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Comment by JSRR1991 | Hacker News Reader

JSRR1991

Bad time to be pushing this crap with the Linux desktop wooing the gaming/ power user overlap crowd now that steam deck is on the scene. I have been using Windows my whole life but now I have a PC dedicated to Linux for the 1st time and I'm thinking about seeing one up for my wife, as I'm sure Linux will be perform better on the older laptop I'm considering 'upcycling'. People forget that tech trends often flow outwards from the nerds who will actually try something new, then evangelize it to the world - see chrome for example

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Yes 2023 is sure to be the year of the Linux desktop. (/s)

The reality is the computer form factor involving a keyboard is slowly becoming more and more of a niche. Windows has a lock on this niche for business and gaming. For other home use there is strong competition from apple and for education there is strong competition from chromebook.

Linux is still not really in the running, sorry.

The year of the Linux Desktop already happened, just not in the way people wanted - Android and Chromebooks.

Tbh, everyone I know who has used an Android "laptop" or "Chromebook" has abandoned it after ~6 months for a "real computer".

Turns out Native > Webshit for many things.

I'm never buying another Chromebook and Chromebox because Google sunsetted my perfectly fine working laptop and Chromebox and now it can't do things like play streaming movies from HBO Max because the chrome version is too low. Spotify doesn't work either. Leaves few things left to do with it haha.

Install Linux on it and you'll be able to use the latest version of Chromium and stream to your heart's content.

I think I'll just sell it and get a used Macbook Air, they go for like $99 on Ebay now.

Every time in my life I have installed Linux with such high hopes and get annoyed by all the crap that doesn't work.

Can you give some examples of "things which do not work"? Seeing how as I've been using Linux for close to 30 years and have it running on loads of different types of hardware with more or less everything working - yes even Bluetooth - I'm always somewhat surprised by these problems which fail to haunt me.

I think some people just don’t even bother to resolve an issue. Maybe it’s not even broken but just reflexively assumed to be broken if something isn’t immediately as they expect it to work. My parents both use Linux daily and rarely ever need me to provide any support. Ubuntu or Debian has worked out of the box on every machine I’ve touched over the last 10 years. Avoiding nvidia graphics is probably the secret to success though, and may be the issue responsible for many people who have a much more negative view of Linux “just working”

Wi-Fi is usually wonky and just various other things like video drivers etc.

Here is the laptop you wanted me to try to install Linux on lol. Who has time for this shit? I just want to use the computer not futz around with it constantly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/chromeos/comments/eku5tv/replacing_...

Like I said, spend $99 on MacBook Air, receive it, turn it on, it works. That’s all I care about. I don’t even like apple products really but I just want something I know will work.

That is an ARM laptop, which means you have an especially low chance of installing Linux easily. Get an x86 Chromebook and you would probably have less issue, but yes, you may still have some hardware issues (especially since Chromebooks have spotty desktop Linux support). Get an off-the-shelf x86 laptop and you probably would be fine; maybe you will have a few issues. But instead of faulting Linux, consider this? Could you install Windows on this same laptop? Probably not. In fact, on many laptops, hardware support is limited on Windows without vendor drivers (although, there is a chance that this has gotten less bad these days).

If you went and bought a used laptop that has official Linux support, like an XPS 13, then you could also open it, turn it on, and have it work with zero issues with Linux—the same way as a MacBook Air. Try Hackintoshing a random laptop from Best Buy and I think you will encounter similar issues with macOS.

That is the Year of Linux kernel, there is nothing else from GNU/Linux on Android and ChromeOS.

It's a pretty good argument in favor of the GNU/Linux vs. plain Linux distinction. Which is not a thing I really thought I'd say.

For you, maybe not. For me it has been in the running - and mostly in the lead - for close to 30 years. There's Linux on this iMac, on the Thinkpad sitting next to it, on the server these connect to, on the phones lying on the desk, on the tablet. For all I know there is Linux in the washing machine as well, I never bothered to look. It seems like Gates' vision of "information at your fingertips" has come true, the only thing "missing" is Windows. I do have a few virtual machines on the server for the few packages (VAG ELSA, looking at you...) which don't run well on Linux/Wine but these only get started every other blue moon.

By the way, the Chromebook you mentioned runs Linux. Google might eventually port this to Fuchsia but this remains to be seen.

I think OP's point is that there's one more major use case — gaming — for which Windows has a newly viable competitor. It's not that Linux is going to replace Windows, but that Windows could suffer a death by a thousand cuts. I'll note that more and more offices that I encounter seem to be switching to Chromebooks.

People keep saying this and then run into minor problems becoming bigger problems because frequently used programs end up being unusable or 3rd class citizen, behind both mobile and Mac users.

Unless Linux is braindead easy to use without frustrations, it won't happen. Gamers pay more for lesser ease of access increases.

