There are sure a lot of improvements to be had, but I would literally go crazy if somebody took away my Linux distros and forced me to use literally anything else. Every other option on the market forces a completely different way of computing that is just ugly, inefficient, non-free and generally shit.
I get it that it takes some knowledge and tinkering and therefore is not for everyone, but now I would get crazy as well, if somebody takes them off.
Video and 3D got some good software now, but it remains that for me, Linux should push for graphics development far more.
There are some CLI hacks you can do to try to fix this but my time is precious and I can't afford to play sysadmin at home.
Meanwhile all HW acceleration use cases have worked flawlessly out of the box on windows every single time, which is why I can't recommend people switch to Linux.
What will they think when they try to watch YouTube or Netflix and the laptop fans ramp up and the battery drains instantly because HW video decode in browser doesn't work out of the box?
I have to say that I hate statements like this that manage to project a reversal of responsibilities onto the linux ecosystem. The "lack" is with the vendors of the applications you use, not with linux.
No you don't need a minimize or maximize button, they are actually useless in the GNOME work-flow, and unnecessary on windows too.
i also make use of multiple workspaces/desktops to arrange windows that are related to each other.
so i use the maximize function but never feel the need to minimize windows unless it's a window that i don't need to reopen ever.
Hard disagree.
I author multimedia documents, play AAA videogames (on Steam and GOG), watch videos, access my gadgets and devices, organize my ebooks collection, print documents on my wireless laser printer, etc.
There's not much desktop Linux cannot easily accomplish for me.
This "bad Linux desktop" meme needs to die.
Every time I install Linux there is something that doesn't work. As recently as last year it took me days to get the Wifi working because of driver problems. I still haven't got Bluetooth to work right on my current workstation. Similarly the USB file transfer UI is broken because the buffer size is too large and it's not been accounted for in the transfer completion calculation. It's a million things and pretty basic and essential ones.
And it's impossible to debug, you have to spend 10 hours typing obscure commands because the Linux voodoo-priests have never heard of buttons and GUIs.
It used to be that Windows worked for every standard small functionality. And on the rare occasions when you had a problem you would immediately know what part of the control panel or the registry to go to and fix it yourself. Occasionally you had to google and people would give you simple instructions to follow. That was before Microsoft ruined it, but my point is there was a clear difference between Linux and Windows and the best Linux distro did not come close to the level of UX that Windows did.
It's not a fair comparison because Linux is so fragmented but to me it remains that the Linux desktop experience is broken in some way for many people who use it.
I don't believe anyone in the history of ever has fixed a problem on their Windows box by confidently wading into the system registry and changing exactly the correct thing. Of all the things to wave around as superior to the Linux way of doing things, the system registry is an odd choice.
In fact, I lay a challenge: without googling, type the full path of any single registry key.
Open regedit HKLM/CurrentVersion?/MicrosoftWindows/…/<something>/Run and delete whatever dumb Dell startup tray app has set itself up to start automatically. I don’t remember the name of the key but I can navigate to it quickly using arrow keys.
Of course this is many years ago before I knew about msconfig…
Strawman.
You can click registry paths and look around, you can search, and sometimes when something is borked, messages in the logs even tell you what registry key to fiddle with.
I've been fiddling with the registry before google was around, so it certainly does not require google or any search. Those only make it easier to share things with others.
And since pretty much forever, even more so on Windows.
The difference is that windows users are used to those defects, they pretty much probably didnt realize there was a choice, so that is always the baseline for them.
On the whole, if you took a blank computer, gave linux and gave windows, people who had never used a computer before would find themselves more helped with linux than windows. Hell, for nearly a decade it was impossible to install windows on a sata disk(which was by far the standard) without breaking out a floppy drive.
Users will shop around for web browsers and everything else but settle for Windows because... why?
I would actually not be surprised if the market share of Linux exceeds the market share of Windows where Windows was installed by the user (let's exclude corporate environments because the discussion is much more complicated)
The 'Linux Desktop' is just as solid as Windows... depending on what you do with it. Just as Windows could be horrible compared to Linux... depending on what you're doing with it
It is not a fair competition.
Seriously, how is that not working out of the box in 2022? Even macs get this right.
And that's not even getting into the install process and driver downloads, printer configuration, setting up containers, a proper posix shell out of the box, local accounts, and on and on.
Windows is basically good for running Steam and has many more OEM supported hardware options. What other advantages does it even have?
There are ui configuration options, but the last I tried them (long ago) they felt inconsistent and painful. It quickly became clear that you needed a terminal to solve most issues, and when you didn’t start that way, you’re now faced with both an uncomfortable environment, and a problem to solve. So I opted to get used to the terminal, and I totally fell in love with it.
