So I've used Windows all my life and I know really nothing

You will never get a reply with a question like that.
Do some research ten come ask a more specific question

>>60287620
I don't know a lot about this stuff, sorry.

just install ubuntu or something, you can keep windows installed too, you'll just choose ubuntu or windows when your computee boots

>>60287588
Linux can't do anything that Windows can't.
Windows can do a lot more than Linux.

test

I mean lets get real for a moment. You install windows 10 in about 45 minutes and for most linuxes its about the same but remember. Biggest base linuxes are about 1 gigabytes or 2 while windows 10 can be more than 5 gigabytes of data. And what happens when you open them. On linux there are about 2 functional buttons, 3 are nonfunctional and in those two buttons there are some pictures to play with. Maybe slide down or up. On windows though, you feel like a god. Its professional its fast, its all functional. You have a godlike user interface. The thing that linux does not have. You have those two buttons in linux, but you still search google for codes to write in terminal. Linux is free because its not worth a penny. Nobody would sell a paper without taking the money. Just not sure why people still buy android while windows phone does 10 times more. Trust me. When you work with windows you know some genius ground breaker dedicated himself to give you an operational os

>>60287588
Broadly speaking, Windows is a consumer experience, whereas Linux is by techies for techies. Linux makes it harder to do easy things and easier to do hard things; the benefits of switching might seem more like problems to you unless you know what you're doing.

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60287959
Nice pasta shill, 8 rupees have been deposited to your bank of india account

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>>60287588
What do you do?
If you enjoy data integrity linux has windows beat hands down with next gen file systems that even apple can only currently try to suck up to with APFS.

I've had one too many run ins with severe dataloss in windows.
Case in point: Copy a directory to another drive and window's default behavior is to delete all files and directories as they are copied, wasting a disk's sequential nature and putting data at risk.
In linux: It copies the entire dataset and then deletes the old directory, only after confirming everything was moved.

Lots of tiny quality of life bits that the sweatshop that is windows development can't comprehend introducing to their OS or cannot because it would fuck with legacy support.

>>60287588
Install Virtualbox and run linux in a vm.

>>60287959
>You have those two buttons in linux, but you still search google for codes to write in terminal.
Who's searching Google? I have that shit down pat. Yeah it was hard and unintuitive at first, but by now I have it all memorized so well that anything your Windows machine can do for you, I can do on my Linux machine by my own mental labor, ten times as fast and ten times as well. My OS started up less usable than yours, but I caught it up with you, and together, we surpassed you. You, on the other hand, will never be able in turn to catch up to *us*, because Windows just wants to baby you forever and doesn't even include what you would *need* to get on my level.

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>>60288053
Install KVM and run windows in a VM.

Oh and QXL drivers.
Sat my brother down at the PC and let him browse the web in a VM for 15 minutes.
He looked confused when I moused up and exited full screen.

It was running off an SD card.

>>60287588
Linux is a Finnish student's clone of an operating system kernel originally designed for switching telephone networks. It was supplemented by the GNU utilities, written by a mountain troll in Massachusetts, as an alternative to the non-free UNIX operating system. GNU/Linux has been traditionally used in server applications where it would be accessed primarily via a text terminal, but more recently some fans in South America developed a desktop environment for it called GNOME.

Windows NT is a workstation operating system developed in the nineties by professional engineers at Microsoft (and IBM too, before the split) for large scale corporate deployments.

If you need a small operating system for embedded applications, you should use Linux. Otherwise, Windows is the better choice.

>>60288053
>>60288142
install xen as your bootloader and run linux and windows in low level VMs simultaneously

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>>60287588
Use a VM and test drive a few distros. Look for a DE that you might like, I'd recommend probably KDE or cinnamon.

>>60288051
>Lots of tiny quality of life bits that the sweatshop that is windows development can't comprehend introducing to their OS or cannot because it would fuck with legacy support.

legacy support is one thing I kind of like about windows. That said, I run the old programs in their original old windows in a vm in linux. Better than running in wine. Only hassle is shared folders but it workds. Best of both worlds in many ways. My machine is mine and I decide when to update it or whatever I want to do with it.

>>60287976
>harder to do easy things and easier to do hard things
Nail on the head, I'll remember that way of putting it

Op, I still haven't learned how to increase the font size in my terminal - I did succeed in changing the font, though, so I found a font I liked that was a tad larger and made do. This sounds ridiculous to anyone who has bumped up the point size in word or notepad.

But, a few weeks ago, I live booted into Lubuntu off a USB stuck into a machine with a 1TB disk. I mounted a windows network file share to the live file system that contained a 2TB bit-for-bit naive uncompressed image of a Linux hard drive. Then I created a virtual loopback device or something and used it to mount the main data partition of the image file to my live file system as if it were a hard drive (since it was a full system image, i needed to offset the mount by the number of bytes used by the master boot record on the first partition so that I could mount the second partition). Then I ran a command that basically created a file inside that partion (which is actually a file) and continuously wrote zeroes into it until the partition ran completely out of space. Then I deleted the file. At this point, all of the empty space in the partition contains zeroes. So then I started making a sparse image of the partition - scanning the whole thing and writing it into a file on the physical 1TB drive of the machine I'm working on (which doesn't have Linux installed on it btw), but basically ignoring the zeroes so it's a LOT smaller then the original. When it finished, I had created a tiny image backup of the programs and data that we needed out of a bloated 2TB file using an 8gb USB stick with Linux on it and a Windows computer with a drive half the size of the file I had to work on.

