this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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Chicken and egg. Linux is roughly 4% of the OS space. If more people would get on board, it would become a better tool. I use both. Windows because I have to. Linux because I want to.
Linux missed the mark years ago. It's not a lack of people using it, it's a lack of usability for people. You're blaming users because Linux doesn't work for them.
My standard response to "just go Linux" :
I keep having to say this, as much as I like Linux for certain things, as a desktop it's still no competition to Windows, even with this awful shit going on.
As some background - I wrote my first Fortran program on a Sperry Rand Univac (punched cards) in about 1985. Cobol was immediately after Fortran (wish I'd stuck with Cobol).
I had my first UNIX class in about 1990.
I run a Mint laptop (for the hell of it, and I do mean hell) . Update: stopped running Mint on that laptop, it'll never be viable for the intended use-case. Power management is a joke. Configured as best as possible, walked in the other day and it was dead - as in battery at zero, won't even boot.
Windows would never do this, no, Windows can never do this. It is incapable of running a battery to zero, it'll shutoff before then to protect the battery. To really kill it you have to boot to BIOS and let it sit, Windows simply will not let a battery get to zero.
There's no way even possible via the Mint GUI to config power management for things like low/critical battery conditions /actions. None, nada, zip, not at all. Command line only, in the twenty-first century, something Windows has had since I don't recall, 95 I think (I was carrying a laptop then, and I believe it had hibernate, sorry, it's been what, almost thirty years now).
There are many reasons why Linux doesn't compete with Windows on the desktop - this is just one glaring one.
Now let's look at Office. Open an Excel spreadsheet with tables in any app other than excel. Tables are something that's just a given in excel, takes 10 seconds to setup, and you get automatic sorting and filtering, with near-zero effort. The devs of open office refuse to support tables, saying "you should manage data in a proper database app". While I don't disagree with the sentiment, no, I'm not setting up a DB in an open-source competitor to Access. That's just too much effort for simple sorting and filtering tasks, and isn't realistically shareable with other people. I do this several times a day in excel.
Now there's that print monitor that's on by default, and can only be shut up by using a command line. Wtf? Again, in the 21st century?
Networking... Yea, samba works, but how do you clear creds you used one time to connect to a share, even though you didn't say "save creds"? Oh, yea, command line again or go download an app to clear them for for you. In the 21st century?
Oh, you have a wireless Logitech mouse? Linux won't even recognize it. You have to search for a solution and go find a third-party download that makes it work. My brand new wireless mouse works on any version of Windows since Win2k (at the least) and would probably work on Win95.
Someone else said it better than me:
Now I love Linux for my services: Proxmox, UnRAID, TrueNAS, containers for Syncthing, PiHole, Owncloud/NextCloud, CasaOS/Yuno, etc, etc. I even run a few Windows VM's on Linux (Proxmox) because that's better than running Linux VM's on a Windows server.
Linux is brilliant for this stuff. Just not brilliant for a desktop, let alone in a business environment.
Linux doesn't even use a common shell (which is a good thing in it's own way), and that's a massive barrier for users.
If it were 40 years ago, maybe Linux would've had a chance to beat MS, even then it would've required settling on a single GUI (which is arguably half of why Windows became a standard, the other half being a common API), a common build (so the same tools/utilities are always available), and a commitment to put usability for the inexperienced user first.
These are what MS did in the 1980's to make Windows attractive to the 3 groups who contend with desktops: developers, business management, end users.
All this without considering the systems management requirements of even an SMB with perhaps a dozen users (let alone an enterprise with tens of thousands).
It sounds like many of your problems could be fixed by installing kde plasma6 instead.
Whoosh. This happens literally every time anyone comments about how difficult Linux is, someone just recommends some other distro or obscure fix (this time a new desktop). You’re literally missing the actual problem here because you’re always trying to solve strange problems on Linux. The fact that you know a solution to this and the solution isn’t continue using your current system but instead install a new graphical interface is the exact problem that the person you’re responding to is complaining about.
