4 ms·

Microsoft is doing a good job of leveraging MS365 to make sure Linux isn’t an option for business users. Besides that, desktop Linux frustrates me in some way

Microsoft is doing a good job of leveraging MS365 to make sure Linux isn’t an option for business users. Besides that, desktop Linux frustrates me in some way every time I try it and I’ve been trying since you could get it on floppy disks. The last few years it’s been display scaling. I swear every Linux developer on the planet must be using 1080p screens because the display scaling sucks. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but the settings panel (in Debian and Ubuntu) is always flaky and the fractional scaling might as well not exist.

tomaytotomato 2y ago
Yea I know your pain when it comes to display scaling on a 3840x2160 monitor. I use Kubuntu and found that if you set display scaling you need to restart to properly have the settings take effect. I normally have it at 150% scaling
bmitc 2y ago
Agreed. 100% or 200% scaling only is unusable for almost all modern monitors at their top resolution.
ur-whale 2y ago
> desktop Linux frustrates me Yes, there are unresolved issues, and that's not going away But consider the alternatives: 1) ads in your menu bar an a pc that calls home to Redmond every 10s 2) a pretty candy-themed adventure in la-la land that you pay through the nose for and where, like in the fabled Hotel California [1], you can never leave. I'll take the minor annoyances every day of the week. [1] https://genius.com/Eagles-hotel-california-lyrics https://genius.com/Eagles-hotel-california-lyrics
- lukan 2y ago
  "Yes, there are unresolved issues, and that's not going away" Why?!? It is totally possible to get rid of those "minor annoyances". Some obscure driver bug, yeah, those are hard as there are millions of different devices and combinations. But UI scaling and other pain points like consistent UI and UX? That can be solved and it would make life on linux easier for everyone who is not comfortable with the terminal - which is the vast majority of humanity.
  - ur-whale 2y ago
    > Why?!? I really wish that wasn't the case. But I've been using Linux since '96, and Unix for way longer than that, and it has always been the case, so likelihood of it remaining that way is high at this point. Second, I believe it is a characteristic of the Open Source world: anything can be forked and evolved, which leads to a very complex ecosystem, especially when it comes to GUIs. The commercial OS vendors don't really have to deal with that issue. Third: hardware evolves, and very fast. Super hirez screen are a good example, and the need for thinking about GUIs in centimeters rather than in pixels is something that has caught all OS builders by surprise. Commercial providers built a a solution quickly, and the OpenSource world will eventually catch up, but they'll be late to the game, as usual. Another example is CPU's with heterogeneous cores, which it took the Linux folks quite a while to adjust to. Or at a more trivial level, the back-lighting of my laptop keyboard. This state of affairs (OpenSource software lagging behind wrt H/W evolution) is very likely to continue: H/W makers have, in general, almost zero incentive in providing drivers and/or early technical support for Linux. Oh, and btw: people believe they do that because opensourcing drivers would expose their intellectual property (see NVidia as one of the worst offenders). In reality, the truth is that it would expose for all to see how shitty, buggy and badly written their software actually is, and therefore they never do it. Net result: H/W has to be adjusted to after the fact by the OSS community (reverse engineering and whatnot), systematically leading to this chronic problem with OpenSource and H/W. I buy a new laptop every two years, wipe windows and install Linux. In over thirty years of doing this, I have yet to see a single time where every device in the laptop worked properly right after the install. Never happened. Yet, I am still a happy user: I do, to a large extent, control what happens on my computer. The same can't be said anymore of either of Android, OSX, Windows, Chrome
    - lukan 2y ago