For my (not experienced) level of use, I find that it’s just several different systems. Once you know the name of the system, you can read it’s docs, find it’s configs, etc. I think one of the reasons for the recent popularity of arch is that you are given the choice of, and are made familiar with several of these systems to build your install. Maybe you’re using netctl, dhcpcd, or networkmanager - but you made that choice, and probably the initial configuration.
I don’t like the control panel, and the registry is difficult to navigate. Suffering through deeply nested menus to find a setting is a horrible experience for me. I’d much prefer grepping a directory of files for keywords. I have more tools at my disposal. Plus then I can version control and automatically provision a new machine instead of a hunt through ever-changing uis. You’re right that the original configuration takes some extra research and time, but I find for my own setups that the automated setup is worth the investment.
This is all very subjective —- I certainly don’t think you’re wrong, but I wanted to share some perspective on how it can be used (in the off chance you weren’t aware) - i hope it might make it more friendly the next time you cross paths :).
Do you think it's right way in general? If yes, please join my imaginary experiment case:
* you are part of Corporate IT support team
* your company is let's say Korean speaking and your OS interface (locale) is Korean as well
* you have phone call for support request on for something simple like changing desktop background or changing laptop sleep interval be not 5 minutes but 15
I can imagine in say Windows 11, someone press "win", type "battery" in local language and finds the needed setting, but how someone would "grep" for something in non-native language - I'm not sure.
----
I can imagine more examples, say - what is the way to ask for remote assistance or MDM or disk encryption rollout by CorpIT or wiping data in case of loss or... which would demonstrate to me - it's not ready for broader audience beyond 5% of deviation of population (nerds). And your grepping example, to me, says - such use cases are not even considered when someone says "linux is ready for desktop".
I don’t like it, but you might be right. I’d still prefer a layer of abstraction between config file keys/comments so your configuration can be localized, but there are additional issues here with user-vs-author comments which the UI solution wouldn’t need to consider.
Of course you are correct, I couldn’t imagine teaching grep to my grandpa, most relatives, or even all coworkers. It shouldn’t be necessary, but it would be lovely if this was always an option. I’d much prefer having control, than an opaque system that migrates my settings forwards. Maybe I’m advocating for a system that supports both?
Thank you for posting, I never considered this, I need to think about it.
Then probably this would be helpful too - try to imagine why the most popular Linux based user facing systems - Android and Chrome OS, are not any kind of "traditional" Linux desktop distribution alike. Does it says something on users?
What wonders me as well - when Linux desktops start to finally use telemetry and stop being blind on real user cases, not on the imaginary nerds needs. It will give great productivity boost. Microsoft has it and they know their auditorium. The techies who knows in person how logging is important on fixing bugs - has no such logs! Ridiculous to me.
(The example I always give is that my wireless HP LaserJet printer works automagically with Ubuntu, but always gives trouble with macOS!)
So... all desktops suck?
Please show me some software where it is not the case. Like, not being sarcastic, windows has million little cuts all around and my mac is the only modern hardware that managed to reboot on its own. I don’t think Linux is comparably worse, if we are being as unbiased as possible.
Sure, in certain compartments windows and osx can be better, but they all suck in others. For example, having multiple screens seems to be an insurmountable problem humanity is not yet ready to solve.
At least it can be debugged. Good luck doing that on Windows. It isn't by chance that the most common advice is "format and install again."
>And on the rare occasions when you had a problem you would immediately know what part of the control panel or the registry to go to and fix it yourself.
I vastly prefer running few commands over going through a dozen of interfaces from multiple eras or worse going through the mess that registry is.
Linux obviously isn't lost, given that I and many others use Linux for content creation.
It would help the discussion if people stopped talking in hyperbolic all-or-nothing extremes.
Like I said, this is a meme that needs to die.
What does that mean?
Even macOS, the supposed gold standard of good usability and quality, frustrates me to no end at times.
Worst part of Linux is the death by a thousand paper cuts. Bluetooth may work or not work. Apps may be compatible or not with Wayland. Power consumption may not be efficient. Computer may not resume from sleep. The browser may burn CPU when playing videos. Etc.etc.
Lots of stuff like this can happen, and I guess, anyone will experience one or two. I've been using Linux for a long time, and there is always something.
Everything can be fixed with patience (and experience, that one may not have), but Linux is definitely an O/S that needs some work, once one goes past a casual use. Casual users may not notice.
My favourite niggles: clipboard not being always shared, and file managers not sharing bookmarks data across them. These are definitely embarrassing.