Yes, people are strange. Every problem on Linux is deal breaker, all the problems on Windows aren't.

I mean, this is pretty easily explainable. People have grown up around Windows. The problems for the most part don’t change over time, so people have gotten used to them and have developed their own tried and true ways of doing something that sidesteps the problems they had.

Switching to Linux brings with it a whole new swath of problems and fixes Windows problems so not only are users seeing new issues, their workarounds now have to be worked around because whatever was wrong in Windows works in Linux. Add to that the fact that most Linux users are power users and instructions therefore lean towards that, and you’ve got a problem that also seems insurmountable to solve.

It’s the classic boiling frog dilemma. Windows has just had decades of heating water to get to where we are.

It's not 'every problem'. People know Windows. People understand most of Windows. They took years to do so, and they still run into problems. Now you ask them 'switch over to Linux, it doesn't have problem X', without understanding the average person doesn't want to invest the time or effort learning anything more complicated than downloading and installing a random .exe (why do you think phishing and malware are so prevalent in their infantile state?).

This is reinforced by most major apps which eventually become cross-platform starting out treating Linux as a 3rd class citizen. For games, Discord and Parsec come to mind, where the former took years, and the latter still doesn't allow hosting from Linux. Nothing about this reinforces the idea of Linux being easier to use. It's the opposite: it reinforces the mentality that Linux is still two decades behind, regardless what the reality may be.

How many complaints form when YouTube pushes a minor UI or UX change? Now multiply that by a few magnitudes of order. That is the problem we're dealing with, and no amount of chastising or belittling Windows users will change that (in fact, it does the opposite). Did people forget how Apple managed to get a foothold in the market despite their ludicrous prices and dev-unfriendly practices?

It's not even this. It's just that for vast majority of 'average' people, they just use whatever OS comes with their devices. "Installing an OS" is an alien concept for most people. So it is automatically either MacOS/iOS or Chromium/Linux (Chromebook), Android or Windows. That's it. And although Linux the kernel features in two of these, that's totally beside the point. The point is people mostly don't even know how to change their preinstalled OS, no matter how irritating it is. If it develops too many issues, they take it to the local tech shop who almost always will reinstall/reset the same OS and give it back.

The only people who use Linux are the tech oriented crowd, including gamers, who naturally tend to be more tech oriented than most. This is still a very small fraction of the world though. And this isn't changing unless a healthy fraction of devices and PCs come with Linux preinstalled. Even then a lot of people will complain and ask for Windows (or whatever) the very next day after purchasing their device.

> People know Windows. People understand most of Windows.

Not in my observation. They get something pre-installed, they click on things they know. I am always amazed by the fact that most don' t have the smallest mental image of how it works.

Many people highly value continuity, if it’s working it should keep working the same way for a very long time. Once a Linux computer is working, even if it’s more work to get it to that state, keeping it working is much easier than with Windows. Using updates to force major breaking changes should be a crime.

If you play AAA titles, you’re not moving away from Windows.

Why? Looking at top PC games lists of 2022, almost all of them are supported on Steam Deck. All the games I’ve played on there run fantastically well. On a sale I bought Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which is an older AAA game and Steam Deck even runs fine.

Anti-Cheat. Most multiplayer shooters will refuse to run under Linux.

Since the announcement of the Steam Deck, Valve has made various promises to work with the AC providers to bring support to Linux. So far they have brought support for Epic's EAC, and it seems they are working on bringing it for other titles as well.

Most is a stretch.

The FPS in the top 100 currently most popular games on Steam[0] and their status [1]:

  #01 CS:GO - native
  #04 PUBG - anticheat
  #05 CoD MW2 - anticheat
  #06 Apex - Works (it has anticheat that works on Linux)
  #07 TF2 - native
  #09 Rust - Works
  #12 Destiny 2 - anticheat
  #21 Rainbow 6 - anticheat
  #22 DayZ - Works (it has anticheat that works on Linux)
  #26 Warframe - Works
  #69 Payday2 - Works
  #78 Arma 3 - Works (it has anticheat that works on Linux)
  #79 CS:S - Native

Native or working: 9/13

Broken: 4/13

Non-steam or outside top-100:

  OW2 - Linux is second class and not actively supported - but Blizzard have unblocked Linux support when issues were reported
  Battlefield (all?) - Works
  CoD (before MW2) - Works
  Gundam Evolution - anticheat

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed

[1] https://www.protondb.com/

Sadly even a few top games not running on Linux is enough to keep most PC gamers off of Linux.

I'm probably spectacularly unlucky as I play Siege, Destiny 2, CoD MW2, Hunt Showdown (#63), and the occasional Fortnite (EGS) and Valorant (Riot), none of which work.

Battlefield 2042 is on Steam but not supported, though I'm not sure if that's the anti-cheat solution or Proton.

