So I moved to Linux

[Steve Adams]

Affinity (3.x) is currently not even particularly stable under Windows. We were trying to use it for our illustrations at work, but it keeps crashing. We eventually went back to the Affinity 2.x suite.


That's an overgeneralisation. Wine has made tremendous progress in the last couple of years, and a lot of things work as good and as stable as under Windows.

Yes, I use the Affinity 2 suite. I can't even get that to work on linux at all. Staying on windows.

 

[neuropsychguy]

please explain

Macs have Terminal. You can run many tools from there that are otherwise generally available only with Linux. You can install a lot of other “Linux” software via Homebrew or MacPorts. And, there are containers that can fill in a lot of gaps. I have some research software that was linux only that I containerized and now run on my Mac.

There are certainly things that can only be done in Linux and not on Mac, but the reverse is also true. I've found that many things that I initially thought I needed Linux for I've been able to do well on my Mac.

 

[maflynn]

don't know about downsides, but the user interface is dead simple. I don't think it can be easier than this. In fact i was able to find how to adjust my mouse settings in mint easier than on Windows.

Mint uses the Cinnamon Desktop Environment, you can run other distros with that DE, that's one of the great things about Linux. You're not locked into a specific look and feel.

Downsides of Mint as I see it:

• Mint is based off of Ubuntu 24 LTS, so you're already two years behind the curve, so much so, some apps that are included may have older bugs. The developers already patched them in subsequent versions, but mint doesn't hve them. There's currently a bit of drama over this, where the Gnome developers are pointing the finger at mint to fix their (gnome) downstream apps, and Mint is telling users to contact Gnome for support. Gnome is telling them to fix it, because the apps were heavily modified by Mint anyways.
• Gaming support is better on Fedora, CachyOS, bazzite (if that's a thing for you)
• Hardware support is not as deep because its based on a 2 year old code base.
• Performance tuning is a bit more conservative, i.e., it will not run as fast
• File system uses the ext4 filesystem (stable, rock solid), where as fedora, cachyos, offer Btrfs, a great and solid file system that offers snapshots (think time machine for linux)

Its not a bad distro, but it seems many people dip their toe into the world of Linux with Mint, and then they move on to a more modern feature rich distro.

 

[cjsuk]

But you can quickly move the cursor to the top of the screen, and it’s impossible to overshoot. It’s actually faster, at least with a mouse set-up.

That's a sort of side effect with macOS which is pretty difficult to drive from the keyboard. I tend to drive Windows and Linux with the keyboard a lot more which is vastly more efficient. You can navigate the menus from the keyboard without any issue then.

 

[boswald]

To build upon @skoodlyboop comment, Arch and its downstream distros are as safe as any other distro. Their repositories go through a rigorious review and are no less risky then any other distro.

What the problem is, is the Arch User Repository, or AUR, and there's a clear warning for people to use AUR
View attachment 2650229

The files in that repo are source files that are compiled and so its expected that as you the user should review the make files, before building. So far the malware being introduced is easily identified, as its executing a post install script.

That's not to say you should just install AUR packages, I avoid them because they don't go through a review process. If only use pacman to install/update apps, you're safe. Using yay or paru is where you need to be careful.

I have compiled a couple programs from the AUR, and Shelly reported no security concerns. But I'm still really skeptical and cautious, so my choices are extremely limited.

 

[maflynn]

But I'm still really skeptical and cautious, so my choices are extremely limited.

Same here, the one AUR package I have is for a cloud based storage, and I'm thinking, can I live without that. I'm leaning towards yes.

 

[MacBH928]

I hardly recognise any distros any more. Mint, Arch, CachyOS, Bazzite? Ubuntu and Debian I remember, but none of the others. I think the last one i used was Fedora maybe?

I searched a lot and its a lot of none sense. Most "distros" are just tweaked for specific use cases and made by laughable small teams. Even The existence of corporate distros like Suse and Ubuntu is because they need their own OS to sell to their customers for support. For the most part it goes like this:

-Debian: Non-profit linux distro
-Ubuntu: Debian made easier for the desktop user
-Arch: Wild west community maintained distro
-Fedora: Only reason to choose this one is because its a "rolling" release constantly updated on the opposite of Ubuntu that has periodic updates. Whatever rocks your boat

-Mint: Ubuntu made with dead simple GUI for the layman human. Afaik its really just the Cinnamon DE, so you might as well install ubuntu with Cinnamon but they just did the work for you.

