Additionally, what changes are necessary for you to be able to use Linux full time?
Shit never works and I basically have to become a programmer and expert in CLI to get shit to work… until it breaks again. So after having to Google everything on how to do supposedly simple shit, I always end up going back to Windows and GUI’s because I don’t have time to become a developer.
Software. What’s a computer without software other than an over glorified calculator.
That was my first experience with Linux back in the early 2010’s and pretty much up to recently. However with changes to my workflow and Steam improving and sharing the improvements with Wine. My software library went from web browsing and office software t
99% of games, and all of my business software.
The UX experience needs some work under the hood. There is still a nasty tendency to over rely on the terminal to fix basic problems. (IBT=off for VM to work).
But its close enough that I can almost recommend it to my grandparents… Almost.
Linux is perfect for grandparents or non tech savvy family if you set it up for them. Once it’s up and running, there isn’t much of anything they can do to break it.
That is just a straight up lie.
It just doesn’t work. It’s a simple as that. Things are constantly breaking. When they do I look up support articles that are written in fucking Klingon and sent to the terminal to type in commands that always return some sort of generic error “command not found” or some shit because the solution is written for a different one of the 862700422 available distros.
I have no idea how to install all the different program types (flathub, db, appimage, etc.). Windows has exe. I click “install” and boom, it’s done.
Sometimes I try to remove software in the package manager and it acts like it is uninstalled but it’s still fucking there.
I can’t even select a file because there are no previews. Just a gazillion blue squares with names like “dlcosn_3947912947”.
And other reasons, but I digress. I don’t have time to learn a new career, I just want a computer that works.
I used Linux Mint for several years on a dual-boot laptop. I rarely found myself booting Windows. While there was a learning curve, Mint was fairly accessible out of the box and was generally a delight to use. Until it wasn’t. At some point, the drivers for my video card updated, and just flat broke everything. And I can’t really use a computer on which I can’t see the desktop. I waited. And waited. A fix for the driver may have eventually come, but after awhile, booting into Windows just became my default, until eventually I just wiped the Linux partition to recover the storage space.
It was fun while it lasted, and I may choose one day to give it another go for the fourth time. This wasn’t the first time I’ve had something like this happen. First time was with Fedora, and the second was Ubuntu. Each time, I had the same “it worked until it didn’t” experience, and each time it stopped working was usually some kind of broken driver making my hardware incompatible.
you don’t have to use all of the app containers things, pacman, apt or whatever your distro uses is often enough.
if you don’t have previews at all, your system is completely broken and fucked up
if you get a command not found, well you just need install the missing tool…
you don’t have to use all of the app containers things, pacman, apt or whatever your distro uses is often enough.
I don’t even know what these words mean.
if you don’t have previews at all, your system is completely broken and fucked up
What are “previews”?
if you get a command not found, well you just need install the missing tool…
…what tool!?
I’m constantly genuinely surprised at how Linux users are unable to grasp why people don’t want to use it.
Your points are all entirely fair. It also surprises me how quite a few people don’t get it.
And it’s not that many requisites to fix it either.
A) don’t break shit on updates. This is the worst thing that could happen.
B) There needs to be a clicky app store. Just one. No options. No pick your repos. No pick between flatpak and whatever else. Just a visual app store you click an app and it install. You click to remove it gets removed.
It’s seriously not that much you’d think.
Having that said. If you do choose to endure through the learning curve. It’s mostly worth it. But fuck. It’s such a dumb self imposed learning curve.
The biggest strength of linux, is also its greatest flaw and weakness.
Is that if people disagree with what a projects doing, they can split off, make their own version of the project, and now that has to compete with the other project, as well as the 5 others that are out there.
So things just keep diluting, and spreading out, when it should be going in the opposite direction for a good user experience.
I have no idea how to install all the different program types (flathub, db, appimage, etc.). Windows has exe. I click “install” and boom, it’s done.
That’s strange, I’ve always felt that installing stuff is a lot easier on Ubuntu than windows. It’s just
apt install <program>andapt remove <program>. Having to manually download and run an exe feels outdated in comparison.I can’t even select a file because there are no previews. Just a gazillion blue squares with names like “dlcosn_3947912947”.
Curious what distro you installed that had that issue. The only preview issue I’ve encountered was on win10 where I had to pay for windows to support H.265 to give me previews of H.265 files.
Things are constantly breaking. When they do I look up support articles that are written in fucking Klingon and sent to the terminal to type in commands that always return some sort of generic error “command not found” or some shit because the solution is written for a different one of the 862700422 available distros.
That’s a fair point though. If you aren’t willing (and most aren’t) to learn enough to be comfortable with the terminal, it can be very easy break something when you are forced to interact with the terminal.
There will never be a world where average users prefer typing arcane command line shit over clicking on a button in a GUI.
I’ve always felt that installing stuff is a lot easier on Ubuntu than windows. It’s just apt install <program> and apt remove <program>.
😂 Except that you have to know exactly what <program> is, character for character, and usually includes some long string of numbers and letters where 1 character is wrong and you have to retype the whole damn thing. This is the opposite of easy.
Curious what distro you installed that had that issue.
