Is Linux As Good As We Think It Is?
Obviously, a bit of clickbait. Sorry.
I just got to work and plugged my surface pro into my external monitor. It didn't switch inputs immediately, and I thought "Linux would have done that". But would it?
I find myself far more patient using Linux and De-googled Android than I do with windows or anything else. After all, Linux is mine. I care for it. Grow it like a garden.
And that's a good thing; I get less frustrated with my tech, and I have something that is important to me outside its technical utility. Unlike windows, which I'm perpetually pissed at. (Very often with good reason)
But that aside, do we give Linux too much benefit of the doubt relative to the "things that just work". Often they do "just work", and well, with a broad feature set by default.
Most of us are willing to forgo that for the privacy and shear customizability of Linux, but do we assume too much of the tech we use and the tech we don't?
Thoughts?
Just this morning I tried to make Outlook on my work laptop to open on startup. I have to find and add a shortcut of Outlook, buried somewhere in the machine, to the startup folder, buried somewhere else in the machine. The startup apps settings menu was just an eclectic list of programs and is of no use at all.
With Mint on my home machine I just go to startup programs settings menu and I can add whatever I want just by pointing it to the right program. It just works.
WIN+R , "shell:startup" in future by the way.
The other list you saw is programs that have added thier own AutoRuns registry keys.
I'm actually kinda surprised that functionality isn't in the new task manager yet. You can toggle on and off basically all startup items from there, but not add stuff.
XP-7 had this right with a folder in the start menu for startup items, just drag a file or shortcut there and it runs on startup.
It’s the same in 10. This is actually one thing I find obnoxious in Linux, even as a user for 25+ years… menu “shortcuts” aka .desktop files are harder to make and poorly documented.
Does windows 10 have it? I didn't see it in the start menu of my VM.
It’s hidden by default but it should be there in
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUpfor “all users” and%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startupseparately for each user.