10 ms·

I love Linux, but I can't quit Windows

• sharts 6mo ago
  Or…just use BSD
• sameers 6mo ago
  My experience too: "Linux friction is unpredictable. The update tool freezing for no reason. System-wide slowdown I can't diagnose. Notifications telling me too many programs are listening for file changes and asking me to decide whether to increase the limit (a decision I don't understand why I'm being asked to make)."
  • Brendinooo 6mo ago
    >asking me to decide whether to increase the limit I think once every 2-5 years I get a new Linux computer, hit the inotify.max_user_watches thing, do a search, run a command once, and then never think about that particular problem on that machine again.
  • gchamonlive 6mo ago
    I'm not a windows user anymore, haven't been for a decade or so, but it wasn't until a couple months that I finished the switch when I moved from windows to bazzite in my gaming rig. Which is why this statement is surprising. Not because I disagree with it, Linux friction is indeed unpredictable even for those of us that customized our own installation ad infinitum and know intimately the architecture of the system. It's because friction in windows is even more unpredictable, at least with the limited interaction I had with it recently. Peripherals will disconnect randomly and removing them in order to reconnect fails. You still have to use decades old interface like regedit end device manager often to fix those issues. Random update reboots, updates that fail without useful logs, only generic error codes. And the whole culture of downloading and installing execs is the worst if all. There is the windows store, which is terrible, and chocolatey which is nice, and they aren't a full replacement for going online and downloading random binary blobs, which is a huge source of unpredictability, because suddenly every software needs to implement their own private supply chain to deliver their updates. So all in all Linux has less friction than windows. It breaks down with updates, you go online and can usually find resources to help you fix it. Windows breaks down and it usually takes someone inside to acknowledge the problem, fix it and release in the next update, because there are some classes of problems that just aren't fixable in windows, and those that are will usually take you through a journey into the system registry that, if you asked me, didn't age too nicely.
  • somat 6mo ago
    It is largely what one is used to but for me windows was always this unknowable black box, sure, you could get good at it but there was always so much, no source, many interlinked subsystems. when things work it is not so bad. when they don't... Linux was a lot better, especially if you use a more minimal distro, But even it is this huge confusing mess. What really clicked for me was when I tried openbsd, it was the first time I felt like I had a system I really understood. I started with a router, now I am one of those wierdos who use it on the desktop. I would not actually recommend it to anyone, like I said it is largely what you are used to. but for me linux always felt more knowable than windows.
• GuardCalf 6mo ago
  You can just use Windows and run your required Linux distro inside WSL2. That's exactly my setup—I'm a heavy user of both, as I need both systems daily.
  • markaius 6mo ago
    In my experience, I've seen this get messy having to have some apps on the windows filesystem and reading and writing back and forth to the WSL layer for various files. It works, it's just a degraded experience compared to what I have seen going all in on either side.
  • pixel_popping 6mo ago
    Is there a reason you don't do the contrary?
    • zamadatix 6mo ago
      You get the hardware/driver support of Windows, things like GPU/drive/network/window sharing in the out of the box config, and there are very few graphical apps for Linux which don't run graphically in Windows in the first place (but the reverse is not as true). I loved it for my work laptop but then Apple Silicon MacBooks came along and forced a main OS due to the hardware (though nowadays Asahi is pretty good on the older ones). I suppose on a home use case you get big multiplayer game DRM support as well (different people will consider that a plus or minus).
• cryo32 6mo ago
  Yeah same but I'm out of options. I don't like Linux on the desktop but I like Windows' privacy stance and use-hostile behaviour less. My Mac isn't much better. What I really hate is being forced into this corner. Instead of dealing with this I have taken to doing activities where I don't need to use the computer now. So for example photography is a major hobby for me. I went back to film just to get away from the bloody computer.
  • cf100clunk 6mo ago
    > I don't like Linux on the desktop The massively wide variety of desktop options makes your opinion difficult to assess. Which have you tried?
    • cryo32 6mo ago
      Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, Cosmic, i3, Enlightenment. Been trying for 30 years.
      • topaz0 6mo ago
        Would you say you prefer windows 11 to all of those though??
        • cryo32 6mo ago
          Not tried it. I have a fairly heavily locked down Windows 10 LTSC build.
  • sys_64738 6mo ago
    What a quite absurd conclusion. If you want to use your camera then just use it and stop looking for excuses. I find people who moan about the OS UI are just nitpicking. Nothing is perfect and it's there to provide utility for the task at hand. Pick one and get on with life.
  • oreally 6mo ago
    Get Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC IoT to tide you over. It's intended for stable systems and removes a lot of the bloat. https://massgrave.dev/faq https://massgrave.dev/faq
• abrowne 6mo ago
  Contrary anecdote: I've installed and used Linux, mainly Ubuntu desktop (GNOME) on a dozen or so computers in the last ten years, including several older MacBooks, a Surface Go for my son and an HP I special ordered without Windows. I come from a Mac background and use the terminal, but I've never need to do so to get them to work. Sure I've tweaked them, but only cosmetic things like locales and default fonts. For install and use I haven't done anything special. Old MacBooks need wi-fi drivers, which usually Ubuntu will find. Besides that everything has honestly just worked for me.
• MostlyStable 6mo ago
  The idea that Windows doesn't have it's own weird, mysterious, issues is hilarious to me. For months my windows 10 install would take nearly 5 minutes to start up after a full shutdown sequence. This was with the install on a fast SSD. I tried a whole bunch of things and never figured out what the issue was. Then, one day, it just....went away. I'm not trying to make much of a point other than that: anecdotes aren't going to get you very far. My problems with linux have nothing to do with the quality of the OS itself (which I personally haven't had many issues with), but rather with software support from companies that don't want to put the engineering effort into making their linux version as good as the windows version. And I can't really blame them, but some software I just need.
  • tcoff91 6mo ago
    Seriously! On my windows desktop, I have to let the computer sit a minute after booting before i touch the keyboard otherwise it completely wigs out and becomes partially unresponsive due to some weird issue with the AMD chipset drivers. I can see my mouse move, i can move windows around, but nothing responds to clicks and i can't open anything.
  • BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
    Even if Windows didn't have those weird things, there are a bunch of intended behavior things that make Windows a more frustrating experience than the occasional weird things a Linux system may do.
  • arvid-lind 6mo ago
    I'm glad it wasn't just me... the nice thing about those mysterious issues on Linux is usually you can actually fix the issue. With Windows I needed a hacky solution just to move the stupid taskbar, or wait for Microsoft to fix it.
