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Comment by labrador | Hacker News Reader

I guess I'll be the contrarian in the thread: My main machine is Windows 11. I recently bought a refurbished laptop to make it a Linux torrenting machine with ProtonVPN. I first installed Fedora, which I hated. Where's the mininmize window button? Why are scrollbars practically invisible? What's with the hideous cartoonish desktop? I switched to Ubuntu, which I'm more familiar with. Installing ProtonVPN was an absolute nightmare. If I hadn't had so much experience with computers and if I didn't have AI helping me I would have given up. Windows 11 is a pleasure to use. I can't say the same about Linux desktop.

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Story of the last 20 years. Linux desktop isn't made for day-to-day use precisely because it's been built by nerds, for nerds. Way too much "well if it makes sense to me, it should make sense to everybody" logic in its design decisions, and ultimately you need to be able to drop into the Bash terminal and screw around to even get to 80 percent of the functionality a Windows machine will give you dropped-in.

Linux is for servers and dev work, not day-to-day use.

I've stopped recommending Linux to other people. I use Linux every day as my main OS. I haven't used windows in over 5 years and I'm happier for it. But there is a learning curve no doubt. I happen to love what Gnome does, but it's definitely unlike any other desktop environment. If you're up for learning something new, and/or software freedom is important to you, I think Linux is definitely worth it. If you just want "Windows without Microsoft" you're in for a bad time.

Honestly KDE probably gets close enough to windows. I have only used it on top of arch, which was a decision knowing that I'll be messing about more with the system, but if you installed KDE over something like Debian, it may be very close to the Windows experience. It certainly feels like Windows 10, and KDE's settings page has most of the important configuration in it.

Fedora is not tied to a desktop. Though I recommend Mint/cinnamon for sanity. You may have to reach into the control panel to augment the scroll bars, that is sadly a sickness endemic to the whole industry.

I've read comments like yours in the past few days about Fedora. It seems strange to me that Fedora defaults to a lousy desktop when everyone says there are better available. I can't think of any other software that has the same philosophy "We know we ship something terrible but all you have to do is install this other thing to fix it."

It's because Gnome is not "lousy" it's just not what you like. I love it, but you're free to use something else if you don't like it. They even have an official Fedora edition with a more traditional desktop installed.

https://fedoraproject.org/kde/

What is the rational for removing the Window minimize control?

The idea is to have programs grouped into workspaces. e.g. You can have a browser on workspace 2, email on workspace 3, editor on workspace 1, etc. Instead of minimizing, you swap to the workspace you want with a hotkey. Gnome is designed for a keyboard driven workflow you can drive the whole thing without touching the mouse if you want. For me, it's an amazing way to work.

I use workspaces AND minimise windows, not having it is maddening.

That's a problem for people like me who came up on the Mac and switched to Windows. I like a mouse. I'm good at using a mouse. It feels like keyboard people are saying "we're going to take away your familiar mouse options because you'll learn to love the keyboard like us." I know how to use a keyboard obviously. However I'd rather not memorize key combinations to get my work done. There's a kind of arrogance in the Linux desktop community that in my opinion mirrors the arrogance of Microsoft who says "we're going to shove CoPilot on you whether you like it or not."

Arrogance in the GNOME desktop community.

Unfortunately us folks who grew up on sane, usability tested interfaces are not in charge anymore. A disease that has spread across all OSs. Recommend Cinnamon, KDE, XFCE in order of least traditional to most traditional window controls.

Also there is a dconf setting to configure titlebar buttons for GTK/gnome decedents. KDE has a GUI.

The difference between the Linux community and Microsoft is on Linux you are free to use whatever you want. There are a ton of distros (even Fedora/Ubuntu versions) that have KDE out of the box. If you don't like Gnome, you don't have to use it.

I'm happy Gnome exists, but you do you.

People like to rage, and rage about how Gnome killed their father or whatever and I just get tired of the constant hate towards a workflow that I actually like.

It’s fine, even commendable to try something different. But to radically change default interfaces is a bad idea. They should have picked a new name and become an option.

Another ridiculous outcome is that gnome is unable to produce a touchscreen video player despite (15 years of prior art on the ipad) and cosplaying touchability all the while.

FWIW, adding it back is just a checkbox in the settings.

> What's with the hideous cartoonish desktop?

Have have you used a version of macOS made in the past 5 years? Fischer-Price is the new Jony Ive.

I have, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. Macos looks sleek and professional, always has.

Yosemite looked sleek and professional, Catalina looked sleek and professional. Big Sur and Liquid Glass look like Windows 8 design rejects. If you can't see the writing on the wall... good luck.

They literally look 95% the same. Most people looking at Tahoe probably barely notice anything has changed. Hell, it looks not that different from what it did 10 years+ ago. You’re massively overstating the change.

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