Well it's not stable on Linux because it's not designed for Linux. Most things running via Wine on Linux are unstable. It's great that Wine exists, I guess, but nothing will ever compare to native applications. I suppose you could always dual boot if you want to make Linux your main OS. I used to dual boot, but it's too much of a hassle.

Are we really arguing that its impossible to use Linux professionally because there is software a specific poster needs that doesn't exist?

Are we really trying to argue that running professional software in a translation layer is good for a production machine?

If you need one specific program that's not available on Linux you can run it in a virtual machine, if you need many of those programs just run Windows or MacOS.

There are projects like winboat.app that let you launch windows apps in a VM behind the scenes. Many moons ago when i tried virtual machine it felt like launching a rocket and your hardware capability literally split between 2 systems halving its performance.

I am not sure what is the case today with modern hardware but I hear a lot of people run VMs on their laptops albeit that might be light weight Linux distros for testing reasons of some sort.

I don't have a high opinion of Adobe's software. It phones home a lot. Adobe isn't a great company and makes it difficult for customers to terminate their subscriptions. They used to be great, like in the 90s. But they've become corporatized kinda like Apple is now.

There is no competition. The only competition I know is CorelDraw is still surviving somehow. Pixelmator got gobbled by Apple probably going to turn into MacOS iSuite member and Affinity gave us hope then sold out to Canva. This is what corporations do, they eat up their competition before it takes them over.

For myself I might convert my macbook pro m1 max to linux when os support ends in 2028, and in between buy another macbook pro.

That way i have the best of both worlds. I can never go back to windows, since using vista it felt very unfinished.

windows is a horror show and as far as i am concerned the real reason people use it is for business as all hardware support it and all business configurations and setups can be done on it. note "can be done" but its not a pleasant experience.

 

[Siliconguy]

It [Mint] is not a bad distro, but it seems many people dip their toe into the world of Linux with Mint, and then they move on to a more modern feature rich distro.

Mint is a good place to start, and in my case I stopped there too. it does everything I need. My PC, my main computer I use for all the "real" work is from 2019. The oldest machine is a 2010 Mac Pro. Mint even runs [OK walks briskly] on 2009 Mac mini. It does quite well on a 2012 Mini too. The 2012 uses the MATE desktop, the others use Cinnamon.The current Mint is supported until 2029.

For me stability is far more important than performance and I don't game so the attractions of some other distributions is much reduced. Fedora in particular seems to want more GPU than the 2010 Pro actually has, and some parts of Plasma flat don't work though overall it is quite pretty.

If you do have hardware newer than 2024 then you might have problems on Mint. On the other hand installing Broadcom wifi drivers in Debian is very hit and miss, and it wasn't trivial in Fedora either though it did work. Both of those required serious tweaking on the command line. In Mint it was click the button in Device Manager.

 

[capamac]

There is no competition. The only competition I know is CorelDraw is still surviving somehow. Pixelmator got gobbled by Apple probably going to turn into MacOS iSuite member and Affinity gave us hope then sold out to Canva. This is what corporations do, they eat up their competition before it takes them over.

(re: Adobe sw). Presumably you're using Photoshop/LR. I find Gimp to be superior to Photoshop coz it's free as in freedom, and free as in beer. Gimp can do the same core tasks as PS. Learning Gimp isn't much harder than learning PS. It's just what one is used to.

I've only bought two Adobe products in my life. First was a used eBay CD version of Photoshop 2.5 for 680x0 Macs. Second was a subscription to Adobe InDesign for a few months, years ago.

Personally I get along just fine without Adobe. I've not used an Adobe app on my computers for many, many years.

Adobe's strength is it's what people are used to. It's what people know. People don't like learning new things. Adobe has XYZ feature in this certain menu. But in free (as in freedom) software, the same feature is in a different menu. This is enough to make the Adobe say "oh free software is bad." Coz many of the Adobe users have fixed mindsets. They don't want to learn, don't want to change.

 

[maflynn]

I find Gimp to be superior to Photoshop coz it's free

Free does not make it better and I think you're opinion of it being superior to PS is probably in the minority. It seems to me, that for everyone 1 person advocating for Gimp, there's 9 others stating its a hot mess

 

[Janichsan]

(I find Gimp to be superior to Photoshop coz it's free as in freedom, and free as in beer. Gimp can do the same core tasks as PS.