    • marysol5 6mo ago
      And diagnose too, without having a "USB of tools", like the types on LTT talk about all the time. Mysterious binaries from shady websites, great. I can attach a debugger to a process, I can look at the CPU/IO/Network transactions. I can see where stuff is waiting and being blocked by any of them, all with basic GNU tooling that comes with every distro, even the most minimal!
• soperj 6mo ago
  I'll keep knocking on wood, but as a Thinkpad user who has used fedora as a daily driver since Fedora 19, I've rarely had any issues with Linux. Battery lasts way longer than the Thinkpad I use for work (windows machine), and mine is older. I don't game though, so there's nothing that I've wanted on windows.
  • osigurdson 6mo ago
    I have some issues with docking and audio with Arch. Maybe I am asking too much to have a docking station work perhaps. I still don't feel the need to go back to Windows however.
    • kgwxd 6mo ago
      Why do people even use docking stations anymore? I've never used one but I have used plenty of KVM-type devices that just work over various standard usb/display ports. What's the appeal of using the specialized "docking" port?
      • osigurdson 6mo ago
        This is a ThinkPad USB-C docking station. I think it is basically the same as what you are talking about but if not, the main convenience is that you can plug in one cable which provides power, 2 external displays and a mouse. Super great if / when it works but not reliable with Arch (not blaming the distro specifically, it could be kernel or anything in the stack).
        • arnoooooo 6mo ago
          To fix my Thinkpad USB-C docking station on Arch, I asked Gemini and just followed what it said. It took a few minutes.
          • osigurdson 6mo ago
            I've definitely tried that with claude code. It seems AGI will be needed to solve this one.
• aqme28 6mo ago
  Linux friction is “unpredictable” but windows friction isn’t, because you have a lot of windows experience and not much in Linux. I don’t think you’d feel the same after a few months of Linux.
  • cryo32 6mo ago
    30 years of Linux here. Windows issues are easier to fix as they are usually consistently broken and well documented due to the huge user ase.
    • retrochameleon 6mo ago
      Full time linux user for 8 years now. The knowledge base of discussion around Linux issues is vast and usually has the answers you need. Albeit with the variety of distros and their differences you must be mote scrutable in identifying what is applicable to your situation. Stick with mainstream like Ubuntu and you will have tons of community support and knowledge to search through.
      • cryo32 6mo ago
        Until your machine goes into a coma when you close the lid. On mainstream Ubuntu. This shit still happens today.
        • antisthenes 6mo ago
          That happens on Windows as well. Twice in 1 year I've had my bootloader entry just disappear after a reboot. No idea what happened. Wasn't tied to any particular update either. If I were non-technical, it would ruin my week.
        • anthk 6mo ago
          Windows 11 randomly crashes the taskbar after resuming my SO's notebook, something expected under the ugly KDE4 alpha days (and the alphas for KDE3 with kicker). But KDE at least recovered kicker (the panel) over after a message. Windows 11 shows up nothing.
• carra 6mo ago
  I always see the same when someone says things like this in any article, video or comment. There will be like 20 replies saying that it's because they chose the wrong linux distro. And of course each of those 20 will recommend a different one! Sometimes distros that I had never even heard about before...
  • unethical_ban 6mo ago
    The article is a bit hand-wavey. I won't deny their issue, they had it, but of course people here will have their opinion about the tradeoffs. For me CachyOS working near flawlessly on multiple machines. It's truly free with no forced ads or telemetry or product integrations. If Windows works for a person or they need it for certain software that's fine. For me, I'm living a Linux-default life for the first time and it's nice.
• unethical_ban 6mo ago
  I've never experienced what the writer has, and it would be interesting to know more about their system setup to diagnose the alleged network slowness. Package manager is a network app, so it sounds to me like there is something strange going on system-wide. Perhaps the writer has a new-enough network card from a vendor that doesn't have driver support? FWIW I am essentially full-time Linux on all my devices for the first time in my 20 years since first using it (Ubuntu 6.06). The only issue I had is with a wifi card that is a brand-new spec without Linux support - I happened to have another wifi card that has a more open chipset that is also wifi7 that works great. Here's my quick intro to anyone interested in running a Linux machine for gaming and everyday use. https://docs.zeropolis.net/doku.php/tech:cachyos https://docs.zeropolis.net/doku.php/tech:cachyos
  • cogman10 6mo ago
    I've actually experienced this, but I don't know if it's related. In my case, installing linux on a laptop and while everything was fine, there was an unexplained network delay. What ultimately fixed it (and I really don't know why) is I had to fix the time on my system clock to the right date/time and then got ntp setup and working correctly. My system clock was far in the past. I THINK (but don't know) that the root cause was in certificate validation. Perhaps hiccups because the certs were issued in the future?
    • marysol5 6mo ago
      One of the various reasons Debian apt still uses HTTP is to avoid SSL Timing errors like that
• guerby 6mo ago
  "I've been distro-hopping for probably twenty years. Fedora, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Arch, and most recently Fedora with KDE Plasma." Missing : good old debian :)
  • gib444 6mo ago
    The only one with a non buggy installer that can actually do LUKS with LVM as a first class citizen Install anything KDE if you enjoy the welcome screen crashing and random Plasma crashes :) Particular shout out to Kubuntu for the awful installer
• chociej 6mo ago
  I empathize with the frustrations with Linux, and I certainly used to have them. But about 5 years ago I just... stopped having any issues at all. I switched to Debian around then, which may or may not fully explain the improvement. Point is, I've barely thought about or actively maintained or troubleshooted my operating system for several years now.
• rileymat2 6mo ago
  There are much more annoying defaults in windows that are unmentioned, for instance the autoupdate automatic restarts.
  • amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
    I don't think I quite understand this problem. Can't you just tell it to only reboot after hours?
• infraredshift 6mo ago
  [dead]
• nobodyandproud 6mo ago
  Is this AI generated? The “two things broke” reasons are just so laughably bad in a real world context yet strangely vague.
  • deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  • jordanpg 6mo ago
    100% agree. The two examples are garden-variety computer problems and not articulated with any degree of precision for someone who claims to have attempted to troubleshoot them. It's either AI-generated or the author has only elementary Linux know-how (which is cool, but we don't need to take their wholesale dismissal of an entire ecosystem quite as seriously).
• benwaffle 6mo ago
  you can now ask a coding agent to debug & fix these issues
  • cybercatgurrl 6mo ago
    some people are stubborn
• pixel_popping 6mo ago
  It's not really applicable nowadays as you can just ask any agent to solve most linux issues for you, it's literally 1 prompt away and you can snapshot your FS to be safe prior and lock it down to avoid agent mistake.
  • solumunus 6mo ago
    100%. I was finally about to permanently switch a year ago and agents have been a game changer.
