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> This constant slide in quality over the past few years has me looking to Linux as an option. Just out of curiosity, what's holding you back? I'm not trying

by ainar-g 21d ago

> This constant slide in quality over the past few years has me looking to Linux as an option. Just out of curiosity, what's holding you back? I'm not trying to evangelize or something, it's more of a personal collection of reasons various people have provided that I have.

xvxvx 21d ago
I’m lazy and don’t want to spend the rest of the year trying to get Linux running on my Alienware desktop. I think most of the software I use is available on Linux, I just need to find the time to get started.
- pbhjpbhj 20d ago
  Installing Pop_OS! or Ubuntu takes about an hour to 90 minutes (including setting up eg Steam, your preffered browser, etc). You'll want to run it as a live USB for a bit first to make sure there's driver support. IME much faster to install and update than MS Windows. If the hardware you buy doesn't support Linux use then it can be a crap shoot (down to luck). Why people blame their Linux distro for that I don't really understand.
- DANmode 20d ago
  Fair enough, Dell can be pretty spotty when it comes to Linux support.
kenhwang 21d ago
For me, it's gaming, drivers, and still too much Windows-only software. Wine/Proton has gotten really good, but still requires tinkering, and still sometimes has really bad performance. WiFi/BT drivers continue to be really terrible, there's connectivity but speed and reliability sometimes aren't there. Peripherals and motherboard chipset functionality still mostly won't work. Desktop environments are still clunky and rough around the edges. Maybe I don't get along with KDE/Gnome and just need to shop around for another DE.
- alphager 21d ago
  Have you had recent experiences? I thought the same until I tried it out, on decision stable no less. The driver support nowadays is incredibly good on Linux (my desktop Bluetooth didn't work under Windows with official drivers; just works without any tinkering under Linux).
  - kenhwang 21d ago
    One of my machines is always Linux desktop; I've been using it to see if it's ready enough for my main desktop to switch over and so far my verdict has been it's not. Last weekend I tried updating to Linux 7.2, and WiFi drivers failed to compile, so it's been fun.
    - a-priori 21d ago
      If you're talking about compiling WiFi drivers, then you're not using Linux the way most people do.
      - dcrazy 21d ago
        Ah yes, they’re just holding it wrong.
        a-priori 21d ago
        All I’m saying is that if your idea of driving a car is to sit on the engine compartment and pull levers and cables from there, you might have a different experience than most drivers.
        dcrazy 21d ago
        I’m saying that compiling Wi-Fi drivers from source is still representative of trying to run Linux on consumer hardware. Desktop Linux is like a kit plane. You can pay to have someone assemble it for you, but you still need to know how to get in there and fix it.
noisem4ker 21d ago
Any random thread with "Microsoft" in the title from the last few years is likely to include a decently representative library of reasons. Seriously: it's always the same, trite talking points being brought up, most often hijacking the subject of discussion. </meta>
hacker_homie 21d ago
I am running Linux, but I had to spend a solid month researching laptops before buying, and I didn't get up-streamed webcam support for a year after purchase. The driver situation is a better but for cheap hardware it's so hit and miss, and when you mention this they shame the user for not knowing better and that isn't their fault. At least if they buy a mac they know it's going to work otherwise you need to buy a computer that's two years old.
- nickjj 21d ago
  What kind of research did you do? I only ask because if you're buying it on a big site like Amazon you can search reviews for "Linux" and see what pops up. Ideally you're looking for people who have said they installed it successfully and haven't run into compatibility issues. Nowadays I'd say it's worth spending time on finding the specs you want at a price you're open to paying. There's a really high chance it'll work fine with Linux and if not you can always put the factory Windows install back on and return it. I'm really thankful I picked one up in August 2025 for $580 before prices went crazy. It's a Nimo N155 15.6" Ryzen 7 6800H with 32 GB of RAM (DDR5), 1 TB NVME SSD and an AMD Radeon 680M that lets you allocate up to 8 GB of VRAM. It's beyond ridiculous that the RAM alone is worth more than the entire laptop today, but they still have laptops today in the $600-700 range with solid specs. Tons of them with 16 GB of memory at that price.
  - dylan604 21d ago
    > Ideally you're looking for people who have said they installed it successfully and haven't run into compatibility issues. That's like telling someone they can run a Hackintosh by just following someone else's build write up. Buying the exact same hardware rarely gives the easy peasy builds the write up suggests. Ultimately, there's always a couple of steps left out of the write up that makes things much less easy peasy. People forget pain points or at least gloss over the pain points. Doesn't matter if it's Hackintosh or reading other's from memory "I installed Linux, you can too" comments on a site like Amazon
    - nickjj 21d ago
Yizahi 21d ago
It is very hard to debug and fix stuff on Linux if something goes wrong. One can be a greatest network specialist and know all the innards of Linux tools, but then Nvidia driver glitches and whoops... Or dist-upgrade craps DE. or package manager spits out some circular errors with no way to untangle them for a non-expert. Stuff like that. Basically the problem is not that the "floor" difficulty is a little above "very easy". Linux distributive maintainers and developers have succeeded in lowering the "floor" almost to the Mac or Win levels these past years. The problem is the "ceiling" is too high, "very hard" in other words. Also apparently Linux has quite a few failure modes when graphical DEs are run inside VM, to the point of r/Linux just outright telling me "I'm holding it wrong"... ahem... telling me that VMs are unreliable for desktop and I should run it natively. But due to those same personally experienced VM issues, I'm vary about going all-in on native install. Yes, there is dual boot too and I do know the correct order to it (at a guess, not many Win users would, and then risk wiping their old MBR), but for now I'm delaying trying native install (again). A lot of hassle unfortunately, and I'm a procrastinator.
- worik 21d ago
  I have had these problems on Windows too. Computers are complex and there are always trade offs
  - Yizahi 21d ago
    In my anecdotal experience, Windows (never used Mac) is a lot more "auto recoverable" compared to a home desktop Linux (among all sorts of distro plus DE combinations). And I was using Win 98 ME, early Vista builds and so on too. It is really hard to bork Windows install to become fully inoperable. It will be screeching and throttling under fifty different viruses and malware installed by a naive aunty in the accounting but it will just somehow work. And GPU driver crashes in my case were self recovering. Linux on the other hand allows way more manual intervention, but it also kinda expects way more manual intervention too. In my experience.
    - prmoustache 21d ago
adamc 21d ago
Been a couple years, but discord on linux was... much less stable than it was on Windows, and I was using it to play a lot of D&D at the time, so, I ended up reverting to Windows.
- simoncion 21d ago
  I've been using the Discord "thick client" on Linux for many years now and it works just fine. I've never seen any sort of crashes, nor have I seen any instability that couldn't be explained by shitty Internet "weather". Having said that, I run it with Xorg, so maybe it's a huge disaster under Wayland... I wouldn't know.

