8 ms·

If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing th

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. I'm about to give in the towel and get a Mac. I can get it to work because the terminal doesn't scare me, but there's no way I can recommend it to anyone without a certain amount of technical skills.

rietta 4y ago
Not my experience at all. Been running Ubuntu LTS for work for years and updates are just about bulletproof.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  Novice Linux users often make the mistake of adding third party repos to their package manager, which almost invariably causes trouble down the line. Some distros (for instance Debian) have a culture of discouraging this practice, while others (particularly Ubuntu) have a user culture which encourages it. This is easily the most common reason for updates breaking. RPM and dpkg are both nigh bullet proof, and you can generally count on most distros to keep their own package repo in good order. Dependency resolution between out of sync and uncoordinated package repos is where things start to break down.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    It doesn't help that every online guide tells people to do this without warning about the consequences. Want to install nginx? Copy this line of script and enter your password, no need to fuss about the details! The Linux volunteer community needs an attitude shift to start recommending the user friendly method over the complicated methods. You don't need to apt install Chrome, it's in your software store, just like most other programs you probably want. If you go die-hard Linux (Arch, Gentoo, etc.) then perhaps there are too many variations in use to give a clear cross DE answer but on Ubuntu 99% of users are on GNOME with Ubuntu customisations, so you can use the Disks tool instead of dd, the Disk Usage analyser instead of a complicated du grep sort command and the software manager instead of apt for almost every common task. Linux people are often fond of their command line and so am I, but this way any normal user will quickly shy away from the platform for no good reason. There are also people who have weirdly strict opinions about the "right" way to do things (systemd hate, Wayland hate, vim enthusiasts, bash vs zsh vs fish debates) that ruin the experience for everyone but will leave an especially bad impression for newbies. You'd better know the difference between pacman, apt, dnf, and brew before you go to the Arch forum or expect to be insulted for being such a complete idiot to even consider asking a question.
bsdice 4y ago
I'm on Arch and a 4K display and had to hack the package 'xf86-input-libinput' to be able to adjust mouse scroll speed, towards faster. Upstream has been unwilling to implement it. I published the mod here: https://seitics.de/files/xf86-input-libinput/ https://seitics.de/files/xf86-input-libinput/ should anyone stumble on this post via search engine. To change scroll speed from 1 1 to 2 2 use e.g. xinput --set-prop "Kingsis Peripherals Evoluent VerticalMouse D" "libinput Scroll Distance Scale" 2 2 aside from xinput --set-prop "Kingsis Peripherals Evoluent VerticalMouse D" "libinput Accel Speed" -1.0 for cursor speed which already worked. HTH Edit: Patch by 3rd party, I fixed it up so would apply cleanly to most recent package.
LarryMullins 4y ago
There's no singular 'linux experience', all the problems you list are expected problems with some software on linux, but work just fine with other software systems on linux. Unfortunately many of the defaults chosen by Ubuntu are very poor and give bad first impressions. I think that recommending Ubuntu is an anachronism from the mid to late 00s. Experience makes it all much easier, simply because you learn which software to avoid. Having this experience, linux for me is stress free and low hassle. But if you don't want to accumulate that experience, if you want to stay on a default track with the right choices made for you already, then you probably should go with your gut and get a Mac. Anyway, the "year of the linux desktop" is a joke. The very premise is an old meme that nobody should take seriously, nobody can even agree what it should mean. The year linux became viable for desktop use depends on the person doing the considering. For some it was years ago, for others it will be never.
- JadeNB 4y ago
  > I think that recommending Ubuntu is an anachronism from the mid to late 00s. What would you recommend as a modern-day user-friendly Linux experience? I've been looking for something not too demanding to put on an old X220.
  - severine 4y ago
    MX-Linux, hands down. The most user friendly desktop distro I've used.
  - uneekname 4y ago
    Not sure about performance on an X220, but I've loved Fedora workstation edition. The default Gnome setup is pretty user-friendly in my opinion, a there's a decent amount of support to be found online.
    - LarryMullins 4y ago
      I'm not certain, but "needing a bash script to change the mouse scroll speed" sounds like the kind of inanity I've come to expect from Gnome. KDE is probably a better choice for somebody with this complaint. It might also be a Wayland and/or libinput limitation.
jonathanoliver 4y ago
I've been running Arch Linux for about 2 years two high-powered desktop machines (home and work). I run `sudo pacman -Syu` every day and I've only had one video driver update (nvidia) that broke me. I had to login from the CLI (which I'm using all the time anyway) to rollback and pin the version. It's been an incredibly smooth experience. That said, the one thing that I still haven't migrated over to fully is Linux on a laptop. I'm macOS on an Apple MacBook Pro 14" (powered by Apple's M1 Pro).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hnlmorg 4y ago
I’ve been running desktop Linux since the 90s, and it’s been my primary desktop since XP was first released (XP was what drove my to Linux) and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve needed to write a shell script to fix basic functionality. I’m not taking anything away from your experiences though. Just offering another data point. I do get the appeal of macOS. I use it for work but I honestly find it more frustrating than pleasurable but that’s purely because I don’t always agree with Apples design choices. …And that is the real problem with macOS for me. If you like their default experience then it’s a much more pleasurable platform to use. But if there’s any significant part of Apples design choices you don’t get alone with, then you’re often shit out of luck. Trying to bend macOS to behave any way outside of Apples vision can be more frustrating than dealing with Linux quirks. That all said, I am in love with the battery life on the ARM MacBook Pros. I’ve managed to go a full working day without plugging the MBP in. There isn’t any comparative device out there for Linux. So in the end I find Linux for personal devices and macOS for work is a great compromise for me.
- hpcjoe 4y ago
  I get about 4 hours productive use out of my work Macbook M1 pro (32 GB RAM, 1TB NVMe) on battery. I get about 3.5 hours productive use out of my Zen2 HP Omen laptop (64 GB RAM, 3TB NVME). Though I have to reduce the brightness of the Zen to get better lifetime. I am a bit of a power user, running large builds, analytics, and other things, so its not surprising to me that I get less than others. I would like to see an all-day battery laptop for people like me, though I suspect it will be a few more years. Oh, and the original work windows laptop I had (fully corporate controlled) with 32GB RAM and 500GB NVMe barely lasted an hour on battery. And it BSODed frequently. I'd still prefer a Linux work laptop, but the Mac is at least a poor-mans version of it. Windows, even with WSL2, was horrible.
  - spatley 4y ago
    For high load activities like builds and analytics, I use a server, either on the LAN or in the cloud. It gives me a better local performance experience and makes my jobs more reproducible for others to run. It for sure includes the added complexity of aws-cli scripts and ssh stuff though so YMMV.
throwaway09223 4y ago
