#and yes I tried to run cakewalk with wine and it was awful

[saoarmyvid]

As someone who drives Linux and Windows close to daily, this is only half true (yes I know this is supposed to be mostly humorous but I want to sprinkle some knowledge into this).

Let's break it down; Starting with Windows, pro: you have one of the most robust and polished OSs of the big 3 and one of the largest library of applications that natively run on Windows without any middle-man for programs as far back as the Win95 days. Con: Microsoft is actively commuting OSSuic1de with Win11 by pushing Copilot and the rest of the categorically unfinished AI and ML crap that literally no-one asked for.

Now let's move to Linux; pro: Its extremely customizable down to the kernel level and is infinitely compatible with everything given community support and community-made tools. Con: it is really hard to go to Linux from another OS and get the same level of performance or compatibility without an actual shitload of research, experimentation, and guess work. Linux is extremely niche and really only works in specific situations where you can, without a doubt, rely on community-made tools.

Now mind you, I am an avid Linux supporter, and if I could fully switch over and have access to all of my tools there instead of Windows, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But the reality of it is that unless everything you do is fueled by open-source projects maintained by a few hobbyists and don't need literally any of the professionally made programs that are leagues more stable and feature rich than any of the free alternatives.

And before people swarm to the notes to tell me "oh but you can run Windows programs on Linux with Wine", yes, *but* that compatibility comes with a huge asterix, it doesn't always work. There is a whole host of programs that just don't work properly or even at all when run with Wine, and even the ones that do still end up with stability and performance issues as it all has to be basically translated in real time by Wine from Windows to Linux.

And for those who are gonna say MacOS, you're in an even worse boat, as you have all of the worst restrictions of Windows and the compatibility issues of Linux, but worse. Mac will often throw errors trying to run programs from as short a couple years old, and the customization options are either practically non-exsistant or extremely surface level.

All in all, for creative professionals and even hobbyists, Linux is often too unstable and requires too much additional maintanence out of the box as opposed to Windows. Do I like Windows? Not really, there's a lot of shit that Microsoft has done to it that really pisses me off, and I have made the decision to stay on Win10 for as long as I can so I don't have to suffer through all of the crap that Microsoft is trying to dump into Win11. But unfortunately my creative process is locked to Windows, mostly since the program I use for music, Cakewalk, is Windows only and its the only I actually like and can stand using.

If you can move to Linux without sacrificing anything from the move, please do it. Linux is extremely powerful and can do pretty much anything, but if you are stuck with Windows, specifically Win11, because of your programs, while you can look into compatibility with Wine, I wouldn't worry too much on it. If you're on Win10, STAY THERE! Win10 might not have all of the bells and whistles that Win11 has, and its grave has already been dug with its end of service date rapidly approaching, it is by far the better option. I'd still look into open-source tools, as they are often made with utility in mind instead of marketability, but aside from that use what you already have.

This is not a call to move to either system, as both has their drawbacks, but don't be compelled to switch OSs on a whim because of the AI crap. Someone is going to find a way to work around it all and possibly even disable it entirely, but until then it may have to be something you work with. Use what you're comfortable with and don't think that you're incorrect for using one or the other.

Also @cyanroxanne your art is fucking awesome and I didn't mean to turn the funny Linux Fox into giant ramble about Operating Systems and I hope you anjoy your pride month

🐭Xenia here to remind u that u don't need to deal with windows! There's a better way

(art from 2023)