Funny you should say this, because it's exactly that feeling that drove me away from Windows. For many years I tolerated Windows because "It's what everyone uses", but eventually there came a point where the "paper cuts" just added up to where I could no longer tolerate it. The annoyances and frustrations were bad enough that if I did not have Linux to fall back on, I would literally have given up computer work entirely.
I did have problems in the past due to recent Ryzen and ethernet drivers for example, and using last Linux kernels (or even compiling them) is something that can't be asked to the general public.
Fragmentation is also a very real problem, and it's inherent in Linux. I've discussed in another post about fragmentation of the GUI toolkit libraries problem, which has very visible consequences in daily usage.
In my 4yrs+ of using Linux, this has never been a problem for me.
> Apps may be compatible or not with Wayland
App developer's fault. Besides xwayland bridges that gap.
> Power consumption may not be efficient
Use Wayland for GUI apps. Use more cli applications.
> Computer may not resume from sleep
This one I have to concede. It's been wonky but for me now seems reliably stable with my setup.
> The browser may burn CPU when playing videos
This one has been fixed recently. Chromium and Firefox already support hw video decode with Firefox set to make it the default configuration in FF 103.
> clipboard not being always shared
I don't know what your setup is but gnome's gpaste clipboard experience is 100x better than any OS I've used before.
> file managers not sharing bookmarks data across them
Have never come across this use case. Why would you expect this to be a feature? Even Windows doesn't support this feature when you swap file managers.
How about "the OS display server, composer and GUI and should be well interested in the OS and perfectly usable out fo the box for all use cases".
My free time is precious and I don't want to play sysadmin on my home computer with Wayland and X11.
Windows and MacOS have their display servers figured out for decades, so the user doesn't have to think about what a display server is, while Linux is still juggling 2 different ones both with their pros and cons depending on your apps and hardware, one or the other might or or it might not.
I work in cybersecurity so everyone in the company is fluent in Linux which we use on a daily basis in various flavors both CLI and a few DEs, yet nearly all of use either Windows or Mac or both at home. Have a guess why that is.
It is no secret that Linux software has historically not been targeted at the masses. Add to that, developers who are not interested in publishing software on Linux platforms. You can see why the overall experience might not be that great on desktop Linux compared to Windows or Mac. Even though this might be changing as more users feel comfortable with Linux.
IMO iOS, Windows, Linux all have their strengths and flaws; it would be wrong to compare them side-by-side.
Linux has, because of legacy reasons, a more complex than required clipboard concept. Because of this, different apps may use it in different ways, and have unexpected behaviors. Some applications (I think, but not sure, Libreoffice) may lose the clipboard content when closed. The very fact that one needs clipboard managers to workaround the base clipboard behavior is proof that Linux's clipboard implementation is not working (from a user perspective). And beware that clipboard managers may have unintended security issues (I'm positive some do), ie. storing user data on disk (copying confidential information to the clipboard is inevitable, and you do the maths).
Bluetooth has been historically broken. Bluez has been poorly implementend and documented. Here's an old post: http://www.bennybottema.com/2010/08/08/how-ubuntus-broken-bl... it's old, but the situation has been bad for a very long time. As of Jul/2022, at least some (potentially all) Ubuntu distros ship with a broken pulseaudio/bluetooth configuration by default; a bug has been opened for a couple of years, and has been ignored by Canonical.
File managers depend on the graphic toolkits used. Applications that use different toolkits will display different file managers, and for example, they won't share bookmarks. This means that you open an application and bookmark a directory, then other applications, and the bookmark is not displayed.
> Use Wayland for GUI apps. Use more cli applications.
Telling the user to change applications because of problems of the operating system is nonsensical.
That said. Bluetooth works as expected on my hardware. Clipboard sharing works as well, there was a time it was missing on gnome terminal but can't say am scratching my head about that one today.
Can't say I've see folder bookmarking across different file managers, even on Windows. You have to point me to examples here.
Telling a user how to reasonably fix a problem trump's whatever misconceptions you have about desktop Linux. They can always put Linux down and use whatever operating system works best for them, if they don't want to try alternative solutions.
Haven't touched Linux desktop for 10+years but funny it's still like this?
Is there any certified hardware that actually has stable Linux desktop experiences?
Virtual Desktops is really powerful to structure different workflows. Office can be covered entirely though online solutions.
Yes, Gaming doesn't fly. But that also holds true for a Mac. Just get a PS5.
How? Most games work and they work great.
I ditched the M$ gaming partition in '19 and moved completely into Linux. Apart from occasional issues, it just works.
