And use what instead? I generally use linux on my desktop but have to reboot fairly often to do something windows-related. Libreoffice botches document formatting every time I use it on something above "hello, world." Lots of stuff still only works on windows, though wine compatibility is getting better.
I've used linux on my desktop for 20 years, I don't understand this "have to reboot to do something windows related", I guess I just use computers for very different things to you.
Fair point but some things you mentioned really do have non-Windows alternatives ("game programming" and "embedded development" aren't limited to Windows-only stacks. I don't know about CAD so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.)
My point is, people who say their work is only doable on Windows tend to just be scared to move away from the specific tools they know.
>("game programming" and "embedded development" aren't limited to Windows-only stacks
If you're not developing a mobile or console game, windows is 95%+ of your market. At some point your going to need to do some development/QA on windows regardless of what hoops you're willing to jump through to develop on Linux.
>"embedded development"
There is a plenty of proprietary windows only software for which there is no viable alternative on Linux. And there are a lot of embedded systems out there in the world running on Windows. Sure if you are a one man shop, you can choose your own stack, and Linux support is one of your top priorities, then you don't need Windows. But many people in the embedded world are on Windows whether they like it or not.
>My point is, people who say their work is only doable on Windows tend to just be scared to move away from the specific tools they know.
And people who say "just use X on Linux instead of Y on Windows or Z on OS X" tend to overestimate the Linux alternative because they don't use it professionally. There are many professional software tools that do not have viable alternatives on Linux, and many more for which the Windows alternative is just much better than their what's available on Linux.
I often have to deal with CAD files from various vendors (people insist in sending them in proprietary formats instead of proper interchange formats, for example "DWG" instead of DXF)
And also I use Win, Linux and OSX.
Windows is basically mandatory for CAD, not only a lot of CAD is not available at all outside windows, often they fail to run on Wine and whatnot, I suspect sometimes this is on purpose.
And a unrelated big offender is Roblox, they consider Linux a "hacking tool" and ban you if it detects you are somehow running it on Linux, no matter what method you used.
That is sometimes true, However, in many cases I find the Linux-based software is better, actually, and in many other cases, they are just as good. In some cases, it is the DOS-based software which is better. Also, some programmers who write for Windows will also ensure and advertise working on Linux too, so you can still use it even if you are on Linux, if you install Wine. (In some cases, no existing software seems suitable to me, so I write my own.) Sometimes the software is available for multiple operating systems, such as SQLite, which at least I find it better than what I have used before on Windows. I find TeX for typesetting much better than using Microsoft Word, too. And, there are more things too.
Sometimes I'm forced to use OS X as well - not just forced to use Windows - because that's the only thing the iOS toolchains work on and debug with properly. And if I'm targeting mobile, I'm targeting iOS, not just Android - because I'm getting paid too much to ignore that much of the target market.
Console SDKs come in the form of windows-only tooling that tightly integrates with Visual Studio - which last I checked, attempts to verify you're using a geniuine licensed Windows installation. And the platform vendors verify what compilers you're using before they allow you to ship, to make sure you're not using ancient builds filled with codegen bugs. And of course you're firing up Windows to actually test your Windows builds for the PC market, right? Especially to root cause weird configuration, architecture, or driver specific bugs?
Hell, I've helped develop a UWP app at the behest of Microsoft - they were our publisher - targeting Windows 8 before it was even released. What "non-Windows-only alternatives" do you think I had, exactly, for that?
> My point is, people who say their work is only doable on Windows tend to just be scared to move away from the specific tools they know.
Bullshit. Even when you have non-Windows alternatives that are compatible with the Windows alternatives, convincing IT to let you do your weird nonstandard thing, and dealing with the interop bugs for all the external people using Windows software is often a headache that will cost far more than just paying the Windows licensing fees and booting it. That's not fear, that's just practicality.
People who say there are non-Windows alternatives tend to not realize just how miserable an experience that can be, on the occasions where they're actually technically right, when they're not working alone in an isolated silo with all the free time in the world.
Like, sure, I could try and debug msbuild issues my coworkers are having by trying to run it via wine on linux. Or I could ship windows PC games by cross compiling to windows with clang and praying there are no OS specific bugs. OpenGL drivers on windows aren't as bad as they once were, I suppose. But I challenge you to find a single professional gamedev foolish enough to go through that pain in the ass, just to avoid firing up Windows. Surely you can find at least one?
For some it may not be true that it’s only doable but still best done. Sure there is CAD software for Linux, but nowhere near the quality of Autodesk on Windows.
> Which is why I find it absurd for someone to say they don’t understand why someone would need to use Windows.
I can't find anyone in the thread saying that. I see people suggesting, perhaps disingenuously or based on anecdata, that it's no big deal not to use Windows, but I don't see anyone questioning why someone would use it.
> I've used linux on my desktop for 20 years, I don't understand this "have to reboot to do something windows related", I guess I just use computers for very different things to you.
I read this more charitably, not as saying "why would someone need to use Windows?" but more "I don't need to use Windows, so I don't regard it as a universal need". (That, in turn, came from mmm_grayons's post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24050677 :
> And use what instead? I generally use linux on my desktop but have to reboot fairly often to do something windows-related. Libreoffice botches document formatting every time I use it on something above "hello, world." Lots of stuff still only works on windows, though wine compatibility is getting better.
which I read, again perhaps unfairly, as suggesting that it is unrealistic for people to consider a computer workflow that doesn't involve Windows.)
