4 ms·
Having used Linux desktop for roughly a decade, it's definitely gotten better. Almost every computer I install Linux on now has working drivers for everything,
by Spoom 9y ago
Having used Linux desktop for roughly a decade, it's definitely gotten better. Almost every computer I install Linux on now has working drivers for everything, the vast majority working out of the box. Anecdata, of course, but that's been my experience.
Ease of use also depends on the distro you choose. Ubuntu or Mint will probably be the easiest; if you install Arch, you should know what you're in for. (Before you jump on me, I posted this from a system running Arch.)
- notalaser 9y agoI've used Linux since back when there was no "Enterprise" in Red Hat Linux :-). The driver situation has massively improved, absolutely. The second time I installed Linux (on a brand new computer) was scariest -- S-ATA was super cool and new and my S-ATA controller wasn't supported, so I had to build a patched kernel on my old machine and boot with it... But higher-up, I don't think we've progressed significantly past where we were in 2010. Sound still breaks (and ironically enough, it had just started breaking, with Alsa finally getting proper soft mixing and hotplug support via udev), KDE and GTK applications can no longer get uniform themes, display managers still get laughable bugs...
- digi_owl 9y agoThe kernel end of things have gotten better, yes. the DE end had crapified (it may by shiny crap, but still crap), and the crap is seeping towards the kernel year by year. The day Torvalds is no longer present to hold the kernel devs to the rule of not breaking userspace is the day Linux goes down the drain.