>>221560>>221565VLC is primarily Windows software, and is not an inherent part of experiencing media in a linux environment. Distribution library availability, compatibility with applications and utilities, and reliability of updates are inherent to the process of using media in a Linux environment. Running media on Linux involves a more delicate balance of libraries though, even in mainline linux distributions. For instance, the Germans at SUSE can't figure out how to get their ARM line to play audio, which is an absolute disgrace since one of the biggest reasons to use the ARM line of a linux distro in the first place is to use an RPi as a node for audio work. I dare you, I double dare you, to build every piece of an expansive purposeful set of media related software from source when using a 'normal' version of linux (normal being defined as a .DEB or .RPM environment). Like a set that someone intending to score a CGI short film would need - Firefox, Blender, LMMS, Rosegarden, VLC, and everything those depend on such as FFMPEG. Remember to get your compile switches just right ahead of time, and god help you if GNU did an oopsie in your build of gcc.
GStreamer keeps breaking shit in SUSE and going unrepaired for months at a time. Meanwhile the GNOME project is more dedicated to removing RMS from GNU than in addressing efficiency within their ecosystem, and since their core libraries are used in everygoddamnedthing this is like if you had to actually pay systemd a 10% tax on processor power at all times. There is a reason Valve's Steam Deck runs a custom variant of Arch rather than any existing ARM linux.
LibreOffice is fine for word documents. It's acceptable for spreadsheets. It would be perfect for creating and delivering presentations on your own - but it's always been ass at intercompatibility with PowerPoint, especially if you tried to do anything visually interesting. Good luck with that. LibreBase is probably fine, but any circumstance in which you use it is a circumstance in which you'll want to use MS Access instead for full compatibility purposes because you really really really don't want to discover a database got read wrong by a client software. Everyone will be programming against your databases using either SQL APIs, which are going to run perfectly fine, or Access-focused .NET APIs which, I have no experience with using in the context of Base-prepared Access databases, but I've heard things. LibreOffice is only really equivalent for the least valuable functions of Office. The big money value isn't in the word processor.
Privacy and security are points where Linux has historically been strong, but those strengths were largely security-through-obscurity and the recent prevalence of operating systems in important personal devices has made them almost 1/100th as significant a target of criminals as Windows desktops, which has effectively shattered the myth of Linux's structural invincibility. There are a good half-dozen critical security flaws discovered on a quarterly bass:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-linux-kernel-netfilter-flaw-gives-attackers-root-privileges/https://thehackernews.com/2023/05/new-variant-of-linux-backdoor-bpfdoor.htmlThe core safety factor in an operating system is now and always has been user behavior. You are not meaningfully made more safe by using a kernel that is also used by every Android device and Chromebook on the planet.
Granted I honestly have no idea if Windows users have worse issues. I suspect that they would if they had to compile software occasionally due to it being out of spec and out of repo the way Linux users do, but they are never likely to be in that situation.
t. posted from my arch linux arm device.