That depends a lot on your needs. For instance, professionally, I have to work with CMYK files. GIMP's implementation of that is simply too rudimentary. Vector masks are virtually non-existing in GIMP. Non-destructive editing was finally added in GIMP, but is still far behind the competition. The list goes on.

 

[neuropsychguy]

Learning Gimp isn't much harder than learning PS. It's just what one is used to.

I've used Gimp from time to time. It's powerful and can do a lot of the core things Photoshop does, but I'm usually baffled by the user design of Gimp (I'm stating "user design" generously). I'm quick to picked up the UI of new software; it's just one of my very few skills in life. I can jump into Photoshop and figure out how to do many things without a tutorial. Gimp? It's counterintuitive and feels like the engineering-driven open source project it is and not something that has any sort of gestalt organization to it. It's various functions bolted together without any real overarching design plan. One of its challenges is that trying to fix its UX would require major interface changes, which would anger/frustrate experienced users and invalidate documentation, tutorials, and muscle memory. This means bad conventions persist across the decades.

There are many things to disagree with Adobe about, but if learning Photoshop is a 5/10 difficulty, Gimp is an 11/10. Maybe a little hyperbole there, but it's pretty rough. I'm not knocking its capabilities or its right/need to exist, just the lack of coherent design and user-friendliness.

 

[Skwoodge]

There are projects like winboat.app that let you launch windows apps in a VM behind the scenes. Many moons ago when i tried virtual machine it felt like launching a rocket and your hardware capability literally split between 2 systems halving its performance.

I am not sure what is the case today with modern hardware but I hear a lot of people run VMs on their laptops albeit that might be light weight Linux distros for testing reasons of some sort.

The experience is still more or less the same ... terrible. I run Linux and Windows via VMware Fusion on my Mac, but it's for running utilities for very specific tasks for my work that aren't available on macOS ... such as being able to clone Windows drives. Even if it were super fast, the experience of running an app in a VM will always be terrible compared to running it natively.

 

[melodibit]

So, with my MacBook Pro, it perfectly handles power management. I virtually never hear the fan come on. It's basically silent as an iPad. I can close the lid, toss it in the bag, and it goes to sleep properly every single time without it staying on and practically setting the bag on fire.

If I install Linux on a laptop, will I get this experience?

 

[capamac]

Gimp UI is a little rougher than PS. (Used PS for 10+ years when I worked as a full-time news photographer.)

But Adobe apps have that "Adobe smell" to them. And it's all a balance / trade-off. Worse UI in Gimp, sure, but then on the other hand there's no Adobe smell in Gimp. No constant "phoning home". No monthly subscription.

There's pros and cons. Been a PS user since about 1994 maybe and a Gimp user since about 1999. Having used both extensively, I find that on-balance Gimp is the winner. Gimp's core feature set is as powerful as Photoshops. Gimp doesn't have the PS features like content aware fill. But Gimp has levels, curves, resize, upsample, unsharp mask, cropping, rotating, layers, up to 192 bits per pixel color depth (64 bits per channel RGB), compositing tools, etc. CMYK wasn't much of an issue in the newspaper world since rips convert RGB to CMYK on the fly when making plates for the press.

 

[cjsuk]

So, with my MacBook Pro, it perfectly handles power management. I virtually never hear the fan come on. It's basically silent as an iPad. I can close the lid, toss it in the bag, and it goes to sleep properly every single time without it staying on and practically setting the bag on fire.

If I install Linux on a laptop, will I get this experience?

Hell no. It's wake up roulette. My work laptop, a Dell running Windows 11, is known as the Bag Cooker because it can't handle that stuff at all as well to be fair.

Desktop only here. And it gets shut down every night like it's 1998 again.

 

[cjsuk]

Gimp UI is a little rougher than PS. (Used PS for 10+ years when I worked as a full-time news photographer.)

But Adobe apps have that "Adobe smell" to them. And it's all a balance / trade-off. Worse UI in Gimp, sure, but then on the other hand there's no Adobe smell in Gimp. No constant "phoning home". No monthly subscription.

