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>I've tried hard to become a full-time workstation Linux user for years, daily driving Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora for months at a time, but I always had to come b

>I've tried hard to become a full-time workstation Linux user for years, daily driving Ubuntu, Mint, and Fedora for months at a time, but I always had to come back to Windows. Nvidia and Intel driver issues, package manager bugs, reduced laptop battery life, general UI clunkiness Oh boy where to begin? >Nvidia and Intel driver issues Not a personal dig, but this is a result of having been spoiled. I still remember the small dime novel that came with my box of WinNT 4.0 workstation, all it did was list the various hardware that was on its hardware compatibility list. You wanted to buy some piece of hardware? Better do the homework because not everything was going to be compatible or even supported at the same level. Today everyone expects everything to just work out of the box when you throw an operating system at it. They've completely forgotten the need to even check for compatibility, they've outsourced that to the operating system. They expect it to 'just work' without input. When it works well it's great! It's magical! But people forget that it's a relatively recent thing and that to get the best use of your hardware you're advised to research it before purchasing and to make sure you check compatibility with the operating system(s) you plan to use. >package manager bugs OK, this has hit us all eventually. Valid. But I've noticed most of the time when I've run into this it was a result of me doing things that I really shouldn't or at least which should prime me to monitor my system more carefully. Such as installing Debian packages into Ubuntu. Sure it can work, especially if you do your best to install any needed dependencies. But you'd better know what you're doing and watch for issues after doing so. I'm sure there are other ways the package manager can crap the bed. It's not all on us when it does so. But I really don't think Windows is any better in this regard. I've had stuff eat itself there too with applications and systems upgrading DLLs and leaving me up the famous creek without a paddle. >reduced laptop battery life Valid as well. But have you looked into tlp? Have you tried tuning it for battery life? >general UI clunkiness This heavily depends on your desktop of choice. As a Mate desktop user I've been fairly happy with how my UI behaves. To the point where it is actively annoying to be in another desktop now. Different strokes for different folks though. If Windows is the UI you rely on to the point you have muscle memory, I can sympathize. I'd argue there is a desktop that can match that UI for you on Linux but you'll have to customize it a bit and you'll have to test for which one is closest to what you prefer. But if your preferred desktop UI is indeed Windows, it's not Linux's fault that it is not Windows any more than it would be OSX's fault it is not Windows. You have to adapt and accept that things work differently in a different operating system. Not wrong. Not misconfigured. Different.

fnimick 4y ago
The thing is: with Windows I don't have to do any of the compatibility checking, tuning for battery life, etc. You might have had to in the past, but you can't compare past Windows to Linux today. I just want to get my work done, and be able to reliably turn my computer on and run my applications. Windows lets me do that. Linux doesn't. I haven't had a Windows update break things in years, where my last Linux experience had the Ubuntu live USB work fine and completely fail to boot to a GUI environment after the install. I don't have time in my life to troubleshoot kernel issues anymore.
- vetinari 4y ago
  > The thing is: with Windows I don't have to do any of the compatibility checking, tuning for battery life, etc. You might have had to in the past, but you can't compare past Windows to Linux today. I suspect you are talking about some other Windows that the rest of us. > I just want to get my work done, and be able to reliably turn my computer on and run my applications. Don't we all? > Windows lets me do that. Linux doesn't. You, ok. Others? It's the other way around. > I haven't had a Windows update break things in years, Last time? Cumulative update 2022.12 for W19 22H2... that's not that long time ago.
- julianeon 4y ago
  I'm getting the sense of a category error here: Windows is the standard bearer of paid OS's - yes, true. Ubuntu is the standard bearer of free Linux OS's - not really, and (this is important) less true over time. What's happening is that, as Windows is improving, Linux appears to be getting worse. But that's really just an Ubuntu problem. I don't know how Ubuntu got the crown exactly, but it seems to be performing less well over time, and is, increasingly, not the default choice. I would understand if other distros are harder to learn or simply unsupported, but that's not the case. It feels like 90% of these issues could be resolved by saying "Start with Fedora. In 2023, that's the actual default Linux distro that fixes these problems."
  - bacchusracine 4y ago
    >I don't know how Ubuntu got the crown exactly They asked for it. Red hat the former bearers of that crown dropped the ball and walked away, leaving it open for Ubuntu to step in. https://web.archive.org/web/20031127055732/http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5101690.html https://web.archive.org/web/20031127055732/http://zdnet.com.... https://web.archive.org/web/20030812095615/http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=364 https://web.archive.org/web/20030812095615/http://www.linuxa... https://web.archive.org/web/20040508195941/http://www.newsforge.com/business/03/10/23/1156204.shtml?tid=17&tid=18&tid=20&tid=85 https://web.archive.org/web/20040508195941/http://www.newsfo... People forget now but Fedora was created because Red Hat abandoned the home desktop market in 2003. Then Fedora was spun off to be a test bed for their enterprise offerings and it was no longer possible to buy a copy of workstation in stores. So when Canonical showed up in 2004 and was focused on the desktop they were able to get a lot of people to move over fairly quickly. The fact that they were using a different type of desktop interface with Gnome that had the two panels unlike Fedora which still had the single large panel like Gnome 1.x made it stand out even more. That and the way almost every other Linux desktop at the time was KDE based... So yeah, Ubuntu took the crown because it wanted it. It maintains that crown because outside of it and its various spinoffs and flavors no one else is really seeking to be a desktop operating system. Since Canonical has made it clear that its focus is now also Enterprise at the expense of the desktop experience, I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone else steals that crown by focusing on the desktop again. We just need one of these billionaires to fund a company to make it happen...Say what you will about Shuttleworth, he did put his money where his mouth was and I for one am grateful for the many years of good use I got from Ubuntu as a result. I will be sad for the day when inevitably the pain points out weigh the benefits and I must switch away from Ubuntu-Mate to some other system.

