I used Windows to develop daily from 2015 or so to 2022 because it just worked. I switched to Linux because I just got tired of all the management I had to do to get the OS out of my way, and also the "just worked" part was starting to become less true.
Desktop Linux sucks, but at least it's not pulling the crap MS pulls. I like Linux Mint. I also use PopOS and am moving away from it to LM with XFCE on all my machines.
I’m a ex-Mac user who switched to Windows a few years ago due to Apple’s soldered RAM and storage. I am considering making a switch to FreeBSD for my Framework laptop (contingent on driver support; otherwise I’d use Linux) and my daily-driver Ryzen 9 desktop. Linux would be fine for me, but I have a preference for FreeBSD.
I admit that I will miss Microsoft Office (I currently have an Office 365 subscription), but after reading about the latest changes made to Photoshop’s TOS, I’m not confident about the future of other SaSS providers, and I’d like to transition to FOSS tools that respect my privacy, even if these tools aren’t as feature-rich as their proprietary counterparts. Plus, in the case I need Microsoft Office or other proprietary tools, I have an old 2013 Mac Pro that I could boot up, and I have a perpetual license for Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac.
I’m increasingly concerned about the future of personal computing. It seems that there is a trend toward increasingly locked-down devices that serve the vendor rather than the user.
>I’m increasingly concerned about the future of personal computing. It seems that there is a trend toward increasingly locked-down devices that serve the vendor rather than the user.
I feel like tech companies are constricting their future talent pools by doing this. But maybe they want to kill their future competition too. You already get university students now who don't know what files and folders are, which they need before moving into the basics of navigating a command line or source tree.
Usable and accessible computers are great. But locking them down to the point of eliminating user agency and learning seems really shortsighted.
I’m not the person you posed this question to, but I’d recommend the general strategy of making a list of features and functionalities that you personally need and want. By making your decisions against such a list, you are less at the whims of trends because unless your needs change, your tool doesn’t need to. The key is to be honest about what you really need. Applies to all of life, really.
Notepad++ ...There are alternatives, but none that save the current session (including unsaved files). The best option was to run it through Wine, but that seems overkill for a notepad style app.
And thats my beef every time I switch to Linux, I come back to Windows because the apps in Windows are there and it just works. I used Linux Mint for a year, but it was a lot of finding similar but not quite as good apps as what I would use on Windows.
Plug for FreeOffice, a file-compatible MS Office clone for Mac and Linux! (That said, MS Office is cloudified now, afaik, so you might be able to continue using it on the web.)
