6 ms·

I just moved from Macos to Linux. The Linux desktop experience has improved a lot in the past five years (at least KDE has).

adambatkin 6y ago
Linux on the desktop and Linux on the laptop (heh) has definitely improved. It _sometimes_ needs a little tweaking to get it right, but KDE/Plasma also happens to offer that level of "tweakability" that should satisfy almost all semi-mainstream users (at least anyone coming from Windows or Mac). Compared to my first Linux laptop (a Sony Vaio circa 2000), my current XPS 13 works as well as any Mac laptop I have ever owned, and all the hardware that you would "expect" to work (but probably didn't work as smoothly 10 or 20 years ago) Just Works (WiFi, external displays, excellent battery life/sleep, etc...) Based on the complaints I have heard about Apple hardware and MacOS over the past few years, I'd even argue that Linux-on-the-desktop isn't any less stable or harder to get working than a Mac.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  I try the major DEs every few years to see if they fit me, most recently trying the newest KDE and GNOME versions in a VM about a month ago. Both have improved for sure, but they still have a long way to go… GNOME actually came closest but its customizability level is even lower than that of macOS, even factoring in extensions. Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore, and in KDE's case the UX design they employ just doesn't jive with me at all. It's all enough that I end up coming back to macOS because despite its problems, it fits me in ways that nothing else even comes close to touching. Sometimes it feels like there will never be a macOS alternative that has what it takes for me to switch without feeling a major sense of loss.
  - oatmealsnap 6y ago
    Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. I’ve dug through message boards and bug reports, and a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented. I’m taking about features released 13+ years ago on OS X 10.4.
    - boogies 6y ago
      > a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented Care to name any? Other times I’ve heard things like this on HN I’ve been able to locate them.
      - mindfulhack 6y ago
        A big one I will sorely miss as I transition to Linux (and it's the only one I can think of right now), is the ability to rename and move around files while they are open! OK here's another, very related: the ability to have apps remember their open files when you quit and re-open them. These are significant productivity boosters, and I will miss them. It's definitely a trade-off, but now Apple has tipped the scales too much in favour of Linux...for me.
        jhasse 6y ago
        Both of those things work under Linux for me. I guess it depends on the apps?
        mindfulhack 6y ago
        Can you give examples of which apps you noticed it working for? and what desktop environment/distro? I will most certainly test.
        jhasse 6y ago
        VSCode and Sublime Text remember the files they had opened. And renaming files while they are played back works fine with mpv.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      > Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. Highly, highly subjective. I use Linux as my main OS and have for many years.
  - brightball 6y ago
    Tried PopOS from System76 recently? It's IMHO the current best user experience of Gnome.
    - kitsunesoba 6y ago
      I have, in fact I had it installed directly on one of my towers a few months ago to make sure that no weird VM shenanigans were futzing things up. It was one of the smoother GNOME distros, and its installer was far more competent than Ubuntu's (mainly, it didn't screw with the boot partitions of every drive in the system like Ubuntu's installer did). Ultimately though, GNOME itself is flawed in its approach to a few things.
  - boogies 6y ago
    elementary OS’s Pantheon seems to be the closest DE to macOS’s Aqua
  - kevincox 6y ago
    > Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore This sounds just like your familiarity. I could have used the exact same sentence to describe how I feel using macOS for work after being used to Linux (GNOME) for 8 years. When you use something for a while you learn to avoid all the bugs and the UX starts to feel natural. Any switch will end up in you running into new bugs and finding the UX odd, no matter if it is to or from macOS, Windows, GNOME, KDE or otherwise. I would say that I run into 10x more bugs on macOS than GNOME. But that probably isn't because there are 10x more bugs. There is likely a comparable number on GNOME but I have learned to subconsciously avoid most of them.
  - 3131s 6y ago
    I would suggest looking into MATE or XFCE if you haven't, or even a tiling window manager like i3.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    This is so vague that I want to downvote this comment as irrelevant.
    - kitsunesoba 6y ago
      Apologies, it's deeper than it seems at first glance. If I were to elaborate, the resulting writeup would be better suited for a blogpost than an HN comment.
- novok 6y ago
  Is there a 'little snitch' for desktop linux with the speed of it's UI in setting networking rules?
  - dhaavi 6y ago
    We are working on an alternative for both Linux and Windows: https://safing.io/portmaster/ https://safing.io/portmaster/ Not only is it an application firewall, but also gives you DNS filtering (ie. Pi-Hole basics) and DNS-over-TLS. Not sure what you mean with "the speed of it's UI ..." though.
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    There's OpenSnitch [1]. [1] https://github.com/gustavo-iniguez-goya/opensnitch https://github.com/gustavo-iniguez-goya/opensnitch
_underfl0w_ 6y ago
Just wanted to add another compliment for KDE (specifically Plasma). I've been using KDE Neon as my daily driver for a few months now and it's amazing. Connects to my android device to share notifications and clipboard content, is heavily customizable and themeable, the whole OS feels very snappy and uniform in terms of UI/UX, and installing alongside Win10 and macOS in a hackintosh setup with full LUKS disk encryption was a snap through the installer GUI. Absolute 10 out of 10.
DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago
Same! I purchased a Razer Blade Stealth 13 and put Linux Mint on it end of 2019. I have been really pleased with the entire thing. I don't do anything crazy (web browsing, simple budget spreadsheets, watching videos, viewing family photos) and it works perfectly. I was an avid mac user for many years because of bash/BSD but the march toward locked-down hardware and software really pushed me away. The only thing I miss are the glass trackpads and the fantastic gesture support.
jjoonathan 6y ago
How is desktop search? Spotlight (mac desktop search) is a killer feature for me -- fast, reliable, smooth, all straight out of the box. Meanwhile, I've wasted many hours trying to get desktop search up to the same standard on Windows and Linux. That was years ago (for linux, at least), hopefully things have improved. How is linux desktop search doing today?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  Works pretty well on Plasma Desktop. I use it all the time to find files via KRunner.
- indymike 6y ago
  KDE's search is very, very fast and at least on the latest KDE, just works.