An increasing number of games with Anti-cheat work.

https://areweanticheatyet.com

With Win 11 I get Micro-stuttering which makes gaming a nightmare. I’ve given up on getting it fixed. I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft to accidentally kill their cash cow via an accumulation of small mistakes and a loss of key competence.

If using Windows is death by a thousand cuts, using Linux is obliteration by ten thousand.

Linux has completed 90% of the work, but the last 10% (usability) is a long way away.

Dunno man, I’ve been using Linux on the desktop for almost 3 decades. It’s been ok for me :) conversely I can’t stand using windows for more than a few minutes - luckily I don’t have to do this often.

If you're a veteran Linux user, you probably know where to look for config files and how to hack them. Trying to use Linux using GUI only, whichever you choose, is awful. It's like the designers copied the worst ideas from both Windows and MacOS on purpose and then added some of their own.

You don't need to hack config files. The big DEs have GUI settings for pretty much everything macOS or Windows does. The only reason it might not seem like it is tutorial websites where it's easier to post a one line command then screenshots for 7 different GUIs.

"it's easier to post a one line command then screenshots for 7 different GUIs"

Yeah, that's the thing. It often feels GUIs on linux are meshed together from at least 7 different styles and paradigms and too often they are indeed made like this.

So in Ubuntu for example I sometimes had to click left to close a window and sometimes right.

What laypersons want, is one single way to do things, that works. But you just won't get far, without the terminal. That is, things do run pretty much out of the box if you are lucky - until they don't. And then good luck trying to fix it without the terminal. I can parse and usually fix cryptic error messages and logs, but my father (who is a trained engineer, but no english speaker nor programmer) cannot. Unless of course there is a driver issue. I seldom can fix them and I encountered too many over the years.

In either case, I am lucky that linux exists and I am now off to try out EndeavourOS ..

I get this effect much worse on windows. Right click the volume icon in the task bar and look through the windows you get. There's three different styles dating back to Windows 95!

Flip through stuff on the control panel and you'll get the same mash of code heaved forward from the 90s. It's a bad look, and I've always been so confused why Microsoft doesn't do anything about it. Seems like a great pet project for some nth level middle manager to get sweet bonuses for.

Do you remember the two control panels from Windows 8, where some settings were available only in one and others in the other? One did look quite modern.

I prefer using the GUI, but frequently find I have to hop back into the terminal to chmod/chown some file that's ended up without the appropriate permissions. I think a casual user would probably give up at that point.

Using KDE, everything can be changed using only a mouse (or a finger with a touch screen).

Yes. The only problems are that the control panels are incredibly illogical at best (this is one of the things I meant with the "worst ideas from both Windows and MacOS and some of their own), and often just don't seem to work or need to be used in a specific non-intuitive way. Command line and config files are the way to stay sane and get things done.

> If you're a veteran Linux user, you probably know where to look for config files and how to hack them.

Unfortunately these days even that keeps getting changed. Part of the reason I'm happier on FreeBSD.

I agree but this won't be a "real" problem. It just gonna be put under the rug by most.

No problem has been described.

I actually wrote about using Linux as a daily driver for a week for everything, gaming included: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/a-week-of-linux-instead-of-...

In short, Proton is making pretty good progress and anyone can check their own Steam library with ProtonDB, to see how many of the titles they care about are likely to work.

Out of the popular mainstream games, around a half will work on Linux, whereas in the case of my Steam library (mostly indie titles) that figure is closer to 75%. This is no doubt thanks to shipping games now being simple in most of the popular game engines out there (like Unity, Unreal and even Godot). However, some games have the occasional bug, whereas others just straight up refuse to launch.

Also many users don't use things like AMD Software, but I personally didn't really find a good alternative for it on Linux, to limit my GPUs power usage and alter the fan curve, CoreCtrl coming close but not quite being a viable replacement: https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl

Back to games, there will be issues with either really old niche titles that you might want to play, or many of the modern games that have multiplayer components (and anti-cheat systems), or sometimes even two games from the same publisher/developer might have one of them be available on Linux but not the other (e.g. War Thunder works but Enlisted doesn't).

In short, Linux is definitely getting better and might already be sufficient as a desktop daily driver even for the folks who want to do some gaming, but isn't a 1:1 replacement and some things just won't work for a variety of reasons. That said, claiming that "The Year of the Linux Desktop" might eventually come no longer feels delusional - it might just be 5-20 years until we get there for regular folks.

This probably wouldn't have happened without Valve's involvement, as well as all of the people who work on Wine and other software like that.

Games developed on Windows desktops, targeted for Windows desktops, running by translating the Windows API.

Does that ultimately matter? Proton/WINE etc. create a compatibility layer for Windows on Linux, and WSL/Cygwin etc. creates a compatibility layer for Linux on Windows. If one is cheaper and offers less bullshit, the other one is threatened. It's a moat coming down.

