[Lazarus] The Problem with the Linux Desktop

[Anthony Walter]

Teresa, thank you for your considered opinion.

I agree with most of what you said, but with regards to the option of
moving back to Windows, for me that is a non starter. I don't use Linux
rather than Window because of some technical benefit. The primary reason I
use Linux because I don't want to worry around my privacy being
compromised, either from malware or viruses which are a big problem with
Windows or from software vendors themselves be it Microsoft telemetry or
other spying features that now a days so commonly bundled with 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd part software on Windows. These problems are pretty much non
existent on Linux.

I also value the efficiency of Linux. I have all processing speed and file
system the room I need on a 2008 Core2Duo, 4GB or RAM, and a 60GB SSD using
Linux, even with the newest distros. On the latest Windows 10, not so much.
Just getting the OS installed is about 30GB. And yes this is a big deal for
me because I always have 10 or more of these laptops on hand and use them
to teach my students basic computers usage, online safety, and programming.
Even if I wasn't using these machine for teaching, they still make for
great everyday computers when running Linux. Using them with the most
recent Windows, not so much.

My complaints, as you expanded upon, center mostly around the fractured
nature of the Linux desktop ecosystem. Even popular distros such as Ubuntu
break things from release to release. Windows seems to always try to
protect that backward compatibility, at least since they made the move to a
true 32 bit OS. Of course with Windows upgrades some hardware is no longer
supported (I can't use the Canon photo capture system on other than XP),
but most of the time everything still works.

Thanks again for your considerate thoughts.
Anthony
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