I teach programming and Mathematics full-time and I've been doing so for the last few years. I must use 20 different machines every semester.
Every single time, windows users cannot install python, they cannot install latex, SQL etc. And of course every single time the machine is riddled with garbage and just opening the start menu takes seconds. It's probably more correlation than causation, but students on Linux always perform better In the course.
Mac Users certainly have it better but installing basic software (git, fish, ripgrep, neovim etc. ) is still quite challenging.
Much of the teaching staff have been using Linux for the past 5 to 20 years and probably have not relied on Windows since maybe 95/xp/2000 (my old supervisor started on Solaris apparently 🤷)
We sit there amazed that anybody would use this. It runs like shit, It's riddled with ads, installing software is painful, most software isn't packaged for it (exceptions being subscription-based software like Adobe), it's a privacy nightmare and of course you have to pay for the bloody thing.
I guess my point is, maybe you find Linux more difficult than Windows because you've been using Windows for the past 20 years and so you're approaching it from a different perspective.
From our perspective, we could go back to Windows and wouldn't struggle with the technical side of things too much, but there is no doubt that it's an inferior experience.
I started on Linux as a kid and let me tell you, being curious about windows, welp that's been horrific.
Curious in this case is a strong term, quite a few of my students are on Windows and that OS is a mess. I don't care much for apple but at least MacBooks work.
Nix is really useful as well. But it's not always a one-for-one replacement.
One problem I hit with nix is the size, after adding latex and a few other related packages, The install time took a very long time And the amount of space consumed was over 150 GB.
It wasn't too bad because I was able to put it on a compressed ZFS data set but it wasn't great. Whereas distrobox and podman built quicker, had a smaller size and it was easier to move the image between machines.
The other issue I hit with it was having to set environment variables for QT.
Definitely a nice piece of software just a little rough around the edges.
I suppose that's my point. I have tried alternatives and many are good for many things but Docker works for all things.
But Docker is a bit of a sledgehammer approach by packaging a whole operating system.
Perhaps you're simply more familiar with Microsoft / Apple, maybe it's not more difficult?
I too use Linux for work, but I have limited experience on Microsoft systems and have been on Linux based systems for over a decade. For me windows is a chore.
In my opinion, it's a matter of perspective and experience. Yours is aligned with something different, that's all.
Downvotes: Docker is contentious among some in the community.
Based on your use case, you may find your current workflow fairly incompatible with the Linux approach. However, id recommend you try nonetheless, always worth the learning experience even if it's not your cup of tea.
Feel free to reach out if you need any support. always happy to help.
Well I typically write my own dockerfiles so I have a good understanding of how a lot of software works, I'm sure others do too. It has increased the reproducibility of my stack, my understanding of dependencies and the reliability. Docker is not just docker compose up
Yeah the containers can be large and usually will lead to large downloads. I have tried bubble wrap and raw chroots but the tooling around docker is a lot better. The change to php8 was a pain, hence why I went docker. An alpine base with clearly defined deps gives me a container that is thin enough but I can move from a Gentoo box to arch for free. This, for my use case, is great.
I put everything in a docker container and it's been, mostly, a net positive. You may laugh at me but it works very well for my use case.
Overall, net positive. I recommend everybody try it and use where appropriate.
This isn't a religion and subscribing to dogma for want of suckless stacks won't always be the best path to the end goal.
However, you're right, docker may not always be the best call and it may promote bloated garbage.
Yeah I hear that, good point.
Arch has great documentation but also a bit more config.
I would vote for Fedora over debian though. Debian packages are so far out of date that it becomes a pain and copr works quite well.