OS/2 has proven how much it matters.

WSL is nothing new, the only thing it brings to the table is that we don't need to install VMWare or Virtual Box.

I don't dual boot since 2005.

wine runs older windows games better than modern Windows

with Microsoft's declining focus on compatibility, the time is coming where the majority of Windows games now run best on something that isn't Windows

(not to mention the lack of ads, spyware, general lack of stability and forced reboots)

If you search for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8,...., versus Linux, you will find similar arguments being made as prophecy of the great migration.

previously there wasn't an extremely profitable, market leading, privately owned gaming company with a founder that is completely and utterly determined to ditch Microsoft

and share the result of that freely with the world

By creating a platform that emulates Windows, otherwise no one would bother to target their device natively.

Those 2% market shared are filled with games that are developed on Windows, targeting Windows.

Meaning those game studios will keep giving Microsoft money, and letting Valve do the needful to work on their platform.

> By creating a platform that emulates Windows, otherwise no one would bother to target their device natively.

this is a stopgap measure to bootstrap demand for the platform

because these days the target platform isn't Windows

it's the game development kits sold as a service, like Unity and Unreal Engine

both of which are now supported natively

> Meaning those game studios will keep giving Microsoft money

now you've lost me

(it's also bizarre that you pop up in every single "Windows bad" post right on cue to defend Microsoft's honour)

(edit: ah, found your linkedin, so you're an MS employee, I guess that explains it then)

I am an employee of a well known Fortune 500 consulting company, but definitly not Microsoft, better luck with your search next time.

Microsoft is a company, there is no such thing as honour for business, only money and profits.

Same applies to dumb quotes like "do no evil" and similar.

You're right, Windows isn't the main target platform for AAA game studios, Playstation, XBox, Switch, iOS and Android are the ones briging big bags of money home.

A lot of games run on Linux natively and newer games are using Vulkan. We can't help that the feds didn't go after Microsoft for paying game devs to try to lock non-console games to Windows.

In my workplace folks are begging for MacBooks.

Macs have been Unix with Photoshop and Office for decades now.

At my workplace people are begging for Linux but unfortunately we got Macs.

M1 Macbooks are alien technology compared to Windows (performance and battery life) or Lunux (professional app support) ones. The main barrier to switch is different keyboard layout — after a month of using Mac as a home PC (switching from workplace-issued Linux) unfamiliarity with keyboard is the main hurdle, especially on non-English layout.

On the contrary, Linux is in a good position for the same reason you think it isn't. As the desktop/laptop market shrinks to advanced users, it loses the long tail of users who weren't technically capable enough to switch. At the same time, WINE/proton and even some native ports have vastly improved the gaming scene on Linux, and a decent chunk of non-gaming applications too. Sure, there will always be certain business applications that refuse to work on anything but actual Windows, but Linux works for a decent and growing part of the shrinking niche that is "real computers".

Just played some games on Linux Steam yesterday. It works so smooth. The Steam client is actually buggy at times with a tiling WM, but all the games worked great.. even the oned with Proton.

It's actually amazing how well games work under Proton. Even a significant number of multiplayer titles just work, despite anti-cheat. There's some "random problems" sometimes with some titles, sure... but that's also true on Windows. Interestingly the problematic titles are more or less exactly opposite to Windows - new titles tend to work well on Windows and perhaps have issues on Linux (requiring some specific launch options or Proton version, perhaps graphical glitches). Meanwhile older titles are often problematic on Windows, but are less so on Linux. Might just be my selection bias though.

> Sure, there will always be certain business applications that refuse to work on anything but actual Windows

I disagree with this statement, especially in the case where there's somebody motivated enough to patch Wine to support specific applications.

At the end of the day, Windows applications expect a set of interfaces. As long as those interfaces exist and work as expected, the application will work.

Not all issues are technical issues. There might be licensing reasons why 'actual Windows' is required. Such nonsense is not unknown.

Until and unless Microsoft Office products are on Linux natively and are supported by Microsoft, Linux will never be a mainstream operating system. And that's never going to happen.

The web based Office 365 my university gives us seems to work as well on Linux as any other platform AFAIK (unfortunately that's still not perfect). It did claim to need Edge for some things, but that's relatively minor.

This is becoming less and less true every day. Both online office 360 and gsuite are popular in offices these days with no ms office installed on the device. Outside of specific business roles, I haven't seen it in a long while. I've even run into a medical clinic running on libreoffice.

My Android phone runs native Microsoft Office apps, so we are half-way there.

I am just waiting for Microsoft to give up on Windows-on-Arm and instead create a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution that has an actual Windows subsystem for Linux (that is, a compatibility / emulation layer similar to Wine or Proton to run legacy Windows software).