• everyday7732 6mo ago
  This was my experience with linux the first times I used it years ago when I lived in a different state, but I tried it last year and it's night and day. Kubuntu (Ubuntu with the KDE plasma desktop) is quite windows-like without the advertising and crappification. KDE is doing a great job honestly.
• kenjackson 6mo ago
  I'm learning that while Windows has a bad rap in some tech circles, its surprisingly still pretty well regarded. This past school year my daughter and niece both moved from Windows to Macs. A couple of weekends ago I asked them both how they liked it -- they seemed to transition well to the Mac. They both said the same thing -- Windows was better at basically everything except the Message app and iPhone mirroring, but those two things made the Mac totally worth it since, as they put it, phone beats laptop. But I found it interesting how, for non-technical users, they both really found the Mac still unintuitive and buggy compared to Windows.
  • stouset 6mo ago
    Of course people are going to generally prefer the thing they’ve already been using and are comfortable with, especially if they are forced to use something else entirely. On the flip side, I run a Windows gaming laptop alongside my Mac. It is a constant source of rage to the point that I am genuinely shocked at how bad things are and regularly suspect that the people who choose to use it are the victims of some sort of Stockholm syndrome.
  • thewebguyd 6mo ago
    I think Windows (and some, but not all, Linux window managers/DEs) are really kings of "general productivity" type work that macOS is really unintuitive about. I daily drive a MBP now, and have since the M1 air released, but even this many years later I still think the more windows-y desktop metaphor is superior for any type of work that requires heavy multi-tasking (which I do as a sysadmin type role). Apple tends to assume you are working inside one app at a time, on one workspace at a time. This is evident from the get go with how the OS treats apps & windows/documents as separate, and how Cmd+Tab only switches between apps, not app windows. Without third party tools, it's a terrible OS for actually managing multiple windows and contexts and that throws people off because nearly everything else outside of mobile doesn't use that paradigm. Context switching is expensive on macOS, by design, but most general user's and office workers work involves heavy context switching, and frequently.
    • vikingerik 6mo ago
• topaz0 6mo ago
  The distro-hopping and vanilla installs are the problem imo -- with Linux it is possible to strip your system down to the basic functionality so that you can actually understand everything what's going on and not be surprised. What is so refreshing is to realize that you don't need to pull in some baroque package you don't understand because the part of it you want is just 3 lines of bash and one line in a config file or whatever. But to get there you have to learn how to use the tools.
• deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
• tosti 6mo ago
  MS-Windows ME was the reason I jumped ship to GNU+Linux. I'm honestly surprised why it's taking the rest such a long time.
  • pndy 6mo ago
    That was a long time ago - from your experiences, you think Linux has changed for better or remains same?
    • tosti 6mo ago
      Everything got better except for icon themes and the introduction of avahi, pulseaudio and systemd. Icon themes peaked with KDE3 where they had subtle animations and the Tango project which had very recognizable colorful icons. I still run my boxen with X.org (an upgrade from XFree86) and ALSA. The latter was already a thing in 2001. I've helped those who just wanted to get online with Debian, SuSE and Ubuntu. In one case PCLinuxOS was best because the hardware was very old. There's one Ubuntu LTS install at a place I visit which has been running for 7 years now. I've upgraded it twice with no fuzz.
• notsylver 6mo ago
  I really want to use linux but for me its the software. Games I play use anticheat that doesn't work. Software I use for 3d printing doesn't work without hours of workarounds. VR is poorly supported if at all. Usually every year I'll try linux, use it for a month or so, then be forced back to windows after running into a hard block, with the dozen ads forced down my throat welcoming me back. Hopefully one day I can commit to it.
  • amanaplanacanal 6mo ago
    Yeah this is my experience too, but different software. Sometimes there are ways to get something to work after hours/days of tweaking, and sometimes the answer is just no. It's unfortunate, I like *nixes, and have used them off and on for 30+ years, I just can't do it as a daily driver.
• martinald 6mo ago
  Two thoughts (I was in the same situation, constantly trying desktop Linux then pinging back to Windows after hitting issues). 1) Fedora is really worth a try, it's extremely polished. The best thing is the packages in the repo are generally much more up to date that debian based distros, which maeans less random PPAs to work around it, which cause issues. 2) The biggest change is having Claude Code/Codex able to diagnose and tweak things extremely quickly. If something goes wrong, I ask claude code (in a specific folder with various docs about workarounds) and it goes and fixes it 99% of the time very quickly. Coding agents being able to fix Linux actually makes it _more_ stable than Windows for me. In my experience Windows is less buggy _in general_ than desktop Linux.[1] However, once you hit random issues you are basically screwed if basic attempts don't work. With Linux you can have a coding agent go thru all the reams of logs to find the issue and even clone the underlying source code to find issues. [1] For example, there is some ridiculous problem with wayland and notifications on GNOME at least, see this: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/work_items/358?show=eyJpaWQiOiI2NzMiLCJmdWxsX3BhdGgiOiJHTk9NRS9tdXR0ZXIiLCJpZCI6Njg5MjF9 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/work_items/358?... which has to be disabled with an extension unless you want to go insane
  • gbro3n 6mo ago
    Similar to this, but NixOS. Having AI to help me through made this so much easier. I was sold on the idea of an 'IaC' config based machine, after a general push to move all of my processes towards full GitOps. Windows had been pretty good to me (running 4 years on the same laptop install), but it had started overheating with fans sounding like a vacuum cleaner and it was time to start over. The difference with NixOS is that sure there are issues and preferences to work through, but when I fix them, they get committed in config, and thats an investment in time rather than something that will be right until next time I have to do it. I was able to reproduce, and rebuild on a separate machine with minimal hassle (it's good to go through this process to be sure you've got it right) and that really was amazing to see. SSH keys, SMB share, monitor configurations, themes, apps, utilities - a fully set up dev machine, everything is just there. I've been planning changes on a Copilot integrated taskboard I built (https://www.agentkanban.io https://www.agentkanban.io) and then handing them off to the agent, reviewing the changes in the VS Code git client and then apply, commit. Being able to see the number of commits makes me realise how much I was doing manually, every time I set up a new machine.
