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.
I think by official OP meant stuff like Infinity is a FOSS client and not the official reddit app instead of alternatives.
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. 😆
Apparently freeoffice (not Foss) has better compatibility with MS office.
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.
A lot of FOSS alternatives are just as good or better than official, but it’s not as simple as just choosing the FOSS alternative always, as there will always be times where the official is better. Best way to find out is to read the GitHub or app description for why the FOSS alternative exists, and if the project has been around long enough to have the features you want.
Be careful with custom Discord clients as I’ve heard they are against TOS. I don’t think people get banned very often for it but it is something to keep in mind. WebCord is based on the browser version so it MIGHT be fine, but I don’t know enough about it.
On Mint go with the apps in the store. This OS is often recommended to beginners for two reasons 1. The familiar interface and 2. Stability.
You’ll have less grief with store apps, and they’re usually foss anyway. Flatpak apps are fine but can collectively get a bit disk and ram hungry. Either version will work fine though
Linux Mint (and I say this as a Linux Mint user) and its store has caused so many issues for users on one project I’m involved with and probably with another too.
Basically we don’t yet support flatpak for a number of reasons and the ‘community’ flatpak option shown in the store comes with a bunch of broken features (if you dont want to get into flatseal etc) as well as a less then obvious way for users to upgrade versions.
For a particular application i would go what they actually support and have as an installation option.
For discord it will be better to install both official and webcord, in fact I use both, on the official client you have Krisp noise reduction and you don’t risk a ban, but there are downsides to it for example the screensharing on wayland is broken and sometimes you get the annoying window “A new update is available download the .deb on our site” and you can’t use discord for weeks with the official client.
I would transition to Linux slowly and use the official apps at first. Try it for a semester to keep things stable and simple, and then next semester you can gradually replace a few apps with FOSS alternatives and evaluate how well they work.
Depends on what you need. Personally, over the years I’ve been inclined to at least try a FOSS alternative when available and have found some really cool projects by doing that. It’s also cool to see those projects evolve over time and trade blows with the “official” apps they’re competing with.
However in some cases it just might not be practical to do so, especially if the alternative isn’t mature enough to rely on. I’d say at least take a look at the alternatives and give em a fair shot.
I will mention in the case of projects like WebCord you’re essentially getting a cut down version of Discord, with some extra features added in some cases. Basically custom clients like WebCord have to be based on the web version of Discord (essentially what you get when you open it in a browser) and because of that will be missing features like Krisp noise reduction and hardware encoding for video which can be dealbreakers for some people. Those features and some others are only available with the native Discord app which alternative clients cannot be built on top of. So there’s a hard limitation there as to how much these alternatives can accomplish.
There are others like Ripcord which are entirely custom clients, not just loading web Discord and modding it. But something like Ripcord will be missing a lot of features that even the web version of Discord has, so not really an option unless you just need basic voice and text chat stuff.
I love OSS and use all kinds of software extensively, but personally, I’m not the type of person to completely eliminate everything proprietary out of principle. If it genuinely improves my experience, I’ll almost certainly switch. Otherwise it’s a toss-up
For Discord specifically install the Flatpak option for your distro if you have it.
You can try out WebCord on the side too if you want, you have the freedom to install both.