Decades of backward compatibility makes Windows a resource hog. I do not think it can make the jump to Arm or RISC-V easily.

Huh? The move from x86 is hampered by making binaries compiled for x86 work on ARM, it has nothing to do with performance.

Ironically enough I've found that O365 works far better on Firefox and Chrome on Linux than it does on those browsers on Windows, and Microsoft O365's support team warn against even attempting to use Windows 10 and Edge.

There isn't any more a "native" office. Now it's a web app -> Office 365

Every business I've ever been part of in my entire adult life has used Google docs or libreoffice. I genuinely haven't seen MS office since high school.

I worked for a fortune 500, and they used a custom Unix type OS with libreoffice. We ended up using mostly Google docs though.

Unlikey. PC gamers don't care if they're running Windows or Linux, they just want the top 10 games to run. Linux can't even do that.

And the business world will never switch to Linux.

Sorry, but does it.

I suggest you check which of the top 10 games run on Linux.

I (of course) did, and it seems like it proves my point.

I don't think that's really true. Recent trends show the % of desktop/laptop users has normalized and is no longer trending down.

Soo niche except for 99.99999% of devs

A lot of devs don’t want to tinker with Linux. Myself included. And this is disregarding all of the work places that only give out Windows or MacOS machines.

I use Linux. No tinkering required if you use a major distro. I used to like to tinker with stuff, but slowly my viewpoint changed. Most of the time these tweaks are just different, not better, and a waste of time. Worse, whenever you have to use a more stock configuration on another machine, you are fumbling around. These days I just use the defaults on almost everything, whether Windows, Mac, or Linux.

The comment I am replying to says that computers with keyboards are niche, that's what I'm replying to

Also I've spent a grand total of 30 minutes tinkering with my Linux machines this year, windows has had to be reinstalled twice.

No tinkering required. Tinkering can be tempting and dangerous, but if you keep yourself in check it's just not a thing you need to do. Unless you install Arch, but then you deserve what you get. Just install Ubuntu or Pop and you'll be fine.

"No tinkering required" needs to come with a big YMMV. Most of the devs I've polled about their Linux experience matches the OP, they tried it and went back to Mac/Windows.

As a developer I tried Linux for 1 year (no dual boot). It was such traumatic experience, that I would never repeat it again.

Even the majority of “command line devs” are satisfied by Mac or even WSL for their machines. The servers they connect to are almost always Linux, however.

Apparently not, since every time Microsoft does something boneheaded that alienates their "command line devs" we hear about it on hackernews.

If they didn't keep using it we'd've only heard about the first time.

It's almost as if those are multiple people with different tolerances for microsoft induced pain

Not me, I make it a habit to try Linux every year to see what the major distros are, and test their feasibility as a replacement for MacOS. I usually run into bugs and lots of necessary copy-paste from the internet to get random features working.

While there are still use-cases where the traditional laptop/desktop form-factor remains the answer and there are Windows users, Windows getting worse and Linux getting better will continue to see people migrate over.

No, there' won't be an explosion, it's a death by a thousand cuts. The bemused amongst us are wondering why Microsoft is the one holding the knife.

This message is 20 years old. Many of us long for the utopia of a Linux desktop that just works, where drivers are up to date and X windows doesn't die due to a yum/apt-get update.

This feels like a future parody thread where someone will make fun of our comments.

The Linux desktop arrived under the guise of Android.

The rest is minor noise, sadly.

At least it is possible to have a working Linux desktop but that was true twenty years ago.

Oh really? Where are these widely used/popular Android desktop and/or laptop machines?

They’re called phones and they’re killing the windows desktop like Linux users wanted in the 90s.

It’s a very monkey’s paw scenario.

That’s simply untrue. I have a phone, a tablet, and a laptop. I do different things on each. None has supplanted the others; they all supplement each other.

You do that, but it doesn't generalise. Mobile phone ownership exceeded laptop/desktop ownership in the us in the last 2 years and the latter is in a slow constant decline. A lot of people are going to be happy with just the phone in the future.

We went from computers being very rare (early on I remember maybe two families out of the whole class had one at home) to heading to above one per person (everyone had a laptop and there would be a desktop, too, or more) during college and now we're headed back towards "about one desktop/laptop per house or a bit more" as most people have phones.

Citation needed. Moreover, what's the evidence that those that make do with only phones would even want to purchase a tablet or laptop?

Edit: also, conflating phones with "desktops" is just being glib and disingenous.

> Citation needed

Literally the top results for US smartphone ownership. You can do it.

> that those that make do with only phones would even want to purchase a tablet or laptop?

That's the whole point - they don't need / want one. But given the services that everyone needs are moving online, everyone needs some level of internet access. This effectively moves windows users to Linux/Android as discussed upthread.

I see. So you're not actually going to even try and answer the question? No evidence? Just "I'm going to conflate desktops and phones to make my point?"