You're just assuming that installing KDE was a solution to some obscure problem he had instead of it being his existing system.
That's how it's been for me at any rate. I read a lot of the original post while thinking 'I've never had that problem.' After the first day of setting up the installation, I don't really do any meaningful tweaking of the OS. Personally, I switched over from Windows because I was tired of fighting it to make it behave how I wanted and solving obscure problems with meaningless error messages.
I think this supports his argument. Having to research desktop environments to decide which is optimized for the potential problems a new user may face, then finding a distro that packages that DE is quite frankly too much for the average user.
I’d argue between 3% and 5% of PC users are willing to research and experiment to find the flavor of Linux that truly works for them.
Linux has come a long way, I still remember using Gentoo as a daily driver and seeing Linux cross 1% of desktop share, but the average desktop user doesn’t know the difference between a kernel and a colonel, and they don’t want to.
It's a moot point, because the average user doesn't install any OS on their system. They get people like us to install it for them.
They don't generally solve their own Windows problems either. OEM is the real bulwark of of Windows dominance. Usability and familiarity is one aspect, but I've set a good few people up with Linux at this stage and very few of them know what a kernel is, or what Plasma/Gnome are, because they don't need to (same way they didn't know or care what NT was either).
Nah, completely wrong take.
Linux can be adapted to fit any use case you have, and that’s an important part of its flexibility. What you really are getting at is that mass producing a machine with an OS built into it is convenient for consumers. See Android phones or Steam decks for evidence of this convenience being important to the sale of Linux based devices.
In the not too distant future, windows will go out of fashion for the home desktop PC. Someone will sell a cheap and cool arm based PC with a decent distribution. It will be a slow win, nothing like what we saw from macOS.
Linux has 4% of the pc market. This is an all time high. The fact that you think linux is a threat in any meaningful way tells me that you're either too stubborn or too stupid to see why linux as it stands today will never even reach 10% of the market ever, let alone become the dominant platform.
Windows could become a yearly subscription at $500 per year, and linux would struggle to reach 6%.
he was wrong but you are way overcompensating. if windows suddenly became exorbetantly expensive, most people would just stop using computers altogether (its already easy for many people live with just a phone no PC). The remaining computer users (not counting businesses) would be enthusiasts, who are much more likely to enjoy the tinkering of Linux, or put up with it to avoid exorbetant costs. so without even gaining anymore users, Linux's desktop market share would shoot up.
to be clear I don't think Linux Desktop taking over is imminant or "near future." thats nuts, it will probably always be a niche for enthusiasts and thier families/friends. but its also not going to stay eternally at 2-4%, the user experience is constantly improving and encompassing more hardware.
I know several people who would switch over to Linux if Windows cost that much and it would be: everyone I know.
Spitting facts. I generally use Linux for any server need, but I’m convinced that people using Linux as a desktop have absolutely nothing to do all day and can spend all their time researching, tweaking, and installing a mishmash of software to make it usable for them.
The best desktop experience I’ve had with Linux is Fedora Kinoite and ironically it cuts against the grain by locking down the base system and making it immutable. Same thing with Bazzite on my TV PC. I can just sit down and achieve my task I needed a computer for without having to waste time screwing around with anything extra.
I use Linux as a desktop/laptop OS specifically because I can't stand fighting Windows getting in its own way all the time. I want an OS to support my work/art/gaming and not waste my time with ads, a useless start menu, 2 fractured settings subsystems, surprise updates that require long reboots and reset user settings or obscure useful functionality, meaningless error messages, etc.
While generally better than Linux as a desktop, Windows does shit the bed a lot. MacOS is the best desktop OS IMO. Sane defaults, nothing visual I really feel like changing, built in apps are all solid and they, and the entire system, all play nicely with one another. It also somewhat does immutability.