I have the same feelings about OSX, though. It's probably a result of familiarity more than anything else. Take mouse speed, for example. I remember this being incredibly difficult in OSX: https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/7bg3gg/removing_mouse_acceleration_in_macos_and_osx_high/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/7bg3gg/removing_... On linux it's just a menu option in a gui, or a single command. Every platform has plenty of bugs, but I find it is consistently easier to figure out how to change/fix things on Linux than on OSX or Windows. OSX is probably the worst platform as soon as you're doing something Apple didn't anticipate (or, is actively blocking you from doing).
Aisen8010 4y ago
My experience is similar. Anything more complicated than the basic stuff like surfing the web is hard. Things are getting better in the Linux desktop, but in a slow pace. I had some hope with the PopOs (I don't know what they are doing nowadays).
Gigachad 4y ago
>Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. I just checked on my Macbook and I couldn't find any option to change scroll speed. So it's more that on Linux you _can_ create a bash script to do just about anything even when it's not a feature the OS has. Unlike others where it's either a simple UI button or you just can't do it.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-your-mouses-response-speed-mchlp1138/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-your-mouses-... It’s under Accessibility.
- cdfuller 4y ago
  I was able to find it on the latest macos by opening up preferences and searching for "scroll". It's under Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad/Mouse Options
- ckolkey 4y ago
  You definitely can for both mouse and trackpad
joe_the_user 4y ago
If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. A. I'm looking at pointer speed section in Mouse Preference in Control Center. It's pretty simple. It give acceleration and sensitivy. B. Just about every GUI aims for decent defaults and doesn't allow endless customization and such customization generally isn't a beginner task. I've used the Linux desktop for ten years (Mint then Ubuntu-Mate). Haven't customized anything with a bash script for many years. It is currently clearer how to do things than Windows - it's fricken TWO start menus jumping over each other.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Should have been clearer: mousewheel scroll speed, which there's no way to control from the GUI.
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    Sure, but that is a fairly obscure setting that I don't think merits your earlier build-up "Something as simple as...". On the one hand, I'd certainly admit Linux has "warts". It's GUI is perfectly usable and clear - it's more now what one is doing than the horror that is Windows 11 imo (and I'm working on that occasionally now). But the warts of Linux are accentuated by the OS attracting a certain kind of "OCD" user who will tell you how terrible it is for lacking X utterly obscure feature.
    - mboto 4y ago
      I agree with the parent comment. This isn't that niche a requirement and its just one of huge list. Dismissing people's needs isnt the way to solve this.
      - woojoo666 4y ago
        I'd like to see a comparison between, say, how many people want to customize their scroll speed (hard on linux, easy in windows/macos) and some other use cases, like how many people to sandbox and control permissions for individual apps (easy on Linux using Flatseal, hard on window/macos). Then we can get a better sense of how niche these demands are, and how well these desktop OSes support them
taurath 4y ago
It always feels like a build-it-yourself vehicle. Using it as a daily driver when you need to get to work on time is not advised. Even when you get it running for a while, the breakage is inevitable, and you'll be under the hood. It is really cool if you love to tinker. Its an OS with a lower level of abstraction, and one that is less productive overall for most users, especially anyone who needs things to just work consistently.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago
  I work on Linux for Linux. All I use is terminals, jetbrains and Firefox, plus a million command line tools. And maybe the occasional gimp or VLC. Nothing ever breaks for me. I've been dist-upgrading the same install for over ten years now.
krick 4y ago
Actually, I don't imagine switching to Windows or anything because I find writing a bash-script much easier than constantly dealing with the fact some things just aren't (realistically) configurable at all, and I absolutely hate dropdown menus within menus and having to use a mouse for everything. That said, Windows/MacOS are MUCH more stable. Granted, I didn't use them nearly as much, as I use Linux (mainly Ubuntu and mainly LTS versions), but I basically didn't encounter any hardware-specific bugs at all for the last couple of years. Or some deep ecosystem problem, like all this Pulseaudio bullshit. Linux is really frustrating, and I'm starting to actually lose hope we'll live to see it becoming, you know, usable.
gundamdoubleO 4y ago
Never had any issues with Ubuntu past 16.04, at least not anything requiring bash scripts or issues with restarting. Still wouldn't recommend it to non-technical users though, but that's because 1) They'd have to let me install it for them, and 2) That would probably lead to me being tech support, which I don't have time for.
fearface 4y ago
I fully agree to that experience. Next thing I tried was to have three screens with different DPI’s. It’s possible (that’s a lie, since you can’t adjust DPI and scaling properly in Linux at all, you’ll end up with a half working ugly system and irrational behavior when you move windows around), but sadly my notebook needs to work in more than one place… I’ve invited a a long time Linux user who claimed to never had any problems whatsover to have a look. His verdict was that I should have only one external screen and use the same screen in the different places. This stuff works with Windows and Mac out of the box.
Gordonjcp 4y ago
Exhausting compared to what? If you think that Ubuntu has poor user-friendlyness wait until you try this new "Windows 10" thing everyone seems to be on about. You have to click through about ten pages of menus just to set up the network, and if you get anything wrong the error message is just along the lines of either "Sorry, that didn't work. Please try again!" or "Error -X8004a119af3c occurred", neither of which are particularly helpful. It doesn't come with a usable shell. It doesn't even come with ssh, or zip, or Python. You're expected to interact with the entire thing by clicking on page after page after page of little coloured squares that aren't meaningfully labelled. Why is a user interface designed like a 1980s "My First Video Game" project supposed to be good?
- sekh60 4y ago
  You mean Windows 11, 10 is old now.
ThatMedicIsASpy 4y ago
My T440s has seen Qubes-OS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Pop-OS, Mint [Gnome, i3wm, KDE, Cinnamon). Pop-OS is my favorite on if I want a usable nvidia gpu with hybrid graphics. The only issues I had with most updates was a full boot partition because I skip cleanups. I have a lot more issues with Windows moving stuff. Settings are a mess W7 -> W10 -> W11. Qubes is still my go-to if I have to deal with malware infested things. I'm full time (95%) on Fedora KDE (Desktop Ryzen 2000, RX500). I've had some quirks with Veracrypt and an external drive and crashes related to running out of memory (I'm sure DotA2 leaks memory since the performance gets worse over time) I've checked my desktop for mouse scroll speed and actually don't have that option. I did change my scroll speed in one case which is Firefox (about:config => mousewheel.default.delta_multiplier_y = 85)
scrapcode 4y ago
I agree. When things are working - it's great. And having to dig in to get things working right is okay, too. However, when there are issues with hardware, it seems that the solutions that are in the ether are pretty hackish and you have to spend the afternoon trying multiple "fixes" to get things to work again. I have to use Windows for work, and I ended up just throwing in the towel this year and switching back to the dark side for the time being because I have to get shit done.
G3rn0ti 4y ago
> Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script Indeed, I never realized there does not seem to be a Ubuntu system setting for adjusting the mouse wheel sensitivity. Apparently, standard solution requires installing „imwheel“. Lol. Weird. Then, again, in 15 years using a scroll wheel mouse I never had the need to adjust its sensitivity.
