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I love using Linux. Sometimes. Mostly just from the CLI for servers. I don't consider Linux desktop to be realistically usable for the average user, and that's

I love using Linux. Sometimes. Mostly just from the CLI for servers. I don't consider Linux desktop to be realistically usable for the average user, and that's the biggest problem. I think the UX isn't there on most setups. Small things like the screen blanking out when booting up to logging in after putting in a password. Web apps and electron apps have certainly made using non-Windows easier. But people still want some of those popular big apps easily on their system. I hope one day the display manager stuff like Wayland gets worked out. I would love to be able to let people free on Linux stuff, but only distro I would even feel somewhat okay to let someone use without teaching them much is Linux Mint with Cinnamon. Second would MAYBE be Ubuntu. UI/UX consistency and polish is so important here. That kind of stuff is hard for FOSS though. Even companies like Red Hat, SUSE, and Canonical, with a lot of money, don't seem to doing anything to make Linux Desktop really usable. They've instead focused primarily on enterprise, servers, and embedded. Windows 10 is my desktop and daily driver. I have a MacBook Pro with High Sierra, a dual boot on the desktop for Ubuntu, servers with Ubuntu, Chromebook with Gallium OS, and test monthly VMs for various distros to see where they're at. macOS feels basically like a "professional Linux". Unix-like, good UI/UX, consistency, good default desktop applications. Before someone says elementary, elementary is pretty, but it's UX is quite horrible and doesn't work very well. Pantheon somehow fails to be more basic in user features than anything else.

Something1234 8y ago
I think GNOME has a pretty good user experience. It's very mac like with actual window management rather than drag drop and stay right there. Although the cinnamon desktop feels very close to windows.
- Drybones 8y ago
  GNOME 3 has come a long way from it's initial release. It's still quite inconsistent in how application menu options are presented, what window decor buttons are displayed, the light and dark decor options. Plus the top bar is not great with the middle clock display by default and the lock screen is still quite annoying. I've always preferred Unity's Gnome 3 fork over Gnome 3. The changed Canonical has made to their Gnome 3 version post-Unity is nice, but it feels like a step back still. The right menu stuffs a lot of things into a giant menu item and multiple drop downs. The apps menu is a graphically intensive animation and the layout could be utilized better. Among other things of course.
- type0 8y ago
  For a new and non techy users it isn't at all. Hidden menus, undiscoverable features that you would need to read a lengthy manual to find out. Even the simplest stuff need extensions and they still keep removing things from the core.

Something1234 8y ago

I think GNOME has a pretty good user experience. It's very mac like with actual window management rather than drag drop and stay right there. Although the cinnamon desktop feels very close to windows.

Drybones 8y ago
GNOME 3 has come a long way from it's initial release. It's still quite inconsistent in how application menu options are presented, what window decor buttons are displayed, the light and dark decor options. Plus the top bar is not great with the middle clock display by default and the lock screen is still quite annoying. I've always preferred Unity's Gnome 3 fork over Gnome 3. The changed Canonical has made to their Gnome 3 version post-Unity is nice, but it feels like a step back still. The right menu stuffs a lot of things into a giant menu item and multiple drop downs. The apps menu is a graphically intensive animation and the layout could be utilized better. Among other things of course.
type0 8y ago
For a new and non techy users it isn't at all. Hidden menus, undiscoverable features that you would need to read a lengthy manual to find out. Even the simplest stuff need extensions and they still keep removing things from the core.