• nate 6mo ago
  This brings back all this nostalgia. I used to be all linux everywhere I could. The CD linux loaders on random machines work would make me use with work. Linux distros you'd get in a book from Borders. :) Loved it all. But then I had to edit video and images in a 24 hour film festival. And the pain. It just couldn't work constitently. Had to find someone with a mac to get it done. I know these days are so different with better image and video editors and many years of improvements. But still kind of shy from adopting linux again as a daily driver. Too stuck on Apple and OSX now
• artemonster 6mo ago
  this resonates with my experience. once every 3 years I try linux as primary OS for my home PC, I do small stuff with C/python, browse web and play factorio. I use linux in VM on my job daily, so I am not a beginner, but gosh, linux sucks. Everything breaks constantly even when doing NOTHING. Nothing ever works installing first try, you always end up googling stupid error message and stumble upon 250 other idiots that try to solve same issue. after trying 5 solutions, one (or combo) will hopefully work. Then, you can hang-up entire system by a stupid python script or your own buggy program and I miss unkillable always working task manager that can recover almost every hanger (and just stfu about reisub) without needing to restart the whole system and killing my FKIN FLOW! ugh. I just use WSL2 for rare cases where I need my unix build tools and forever abandoned the idea of switching to linux. Life is too short wasting it on googling some nonsense shit that just have to fucking work.
• GabeIsko 6mo ago
  I gotta say, Fedora plus KDE - have not had any major issue, and certainly none as bad as desktop utility performance degradation on Windows 11. Probably a little more fragile feeling than Windows 10, but it honestly has felt basically same, which I wasn't expecting.
• likesHumidity 6mo ago
  Haha, I love Linux, but I can't quit MacOs/iOs. As many complaints as I have about Apple and MacOS and iOS, their products hit a niche and commoditized it.
  • kgwxd 6mo ago
    That's basically just *nix + a fancy (but less so by the day) DE + product lock-in.
    • thewebguyd 6mo ago
      You're missing that it's also a *nix with broad commercial app support which is important for a lot of folks, myself included. Everything else can be re-created yourself on Linux except for that.
      • cybercatgurrl 6mo ago
        this is it. it’s everything i want except for gaming linux can be a massive time sink at times unfortunately
• sandreas 6mo ago
  I had a similar experience some years ago. On-off with Linux/macOS, but it was clear that I only had to take the pain long enough to overcome the urge to switch back to my good old macOS. And what can I say: It worked. There are still aspects I'm missing (Preview app, Mail) and other Aspects I really hate (Printing on my Canon MB5150 just does not work) but I stayed. I found workarounds and solutions, fought my way through the distro-jungle and I'm glad I made it. All in all I think it is more a know-how Problem, than a Problem with the system itself. However, if you don't have this time, it's understandable but how much time goes into experimenting every year and then switching back?
• mergy 6mo ago
  WINE via Crossover Linux has become very good. Also webapp versions of Office apps are mostly there and respectable if used in mixed environments. WSL is okay but you are better going full Linux as host. Linux Mint is a good platform for most. Stable, keeping modern kernels updated, but not crazy bleeding-edge wastes of time. You don't have to quit Windows but you can quit being hostage to Windows.
  • topaz0 6mo ago
    Libreoffice is also pretty good these days if you need to edit office files, impress has the most compat issues but they are rare even there. In many ways it is more capable than office ime.
    • Kwpolska 6mo ago
      The UI is still terrible, still on the level of Microsoft Office 97.
      • topaz0 6mo ago
        Several years ago they added like 4 new "modern" UI styles that you can choose that are more fashionable. They're definitely innovating here, though I still find I'm most productive in the older style. And the sidebar for detailed properties is a huge improvement over 90s all-menu UI. Theme editing is also more accessible than in the Microsoft versions imo.
        • Kwpolska 6mo ago
          Sure, they have a wonky-looking ribbon now, but try doing anything more advanced, and you’re back to Office 97-era UX.
          • topaz0 6mo ago
            I should say that I disagree that office 97 era ux is necessarily worse than "modern". Office 365 is barely more capable than office 97 in any way that I care about.
• braiamp 6mo ago
  > I don't want to use this thing, it sucks. Also, I don't want to change it one bit. People really dislike change, it's the same thing about some freak thing that happens like twice that you heard of, like shark attacks, but still drive their ton and half vehicles for thousands of hours a year. People accepted those issues as part of the thing, they blame Linux in general when an application doesn't work, but never blame Windows in general when the OS doesn't work.
• r0ckarong 6mo ago
  Sorry but wtf is that guy on? > I need my machine to work. I can't spend an afternoon tweaking my computer anymore. Until Microslop OS decided on its own that you haven't had a reboot in a while and since we're at it some of the drivers you desperately need suddenly are not kosher anymore. When stuff breaks I prefer something I'm actually allowed to repair. That's just me.
• gregates 6mo ago
  Hate to be the one to drag AI into every conversation, but I recently switched to arch linux and it's been delightful -- largely because of Claude. I have leaned on Claude heavily to diagnose and resolve issues that I probably could have theoretically solved on my own, but which also probably would have made me switch back if I didn't have help to resolve them quickly. (Yes, I know arch linux is not what you want if you're a "I just want something that works" person switching from windows. That's not me, I'm more of a "I want all the control and responsibility guy". I just don't have four hours to spend figuring out how to get hardware video acceleration working in vlc by trial and error the first time I try to play a video. Twenty minutes though? OK. I'll even learn something in the process.)
  • nsvd2 6mo ago
    I think Arch is a great general purpose distribution because it doesn't try to hide anything from the user - all the details are right out in the open. That and excellent community documentation.
  • graceful6800 6mo ago
    I'm a lifelong Arch user (btw) but I would also call out Manjaro as a less full-contact way of using Arch. It's got a slow and stable release cycle, it's fairly reliable because it stays behind the bleeding edge like Debian does. But you still get the raw unadulterated power of the archwiki, and the same full control of the internals. It's a great middle ground between Ubuntu and rawdogging pacstrap. Then again you still have the slightly heretical option of running Manjaro but using the unstable repos so you're getting the full Arch experience
• lp4v4n 6mo ago
  I think the battle linux vs windows showcases how, in the long run, free software tends to win. In 50+ years, windows will be a footnote in the history of technology, in 100+ years, linux will still be going strong as a multi-generational human endeavor started by a young nerd in the early 90's.
• gchamonlive 6mo ago
  The article is really poor in details about what exactly is OPs workflow in windows and Linux, so we are only left to wonder. But it seems to me that the unpredictably of Linux and therefore the predictability of windows is in part because friction in windows is known to him while Linux is not, and also in part because maybe by accident the way he uses windows play nicely with it. Maybe if the user didn't distro hop so often he would have been more familiar with the architecture of the system and these issues like fedora update system breaking down (surprising because bazzite is based on fedora and it's been rock solid for a while, can't help but think OP is doing something really wrong there, but APT in Ubuntu for instance does tend to break for no reason, so I'll throw him a bone). It's like giving up often on something and blaming the thing for its unfamiliarity. Does windows bloat bother you? It bothers me. Ever tried doing a windows install from something like tiny10 and then use the system? Nothing works quite right. The rest of my argument as to why windows is less predictable than Linux is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48150812 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48150812
• BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
  I kinda switched to Linux when I realized that Microsoft had fractured the control panel into different areas in "Settings" and there was almost no pattern in how to get to the various system settings and diagnostic tools that had become ingrained in muscle memory for me over the course of 15-odd years. I decided I'd rather start from scratch on Linux than Windows for reasons of Microsoft's various decisions and direction. Windows essentially pushed me away by saying my prior experience was no longer useful. It's a decision I'm frequently reminded of how good it was.