adambatkin 6y ago

Linux on the desktop and Linux on the laptop (heh) has definitely improved. It _sometimes_ needs a little tweaking to get it right, but KDE/Plasma also happens to offer that level of "tweakability" that should satisfy almost all semi-mainstream users (at least anyone coming from Windows or Mac). Compared to my first Linux laptop (a Sony Vaio circa 2000), my current XPS 13 works as well as any Mac laptop I have ever owned, and all the hardware that you would "expect" to work (but probably didn't work as smoothly 10 or 20 years ago) Just Works (WiFi, external displays, excellent battery life/sleep, etc...) Based on the complaints I have heard about Apple hardware and MacOS over the past few years, I'd even argue that Linux-on-the-desktop isn't any less stable or harder to get working than a Mac.

kitsunesoba 6y ago
I try the major DEs every few years to see if they fit me, most recently trying the newest KDE and GNOME versions in a VM about a month ago. Both have improved for sure, but they still have a long way to go… GNOME actually came closest but its customizability level is even lower than that of macOS, even factoring in extensions. Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore, and in KDE's case the UX design they employ just doesn't jive with me at all. It's all enough that I end up coming back to macOS because despite its problems, it fits me in ways that nothing else even comes close to touching. Sometimes it feels like there will never be a macOS alternative that has what it takes for me to switch without feeling a major sense of loss.
- oatmealsnap 6y ago
  Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. I’ve dug through message boards and bug reports, and a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented. I’m taking about features released 13+ years ago on OS X 10.4.
  - boogies 6y ago
    > a lot of the features that MacOS has will never be implemented Care to name any? Other times I’ve heard things like this on HN I’ve been able to locate them.
    - mindfulhack 6y ago
      A big one I will sorely miss as I transition to Linux (and it's the only one I can think of right now), is the ability to rename and move around files while they are open! OK here's another, very related: the ability to have apps remember their open files when you quit and re-open them. These are significant productivity boosters, and I will miss them. It's definitely a trade-off, but now Apple has tipped the scales too much in favour of Linux...for me.
      - jhasse 6y ago
        Both of those things work under Linux for me. I guess it depends on the apps?
        mindfulhack 6y ago
        Can you give examples of which apps you noticed it working for? and what desktop environment/distro? I will most certainly test.
        jhasse 6y ago
        VSCode and Sublime Text remember the files they had opened. And renaming files while they are played back works fine with mpv.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    > Same experience. I tried, but Linux just isn’t ready to be used as a general OS right now. Highly, highly subjective. I use Linux as my main OS and have for many years.
- brightball 6y ago
  Tried PopOS from System76 recently? It's IMHO the current best user experience of Gnome.
  - kitsunesoba 6y ago
    I have, in fact I had it installed directly on one of my towers a few months ago to make sure that no weird VM shenanigans were futzing things up. It was one of the smoother GNOME distros, and its installer was far more competent than Ubuntu's (mainly, it didn't screw with the boot partitions of every drive in the system like Ubuntu's installer did). Ultimately though, GNOME itself is flawed in its approach to a few things.