It feels like Linux UI and UX developers (generally speaking) are more interested in doing things different for the sake of different rather than using common sense. Personally, I just find it annoying. It’s like that one episode of The Office where they made that triangle-shaped tablet. Linux desktops are that triangle tablet and will unironically preach about how it’s actually the most efficient way to use a tablet, completely ignoring that 97% of computer users have always used a square and will be using a square for decades to come.
I still don't really know what you're talking about and you haven't really given any examples. Why talk about fictional triangle tablets when you could ideally just give a concrete example that makes your point?
The fact is that I use Linux as a daily driver and it doesn't eat up a lot of my time. It eats up far less time than Windows did. That's why I'm using it. Several of my less tech-literate friends and family use it too.
I agree with you on many of the MacOS points. I wish others would take lessons from their level of integration, but the flipside is that their ecosystem sometimes walls other things out (the need for expensive proprietary hardware, lack of games, etc). If it works for you, it works for you, but it doesn't work for a lot of people.
Oh, ok. Fair enough. How about the Unity and/or Gnome3 dock as an example? Windows historically: taskbar at the bottom, app menu first icon. MacOS historically: dock at the bottom, app launcher second icon. Unity: Putting our dock where everyone else is? Nonsense. It’s on the left now which isn’t any easier to use. 🤡 Gnome3: App launcher as the first icon? Who’s going to want to ever find and launch an app? Stick that useless icon at the very end. 🤡
It’s just being different for the sake of being different, not because it makes more sense or is any more intuitive. Frankly it’s just hipster app development.
That’s it? It’s not any easier to use, but is it any harder to use? The app launcher is to the right instead of the left? Or the bottom instead of the top?
Sorry for the follow up question but what makes that such a difficult obstacle to surmount for new users? It’s not like it’s hidden away behind other menus, it’s literally just on a different part of the screen.
That seems like such a minor difference that I’m genuinely baffled you brought it up. Are you similarly bewildered by the minimise/maximise/close buttons being on the other side of a window in MacOS? Or how MacOS docks the program toolbar at the top of the screen instead of in the program window?
Why not just use a KDE distro? Then MacOS would be the outlier for weird design decisions against Windows and Linux.
You asked for an example. I’m not going to spend a lot of time thinking of the best example when any example will do. For some, sure it’s more difficult. Like that fake triangle tablet. Is that something you could get used to or learn to live with? Yeah, but why should you spend time learning how to “fix” it when everybody else does it a different and standard way? For a desktop it’s also one of the most important UI elements on screen FYI. The first introduction to a new user shouldn’t be to confuse them for no reason.
But I’ll circle back to it’s just being different for the sake of being different, not because it’s better or easier. Unless you have some point on how it’s somehow better and more intuitive, again, it’s just hipster app development.
Re: KDE, I do use it on the Linux desktop I rarely touch. It’s also used on my Bazzite box for if I ever need desktop mode. The KDE defaults aren’t perfect but they’re the most sane of all the environments I’ve tried, and believe me over the last 22 years I think I’ve probably tried them all at some point. Calling any example I bring up trivial would be fine, but aren’t your gripes with Windows also trivial and something you couldn’t just work around?
It just really isn't an example that 'will do', though. I'm not saying it's a trivial problem; I'm saying it's not a problem by any stretch of the imagination. If the app launcher being on a different fixed part of the screen is a problem to you, then you should just stay away from computing in general. I know, however, that it's not a problem, which is why I'm calling out your example.
Okay and on the note of different for the sake of being different: back to the MacOS examples I provided: why do MacOS dock the program toolbar at the top of the screen and only show it for one focused program at a time? Is this not in contrast to how everyone else does it? It doesn't offer any meaningful improvement and is slightly less functional (when multiple windows are open simultaneously). Why is this the best desktop OS and not just 'hipster design'?
Random mandatory updates which steal my computer's focus, force reboots and often reset user settings aren't trivial to me. They waste time and they happen with predictable regularity. Any given workaround might be randomly undone at the next update. Using a tonne of RAM and processing power in system idle is also not trivial. Encrypting my hdd and locking me out over minor occurrences as designed implementation is not trivial. Whatever is coming in copilot is not trivial.