  • gbro3n 6mo ago
    That is true regarding prior experience. It feels better learning such well known canonical tools that have (and very likely will continue to) stand the test of time.
  • Telaneo 6mo ago
    The new settings area is a disaster in many ways. Even beyond the fact that it broke the muscle memory of everybody who knew the old control panel, the new one still(!) doesn't have all the settings that was available before, so you still have to dig your way to the old, so it just added another layer, rather than actually simplifying the functionality. I hate it when I see newbies ask for help with Windows, and they say the checked the settings menu, but couldn't fix it. That menu is essentially lying to them (by omission of relevant settings and information), but they aren't experienced enough to know that.
  • marysol5 6mo ago
    It was funny in early versions of W10, that various "settings" menu's were just links back to the control panel....
• ThrowawayB7 6mo ago
  "¿Por qué no los dos?" A lot of the issues that he has seems to be running on hardware that Linux doesn't currently support well. Used 1 liter PCs that are old enough to have solid support under Linux but still fast enough to do serious work are $200-400 and can be accessed remotely from Windows by VNC or RDP. To forestall the inevitable, yes, that's extra cost. Well, the person says the want to use Linux more. Do they want it badly enough to put money behind it?
• jordanpg 6mo ago
  > Second, the update utility got stuck. Just frozen. Couldn't open it. I hadn't tweaked anything, hadn't installed anything unusual, hadn't deviated from the vanilla setup. Day seven of a fresh Fedora install and the update tool was bricked. "update tool was bricked"? What?
• gdevic 6mo ago
  Absolutely agree with the OP! My first Linux installation was in 1993 when I hauled dozens of floppies from my Uni back home (X-Windows was like 15 floppies?). Even remember emailing to Linus about some issue and he responded. Ever since I _wanted_ to be using Linux but was always put off for all the reasons described in that post. I wanted a nice OS so I can do my school/work/hobbies but not constantly having to work on that OS, figure out dozens of config files, brick the system etc. At this point WSL2 is more than filling this void. I even stopped using VMWare since WSL is that good.
  • marysol5 6mo ago
    Linux has got a LOT better, but the whole "recompile the kernel" stuff was still around in the early 2000's
• Rekindle8090 6mo ago
  [dead]
• throw7 6mo ago
  In Windows, problems are felt universally... everyone and their mother is having the same problem and googling surfaces it easily. It's the fragmentation in linux that will always make it tough for "normies". Distro differences is obvious first thing, but the two big ones are desktop environments (gnome/kde/etc) and app package formats (flatpak/snap). These add friction and more problems (I heard you like packaging: here's another package format and big ass repository for you. And portals? really?). I just keep to a simple desktop in fedora using rpm/dnf and build from source if I have to. Yes, I know that's not an answer for normies, but there's not going be simple answers.
• Micrococonut 6mo ago
  I switched to bazzite-dx for my personal computer ~6 months ago. i7-13700K / 5070 Ti / 32GB DDR4 / 5120x1440 240Hz HDR It's been perfect for me. The included Bazaar app store is very impressive compared to something like the apple app store. It reignited the lost joy of opening up the app store to find something new and interesting. A wonderful contrast to current meta of app stores just being a front to push expensive SaaS products, with platform operators taking their slice at gunpoint on the payment processing side. It also includes a lot of development related packages by default, so you don't need to worry much about layering your basic tools with rpm-ostree. I generally found that most things I wanted as a developer and gamer were already installed or easily installed. The default KDE software is all good too. Perfectly functional utility software for viewing media, calculator, paint, remote desktop, text editor, filelight (so fast. way better than windirstat). Flatpak is a treasure. With Flatseal you can view and manage application-system permissions with a level of granularity I have not seen in other systems. And most importantly Flatpak gives application developers a powerful common target to create a Linux bundle that will work on ~every~ distro. Downloading and installing my common apps like discord/.was extremely fast. The singular deficiency I've seen is games that require anti-cheat. I'm not a heavy competitive gamer, so I simply do not play those games. I still keep a small windows partition around, should I fancy a game of league of legends, but I haven't booted it in at least two months. Last time I did all I could think was "holy shit. it really is this bad. it wasn't my imagination." Nvidia drivers have been rapidly improving recently. HDR support in KDE 6.6 is really good. Better than windows actually. I have less HDR related problems on Linux now than I did on windows 11. Old game compatibility is OUTSTANDING. On Windows I literally could not play CivCity: Rome with my ultrawide. With no windowed mode option, this 1280x1024 game was stretched across my entire screen and I couldn't stop it. On Linux the gamescope tool provides a custom isolated graphics context to any game you designate at your desired resolution/refresh rate. I can simply add "gamescope -W 1280 -H 1024 -r 60 -e -- %command%" to my steam properties for CivCity: Rome. And I get a properly sized window in borderless mode running at the correct frame rate for the game. Mouse jitters are fixed. Resolution size is fixed. Game runs perfectly. As a longtime dabbler, the Linux ecosystem has made crazy progress in the last few years in bringing about the fabled "Year of the Linux Desktop". For me, that year was 2026. At this point I don't see why I would ever go back. Fedora + KDE feels like coming home to windows 7. Anything else, YMMV.
• ghusto 6mo ago
  > I subconsciously tell myself 'If I just used Linux, I could be like them!'. Your intuition was right. Learning to fix issues in Linux gives you long-term transferable valuable skills in troubleshooting and far-reaching knowledge. Learning to fix Microsoft's latest fubar gives you nothing, unless you're in corporate IT fixing other people's computers. You'll become more confident and niggles won't bother you that much.
  • graceful6800 6mo ago
    You know what? I think this is dead on. Like a lot of us, I grew up in the 90s tinkering with Windows regestries and internals. That knowledge only ever really helped me with Windows systems, and it really only carried me up to Windows 7/10. After that, it felt like debugging an opaque blob, just pulling levers until something different happened and trying a blind binary search across random behaviors. But since Linux is open, you can observe it as a holistic system. You don't need to-- and likely shouldn't try to understand it as a whole, but you can follow a thread all the way down if you want to. If the audio system really pisses you off, you do have the power to follow it and fully understand it. Thinking about systems and how many different pieces fit together to make a cohesive whole is honestly the vast majority of my life and work as an engineer. It's a fundamental skill that doesn't seem very common outside the realm of nerds who like picking apart complex problems. But it's certainly my most heavily used skill, and in large part it's because I got into Linux as a teenager in an era where Linux was absolutely not meant for teenagers to be daily driving on a new laptop with no drivers.
