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It’s worth acknowledging the real challenges raised in this thread: desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfec

It’s worth acknowledging the real challenges raised in this thread: desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds. But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could drive improvement without sacrificing freedom. Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives?

volkercraig 9mo ago
I think you are thinking about it way too hard. Windows 11 is a dog. Constant hardware problems, slow, and frustrating UX. Is any desktop linux perfect? No, but its better than w11 right now.
- GlacierFox 9mo ago
  I take it you just read the first sentence and darted to the reply button...
  - normie3000 9mo ago
    Or GP knows that anyone who finds the following appealing has already been using linux for years: > Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? But if windows is now objectively worse than linux, normal people also now have a reason to switch.
    - vladvasiliu 9mo ago
      The problem I see with most people is that it just doesn't occur to them that there are alternatives. They're so used to a shitty experience with Windows and MS apps, and to them there's no such thing as os" and "hardware", in their minds they're lumped together. So they shrug, say "meh, computers, I just can't understand them," and go on their merry way rebooting Windows for the 10th time that day. Now, don't get me wrong, Windows has improved a lot from a robustness standpoint. Moreover, most people only use computers that come pre-configured, either from the factory or by their IT department. They won't face the crazy shit I have to put up with when I manually reinstall mine. Half the things on my 5 yo HP Elitebook don't work out of the box and I need to install a bunch of drivers from HP with dubious names, like sp1234 which makes the touchpad work, and sp4321 which enables the webcam. After a further set of updates, I can use my external screen connected to the intel integrated gpu and finally try to get some work done. Good times.
      - buran77 9mo ago
        > I need to install a bunch of drivers from HP with dubious names, like sp1234 This is just how HP names their software deployment packages. Lenovo will have something like "u6chp70us17" or "83wo12ww". You go on your product's page, download the driver, install it. I understand complaining about a device that doesn't work out of the box, but about the name of the driver installer? To be honest I've never seen an EliteBook that needed any drivers for the common components (I also own quite a few Elites, oldest from 2012), and in general any laptop that needed a touchpad driver to work in well over a decade. And I've played with a lot of different laptops, business models in particular. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that I don't think it's common.
        vladvasiliu 9mo ago
        I have two similar laptops, 840 g8 and 845 g8. The first is intel, the other amd. The intel one had some kind of new touchpad, which doesn't work during the windows install. It was apparently some new thing introduced with intel's 11th gen, don't remember the specifics, but apparently other models had the same issue. Windows needs to connect to the internet to fetch drivers once installed, even 25h2 which I installed two weeks ago. Bonus points for the AMD ethernet dongle not being recognized, even though it's some random realtek, so I have to type my wifi password (my AP doesn't support wps). The AMD one works, even though the touchpads seem similar. For a long time, the AMD's webcam didn't work. There's some USB doohickey that wasn't recognized (showed up with an exclamation point in device manager), and even installing all the drivers from HP's webpage didn't solve it. It solved itself somehow after some windows update two or three years later. Out of the box, it did have the webcam working, but the display brightness was somehow limited to "pretty dim". I was ready to write it off as just another crappy enterprise pc panel, but then I rebooted it into the bios and the thing burned a hole through my eyes. Installing windows manually fixed the backlight. Sleep on windows more often than not hangs for some reason, even now, 5 years in. The intel had a long-standing issue with 4k output over its usb-c ports. At one point, installing the gpu driver from intel fixed it, but windows update would helpfully update it to an older, borken version. Nowadays we have 5k panels at work. I can only get 5k if the driver is initialized with the monitor connected. So if the screen goes to sleep, it won't run at 5k anymore when it wakes back up. Newer models don't seem to have this issue anymore. Fortunately I'm only an occasional windows user, so don't care all that much. Everything worked perfectly under linux since day one, so apart from the comically bad display quality, I'm generally a happy camper.
- leptons 9mo ago
  Frustrating UX? Nope. Slow? Nope. Constant hardware problems? Just no. I've already switched to Linux, but this was not at all my experience of Windows. The only reason I switched was because Windows is going towards an "AI" focused OS which I do not want, as well as the cost of the Pro version - I run many VMs and not shelling out for Pro for all of them.
- BuddyPickett 9mo ago
  No hardware problems in the version I run, not sure what version you use. It's also not frustrating for me but what I do get frustrated with is trying to get software to run and Linux but just won't work. Most people are smart enough to be able to use windows without getting frustrated.
  - graemep 9mo ago
    So why are so many people complaining about Windows 11?
    - magicalhippo 9mo ago
      As a Windows user since 3.x days, I complain mostly about UX issues these days. It's also clear leadership is not aligned with what I want with my desktop. I've hardly had hardware issues since I moved to Windows 2000. Sure some, but few enough I can't recall any in particular.
    - ssl-3 9mo ago
      People have complained about every version of Windows, including the ones that were considered to be good milestones (like 2k and 7).
  - alisonsandy 9mo ago
    That is the same thing many people using linux say. It not frustrating or have any issues.
- pixelpoet 9mo ago
  > Windows 11 is a dog. So, man's best friend? Anyway, while I agree about the slowness (now that I've experienced Linux snappiness and done the benchmarks), it's the constant nagging / dark patterns that seals the deal for me. Microsoft would still have me as a happy customer and MSVC user if they hadn't bricked their OS after Win 7 and shoved AI, MS account, ads etc down everyone's throats. On that note, even more hilarious/tragic is their turning MS Office into Microsoft Copilot 365 App lol, probably the tech biggest marketing blunder of all time, and entirely unforced (unlike for example Intel mostly abandoning the Pentium brand after the P4).
  - vo2maxer 9mo ago
    I’ve got this older laptop I just set up for dual boot with a Linux distro. Before installing GRUB, I stripped down Windows 11 using Chris Titus’s utility, though you can accomplish the same thing manually, as you probably know, to kill all that Microsoft telemetry garbage. Windows runs beautifully now, no lag whatsoever. Linux, on the other hand, locks up constantly. And it’s not a hardware issue. Plenty of RAM, confirmed all the drivers loaded properly. Ironic?
  - ZebraOtoko 9mo ago
    >> Windows 11 is a dog. >So, man's best friend? Exactly: it's like that pit bull that everything thinks is so cute, until one day it goes berzerk and rips your child's face off, and then its owners say "It's your kid's fault for looking at him wrong!"
- 0xbadcafebee 9mo ago
  Doesn't matter if Windows sucks or not. People will still use it, either because they have to, or because it's the path of least resistance. Same reason even though your Government sucks, you still pay your taxes and follow the law.
the__alchemist 9mo ago
This is an clarifying perspective. In particular, I think this sheds light on understanding the various perspectives in the thread: > Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? We make choices, become passionate about some, and wear values we feel strongly about on our shoulder. What we witness here, I believe, is a conflation of two things: A: Linux as a value: Representing open source software, rejecting bad corporate behavior, and as a philosophy for software ownership B: Linux as a collection of related operating systems, as practical software. I think trying to understand each person's perspective, and if it can be categorized as one or the other makes sense of this article, similar ones, and discussion. Someone in Category B evaluating operating systems as tools should not be viewed by someone in Category A as an affront to their identity. It may just be different use cases; different hardware; different priorities; different variants and versions of operating systems used.
- bb88 9mo ago
  The people who wanted A created B. It's not really a conflation but more of a causal reality.
  - TheCleric 9mo ago
