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> I’ve been happily using Linux desktops for decades. They work. In fact, they work well. I have been using Linux since... 2000? Jesus. I've probably spent an

> I’ve been happily using Linux desktops for decades. They work. In fact, they work well. I have been using Linux since... 2000? Jesus. I've probably spent an entire year of my life just setting up a computer to make it usable. (If you think that's hyperbole, consider that i've been a serial distro tester, a distro maintainer, and I used Gentoo) And guess what's new? It's possibly worse today than it was then. I've set up four new laptops in the past 4 months for Linux. One for my girlfriend, and three for me, using the latest distro versions of both brand-spanking-new dedicated to crappy hardware, and brand-spanking-new of the same old OS i've used for a decade and a half. The following are some of the things i've done to get Linux to work on these four machines. I have sent multiple patches to distribution maintainers due to their OS poorly handling hardware that was supported in the kernel several years ago. I have spent hours trying to understand and properly enable hybrid graphics. I have fought with X and various apps and machine-specific drivers to support keyboard media buttons. I have edited X configs to support right click on a touchpad. I have read about 50 webpages just to understand which graphics or wlan driver i'm supposed to use, as it has changed multiple times for the same hardware. I have upgraded and customized kernels, manually modified bootloader settings, built initrds, changed EFI settings, and dug through internet posts to figure out how to shrink a Windows partition down to a reasonable size for a dual-boot install (tricker than it seems, these days). I have upgraded firmware packages, enabled non-standard package repos, upgraded browsers by hand, and installed dock plugins to supplant the functionality the keyboard media buttons simply never performed correctly. I have written custom scripts to get an sd card to mount on plug-in, because the ones that already exist wouldn't work without running "lspci -v" first, each time. All of this, and more, was necessary to get four laptops (that were released between 2014 and 2016) to provide the basic functionality that Windows and Mac users take for granted. Linux on the desktop? Maybe it works well, I don't know, I don't own a desktop anymore. But it's definitely shit on a laptop.

hedora 10y ago
Think that's bad? Try switching back to windows. I've found it is at least as bad, except you can't edit driver source to work around brain damage. It is like staring into the abyss. I have no idea how normal people use computers anymore. MacOS doesn't run any software I want (except office, which is terrible, since I know how to use windows office, and I no longer care enough to learn new menus / keyboard shortcuts). Some weeks it fails to resume 3-5 times, but it generally limps along, I guess. This makes it about as reliable as an average well-chosen linux laptop, at 2-3x the cost, and with an inferior userspace (for me, YMMV). I just want there to be a company that makes a working linux box that is only as terrible as a MacBook. This is a disturbingly low bar. I guess the dell xps developer edition exists. That might be a good bet (especially after Ubuntu actually kills Unity).
- peterwwillis 10y ago
  The xps I'm sure is a fine Linux machine, as are probably a few other $1500-plus laptops, but I refuse to pay the equivalent of a used Honda Civic for a machine that is mainly just for letting me do research in multiple tabbed windows and write code. If my phone shipped a full OS, I could already use it as a portable PC with an HDMI monitor and Bluetooth keyboard/mouse. The failure of modern mobile computing is simply user interfaces that are as practical as a Palm Pilot.
- nycticorax 10y ago
  > Think that's bad? Try switching back to windows. I've found it is at least as bad, except you can't edit driver source to work around brain damage. It is like staring into the abyss. This does not match my experience at all. I've installed both Linux and Windows on a lot of different hardware, and getting all the hardware to work under Linux is always harder. Probably partly because the manufacturer took care to make sure everything is workable under Windows, whereas Linux support was usually not even on the radar. Sure, there are plenty of annoyances on Windows, like how the Nvidia and Realtek driver installers also install a bunch of other software that you probably mostly don't need, but at least the hardware works once you're done with the driver install.
gurkendoktor 10y ago
I think Linux "works", but only if you pick the right hardware, just as with Hackintoshes. The Intel GPU in my laptop has always worked out of the box, but the GTX 1080 in my gaming box still requires lots of fiddling. Of course, that isn't great for an OS that people often install on computers they already happen to own.

hedora 10y ago

Think that's bad? Try switching back to windows. I've found it is at least as bad, except you can't edit driver source to work around brain damage. It is like staring into the abyss. I have no idea how normal people use computers anymore. MacOS doesn't run any software I want (except office, which is terrible, since I know how to use windows office, and I no longer care enough to learn new menus / keyboard shortcuts). Some weeks it fails to resume 3-5 times, but it generally limps along, I guess. This makes it about as reliable as an average well-chosen linux laptop, at 2-3x the cost, and with an inferior userspace (for me, YMMV). I just want there to be a company that makes a working linux box that is only as terrible as a MacBook. This is a disturbingly low bar. I guess the dell xps developer edition exists. That might be a good bet (especially after Ubuntu actually kills Unity).

peterwwillis 10y ago
The xps I'm sure is a fine Linux machine, as are probably a few other $1500-plus laptops, but I refuse to pay the equivalent of a used Honda Civic for a machine that is mainly just for letting me do research in multiple tabbed windows and write code. If my phone shipped a full OS, I could already use it as a portable PC with an HDMI monitor and Bluetooth keyboard/mouse. The failure of modern mobile computing is simply user interfaces that are as practical as a Palm Pilot.
nycticorax 10y ago
> Think that's bad? Try switching back to windows. I've found it is at least as bad, except you can't edit driver source to work around brain damage. It is like staring into the abyss. This does not match my experience at all. I've installed both Linux and Windows on a lot of different hardware, and getting all the hardware to work under Linux is always harder. Probably partly because the manufacturer took care to make sure everything is workable under Windows, whereas Linux support was usually not even on the radar. Sure, there are plenty of annoyances on Windows, like how the Nvidia and Realtek driver installers also install a bunch of other software that you probably mostly don't need, but at least the hardware works once you're done with the driver install.

gurkendoktor 10y ago

I think Linux "works", but only if you pick the right hardware, just as with Hackintoshes. The Intel GPU in my laptop has always worked out of the box, but the GTX 1080 in my gaming box still requires lots of fiddling. Of course, that isn't great for an OS that people often install on computers they already happen to own.