  • 0x073 6mo ago
    As Linux moves faster than windows I disagree. Systemd, wayland and flatpak resetting my skills in this areas completely windows 11 is still more or less the same. Additional the UI behavior also more often changed than windows e.g gnome 2 to newer versions many core apps are more minimal/less functions and yes I just can fork and use the old behavior as open source but then my pc is more about fixing issues like under windows.
    • ghusto 6mo ago
      High churn stuff in the Linux world is take-it-or-leave-it. You can go without and still end up aquiring skills that you use 20 years from now. I haven't used Linux as a desktop since well before Systemd days. When I picked it up a few weeks ago (for a desktop), I had no trouble applying the troubleshooting skills I acquired 20 years ago to fix issues. In contrast, I had to drive someone's Windows laptop a while ago and I didn't know what I was looking at, never mind fixing anything.
• mooder 6mo ago
  I tried debian and found Ubuntu to be more stable, i.e., bugs are less annoying. Throughout the years I've been stuck with bug that would irritate but the linux experience is still miles ahead compared to windows. Not using terminal is a PITA that I just keep windows for whatever I really cannot run in Linux (the list is getting shorter). With LLMs I've been able to tackle bugs to a level that either fix or lower down the annoyance level. It's still not perfect, but the tradeoff is in linux favor IMO.
• karmakaze 6mo ago
  I can't say I like Windows in any way, except perhaps nostalia for NT 3.51 or XP. I can however relate to 'modern Linux' experiences. I've tried using some new-fangled ones and instead of being delighted by the new hotness, just want my old Xubuntu the way I remember (but with good wifi, sound, sleep, hidpi, multimonitor support). My latest disappointment was KDE Plasma/Wayland--very modern in ways I don't appreciate. There was something simple I couldn't adjust (forget which) and tonnes of settings for things I don't care about at all. The OS/Desktop is not the show, it's the stage/floor.
• isityettime 6mo ago
  > Windows friction is predictable. [...] These things are annoying, but they're known. I can dismiss them, turn them off, and move on. Barely 10 seconds is lost. > Linux friction is unpredictable. [..] The friction isn't necessarily higher in total, but the unexpected issues are more likely to cost me an entire afternoon rather than a few seconds. The good news is this is largely a matter of experience: if you can push through and get used to doing root cause analysis on Linux, you'll find that desktop Linux issues tend to become transparent and easy to fix. If you stick to distros that support rollbacks, you also win back the option to defer anything that feels likely to be a time sink until either you have time/patience/interest, or someone else has fixed the issue and sent their fix upstream. The bad news is that it's an experience issue: if you want to get to the other side of it, you have to invest in building the skill. The age old tongue-in-cheek advice is actually still good: install Gentoo. (Install Arch if you want a diet version of the experience.) The desktop Linux userland is indeed Lego, and if you go through the process of piecing it together instead of grabbing a preassembled kit, even just once, you will build a new troubleshooting muscle that serves you well for a long time. Can you find the energy for that? Can you make the time? Probably, but it won't be effortless. Maybe you'll even need to dual-boot, or have two computers for a while. But I promise it's an issue of familiarity, intuition, and skill. You absolutely can cultivate those things.
• cybercatgurrl 6mo ago
  windows absolutely has unpredictable issues that are easily solved by just using linux. i spent months trying to figure out why windows would randomly wake from sleep in the middle of the night turn my monitor on and wake me up. no amount of tweaking settings or reading logs ever fixed it. it was simpler to just use a linux distro or shut windows down
• t0bia_s 6mo ago
  Using Fedora for years, but not on workstation. Because of Adobe, the only reson that I stick with Windows LTSC IoT. And no, Gimp is not alternative. Neither Affinity, bucause lack of linux support. Or Capture One. Only DaVinci resolve is competition to Premiere because of linux support. I'm curious if Adobe ends because of unsustainable pricing models and aggressive terms of use (no offline more than week, constant data sending to adobe servers) or because of Ai. Because post-production via complex tools will soon became obsolete compared to prompt-like editing.
  • firebot 6mo ago
    PhotoPea works in any browser on any platform. Also you might prefer gimpshop(or whatever the latest PS-ified gimp is these days), as the default hotkeys in gimp are shit. Ctrl, shift, and alt have universal contexts beyond Adobe products that gimp completely ignores. Just like Macs and the stupid command button. And don't even think of remapping, say the clipboard, to use Ctrl. Many apps just won't honor it. Because that would just make too much sense.
    • t0bia_s 6mo ago
      PhotoPea does not support colour profiles - browser limitations. Also GPU acceleration is limited and does not work with large PSD/PSB files. No camera RAW, no advanced selection and healing tools. No plugins. PhotoPea might work for casual editing. That's not why I use Adobe.
• hnarn 6mo ago
  Maybe if the ”Linux-curious” would stop using distros like Omarchy and other riced up Arch derivatives and instead try something like vanilla Debian or Fedora, they could spend more time using Linux and less time whining about how unstable ”Linux” is because you don’t understand what a rolling distro is.
  • isityettime 6mo ago
    It's not about rolling release vs. stable release. It's about Arch's "KISS" design focusing on simplicity for implementers rather than for users, which results in brittle, under-engineered tools. NixOS unstable, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Debian Sid are all more stable than Arch. It's a cult of false simplicity (like most cults of simplicity).
  • dartharva 6mo ago
    Distro wars are pointless when the main point of friction remains the upward fight that is getting useful software to run on Linux.
• truthmaxxing 6mo ago
  I went through this phase too before finally having had enough of windows/osx. This person hasn't suffered enough from them.
• firebot 6mo ago
  I think the web page delayed loading is often server-side these days trying to detect bots. Especially with a dynamic IP.... You'll generally be fine after that first detection flags you as human. Also this seems to affect firefox moreso than some other browsers, but that's subjective. Also, if you're familiar with sysinternals suite for Windows there's a Linux equivalent to all the tools with nice GUIs. So you should be able to track down most process-caused performance issues fairly easily without knowing all the appropriate CLI commands.
