of your printing through a single windows pc. Is that still the plan?

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For almost a year, between August 2020 and June 2021 I tried flipping back and forth between Linux and Windows, constantly trying different distros to see if there was that one magic distro that was exactly like Windows. I never did find it. Not for lack of trying. But Windows 10 was getting so slow and clunky, and my even older laptop was almost dead, with Windows 7 taking almost 15 minutes to boot up. I have said it in the past, perhaps not here, every Windows update is a guaranteed downgrade.

I finally realized that going back and forth was a complete waste of time, sort of like trying to win when playing those Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time games for Windows 3.1. You can’t win, only waste time. Once that sunk in, I just jumped into Kubuntu at that time, formatted the drives to ext4 from NTFS, and never looked back. Only then did I realize how much time I spent waiting for Windows to do something and all the “security updates” that were system performance downgrades.

Yes, I had lots of questions, grief, and cluelessness. I was not aware of OpenMandriva until Lunduke sent me here a few months back. Only then did I find people who were open to helping others. Only after I botched three installations, 100% my fault, not the forum, and not OM. If you are going to screw something up, and it was your fault, own it and learn from it.

I am still using those two old laptops, both ASUS, one from 2012 and the other from 2016. I even stuck a new battery in the 2012 model a few months ago because the old one was still the first and was getting to that point. It is the one running SMB and acts as a file server, freeing up the 2016 model for everything else. Besides, the 2012 model has always struggled with any video over 720p while this one is good for 1440, providing the frame rate doesn’t exceed 30. Which is still better than 1080 when it ran Windows 10 while still new. So yes, Linux is faster than Windows 10 with the same hardware. At least for me.

SMB:
As long as I have someone’s attention, I might as well add that some software applications will not work with SMB as intended. I don’t know why, but they won’t. And they are not Flatpaks either. Earlier today, I was trying to save a .pdf file across my local network using SMB, and it kept on failing. I just cut my losses and saved it locally to the Downloads folder and then used Dolphin to get it where it needed to go. Probably a bug in the application. You will encounter strange things like this particular instance. I have to do some more testing to find out if other applications do the same thing. Curiosity more than anything. So long as SMB works with Dolphin, my television, my iPhone, and my iPad.

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I haven’t setup samba in a few years, but I remember it being a pain, and this year after installing OM on my home server I started using NFS. Much faster transfers for me. Where samba was givimg me about 40MB/s write speeds NFS is doing about 150MB/s. When I’m pushing sometimes over 100GB at once NFS is saving me a lot of time.

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For now as I mostly just use it for printing packing slips. It is not a big enough part of my workflow to worry about right now. I will likely look for another sharing method or just buy a network printer some time later.

I am actually comfortable with the command line as I have used a lot of python scripts and PowerShell stuff in my Windows usage. Not to mention good old DOS. I still have a DOS PC I use for gaming now and again.

This is my favorite thing about Linux, I have 2 old laptops as well and they chugged hard on Win10 but now they are working for me instead. One of them is an old Celeron from like 2014 that was low end even when it was new. Works fine now!

Yes I encountered this and just converted my shares to NFS. My Unraid server made this super easy and the best course of action. My network no longer uses SMB.

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I could never get SMB working properly on my crappy tablet, but I found KDE connect worked to send files to it. I use it as an e-reader, so PDFs and EPUBs work fine.

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Yes, I need to set up NFS.

But I will still need SMB because if I want to stream a movie from my server’s drive to the television or move a file from my iPhone or iPad to the server, SMB is required as none of those support NFS.

I get it. SMB started on Windows. Apple and the television manufacturers went for the lowest hanging fruit that has the most users.

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Look, everyone knows Windows is easier than Linux. Except for folks that actually use Linux.

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Just use a self-hosted media streaming app since you have a server. I use Plex in a Docker on my server, it has an app on my Samsung TV and I use a little mini PC as well with a Logitech remote keyboard. We use it on an Android tablet when traveling. I know a lot of people here would not like Plex for ideological reasons, since it is proprietary, but I don’t have that hang-up and it works very nice for my needs. I can play my movies and shows when I’m away from home from laptop, phone or tablet. We used the wi-fi in our car to play cartoons for the kiddo when we were stuck in traffic once.

There are open source alternatives with the same features, but I cannot speak to them as I bought a lifetime license for Plex back in like 2014 or 2015 and have not tried anything else.

I don’t pay for any streaming services.

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If you have an Android tablet, use “Total Commander” from the app store. It has a plugin for accessing network shares that works nicely.

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Actually, SMB started on OS/2. But we don’t need to go there. :slight_smile:

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I believe you are correct. I forgot about the OS/2 flop.

An example of extremely poor marketing at a time when marketing made a huge difference.

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As a retired over the road truck driver, I can guarantee that has never happened. Why are the Dan Ryan, Stevenson, Eisenhower, and Kennedy expressways showing red on the traffic map right now? :thinking: Seriously, I could tell you horror stories. Such as the time it took 8 hours to cross the GW in NYC. Why? Some ding-a-ling broke down in the center lane and abandoned it with two flat donuts, convincing me that NYC lacks the equipment to remove dead vehicles. Which is why when going into NYC, at minimum you want 6 ply off-road pickup truck tires with deep lugs and rock guards to protect your oil pan, transmission, and transfer case. More than once I could observe traffic on the lower level from the upper level due to the large holes.

I tried Plex some time ago. I quickly got fed up with the constant nagging and spam emails. If a company has to nag that much, what does that say?

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I bought a lifetime license early on, so I never experienced any of that. I only get update emails from them.

That’s the issue with a product from a business, they want to make money. I’m not vouching for them as a company, just the product.

If I was doing it now, I would probably go open source, but it is all set up now and I’m not going to fix it until it breaks.

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I host a jellyfin server for all of my streaming. Jellyfin and Plex are both forks of Emby, but Jellyfin is entirely free and has no sign up process, and is entirely self-hosted.

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Jellyfin, that’s the one I was trying to think of. I’ll switch to that if Plex ends up broken. I just don’t want to waste time switching out perfectly functional software I have already paid for.

Plus, Plex has a Samsung TV app, my wife likes to use the TV remote instead of my mini PC.