gumboza 4y ago
Yep. I don't use Linux on the desktop simply because I don't care enough to be assed with arguing with it. Thus I would rather swap my kidney for some Apple crap and put up with the trade off which is works vs flexibility.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
LAC-Tech 4y ago
I can get it to work because the terminal doesn't scare me, but there's no way I can recommend it to anyone without a certain amount of technical skills. Then it's a good thing we are on hacker news!!
bb88 4y ago
1. Redhat standardized on RPM. Debian/Ubuntu had dpkg. Arch has their AUR packages. Slack used tarballs. 2. KDE and Gnome created two different rivaling GUI's. Never merged and split the development community down the middle. 3. There are N different GUI libraries: FLTK, GTK+, QT, wxWidgets, etc. 4. There are 3 different cross platform packaging solutions: Snap, Flatpak, AppImage 5. GPU and Wifi drivers can be a pain to get running sometimes, even if they're prepackaged for you. (Hell, my Nvidia drivers crash my windows laptop all the time). 6. Support for hardware sometimes requires third party libraries (solaar for logitech, etc). 7. Some software only supports Mac/Windows, but Mac won't legally let you install their OS in a VM, (not that it stops some people). If you're a business you're forced to use windows anyway for niche software that won't run with Wine. 8. Battery life on laptops typically is worse than a comparative windows/mac system -- because windows and mac tweak more settings for power and performance.
hocuspocus 4y ago
All operating systems are exhausting.* I don't understand why Ubuntu updates would break anything, they've been so reliable lately that I even let my mom update her computer herself. But anyway, if you think they're bad, wait until you see mac OS's. * Unless your usage is so light that all your computing can be done on ChromeOS or iOS, but even those are plenty annoying.
ChoHag 4y ago
[dead]
whateveracct 4y ago
It's funny. My NixOS machines (desktop and two laptops) have had minimal breakage while upgrading. And the breakage was easy to fix with a small git commit. My macOS (Intel MBP) and Windows (Dell laptop) end up with something borked by updates pretty much like clockwork. I suppose I am a poweruser of those systems by nature of being a dev, but something always tends to stop working.
geysersam 4y ago
Have the totally opposite experience. Ubuntu has a quite minimal settings panel, that's good. Windows settings are much more difficult to navigate. The layout / structure has changed a lot between updates. Settings are hidden deep within preferences menus with multiple tabs. Google for things and you find ad ridden pages with screenshots and pop-ups about clicking here, there, then here. It's a mess.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Windows 11 fixed a lot of problems caused by Windows 8 that continued into Windows 10 when it comes to settings. My computer doesn't support it for arbitrary reasons Microsoft came up with so I can't use it where it matters, but I've got to give it to them that the UI for settings improved a lot. The start menu, task bar, context menus and almost every other aspect of the UI got a significant downgrade in the process, which is a pain, but at least the settings were fixed.
Legogris 4y ago
> Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. This is Ubuntu and GNOME both having adopted unfortunate strategies wrt UX in recent years. They seem to be trying to emulate the Apple "we know best, take it or leave it", removing customization and freezing the UI, but without the resources spent on getting it "perfect" for the majority. They may still be fine choices for some users but they closed the door on being the "just use this" generic options. KDE has supported changing mouse scroll from the UI for some time. Linux Mint (including its Debian edition) with MATE or Cinnamon, or BudgieWM are other fine choices for non-terminal users. Fedora has been picking up as a general all-round desktop distro as Ubuntu has been falling from grace. https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Now-Has-Wayland-S-Speed https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Now-Has-Wayland-S-Speed
sophacles 4y ago
Observation: I started daily driving linux in the 90s. When I switched to a mac around 2010 if found Mac exhausting. It had different usage patterns than I was used to. Some of my most used features weren't there. Having a reasonably usable shell experience required lots of tweaking and macports then brew. When I switched back to linux ~5 years ago there was a while where getting back into the linux groove was exhausting because I wasn't used to it, but not as exhausting as switching to mac because I already knew it, just needed to get back in practice. Every time i use windows (which is rarely, once a year maybe) i find it exhausting. I propose that it's not the OS that's the exhausting part - it's the switching to a new environment with different workflows and thought processes around it that is exhausting. Similar to how it's much harder to get familiar with a codebase in a new (to you) language than in a language you are proficient in - but both cases can be taxing.
- aussiesnack 4y ago
  This is something those "defending" the harder-to-use/learn thing always bring up. As if affordances must always be relative to prior knowledge. But they're not (always) - some things just are harder to use than others (at least relative to a specific meaning of 'use'). Programming languages - you could argue Rust isn't hard to learn, by pretending that everyone claiming it is are just having trouble adjusting from javascript. But that breaks down when you realise the Rust learners finding it hard are actually polyglot programmers who are finding it harder than all the many other languages, in multiple paradigms, they have already successfully learned. Similar with Linux - I find it harder to 'use' in a certain sense (the sense most people mean - which is getting all the ordinary hardware & software stuff working) than the others. You'll tell me it's unfamiliarity, but it's just not - my first Linux was Slackware on floppies, and I've used it alongside Windows and MacOS now for decades. I choose it for my primary OS for other reasons, but ease of use certainly isn't among them. I still have to fiddle more with it .
  - bombela 4y ago
    I wish I could have the graphical stack and mouse handling of MS Windows in general. With the trackpad precision and battery life of Mac on laptop. The fact the mouse scroll wheel doesn't even work well on Linux is just shameful.
rhaway84773 4y ago
On the flip side, Linux is infinitely more useful to me than Windows. My desktop’s motherboard’s onboard graphics card failed but I have an external graphics card. Windows is unable to boot because of the failed onboard card. Ubuntu worked absolutely fine. I had to modify 1-2 lines in a configuration to prevent Ubuntu from loading the onboard graphics at all, otherwise it would start off funky. And MacOS is just too slow. There’s far too many animations and it’s extremely difficult to multitask in a useful way. It’s like Apple has basically been creating MacOS features based on 2 criteria’s. Either so they look good in a demo, or they’re a replica of an iOS app.
rowanG077 4y ago
I mean no disrespect but Ubuntu really, really isn't user friendly. There is no other distribution that introduced so many headaches for me. I think Ubuntu is coasting on there reputation from years ago.
jug 4y ago
