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After running Linux (plain, crappy boring Ubuntu) as my daily driver for the last few years, I'm convinced that we're at the point where the only real barrier t

After running Linux (plain, crappy boring Ubuntu) as my daily driver for the last few years, I'm convinced that we're at the point where the only real barrier to wider adoption is software, and this is less and less of an issue the more we work in the browser. For your basic user, it's performant, simple, stable, and does everything a computer needs. Every time I boot up Windows it takes forever, I find that a new update that further fills my machine with crap requires a restart, I get super weird "news" and advertising thrown at me. I have no idea how normies put up with this.

makeitdouble 2y ago
> does everything a computer needs. This really comes down to this. If you can stabilize what you need, inevitably linux will catch up to where you are and you're set. If it's an always moving goalpost, the year of Linux on the desktop will always be next year, eternally.
int_19h 2y ago
Hardware support can be a problem as well. There are many combinations that "just work" - definitely more so than 20 or even 10 years ago - but you still need to be careful with network cards, for example. And graphics is still kind of a mess, enough so that all major browsers are still either using whitelists to enable hardware acceleration on supported hardware (like Firefox), or straight up disable it by default on Linux (like Chrome). Which translates to the other problem that is battery life on laptops. I did a fairly simple test recently that basically opens Reddit main page in Firefox & Chrome and then scrolls it slowly until battery dies. Running on the same exact hardware - Thinkpad T14s AMD gen4 - the battery life was reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings (= no hardware acceleration in either browser). Manually enabling it means that test cannot complete at all because both browsers randomly crash. And then you look at battery life vs an ARM MacBook, and it's not even funny.
- mattpallissard 2y ago
  > reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings With the default settings being the key there. I had the exact same laptop and was able to get idle power down under 3W. But to your point, that's a fair amount of friction for someone that understands all the moving points. It's insurmountable for the average user.
  - dxuh 2y ago
    Would you mind sharing some of the settings you changed there?
  - jwells89 2y ago
    Power/battery tuning differing between manufacturers, models, and even specific SKUs within models is perhaps the greatest hurdle to be overcome. It makes baking those settings into distros by default impractical and means there isn’t an easy string of commands that anybody can run to improve battery life on their Linux laptop.
    - tracker1 2y ago
      One thing that bit me, was trying to get a trackpad working on a xxx-xx17-xxx model (17 for 17" display)... out of a lark, I tried searching for xxx-xx15-xxx and found the answer... I added a comment on the 17" model number to help anyone else that may not have otherwise seen the page. It was adding a few options to the boot loader that fixed it. I've also seen issues with wifi drivers, but those are usually fixed booting up wired with a widely supported USB to ethernet dongle, not too bad, but still annoying. For me, that is about it for my biggest issues, aside from getting an RX 5700 at launch, where the drivers didn't stabilize until the next LTS releases (about 6 months later). I'd run alpha/beta kernels, which generally worked, and even tried Arch (btw) and both I got a black screen after updates. I went back to windows for a while, and then switched my main boot back to linux and haven't looked back after the Ads in start menu search results on my Windows Insiders install. For the most part, I've had very few issues in general, and only on initial setup. I've mostly used PopOS, and been exceedingly happy with it.
    - wormius 2y ago
      I'm not a laptop user so I alas never consider these things in my needs, but I imagine "Year of the Desktop" will be followed up with "Year of the Laptop"
      - MarkusWandel 2y ago
        For me the "Year of the Laptop" happened ages ago. Everything from old clunkers to a relatively modern HP Elitebook 840 G6... install Fedora, done. I think the fingerprint reader might be tough, and Bluetooth on Linux is truly a sad state of affairs. But everything else works out of the box, and that includes suspend/resume and other power management, the special keys, Wifi and so on. WebGL just works, no need to tweak a whitelist, and battery life is on par with when the thing was running Windows 10. With SSD, and a fan that hardly runs in light use, the Elitebook is a sweet Linux machine. I even use it on the Displaylink type USB-C dock that my current work laptop came with. Installing the Displaylink driver was a bit of "old school Linux" since the installer was Ubuntu only. But not too traumatic, and dock/undock also works perfectly.