Fedora/Gnome
If you aren’t willing (and most aren’t) to learn enough to be comfortable with the terminal, it can be very easy break something when you are forced to interact with the terminal.
Yes and the problem is you’re ALWAYS sent into the terminal for absolutely any kind of debugging.
Except that you have to know exactly what <program> is, character for character, and usually includes some long string of numbers and letters where 1 character is wrong and you have to retype the whole damn thing. This is the opposite of easy.
If it a program you are unfamiliar with, yes you’ll probably need to search for the apt name and copy paste. I much prefer that over searching a website, verifying it’s not a scam site, then download the exe, and then run the exe once the download is finished. After the first time, just add it to a .sh script and then you can download every program you need automatically if you ever need to set up a new instance again.
I guess it’s not for all, but worst case it’s hardly any more work than needing to go to a website to download the exe.
Got a long one. I’ve gone back and forth a few times (I’ve landed on a dual-boot Windows 10 and Arch setup, maining Arch) (btw) and my biggest takeaway is this:
Mainstream Linux distros, like Mint, do have admittedly very polished basic experiences. The problem is, though, is that it breaks down as soon as you introduce it to unique use-cases or hardware features.
Linux, specifically stable distros like Mint, are already ready for mainstream use for people who use it for basic stuff like email, web browsing, desktop social media like Facebook, and so on. It’s also very usable for gaming, as we saw with Steam Deck, but still has issues primarily with adoption.
But if you have for example, a 2-in-1 laptop or a VR setup, things break down very quick. I had to configure my 2-in-1 manually and not everything works still, and VR is a joke if you don’t have a Vive or Index, and even that’s iffy. SteamVR is still extremely buggy and missing features.
Linux is, by design, configurable and open. This is both its greatest strength and weakness, because it allows users to set up their systems how they want, but only if they know how to. A truly “user-friendly” distro is simply not possible if you retain the configurability, which Valve knows, and is why SteamOS is locked down the way it is. This model is growing in popularity but it’s not quite here yet.
At the end of the day, I still use it despite these shortcomings because I feel it’s important. I should be able to look at the code and know what my machine is doing, and trust that it respects my rights and freedoms. This is why Linux, and maybe BSD, have to win. But for now, I still have a drive with Windows 10 because it’s just simply not a full experience yet, and that’s okay. For now
Basically visual arts software and some writing software. Additionally I have a free version of Ableton Live Lite 11 (so one music-making application as well) that came with my keyboard.
I mostly do photography, writing, and other visual arts type work on my two computers. I use quite a few photography and painting applications (Photoshop, ArtRage, Rebelle, Lightroom, Inspirit, and a few others; I’m also looking at BlackInk), as well as Scrivener and MS Office when I’m writing. I don’t know if any of those run well or at all in Linux or in Wine, etc. Also I stopped flirting with learning programming and there wasn’t much point maintaining a Linux machine after that. I think Linux is better than Windows all around, and I hate Windows, but it’s just because I use certain apps and from what I’ve heard and seen the Linux apps just aren’t as good.
TLDR, creative software that won’t run on Linux (to my knowledge, anyway).
I got tired of everything taking so much effort. I was almost always able to eventually wrangle what I wanted out of the OS, but every change I wanted to make and thing I wanted to try needed so much searching and learning. I wanted stuff that just worked, even if it was “dumber.”
That, and some parts of the community I ran into were really prickly. One that was especially memorable: I was asking for help on a big-ish project with a lot of followers and helpers and didn’t expect the lead dev to answer my question, but when he did, he felt the need to make a snide as hell comment about how I have no business being there if I’m going to forget to start a service. On top of the exhaustion I was already feeling, I had a massive moment of “okay my guy, I guess I’ll just fucking leave then.”
Anyway, it just feels better being a poweruser on windows. I know enough to keep it clean, safe, and slim (like using powershell to disable the bits they don’t expose to a settings UI, for example) – to truly admin my machine – without having to work so hard for it day in and day out.
Unfortunately, those kinds of interactions are inevitable when the developer/user relationship is so close. And it goes both ways. I saw a thread just yesterday where a user reported an issue on github, a second user said they saw it too. Later the first user posted a workaround to the issue, and the second user came back with “took you long enough”, and that was the end of the exchange.
Some people in the world are just dicks, but that doesn’t mean we should reject interacting with everyone. Similarly, a community of user-maintained software is going to have some asshats, but that doesn’t mean we should hand our computing freedom over to one or two corporations. Just my two cents.
Yikes, that is why I hate tech forums. Too many times I’ve asked an informed/thought out question I’m unable to find via search and the first replier basically says “hey go FUCK yourself.”
I’ve found this same type of animosity and superiority all over tech forums in general.
You’re not wrong, but running Linux directly correlates to more time spent on “tech forums in general,” so it’s still a bigger problem with that OS than others imo.
I’ve used both regularly for years and went back to Windows when I switched to PC gaming and it’s just so much better. Everything just works on Windows.
Linux really needs to work on improving its user experience if it wants to be a true competitor to Mac and Windows. All these little config tweaks and command line prompts you have to do to get things working on Linux just isn’t going to win a bunch of people over who are used to things being a few clicks on a wizard to get working.