There's pros and cons. Been a PS user since about 1994 maybe and a Gimp user since about 1999. Having used both extensively, I find that on-balance Gimp is the winner. Gimp's core feature set is as powerful as Photoshops. Gimp doesn't have the PS features like content aware fill. But Gimp has levels, curves, resize, upsample, unsharp mask, cropping, rotating, layers, up to 192 bits per pixel color depth (64 bits per channel RGB), compositing tools, etc. CMYK wasn't much of an issue in the newspaper world since rips convert RGB to CMYK on the fly when making plates for the press.

Gimp is the worst bit of open source software ever. Absolute turd.

But you know what, so is any CAD / graphics software. So it's no turdy than PS 🙂

 

[ghanwani]

A few months ago Apple did not make me particularly happy with decisions where they obviously put corporate before us users and I bought a FairPhone. I slowly migrated almost everything and I am using both while at home (but so far I still only take the iPhone with me). I am planning some vacation where I don't want to risk anything but I will complete the switch afterwards.
I am using it with /e/os which is fine. There are a few tradeoffs but I am willing to make for an open phone.

Is WhatsApp available on it?

 

[Steve Adams]

Gimp UI is a little rougher than PS. (Used PS for 10+ years when I worked as a full-time news photographer.)

But Adobe apps have that "Adobe smell" to them. And it's all a balance / trade-off. Worse UI in Gimp, sure, but then on the other hand there's no Adobe smell in Gimp. No constant "phoning home". No monthly subscription.

There's pros and cons. Been a PS user since about 1994 maybe and a Gimp user since about 1999. Having used both extensively, I find that on-balance Gimp is the winner. Gimp's core feature set is as powerful as Photoshops. Gimp doesn't have the PS features like content aware fill. But Gimp has levels, curves, resize, upsample, unsharp mask, cropping, rotating, layers, up to 192 bits per pixel color depth (64 bits per channel RGB), compositing tools, etc. CMYK wasn't much of an issue in the newspaper world since rips convert RGB to CMYK on the fly when making plates for the press.

Your avatar looks like the two by's are in a jam band. ha ha.

 

[neuropsychguy]

So, with my MacBook Pro, it perfectly handles power management. I virtually never hear the fan come on. It's basically silent as an iPad. I can close the lid, toss it in the bag, and it goes to sleep properly every single time without it staying on and practically setting the bag on fire.

If I install Linux on a laptop, will I get this experience?

Yes, on the right laptop. For example, the 2026 Framework Laptop 13 Pro is Ubuntu-certified, ships with Ubuntu as an option, and Framework rates it for seven days of connected standby under Ubuntu. Given the current RAM and SSD climate, it's not cheap though. By not cheap I mean that people might as well buy a MacBook Pro.

Many newer ThinkPads (e.g., T14 Gen 7) should be Ubuntu-certified and you should be able to have lid-close suspend/resume, quiet operation. But you won't get that experience by installing Linux on an arbitrary laptop -- the specific hardware/firmware combination matters.

Also, you don't even reliably get that experience with laptops running Windows. I learned from nearly catastrophic experience to not trust laptops running Windows (or Linux) and just shut them down when not in use. I know there are some out there that work as expected, but if someone wants something they can "shut the lid and throw it in my bag without even thinking about it”, people will do best with Macs.

 

[aleXanderRS]

So, with my MacBook Pro, it perfectly handles power management. I virtually never hear the fan come on. It's basically silent as an iPad. I can close the lid, toss it in the bag, and it goes to sleep properly every single time without it staying on and practically setting the bag on fire.

If I install Linux on a laptop, will I get this experience?

I can't speak for every brand, but my Thinkpad's suspend mode hasn't failed me once. Didn't have to fine-tune either (most X1/T14/P1 series are Ubuntu/Fedora certified; even the fingerprint reader worked out of the box).

Mine is a X1 nano gen1 16gb, got it certified refurbished on eBay for around $450. Looks brand new. Runs fedora kinoite. My other machine is a mini M4/24gb, great device, but the Thinkpad I enjoy most.

I assume Framework laptops will give you a similar plug n play experience.

 

[MacBH928]

Mint uses the Cinnamon Desktop Environment, you can run other distros with that DE, that's one of the great things about Linux. You're not locked into a specific look and feel.

I have this idea that a DE will work best for the distro it was made for. Cinnamon for Mint, Cosmic for PopOS, Budgie for Solus. Not sure how right or wrong i am.