I have to disagree here and provide another experience. I regularly revisit Linux for desktop (like every five years) and this time I moved 100% from Windows 11 to Fedora 37 and it's been a delight. It's not only a good desktop OS now: I find it better than Windows. Why? * Performance: I think it's more responsive, like the file manager. It doesn't have an innate dependency on scanning every single thing for viruses that is hard to disable per design. I think my SSD loves me now. * Ads integrated in the OS: Well. It doesn't have these. * Customizability: Even GNOME that is not known for this can adapt to the user much better than Windows 11. Windows 11 is terrible and takes steps backwards in this regard. For example GNOME Tweaks + Dash to Dock and I have a Mac-like dock. It's like the Mac dock but more customizable, and it's easy to customize too. Hell I can even customize FreeType to choose between ClearType style rendering or macOS Quartz-like rendering (respect LCD pixel boundaries vs respect font design - you can only have one). * Apps: Linux culture is to rely on repositories for apps. Windows isn't. They have winget and Microsoft Store now but it's still an unresolved cultural problem where only a subset of apps are found there, and if they do, they more often than not do system-wide changes anyway. Linux has nice, easy to use, stores like Mac. Linux is also miles ahead with containerized app systems like Flatpak or Snap where UWP support (Windows counterpart) is more than shaky in the big picture, and I'd even say a failure. * Mouse Scroll Speed: Is set in GNOME settings. * Software Updates: Have still always worked for the past few months. * Crashes: None yet! Other than app-specific ones but so far only "silent" stuff that don't really affect me that seems to relate to the file manager and thumbnailing corrupt h.264 videos? (a guess from the logs) I guess your mileage MAY still vary here but as for me, this is clearly a better and more user friendly OS now than Windows 11. I can't believe I'm saying this. But it just is for me and my hardware + software setup now. I like photography and Darktable is a full-fledged Lightroom competitor too. I'm not a Linux nut either. I was positively surprised and this is the first time in twenty years I've finally felt fine with moving from Windows. Games? Yes, at 40+ years of age I still do that, juggling time with family life. I have an Xbox Series X for that, letting me use a tiny Intel NUC as my PC. The Xbox gives me a much more fun experience with gaming than a Mac. Been there. Never again.
- 3836293648 4y ago
  The scroll speed, independent from movement speed, is not in the gnome settings
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
squarefoot 4y ago
> but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. You either have hardware problems, or something screwed up your install; the settings manager for mouse acceleration is available where all other settings are, no scripts or command line editing necessary, just a couple clicks and you're done. Now I'm not exactly a fan of Ubuntu and prefer other distros but software updates do actually work on Ubuntu, and I'm not aware of any problems that could cause random crashes. At least on Debian I lost memory of the last time I had to reset the machine due to a crash. Check your system, it may have software and/or hardware problems elsewhere.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  This mouse setting depends on several factors (i.e. Wayland availability, evdev vs libinput) and the setting doesn't apply to every application if you do manage to change it. The modularity of the Linux ecosystem has several parties argue that it's not really their place to implement a fix, so issues get closed without a proper resolution. The updates are fine these days unless you add external repositories. Sadly, that's what every forum post and blog article will tell you to do. Rsndom crashes occur if your hardware has problematic drivers (Nvidia, sometimes Intel) and they're a mixed bag. Laptops are more of a problem than desktops but sometimes you just have bad luck. It can also depend on the kernel your distro chose because sometimes a lot of problems can be fixed by updating to a higher LTS version, but the end user should never even need to know this is an option let alone try it for themselves. Canonical and others also include their own kernel patches sometimes which is a whole lot of fun when it comes to reporting bugs.
notwokeno 4y ago
I feel like non-free OSes like OSX and Windows are exhausting. Everything is driven by politics and PR rather than what actually works and it's all made artificially inflexible. Trivial things become rocket science because of this war over mind share. I think it really depends on what you use at home though. I've run Linux as my primary OS from the beginning (when I got my first laptop at 10y/o.) If you use different technology at work and at home you're probably going to run into this. Something I've done in the past when this gets bad is to find excuses to use the technology at home (even if I think it's inferior to what I would have otherwise chosen.) This tends to resolve the problem even if I don't stick with it.
palata 4y ago
The reason why I like Linux is because I can use the terminal a lot. Unfortunately I'm forced to use terrible ElectronJS apps from time to time, though, and more and more programs seem to either not have a TUI or be a full rootfs (as a docker container) because apparently the devs don't know how to properly package them? I definitely don't recommend Linux for people who don't want to use the terminal. Actually I hate it when they do and try to make Linux look like Windows/macOS. If you want the Windows/macOS experience, use Windows/macOS.
nine_k 4y ago
What do you mean saying "Ubuntu" — I suppose it means Gnome desktop by default? Try KDE / Kubuntu, it features the scroll speed control [1]. (Xfce, sadly, does not.) Also sadly, Mac is increasingly windows-like, with things that tend not to work out of the box (and just unsupported), and software updates bringing some trouble, especially huge updates like a new OS version. I stick with a Linux desktop where I at least acceptably understand and control every important aspect. I did have a Mac at work for several years, and it was also pretty fiddly in certain aspects. [1]: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=160416 https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=160416
lrvick 4y ago
As a counter example I have helped hundreds of nontechnical people switch to Linux over the past 15 years who prefer it to Windows and can do anything they want via the GUI without knowing how to manage an antivirus. ChromeOS and Android are also Linux and users seem to get along just fine with those too. I never experience crashes except when I have maxed out my ram doing something dumb.
saghm 4y ago
> If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script This is a totally legitimate gripe. On the other hand, I like to have the key repeat speed set to higher than MacOS lets me in their menu, so I also need to configure this in the terminal, except the only references I can find for it safe random stackoverflow questions and blog posts rather than official documentation, so the units are unclear (I can't remember if it's the delay before repeat or the actual repeat speed, but I remember being surprised about how one of them worked with regard to needing to modify the value in the opposite direction than I expected), and I need to log out and back in to test it, after which I might need to tweak again due to not really understanding the units and maybe overcalibrating, which requires another logout...etc. MacOS is probably easier if you don't want to stray at all off the prescribed path, but any time I needed to do something even slightly outside the seemingly arbitrary sanctioned happy path, it ends up being either even more annoying to configure than Linux, requiring some app that inevitably wants to me to pay them for what feels like basic functionality to me, or is completely impossible regardless of how much effort or money I'm willing to spend. Given how much I like the setup I've been using for years on Linux and how rarely things break for me compared to MacOS updates due to functionality being provided by third party apps (e.g. my iTerm shortcut for showing/hiding the fullscreen terminal occasionally not working after being required to a major OS update, but working just enough of the time that I suspect I wouldn't be able to find a fix), I won't ever be running anything else on my personal machine unless something drastically changes.
grey_earthling 4y ago
> Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. This (IMO) is precisely why Ubuntu is not a user-friendly distro. Fedora (and especially Silverblue) is much more user-friendly in this regard. I know it's common to judge Linux in general on the basis of Ubuntu in particular, but I don't think it's a fair assessment.