Edit: it’s been years since I last tried Linux so maybe things have changed.
What software were you trying to install that you couldn’t install by simply clicking the install button in the software store?
Broken bootloader.
First time I ever seriously used Linux was for work, back when I was a developer. You’d have to pay me to use it again. I like gaming, but I don’t like wasting my time troubleshooting games. Nor do I enjoy debugging random crashes/black screens in random drivers. Sure, it’s fun, but if I’m gonna work for it, someone somewhere better be signing my overtime slip. Cause I get a few hours free per day, and I’d rather not deal with sigsegv anymore if I can help it.
Not to mention sound. My job as dev included using ALSA for some use cases. I don’t know if you ever had the misfortune to need to do that or how it went for you, but if I ever need to touch that shit again I will scalp Torvalds with a goddamn headphone jack.
I installed windows 11 when I bought my last PC. I figured I’d give it a shot, see if it’s as bad as all my dev friends say it is. You know how many drivers I’ve had to fix to make my games work? Zero. You know how many hours I spent debugging weird issues? Also zero.
There’s a reason windows has a price tag. And part of that reason is that it works better than free stuff. I’m a believer in FOSS, but if you’re a craftsman and you can’t hammer a nail without needing to adjust your hammer every few swings, you should find a hammer that’s not made out of silly putty and dreams.
Quite simple: When using Linux, I tend to play around, try different stuff, switch distros every couple of month… When using Windows or MACOS, I just use it as is and don’t try to break stuff. And while I could use Linux quite easily without breaking it, my inner child prevents me from using it this way…
Tell me your parents were upset at you when you were eight, for dismantling appliances, without telling me your parents were upset at you when you were eight, for dismantling appliances
I have to have a computer science degree to install a peice of software… I just wanna double click the installer icon. I don’t want to have to write out some long String in terminal to install software. And sometimes it’s different depending on distro.
I have to have a computer science degree to install a peice of software
No you don’t, you can search on wikipedia what a computer science degree actually is.
"I don’t want to have to write out some long String in terminal to install software. "
I’m no expert, but isn’t it literally just apt get (name of software) to download and install through terminal?
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I wouldn’t force the issue. Some people belong on Windows and I’d rather they don’t use Linux simply because I don’t want them complaining to developers that it doesn’t act like Windows. Linus Tech Tips already caused enough damage by doing exactly that.
There have been “app store” frontends for most distributions since at least 2012, and packagekit has the same CLI on every major distribution.
Everyone in this thread saying shit like that hasn’t tried Linux since 2004
I suppose I can technically answer this. I do use Linux full-time now and have for several years, but prior to that I had a few false starts where I’d switch back to Windows. Usually it was because I’d encounter some technical issue I just didn’t know how to fix besides reinstalling the whole OS, or a graphics driver issue. For example, at one point when I had an NVIDIA graphics card only the newest drivers from NVIDIA’s website supported it but the ‘stable’ drivers in Ubuntu’s repo didn’t, so I had to manually install the drivers. Except then whenever the kernel was updated by Ubuntu (basically every week) my display stopped working and I’d have to switch into a TTY and manually reinstall the drivers.
Now I know how I’d fix that (setup some rule to reinstall the drivers whenever the kernel updates, which I believe is now the default anyway), or use a PPA containing the latest NVIDIA drivers, or use AMD instead - but really any kind of problem that requires the user to both diagnose and fix the issue prevents non-technical people from adopting it.
I got tired of having to endlessly maintain it, vs windows which generally just works (no fighting with audio drivers, wifi drivers, gpu drivers, suspend to disk works without glitching, etc) and i like playing video games without having to deal with wine. Still run linux on servers, and my work desktop and laptop are linux since we have an IT department which maintains it for me.
I tried installing Zorin amd Pop_OS on my laptop, but the mousepad gestures, bluetooth, speakers, and a bunch of other small things didn’t work.
I just don’t have the time to tinker with it. I have an hour or two of free time a day and it’s hard to convince myself to spend it trying to get linux to work whenever I have windows that just works.
Plus, i found that people just weren’t helpful. Unlike some people, i didn’t come out of the womb knowing how linux works. I did research and fixed what i could, but some things i could’t fix. People were rude, condesending, and just not helpful whenever i would ask a question
Just not worth it for me at this moment
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I definitely felt that. It’s demotivating to feel like you’re being looked down upon for trying to learn an OS that they themselves promote so much
The anticheat for a game I liked to play with my wife didn’t work on Linux and playing in a VM barely worked due to the game’s outdated spaghetti code. It was more important to me at the time because the game was how I met her and at the time we weren’t dating yet, she was just a friend I was crushing on big time, enough to reinstall windows for her.
We don’t even really play it anymore, so maybe I’ll switch back to Linux. I still got mint installed on dual boot, just never thought about starting it up until now. I always did like how a couple of terminal commands could fix like, 99% of issues whereas windows says “Noooo… You have to reinstall me for the 20,000th time! It’s the only way!”
The reason you switched back to windows is dating girls?
