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I don't know what you're talking about. I've used Debian, then Ubuntu for decades. I'm lucky I don't need the few commercial apps that hold people back, so I ge

I don't know what you're talking about. I've used Debian, then Ubuntu for decades. I'm lucky I don't need the few commercial apps that hold people back, so I get the advantages of everything just working, with a good package system that whole time. These days so much is available in the browser or distributed systems, it's even easier. As for 1.77% (excluding ChromeOS and Android based desktop apps, of course), I'm going to guess those people are more significant in terms of software development and user advocacy, on their own and in networks, than the bulk of users. Certainly constantly compromising and taking the enclosed garden path has its drawbacks for the larger community.

wruza 7y ago
I’m talking about numerous issues that I had with linux kernel (and alikes) on desktops and workstations for decades. My story is freebsd 4.x-7.0, then debian (codenames I forgot), then OSX 10.5-10.9, then unbuntu/mint since ~ 2014-2016 maybe (when gpu and os updates broke it again). I also supervised an entire office of debian/ubuntu + printers & scanners for few years. I’m not what you would call a regular linux hater, and it has it’s own unquestioned throne at the server side. But struggling with the drivers, laptop battery health, suspend issues, lack of business software, configuration, etc etc etc is too much for a regular user who wants things to be done. I was trying to create a scalable solution of win->linux transition for small offices at our company, and it failed. I was converting simple (non-gaming) home users to linux, and it failed most of the times. I’m not even going into partition and breaking changes in DE teams here, which are de-facto your walled garden version of corp, inc. >constantly compromising and taking the enclosed garden path has its drawbacks for the larger community This I am not doing though. I’m using all the software you’re using, including bash, ls, soffice, gcc, etc. I’m all gnu, all unixway, but just not linux kernel & DE and that only on a desktop. >those people are more significant in terms of software development and user advocacy But I am one of them, except probably 20x of average experience and real advocacy attempts.
- saturn_vk 7y ago
  I've had more problems with my brand new (2 month old) macbook pro, than with my 5 year old home linux laptop.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    I'll throw my experience in as well. I recent memory within the past year, I count upwards of 5-6 different people coming to me with problems on their preinstalled, officially supported Windows laptops, where one day something just outright stopped working because of a background update or random registry change. One couldn't launch any games because one day out of the blue Windows installed a second graphics driver alongside their first one for no discernible reason. One out of the box couldn't connect any external monitors or get any signal from its HDMI port. One had its audio stop working, and I never found out what the problem was -- for all I know, it still doesn't work. Just the other day I was updating a laptop at work and discovered that every 3 minutes the mouse drivers would just stop working for 1 minute. When I upgraded a Surface Pro 3 to Windows 10, I ended up with 2 OneDrive folders and half of my documents permanently deleted. Then I had to download a 3rd-party firmware driver that was only rated for Windows 8 and wasn't linked anywhere from Microsoft's site to do touchscreen calibration again on the Surface device that Microsoft built. Which, OK, I'm not going to pretend I haven't seen weird stuff happen on Linux. But these are officially supported devices that only have one job -- to work with Windows. And people run into these problems, go on to 4 year old abandoned Microsoft forums that tell them to start messing with their registries or randomly installing drivers, and then turn around and tell me that they can't use Linux because AskUbuntu isn't "real" support. All of this is anecdote of course, but at the end of the day I make decisions based on which platforms by my experience cause me the most trouble. Linux causes me less trouble than Windows.
- leshow 7y ago
  Linux these days, if you just want a working desktop experience, requires no configuration. You pop in an ubuntu usb drive and install, done. It will often run better than the version of windows that the machine actually shipped with. Myself, personally, I stopped running anything but linux more than a decade ago. All I remember from windows is how often it broke in ways that were completely unfixable.
  - yani 7y ago
    Until you need to use an external device - camera, microphone, speakers, printer, scanner... most of the game mice keyboards...
    - davet91 7y ago
      You can get every of those devices with Linux support with a bit of research before buying. It's not the fault of Linux if the manufacturer of your hardware doesn't care about the platform.
  - stef25 7y ago
    Firefox and Chromium crash constantly on a fresh install of Ubuntu 18 on my Thinkpad T420. Only excuse I can think of is that it's an old machine. I want to switch but every time I kick the tires I'm baffled at how quickly it blows up.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      Do you have bad ram?
    - davidy123 7y ago
      It really sounds like a hardware problem. Linux excels on older hardware.