These are just examples off the top of my head. KDE could programme their app launcher to dodge my cursor every time I tried to click on it, and I'd still take it over Windows for ease of use.
To me, every Windows gripe you just listed is trivial to work around. What I’m saying, perhaps poorly, is why should I have to work around them. Why aren’t the defaults sane and just work? KDE has the most sane defaults to me for a Linux DE that follow written and unwritten industry standards, but generally speaking it’s the exception and not the rule and I’d still prefer using something else. Using Linux as a desktop is irritating. Just a lot of “why is it like that? That’s dumb.” It’s not that it’s just sooooo impossible to use a desktop with a launcher in another position. It’s that I think it’s a stupid decision and have to spend time researching if and how that mistake can be fixed when I shouldn’t have to. It’s ok to stand on the shoulders of giants and do what everybody has been doing and expecting for the last 40+ years.
Why does macOS stick the toolbar along the top? Apple thinks it’s better UX design to have a unified area for that UI element regardless of window position. Makes sense. Passes the sniff test. Gnome sticking the bar on the left edge enhances the user experience and makes the environment easier to use? No, doesn’t pass the sniff test. But I agree, macOS does toolbars different. I would prefer if Windows adopted that design too. But if something deviates from a standard and you have no reasoning to how it improves anything or enhances the UX, hipster design. Different for the sake of being different.
And that’s just bizarre. That Windows needs 4GB of RAM and can’t have a low idle processor is trivial to you, but the app launcher icon being in a slightly different place in a Linux DE provokes your bewilderment is actually just lunacy.
Again in trying to make your point, you’re giving your reaction to examples you don’t provide. I get that you find Linux irritating, but you’re not really attempting to qualify why that is. When I provided examples of how Windows wastes my time, you just dismissed them as trivial. So all I can conclude is that the problems you’re coming up with Linux’s design are so trivial that you can’t even think of them.
I actually move the taskbar to the side of the screen in any OS that will let me. Why? Because screens are wide and documents are vertical. Makes sense to me. Just because you can’t fathom a design reason for it, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Does it being on the left really necessitate research or a learning process on your part? No, so why are you pretending it does?
A unified position for every program toolbar doesn’t objectively increase functionality, but it has the downside of forcing the user to focus the window before they can access the toolbar. In my opinion it’s a slight net decrease in UX. It seems like it’s mostly done to be different.
You must be fun at parties
If you want to run Spotify, Linux really isn't your thing. Now, aside from Autodesk (I'm not an engineer, but I think FreeCAD doesn't come close), you can easily use Linux to work. It is much better for programming also. Windows puts so many proprietary barriers into programming that you actually need a minor version of GNU (MinGW) to make C++ work. Want to program something on C#? You should have this proprietary Visual Studio. Wants something for Android? You will need proprietary Android Studio.
The environment is just different. Every thing is built around people expecting to make money out of proprietary software. That's Windows. It's built by proprietary for proprietary. It encourages people to put absurd licenses into the most minor of works. "Wants to automatically lowercase a text? Hey, you should be profiting out of that!". "Wants to automatically copy and paste a text to many boxes? Oh my, you should be profitting out of that, clearly!".
It's another environment. Don't compare Windows as if it were more convenient because for programmers, and for ordinary people in many cases, it certainly isn't.
That said, I agree that Office 365 is a flagship, but maybe that flagship is sinking.
Thoroughly enjoyed this post thanks. I have long wished for a FOSS OS that can truly become popular by considering these users and carving a mainstream path for them. Even - for people who don’t even know what terminal/shell is and don’t care.
Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. For what it's worth, I haven't run into laptop problems like those you described.