      "In over thirty years of doing this, I have yet to see a single time where every device in the laptop worked properly right after the install. Never happened." In 15 years I experienced it 2 times by chance. But yes, the battery life was probably still lower than on stock windows. But not having to fight your system, but bugs, is a different feel. I still cannot completely deactivate windows antivirus on my all the time offline laptop. Shit like this. If linux would reliably work out of the box, standards might change. But it is a long way, but I believe it can change. There is momentum (and Valve's engagement helped).
- zaptrem 2y ago
  As a happy citizen of la-la land, what am I missing with desktop Linux (I use server Linux daily for ML and dev stuff) that’s worth all of the significant drawbacks that come with leaving la-la land?
  - ur-whale 2y ago
    > what am I missing with desktop Linux Freedom. Not something that matters much for many people, apparently. But to each his own. [EDIT]: And "significant" is not what I would call it. More like minor annoyances. Living in a golden cage is a much more significant issue AFAIC.
    - XajniN 2y ago
      What freedom? You can use almost all of the OSS on macOS too, but you also have better options available (often at a cost). So, how does your freedom manifest itself exactly?
- theanonymousone 2y ago
  > I'll take the minor annoyances every day of the week. Maybe some Linux decision makers share this mindset with you, and that's why we are where we are:)
fourfour3 2y ago
I'm really surprised by this - I use Arch (btw) with KDE Plasma (5 and 6) and I've been using 150% on a 4K monitor for a long time and it has worked very well. Modern Qt apps work fine, browsers too. I find the GTK side of things a lot flakier, though.
- dcminter 2y ago
  I had trouble with it, but when Ubuntu Wayland support appeared it pretty much solved the problem. Curious as to whether the parent post tried before or after that switch over. Prior to Ubuntu+Wayland it really was unusably bad with mixed screen resolutions for me.
  - fourfour3 2y ago
    Ah, I find mixed DPI/resolutions is a disaster on Windows too - apps break when moved between monitors quite a lot. The trick for me was going all in - 4K monitors at 150% only on both Windows and Linux - on Mac I have a 4K portrait and a 5K landscape, and that works fine there. I've been using 150% on both X11 (since late 2021/early 2022) and Wayland on AMD hardware and it's been pretty much fine.
- jrepinc 2y ago
  Same here, using KDE Plasma + Wayland on openSUSE Tumbleweed and AMD GPU and have no problems with 3 monitors all set to different fractional DPIs. No complaints for a long time. But yeah had lots of problems in GNOME or other GTK desktops. Not just with fractional DPI but by multi-monitor support in general.
sprinkly-dust 2y ago
I agree with you on the repeated frustrations of Desktop Linux. I'm not aware of your experience but personally, I've hopped from Distro to Distro and DE to WM to DE for years and I've come back to Pop!_OS as the choice for my own and friend / family laptops and desktops. They seem to give me the fewest frustrations in setup and compatibility with all sorts of hardware from Nvidia GPUs to Realtek WiFi and Bluetooth Chipsets. Their development team is also actively working on a replacement to GNOME that has actual HDR and scaling support. Right now, Pop!_OS is the only one that has given me a decent scaling experience with 3840x2160, even with fractional scaling. I've yet to try their (system76) own hardware but I'm already finding it quite decent for people testing the waters and jumping ship from Microsoft Spyware while not willing to break the bank on the newer Macs (though the M1 Air is still excellent). Nevertheless, we ought to keep in mind that every new year is the 'Year of Desktop Linux'.
lawn 2y ago
I've had an xorg-config with 125% scaling for almost a decade and it works well. This is on Void Linux.
pasc1878 2y ago
Office has always been the reason to buy Windows since Windows 2, especially for organizations. Without Office Windows and MS would not be the leading OS and large company.
ramon156 2y ago
As of this month, fedora has been perfect for me. I run a 980ti so often times fedora bugged my screens out, or simply resorted to basic drivers. Really enjoying it now though!
rob74 2y ago
> I swear every Linux developer on the planet must be using 1080p screens because the display scaling sucks. Or 43" 4K screens, which don't need display scaling either...