- umbra07 2y ago
  > Running on the same exact hardware - Thinkpad T14s AMD gen4 - the battery life was reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings (= no hardware acceleration in either browser). Manually enabling it means that test cannot complete at all because both browsers randomly crash. Were you comparing this to Windows 11? > Linux What DE was this done on? Were you using any power-saving daemons (PPD, TLP, Powerdevil)? If not, I strongly recommend installing something like PPD (power-profiles-daemon) which requires 0 configuration out of the box, and retesting.
- NekkoDroid 2y ago
  > but you still need to be careful with network cards, for example. Funny you say that. A while back I reinstalled Windows on a new laptop (get rid of all the default installed garbage) and I couldn't connect wirelessly. Had to connect via ethernet and install and update everything just to have wireless work. I haven't installed Linux on it, but considering its a Broadcom card I don't exactly have high hopes of it working with only upstream drivers.
Ferret7446 2y ago
Hence the existence of Chrome OS.
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Hence the existence of Chrome OS. Which is useless besides browsing the internet.
  - jonathantf2 2y ago
    Which is what 95 percent of computer use is now.
    - nequo 2y ago
      Unless you’re an Emacs user. Then it is 100 percent.
      - hollerith 2y ago
        Emacs users spend 100% of their time in a web browser?
        nequo 2y ago
        I shouldn’t have to explain a joke[1] but yes: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eww.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eww.html [1] This phrase is a self-deprecating remark about my own joke making abilities, not a slight at parent.
        RobotCaleb 2y ago
        Did you mean for this to be as condescending or off-putting as it comes across? I'm really trying to be generous in my interpretation but I'm not sure how else to read it.
        2y ago
thefz 2y ago
Can not agree more. It finally struck a nice balance of simplicity for day to day usage and advanced features when needed. I have been pleasantly surprised discovering recently that Gnome Disks lets you create image files of single partitions or disks with just a couple of clicks.
wormius 2y ago
Yeah, I've got friends who are open to the idea (even though they still think the driver situation is the same as 20 years ago - I won't promise there aren't problems, but I think overall it's much better than it used to be). The main complaint is: I need my Adobe. I need my Ableton. I need my Office. Some people actually need the official Office products, but I think for most users it's not necessary, though they get really uptight if you suggest it's not. Adobe is honestly one of the biggest problems I think, and the most likely to continue to cause an issue with adoption. Ableton can sorta work, but it's not perfect, but I can see them starting to pour resources into it to get it working better or even a proper port, but I could be wrong.
- entropicdrifter 2y ago
  As far as Ableton goes, have you tried Reaper? Reaper has a native Linux version and generally works quite well IMO. One of the better DAWs and certainly one of the cheapest to purchase a license for.
  - orhmeh09 2y ago
    Reaper's great, but it and Ableton are focused on very different things. It's hard to come up with a workable analogy but they are probably at least as different as Photoshop and Illustrator are from one another.
  - lagniappe 2y ago
    I use ableton in linux, it works fine. What works amazing is Bitwig, which you'll find is like Ableton evolved, by some of the original developers of Ableton.
  - vunderba 2y ago
    Unless Reaper has drastically changed since the last time I used it, it's not even in the same ballpark as Ableton. Ableton strength is using it as a pattern based nonlinear editor and live production. I can't even imagine doing something like that in reaper. To me reaper is more like a superior version of audacity than a competitor to things like Logic Pro, FL Studio, etc.
INTPenis 2y ago
The worst thing about windows booting up is being lied to that the system is ready to use, when in fact everything is still sluggish for another 2 minutes and default apps are starting up. While on my Linux computer I consistently can immediately start using the system once I've logged in.
- klondike_klive 2y ago
  Not to mention all the focus-stealing from apps that I can't work without.
  - INTPenis 2y ago
    Just the other day I heard a noise I couldn't identify, nothing in notification center, nothing in task manager. I'll die without knowing what that noise meant. Thankfully I recently switched jobs to one where I'll be 100% linux.
benhurmarcel 2y ago
> I have no idea how normies put up with this. Remove the pinned ads for apps once, never open the widgets, shut down every night so updates are transparent. Sure Microsoft could make a nicer product. But it doesn't really affect users in their day-to-day.

