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Having to tinker a bit is part and parcel with Linux in general, I find. And this is even more true if you are expecting a level of usability quality at parity

Having to tinker a bit is part and parcel with Linux in general, I find. And this is even more true if you are expecting a level of usability quality at parity with commercial OSes. My take is that you have to adjust your expectations and accept that you'll spend a few hours doing tweaks to address the things that annoy you. Once done however, you'll be left with a great operating system experience that you can just leave as-is. That said, I've had a very positive experience with Linux Mint in conjunction with the MATE desktop. Most hardware-accelerated GUIs are slow on my old T500 which I use as a hobby machine, but MATE (being based on GNOME 2) runs well on the integrated graphics chip. Barring that, Ubuntu is probably the most well-rounded for modern hardware. If you still encounter problems, try one of the LTS releases designed for stability. One last comment, there will always be certain things in the Linux ecosystem that will never work the same way as other OSes (the XFCE "panels" bar comes to mind), and no amount of tweaking will leave you completely satisfied. Again, one learns to accept things and focus on the merits of Linux rather than it's weaknesses :)

8bitsrule 6y ago
Generally agreed. On XFCE panels, I've found settings that satisfy (in recent years). Once found, never need change over -years-. (It was KDE's 4.x mess that I gave up on.) XFCE's developers move -very- slowly, so once you've settled on the environment, it stays very consistent.
brundolf 6y ago
> My take is that you have to adjust your expectations and accept that you'll spend a few hours doing tweaks to address the things that annoy you. Once done however, you'll be left with a great operating system experience that you can just leave as-is. I've kept one or another secondary Linux system on hand for most of the past 10 years; usually a VM or a dual-boot, usually Ubuntu (occasionally Fedora). What I've found is that each time I install an update - or more likely, install a new tool - there's a chance it will be blocked by something or cause a problem with something else, and I'll have to debug it for an hour or two before I can get back to what I was doing. So most of the time if I want to focus on a project I'll just end up using a MacBook, or if I really want to use my desktop machine I'll begrudgingly use Windows. I only use my Linux install when I really absolutely need to be on Linux (or when I really need to be on my desktop but also in a Unix environment). What I would like is for using Linux to be pleasant enough that I might reach for it as a default for some things. Thus far, that hasn't been the case. > One last comment, there will always be certain things in the Linux ecosystem that will never work the same way as other OSes (the XFCE "panels" bar comes to mind), and no amount of tweaking will leave you completely satisfied I'm not too worried about fine-tuning the user experience. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to that stuff. I just need things to work, consistently and without babysitting.
- trilinearnz 6y ago
  > What I've found is that each time I install an update - or more likely, install a new tool - there's a chance it will be blocked by something or cause a problem with something else, and I'll have to debug it for an hour or two before I can get back to what I was doing Ah, I understand where you're coming from now. For myself, I can usually install most things I need directly from apt-get using the OS's built-in repositories. This route seems to take care of any dependency issues without manual intervention. Although if you're using third-party repos, or installing software outside a package manager context, I can see how that would increase the chance of niggles. My only remark there would be to focus on distros which emphasise a well-curated set of reliable packages out of the box, designed to be compatible with one another (LTS releases, or even BSD if you are open to it).

8bitsrule 6y ago

Generally agreed. On XFCE panels, I've found settings that satisfy (in recent years). Once found, never need change over -years-. (It was KDE's 4.x mess that I gave up on.) XFCE's developers move -very- slowly, so once you've settled on the environment, it stays very consistent.

brundolf 6y ago

> My take is that you have to adjust your expectations and accept that you'll spend a few hours doing tweaks to address the things that annoy you. Once done however, you'll be left with a great operating system experience that you can just leave as-is. I've kept one or another secondary Linux system on hand for most of the past 10 years; usually a VM or a dual-boot, usually Ubuntu (occasionally Fedora). What I've found is that each time I install an update - or more likely, install a new tool - there's a chance it will be blocked by something or cause a problem with something else, and I'll have to debug it for an hour or two before I can get back to what I was doing. So most of the time if I want to focus on a project I'll just end up using a MacBook, or if I really want to use my desktop machine I'll begrudgingly use Windows. I only use my Linux install when I really absolutely need to be on Linux (or when I really need to be on my desktop but also in a Unix environment). What I would like is for using Linux to be pleasant enough that I might reach for it as a default for some things. Thus far, that hasn't been the case. > One last comment, there will always be certain things in the Linux ecosystem that will never work the same way as other OSes (the XFCE "panels" bar comes to mind), and no amount of tweaking will leave you completely satisfied I'm not too worried about fine-tuning the user experience. I'm pretty flexible when it comes to that stuff. I just need things to work, consistently and without babysitting.

trilinearnz 6y ago
> What I've found is that each time I install an update - or more likely, install a new tool - there's a chance it will be blocked by something or cause a problem with something else, and I'll have to debug it for an hour or two before I can get back to what I was doing Ah, I understand where you're coming from now. For myself, I can usually install most things I need directly from apt-get using the OS's built-in repositories. This route seems to take care of any dependency issues without manual intervention. Although if you're using third-party repos, or installing software outside a package manager context, I can see how that would increase the chance of niggles. My only remark there would be to focus on distros which emphasise a well-curated set of reliable packages out of the box, designed to be compatible with one another (LTS releases, or even BSD if you are open to it).