  • meltyness 6mo ago
    I would speculate myself instead the more likely thing is related to: - dns cache configuration - wlan power saving which is kind of aggressive since Linux has had some power management issues It's really why I go for a minimal distro, debian with xfce. There's not many components, they're not "tuned", and I can just kinda research any issues myself and find what works. Usually there's some pretty big gaps (missing a whole component, wildly malfunctioning, high resource utilization) and then it's easy to figure out. There's not much code, or really hard scripts to understand. Just maybe enable debug on the service. Learn where the developers put diagnostics (about:support is a godsend). You get to architect your hardware's success and get a rock-solid system. But yeah, if it's weird it might be weird for a while, haha. For my setup I think the last few lessons were like: - use gamescope for X11 Wine/Proton (huge.) - Firefox profile reset to fix hardware decoding (followed some good guides and some bad guides) - to make changes use the same git tag as your distro so the deps are easily in-reach. My favorite new discovery for debian in particular is their extensive functional docs. https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ absolutely adore this.
• acd 6mo ago
  Use Winpodx and run Windows apps as a container in Linux https://github.com/kernalix7/winpodx https://github.com/kernalix7/winpodx
• tim-projects 6mo ago
  I know this will be controversial, but we have ai CLI tools now and they can make navigating Linux and fixing issues much easier. If you have a problem open the agent and tell it, give it the access (after backup of course), let it figure it out for you. Then when it has ask it what it did and what the issues were. Doing this massively reduces the friction of even very advanced Linux issues that you don't have time to look at. And at the end you can document the solution or turn it into scripts that you keep forever.
  • nsvd2 6mo ago
    Strongly agree, and this makes Linux head and shoulders above Windows for everyday computing now. Because it's more text-native than Windows and in-depth technical documentation is more easily available, AI agents are simply more capable on Linux.
• opengrass 6mo ago
  It's as predictable as how much you sudo.
• ColonelBlimp 6mo ago
  My intention is not to dismiss the blog's argument about using Linux but my experience running an Ubuntu LTS in my main computer has been straightforward, easy and as problem-free as one could expect. I'm sure other Linux distros offer a similar experience. I get that every person is different, so what works for someone might be dysfunctional for someone else. But I wonder if there's a growing tendency to over-emphasise things that aren't "perfect" or the perceived friction caused by different ways to approach or solve things. Perhaps it's my own personal bias but the same way I like using Ubuntu, I think Windows is fine, as well as MacOs. They're fine the same way many other products I use are. Often, I struggle to find big differences between the stuff I use. I mean, I can see the differences (often small, rarely big), but I'm the same guy. I'm not that special.
• tobadzistsini 6mo ago
  Never had an issue with GNU/Linux in the past decade. Everything "just worked". Maybe the author is a MS shill spreading lowkey FUD?
• GuardCalf 6mo ago
  [flagged]
• riomccloud 6mo ago
  My situation is somewhat similar. I always try to migrate from Windows 10 to Linux, but (probably) thanks to my NVIDIA card (GTX 1050) I experience huge mouse cursor and DE animation lags, specially with KDE and Wayland. In Linux Mint this issue happens less, but still does, and that bothers me. On the other hand, Debian Xfce on my old Acer laptop with a i3-370M runs superb - Windows feels like a downgrade there.
• nickjj 6mo ago
  I moved to Linux from Windows 6 months ago. Here are some minor things that always went sour on Windows: Webcam's settings would always get reset semi-randomly The date from the clock would frequently disappear Mic's volume would often get lowered Other than that, with Windows 10 Pro it was super solid on 12 year old hardware. Never crashed, all games I could play were fine and I did heavy Docker based development, highly leveraging WSL 2. Also recorded tons of videos (screencasts with a webcam). Switched to native Linux. Had a rough start but it improved after going down a few rabbit holes. My GeForce 750 Ti (2 GB) didn't play nice with Wayland. The official NVIDIA drivers have big problems allocating system memory when GPU memory is filled causing apps to crash constantly[0]. Games were lagging and stuttering. My whole machine would pause for 5-10 seconds and then unpause, a few times a day. Ended up having to modify a udev setting on my SSD to enable max_performance for its power management and the machine never paused again. Switched to an AMD RX 480 (8 GB) GPU and all of the GPU related problems went away, and the games I played stopped stuttering and lagging. Now it's quite stable but there's still 3 problems. I've gone down pretty deep rabbit holes for each one but didn't resolve them. If I'm downloading a file with Firefox and I start a Docker container that involves configuring a Docker network, my file download will get interrupted. Not 100% of the time but pretty close to it. I tried a million settings individually and nothing has stopped this behavior. If pretty heavy I/O or network traffic is happening while recording a video with OBS, sometimes my webcam's audio will get desync'd from the the video, making my lips move a half second after the video happens. Tried a ton of different PipeWire settings here, couldn't find out a resolution. If I'm on a video call in a browser with Firefox (Google Meet, Zoom, Discord, etc.), usually after about 45-60 minutes folks will say my audio is getting really choppy and I have to reload the browser for it to get fixed. I tried a ton of things other than switching browsers and it made no effect. Nothing in the journalctl logs for any of the above 3 issues are present. I'm not posting this expecting someone to fix it, but I can relate with the OP in that Windows "just works". I don't mind going down these rabbit holes if I find a resolution and when it's working, it's a much better environment for me than Windows without question. I'm not switching back to Windows but there is certainly an expectation that there could be issues. This is the sole reason why I wouldn't recommend Linux to all of my technical friends, unless they are die hard into tech and fully understand what they're getting into. [0]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/gpu-memory-allocation-bugs-with-nvidia-on-linux-and-wayland-adventures https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/gpu-memory-allocation-bugs-wi...
• oreally 6mo ago
  I'm a little late, but get windows users should move to Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC IoT to tide you over. It's intended for stable systems and removes a lot of the bloat. Pass this message on whereever you can thanks. https://massgrave.dev/faq https://massgrave.dev/faq
• dxxvi 6mo ago
  So, the complaint is that Linux (Fedora + KDE Plasma) is unstable after a week of usage and daily update? I'm not sure about Fedora as I'm using Arch (also with KDE Plasma on wayland). Everything is very stable for me. I `paru -Syu` whenever I remember or when VS Code shows at the lower corner that there's a new version.
• panflute 6mo ago
  Bizarre PoV from my perspective. The failure of modern computing is Apple UI drivel and Ubuntu is particularly bad since it has that silly settings UI. May LLMs free us of Jobs and the need to know where to click and how to describe our computing experience like a mall we are lost in.
• wookmaster 6mo ago
  I love Linux and I quit windows
• lukaslalinsky 6mo ago
  I don't get it, I've been using Ubuntu from the very early days, that's probably 20 years now. And I really didn't encounter any serious problems. Over the years, I had one instance of driver update breaking wifi. That said, it was always on a Thinkpad or my own desktop PC.