tomaytotomato 2y ago

Yea I know your pain when it comes to display scaling on a 3840x2160 monitor. I use Kubuntu and found that if you set display scaling you need to restart to properly have the settings take effect. I normally have it at 150% scaling

bmitc 2y ago

Agreed. 100% or 200% scaling only is unusable for almost all modern monitors at their top resolution.

ur-whale 2y ago

> desktop Linux frustrates me Yes, there are unresolved issues, and that's not going away But consider the alternatives: 1) ads in your menu bar an a pc that calls home to Redmond every 10s 2) a pretty candy-themed adventure in la-la land that you pay through the nose for and where, like in the fabled Hotel California [1], you can never leave. I'll take the minor annoyances every day of the week. [1] https://genius.com/Eagles-hotel-california-lyrics https://genius.com/Eagles-hotel-california-lyrics

lukan 2y ago
"Yes, there are unresolved issues, and that's not going away" Why?!? It is totally possible to get rid of those "minor annoyances". Some obscure driver bug, yeah, those are hard as there are millions of different devices and combinations. But UI scaling and other pain points like consistent UI and UX? That can be solved and it would make life on linux easier for everyone who is not comfortable with the terminal - which is the vast majority of humanity.
- ur-whale 2y ago
  > Why?!? I really wish that wasn't the case. But I've been using Linux since '96, and Unix for way longer than that, and it has always been the case, so likelihood of it remaining that way is high at this point. Second, I believe it is a characteristic of the Open Source world: anything can be forked and evolved, which leads to a very complex ecosystem, especially when it comes to GUIs. The commercial OS vendors don't really have to deal with that issue. Third: hardware evolves, and very fast. Super hirez screen are a good example, and the need for thinking about GUIs in centimeters rather than in pixels is something that has caught all OS builders by surprise. Commercial providers built a a solution quickly, and the OpenSource world will eventually catch up, but they'll be late to the game, as usual. Another example is CPU's with heterogeneous cores, which it took the Linux folks quite a while to adjust to. Or at a more trivial level, the back-lighting of my laptop keyboard. This state of affairs (OpenSource software lagging behind wrt H/W evolution) is very likely to continue: H/W makers have, in general, almost zero incentive in providing drivers and/or early technical support for Linux. Oh, and btw: people believe they do that because opensourcing drivers would expose their intellectual property (see NVidia as one of the worst offenders). In reality, the truth is that it would expose for all to see how shitty, buggy and badly written their software actually is, and therefore they never do it. Net result: H/W has to be adjusted to after the fact by the OSS community (reverse engineering and whatnot), systematically leading to this chronic problem with OpenSource and H/W. I buy a new laptop every two years, wipe windows and install Linux. In over thirty years of doing this, I have yet to see a single time where every device in the laptop worked properly right after the install. Never happened. Yet, I am still a happy user: I do, to a large extent, control what happens on my computer. The same can't be said anymore of either of Android, OSX, Windows, Chrome
  - lukan 2y ago
    "In over thirty years of doing this, I have yet to see a single time where every device in the laptop worked properly right after the install. Never happened." In 15 years I experienced it 2 times by chance. But yes, the battery life was probably still lower than on stock windows. But not having to fight your system, but bugs, is a different feel. I still cannot completely deactivate windows antivirus on my all the time offline laptop. Shit like this. If linux would reliably work out of the box, standards might change. But it is a long way, but I believe it can change. There is momentum (and Valve's engagement helped).
zaptrem 2y ago
As a happy citizen of la-la land, what am I missing with desktop Linux (I use server Linux daily for ML and dev stuff) that’s worth all of the significant drawbacks that come with leaving la-la land?
- ur-whale 2y ago
  > what am I missing with desktop Linux Freedom. Not something that matters much for many people, apparently. But to each his own. [EDIT]: And "significant" is not what I would call it. More like minor annoyances. Living in a golden cage is a much more significant issue AFAIC.
  - XajniN 2y ago
    What freedom? You can use almost all of the OSS on macOS too, but you also have better options available (often at a cost). So, how does your freedom manifest itself exactly?
theanonymousone 2y ago
> I'll take the minor annoyances every day of the week. Maybe some Linux decision makers share this mindset with you, and that's why we are where we are:)

fourfour3 2y ago

I'm really surprised by this - I use Arch (btw) with KDE Plasma (5 and 6) and I've been using 150% on a 4K monitor for a long time and it has worked very well. Modern Qt apps work fine, browsers too. I find the GTK side of things a lot flakier, though.

dcminter 2y ago
I had trouble with it, but when Ubuntu Wayland support appeared it pretty much solved the problem. Curious as to whether the parent post tried before or after that switch over. Prior to Ubuntu+Wayland it really was unusably bad with mixed screen resolutions for me.
- fourfour3 2y ago
  Ah, I find mixed DPI/resolutions is a disaster on Windows too - apps break when moved between monitors quite a lot. The trick for me was going all in - 4K monitors at 150% only on both Windows and Linux - on Mac I have a 4K portrait and a 5K landscape, and that works fine there. I've been using 150% on both X11 (since late 2021/early 2022) and Wayland on AMD hardware and it's been pretty much fine.
jrepinc 2y ago
Same here, using KDE Plasma + Wayland on openSUSE Tumbleweed and AMD GPU and have no problems with 3 monitors all set to different fractional DPIs. No complaints for a long time. But yeah had lots of problems in GNOME or other GTK desktops. Not just with fractional DPI but by multi-monitor support in general.

sprinkly-dust 2y ago

I agree with you on the repeated frustrations of Desktop Linux. I'm not aware of your experience but personally, I've hopped from Distro to Distro and DE to WM to DE for years and I've come back to Pop!_OS as the choice for my own and friend / family laptops and desktops. They seem to give me the fewest frustrations in setup and compatibility with all sorts of hardware from Nvidia GPUs to Realtek WiFi and Bluetooth Chipsets. Their development team is also actively working on a replacement to GNOME that has actual HDR and scaling support. Right now, Pop!_OS is the only one that has given me a decent scaling experience with 3840x2160, even with fractional scaling. I've yet to try their (system76) own hardware but I'm already finding it quite decent for people testing the waters and jumping ship from Microsoft Spyware while not willing to break the bank on the newer Macs (though the M1 Air is still excellent). Nevertheless, we ought to keep in mind that every new year is the 'Year of Desktop Linux'.

lawn 2y ago

I've had an xorg-config with 125% scaling for almost a decade and it works well. This is on Void Linux.

pasc1878 2y ago

Office has always been the reason to buy Windows since Windows 2, especially for organizations. Without Office Windows and MS would not be the leading OS and large company.

ramon156 2y ago

As of this month, fedora has been perfect for me. I run a 980ti so often times fedora bugged my screens out, or simply resorted to basic drivers. Really enjoying it now though!

rob74 2y ago

> I swear every Linux developer on the planet must be using 1080p screens because the display scaling sucks. Or 43" 4K screens, which don't need display scaling either...