If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. I'm about to give in the towel and get a Mac. I can get it to work because the terminal doesn't scare me, but there's no way I can recommend it to anyone without a certain amount of technical skills.

rietta 4y ago

Not my experience at all. Been running Ubuntu LTS for work for years and updates are just about bulletproof.

LarryMullins 4y ago
Novice Linux users often make the mistake of adding third party repos to their package manager, which almost invariably causes trouble down the line. Some distros (for instance Debian) have a culture of discouraging this practice, while others (particularly Ubuntu) have a user culture which encourages it. This is easily the most common reason for updates breaking. RPM and dpkg are both nigh bullet proof, and you can generally count on most distros to keep their own package repo in good order. Dependency resolution between out of sync and uncoordinated package repos is where things start to break down.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  It doesn't help that every online guide tells people to do this without warning about the consequences. Want to install nginx? Copy this line of script and enter your password, no need to fuss about the details! The Linux volunteer community needs an attitude shift to start recommending the user friendly method over the complicated methods. You don't need to apt install Chrome, it's in your software store, just like most other programs you probably want. If you go die-hard Linux (Arch, Gentoo, etc.) then perhaps there are too many variations in use to give a clear cross DE answer but on Ubuntu 99% of users are on GNOME with Ubuntu customisations, so you can use the Disks tool instead of dd, the Disk Usage analyser instead of a complicated du grep sort command and the software manager instead of apt for almost every common task. Linux people are often fond of their command line and so am I, but this way any normal user will quickly shy away from the platform for no good reason. There are also people who have weirdly strict opinions about the "right" way to do things (systemd hate, Wayland hate, vim enthusiasts, bash vs zsh vs fish debates) that ruin the experience for everyone but will leave an especially bad impression for newbies. You'd better know the difference between pacman, apt, dnf, and brew before you go to the Arch forum or expect to be insulted for being such a complete idiot to even consider asking a question.

bsdice 4y ago

I'm on Arch and a 4K display and had to hack the package 'xf86-input-libinput' to be able to adjust mouse scroll speed, towards faster. Upstream has been unwilling to implement it. I published the mod here: https://seitics.de/files/xf86-input-libinput/ https://seitics.de/files/xf86-input-libinput/ should anyone stumble on this post via search engine. To change scroll speed from 1 1 to 2 2 use e.g. xinput --set-prop "Kingsis Peripherals Evoluent VerticalMouse D" "libinput Scroll Distance Scale" 2 2 aside from xinput --set-prop "Kingsis Peripherals Evoluent VerticalMouse D" "libinput Accel Speed" -1.0 for cursor speed which already worked. HTH Edit: Patch by 3rd party, I fixed it up so would apply cleanly to most recent package.

LarryMullins 4y ago

There's no singular 'linux experience', all the problems you list are expected problems with some software on linux, but work just fine with other software systems on linux. Unfortunately many of the defaults chosen by Ubuntu are very poor and give bad first impressions. I think that recommending Ubuntu is an anachronism from the mid to late 00s. Experience makes it all much easier, simply because you learn which software to avoid. Having this experience, linux for me is stress free and low hassle. But if you don't want to accumulate that experience, if you want to stay on a default track with the right choices made for you already, then you probably should go with your gut and get a Mac. Anyway, the "year of the linux desktop" is a joke. The very premise is an old meme that nobody should take seriously, nobody can even agree what it should mean. The year linux became viable for desktop use depends on the person doing the considering. For some it was years ago, for others it will be never.

JadeNB 4y ago
> I think that recommending Ubuntu is an anachronism from the mid to late 00s. What would you recommend as a modern-day user-friendly Linux experience? I've been looking for something not too demanding to put on an old X220.
- severine 4y ago
  MX-Linux, hands down. The most user friendly desktop distro I've used.
- uneekname 4y ago
  Not sure about performance on an X220, but I've loved Fedora workstation edition. The default Gnome setup is pretty user-friendly in my opinion, a there's a decent amount of support to be found online.
  - LarryMullins 4y ago
    I'm not certain, but "needing a bash script to change the mouse scroll speed" sounds like the kind of inanity I've come to expect from Gnome. KDE is probably a better choice for somebody with this complaint. It might also be a Wayland and/or libinput limitation.

jonathanoliver 4y ago

I've been running Arch Linux for about 2 years two high-powered desktop machines (home and work). I run `sudo pacman -Syu` every day and I've only had one video driver update (nvidia) that broke me. I had to login from the CLI (which I'm using all the time anyway) to rollback and pin the version. It's been an incredibly smooth experience. That said, the one thing that I still haven't migrated over to fully is Linux on a laptop. I'm macOS on an Apple MacBook Pro 14" (powered by Apple's M1 Pro).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hnlmorg 4y ago

I’ve been running desktop Linux since the 90s, and it’s been my primary desktop since XP was first released (XP was what drove my to Linux) and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve needed to write a shell script to fix basic functionality. I’m not taking anything away from your experiences though. Just offering another data point. I do get the appeal of macOS. I use it for work but I honestly find it more frustrating than pleasurable but that’s purely because I don’t always agree with Apples design choices. …And that is the real problem with macOS for me. If you like their default experience then it’s a much more pleasurable platform to use. But if there’s any significant part of Apples design choices you don’t get alone with, then you’re often shit out of luck. Trying to bend macOS to behave any way outside of Apples vision can be more frustrating than dealing with Linux quirks. That all said, I am in love with the battery life on the ARM MacBook Pros. I’ve managed to go a full working day without plugging the MBP in. There isn’t any comparative device out there for Linux. So in the end I find Linux for personal devices and macOS for work is a great compromise for me.

hpcjoe 4y ago
I get about 4 hours productive use out of my work Macbook M1 pro (32 GB RAM, 1TB NVMe) on battery. I get about 3.5 hours productive use out of my Zen2 HP Omen laptop (64 GB RAM, 3TB NVME). Though I have to reduce the brightness of the Zen to get better lifetime. I am a bit of a power user, running large builds, analytics, and other things, so its not surprising to me that I get less than others. I would like to see an all-day battery laptop for people like me, though I suspect it will be a few more years. Oh, and the original work windows laptop I had (fully corporate controlled) with 32GB RAM and 500GB NVMe barely lasted an hour on battery. And it BSODed frequently. I'd still prefer a Linux work laptop, but the Mac is at least a poor-mans version of it. Windows, even with WSL2, was horrible.
- spatley 4y ago
  For high load activities like builds and analytics, I use a server, either on the LAN or in the cloud. It gives me a better local performance experience and makes my jobs more reproducible for others to run. It for sure includes the added complexity of aws-cli scripts and ssh stuff though so YMMV.

throwaway09223 4y ago

I have the same feelings about OSX, though. It's probably a result of familiarity more than anything else. Take mouse speed, for example. I remember this being incredibly difficult in OSX: https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/7bg3gg/removing_mouse_acceleration_in_macos_and_osx_high/ https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/7bg3gg/removing_... On linux it's just a menu option in a gui, or a single command. Every platform has plenty of bugs, but I find it is consistently easier to figure out how to change/fix things on Linux than on OSX or Windows. OSX is probably the worst platform as soon as you're doing something Apple didn't anticipate (or, is actively blocking you from doing).