wruza 7y ago

I’m talking about numerous issues that I had with linux kernel (and alikes) on desktops and workstations for decades. My story is freebsd 4.x-7.0, then debian (codenames I forgot), then OSX 10.5-10.9, then unbuntu/mint since ~ 2014-2016 maybe (when gpu and os updates broke it again). I also supervised an entire office of debian/ubuntu + printers & scanners for few years. I’m not what you would call a regular linux hater, and it has it’s own unquestioned throne at the server side. But struggling with the drivers, laptop battery health, suspend issues, lack of business software, configuration, etc etc etc is too much for a regular user who wants things to be done. I was trying to create a scalable solution of win->linux transition for small offices at our company, and it failed. I was converting simple (non-gaming) home users to linux, and it failed most of the times. I’m not even going into partition and breaking changes in DE teams here, which are de-facto your walled garden version of corp, inc. >constantly compromising and taking the enclosed garden path has its drawbacks for the larger community This I am not doing though. I’m using all the software you’re using, including bash, ls, soffice, gcc, etc. I’m all gnu, all unixway, but just not linux kernel & DE and that only on a desktop. >those people are more significant in terms of software development and user advocacy But I am one of them, except probably 20x of average experience and real advocacy attempts.

saturn_vk 7y ago
I've had more problems with my brand new (2 month old) macbook pro, than with my 5 year old home linux laptop.
- danShumway 7y ago
  I'll throw my experience in as well. I recent memory within the past year, I count upwards of 5-6 different people coming to me with problems on their preinstalled, officially supported Windows laptops, where one day something just outright stopped working because of a background update or random registry change. One couldn't launch any games because one day out of the blue Windows installed a second graphics driver alongside their first one for no discernible reason. One out of the box couldn't connect any external monitors or get any signal from its HDMI port. One had its audio stop working, and I never found out what the problem was -- for all I know, it still doesn't work. Just the other day I was updating a laptop at work and discovered that every 3 minutes the mouse drivers would just stop working for 1 minute. When I upgraded a Surface Pro 3 to Windows 10, I ended up with 2 OneDrive folders and half of my documents permanently deleted. Then I had to download a 3rd-party firmware driver that was only rated for Windows 8 and wasn't linked anywhere from Microsoft's site to do touchscreen calibration again on the Surface device that Microsoft built. Which, OK, I'm not going to pretend I haven't seen weird stuff happen on Linux. But these are officially supported devices that only have one job -- to work with Windows. And people run into these problems, go on to 4 year old abandoned Microsoft forums that tell them to start messing with their registries or randomly installing drivers, and then turn around and tell me that they can't use Linux because AskUbuntu isn't "real" support. All of this is anecdote of course, but at the end of the day I make decisions based on which platforms by my experience cause me the most trouble. Linux causes me less trouble than Windows.
leshow 7y ago
Linux these days, if you just want a working desktop experience, requires no configuration. You pop in an ubuntu usb drive and install, done. It will often run better than the version of windows that the machine actually shipped with. Myself, personally, I stopped running anything but linux more than a decade ago. All I remember from windows is how often it broke in ways that were completely unfixable.
- yani 7y ago
  Until you need to use an external device - camera, microphone, speakers, printer, scanner... most of the game mice keyboards...
  - davet91 7y ago
    You can get every of those devices with Linux support with a bit of research before buying. It's not the fault of Linux if the manufacturer of your hardware doesn't care about the platform.
- stef25 7y ago
  Firefox and Chromium crash constantly on a fresh install of Ubuntu 18 on my Thinkpad T420. Only excuse I can think of is that it's an old machine. I want to switch but every time I kick the tires I'm baffled at how quickly it blows up.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    Do you have bad ram?
  - davidy123 7y ago
    It really sounds like a hardware problem. Linux excels on older hardware.