Tech has become popular, so many people pretend to be computer experts. (Link is an old Cobert Report video that is mildly vulgar but very funny. And yes, he was funny when he just did skits on Comedy Central.) Half the time I hear someone talking about it (tech) I feel like a doctor or detective watching a medical / crime drama. They say silly things, to which I often respond, "No, you're not an expert and I know that because what you just said doesn't actually make any sense, technically speaking." I just limit my interactions with these kinds of people as arguing with them won't actually stop them from pretending to be a trendy geekster.

Define "quirks". :^)

I've been using Linux as my sole desktop OS at home since the early '00s -- after dual-booting Windows and Coherent/Consensys/Linux since the early/mid '90s -- and, when I could wangle an older, unwanted workstation that was under-powered for Win<current>, at work, since the mid-'90s (Hey... it was better than the hassle -- and expense -- of using Reflection-X or other Windows-based X servers).

"Quirks" are in the eye of the beholder. I suspect that the creator of that video was a Windows "power user" who was out of his element.

Cheers...

You've been able to get a laptop running Win7 to successfully complete a backup? Please tell us how you did it. My wife's Win7 laptop has been a reliable source of frustration since she brought it into the house. I feel like the only way she'll ever get a decent backup is to boot from a Linux DVD and use "dd" to copy the Windows partition to an external drive.

rnturn,

W7 etc:

For imaging backups to an external drive or elsewhere, use Macrium Reflect Free.

See post #15:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ns-4175664644/

For data backups I suggest Karen's Replicator:
https://www.karenware.com/powertools...backup-utility

https://www.peterstavrou.com/blog/te...ckup-software/

I've been running Ubuntu for a couple years with little difficulty on both my server and desktop. Generally the problems I encounter are of my own making, can't stop tinkering. I'd say it's far more reliable though than any time in the past when I used to run Windows. My uptimes on both run in the weeks / months usually, rebooting only when an update demands it. Windows was a weekly reboot at best, sometimes 2-3 times a week to fix whatever was going on.

I've recently merged my desktop and server into one machine as I needed more space for media storage drives, rarely use the desktop as it sits anyway. I am currently pxe booting everything else in the house with LTSP, and it works wonderfully. Linux has been great for me.

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It took many attempts at trying Linux as a desktop OS before I felt I could switch over from Windows (and had tried Mac for a year also). I think about 5 years ago, I found that things had caught up enough in all departments (including big advancements in gaming). Some of this was helped by the fact that the only killer App for work was Outlook and some other MS stuff that we used, but then the Web/Cloud versions ended up being better (Outlook often crashed) and so all I needed was a browser - that made the switch easier.

In terms of stability - I have never looked back. I am a long-termer and not a distro hopper as such. Had Xubuntu for 3-4 years and was happy enough, but for some reason decided to try Ubuntu - that lasted about 6 months, but was not that stable for me - apps and Gnome seemed to have a fight and the user experience was really poor over time. Things just broke after updates on a regular basis.

The Ubuntu experience perhaps altered my view on what I needed, so tried Debian 10 (Cinnamon), which I have now been on for 6 months and have not experienced any issues at all so far. I think as long as it remains this stable, I will stick with it.

So I have limited distro experience, but quite a lot of experience in the 3 that I have used as a daily driver! In case that helps.

Who ever told that Linux is not stable enough to be used as a daily desktop OS doesn't know what they are talking about or chose a bad Linux distro. Linux has been my daily driver exclusively since September 2015.

I can't say when I started using a Linux desktop regularly, but I do remember taking an Arch-only notebook on holiday in 2014, (and I'd been using Linux servers for at least a decade before that).

What I can say is that I've spent the last two days upgrading the (supposedly) most stable distribution and have had several major issues - broken wifi, broken gui, broken audio, missing software, and who knows what else I haven't discovered yet...

I'd still take any Linux desktop (or indeed any other OS) over Windows 10, but my current view is that the only stable OS is one which doesn't get upgraded. :/

Possibly - I would agree to some extent. I did have issues upgrading Xubuntu once and it was fiddly. I suppose you could argue that upgrading an OS is not entirely a representation of stability, but more the upgrade process. I think you will find that most people who "upgrade" Windows versions have a lot of issues, compared to those installing from scratch.

I will not know about Debian until the next version as I started with a new install - I have installed Debian 10 on 3 physical machines so far and all very good (only thing was for one laptop, it asked me to download a file for the WiFi - I could have plugged Ethernet in, but it worked fine with said file downloaded to USB stick).

Upgrade stability is part of OS stability, and not wanting to spend so much time and effort repairing things is the reason I stopped using Arch. (Though at least the rolling model means you get problems in smaller doses.)

Upgrading Windows from 98 to XP and XP to 7 were painless - despite its faults, Microsoft used to care about backwards compatibility.
I heard of plenty people having problems switching to Windows 10, and I suspect that's as much because Microsoft stopped caring as anything else.

And whilst BSODs in Windows 10 are apparently still a thing, the main stability issue is because Microsoft more explicitly claims ownership of the computer now, and chooses what to install and when to restart.

If I had the resources to build an OS, the upgrade process would involve a test and rollback procedure for every bundle of functionality, to ensure the user was always left with a working system at the end.

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Since two years I've been somewhat of an OS nomad. I use whatever I need to to do the task at hand. After having worked with OSX from 2003-2017 my primary desktop machine is running W10 because I have bought some software that really needs W10. However I now prefer Ubuntu on my laptop. It is so much more stable, even more so than OSX/MacOS. Your choice in desktop software is somewhat limited and can sometimes look somewhat outdated, you can have a very nice desktop experience. I always hate it to power up W10 again, because of its nags and quirks.

First of all it's needed to highlight that Linux is only a kernel useless by itself in fact the same Torvalds on August 25th 1991 wrote: "I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40) and things seem to work." cause a kernel without programs worths nothing.

That's why it would be more proper to refer to it as GNU/Linux.

Switching back to your question... since 17 years I use exclusively GNU/Linux for all my PC's no needs of bitten apple nor broken windows.

Nowadays to use GNU/Linux is most similar to use every other OS, it depends on your needs and if you take care of your freedom, in case I would avoid also systemd infected distros but this is IMHO

His comments weren't relevant eight years ago. I'd already been using Linux as my sole OS for home, study and business use for several years (two desktops, four laptops). I made the switch from windows to Linux for licencing reasons and stayed for the newfound stability.

3 members found this post helpful.

I'm sorry but I really don't understand this question. I switched to Linux years ago because it was more stable than Windows. I was sick and tired of Windows crashing and freezing. I've seldom had a crash in Linux and when there was one, the problem was easily fixed.

I would have thought stability was more important in servers than in desktop computers (which can be rebooted in an instant if they freeze), and all the servers on the Internet run Linux.

5 members found this post helpful.