Accidentally Android spies on you to the extent Microsoft couldn't even dream of in their evilest of dreams. And there is no way to root/control it to prevent that spying. Unlike Windows.

> And there is no way to root/control it to prevent that spying.

Can you explain what you mean here? How do AOSP ROMs subject themselves to Google's spying, much less the meticulously-designed privacy distributions?

> Accidentally Android spies on you to the extent Microsoft couldn't even dream of in their evilest of dreams. And there is no way to root/control it to prevent that spying. Unlike Windows.

https://www.grapheneos.org/

I know, but nobody uses it, for a reason.

I know a lot of people who use Tablets as their main driver and don't have a PC (or only use it for edge cases). Not even for ideological reasons, it just works for them. It's not universal, but it's not rare, either.

Chromebooks I suppose. https://www.gsmarena.com/pc_and_tablets_see_strong_sales_per...

They may run Android apps, but they are not Android devices.

By that logic, my Linux machine is a Windows machine, because it has Wine/Proton.

This had been the opposite of my experience though. Maybe I got lucky with hardware, but I've never had issues with out-of-date drivers (outside of CUDA dependencies for research work) or having X or Gnome or whatnot break during an update.

But, I need to use Windows at my employer, and it's horrible. I wish Windows were at a point where it was ready for development.

Right now, the best dev setup is "install Linux in a VM" or "install this collection of incomplete ports/emulation/virtualization of Linux tools".

With Proton for gaming and Electron for desktop especially, Linux on the desktop is way different than it was 10 years ago, let alone 20.

My Nvidia driver literally just died last week or the week before. I had to reinstall it to make it work.

Just out of curiosity (as the website suggests lol), which distro were you using? I long left Nvidia as it's really a no-go on Linux but I noticed different distros had VASTLY different experiences with it. For instance Mint was very stable and simple to install drivers, but they were ofter outdated. Fedora was more work through rpm fusion but I also got a better experience and even managed to use Wayland. Some distros didn't even work with my setup.

In my opinion the biggest advantage and problem of Linux is the fragmentation. Linux is a word that encompasses too many variations of many systems on top of different versions with different build options of a kernel. This is why I always choose to talk about a distribution instead of Linux itself, since the kernel is just a part of the system (insert GNU/Linux copypasta here).

edit by ChatGPT, which apparently does not know about the copypasta): "Linux is actually GNU/Linux, or as I like to call it, the dynamic duo of the operating system world. The Linux kernel is like Batman, all tough and powerful, while the GNU tools and libraries are like Robin, always there to support and help out. Together, they make a unstoppable team that can take on any challenge.

But, let's be real here, without the GNU tools and libraries, the Linux kernel would just be a confused and frustrated little kernel, wondering why it can't do anything useful. So, it's important to give credit where it's due and call the whole operating system GNU/Linux.

Now, I know some of you might be thinking, "But wait, isn't Linux just for nerdy hackers and command line wizards?" Well, to those people I say, "Hold my beer, I'll show you how wrong you are." Because, these days, there are plenty of user-friendly Linux distributions that are perfect for everyday users. And, even better, most of them are free and open-source, so you can customize and tweak them to your heart's content.

But, let's not forget about the elephant in the room: NVIDIA. Yes, I'm talking about that greedy, selfish, proprietary-loving company that just can't seem to get its act together when it comes to Linux support. I mean, come on guys, we're not asking for much, just some stable drivers that don't crash all the time and support the latest features. Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is, because NVIDIA just keeps letting Linux users down.

So, in conclusion, if you want to join the awesome world of GNU/Linux, go for it! You won't regret it. And if you're already using GNU/Linux, give yourself a pat on the back and keep spreading the word. And, if you're using NVIDIA on Linux, well, good luck to you my friend, you're going to need it."

Ubuntu 22.04 with proprietary NVIDIA driver. I made no changes to the driver nor tinkered with any settings. I did not run any weird/nerdy applications that might have affected the GPU at all.

The only thing I did was running `apt update` and `apt upgrade` every day. One day, it just stopped booting into my desktop environment. Instead, it showed a blinking cursor. I followed some random tutorials online and uninstalled the driver, which fixed the issue.

> having X or Gnome or whatnot break during an update.

This happened exactly once (nvidia driver update killed x as it tried to reload the kernel driver).

Still better than system update deleting all your documents, right? (yes, I know that it happened only once too, but since the nvidia problem is a fair game, deleting user documents is the same).

My Nvidia driver dies every single update.

It's basically part of every update, first thing I have to do is reinstall the Nvidia driver via ssh every single time.

And maybe every month or so, when I reboot it comes up in some ridiculous resolution, like 640x480 or something. This is also fixed by reinstalling the Nvidia driver.