    Yes but the headwinds of Linux adoption are (to some extent) that Linux is the best choice for A, but it is not far and away the best choice for B (not saying it’s bad or even worse than Windows, it’s just not CLEARLY better). But when you approach 99% of the population who, to the extent they’ve even thought about it, will only judge an OS on B, Linux is just one of 3 main choices (sorry BSD folks. Don’t yell at me). Is it the best choice purely on functionality and app ecosystem? Maybe, but also maybe not. Since the majority of Linux does not come on hardware by default what you’re essentially asking people to do is to buy a car and swap out the motor. We have to convince them why that new motor is better and is worth the effort of doing so. If it’s marginally better or worse, it just won’t be worth the headache to most people. To be clear Linux (and MacOS) are my preferred OS. I haven’t owned a Windows box in at least 5 years.
DetectDefect 9mo ago
> Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? The reality is a lot more nuanced than that. Should one live in a forest, devoid of any city services and company of other individuals, so that one may be under "own control"? This is the essential value proposition with Linux and it's no wonder many prefer the comforting institution of proprietary prisons^Wsystems.
- BuddyPickett 9mo ago
  Not everything that runs on windows is proprietary I use a lot of open source software on Windows myself. Windows is also a lot easier to configure to run exactly the way I wanted to run and to be the OS I need it to be. It's extremely customizable and easy to control. It's also modifiable in many many more ways.
  - throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
    You are using subjective claims to back an objective assertion… Windows is strictly quite a bit less configurable than Linux. You likely just know Windows better?
    - anonymous908213 9mo ago
      I think there are two factors that lead people to make statements like that. The first is a given: they're talking about configuring it as a user, not a developer. Obviously Linux can do whatever you want it to do if you build your own distro from source. But additionally, while Linux is also substantially configurable in userland, those configurations might not actually cover the cases people need. You can, for example, pick between GNOME, KDE, etc -- which, on a pedantic level, is "objectively" more customizable than Windows, where you have exactly one option. Yet, if the settings within all of the off-the-shelf GUI shells do not serve the use cases the settings of the single option on Windows does, users will have every reason to assert that, on a practical level, the degree of customizability is inferior and not sufficient for them.
bachmeier 9mo ago
> Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? As a user of Linux as my main desktop OS for more than 20 years, a user of Linux far longer than that, and a promoter of FOSS before that was a term, this has always been the question. Most of the world does not care. I suspect that is more true today than ever before. There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works. Not to be negative but the "obstacles" to adopting Linux were never actually obstacles most of the time. Fifteen years ago my mother started using Linux as her main OS with no training. I gave her the login information, but never had a chance to show her how to use it, and she just figured it out on her own. Everything just worked, including exchanging MS Office documents for work.
- graemep 9mo ago
  The same with multiple people I know. Its not perfect, but neither is Windows. > There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works. They like it given a chance. My daughters for example far prefer Linux to Windows.
  - buran77 9mo ago
    > They like it given a chance. My daughters for example far prefer Linux to Windows. The two topics are orthogonal. GP talks about "local computing" vs. "black box in the cloud", the difference between running it vs. using it. You're talking about various options to run locally, the difference between running it this way or that way. Linux or Windows users probably understand basic computing concepts like files and a file system structure, processes, basic networking. Many modern phone "app" users just know what the app and device shows them, and that's not much. Every bit of useful knowledge is hidden and abstracted away from the user. They get nothing beyond what service the provider wants them to consume.
- mjr00 9mo ago
  > Most of the world does not care. I suspect that is more true today than ever before. There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works. Yep. I was amazed when I was talking to a friend who's a bit younger (late 20s) and told him about a fangame you could just download from a website (Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers, for the record) and he was skeptical and concerned at the idea of just downloading and running an executable from somewhere on the internet. I suspect most adults these days are like this; their computing experience is limited to the web browser and large official corporate-run software repositories e.g. app stores and Steam. Which ironically means they would do just fine on Linux, but there's also no incentive for them to switch off Windows/MacOS. To them, Microsoft and Apple having control of their files and automatically backing up their home directory to Azure/iCloud is a feature, not a problem.
xedrac 9mo ago
I would argue that hardware support in Linux is superior to any other operating system on the planet.
meetingthrower 9mo ago
MS Office is hardly "niche professional software." I hate it, and recognize that I can use the online services, but the reality is that I have to send, receive, and work in this application and I can't easily do it on Linux.
- drnick1 9mo ago
  Check out WinApps.
  - tacker2000 9mo ago
    This looks interesting, how is the experience?
- graemep 9mo ago
  > the reality is that I have to send, receive, and work in this application Why? You can edit MS Office documents fine in LibreOffice and other similar software.
  - Cu3PO42 9mo ago
    If you're working in a corporate environment, this may not be viable. LibreOffice is great software, but it's not 100% compatible. Things may look slightly different, get lost or otherwise cause problems. I've really tried, but at the end of the day I occasionally do need to use actual Microsoft Office.
    - MegaDeKay 9mo ago
      Yep. And then there is Visio which gets used a lot where I work. LibreOffice Draw doesn't come anywhere near it. It saves a lot of grief just to give our Linux users a Windows VM with Office on it if they need to do any significant docs or drawings.
    - chris_wot 9mo ago
      I used Word to write a reasonably complicated document that necessarily used tables. It was one of the most frustrating, bug inducing experiences of my life. I had to open the document and edit it in LibreOffice to get any sort of stability.
jdthedisciple 9mo ago
Will these issues with Linux ever be overcome? I want to switch but I just don't feel confident yet, and I wonder how long the "yet" will remain.
- michaelsshaw 9mo ago
  It isn't an issue with Linux, it's an issue with the companies that make proprietary software and devices with only windows support. A better world is possible, but you need to accept the fight isn't easy. Switch today.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- TheCleric 9mo ago
  Here’s a simple decision tree: Do you run any exotic hardware? Do you run MS Office regularly? Do you run any highly specialized software? If the answer is no to all those then Linux is worth a shot.
- throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
  > Will these issues with Linux ever be overcome? As a Linux user forced to run Windows at work, I only see issues with Windows ;) > I want to switch but I just don't feel confident Live distros make it very easy to dip your toes and try, without committing to anything. IMO Linux has much better UI options because there are so many choices and freedom. You can likely find something that looks/works EXACTLY like you’ve always dreamed of - but maybe you have to try a few options to find it.
- NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
  > Will these issues with "the other side of the road" ever be overcome? > I want to switch but I just don't feel confident yet, and I wonder how long the "yet" will remain. For people like you who think like this. FOREVER You'll always dream up some reason why this side of the road, is just better.
- everdrive 9mo ago
  >Will these issues with Linux ever be overcome? I'd ask you the inverse question: If Linux never got any better than it is currently, what would it take to push you away from Windows? I don't mean this as a challenge, I'm genuinely curious.
taf2 9mo ago
Fusion360 is the one tool I wish had better wine support
- sudonem 9mo ago
  I got tired of fighting to keep Fusion running in wine so now Fusion is literally the only reason I maintain a windows partition to dual boot into. I hate that. I’m no longer using it professionally so I could explore other options but FreeCAD kinda sucks (I will die on that hill), and OnShape offers the choice between my designs to be publicly visible, or a subscription that assumes I have a corporate expense account makes it not viable. (I don’t mind paying for good tools but there has to be a middle ground). If Autodesk ever ported Fusion to Linux… I’d probably pay for a subscription just out of sheer elation ha.