But the million dollar question is, which desktop environment are you using?
Our standards are just really, really low.
Not for me. Blackbox on X11 is exactly what I need and want. Apps looking the same is not something I care about.
> Redhat has the same issue, killing off centos community releases for a streamed os platform. (Same as Suse)
What is this about Suse? I'm on openSUSE (Suse's community release) right now. 15.4 was just released.
By now, Windows has gained so many issues that Linux is obviously superior.
Like you press the start key, the Windows menu only halfway opens, your keystrokes go to nowhere, and then you're stuck with a crashed bar at the bottom of your screen. Or like you put your Surface Pro to sleep, but it disobeys you and checks for emails while it's in your backpack and out of wifi range. So you arrive at your destination with a hot brick of empty battery. Or like you're on a live show and then your system reboots for an Update that you can't cancel plus you loose all unsaved data in the process.
(Though of course there is no universal desktop linux experience. That's kind of the point).
Unfortunately, they haven't figured out hardware access in WSL2 so doing stuff with serial ports and the like is impossible or requires annoying workarounds like creating network tunnels and connecting them to a pts using socat. In WSL1 you did have access to Windows COM ports.
WSL is for the folks that buy macOS instead of supporting Linux OEMs, because they couldn't care less and are happy witb whatever POSIX CLI they can get.
Of course for really hairy driver work you want to have a separate machine regardless of the OS. But for the last 15 years I have managed to do Linux development with having root access and still not breaking the office side of work. Although if you usea dd to write system images for embedded systems many times a day you are playing a bit with fire. Thought for a long time I should patch dd so it wouldn't overwrite anything bigger than 64GB. But nowadays we mostly have better firmware update methods, so dd is used rarely and my patch still unwritten...
In windows terminal, I use powershell for vmware vsphere administration and linux for ssh. The only main issue I have is ubuntu 22.04 gives ssh key errors with redhat servers. I have a redhat wsl for ssh ive been using.
I was a cygwin terminal user for decades. (work laptops are always locked down windows).
With linux in windows terminal, i've stopped using cygwin. I still sometimes use mobaterm (cygwin based), but even mobaterm allows tabbed environments like windows terminal. It even imports them. Also cygwin ssh works with redhat servers without ssh key issues.
That’s one of the biggest hurdles preventing Windows to become a dev environment at my work.
Assuming you are talking about Docker containers with Linux, not containers with Windows, it's pretty well integrated even with WSL2 (on some news I've checked, from mid 2019 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/docker-deskto... ) which is Hyper-V based and doesn't stand in your way.
I can get WSL2 to work in Win11 vm in vmware, so it should work fine.
Same ole same ole FUD .. it even does phones better than MICROS~1
PureOS – a pure Linux phone experience https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/pureos-mobile/
Why would it be unified? It's mostly a bazaar of software written by different people to scratch their own itches.
> Redhat has the same issue, killing off centos community releases for a streamed os platform
CentOS Stream is no different than enabling the debian-updates repository in Debian. Your system won't suddenly just start pulling in breaking changes.
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
Ironically, that quote from Paradise Lost is spoken by the character Satan and is intended to deceive his fellow fallen angels into believing being condemned to Tartarus after losing their revolt isn't so bad, even though it is, quite literally, the depths of Hell.
On the other hand, considering the topic, maybe it's rather apropos instead.
Desktop isn't unified (X11 or Wayland), libraries are not unified, the drivers/sound system isnt unified. Its basically a bunch of different flavors with issues that you are stuck with, locked in with.
Google Android has the same binary blob hell for drivers. Chrome OS has some powerful containers (on supported hardware), unlocking more power.
Ubuntu versions are tied to projects, so google and other corps make you use what version they want to dev on their platforms.
Redhat has the same issue, killing off centos community releases for a streamed os platform. (Same as Suse)
Arch at least tries to fit the need of letting you upgrade, but you still have the same issues with a unified platform, but provides the applications, some apps are stale but at least they exist in their community repos.
WSL is really just a platform to allow you to take the power of the terminal to do so many powerful things, skipping the desktop, allowing a windows desktop that solves all the issues linux has.
Pretty much, Windows with WSL, and Android emulation, you can do anything. The only pure linux I have at home now is pi machine, and I only use it as a console box.
But I still play with Arch in vmware (vmware supports nested virtualization, virtualbox doesnt). Its amazing the power windows can unlock linux
Now when the m2 mac mini's come out, I might just have to play with virtualized linux as a desktop. Gaming, android/streaming can fill the lack of games, just as you can do on linux.