makeitdouble 2y ago

> does everything a computer needs. This really comes down to this. If you can stabilize what you need, inevitably linux will catch up to where you are and you're set. If it's an always moving goalpost, the year of Linux on the desktop will always be next year, eternally.

int_19h 2y ago

Hardware support can be a problem as well. There are many combinations that "just work" - definitely more so than 20 or even 10 years ago - but you still need to be careful with network cards, for example. And graphics is still kind of a mess, enough so that all major browsers are still either using whitelists to enable hardware acceleration on supported hardware (like Firefox), or straight up disable it by default on Linux (like Chrome). Which translates to the other problem that is battery life on laptops. I did a fairly simple test recently that basically opens Reddit main page in Firefox & Chrome and then scrolls it slowly until battery dies. Running on the same exact hardware - Thinkpad T14s AMD gen4 - the battery life was reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings (= no hardware acceleration in either browser). Manually enabling it means that test cannot complete at all because both browsers randomly crash. And then you look at battery life vs an ARM MacBook, and it's not even funny.

mattpallissard 2y ago
> reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings With the default settings being the key there. I had the exact same laptop and was able to get idle power down under 3W. But to your point, that's a fair amount of friction for someone that understands all the moving points. It's insurmountable for the average user.
- dxuh 2y ago
  Would you mind sharing some of the settings you changed there?
- jwells89 2y ago
  Power/battery tuning differing between manufacturers, models, and even specific SKUs within models is perhaps the greatest hurdle to be overcome. It makes baking those settings into distros by default impractical and means there isn’t an easy string of commands that anybody can run to improve battery life on their Linux laptop.
  - tracker1 2y ago
    One thing that bit me, was trying to get a trackpad working on a xxx-xx17-xxx model (17 for 17" display)... out of a lark, I tried searching for xxx-xx15-xxx and found the answer... I added a comment on the 17" model number to help anyone else that may not have otherwise seen the page. It was adding a few options to the boot loader that fixed it. I've also seen issues with wifi drivers, but those are usually fixed booting up wired with a widely supported USB to ethernet dongle, not too bad, but still annoying. For me, that is about it for my biggest issues, aside from getting an RX 5700 at launch, where the drivers didn't stabilize until the next LTS releases (about 6 months later). I'd run alpha/beta kernels, which generally worked, and even tried Arch (btw) and both I got a black screen after updates. I went back to windows for a while, and then switched my main boot back to linux and haven't looked back after the Ads in start menu search results on my Windows Insiders install. For the most part, I've had very few issues in general, and only on initial setup. I've mostly used PopOS, and been exceedingly happy with it.
  - wormius 2y ago
    I'm not a laptop user so I alas never consider these things in my needs, but I imagine "Year of the Desktop" will be followed up with "Year of the Laptop"
    - MarkusWandel 2y ago
      For me the "Year of the Laptop" happened ages ago. Everything from old clunkers to a relatively modern HP Elitebook 840 G6... install Fedora, done. I think the fingerprint reader might be tough, and Bluetooth on Linux is truly a sad state of affairs. But everything else works out of the box, and that includes suspend/resume and other power management, the special keys, Wifi and so on. WebGL just works, no need to tweak a whitelist, and battery life is on par with when the thing was running Windows 10. With SSD, and a fan that hardly runs in light use, the Elitebook is a sweet Linux machine. I even use it on the Displaylink type USB-C dock that my current work laptop came with. Installing the Displaylink driver was a bit of "old school Linux" since the installer was Ubuntu only. But not too traumatic, and dock/undock also works perfectly.
umbra07 2y ago
> Running on the same exact hardware - Thinkpad T14s AMD gen4 - the battery life was reduced by 30% on Linux with default settings (= no hardware acceleration in either browser). Manually enabling it means that test cannot complete at all because both browsers randomly crash. Were you comparing this to Windows 11? > Linux What DE was this done on? Were you using any power-saving daemons (PPD, TLP, Powerdevil)? If not, I strongly recommend installing something like PPD (power-profiles-daemon) which requires 0 configuration out of the box, and retesting.
NekkoDroid 2y ago
> but you still need to be careful with network cards, for example. Funny you say that. A while back I reinstalled Windows on a new laptop (get rid of all the default installed garbage) and I couldn't connect wirelessly. Had to connect via ethernet and install and update everything just to have wireless work. I haven't installed Linux on it, but considering its a Broadcom card I don't exactly have high hopes of it working with only upstream drivers.