112233 9mo ago
I'll be glad if someone tells that I'm wrong but doesn't current windows 11 present even more of the same challenges? Last I tried, old driver compatibility in newer windowses was not fantastic, Wine slowly is becoming more compatible with legacy windows programs than the windows itself, forced updates are dealbreaker for many usecases. And need for workaroubds and poking around has reached Windows XP levels. I mean, there are two ways to make Linux better alternative than Windows, and currently the main effort is coming from Microsoft...
nottorp 9mo ago
> hardware support isn’t always perfect It's not perfect on windows either. Crashes, non working sleep on almost any windows laptop... at least compared to what Apple can do.
xattt 9mo ago
> … desktop Linux still has rough edges … My personal pet peeve is the GTK/Qt divide. Theming has an extra step, as you have to pick a matching theme for the other toolkit apps you inevitably end up using. KDE/Qt has excellent scaling support, but GTK apps (OrcaSlicer for example) end up having blurry text or messed up text labels if you run a non-integer scaling resolution. The Wayland transition almost seems akin to the IPv6 debacle. Support is there, but it’s half-baked in half the cases. I crave RDP remote access, but this is currently not possible with KRDP as it does not work with Wayland sessions. Wine is just getting there, but only with scary messages that say that it’s an experimental feature.
- throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
  >> … desktop Linux still has rough edges … > My personal pet peeve is the GTK/Qt divide. Theming has an extra step, as you have to pick a matching theme for the other toolkit apps you inevitably end up using. Is this perhaps an issue of fractional scaling? I’ve run Openbox/Blackbox on Linux for ~15 years and never had these issues. Not 100% sure I understand the issue at least. Things look mostly fine (to me) and even if they don’t, the apps still work as they should (no blur). AFAIK Openbox/X11 just uses the DPI the monitor reports and things scale as they should. Sounds like an issue with Gnome/KDE to me, not with Linux? I may be wrong, I’m not seeking a super polished look or want to tweak my UIs a lot.
  - xattt 9mo ago
    Yes, this is a KDE/GTK issue, but this is also a real-world case. Linux Greybeards, a hypothetical man with astute technical and sexual prowess, might not be bothered by follies such as proper text rendering, but it is an issue if desktop environments have any chance to compete with mainstream operating systems.
    - throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
      > Yes, this is a KDE/GTK issue, but this is also a real-world case I believe you when you say it. > Linux Greybeards, a hypothetical man with astute technical and sexual prowess No need to be snarky. I was speaking from my own Linux experience (just like you did?), not trying to impress anyone. Text renders fine in Openbox, hence the question about the issue being with Linux or GTK/KDE. I’ve honestly never heard of these issues or experienced them myself. Perhaps because Openbox is simpler (no fractional scaling AFAIK) so I’ve likely been “shielded” from such issues (never heard about theming or issues like this tbh).
tobadzistsini 9mo ago
Some desktop versions of GNU/Linux have rough edges. Self-important grognards think everyone should "git gud" and install Arch or waste a weekend waiting for Gentoo to compile in order to optimize the install. This article along with this one (https://www.theverge.com/tech/858910/linux-diary-gaming-desktop https://www.theverge.com/tech/858910/linux-diary-gaming-desk...) go on about using an Arch-based distro rather than a Debian-based distro. Clearly there will be challenges, minor or major. The failure of these articles is the authors aren't going for distros that "just work". Want to undercut Microsoft's user base, grow GNU/Linux, and herald the year of Linux on desktop that's been promised for decades? Keep it simple. Majority of people going online with their computers are browsing the web, doomscrolling, and engaging on social media. They're not pentesting with Rust, running an instance of a LLM, or setting up a webserver for giggles. Keep it simple. But pushing Arch and other beardy distros with these kinds of articles reeks of gatekeeping as if only "smart" people are allowed to engage online and control their experience. Everyone else should suck it up with Microsoft having Copilot phone home since they don't deserve to know better. And I don't care how much preamble they give about Debian-based and beginner distros, they're just wagging their dicks to easily-awed proles and relishing imagined egoboos from other neo-Stallmans.
WheatMillington 9mo ago
>niche professional software may lack native support Microsoft Office is not "niche professional software"
- ipjrms 9mo ago
  What is Microsoft Office? Do you mean Microsoft 365 Copilot?
  - lpcvoid 9mo ago
    *Microslop 365 Copilot
  - spooneybarger 9mo ago
    Well played sir. Well played
  - pixelpoet 9mo ago
    You forgot the "App" :) I'm still astonished at how dumb that rebrand is...
    - sethops1 9mo ago
      The "app" isn't even capitalized, which is my favorite part!
- jraph 9mo ago
  I suspect the person you are responding to wasn't including everything that doesn't work on Linux, in particular Microsoft Office, in this phrase, but domain specific / specialized business software.
- kazinator 9mo ago
  I have two Windows systems; I use LibreOffice on them. It's just so much better.
znpy 9mo ago
> But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could drive improvement without sacrificing freedom. Are you sure? My second-hand thinkpad still won't hibernate properly. It's not a weird model, it's a ryzen-based X13 Gen1 so not even shiny new. You can imagine on a laptop one would want hibernation to just work. The fault is surely on Lenovo's table... Yet it would work if I was to run Windows (which I don't want to do). So yeah... Now I have a laptop from a brand which is known and appreciated for linux compatibility, and a basic thing like hibernation does not work.
- vladvasiliu 9mo ago
  > You can imagine on a laptop one would want hibernation to just work. Well, I think MS took care of that by removing the hibernation option from the start menu. You have to manually turn it back on from the old control panel.
jama211 9mo ago
Yeah but folks around here like to stick their heads in the sand when reminded that this is a very real and concerning barrier to adoption of desktop Linux. It could happen 1000 times and they’ll still scream that it’s either user error or even worse “it works on my machine”. Until the Linux community stops pretending and accepts that these are real issues and they need addressing, it will never be the year of the Linux desktop.
- givemeethekeys 9mo ago
  Maybe not for everyone, but it will never be the year of the Windows Desktop for everyone either.
  - magicalhippo 9mo ago
    It was, some 25+ years ago.
    - NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
      No it wasn't. Only in your head
      - foxglacier 9mo ago
        Over 90% of desktops had Windows back then. So yea, that's everybody. Unless you're being pedantic because one guy was using IRIX on an SGI workstation, or the odd Mac.
        givemeethekeys 9mo ago
        10% of everyone is still a whole lot of people. Even 1% of everyone is a lot of people.
        jama211 9mo ago
        No one said “everyone” until you did, and now you’re using it to be pedantic… bad faith tactic that.
freeopinion 9mo ago
Desktop Windows still has rough edges. Desktop MacOS still has rough edges. Desktop Linux still has rough edges. Pick your poison. Niche professional software may lack native Windows support or require workarounds. Windows has a strong grip in enterprise environments where it is desirable to remove desktop control from users. You have things like FreeIPA and Samba making weak offers beyond directory services in that direction. You have things like OpenTofu and Ansible making partial efforts in that direction. But you don't have an integrated goto standard solution for giving Linux desktop control to the enterprise. So Windows continues its grip in the enterprise. (If I'm wrong, please post a correction here. I'll be grateful for the education.) For companies less obsessed with taking control away from users, Windows has less of a grip.
- koyote 9mo ago
  > Desktop Windows still has rough edges. Desktop MacOS still has rough edges. Desktop Linux still has rough edges. Pick your poison. I think this sentiment is often overlooked as people are used to their 'poison'. As someone who uses Linux a their main personal machine (with dual boot to Windows every now and then) as well as W11 for work, it's amazing what you get used to. I was almost agreeing with OP, remembering bluetooth issues I had with Linux just last month when one of my headphones couldn't connect properly and I had to spend 10-15 minutes messing about with bluetooth stacks to get it working again. But reading your comment I just realised that my current work machine doesn't even detect my bluetooth headphone's microphone and I have not found a fix yet. That machine also does not go to sleep properly (a common, real, complaint from many linux users) and I have to hibernate it manually via command line as the option does not exist in my power menu due to corporate's rules and regulations. I also get Windows blue screens far more often than I get Linux kernel panics. You're just so used to the issues and inconveniences that you don't even recognise them as such anymore. Issue and inconveniences from a new piece of software you're trialing stick out like sore thumb though...