When I get a new desktop (main PC is Windows), I switch my linux server to my old hardware. I just bought an AMD GPU for my desktop so in a couple of years when I upgrade my desktop, I'll be rid of Nvidia bullshit once and for all.

I just went through this pain, and fortunately my gpu just died during the process so I jumped to amd. It's like a breath of fresh air, my computer just works now.

Except now there's a bug and I can't use the integrated Intel graphics at the same time. Great. Works fine otherwise though, and I don't have to fuck around with my drivers ever again

> Right now, the best dev setup is "install Linux in a VM" or "install this collection of incomplete ports/emulation/virtualization of Linux tools".

Actually it's, "request a Macbook" or "work in a place where devs get Macs".

Haha, yeah, that's actually what is going on here! But I'm still trying to see if I can get a Linux machine here.

Side note to any Linux devs considering MacOS: Be expected to also request at least ~$200 of software for OS features we might otherwise take for granted. (Window management, per-app volume management, etc.) Other niche features might be totally unavailable (eg. moving windows between desktops with keyboard shortcuts, or speeding up input-blocking animations) because there's no API provided to make it possible.

Off topic but I really wish the regular old mouse and scroll wheel would work ”normally” straight out the box on fedora/ubuntu/etc. It’s really such a horrible experience coming from Windows when using the mouse is all icky not having ”proper” (Windows default) acceleration on and scroll wheel scrolling one line at a time.

Like many people I really want to make the jump but still hang on to Windows via O&O Shutup 10.

I have been using Linux as my primary OS for many years, but this particular issue is stubbornly baffling. There are solutions of course but they are not really good.

I don't know what you're talking about, but I've never had any mouse wheel issues on Linux, when I dual booted daily so it had plenty of chances to compare. In fact I made sure I had the exact same mouse speed on both OS.

My wheel doesn't scroll a line at a time, and there are three acceleration modes for the pointer-default,adaptive and flat.

I keep hearing people complaining about Linux with the weirdest problems ever.

Sounds good, I’ll try again when I have time.

My latest attempt was back in Summer with Fedora 36 and a Logitech mouse. The default was one line at a time and I could not find a setting for it. (Apart from Firefox config but I need multiple browsers.)

Amusingly I even gave Chromebook (kind of a Linux) a proper try and with the scroll wheel it too scrolled a single line at a time.

This is ironic to read as I felt the windows mouse controls were dogshit compared to what I had with macOS

This may or may not help, but this mouse has variable acceration (DPI) and I've been pretty happy with it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071J9JC6S

Honestly, ubuntu is doing similar UX breaking crap... every two years you need to relearn where to set the static ip, apt-get is snap, or snap is apt-get or who knows what you'll get when you need a simple install, and phoning home is preinstalled too.

I’ve had better luck with rolling release desktops because at least things break and change slowly over time.

Each new Ubuntu is a whole new beast on the desktop (and sometimes even on server).

Yep. I honestly think that if you loved Linux 10 or 20 years ago you're better off with FreeBSD these days.

There are still some distros that are usable... notably gentoo or arch... but the "pretty" ones, especially the debian/ubuntu based ones, have really gone downhill.

Try LinuxMint. It's Ubuntu but without the Snaps. There is a reason it's 4 positions above Ubuntu on DistroWatch.

Those 2% market share are looking great.

The Year of Desktop Linux is as virtual machine running on top of Apple and Microsoft desktop OS, or having the complete userspace replaced like on Google OS offerings.

Chrome as an example? They had an advert on top of the most successful search engine. Hardly a grassroots effort.

People won't bother with Linux, nor other alternative systems. Many don't even change the desktop wallpaper. The computer works out of the box, as it comes, and that's the end of the customization story. In order to achieve Linux majority, it needs to become the de facto standard: governments need to use it, schools need to teach it, and businesses need to use it. And it needs to come on computers preinstalled, compatible with all these other systems. Otherwise, no dice. The question is not technological - Linux has been fine for a long time now. It has been down to business, and Microsoft is good at business. That's it.

Microsoft has not a lot of interest in home power users. They need windows for business customers. And the majority of home users just keep the default system their PC came with. So if a few home users switch to Linux they probably won’t care at all.

I've held on to windows just for gaming, but Valve has been making huge strides turning linux into a viable option for that. Whenever support stops for Windows 10, I may have to give it a try

If anything, I think it's the other way around.

WSL2 is now so good, that you can get away with not needing Linux at all.

I pretty much live in WSL2 at work. While it makes Windows tolerable, it's not even close to as good as a full Linux desktop.

> it's not even close to as good as a full Linux desktop

I use "a full linux desktop" at work (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS) and the desktop UI bugs and limitations are a nightmare. Give me Windows and WSL any day in comparison. At least there I know that basic stuff like clipboard and screen sharing/capture always works flawlessly, and windows don't magically get stuck to one aspect ratio and nost wasting my time trying to google fixes for snap/wayland/apt bugs.