- boogies 6y ago
  elementary OS’s Pantheon seems to be the closest DE to macOS’s Aqua
- kevincox 6y ago
  > Both suffer from a laundry list of minor annoyances that snowball into something that's hard to ignore This sounds just like your familiarity. I could have used the exact same sentence to describe how I feel using macOS for work after being used to Linux (GNOME) for 8 years. When you use something for a while you learn to avoid all the bugs and the UX starts to feel natural. Any switch will end up in you running into new bugs and finding the UX odd, no matter if it is to or from macOS, Windows, GNOME, KDE or otherwise. I would say that I run into 10x more bugs on macOS than GNOME. But that probably isn't because there are 10x more bugs. There is likely a comparable number on GNOME but I have learned to subconsciously avoid most of them.
- 3131s 6y ago
  I would suggest looking into MATE or XFCE if you haven't, or even a tiling window manager like i3.
- fsflover 6y ago
  This is so vague that I want to downvote this comment as irrelevant.
  - kitsunesoba 6y ago
    Apologies, it's deeper than it seems at first glance. If I were to elaborate, the resulting writeup would be better suited for a blogpost than an HN comment.
novok 6y ago
Is there a 'little snitch' for desktop linux with the speed of it's UI in setting networking rules?
- dhaavi 6y ago
  We are working on an alternative for both Linux and Windows: https://safing.io/portmaster/ https://safing.io/portmaster/ Not only is it an application firewall, but also gives you DNS filtering (ie. Pi-Hole basics) and DNS-over-TLS. Not sure what you mean with "the speed of it's UI ..." though.
- Fnoord 6y ago
  There's OpenSnitch [1]. [1] https://github.com/gustavo-iniguez-goya/opensnitch https://github.com/gustavo-iniguez-goya/opensnitch

_underfl0w_ 6y ago

Just wanted to add another compliment for KDE (specifically Plasma). I've been using KDE Neon as my daily driver for a few months now and it's amazing. Connects to my android device to share notifications and clipboard content, is heavily customizable and themeable, the whole OS feels very snappy and uniform in terms of UI/UX, and installing alongside Win10 and macOS in a hackintosh setup with full LUKS disk encryption was a snap through the installer GUI. Absolute 10 out of 10.

DrAwdeOccarim 6y ago

Same! I purchased a Razer Blade Stealth 13 and put Linux Mint on it end of 2019. I have been really pleased with the entire thing. I don't do anything crazy (web browsing, simple budget spreadsheets, watching videos, viewing family photos) and it works perfectly. I was an avid mac user for many years because of bash/BSD but the march toward locked-down hardware and software really pushed me away. The only thing I miss are the glass trackpads and the fantastic gesture support.

jjoonathan 6y ago

How is desktop search? Spotlight (mac desktop search) is a killer feature for me -- fast, reliable, smooth, all straight out of the box. Meanwhile, I've wasted many hours trying to get desktop search up to the same standard on Windows and Linux. That was years ago (for linux, at least), hopefully things have improved. How is linux desktop search doing today?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
heavyset_go 6y ago
Works pretty well on Plasma Desktop. I use it all the time to find files via KRunner.
indymike 6y ago
KDE's search is very, very fast and at least on the latest KDE, just works.