  - broodbucket 9mo ago
    The thing I like about Linux is that if your thing doesn't work you have a way better chance of being able to wrangle it into working (odds increasing as your technical skill increases) Meanwhile on Windows if something doesn't work you're generally SOL.
whatever1 9mo ago
Nobody cares about what runs under the hood (I mean the real market, not the dozen of us nerds), as long as it looks and plays nice. Market already uses linux both in the form of android but also as a server OS. For both of these the financial incentive was there for someone to write the drivers, make the UI user friendly (android users never have to open a terminal), create sales channels. Desktop and laptop market is weird because no hardware vendor wants to compete with MS. The only one who does (apple), owns both the hardware and software as well as sales channels, so they are not affected by MS’s deals.
- GoblinSlayer 9mo ago
  I had to open a terminal on android to copy photos to laptop with tar|netcat for backup and larger screen.
  - jama211 9mo ago
    No, you didn’t, that’s just the solution you chose to go with. You could’ve used literally any other file transfer method.
    - GoblinSlayer 9mo ago
      Which method, sftp?
      - jama211 9mo ago
        You can’t think of any other method to transfer a photo from a phone to a computer? You know, one that doesn’t involve a terminal?
        GoblinSlayer 9mo ago
        Run a local instance of nextcloud? I wonder if it doesn't involve a terminal.
jrnng 9mo ago
[dead]
Aurornis 9mo ago
> But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps For people who are trying to get their work done now, in the present, this doesn’t change anything. We all know that Linux could technically run the same productivity apps and games if every company put enough investment money toward it. However even some of the apps I use which had a Linux version have announced that they’re sunsetting Linux compatibility due to low demand. For all of the people whose work lives inside of text editors, web browsers, and terminals switching to Linux is easy. I think these threads become biased toward people who fit that description who don’t understand why everyone can’t just switch over. > Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: That feels like a strawman argument. Most people don’t choose their OS on ideological grounds. The reasons people don’t use Linux isn’t because it’s not “perfect”. People use Windows because it works, it’s familiar, and their software runs on it. All of these calls to make OS choice about ideological wars isn’t convincing or even relevant to people who haven’t already switched to Linux.
- NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
  That's the problem that you highlighted. It's not -their- software is it.
- dessimus 9mo ago
  >The reasons people don’t use Linux isn’t because it’s not “perfect”. People use Windows because it works, it’s familiar, and their software runs on it. The reason most people run Windows is because that is what their jobs IT department put on their computer, and those IT departments run Windows because of the enterprise tools Microsoft has provided for lifecycle management with AD, GPO, etc. Linux will have difficulty making progress with enterprises for the non-SecDevOps staff until it's as easy to centrally manage user and computer polices, accounts, and upgrades across the entire end-user fleet as it is with Microsoft.
HeavyStorm 9mo ago
You overestimate the level of investment the average person can and will make for these freedoms. People buy Kindles because they work (and are heavily marketed), they buy Apple because they simply work, and will keep preferring windows to Linux until Linux offer a easier barrier to entry. Microsoft will (almost already has) loose its advantage to Apple before it loses to Linux.
- faust201 9mo ago
  May be in the US (as Apple products are cheaper and people are dependent on iMessge) Rest will remain on pirated windows or linu.many often don't even use computer.
AlienRobot 9mo ago
>desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds Personally, I believe the REAL problem is the rough edges WITH Linux. Hardware support? You can blame manufacturers for not supporting Linux. Software support? Same. But if you use a Linux software made for Linux by Linux users and it just feels inconvenient, non-intuitive, buggy, and mentally painful to use, you're going to think that Linux is full of bad software. Because it doesn't matter if you use X11 or Wayland under the hood, you try to drag and drop an icon from the start menu to the desktop or vice-versa and that only works in some DEs. You try to drag and drop an image from Chrome to the file manager, and that doesn't always work. You try to click the close button and sometimes there is a few pixels of padding at the top so you can't close the window on first try. This isn't Nvidia's fault, or Adobe's fault, or Microsoft's fault. It's just Linux.
kazinator 9mo ago
> desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases Windows is shit from the total management viewpoint: what it means to own and operate Windows over the long haul. windows is okay when there is some program on it that works well and that you like, and you're interacting with that while avoiding Windows. If Windows were the dominant platform and Windows were trying to eke out share, it wouldn't stand a chance.
tombert 9mo ago
I have been running desktop Linux for a very long time, but I actually agree. There's a lot of rough edges. I do think a lot of these problems do go away if you are a bit proactive in choosing compatible hardware. I bought my mother in law a laptop for Christmas, and I put Linux Mint on there [1]. There were no issues getting it working on Mint with Cinnamon, but that's in no small part because I double checked all the common hardware (wi-fi, GPU, trackpad, etc) to make sure it worked fine in Linux and it did. If you don't do your homework, it's definitely a crapshoot with hardware compatibility, and of course that sucks if you're telling people that they should "switch to Linux" on their existing hardware, since they might have a bad experience. That said, it is weird that people seem to have total amnesia for the rough edges of Windows, and I'm not convinced that Windows has fewer rough edges than Linux. I've grown a pretty strong hatred for Windows Update, and the System Restore and Automatic Repair tools that never work. Oh, and I really think that NTFS is showing its age now and wish that Microsoft would either restart effort on ReFS or port over ZFS to run on root. [1] Before you give me shit for this, if anything breaks I agreed to be the one to fix it, and I find that generally I can solve these kinds of problems by just using tmate and logging into their command line which AFAIK doesn't have a direct easy analog in Windows.
- anonymousDan 9mo ago
  How do you check the hardware is compatible in practice? Is there some reliable resource for doing this?
  - tombert 9mo ago
    As a rule AMD stuff is pretty safe, but to answer your question, I generally go look at kernel sources, or sometimes I go and see if I can find the model in the NixOS Github and see how many workarounds that they have to do to get it working.
  - ta8903 9mo ago
    https://linux-hardware.org/ https://linux-hardware.org/ is useful for this.
  - ZebraOtoko 9mo ago
0xbadcafebee 9mo ago
> the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? The answer is: it doesn't matter. Linux desktop doesn't exist because of privacy nerds, free software evangelists, anti-capitalists, or European protectionists, and it won't change because of them either. Sit here on the internet and pontificate all you want. Pontificating doesn't fix bugs or write code. It is what it is. If there was money in it, people'd be going after it. If there was some "higher calling" to galvanize people into action, it would've galvanized them already. This is the best it's going to get. The much, much bigger issue is control of applications, and the browsers (and their owners) won that long ago. Doesn't matter what OS you use, you need a browser to do anything useful on the internet. And if that ever gets "solved", it'll just pass on to the next shit-show of humans letting things get as bad as they can stand. Technology is made by humans, so it follows human values.
josephcooney 9mo ago
as a long-time windows user who has fairly recently switched to linux - windows has a few rough edges too (and feels like it's getting increasingly rougher). Having recently switched I don't feel like things have changed much for me in terms of jankiness/broken-ness (and maybe linux is slightly better, for the subset of tools and programs I am using?).

