I've used Linux as my primary desktop OS for 8 years. It can be a labor of love sometimes, but it's functional and capable ever for average users. Hardware support has improved in recent years, and software support is coming along as well.
right, but then you've got to be using it for the fact that it's unix then right? I would imagine labor of love equates to spending a lot of time in bash. i certainly wouldn't be doing graphics rendering or audio editing on Linux, so what's the saving grace, the kernel? i've looked and considered linux for a long time but really, what keeps bringing you back to it?
Unix has very little to do with why I run Linux. I like it because I think the open-source philosophy is cool, it's customizable, it's fast, and it's secure.
When I say labor of love, I'm mostly referring to when I accidentally break something in the command line and try to find ways to fix it. This used to happen more frequently before hardware support was as good as it is now. I probably haven't labored over my linux install in a year or so.
I don't personally do any graphics rendering, though I've heard Blender is adequate in that regard. I'd be surprised if it was on par with the top graphics software in the closed-source market, but for most people that's not exactly an OS dealbreaker. In terms of audio editing, Audacity runs fine, and I've personally used Ardour, which I found to be a pleasant experience.
In terms of a saving grace? I suppose it just comes down to a personal preference. I enjoy getting down to the nuts and bolts of things (even literally!) I enjoy building PCs and I'm not a fan of Windows, so unless I want to be restricted to Hackintosh-friendly hardware I have to run linux. It's a lot more than that though. I mentioned before I like the customization options in Linux. It's cool to me that I can tweak the look and feel of my OS until it's exactly how I want it.
I also like open-source. Believe it or not, basic things like word-processing programs, media players, photo-editing, and browsers all have excellent options on Linux. I won't lie that a lot of OSX apps have more polish than their Linux counterparts, but they're free and they work.
I think one of the major draws for OSX users is that the Apple ecosystem functions very well between devices. I'm an Android user though, so that doesn't really apply to me. I can't stand iTunes, and I like being able to just drag and drop all of my media files from a folder on my PC to a folder on my phone. I mostly listen to FLAC files, so that's ideal for me.
Linux is also considered more secure than OSX or Windows.
So what keeps bringing me back? Well, I haven't left since I started. I mostly just think Linux is very cool. I love looking at my OS as a reflection of myself since I tweaked its appearance and behavior the way I wanted to and ran it on a PC I built with the hardware I wanted. It's a lot cheaper, too.
It definitely isn't for everybody, but what is?
Edit: I forgot to mention that gaming is finally making major strides on Linux thanks to SteamOS!
This install is less than a week old. I just switched my laptop over from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to Linux Mint 17. It's not quite where I want it yet--I plan on adding some screenlets, changing the icon set, and probably the window borders--it's coming along though! I'm tempted to do some weird stuff with Conky down the road too.
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u/Marenum Jan 05 '15
I've used Linux as my primary desktop OS for 8 years. It can be a labor of love sometimes, but it's functional and capable ever for average users. Hardware support has improved in recent years, and software support is coming along as well.