Perhaps still more charity (or clarity) would have been appropriate, but the explicit acknowledgement that there are different purposes for which different people need computers seems to me to defuse much of what one might perceive as hostility or dismissiveness there.
> I read this more charitably, [...] "I don't need to use Windows, so I don't regard it as a universal need"
That's extremely charitable, because the comment implies they cannot at all understand how someone would need to use Windows, and they offer 20 years of personal experience to reinforce that. Even in the most charitable case it denies the existence of Windows-only software simply by not ever personally having a need for it.
> which I read, again perhaps unfairly, as suggesting that it is unrealistic for people to consider a computer workflow that doesn't involve Windows.)
I think so too that your read is a bit unfair, as the OP even says they're desktop Linux users but need Windows in some cases. Myself I've used Linux as my main desktop OS for 15+ years, and I still had times I needed to use Windows. I've definitely run into issues with e.g. LibreOffice myself, as they mentioned.
> Perhaps still more charity (or clarity) would have been appropriate, but the explicit acknowledgement that there are different purposes for which different people need computers seems to me to defuse much of what one might perceive as hostility or dismissiveness there.
Even if "I don't understand..." and "I guess I just use computers for very different things to you" isn't intended to be snarky, the commenter doesn't even attempt to understand why anyone would need Windows to do something. They couldn't think of a single thing? Visual Studio development or use? DirectX? Working on drivers for Windows? Some appliance that comes with software not supported by wine? Adobe software? AutoCAD?
I've switched to Linux 12 years ago, it requires sacrifices. I had to switch profession from Symbian Developer to Web Developer, desktop experience was not great, Wine has not helped. I've ended with light DM, shell, browser and vim.
And it was worth it.
There are so many wonderful aspects, the most relevant here is "for open source community I am not a product". It is blessing and curse - a lot of applications are not that polished, but they are sincere, they do what their authors want for themselves.
It'll be much easier to do this on host machine. And much more reliable. However, in my home network raspberry pi with pihole handles filtering among many other things.
For single-player gaming it's OK to disable network on guest windows completely. ISO images with games can be just mounted via virt-manager GUI.
Same setup here. Best of both worlds IMO. Only drawback is to use the GPU on the linux host for e.g. Blender, I need to reboot (GPU can't rebind to PCIe root otherwise or something... thanks Nvidia)
I do it the other way around because 1) I "only" have one GPU, 2) it entirely solves driver-caused instability or other pain in Linux, since Virtualbox Linux drivers are really stable, and 3) it lets me easily suspend-to-disk, resume, and point-backup my running work sessions, which is really nice.
I set out building this thing as a Linux workstation, but I guess 1-1.5 generations old hardware was still too cutting-edge. Drivers exist, but X & Wayland (tried both) crashing or permanently artifacting multiple times a day was no fun. Zero crashes since wrapping Linux in Win10 with Virtualbox. Frankly, I should have just paid double for a worse MacOS machine, given the time I've sunk into this. Win10 is spy/adware garbage but it's what I'm stuck with now to have a usable machine.
[EDIT] Oh and, surprisingly, RDP to Windows then fullscreening Virtualbox Linux is less painful, better performing, and easier to configure (as in, was no work) than similar on Linux, aside from X-forwarding.
When I need to use GPU on Linux, I just start Linux guest VM and run what I need (some native Linux game or hashcat usually). It may seem little bit inconvenient, but I'm happy with such isolation: main system kernel runs not tainted, and Nvidia drivers not always stable - I've seen panics caused by nvidia kernel module.
to you and parent, what's your experience running games in a VM? i prefer to run linux, but there are a few games that are windows only that i'd like to play.
which VM software are you using? can you recommend any resources?
It's very close to native performance. Only major issue I had is crackling sound, but it's resolvable. In my setup I have second set of controls (keyboard + mouse) to be forwarded to guest and HDMI output of guest GPU is connected to HDMI switch. Once everything set up, it looks and feels like you have second PC under your desk.
I use conventional Linux KVM virtualization ("libvirtd" + "virt-manager" GUI) on Fedora 32 (previously used Debian).
When I need Windows, I boot up that machine and RDP into it.
Over time, I need to do that less and less.
I’m still a gamer though, and I refuse to pay exorbitant console prices for games and online play in a walled garden, so I keep one Windows machine around just for that. But I only take it out of sleep when I need it.
If you use QEMU plus KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine), you can say goodbye to dual boot as the virtual machine is run with near native performance. For playing windows-only games, the solution is GPU passthrough, which allows allocating a GPU for the virtual machine providing the maximum gaming performance.
Does that work on all hardware? I've got laptops, and could maybe use hybrid graphics. I'll look into it, thanks!
Edit: so this doesn't work for muxless laptops (I've looked into it before and forgot). The discrete card runs through the Intel iGPU regardless if hybrid graphics is enabled or disabled.
The vBIOS can't be accessed directly, so it will result in an error. Some people got this working anyway, but it seems that it's unstable and/or results in low performance.
probably an issue with windows document formats. had that last week. a form, where the exact alignment for every bit mattered had checkboxes totally misaligned.
It's exactly this sort of thing. I'm not even going to call it libreoffice's fault; it's possible microsoft is the one doing weird, janky stuff. But neither co-workers nor clients care; they only get pissed that every time I edit something the formatting breaks.