volkercraig 9mo ago

I think you are thinking about it way too hard. Windows 11 is a dog. Constant hardware problems, slow, and frustrating UX. Is any desktop linux perfect? No, but its better than w11 right now.

GlacierFox 9mo ago
I take it you just read the first sentence and darted to the reply button...
- normie3000 9mo ago
  Or GP knows that anyone who finds the following appealing has already been using linux for years: > Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? But if windows is now objectively worse than linux, normal people also now have a reason to switch.
  - vladvasiliu 9mo ago
    The problem I see with most people is that it just doesn't occur to them that there are alternatives. They're so used to a shitty experience with Windows and MS apps, and to them there's no such thing as os" and "hardware", in their minds they're lumped together. So they shrug, say "meh, computers, I just can't understand them," and go on their merry way rebooting Windows for the 10th time that day. Now, don't get me wrong, Windows has improved a lot from a robustness standpoint. Moreover, most people only use computers that come pre-configured, either from the factory or by their IT department. They won't face the crazy shit I have to put up with when I manually reinstall mine. Half the things on my 5 yo HP Elitebook don't work out of the box and I need to install a bunch of drivers from HP with dubious names, like sp1234 which makes the touchpad work, and sp4321 which enables the webcam. After a further set of updates, I can use my external screen connected to the intel integrated gpu and finally try to get some work done. Good times.
    - buran77 9mo ago
      > I need to install a bunch of drivers from HP with dubious names, like sp1234 This is just how HP names their software deployment packages. Lenovo will have something like "u6chp70us17" or "83wo12ww". You go on your product's page, download the driver, install it. I understand complaining about a device that doesn't work out of the box, but about the name of the driver installer? To be honest I've never seen an EliteBook that needed any drivers for the common components (I also own quite a few Elites, oldest from 2012), and in general any laptop that needed a touchpad driver to work in well over a decade. And I've played with a lot of different laptops, business models in particular. Not saying it doesn't happen, just that I don't think it's common.
      - vladvasiliu 9mo ago
        I have two similar laptops, 840 g8 and 845 g8. The first is intel, the other amd. The intel one had some kind of new touchpad, which doesn't work during the windows install. It was apparently some new thing introduced with intel's 11th gen, don't remember the specifics, but apparently other models had the same issue. Windows needs to connect to the internet to fetch drivers once installed, even 25h2 which I installed two weeks ago. Bonus points for the AMD ethernet dongle not being recognized, even though it's some random realtek, so I have to type my wifi password (my AP doesn't support wps). The AMD one works, even though the touchpads seem similar. For a long time, the AMD's webcam didn't work. There's some USB doohickey that wasn't recognized (showed up with an exclamation point in device manager), and even installing all the drivers from HP's webpage didn't solve it. It solved itself somehow after some windows update two or three years later. Out of the box, it did have the webcam working, but the display brightness was somehow limited to "pretty dim". I was ready to write it off as just another crappy enterprise pc panel, but then I rebooted it into the bios and the thing burned a hole through my eyes. Installing windows manually fixed the backlight. Sleep on windows more often than not hangs for some reason, even now, 5 years in. The intel had a long-standing issue with 4k output over its usb-c ports. At one point, installing the gpu driver from intel fixed it, but windows update would helpfully update it to an older, borken version. Nowadays we have 5k panels at work. I can only get 5k if the driver is initialized with the monitor connected. So if the screen goes to sleep, it won't run at 5k anymore when it wakes back up. Newer models don't seem to have this issue anymore. Fortunately I'm only an occasional windows user, so don't care all that much. Everything worked perfectly under linux since day one, so apart from the comically bad display quality, I'm generally a happy camper.
leptons 9mo ago
Frustrating UX? Nope. Slow? Nope. Constant hardware problems? Just no. I've already switched to Linux, but this was not at all my experience of Windows. The only reason I switched was because Windows is going towards an "AI" focused OS which I do not want, as well as the cost of the Pro version - I run many VMs and not shelling out for Pro for all of them.
BuddyPickett 9mo ago
No hardware problems in the version I run, not sure what version you use. It's also not frustrating for me but what I do get frustrated with is trying to get software to run and Linux but just won't work. Most people are smart enough to be able to use windows without getting frustrated.
- graemep 9mo ago
  So why are so many people complaining about Windows 11?
  - magicalhippo 9mo ago
    As a Windows user since 3.x days, I complain mostly about UX issues these days. It's also clear leadership is not aligned with what I want with my desktop. I've hardly had hardware issues since I moved to Windows 2000. Sure some, but few enough I can't recall any in particular.
  - ssl-3 9mo ago
    People have complained about every version of Windows, including the ones that were considered to be good milestones (like 2k and 7).
- alisonsandy 9mo ago
  That is the same thing many people using linux say. It not frustrating or have any issues.
pixelpoet 9mo ago
> Windows 11 is a dog. So, man's best friend? Anyway, while I agree about the slowness (now that I've experienced Linux snappiness and done the benchmarks), it's the constant nagging / dark patterns that seals the deal for me. Microsoft would still have me as a happy customer and MSVC user if they hadn't bricked their OS after Win 7 and shoved AI, MS account, ads etc down everyone's throats. On that note, even more hilarious/tragic is their turning MS Office into Microsoft Copilot 365 App lol, probably the tech biggest marketing blunder of all time, and entirely unforced (unlike for example Intel mostly abandoning the Pentium brand after the P4).
- vo2maxer 9mo ago
  I’ve got this older laptop I just set up for dual boot with a Linux distro. Before installing GRUB, I stripped down Windows 11 using Chris Titus’s utility, though you can accomplish the same thing manually, as you probably know, to kill all that Microsoft telemetry garbage. Windows runs beautifully now, no lag whatsoever. Linux, on the other hand, locks up constantly. And it’s not a hardware issue. Plenty of RAM, confirmed all the drivers loaded properly. Ironic?
- ZebraOtoko 9mo ago
  >> Windows 11 is a dog. >So, man's best friend? Exactly: it's like that pit bull that everything thinks is so cute, until one day it goes berzerk and rips your child's face off, and then its owners say "It's your kid's fault for looking at him wrong!"
0xbadcafebee 9mo ago
Doesn't matter if Windows sucks or not. People will still use it, either because they have to, or because it's the path of least resistance. Same reason even though your Government sucks, you still pay your taxes and follow the law.

the__alchemist 9mo ago

This is an clarifying perspective. In particular, I think this sheds light on understanding the various perspectives in the thread: > Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? We make choices, become passionate about some, and wear values we feel strongly about on our shoulder. What we witness here, I believe, is a conflation of two things: A: Linux as a value: Representing open source software, rejecting bad corporate behavior, and as a philosophy for software ownership B: Linux as a collection of related operating systems, as practical software. I think trying to understand each person's perspective, and if it can be categorized as one or the other makes sense of this article, similar ones, and discussion. Someone in Category B evaluating operating systems as tools should not be viewed by someone in Category A as an affront to their identity. It may just be different use cases; different hardware; different priorities; different variants and versions of operating systems used.

bb88 9mo ago
The people who wanted A created B. It's not really a conflation but more of a causal reality.
- TheCleric 9mo ago
  Yes but the headwinds of Linux adoption are (to some extent) that Linux is the best choice for A, but it is not far and away the best choice for B (not saying it’s bad or even worse than Windows, it’s just not CLEARLY better). But when you approach 99% of the population who, to the extent they’ve even thought about it, will only judge an OS on B, Linux is just one of 3 main choices (sorry BSD folks. Don’t yell at me). Is it the best choice purely on functionality and app ecosystem? Maybe, but also maybe not. Since the majority of Linux does not come on hardware by default what you’re essentially asking people to do is to buy a car and swap out the motor. We have to convince them why that new motor is better and is worth the effort of doing so. If it’s marginally better or worse, it just won’t be worth the headache to most people. To be clear Linux (and MacOS) are my preferred OS. I haven’t owned a Windows box in at least 5 years.