Downsides of Mint as I see it:

• Mint is based off of Ubuntu 24 LTS, so you're already two years behind the curve, so much so, some apps that are included may have older bugs. The developers already patched them in subsequent versions, but mint doesn't hve them. There's currently a bit of drama over this, where the Gnome developers are pointing the finger at mint to fix their (gnome) downstream apps, and Mint is telling users to contact Gnome for support. Gnome is telling them to fix it, because the apps were heavily modified by Mint anyways.
• Gaming support is better on Fedora, CachyOS, bazzite (if that's a thing for you)
• Hardware support is not as deep because its based on a 2 year old code base.
• Performance tuning is a bit more conservative, i.e., it will not run as fast
• File system uses the ext4 filesystem (stable, rock solid), where as fedora, cachyos, offer Btrfs, a great and solid file system that offers snapshots (think time machine for linux)

Those are actually features of Mint not downsides. yes its downsides to you, but Mint was made for seriously the layman user down to kids level. I guess thats why they are willing to run an older tried and true kernel than support the latest cutting edge hardware with malfunctions that makes the user frustrated.

In your use case, yes, Mint would be a downside. I do agree.

I've used Gimp from time to time. It's powerful and can do a lot of the core things Photoshop does, but I'm usually baffled by the user design of Gimp (I'm stating "user design" generously). I'm quick to picked up the UI of new software; it's just one of my very few skills in life. I can jump into Photoshop and figure out how to do many things without a tutorial. Gimp? It's counterintuitive and feels like the engineering-driven open source project it is and not something that has any sort of gestalt organization to it. It's various functions bolted together without any real overarching design plan.

The guy who designed GIMP interface has his brains installed upside down in his skull. Literally everything is the opposite of how you think it would work. I tried Photopea which was created by 1 person and its much more pleasant experience. It would replace Photoshop for many people. Still can't believe one guy did all that on his own.

GIMP would win the software Golden Raspberry Award if there was one

One of its challenges is that trying to fix its UX would require major interface changes, which would anger/frustrate experienced users and invalidate documentation, tutorials, and muscle memory. This means bad conventions persist across the decades.

Thats where a hardfork comes into play 😉 (or supposed to)

So, with my MacBook Pro, it perfectly handles power management. I virtually never hear the fan come on. It's basically silent as an iPad. I can close the lid, toss it in the bag, and it goes to sleep properly every single time without it staying on and practically setting the bag on fire.

If I install Linux on a laptop, will I get this experience?

yea, i dont think so. Apple's hardware/software integration is unheard of and linux probably the worst between mac and windows.

Is WhatsApp available on it?

given that its based on android, yes it should. If you are after hardcore security there is another OS called GrapheneOS that runs on google pixel phones only (also android) . Both de-googled .

 

[maflynn]

I have this idea that a DE will work best for the distro it was made for.

That idea is incorrect

In your use case, yes, Mint would be a downside.

ok

 

[ghanwani]

given that its based on android, yes it should. If you are after hardcore security there is another OS called GrapheneOS that runs on google pixel phones only (also android) . Both de-googled .

I am looking for alternatives for when I need to replace my SE 2022 since I cannot tolerate any of the new displays from Apple due to sensitivity to dithering and PWM.

The first requirement (hard requirement) is that I need the phone+OS to come from one vendor. I don't want to deal with installing an independent OS on a Google phone.

The second requirement (more of a desire) is that the OS be a bit more secure and less prying than standard Android. But it must allow for WhatsApp (since all my international contacts use it) which rules out any fringe OSes like Linux.

If I have to live with standard Android, I will probably go with a Motorola LCD phone.

Fairphone looks interesting. I have also been considering Punkt MC03, but even though it's been promised for a while, it doesn't look like it has been released for sale in the US. The problem with most of these is that they are very expensive for what you get.

 

[ghanwani]

I do applaud the OP for making the move to Linux.

The 2 things keeping me from doing it:
- Very limited hardware options if you want to buy a machine with Linux preloaded and tested.
- None of the mainstream tax software (for individual US income tax prep) are available for Linux natively. Must either monkey around with WINE, VM, etc. and risk not having everything work (it's hard enough to get everything working on a supported OS given how buggy these tax apps are), or use cloud based tax prep (not yet ready to make that jump).

It takes a real commitment to move away from big tech. You really have to be willing to put up with a lot of pain. They have built heavy moats around their monopolies.