Shit is magical.

>>60287654
Then research it yourself. Much better than asking for inherently biased replies.

>>60289523
With Konsole, increasing font size is literally Ctrl + scroll.

>>60289620
With urxvt it's not
I'm sure it's just a little digging in ~/.Xresources or something.

On the other hand I'm enjoying Alacritty all right and its config is straight up YAML and the sizing and kerning were both easy to set. tfw no Unicode though, but I gotta go fast

>>60287588
Most people who use linux use it because of the linux-terminal and the open-source code. Also, if it's 4chan, many will use it for customizing and memes.. but that's more like an hobby.

Linux/GNU is a pretty good environment for a standard programmer, but if you tweak windows or OSX you can make that very good environment too.

Does OS-platform matter much in the big picture? Short answer: No.

Doesn't matter much whether you use Windows, Linux/GNU or MacOS...
You can work around and cover most things, expect with Linux you can meet software challanges, especially if you are used to Windows.
Also, Windows is more designed for games.

Why you should use Linux/GNU instead of Windows?
Well, it's more about personal-preference and if you have any special needs.
NO OS is perfect, please keep that in mind.

The botnet meme is overused, windows is pretty good, especially W10. Linux is not perfect, no matter what people here might tell you. But it is a OS that can teach you a lot of things, but also take a lot of your time.

>>60287588
get ubuntu gnome 1704 on a usb stick and see for yourself

LOONIX is communist freeware designed to subvert today's youth.

Ask for genuine Microsoft software.

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>>60289887
>linux
>open-source
>an hobby
>Linux/GNU
>Windows is more designed for games

>>60291048
Windows is not designed for games alone, just so happens that they have cornered most of the video game market on PC for eons with direct X.
You can thank openGL for failing to gain traction all these years.

>>60287807
But can you stop automatic updates?

>>60288074
>>You have those two buttons in linux, but you still search google for codes to write in terminal.
>Who's searching Google? I have that shit down pat. Yeah it was hard and unintuitive at first, but by now I have it all memorized so well that anything your Windows machine can do for you, I can do on my Linux machine by my own mental labor, ten times as fast and ten times as well. My OS started up less usable than yours, but I caught it up with you, and together, we surpassed you. You, on the other hand, will never be able in turn to catch up to *us*, because Windows just wants to baby you forever and doesn't even include what you would *need* to get on my level.

give examples of what you can do 10x as fast as I can in windows

considering all I do is download movies, play vidya and shitpost I don't see where you are coming from

>>60287807
> what is wine
Not even trying.
Linux has lots of times more compatibility, openbsd 5 even more

>>60291189
Vulkan outperformed DX in many titles.

>>60287588
Linux is free as in freedom, however you have to learn

>>60291317
Still too early to tell, Vulkan looks promising but most of the smaller devs are lazy and will likely stick to DX12 if it is far easier for them to adopt.

Because it's better.

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>>60287654
Burn Ubuntu to a USB and install it. As long as you aren't a complete imbecile who doesn't know how to use Google, you'll learn as you go.

Linux is objectively superior to windows.

Have you ever used a cheap, ad-supported android phone? That's what Windows is like.

Ever used a high-end Android phone that didn't have ads and allowed you full control of the OS? That's what Linux is like.

People put up with windows because they've never experienced anything else.

>>60287588
Freedom is power
Time is money
money is power
Linux freedom is a lie

>>60291816
kek I bet this sounded really smart in your head

Guys, Mac or Windows computer for programming? Those are my only options '

>>60287959
5 rupees have been depositied in your microsoft account. Thanks for shilling for Microsoft Rajeesh!

>>60291901

mac of course

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>>60289887
this
If your computer usage consists of browsing the internet and writing reports it literally doesn't matter what OS you use.
for most people it's just an interface for facebook anyways.
seriously OP, don't bother. use whatever works for you and remember:
>Linux is only free if your time is worthless

>>60288206
love how people define linux by the DE/WM they use.
>watch linux conference
>people ask question about drivers and kernel optimization
>one guy overenthusiastically talks about what DE is the best in his opinion
aren't those people ashamed of themselves?

>>60291410
you don't have to learn shit.
Nowadays you can use linux without ever touching the CLI

>>60291901
as long as it can run a hyper visor it doesn't matter
so just make sure it has enough RAM
>yfw macs have soldered on RAM

>>60293856
>linux is only free if your time is worthless
Are you retarded? You can say this about any OS then.

>>60291733
As someone in OPs position this is the best advice

>>60287588
I started using when my old desktop got cancer. Knoppix was less resource heavy at the time, and gave me an extra 6 months to get a new build.

There's no harm in getting a live distro, or setting up a VM and learning about the system a bit more.

>>60287588
I think most people use linux as their main OS because its fun to customize, tweak and perfect your user experience by hand. Windows works pretty well out of the box and does most things as you want them. Linux is for control freaks who want/need full control of their computer. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on your system tho.