Aisen8010 4y ago

My experience is similar. Anything more complicated than the basic stuff like surfing the web is hard. Things are getting better in the Linux desktop, but in a slow pace. I had some hope with the PopOs (I don't know what they are doing nowadays).

Gigachad 4y ago

>Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. I just checked on my Macbook and I couldn't find any option to change scroll speed. So it's more that on Linux you _can_ create a bash script to do just about anything even when it's not a feature the OS has. Unlike others where it's either a simple UI button or you just can't do it.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-your-mouses-response-speed-mchlp1138/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/change-your-mouses-... It’s under Accessibility.
cdfuller 4y ago
I was able to find it on the latest macos by opening up preferences and searching for "scroll". It's under Accessibility > Pointer Control > Trackpad/Mouse Options
ckolkey 4y ago
You definitely can for both mouse and trackpad

joe_the_user 4y ago

If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. A. I'm looking at pointer speed section in Mouse Preference in Control Center. It's pretty simple. It give acceleration and sensitivy. B. Just about every GUI aims for decent defaults and doesn't allow endless customization and such customization generally isn't a beginner task. I've used the Linux desktop for ten years (Mint then Ubuntu-Mate). Haven't customized anything with a bash script for many years. It is currently clearer how to do things than Windows - it's fricken TWO start menus jumping over each other.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
Should have been clearer: mousewheel scroll speed, which there's no way to control from the GUI.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  Sure, but that is a fairly obscure setting that I don't think merits your earlier build-up "Something as simple as...". On the one hand, I'd certainly admit Linux has "warts". It's GUI is perfectly usable and clear - it's more now what one is doing than the horror that is Windows 11 imo (and I'm working on that occasionally now). But the warts of Linux are accentuated by the OS attracting a certain kind of "OCD" user who will tell you how terrible it is for lacking X utterly obscure feature.
  - mboto 4y ago
    I agree with the parent comment. This isn't that niche a requirement and its just one of huge list. Dismissing people's needs isnt the way to solve this.
    - woojoo666 4y ago
      I'd like to see a comparison between, say, how many people want to customize their scroll speed (hard on linux, easy in windows/macos) and some other use cases, like how many people to sandbox and control permissions for individual apps (easy on Linux using Flatseal, hard on window/macos). Then we can get a better sense of how niche these demands are, and how well these desktop OSes support them

taurath 4y ago

It always feels like a build-it-yourself vehicle. Using it as a daily driver when you need to get to work on time is not advised. Even when you get it running for a while, the breakage is inevitable, and you'll be under the hood. It is really cool if you love to tinker. Its an OS with a lower level of abstraction, and one that is less productive overall for most users, especially anyone who needs things to just work consistently.

iforgotpassword 4y ago
I work on Linux for Linux. All I use is terminals, jetbrains and Firefox, plus a million command line tools. And maybe the occasional gimp or VLC. Nothing ever breaks for me. I've been dist-upgrading the same install for over ten years now.

krick 4y ago

Actually, I don't imagine switching to Windows or anything because I find writing a bash-script much easier than constantly dealing with the fact some things just aren't (realistically) configurable at all, and I absolutely hate dropdown menus within menus and having to use a mouse for everything. That said, Windows/MacOS are MUCH more stable. Granted, I didn't use them nearly as much, as I use Linux (mainly Ubuntu and mainly LTS versions), but I basically didn't encounter any hardware-specific bugs at all for the last couple of years. Or some deep ecosystem problem, like all this Pulseaudio bullshit. Linux is really frustrating, and I'm starting to actually lose hope we'll live to see it becoming, you know, usable.

gundamdoubleO 4y ago

Never had any issues with Ubuntu past 16.04, at least not anything requiring bash scripts or issues with restarting. Still wouldn't recommend it to non-technical users though, but that's because 1) They'd have to let me install it for them, and 2) That would probably lead to me being tech support, which I don't have time for.

fearface 4y ago

I fully agree to that experience. Next thing I tried was to have three screens with different DPI’s. It’s possible (that’s a lie, since you can’t adjust DPI and scaling properly in Linux at all, you’ll end up with a half working ugly system and irrational behavior when you move windows around), but sadly my notebook needs to work in more than one place… I’ve invited a a long time Linux user who claimed to never had any problems whatsover to have a look. His verdict was that I should have only one external screen and use the same screen in the different places. This stuff works with Windows and Mac out of the box.

Gordonjcp 4y ago

Exhausting compared to what? If you think that Ubuntu has poor user-friendlyness wait until you try this new "Windows 10" thing everyone seems to be on about. You have to click through about ten pages of menus just to set up the network, and if you get anything wrong the error message is just along the lines of either "Sorry, that didn't work. Please try again!" or "Error -X8004a119af3c occurred", neither of which are particularly helpful. It doesn't come with a usable shell. It doesn't even come with ssh, or zip, or Python. You're expected to interact with the entire thing by clicking on page after page after page of little coloured squares that aren't meaningfully labelled. Why is a user interface designed like a 1980s "My First Video Game" project supposed to be good?

sekh60 4y ago
You mean Windows 11, 10 is old now.

ThatMedicIsASpy 4y ago

My T440s has seen Qubes-OS, Ubuntu, Fedora, Pop-OS, Mint [Gnome, i3wm, KDE, Cinnamon). Pop-OS is my favorite on if I want a usable nvidia gpu with hybrid graphics. The only issues I had with most updates was a full boot partition because I skip cleanups. I have a lot more issues with Windows moving stuff. Settings are a mess W7 -> W10 -> W11. Qubes is still my go-to if I have to deal with malware infested things. I'm full time (95%) on Fedora KDE (Desktop Ryzen 2000, RX500). I've had some quirks with Veracrypt and an external drive and crashes related to running out of memory (I'm sure DotA2 leaks memory since the performance gets worse over time) I've checked my desktop for mouse scroll speed and actually don't have that option. I did change my scroll speed in one case which is Firefox (about:config => mousewheel.default.delta_multiplier_y = 85)

scrapcode 4y ago

I agree. When things are working - it's great. And having to dig in to get things working right is okay, too. However, when there are issues with hardware, it seems that the solutions that are in the ether are pretty hackish and you have to spend the afternoon trying multiple "fixes" to get things to work again. I have to use Windows for work, and I ended up just throwing in the towel this year and switching back to the dark side for the time being because I have to get shit done.