Sure, some of these bugs I encountered could be Ubuntu, or Gnome, or Wayland, or pipewire issues, but as an employee, I don't have time to distro hop at work in search for the Linux experience with the least amount of jank or find out which component of this bazaar engineering efort is the one responsible for this jank.

Sure, I don't see ads in my Ubuntu install, but it's 2022 and the clipboard in Firefox in Ubuntu still stops working randomly, which causes me way more productivity loss than seeing a candy crush icon in the Win start menu. Firefox bug tracker says the clipboard issue fixed on their end whenever this bug gets reported and says it must be now a Wayland issue, while Wayland devs say this is a Firefox issue, meanwhile me and severa other Ubuntu users are complaining about our clipboards being broken in FF. FML, it's 2022 and I still can't have a working clipboard on Linux, one of the most used basic features on any OS. "Year of the Linux desktop." Yeah.

Not to mentions the lack of hibernate(not sleep) on Ubuntu. I spend almost an hour trying various tutorials and command line incantations that had the risk at bricking my OS, to get hibernate working, and no cigar, and I realized Ubuntu really, really wants you not to use hibernate at all cost. I never thought it would be missing a basic feature so simple as "dump entire RAM contents to SSD, then at power on, copy them back to RAM and resume". Sure, Linux boffins will tell me this is a limitation due to the use of Z-RAM compression or something, but me as an end user, I don't care which technical decision has lead to this limitation, as it doesn't fix my problem of not having hibernate.

Ubuntu is bizarrely terrible for being the main recommended distro. I have to assume they're heavily focused on the server space these days. It even shows ads when doing cli software updates these days! That's part of what people are trying to get away from in the first place!

It amazes me how much mind share Ubuntu still has with people. A lot of the Linux community has left Ubuntu over the past 5 years, especially since the Snaps were added.

LinuxMint is a vastly better experience today because it's focused on being the best for desktop users, while Ubuntu isn't any more.

>It amazes me how much mind share Ubuntu still has with people. A lot of the Linux community has left Ubuntu over the past 5 years, especially since the Snaps were added.

Not people, Ubtunu is what my company's IT departament provides everyone in the backend team use on our managed ThinkPads. I could protest, nuke it and spend time switching to Mint or something else based on 22.04 LTS that IT could also manage, but then I'm the one on the hook for any issues that arise with that one, and let's face it, it's Linux we're talking, no distro is ever bug free, they all show some jank once the honeymoon period is over depending on your hardware and software use cases.

I’ve never had problems with the clipboard or sharing. Unfortunately it sounds like you should use X for a few more years if you have no tolerance for issues.

Yes, X11 has virtually no bugs, but switching to X11 messes up touch pad gestures and gives me nauseating screen tearing when scrolling content, especially on my portrait oriented monitor. And no amount of googling command line incantations for xorg.conf or 20-intel.conf has fixed it (plus, a lot of the suggested answers were straight up wrong and would have bricked my display output if I just copied them from SO without knowing some Linux display driver basics), so back to Wayland and clipboard and screen capture/sharing issues.

This is in now way a good user experience.

Windows still beats Ubuntu hands down for me in terms of having less annoying issues that kill my productivity.

Unfortunately you’ll pay dearly with your privacy so not a free ride.

Oh boy. I tried, really. WSL2 is good enough to test things and run docker, but as soon as you try to run X applications, remote in with ssh on your laptop, or try to use full power, the limitations become clear soon.

I tried, on the new job. I've dealt with windows for 6 months, but 2 weeks ago I was sick of it. There is always something not working right. If a computer is a bicycle for the mind, Windows 10 has training wheels and a hysterical helicopter mom screaming 'you're gonna fall!' all the time. Death by a 1000 papercuts. I've reformatted it and run kubuntu now. I will miss excel, and online outlook is not as good as the real thing, but these are sacrifices I am willing to make just to get rid of the whiney drug addict called windows 10.

I'm not going to say Linux is perfect. Plenty of dumb cuts in there too. But at least it treats me with respect, at least the KDE world does.

Ymmv, of course. The job is great enough to let each run his or her preferred OS. As a recent escapee from a hyper standardized environment, I am loving it

Strange take. WSL2 _is_ Linux, running in a hypervisor with proprietary APIs for acceleration [0]. You're not using an alternative to Linux, you're using Linux that's been vendor-locked to require Windows.

[0] https://docs.mesa3d.org/drivers/d3d12.html

>People forget that tech trends often flow outwards from the nerds who will actually try something new, then evangelize it to the world - see chrome for example

trillion dollar marketing seems to be more important factor than "nerds"

see Linux for example

There's ofc Android, but people have no choice - you are either "rich" (outside US) and want to buy iphone or go with android

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