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[Unpopular opinion] Linux is not a good choice for regular users

I’ve been using all major OSes for a long time. I have the most experience with Windows, I’ve been using it since Windows 95 and stopped at Windows 8. I’ve been using macOS for about a decade and Linux (in total) for about 5 years. I have started with Mandrake, moved to Mandriva, spent over a year on Ubuntu and recently I’ve been using Fedora as my daily driver. And honestly, I’m running out of patience.

Few days ago I ran into the gpu driver issue. Long story short, Steam games started to crash on directx issue. Games that were working few weeks ago. I admit, I was mocking around with GPU drivers in order to make Podman containers to access the GPU. But I did the fresh diver install and it didn’t solved the issue (also my GPU was not found despite all commands showed it was there). I don’t have much spare time and I would like to play a game, I used to play before, without spending hours/days fixing issue that didn’t exist last time I played it.

But it’s not only about games. I have two laptops, both running Fedora 40 KDE spin. Some time ago on one laptop the power widget stopped working. It shows “no power profiles found on a device”. But when I delete the widget and add it again, it works fine.

Other issue is with the general look and feel. There are many apps that don’t follow the OS look - lack of window borders/shadow, random icons that don’t match the system, flatpacks having issues accessing system configuration (e.g. vscodium not recognising zsh as a default shell).

Few more problems I had:

  • on GNOME, some extensions where crashing without any reason
  • some apps don’t respect desktop scaling
  • bluetooth randomly dropping connections
  • syncing files between devices is always a struggle
  • you never know what’s going to break when installing updates

If you want a Linux like experience use macOS, and if you want to play games, stick to Windows.

BitSound , (edited )

For your bullet points:

  • Yeah, GNOME can be flakey with extensions. Almost no regular users will install extensions though. Windows also has tons of bugs and issues that users just ignore because it’s the "default"
  • Regular users won’t care about desktop scaling. I’ve seen people using the blurriest, weirdest aspect ratios on Windows because they liked it that way
  • Bluetooth sucks on all hardware and with all software, to various degrees.
  • Syncing files is trivial with Syncthing
  • MacOS keeps breaking my coworker’s setups with every update.

GPU issues can be hard, but that’s not really Linux’s fault. There’s a reason this image exists of Linus giving nvidia the middle finger:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e2037894-95e1-46d0-8d0b-2dd14b7ab923.png

That being said, it’s getting better. As of this year, nvidia has started putting some real effort into making things work with wayland.

EDIT: I’ve found nirvana with NixOS, speaking of GPU drivers. I just add a few lines to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix and it goes off and ensures that the nvidia drivers are present. I also run lots of CUDA stuff on top of that and it all works about as seamlessly as possible.

Findmysec ,

You must be LTT’s chaperone

fart_pickle OP ,

Thanks for reminding me, there’s also " supporting" linux community…

JustAnotherKay ,

GPU doesn’t work after being reconfigured

On GNOME extensions crash

“I made modifications to my system and broke it”

Syncing files between devices is always a struggle

Syncthing?

Never know what will break when updating

Read your updates before you do them?

Bluetooth and scaling are not issues I’ve ever run in to, but I can’t say they’re not common.

Basically, this whole post reads as “I messed with things that I didn’t properly understand and I’m blaming my computer for doing what I told it instead of what I wanted”

TruePe4rl ,
@TruePe4rl@lemmy.ml avatar

A Macbook Pro 2016 user here (MacOS and EndeavourOS dual boot)

KDE: some menu options freeze, can’t change keyboard layout

Me: slow transition towards i3wm, write some basic scripts to get what I want working

it took it like 7 months to finally have issue: dbus timeouts when launching some applications

Reinstalled and it works. Well has some issues, like audio and wifi take effort to get working.

Also I find Flatpaks a headache to work with. Easy to set up, but I would consider it rather messy.

I still kinda use MacOS. Would I recommend? Yes, but under specific circumstances. You may need to buy some software. I can get what I want with Homebrew (unless you –no-quarantine it verifies the apps after each update). Is kinda plug and play system when going from Apple to Apple, but in terms of customizability and functionality Linux is superior. Also newer MacOS is awful when it comes to storage. I don’t even know how it is possible for it to take so much space with it magical bits I don’t need neither want and can’t delete. Also get your wallet ready, since older Apple products lose support and you can’t simply upgrade your OS (technically can with some effort), so you can buy a new Mac. And I can tell you that it sometimes gets annoying when you can’t install things just because OS version. MacOS is not meant for much gaming neither for people that want to use it for development, it is possible, but harder thanks to its dir structure. Also it is harder to make MacOS builds and get proper scaling on retina displays (some apps get blurry). Also Mojave is the last OS version to support 32 bit (rip gaming). No Steam Proton. And you can’t just disable external monitors unless you unplug them (great for my modular setup with more than one machine and one monitor), which I find really inconvenient. The monitor is multi input but my notebook is stil outputting to that damn display and prefers it for launching applications on there. Meaning I can’t work on it without either this pain or disconnecting it with one utility I found that has an issue on github that you can’t reconnect the monitor unless you reboot. Also why can’t I set a 60Hz monitor to 60Hz and 30Hz is the maximum? (can do on Linux with no issue)

And did I mention I tried to run Krita on my MBP and it sounds like a jet? Yea, performance is sometimes great on weaker MacOS devices

So yes, go buy that awersone Apple computer, but don’t expect it to work flawlessly. There’s plenty of little details that in the end mess up your day and user experience.

I mean, if you have money for the newest Msomething macs then sure buy one, but if you want to buy older, look for those that can run Linux with decent hardware support, or you’ll regret your purchase.

data1701d ,
@data1701d@startrek.website avatar

While some of this can be a problem, I feel like using podman automatically disqualifies you as a regular user.

I think the more accurate title is “Linux is harder for medium power users who are already used to an operating system.”

I honestly feel I am unqualified to say how easy Linux distros are, as I often think to do things that a normal user wouldn’t, thus breaking my system in a way that doesn’t mirror what a regular user would experience.

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