G3rn0ti 4y ago

> Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script Indeed, I never realized there does not seem to be a Ubuntu system setting for adjusting the mouse wheel sensitivity. Apparently, standard solution requires installing „imwheel“. Lol. Weird. Then, again, in 15 years using a scroll wheel mouse I never had the need to adjust its sensitivity.

gumboza 4y ago

Yep. I don't use Linux on the desktop simply because I don't care enough to be assed with arguing with it. Thus I would rather swap my kidney for some Apple crap and put up with the trade off which is works vs flexibility.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

LAC-Tech 4y ago

I can get it to work because the terminal doesn't scare me, but there's no way I can recommend it to anyone without a certain amount of technical skills. Then it's a good thing we are on hacker news!!

bb88 4y ago

1. Redhat standardized on RPM. Debian/Ubuntu had dpkg. Arch has their AUR packages. Slack used tarballs. 2. KDE and Gnome created two different rivaling GUI's. Never merged and split the development community down the middle. 3. There are N different GUI libraries: FLTK, GTK+, QT, wxWidgets, etc. 4. There are 3 different cross platform packaging solutions: Snap, Flatpak, AppImage 5. GPU and Wifi drivers can be a pain to get running sometimes, even if they're prepackaged for you. (Hell, my Nvidia drivers crash my windows laptop all the time). 6. Support for hardware sometimes requires third party libraries (solaar for logitech, etc). 7. Some software only supports Mac/Windows, but Mac won't legally let you install their OS in a VM, (not that it stops some people). If you're a business you're forced to use windows anyway for niche software that won't run with Wine. 8. Battery life on laptops typically is worse than a comparative windows/mac system -- because windows and mac tweak more settings for power and performance.

hocuspocus 4y ago

All operating systems are exhausting.* I don't understand why Ubuntu updates would break anything, they've been so reliable lately that I even let my mom update her computer herself. But anyway, if you think they're bad, wait until you see mac OS's. * Unless your usage is so light that all your computing can be done on ChromeOS or iOS, but even those are plenty annoying.

ChoHag 4y ago

[dead]

whateveracct 4y ago

It's funny. My NixOS machines (desktop and two laptops) have had minimal breakage while upgrading. And the breakage was easy to fix with a small git commit. My macOS (Intel MBP) and Windows (Dell laptop) end up with something borked by updates pretty much like clockwork. I suppose I am a poweruser of those systems by nature of being a dev, but something always tends to stop working.

geysersam 4y ago

Have the totally opposite experience. Ubuntu has a quite minimal settings panel, that's good. Windows settings are much more difficult to navigate. The layout / structure has changed a lot between updates. Settings are hidden deep within preferences menus with multiple tabs. Google for things and you find ad ridden pages with screenshots and pop-ups about clicking here, there, then here. It's a mess.

jeroenhd 4y ago
Windows 11 fixed a lot of problems caused by Windows 8 that continued into Windows 10 when it comes to settings. My computer doesn't support it for arbitrary reasons Microsoft came up with so I can't use it where it matters, but I've got to give it to them that the UI for settings improved a lot. The start menu, task bar, context menus and almost every other aspect of the UI got a significant downgrade in the process, which is a pain, but at least the settings were fixed.

Legogris 4y ago

> Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. This is Ubuntu and GNOME both having adopted unfortunate strategies wrt UX in recent years. They seem to be trying to emulate the Apple "we know best, take it or leave it", removing customization and freezing the UI, but without the resources spent on getting it "perfect" for the majority. They may still be fine choices for some users but they closed the door on being the "just use this" generic options. KDE has supported changing mouse scroll from the UI for some time. Linux Mint (including its Debian edition) with MATE or Cinnamon, or BudgieWM are other fine choices for non-terminal users. Fedora has been picking up as a general all-round desktop distro as Ubuntu has been falling from grace. https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Now-Has-Wayland-S-Speed https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-Now-Has-Wayland-S-Speed

sophacles 4y ago

Observation: I started daily driving linux in the 90s. When I switched to a mac around 2010 if found Mac exhausting. It had different usage patterns than I was used to. Some of my most used features weren't there. Having a reasonably usable shell experience required lots of tweaking and macports then brew. When I switched back to linux ~5 years ago there was a while where getting back into the linux groove was exhausting because I wasn't used to it, but not as exhausting as switching to mac because I already knew it, just needed to get back in practice. Every time i use windows (which is rarely, once a year maybe) i find it exhausting. I propose that it's not the OS that's the exhausting part - it's the switching to a new environment with different workflows and thought processes around it that is exhausting. Similar to how it's much harder to get familiar with a codebase in a new (to you) language than in a language you are proficient in - but both cases can be taxing.

aussiesnack 4y ago
This is something those "defending" the harder-to-use/learn thing always bring up. As if affordances must always be relative to prior knowledge. But they're not (always) - some things just are harder to use than others (at least relative to a specific meaning of 'use'). Programming languages - you could argue Rust isn't hard to learn, by pretending that everyone claiming it is are just having trouble adjusting from javascript. But that breaks down when you realise the Rust learners finding it hard are actually polyglot programmers who are finding it harder than all the many other languages, in multiple paradigms, they have already successfully learned. Similar with Linux - I find it harder to 'use' in a certain sense (the sense most people mean - which is getting all the ordinary hardware & software stuff working) than the others. You'll tell me it's unfamiliarity, but it's just not - my first Linux was Slackware on floppies, and I've used it alongside Windows and MacOS now for decades. I choose it for my primary OS for other reasons, but ease of use certainly isn't among them. I still have to fiddle more with it .
- bombela 4y ago
  I wish I could have the graphical stack and mouse handling of MS Windows in general. With the trackpad precision and battery life of Mac on laptop. The fact the mouse scroll wheel doesn't even work well on Linux is just shameful.

rhaway84773 4y ago

On the flip side, Linux is infinitely more useful to me than Windows. My desktop’s motherboard’s onboard graphics card failed but I have an external graphics card. Windows is unable to boot because of the failed onboard card. Ubuntu worked absolutely fine. I had to modify 1-2 lines in a configuration to prevent Ubuntu from loading the onboard graphics at all, otherwise it would start off funky. And MacOS is just too slow. There’s far too many animations and it’s extremely difficult to multitask in a useful way. It’s like Apple has basically been creating MacOS features based on 2 criteria’s. Either so they look good in a demo, or they’re a replica of an iOS app.

rowanG077 4y ago

I mean no disrespect but Ubuntu really, really isn't user friendly. There is no other distribution that introduced so many headaches for me. I think Ubuntu is coasting on there reputation from years ago.