You've reminded me that people who declare "linux isn't ready" often make the same mistakes:
Proficiency with any tool takes practice. More so when you don't have an abundance of good mentors and pre-packaged solutions for what you want to do with it. That doesn't make the tool bad. It doesn't mean it lacks usability. It mostly just means that you haven't learned how to use it yet.
Edit: Split the rest into a separate comment, since it wasn't really addressing anyone specific.
Thats ALL PCs.
Alright, fair enough. But then within the linux operating system, it should make those islands official sources for quality information. Make them easier to find.
Nope. (example) (example) (example)
(And if you don't like ready-made PCs, you can always build your own.)
Heh. It would be nice to have such things handed to us on a platter, wouldn't it?
In reality, there is no central organization in a position to speak for the whole linux ecosystem, and a great deal of the work and knowledge comes from unpaid volunteers acting on their own. Standing out from the noise on the internet is harder than you might think.
However, there are companies selling direct support, and communities focused on specific topics, and wikis run by some of the most popular linux distributions, and classes, and books, and various other good information sources.
And, even if you have no money to spend, you will eventually come across some of the community-maintained gems just by regularly dedicating time to learning. Finding good info gets easier with practice.
I was going to write a reply to that guy about how linux doesn't work for the common man, but then you come in and write shakespear level articulation that blows away my tiny brain cell reply.
It's just such a complete analysis of the situation. The only thing missing is how linux requires you to use the terminal. Yes, REQUIRES. People can say it doesn't all they want, but go on any self help guide, and any problem you have, is "step 1, open terminal".
What would you say to someone who doesn't know what terminal is?
"Ok, open terminal?"
"Whats that?"
"Its like a command line, but better"
"Whats a command line?"
And this is why 96% of people AREN'T using linux. Most windows users don't understand how windows works. Most drivers don't understand how cars work. And linux you HAVE TO be a mechanic to use linux. Because unlike windows and mac, linux isn't designed to be used by idiots. And most of the world are idiots. Hell, I'm an idiot.
And until linux can fix itself FOR the user, no user will even take a look. Even if there were a single distro that did all that, you'd have to convince people "this linux isn't like the other linux". It's the main reason that even though Android is linux, it stays far far away from that branding. It doesn't want the linux stink.
And from what I've seen, every developer WANTS linux to be hard to use. Like a right of passage. "I had to endure these learning curves, and so shall you!"
I really don’t understand the objection to using a terminal to get things done. It’s just a window that you can type text commands into. You don’t even have to come up with the commands on your own, you find the ones that solve the problem on the internet, copy and paste, and boom problem fixed. How is this different from looking up a solution to a Windows problem that walks you with a series of pictures through using Regedit or Group Policy Editor, only instead of pasting text into a terminal, you have to click through dozens of menus, trees, and tabs to find the setting you need to change? You’re still looking up solutions online in either case, but the Windows solutions require navigating windows with dozens of mouse clicks versus copying and pasting some text in Linux.
Me: My fan doesn't work.
Internet: To install fan copy this command into terminal.
Me: does that.
Computer: error.
Internet: ????
Me: ?????
And 5 years later I still can't turn on the fan.
Is that supposed to be a real example? It’s just that fans are controlled by the BIOS, not the OS, so fixing a fan problem would usually involve either updating your firmware, which I have never seen done via a terminal command, or changing a BIOS setting, which could involve rebooting and holding a key like F2 to enter the BIOS settings menu (not Linux, usually a quasi-graphical mouse-driven UI) to change something there.
Thats what I'm told to do. My raspberry pi says it took.....but my fan isn't on.
Take the spaces out.
Wait, this is for a Raspberry Pi? I thought we were talking about Linux as a desktop OS. You wouldn’t run Windows on a Raspberry Pi, so while I’m sorry you’re having trouble with your Pi’s fans, I don’t see how that’s relevant to the merits of Linux as a desktop OS.
I have heard this argument for over 20 years.. "You have to use the terminal in Linux, so user hostile".