fnimick 4y ago

The thing is: with Windows I don't have to do any of the compatibility checking, tuning for battery life, etc. You might have had to in the past, but you can't compare past Windows to Linux today. I just want to get my work done, and be able to reliably turn my computer on and run my applications. Windows lets me do that. Linux doesn't. I haven't had a Windows update break things in years, where my last Linux experience had the Ubuntu live USB work fine and completely fail to boot to a GUI environment after the install. I don't have time in my life to troubleshoot kernel issues anymore.

vetinari 4y ago
> The thing is: with Windows I don't have to do any of the compatibility checking, tuning for battery life, etc. You might have had to in the past, but you can't compare past Windows to Linux today. I suspect you are talking about some other Windows that the rest of us. > I just want to get my work done, and be able to reliably turn my computer on and run my applications. Don't we all? > Windows lets me do that. Linux doesn't. You, ok. Others? It's the other way around. > I haven't had a Windows update break things in years, Last time? Cumulative update 2022.12 for W19 22H2... that's not that long time ago.
julianeon 4y ago
I'm getting the sense of a category error here: Windows is the standard bearer of paid OS's - yes, true. Ubuntu is the standard bearer of free Linux OS's - not really, and (this is important) less true over time. What's happening is that, as Windows is improving, Linux appears to be getting worse. But that's really just an Ubuntu problem. I don't know how Ubuntu got the crown exactly, but it seems to be performing less well over time, and is, increasingly, not the default choice. I would understand if other distros are harder to learn or simply unsupported, but that's not the case. It feels like 90% of these issues could be resolved by saying "Start with Fedora. In 2023, that's the actual default Linux distro that fixes these problems."
- bacchusracine 4y ago
  >I don't know how Ubuntu got the crown exactly They asked for it. Red hat the former bearers of that crown dropped the ball and walked away, leaving it open for Ubuntu to step in. https://web.archive.org/web/20031127055732/http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5101690.html https://web.archive.org/web/20031127055732/http://zdnet.com.... https://web.archive.org/web/20030812095615/http://www.linuxandmain.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=364 https://web.archive.org/web/20030812095615/http://www.linuxa... https://web.archive.org/web/20040508195941/http://www.newsforge.com/business/03/10/23/1156204.shtml?tid=17&tid=18&tid=20&tid=85 https://web.archive.org/web/20040508195941/http://www.newsfo... People forget now but Fedora was created because Red Hat abandoned the home desktop market in 2003. Then Fedora was spun off to be a test bed for their enterprise offerings and it was no longer possible to buy a copy of workstation in stores. So when Canonical showed up in 2004 and was focused on the desktop they were able to get a lot of people to move over fairly quickly. The fact that they were using a different type of desktop interface with Gnome that had the two panels unlike Fedora which still had the single large panel like Gnome 1.x made it stand out even more. That and the way almost every other Linux desktop at the time was KDE based... So yeah, Ubuntu took the crown because it wanted it. It maintains that crown because outside of it and its various spinoffs and flavors no one else is really seeking to be a desktop operating system. Since Canonical has made it clear that its focus is now also Enterprise at the expense of the desktop experience, I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone else steals that crown by focusing on the desktop again. We just need one of these billionaires to fund a company to make it happen...Say what you will about Shuttleworth, he did put his money where his mouth was and I for one am grateful for the many years of good use I got from Ubuntu as a result. I will be sad for the day when inevitably the pain points out weigh the benefits and I must switch away from Ubuntu-Mate to some other system.