by ainar-g 21d ago

xvxvx 21d ago

I’m lazy and don’t want to spend the rest of the year trying to get Linux running on my Alienware desktop. I think most of the software I use is available on Linux, I just need to find the time to get started.

pbhjpbhj 20d ago
Installing Pop_OS! or Ubuntu takes about an hour to 90 minutes (including setting up eg Steam, your preffered browser, etc). You'll want to run it as a live USB for a bit first to make sure there's driver support. IME much faster to install and update than MS Windows. If the hardware you buy doesn't support Linux use then it can be a crap shoot (down to luck). Why people blame their Linux distro for that I don't really understand.
DANmode 20d ago
Fair enough, Dell can be pretty spotty when it comes to Linux support.

kenhwang 21d ago

For me, it's gaming, drivers, and still too much Windows-only software. Wine/Proton has gotten really good, but still requires tinkering, and still sometimes has really bad performance. WiFi/BT drivers continue to be really terrible, there's connectivity but speed and reliability sometimes aren't there. Peripherals and motherboard chipset functionality still mostly won't work. Desktop environments are still clunky and rough around the edges. Maybe I don't get along with KDE/Gnome and just need to shop around for another DE.

alphager 21d ago
Have you had recent experiences? I thought the same until I tried it out, on decision stable no less. The driver support nowadays is incredibly good on Linux (my desktop Bluetooth didn't work under Windows with official drivers; just works without any tinkering under Linux).
- kenhwang 21d ago
  One of my machines is always Linux desktop; I've been using it to see if it's ready enough for my main desktop to switch over and so far my verdict has been it's not. Last weekend I tried updating to Linux 7.2, and WiFi drivers failed to compile, so it's been fun.
  - a-priori 21d ago
    If you're talking about compiling WiFi drivers, then you're not using Linux the way most people do.
    - dcrazy 21d ago
      Ah yes, they’re just holding it wrong.
      - a-priori 21d ago
        All I’m saying is that if your idea of driving a car is to sit on the engine compartment and pull levers and cables from there, you might have a different experience than most drivers.
        dcrazy 21d ago
        I’m saying that compiling Wi-Fi drivers from source is still representative of trying to run Linux on consumer hardware. Desktop Linux is like a kit plane. You can pay to have someone assemble it for you, but you still need to know how to get in there and fix it.