• bitbasher 6mo ago
  I can't really relate to this post at all. I've tried Windows a few times over the years and every time I regretted it. From nagging notifications, random restarts while I sleep (for "updates"), ads in the start menu, ai shoved into every orifice, to constant "updates required" after you just updated. On the bright side, the battery life was better on Windows and sure-- games work. The latter is slowly becoming the norm on Linux as well.
  • dartharva 6mo ago
    You are not supposed to use Windows 11. Use any of Windows 10's enterprise versions, the difference is night-and-day.
• wetpaws 6mo ago
  [dead]
• emsign 6mo ago
  I agree that friction in Linux is less predictable. But I always found it VERY motivating to learn things.
• jasonvorhe 6mo ago
  Never judge a masochist. No kink shaming here. Never judged Oscar for where he lived either.
• BrandoElFollito 6mo ago
  Linux user since 1994, did some tiny dev for the kernel back then. Linux as a server is very good, and there is not much discussion on that front. Linux as a desktop system is fine. I could live with it for the added value of having a flexible, predictible system. Windows is much more polished but, again, this is a tradeoff I would happily make. The problem are applications. And particularly Outlook. I have to use Outlook because of its integration with the calendar, Zoom, ... This is the Outlook client for on-premises Exchange. OWA suck to the point I simply cannot look at it (the one coming with Exchnage on premises, I do not the MS365 one). Without Outlook working seamlessly I am done. This is really a pain - one software that stops an extended trial.
  • Pooge 6mo ago
    > Windows is much more polished This is absolutely not true anymore.
    • BrandoElFollito 6mo ago
      Once or twice a year, for the last 20+ years, I am doing a one week full immerison in Linux desktop for my work. I keep a separate laptop for the Windows-only activities. Between malfunctions on a multi-screen setups, audio problems with applications, issues with sleep recovery on some monitors, etc. -- Winodws is much more polished Sure YMMV but I am making active attempts at moving, with the will to move, but it is not as good yet. Like I said, this is not a showstopper for me.
• ryankrage77 6mo ago
  I've also experienced vanilla linux installs breaking more often than Windows. When it's stable, it's incredibly stable, but I've been bitten by a completely vanilla install suddenly being bricked after a reboot, before I've even managed to install anything or change any settings, more than once. Windows has a lot of annoyances and quirks, but generally it seems much more reliable that I'll at least be able to log in and look at the desktop, even when things are really messed up. The issues are usually just annoying, they don't stop me using the computer for basic tasks. I'm using linux now, but I keep a separate windows machine just in case. It's already payed off, because my linux install is slowly breaking for no apparent reason. Sometimes the entire computer locks up completely, and sometimes after a reboot, the mouse won't move or will get stuck in a corner. I no longer try to fix these kinds of issues, I just re-install if things get annoying enough. But I've had the same windows install for five years now, and I've never managed to make a linux desktop last longer than a year.
  • BAHKA 6mo ago
    It would be helpful if you specify the exact distro you consider "vanilla linux install". If it was some rolling release, then ok, that's expected. But I highly doubt you will have any issues like that on a stable distro, like RHEL or Debian. Also, Linux administration requires skills, so... :-D
    • ryankrage77 6mo ago
      I've had issues with Arch, Ubuntu, Ubuntu server, Debian, Mint, Fedora, Kali and raspberry pi OS, across about as many machines. I'm using Mint at the moment, and it's locked up twice more since my last comment. In fairness I've narrows this issue down to some software crashing that's taking the system down with it. But can't help but feel if it was crashing on Windows, at least I'd be able to get into task manager, or it would just close, rather than needing to reboot.
      • ryankrage77 6mo ago
        And now after yet another crash I've lost an entire days work that was previously saved. Seriously tempted to switch back to windows.
• DeathArrow 6mo ago
  I tried linux as a desktop on and off for over 25 years. As an server OS it's more than ok and everything I worked in last years got deployed to linux (because BSD lacks OCI containers) In fact, I am using now Pop!_OS in parallel with Windows. But linux desktop experience still feels broken when compared with Windows and macOS. I want to install the system with the defaults, not spend time configuring it and have an "it just works" experience. But even if I spend tons of time configuring and fiddling with it, something will fail, there will be problems, something won't work at all, something won't work properly and something will require complex workarounds that take time and exhaust my patience. Before trying Pop!_OS I tried CachyOS. It provided me a broken desktop experience but in a different way. Probably the best linux desktop experience now is provided by WSL2, followed by ChromeOS.
• gib444 6mo ago
  [dead]
• kazinator 6mo ago
  The best situation is when everyone has available and uses the operating system (and everything else) that they deserve.
• pull_my_finger 6mo ago
  I feel like Windows 11 was literally JUST in the headlines for bricking PCs with one of their forced updates. I get that *nix is not for everyone, but it is VERY rare that you hit an issue with one of the more popular distros that hasn't already been hit and with a documented answer on a reputable forum with an easy search. When I've had issues with Windows stuff, you have less information to go on usually, just some BSoD or similar and the forum posts seem to be heavily moderated (post chains read like a generic tech support call - have you tried restarting etc etc) and hard to find an answer. Just my anec-data. You usually get a very verbose error message when Linux issues arise and pasting the error message into a search will usually point you right where you need to be.
• dartharva 6mo ago
  This completely resonates with my experience. I have amassed enough familiarity with Linux having used and tried out all kinds of distros to the point of being able to assist others in setting up and diagnosing their systems, but I myself keep drifting back to W10. There remains a "homely" feeling to it that keeps eluding Linux distros.
• throwaway2037 6mo ago
  It would help to know what hardware they are using. I have been running Linux on desktop PCs at home for about 20 years now. (Not a humblebrag: I am horrible at Linux admin.) I always make sure to use the most basic hardware possible. Buy a mainstream motherboard (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock, etc.) with onboard sound and networking. It will be much easier to find USB, sound, and network drivers that are stable. And choose an AMD graphics card because they have much better Linux support compared to NVidia. Update the BIOS before installing Linux to have the best chance possible for a smooth installation. Also: If you distro allows it, add the "non-free" repo to get a bunch of closed source usually-more-stable drivers. I have been using (stable) Debian+KDE for all of that period and never experienced any of the author's issues. It is very hard to brick a system that I described using auto-updates on stable Debian. I'm sure other people here can chime in about other distros that are exceptionally stable. Edit: Laptops are much harder to install Linux due to more custom hardware with poor support. However, it is getting better for the largest manufs. WiFi drivers are always the hardest to get working during a laptop install.