DetectDefect 9mo ago

> Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? The reality is a lot more nuanced than that. Should one live in a forest, devoid of any city services and company of other individuals, so that one may be under "own control"? This is the essential value proposition with Linux and it's no wonder many prefer the comforting institution of proprietary prisons^Wsystems.

BuddyPickett 9mo ago
Not everything that runs on windows is proprietary I use a lot of open source software on Windows myself. Windows is also a lot easier to configure to run exactly the way I wanted to run and to be the OS I need it to be. It's extremely customizable and easy to control. It's also modifiable in many many more ways.
- throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
  You are using subjective claims to back an objective assertion… Windows is strictly quite a bit less configurable than Linux. You likely just know Windows better?
  - anonymous908213 9mo ago
    I think there are two factors that lead people to make statements like that. The first is a given: they're talking about configuring it as a user, not a developer. Obviously Linux can do whatever you want it to do if you build your own distro from source. But additionally, while Linux is also substantially configurable in userland, those configurations might not actually cover the cases people need. You can, for example, pick between GNOME, KDE, etc -- which, on a pedantic level, is "objectively" more customizable than Windows, where you have exactly one option. Yet, if the settings within all of the off-the-shelf GUI shells do not serve the use cases the settings of the single option on Windows does, users will have every reason to assert that, on a practical level, the degree of customizability is inferior and not sufficient for them.

bachmeier 9mo ago

> Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? As a user of Linux as my main desktop OS for more than 20 years, a user of Linux far longer than that, and a promoter of FOSS before that was a term, this has always been the question. Most of the world does not care. I suspect that is more true today than ever before. There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works. Not to be negative but the "obstacles" to adopting Linux were never actually obstacles most of the time. Fifteen years ago my mother started using Linux as her main OS with no training. I gave her the login information, but never had a chance to show her how to use it, and she just figured it out on her own. Everything just worked, including exchanging MS Office documents for work.

graemep 9mo ago
The same with multiple people I know. Its not perfect, but neither is Windows. > There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works. They like it given a chance. My daughters for example far prefer Linux to Windows.
- buran77 9mo ago
  > They like it given a chance. My daughters for example far prefer Linux to Windows. The two topics are orthogonal. GP talks about "local computing" vs. "black box in the cloud", the difference between running it vs. using it. You're talking about various options to run locally, the difference between running it this way or that way. Linux or Windows users probably understand basic computing concepts like files and a file system structure, processes, basic networking. Many modern phone "app" users just know what the app and device shows them, and that's not much. Every bit of useful knowledge is hidden and abstracted away from the user. They get nothing beyond what service the provider wants them to consume.
mjr00 9mo ago
> Most of the world does not care. I suspect that is more true today than ever before. There are now adults that grew up in the age of social media that have no idea how local computing works. Yep. I was amazed when I was talking to a friend who's a bit younger (late 20s) and told him about a fangame you could just download from a website (Dr Robotnik's Ring Racers, for the record) and he was skeptical and concerned at the idea of just downloading and running an executable from somewhere on the internet. I suspect most adults these days are like this; their computing experience is limited to the web browser and large official corporate-run software repositories e.g. app stores and Steam. Which ironically means they would do just fine on Linux, but there's also no incentive for them to switch off Windows/MacOS. To them, Microsoft and Apple having control of their files and automatically backing up their home directory to Azure/iCloud is a feature, not a problem.

xedrac 9mo ago

I would argue that hardware support in Linux is superior to any other operating system on the planet.

meetingthrower 9mo ago

MS Office is hardly "niche professional software." I hate it, and recognize that I can use the online services, but the reality is that I have to send, receive, and work in this application and I can't easily do it on Linux.

drnick1 9mo ago
Check out WinApps.
- tacker2000 9mo ago
  This looks interesting, how is the experience?
graemep 9mo ago
> the reality is that I have to send, receive, and work in this application Why? You can edit MS Office documents fine in LibreOffice and other similar software.
- Cu3PO42 9mo ago
  If you're working in a corporate environment, this may not be viable. LibreOffice is great software, but it's not 100% compatible. Things may look slightly different, get lost or otherwise cause problems. I've really tried, but at the end of the day I occasionally do need to use actual Microsoft Office.
  - MegaDeKay 9mo ago
    Yep. And then there is Visio which gets used a lot where I work. LibreOffice Draw doesn't come anywhere near it. It saves a lot of grief just to give our Linux users a Windows VM with Office on it if they need to do any significant docs or drawings.
  - chris_wot 9mo ago
    I used Word to write a reasonably complicated document that necessarily used tables. It was one of the most frustrating, bug inducing experiences of my life. I had to open the document and edit it in LibreOffice to get any sort of stability.

jdthedisciple 9mo ago

Will these issues with Linux ever be overcome? I want to switch but I just don't feel confident yet, and I wonder how long the "yet" will remain.

michaelsshaw 9mo ago
It isn't an issue with Linux, it's an issue with the companies that make proprietary software and devices with only windows support. A better world is possible, but you need to accept the fight isn't easy. Switch today.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
TheCleric 9mo ago
Here’s a simple decision tree: Do you run any exotic hardware? Do you run MS Office regularly? Do you run any highly specialized software? If the answer is no to all those then Linux is worth a shot.
throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
> Will these issues with Linux ever be overcome? As a Linux user forced to run Windows at work, I only see issues with Windows ;) > I want to switch but I just don't feel confident Live distros make it very easy to dip your toes and try, without committing to anything. IMO Linux has much better UI options because there are so many choices and freedom. You can likely find something that looks/works EXACTLY like you’ve always dreamed of - but maybe you have to try a few options to find it.
NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
> Will these issues with "the other side of the road" ever be overcome? > I want to switch but I just don't feel confident yet, and I wonder how long the "yet" will remain. For people like you who think like this. FOREVER You'll always dream up some reason why this side of the road, is just better.
everdrive 9mo ago
>Will these issues with Linux ever be overcome? I'd ask you the inverse question: If Linux never got any better than it is currently, what would it take to push you away from Windows? I don't mean this as a challenge, I'm genuinely curious.

taf2 9mo ago

Fusion360 is the one tool I wish had better wine support

sudonem 9mo ago
I got tired of fighting to keep Fusion running in wine so now Fusion is literally the only reason I maintain a windows partition to dual boot into. I hate that. I’m no longer using it professionally so I could explore other options but FreeCAD kinda sucks (I will die on that hill), and OnShape offers the choice between my designs to be publicly visible, or a subscription that assumes I have a corporate expense account makes it not viable. (I don’t mind paying for good tools but there has to be a middle ground). If Autodesk ever ported Fusion to Linux… I’d probably pay for a subscription just out of sheer elation ha.

