The only two issues you mention that are real have nothing to do with Linux itself but third-party support. As you even acknowledge there a multiple functional third party cloud drive clients.

The other complaints like not all file managers have thumbnails is like complaining not all windows apps have tabs. There are great file managers in Linux with thumbnails and they are the defaults in not the major window managers.

Spotify shortcut works fine but maybe you were using a broken package?

I never had an issue with Pulse but Pipewire is the new king on the block and works so smooth.

Third party support has a lot to do with how Linux works though. There's a reason Valve basically abandoned the idea of native Linux games and invested in Proton instead, for instance. It's because everything above the kernel in Linux is kind of a garbage fire when it comes to consistency and compatibility. You usually can't even run a binary compiled for Ubuntu 20.04 on 22.04 despite them theoretically being the same OS two years apart.

Driver support is hindered by the lack of stable driver ABI, basically forcing drivers to be FOSS and mainlined. Granted, this also has some advantages.

Valve isn't abandoning the idea of native Linux games. It is up to the game manufacturer. There are probably about one hundred and 50 games in my Steam library with native support.

I think the issues you are referring to about compatibility have to do with dynamic compilation and something like glibc, which mostly is a compilation risk that you end up taking but the only times I've encountered it the other packages were already available in my distro and so it was just a matter of updating packages. That is why you should find a distro that is quick to update.

> The only two issues you mention that are real have nothing to do with Linux itself but third-party support.

If you don’t think sleep or power management issues on Linux are real you should do a cursory google. You not having the flu doesn’t mean the flu doesn’t exist and isn’t running rampant.

Also, third party support is critical. The majority of user would not want to use Linux if it didn’t have any access to Dropbox, Spotify, Slack, Discord, VLC, or any of the other creature comforts people expect to be able to use these days.

> Spotify shortcut works fine but maybe you were using a broken package?

Ctrl + right and Ctrl + left (next & previous track) are broken and have been for a long while now. Again, do some research.

> I never had an issue with Pulse but Pipewire is the new king on the block and works so smooth.

Pipewire uses PulseEQ. Also, this has nothing to do with what I mentioned (internal speakers not automatically being EQ’d with a ‘small speaker’ EQ). If you ever hear a MacBook, you’ll be flummoxed by how good it sounds in comparison to the tinny sound of your laptop. EQ is king.

> If you don’t think sleep or power management issues on Linux are real you should do a cursory google.

It's probably terrible on unsupported hardware. Having used Linux-compatible hardware for a while now though, neither of these are an issue.

> majority of user would not want to use Linux if it didn’t have any access to Dropbox, Spotify, Slack, Discord, VLC

Good thing all of those programs are natively packaged for most distros, then.

> Ctrl + right and Ctrl + left (next & previous track) are broken and have been for a long while now.

...because Spotify migrated it's shortcuts to the more technically-correct MPRIS implementation. If you want shortcuts, set them globally and Spotify will respect it.

I'm not going to make the argument that 'everyone should use Linux', but it makes me sad listening to software developers level outdated complaints against the ecosystem. Linux is fine these days, if you don't edit video or do intensive creative work then I see no reason to avoid it.

> It's probably terrible on unsupported hardware. Having used Linux-compatible hardware for a while now though, neither of these are an issue.

Even on supported hardware there are often tons of snags. You either get a ‘blessed’ device (XPS, some Lenovos, System76, Framework) or trouble lurks. And note that many many more devices are considered ‘supported’!

> ...because Spotify migrated it's shortcuts to the more technically-correct MPRIS implementation. If you want shortcuts, set them globally and Spotify will respect it.

And yet most of the other shortcuts work fine. I also don’t want global player control, because it always ends up activating on the program I don’t want it to.

I also don’t want to have to configure shortcuts manually. They should work out of the box.

Imagine how laughable it would be if Davinci or Darktable or Krita asked you to set all shortcuts yourself.

> Good thing all of those programs are natively packaged for most distros, then.

And yet they nearly always have rough edges the other platforms don’t seem to have. See my Dropbox problem. Or Discord running on such an old Electron that it creates problems with Wayland. No, Webcord isn’t a solution as it is missing a bunch of features and in maintenance mode.

