Sorry if this isn’t the right place to ask this, I couldn’t find a linux-no-stupid-questions community lol.
I’m migrating again to linux, and working on Linux Mint for now to avoid a huge change due to my upcoming program for school soon where I won’t have extra time to fiddle with things. So I’m trying to get everything set up, and download my most used applications, but I’m trying to figure out - should I be downloading the official software if it’s available, or is it better to find a FOSS alternative instead? I plan to go with the apps that come with it like the libre office instead of Microsoft, obviously, but I was looking at Discord and there is what appears to be an official looking option in the software manager app, and below it a FOSS WebCord option. Or, if this one isn’t the official, I could always go to the discord site and get it from them if they have it available.
Does it matter which option I go with? Is it better to go with official software if possible? Or is it better to go with FOSS for more control/privacy?
As with everything - it depends. Sometimes the FOSS versions are not very good, sometimes they are better than the official. Sometimes they are better for privacy, sometimes they make no real difference at all, sometimes the web version is better. Sometimes there is no FOSS version, sometimes the official one does not support Linux.
You are going to need to go on a case by case bases and decide each time.
The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.
First, I don’t like calling proprietary software “official”. Proprietary software is just software with closed source code. What makes something official is someone deciding “OK, this is what we are going to use” or that it definitely came from a particular source. Getting Docker directly from Docker repositories rather from a distributions repository for example.
My general take is if FOSS can do the job, I use FOSS. If FOSS can’t do the job I need, then I will go with the best proprietary solution to my problem. If I go with FOSS, I tend to prefer using the repository of the project in question rather than my distributions repository. The projects repository tends to be more up to date and there are fewer opportunities for ba actors to play with the code. Downside is that these repositories may introduce changes that may bork your OS when/if you upgrade to a newer major version. FlatPacks and AppImages help to mitigate this.
Hope that helps.
Please NEVER stop asking questions. As other have said, there really are no stupid questions.
If someone else acts like it’s a stupid question, then it’s their issue and not yours. NOTHING is easy until you understand it. The only way to understand it is to ask questions.
I’ve told numerous folks at work that before they do something if they have a question then let me know, because I’d rather answer a question then spend an hour or more fixing something broken.
I ask a LOT of questions. So many questions that when I first started in IT I had a lead that got used to me being in the office 2 hours before him so he knew I’d have a million questions and before he’d even go to his desk he’d stop by mine and ask if I had questions, which I always did.
Please please please please please ASK QUESTIONS.
I have been in IT for 12 years now, I have been on Linux for 16. Before this post I literally was in another thread and asked about BTRFS. I looked it up and it wasn’t making sense to me, so I asked a question. You can NEVER know EVERYTHING. And when you start to get comfortable that’s when something new comes out or you start digging deeper and have more.
It’s a matter of ideology.
This being said I think for you installing “official” apps via flatpak might be the best compromise. You gets apps that don’t need tinkering with and “just work” while those apps are isolated from the rest of your system via flatpak isolation.
If you are going into a period low fiddle time this might be your best bet ^
That makes sense. I still have windows installed as a backup but I’d really like to get through the program with Linux only. I’ve been going through the software manager first and then on to the official apps from their site if there was no options
Yah. I would strongly recommend https://flathub.org versions of “official” apps over ones you download from the developers sites.
For those people who are new to Linux it’s important to know Linux isn’t like windows. Installing applications from debs or rpms that you get from directly from developers’ sites is often the worst way to install them. Native package managers and flatpak are the ways to go.
As someone who’s been in the workforce for more than a decade, the one thing I wouldn’t bother with FOSS is Office.
I know it’s probably MS’s fault, but at the end of the day I’m just trying to send this boring document to this boring colleague and get on with my day. Last thing I want is for them to come back with boring complaints cause something went a bit wrong with conversion.
You know what’s funny? Microsoft adopted the OpenDocument format. A .docx file is simply zip-compressed XML. So it’s not that open office software like LibreOffice doesn’t get “the spacing right,” it’s that MS never really got it quite right to begin with. Think how IE made compliant websites render incorrectly; this is the same thing in a sneakier package.
@platysalty @Synthead
Don’t forget about that awesome MSCRLFBS feature. 😆