Ferret7446 2y ago

Hence the existence of Chrome OS.

hulitu 2y ago
> Hence the existence of Chrome OS. Which is useless besides browsing the internet.
- jonathantf2 2y ago
  Which is what 95 percent of computer use is now.
  - nequo 2y ago
    Unless you’re an Emacs user. Then it is 100 percent.
    - hollerith 2y ago
      Emacs users spend 100% of their time in a web browser?
      - nequo 2y ago
        I shouldn’t have to explain a joke[1] but yes: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eww.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/eww.html [1] This phrase is a self-deprecating remark about my own joke making abilities, not a slight at parent.
        RobotCaleb 2y ago
        Did you mean for this to be as condescending or off-putting as it comes across? I'm really trying to be generous in my interpretation but I'm not sure how else to read it.
        2y ago

thefz 2y ago

Can not agree more. It finally struck a nice balance of simplicity for day to day usage and advanced features when needed. I have been pleasantly surprised discovering recently that Gnome Disks lets you create image files of single partitions or disks with just a couple of clicks.

wormius 2y ago

Yeah, I've got friends who are open to the idea (even though they still think the driver situation is the same as 20 years ago - I won't promise there aren't problems, but I think overall it's much better than it used to be). The main complaint is: I need my Adobe. I need my Ableton. I need my Office. Some people actually need the official Office products, but I think for most users it's not necessary, though they get really uptight if you suggest it's not. Adobe is honestly one of the biggest problems I think, and the most likely to continue to cause an issue with adoption. Ableton can sorta work, but it's not perfect, but I can see them starting to pour resources into it to get it working better or even a proper port, but I could be wrong.

entropicdrifter 2y ago
As far as Ableton goes, have you tried Reaper? Reaper has a native Linux version and generally works quite well IMO. One of the better DAWs and certainly one of the cheapest to purchase a license for.
- orhmeh09 2y ago
  Reaper's great, but it and Ableton are focused on very different things. It's hard to come up with a workable analogy but they are probably at least as different as Photoshop and Illustrator are from one another.
- lagniappe 2y ago
  I use ableton in linux, it works fine. What works amazing is Bitwig, which you'll find is like Ableton evolved, by some of the original developers of Ableton.
- vunderba 2y ago
  Unless Reaper has drastically changed since the last time I used it, it's not even in the same ballpark as Ableton. Ableton strength is using it as a pattern based nonlinear editor and live production. I can't even imagine doing something like that in reaper. To me reaper is more like a superior version of audacity than a competitor to things like Logic Pro, FL Studio, etc.

INTPenis 2y ago

The worst thing about windows booting up is being lied to that the system is ready to use, when in fact everything is still sluggish for another 2 minutes and default apps are starting up. While on my Linux computer I consistently can immediately start using the system once I've logged in.

klondike_klive 2y ago
Not to mention all the focus-stealing from apps that I can't work without.
- INTPenis 2y ago
  Just the other day I heard a noise I couldn't identify, nothing in notification center, nothing in task manager. I'll die without knowing what that noise meant. Thankfully I recently switched jobs to one where I'll be 100% linux.

benhurmarcel 2y ago

> I have no idea how normies put up with this. Remove the pinned ads for apps once, never open the widgets, shut down every night so updates are transparent. Sure Microsoft could make a nicer product. But it doesn't really affect users in their day-to-day.