jug 4y ago

I have to disagree here and provide another experience. I regularly revisit Linux for desktop (like every five years) and this time I moved 100% from Windows 11 to Fedora 37 and it's been a delight. It's not only a good desktop OS now: I find it better than Windows. Why? * Performance: I think it's more responsive, like the file manager. It doesn't have an innate dependency on scanning every single thing for viruses that is hard to disable per design. I think my SSD loves me now. * Ads integrated in the OS: Well. It doesn't have these. * Customizability: Even GNOME that is not known for this can adapt to the user much better than Windows 11. Windows 11 is terrible and takes steps backwards in this regard. For example GNOME Tweaks + Dash to Dock and I have a Mac-like dock. It's like the Mac dock but more customizable, and it's easy to customize too. Hell I can even customize FreeType to choose between ClearType style rendering or macOS Quartz-like rendering (respect LCD pixel boundaries vs respect font design - you can only have one). * Apps: Linux culture is to rely on repositories for apps. Windows isn't. They have winget and Microsoft Store now but it's still an unresolved cultural problem where only a subset of apps are found there, and if they do, they more often than not do system-wide changes anyway. Linux has nice, easy to use, stores like Mac. Linux is also miles ahead with containerized app systems like Flatpak or Snap where UWP support (Windows counterpart) is more than shaky in the big picture, and I'd even say a failure. * Mouse Scroll Speed: Is set in GNOME settings. * Software Updates: Have still always worked for the past few months. * Crashes: None yet! Other than app-specific ones but so far only "silent" stuff that don't really affect me that seems to relate to the file manager and thumbnailing corrupt h.264 videos? (a guess from the logs) I guess your mileage MAY still vary here but as for me, this is clearly a better and more user friendly OS now than Windows 11. I can't believe I'm saying this. But it just is for me and my hardware + software setup now. I like photography and Darktable is a full-fledged Lightroom competitor too. I'm not a Linux nut either. I was positively surprised and this is the first time in twenty years I've finally felt fine with moving from Windows. Games? Yes, at 40+ years of age I still do that, juggling time with family life. I have an Xbox Series X for that, letting me use a tiny Intel NUC as my PC. The Xbox gives me a much more fun experience with gaming than a Mac. Been there. Never again.

3836293648 4y ago
The scroll speed, independent from movement speed, is not in the gnome settings

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

squarefoot 4y ago

> but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script. Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. You either have hardware problems, or something screwed up your install; the settings manager for mouse acceleration is available where all other settings are, no scripts or command line editing necessary, just a couple clicks and you're done. Now I'm not exactly a fan of Ubuntu and prefer other distros but software updates do actually work on Ubuntu, and I'm not aware of any problems that could cause random crashes. At least on Debian I lost memory of the last time I had to reset the machine due to a crash. Check your system, it may have software and/or hardware problems elsewhere.

jeroenhd 4y ago
This mouse setting depends on several factors (i.e. Wayland availability, evdev vs libinput) and the setting doesn't apply to every application if you do manage to change it. The modularity of the Linux ecosystem has several parties argue that it's not really their place to implement a fix, so issues get closed without a proper resolution. The updates are fine these days unless you add external repositories. Sadly, that's what every forum post and blog article will tell you to do. Rsndom crashes occur if your hardware has problematic drivers (Nvidia, sometimes Intel) and they're a mixed bag. Laptops are more of a problem than desktops but sometimes you just have bad luck. It can also depend on the kernel your distro chose because sometimes a lot of problems can be fixed by updating to a higher LTS version, but the end user should never even need to know this is an option let alone try it for themselves. Canonical and others also include their own kernel patches sometimes which is a whole lot of fun when it comes to reporting bugs.

notwokeno 4y ago

I feel like non-free OSes like OSX and Windows are exhausting. Everything is driven by politics and PR rather than what actually works and it's all made artificially inflexible. Trivial things become rocket science because of this war over mind share. I think it really depends on what you use at home though. I've run Linux as my primary OS from the beginning (when I got my first laptop at 10y/o.) If you use different technology at work and at home you're probably going to run into this. Something I've done in the past when this gets bad is to find excuses to use the technology at home (even if I think it's inferior to what I would have otherwise chosen.) This tends to resolve the problem even if I don't stick with it.

palata 4y ago

The reason why I like Linux is because I can use the terminal a lot. Unfortunately I'm forced to use terrible ElectronJS apps from time to time, though, and more and more programs seem to either not have a TUI or be a full rootfs (as a docker container) because apparently the devs don't know how to properly package them? I definitely don't recommend Linux for people who don't want to use the terminal. Actually I hate it when they do and try to make Linux look like Windows/macOS. If you want the Windows/macOS experience, use Windows/macOS.

nine_k 4y ago

What do you mean saying "Ubuntu" — I suppose it means Gnome desktop by default? Try KDE / Kubuntu, it features the scroll speed control [1]. (Xfce, sadly, does not.) Also sadly, Mac is increasingly windows-like, with things that tend not to work out of the box (and just unsupported), and software updates bringing some trouble, especially huge updates like a new OS version. I stick with a Linux desktop where I at least acceptably understand and control every important aspect. I did have a Mac at work for several years, and it was also pretty fiddly in certain aspects. [1]: https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=160416 https://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=160416

lrvick 4y ago

As a counter example I have helped hundreds of nontechnical people switch to Linux over the past 15 years who prefer it to Windows and can do anything they want via the GUI without knowing how to manage an antivirus. ChromeOS and Android are also Linux and users seem to get along just fine with those too. I never experience crashes except when I have maxed out my ram doing something dumb.

saghm 4y ago

> If I'm honest, Linux is...exhausting. I'm technically proficient, but even the "user-friendly" Ubuntu is a pain to work with. Something as simple as changing the mouse scroll speed requires creating a bash script This is a totally legitimate gripe. On the other hand, I like to have the key repeat speed set to higher than MacOS lets me in their menu, so I also need to configure this in the terminal, except the only references I can find for it safe random stackoverflow questions and blog posts rather than official documentation, so the units are unclear (I can't remember if it's the delay before repeat or the actual repeat speed, but I remember being surprised about how one of them worked with regard to needing to modify the value in the opposite direction than I expected), and I need to log out and back in to test it, after which I might need to tweak again due to not really understanding the units and maybe overcalibrating, which requires another logout...etc. MacOS is probably easier if you don't want to stray at all off the prescribed path, but any time I needed to do something even slightly outside the seemingly arbitrary sanctioned happy path, it ends up being either even more annoying to configure than Linux, requiring some app that inevitably wants to me to pay them for what feels like basic functionality to me, or is completely impossible regardless of how much effort or money I'm willing to spend. Given how much I like the setup I've been using for years on Linux and how rarely things break for me compared to MacOS updates due to functionality being provided by third party apps (e.g. my iTerm shortcut for showing/hiding the fullscreen terminal occasionally not working after being required to a major OS update, but working just enough of the time that I suspect I wouldn't be able to find a fix), I won't ever be running anything else on my personal machine unless something drastically changes.

grey_earthling 4y ago

> Software updates rarely work. There are random crashes that take hours to fix. This (IMO) is precisely why Ubuntu is not a user-friendly distro. Fedora (and especially Silverblue) is much more user-friendly in this regard. I know it's common to judge Linux in general on the basis of Ubuntu in particular, but I don't think it's a fair assessment.