noisem4ker 21d ago

Any random thread with "Microsoft" in the title from the last few years is likely to include a decently representative library of reasons. Seriously: it's always the same, trite talking points being brought up, most often hijacking the subject of discussion. </meta>

hacker_homie 21d ago

I am running Linux, but I had to spend a solid month researching laptops before buying, and I didn't get up-streamed webcam support for a year after purchase. The driver situation is a better but for cheap hardware it's so hit and miss, and when you mention this they shame the user for not knowing better and that isn't their fault. At least if they buy a mac they know it's going to work otherwise you need to buy a computer that's two years old.

nickjj 21d ago
What kind of research did you do? I only ask because if you're buying it on a big site like Amazon you can search reviews for "Linux" and see what pops up. Ideally you're looking for people who have said they installed it successfully and haven't run into compatibility issues. Nowadays I'd say it's worth spending time on finding the specs you want at a price you're open to paying. There's a really high chance it'll work fine with Linux and if not you can always put the factory Windows install back on and return it. I'm really thankful I picked one up in August 2025 for $580 before prices went crazy. It's a Nimo N155 15.6" Ryzen 7 6800H with 32 GB of RAM (DDR5), 1 TB NVME SSD and an AMD Radeon 680M that lets you allocate up to 8 GB of VRAM. It's beyond ridiculous that the RAM alone is worth more than the entire laptop today, but they still have laptops today in the $600-700 range with solid specs. Tons of them with 16 GB of memory at that price.
- dylan604 21d ago
  > Ideally you're looking for people who have said they installed it successfully and haven't run into compatibility issues. That's like telling someone they can run a Hackintosh by just following someone else's build write up. Buying the exact same hardware rarely gives the easy peasy builds the write up suggests. Ultimately, there's always a couple of steps left out of the write up that makes things much less easy peasy. People forget pain points or at least gloss over the pain points. Doesn't matter if it's Hackintosh or reading other's from memory "I installed Linux, you can too" comments on a site like Amazon
  - nickjj 21d ago

Yizahi 21d ago

It is very hard to debug and fix stuff on Linux if something goes wrong. One can be a greatest network specialist and know all the innards of Linux tools, but then Nvidia driver glitches and whoops... Or dist-upgrade craps DE. or package manager spits out some circular errors with no way to untangle them for a non-expert. Stuff like that. Basically the problem is not that the "floor" difficulty is a little above "very easy". Linux distributive maintainers and developers have succeeded in lowering the "floor" almost to the Mac or Win levels these past years. The problem is the "ceiling" is too high, "very hard" in other words. Also apparently Linux has quite a few failure modes when graphical DEs are run inside VM, to the point of r/Linux just outright telling me "I'm holding it wrong"... ahem... telling me that VMs are unreliable for desktop and I should run it natively. But due to those same personally experienced VM issues, I'm vary about going all-in on native install. Yes, there is dual boot too and I do know the correct order to it (at a guess, not many Win users would, and then risk wiping their old MBR), but for now I'm delaying trying native install (again). A lot of hassle unfortunately, and I'm a procrastinator.

worik 21d ago
I have had these problems on Windows too. Computers are complex and there are always trade offs
- Yizahi 21d ago
  In my anecdotal experience, Windows (never used Mac) is a lot more "auto recoverable" compared to a home desktop Linux (among all sorts of distro plus DE combinations). And I was using Win 98 ME, early Vista builds and so on too. It is really hard to bork Windows install to become fully inoperable. It will be screeching and throttling under fifty different viruses and malware installed by a naive aunty in the accounting but it will just somehow work. And GPU driver crashes in my case were self recovering. Linux on the other hand allows way more manual intervention, but it also kinda expects way more manual intervention too. In my experience.
  - prmoustache 21d ago

adamc 21d ago

Been a couple years, but discord on linux was... much less stable than it was on Windows, and I was using it to play a lot of D&D at the time, so, I ended up reverting to Windows.

simoncion 21d ago
I've been using the Discord "thick client" on Linux for many years now and it works just fine. I've never seen any sort of crashes, nor have I seen any instability that couldn't be explained by shitty Internet "weather". Having said that, I run it with Xorg, so maybe it's a huge disaster under Wayland... I wouldn't know.