> but it makes me sad listening to software developers level outdated complaints against the ecosystem

I’m getting so irate because they’re not outdated problems. You’re plugging your ears and going ‘la la la la’ thinking that if you don’t acknowledge the problems a lot of others are having, they don’t exist.

What are you running like a 5 year old distro? The only problem that actually exists that you mention is Dropbox client may have issues and an official Google Drive client doesn't exist. If you are having so many issues then it sounds like you've either chosen a poor distro or it is a user issue. None of the other issues exists for me on Arch. I've never even looked for a 'Linux-supported" laptop, whatever that means.

It's fascinating behavior. I remember having an issue a while ago and describing it on a forum and the linux defenders literally told me that the issue doesn't exist and I am just making things up. They would simply ignore reality that didn't conform to their belief that linux is the holy grail and is beyond criticism. Psychologists would have field day with these people.

What was the issue? It seems like a lot of people that say things like this are so vague that they really just want to complain but not provide enough information to allow anyone to help.

I can't help notice your post history is just a bunch of Linux bashing without any details about what doesn't work.

> Having used Linux-compatible hardware for a while now though, neither of these are an issue.

I have a laptop with that is specifically designed to support out-of-the box and the first thing I had to do with the stock PopOS was disable sleep and hibernate because it reliably crashed the system. Even "Linux-compatible" hardware is extremely hit-or-miss.

What are you using for GUI with Linux? Given these are complaints you have, I’m guessing you aren’t using a userfriendly / more integrated distro. Ubuntu is not totally GNU and has proprietary code, but it is pretty userfriendly.

Anyway, in general:

If you like Mac, use Gnome. That is the default in Ubuntu.

If you like Windows, use KDE. That comes default in Kubuntu.

Ubuntu is debian-based, so you need to use packages that support that if you use Ubuntu. Dropbox and Spotify both have installation instructions for using it on Ubuntu and, when I used those instructions, everything worked fine.

There is also Maestral for dropbox: https://maestral.app/

It is an open source dropbox client. Needs less permissions and the performance is good, it works well in linux but I had some issues on arm based Mac. Used it a year or two ago so perhaps it has gotten better.

I’m willing to bet there exists an open source solution that integrates with the Spotify SDK as well.

Sleep, power management, etc all work well for the userfriendly focused Ubuntu distros. It was a major pain point for me for a while many years ago when I started, but I found that KDE Ubuntu distro and it made everything a lot easier for me migrating to linux. Give it a shot.

I do think Valve involvement will help the landscape a lot, I just hope it doesn’t bring must-haves that are proprietary.

I’ve tried KDE, Gnome, Zorin and Elementary. All have their own sets of problems.

I know of Maestral. It uses the public Dropbox API which means any files Dropbox deems ‘grey area’ (think console BIOSes but there is a ton of stuff that gets erroneously flagged) refuse to sync.

I’m not a first time Linux user, and I can somewhat deal with these pain points, but recommending Linux to layman people, especially when telling them “it’ll work smoother and be more bug-free than Windows and macOS” is just setting them up for a world of technical pain.

In my experience, linux as a technical expert can often times get messy. I’m probably just not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I often got in my own way. The default distros work pretty well these days for a laymen, because they mostly won’t tweak it to the extent, say, I would.

You are experienced and I share some of the pain, so I won’t beat the point in. But I do think every OS has its pain points and advantages — and linux has a unique adaptability that just about anyone can find their niche in. Nothing is bug free but it might just be smoother, given advertising has infected the major corporate Oses.

I use Dropbox on Ubuntu, ipad, iphone without any trouble. I tried Google Drive a few years ago, but it could not even do the initial sync (I know because I waited 30 days for it before giving up).

My Lenovo Legion laptop gets an hour and a half more battery life on PopOS than Windows 11 for casual uses (gaming is about the same but I don't do that on battery). No tweaking or arcane config needed, this is just a plain, regular out of the box experience from a fresh Linux install. If I boot Windows, it will randomly lose the correct time while sleeping and sometimes power itself off. No amount of BIOS or Windows tweaking has resolved it. On the Steam Deck side, Linux sleep seems to work perfectly, I never experience the device struggling to wake from sleep or restore itself and it doesn't drain the battery over night on a whim either. OTOH my wife's Surface laptop with Windows seems pretty great too.

In my experience, if it's not made by Apple you can't trust it to handle power management without hands on experience to prove it first.