Well, try to do ANY windows sysadmin tasks without Powershell.. See how far that gets you. Need to manage Exchange? Powershell. Need to change some network settings? Powershell.. It is even getting more and more unavoidable. Now Powershell doesn't even have a good terminal environment, sane parameters or good usability. And a general lack of documentation for all the obscure incantations.
In the meantime KDE on Linux is wonderful, fully integrated with the system, easy software maintenance (on Kubuntu for example) and with a sane settings menu... You hardly need a terminal at all. Try to find that in Windows.
So sorry, this argument is either invalid, out of date or Microsoft is even worse.
You do not need to use PS to manage network settings. And no normal user has any clue that exchange even exists much less needing to modify it. And saying that PS doesn’t have good documentation is laughable comparing it to bash. Listen, I hate windows just as much as you all do, but it is most definitely more user friendly than any Linux distribution out there. No windows user ever needs to even touch PS much less program network settings with it. Literally the fact that you need to even open the app at all is a massive fucking downside to Linux. Users don’t want to type out “weird incantations”. They want to click a button, select from a dropdown, or in the case of many many many drivers, do absolutely nothing at all.
The fact that you had to call out a specific nonstandard desktop environment to support your case for Linux being easy to use is exactly the point that several other people in this thread are trying to make.
I'm sorry, you're arguing in bad faith or have a huge case of Stockholm Syndrome.
But, just look at their Troubleshooting documentation where they tell you to drop to the terminal.
My point is that Microsoft has stopped making new buttons and dropdowns and refer you to new Powershell incantations for most new settings. Just look at how many options the new "Settings" app offers compared to the deprecated Control Panel.
I've been using Windows personally and professionally since 3.1, and Windows 11 was the last straw that finally got me to jump over to Linux for my home PC. I hate what Windows has become but I've got a lot of history with it. My experience with Linux (Mint FWIW) has been as smooth as it ever was in Windows, neither of which was perfect. I'm a definite convert from Windows and would encourage most people to consider taking the leap themselves.
I gotta disagree with you about modern Powershell and terminals in Windows, though. Good terminal? Windows Terminal has been around for years now. It's fast and functional. Whether Powershell's parameters are "sane" is probably a matter of taste, but I'm definitely willing to stick up for its usability. Yes, the parameter names are much more verbose, but they all get tab completion out of the box, and you don't have to type the full names at all, just enough of the start of the name to be unambiguous. For personal automation scripts, I think Powershell is way ahead of Bash. Parameters get bound automatically without needing to write
for/caseloops withgetopts. You can write comments at the top of the file that automatically get integrated into Powershell's help system. Sending objects through the standard pipeline means you spend a lot less time and code just parsing text.I don't know what powershell is. I just use control panel. Even though I have Windows 7, I have it laid out like Windows XP, because thats what I know.
So if I wanted to do something in network, I go to network settings.
Ha, then stay on Windows 7/10 or you'll lose your control panel soon..
Well if you like control panel, I've got good news for you. Upgrade to Windows 8/10/11 and you'll get two of them. :)
That's a marketing problem, not a functionality problem. The terminal isn't really hard to use.
People used BASIC easily back in the 80's. My mom did it back then, and she isn't tech savvy.
I've been trying to learn it for 15 years. The only thing I've learned is that sudo stands for super user. Outside of that, I've learned nothing about how to use terminal other than copy/pasting other peoples commands.
If you've been unable to learn some basic command line in 15 years perhaps computing is not your forte.
Well, not linux. I do just fine on windows 7.
For most cases, you need to use the package manager (apt is the standard for Debian-based) . You also need 'grep' to select a specific phrase sometimes.
But that problem normally occur when you are using proprietary software. You'll need to download packages (wget), add repository packages and run shell scripts for most proprietary software, and I think most people would use copy-paste in those scenarios.
.........do what now?
You post this same thing all the fucking time. "Someone said it better than me," this guy decides to install random shit and run whatever command he can find and it, shockingly, doesn't fix the problem?