112233 9mo ago

I'll be glad if someone tells that I'm wrong but doesn't current windows 11 present even more of the same challenges? Last I tried, old driver compatibility in newer windowses was not fantastic, Wine slowly is becoming more compatible with legacy windows programs than the windows itself, forced updates are dealbreaker for many usecases. And need for workaroubds and poking around has reached Windows XP levels. I mean, there are two ways to make Linux better alternative than Windows, and currently the main effort is coming from Microsoft...

nottorp 9mo ago

> hardware support isn’t always perfect It's not perfect on windows either. Crashes, non working sleep on almost any windows laptop... at least compared to what Apple can do.

xattt 9mo ago

> … desktop Linux still has rough edges … My personal pet peeve is the GTK/Qt divide. Theming has an extra step, as you have to pick a matching theme for the other toolkit apps you inevitably end up using. KDE/Qt has excellent scaling support, but GTK apps (OrcaSlicer for example) end up having blurry text or messed up text labels if you run a non-integer scaling resolution. The Wayland transition almost seems akin to the IPv6 debacle. Support is there, but it’s half-baked in half the cases. I crave RDP remote access, but this is currently not possible with KRDP as it does not work with Wayland sessions. Wine is just getting there, but only with scary messages that say that it’s an experimental feature.

throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
>> … desktop Linux still has rough edges … > My personal pet peeve is the GTK/Qt divide. Theming has an extra step, as you have to pick a matching theme for the other toolkit apps you inevitably end up using. Is this perhaps an issue of fractional scaling? I’ve run Openbox/Blackbox on Linux for ~15 years and never had these issues. Not 100% sure I understand the issue at least. Things look mostly fine (to me) and even if they don’t, the apps still work as they should (no blur). AFAIK Openbox/X11 just uses the DPI the monitor reports and things scale as they should. Sounds like an issue with Gnome/KDE to me, not with Linux? I may be wrong, I’m not seeking a super polished look or want to tweak my UIs a lot.
- xattt 9mo ago
  Yes, this is a KDE/GTK issue, but this is also a real-world case. Linux Greybeards, a hypothetical man with astute technical and sexual prowess, might not be bothered by follies such as proper text rendering, but it is an issue if desktop environments have any chance to compete with mainstream operating systems.
  - throw-qqqqq 9mo ago
    > Yes, this is a KDE/GTK issue, but this is also a real-world case I believe you when you say it. > Linux Greybeards, a hypothetical man with astute technical and sexual prowess No need to be snarky. I was speaking from my own Linux experience (just like you did?), not trying to impress anyone. Text renders fine in Openbox, hence the question about the issue being with Linux or GTK/KDE. I’ve honestly never heard of these issues or experienced them myself. Perhaps because Openbox is simpler (no fractional scaling AFAIK) so I’ve likely been “shielded” from such issues (never heard about theming or issues like this tbh).

tobadzistsini 9mo ago

Some desktop versions of GNU/Linux have rough edges. Self-important grognards think everyone should "git gud" and install Arch or waste a weekend waiting for Gentoo to compile in order to optimize the install. This article along with this one (https://www.theverge.com/tech/858910/linux-diary-gaming-desktop https://www.theverge.com/tech/858910/linux-diary-gaming-desk...) go on about using an Arch-based distro rather than a Debian-based distro. Clearly there will be challenges, minor or major. The failure of these articles is the authors aren't going for distros that "just work". Want to undercut Microsoft's user base, grow GNU/Linux, and herald the year of Linux on desktop that's been promised for decades? Keep it simple. Majority of people going online with their computers are browsing the web, doomscrolling, and engaging on social media. They're not pentesting with Rust, running an instance of a LLM, or setting up a webserver for giggles. Keep it simple. But pushing Arch and other beardy distros with these kinds of articles reeks of gatekeeping as if only "smart" people are allowed to engage online and control their experience. Everyone else should suck it up with Microsoft having Copilot phone home since they don't deserve to know better. And I don't care how much preamble they give about Debian-based and beginner distros, they're just wagging their dicks to easily-awed proles and relishing imagined egoboos from other neo-Stallmans.

WheatMillington 9mo ago

>niche professional software may lack native support Microsoft Office is not "niche professional software"

ipjrms 9mo ago
What is Microsoft Office? Do you mean Microsoft 365 Copilot?
- lpcvoid 9mo ago
  *Microslop 365 Copilot
- spooneybarger 9mo ago
  Well played sir. Well played
- pixelpoet 9mo ago
  You forgot the "App" :) I'm still astonished at how dumb that rebrand is...
  - sethops1 9mo ago
    The "app" isn't even capitalized, which is my favorite part!
jraph 9mo ago
I suspect the person you are responding to wasn't including everything that doesn't work on Linux, in particular Microsoft Office, in this phrase, but domain specific / specialized business software.
kazinator 9mo ago
I have two Windows systems; I use LibreOffice on them. It's just so much better.

znpy 9mo ago

> But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps, areas where community projects, standards efforts, and wider adoption could drive improvement without sacrificing freedom. Are you sure? My second-hand thinkpad still won't hibernate properly. It's not a weird model, it's a ryzen-based X13 Gen1 so not even shiny new. You can imagine on a laptop one would want hibernation to just work. The fault is surely on Lenovo's table... Yet it would work if I was to run Windows (which I don't want to do). So yeah... Now I have a laptop from a brand which is known and appreciated for linux compatibility, and a basic thing like hibernation does not work.

vladvasiliu 9mo ago
> You can imagine on a laptop one would want hibernation to just work. Well, I think MS took care of that by removing the hibernation option from the start menu. You have to manually turn it back on from the old control panel.

jama211 9mo ago

Yeah but folks around here like to stick their heads in the sand when reminded that this is a very real and concerning barrier to adoption of desktop Linux. It could happen 1000 times and they’ll still scream that it’s either user error or even worse “it works on my machine”. Until the Linux community stops pretending and accepts that these are real issues and they need addressing, it will never be the year of the Linux desktop.

givemeethekeys 9mo ago
Maybe not for everyone, but it will never be the year of the Windows Desktop for everyone either.
- magicalhippo 9mo ago
  It was, some 25+ years ago.
  - NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
    No it wasn't. Only in your head
    - foxglacier 9mo ago
      Over 90% of desktops had Windows back then. So yea, that's everybody. Unless you're being pedantic because one guy was using IRIX on an SGI workstation, or the odd Mac.
      - givemeethekeys 9mo ago
        10% of everyone is still a whole lot of people. Even 1% of everyone is a lot of people.
        jama211 9mo ago
        No one said “everyone” until you did, and now you’re using it to be pedantic… bad faith tactic that.

freeopinion 9mo ago

Desktop Windows still has rough edges. Desktop MacOS still has rough edges. Desktop Linux still has rough edges. Pick your poison. Niche professional software may lack native Windows support or require workarounds. Windows has a strong grip in enterprise environments where it is desirable to remove desktop control from users. You have things like FreeIPA and Samba making weak offers beyond directory services in that direction. You have things like OpenTofu and Ansible making partial efforts in that direction. But you don't have an integrated goto standard solution for giving Linux desktop control to the enterprise. So Windows continues its grip in the enterprise. (If I'm wrong, please post a correction here. I'll be grateful for the education.) For companies less obsessed with taking control away from users, Windows has less of a grip.

koyote 9mo ago
> Desktop Windows still has rough edges. Desktop MacOS still has rough edges. Desktop Linux still has rough edges. Pick your poison. I think this sentiment is often overlooked as people are used to their 'poison'. As someone who uses Linux a their main personal machine (with dual boot to Windows every now and then) as well as W11 for work, it's amazing what you get used to. I was almost agreeing with OP, remembering bluetooth issues I had with Linux just last month when one of my headphones couldn't connect properly and I had to spend 10-15 minutes messing about with bluetooth stacks to get it working again. But reading your comment I just realised that my current work machine doesn't even detect my bluetooth headphone's microphone and I have not found a fix yet. That machine also does not go to sleep properly (a common, real, complaint from many linux users) and I have to hibernate it manually via command line as the option does not exist in my power menu due to corporate's rules and regulations. I also get Windows blue screens far more often than I get Linux kernel panics. You're just so used to the issues and inconveniences that you don't even recognise them as such anymore. Issue and inconveniences from a new piece of software you're trialing stick out like sore thumb though...
- broodbucket 9mo ago
  The thing I like about Linux is that if your thing doesn't work you have a way better chance of being able to wrangle it into working (odds increasing as your technical skill increases) Meanwhile on Windows if something doesn't work you're generally SOL.

whatever1 9mo ago

Nobody cares about what runs under the hood (I mean the real market, not the dozen of us nerds), as long as it looks and plays nice. Market already uses linux both in the form of android but also as a server OS. For both of these the financial incentive was there for someone to write the drivers, make the UI user friendly (android users never have to open a terminal), create sales channels. Desktop and laptop market is weird because no hardware vendor wants to compete with MS. The only one who does (apple), owns both the hardware and software as well as sales channels, so they are not affected by MS’s deals.

GoblinSlayer 9mo ago
I had to open a terminal on android to copy photos to laptop with tar|netcat for backup and larger screen.
- jama211 9mo ago
  No, you didn’t, that’s just the solution you chose to go with. You could’ve used literally any other file transfer method.
  - GoblinSlayer 9mo ago
    Which method, sftp?
    - jama211 9mo ago
      You can’t think of any other method to transfer a photo from a phone to a computer? You know, one that doesn’t involve a terminal?
      - GoblinSlayer 9mo ago
        Run a local instance of nextcloud? I wonder if it doesn't involve a terminal.

jrnng 9mo ago

[dead]

Aurornis 9mo ago

> But these obstacles are not intrinsic technical limitations so much as ecosystem and investment gaps For people who are trying to get their work done now, in the present, this doesn’t change anything. We all know that Linux could technically run the same productivity apps and games if every company put enough investment money toward it. However even some of the apps I use which had a Linux version have announced that they’re sunsetting Linux compatibility due to low demand. For all of the people whose work lives inside of text editors, web browsers, and terminals switching to Linux is easy. I think these threads become biased toward people who fit that description who don’t understand why everyone can’t just switch over. > Viewed through the lens of digital autonomy and citizenship, the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: That feels like a strawman argument. Most people don’t choose their OS on ideological grounds. The reasons people don’t use Linux isn’t because it’s not “perfect”. People use Windows because it works, it’s familiar, and their software runs on it. All of these calls to make OS choice about ideological wars isn’t convincing or even relevant to people who haven’t already switched to Linux.

NamlchakKhandro 9mo ago
That's the problem that you highlighted. It's not -their- software is it.
dessimus 9mo ago
>The reasons people don’t use Linux isn’t because it’s not “perfect”. People use Windows because it works, it’s familiar, and their software runs on it. The reason most people run Windows is because that is what their jobs IT department put on their computer, and those IT departments run Windows because of the enterprise tools Microsoft has provided for lifecycle management with AD, GPO, etc. Linux will have difficulty making progress with enterprises for the non-SecDevOps staff until it's as easy to centrally manage user and computer polices, accounts, and upgrades across the entire end-user fleet as it is with Microsoft.

HeavyStorm 9mo ago

You overestimate the level of investment the average person can and will make for these freedoms. People buy Kindles because they work (and are heavily marketed), they buy Apple because they simply work, and will keep preferring windows to Linux until Linux offer a easier barrier to entry. Microsoft will (almost already has) loose its advantage to Apple before it loses to Linux.

faust201 9mo ago
May be in the US (as Apple products are cheaper and people are dependent on iMessge) Rest will remain on pirated windows or linu.many often don't even use computer.

AlienRobot 9mo ago

>desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases, hardware support isn’t always perfect, and niche professional software may lack native support or require workarounds Personally, I believe the REAL problem is the rough edges WITH Linux. Hardware support? You can blame manufacturers for not supporting Linux. Software support? Same. But if you use a Linux software made for Linux by Linux users and it just feels inconvenient, non-intuitive, buggy, and mentally painful to use, you're going to think that Linux is full of bad software. Because it doesn't matter if you use X11 or Wayland under the hood, you try to drag and drop an icon from the start menu to the desktop or vice-versa and that only works in some DEs. You try to drag and drop an image from Chrome to the file manager, and that doesn't always work. You try to click the close button and sometimes there is a few pixels of padding at the top so you can't close the window on first try. This isn't Nvidia's fault, or Adobe's fault, or Microsoft's fault. It's just Linux.

kazinator 9mo ago

> desktop Linux still has rough edges for some use cases Windows is shit from the total management viewpoint: what it means to own and operate Windows over the long haul. windows is okay when there is some program on it that works well and that you like, and you're interacting with that while avoiding Windows. If Windows were the dominant platform and Windows were trying to eke out share, it wouldn't stand a chance.

tombert 9mo ago

I have been running desktop Linux for a very long time, but I actually agree. There's a lot of rough edges. I do think a lot of these problems do go away if you are a bit proactive in choosing compatible hardware. I bought my mother in law a laptop for Christmas, and I put Linux Mint on there [1]. There were no issues getting it working on Mint with Cinnamon, but that's in no small part because I double checked all the common hardware (wi-fi, GPU, trackpad, etc) to make sure it worked fine in Linux and it did. If you don't do your homework, it's definitely a crapshoot with hardware compatibility, and of course that sucks if you're telling people that they should "switch to Linux" on their existing hardware, since they might have a bad experience. That said, it is weird that people seem to have total amnesia for the rough edges of Windows, and I'm not convinced that Windows has fewer rough edges than Linux. I've grown a pretty strong hatred for Windows Update, and the System Restore and Automatic Repair tools that never work. Oh, and I really think that NTFS is showing its age now and wish that Microsoft would either restart effort on ReFS or port over ZFS to run on root. [1] Before you give me shit for this, if anything breaks I agreed to be the one to fix it, and I find that generally I can solve these kinds of problems by just using tmate and logging into their command line which AFAIK doesn't have a direct easy analog in Windows.

anonymousDan 9mo ago
How do you check the hardware is compatible in practice? Is there some reliable resource for doing this?
- tombert 9mo ago
  As a rule AMD stuff is pretty safe, but to answer your question, I generally go look at kernel sources, or sometimes I go and see if I can find the model in the NixOS Github and see how many workarounds that they have to do to get it working.
- ta8903 9mo ago
  https://linux-hardware.org/ https://linux-hardware.org/ is useful for this.
- ZebraOtoko 9mo ago

0xbadcafebee 9mo ago

> the question isn’t simply “Is Linux perfect?” but rather: Do we want our fundamental computing environment to be ultimately under our control, or controlled by private interests with their own incentives? The answer is: it doesn't matter. Linux desktop doesn't exist because of privacy nerds, free software evangelists, anti-capitalists, or European protectionists, and it won't change because of them either. Sit here on the internet and pontificate all you want. Pontificating doesn't fix bugs or write code. It is what it is. If there was money in it, people'd be going after it. If there was some "higher calling" to galvanize people into action, it would've galvanized them already. This is the best it's going to get. The much, much bigger issue is control of applications, and the browsers (and their owners) won that long ago. Doesn't matter what OS you use, you need a browser to do anything useful on the internet. And if that ever gets "solved", it'll just pass on to the next shit-show of humans letting things get as bad as they can stand. Technology is made by humans, so it follows human values.

josephcooney 9mo ago

as a long-time windows user who has fairly recently switched to linux - windows has a few rough edges too (and feels like it's getting increasingly rougher). Having recently switched I don't feel like things have changed much for me in terms of jankiness/broken-ness (and maybe linux is slightly better, for the subset of tools and programs I am using?).