Linux has made significant strides, and in 2023, it’s better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: that desktop Linux is as user-friendly and productive as its mainstream counterparts. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it’s important to provide a clear review of where Linux falls short as a daily driver for average users.
EDIT: can I just make it clear I don’t agree with this article one bit and think it’s an unhinged polemic?
Linux desktop will, most likely, fail for: […]
- Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as there a few, but they all fail even at basic stuff like dragging and dropping a file.
This can’t be serious.
This one too:
Linux desktop will, most likely, fail for:
People that just installed a password manager (KeePassXC) and a browser (Firefox/Ungoogled) via flatpak only to find out that the KeePassXC app can’t communicate with the browser extension because people are “beating around the bush” on GitHub instead of fixing the issue;
Desktop Linux is a failure because this one specific thing doesn’t work right now in only the Flatpak version of this one specific application. Good thing every Windows app has 100% functionality and works perfectly as soon as it’s released lol.
lol - let’s also ignore the other installation methods of keepassxc that work for this specific use case
Also I’m not sure why it doesn’t work, but if it’s just a file access thing (which is usually the issue for me whenever a flatpak is acting up) then it’s like one toggle in Flatseal to unfuck it lol.
Because… it’s NOT just a file access thing. There are dozens of issues discussion that problem - that affects other browser extensions that also need to communicate other desktop apps - and no universal solution. Not even a working solution in most cases.
More info here: https://lemmy.world/comment/4678009
What if you wanted to use 1pass or LastPass? They work flawlessly as browser extensions.
Didn’t even see this part. Sure. Scp, a native Linux tool, has no gui. A sysadmin that can not use a console is no sysadmin. What a piece of bullshit
It’s true, this has been an issue that has stumped developers and sysadmins for decades. They cannot function without WinSCP!
This author be trollin.
Was it some being malicious with ai?
Like I can’t remember the last time I actually needed an FTP client, but FileZilla was fine on Linux a decade ago, I can’t imagine it’s got worse
I just use Dolphin.
Typical problem of switching OS and keeping the same aproache to using it. In little defence of that statement, Linux file managers don’t really announouce support for ftp and ssh inside them. There usually is Network tab that lists Network drives. Samba and media devices, forgot name of protocol, but ftp and SSH is a bit hidden in address bar.
I was about to quote the same.
… I mean, when you’re this clueless, maybe don’t put out ‘articles’ for others to read – it’s wasting everyone’s time.
I thought the title of this article was intriguing; because in the Linux community certain aspects of the desktop experience do get hyped; & there’s a tendency in general to sweep various usability issues under the rug, with the unwarranted confidence that we’re already “better than everyone else” in every way; though the article doesn’t address any of those.
Yes this article is absolute trash
Not sure why my post was downvoted so much, just wanted us all to enjoy laughing at its absurdity
FTP / SFTP and pretty much all of the transfer protocols are already built into every file manager in Linux. Who’s going to need a separate client for that?
…Im in sysadmin and github actions are like, 90% of my job.
And filezilla works like a charm. The fuck are they talking about.
However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: that desktop Linux is as user-friendly and productive as its mainstream counterparts.
Couldn’t agree more. We need to get rid of that stupid idea that Windows or macOS are anywhere near as productive as Linux.
Laptop computers have made significant strides, and in 2023, they’re better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: That a powerful gaming laptop is as user-friendly and productive as the Apple iPad, which is what everyone should obviously be using. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it’s important to provide a clear review of where these fancy “laptop” computers fall short as daily drivers for normal people like me.
PC gaming laptops will, most, likely, fail, for:
- People who need the App Store
- People that want everything to work exactly like it does on the iPad
- Anyone who wants a simple way to install Angry Birds without trying to use needlessly complicated things such as a mouse and keyboard
- Apple apps that won’t run because you bought a non-Apple laptop
- The performance overhead of that extra complexity costs at least 5-15% of what you’d otherwise expect from such a powerful machine
- People who need to run FaceTime and whose friends won’t consider any alternatives outside the Apple way of life
- Serious scientific labs with policies that require iPad-only data acquisition
- Musicians, artists, and customer service agents who’ve built their whole careers around iPad-only software
- Developers and sysadmins, because you’re probably administering Apple systems for which the iPad is indispensible
Laptop computers are great, I love them but I don’t sugar coat it and I’m not delusional like you.
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with other Apple iPad users then PC latop apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. But once you’ve got to work with other iPad users it’s “game over” — the “alternatives” just aren’t up to it.
iPads aren’t that expensive and they work right out of the box. Software runs fine, everything on the App Store is supported whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive laptop computer experience.
It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months? aeons?) you want to spend fiddling with a mouse and keyboard to set up things which simply work out of the box on the Apple iPad for a minimal fee. Buy an iPad! You know it’s the only sensible thing to do and the ROI will be fantastic!
You can buy a second-hand iPad for around €4 that comes with everything you’ll need. And every iPad comes with IOS for no extra charge, so why wait? Buy it! Buy it now!
“They hated him because he spoke the truth. I can’t even get “simple” apps like Apple iMove to run on my PC. And there’s some kind of “video card driver” that needs “updating”? No sane person could ever cope with this. No amount of googling or even the fabled tech support genuis of “chatgpt” was able to help me. It just won’t work. This whole Internet is delusional, if they think that laptop computers are usable for the average Joe and I’m an Apple iPad expert so I know what I’m talking about. It’s too much hassle. I just want to get things done.” — Average Joe
Still thinking that 2023 is the year of the laptop computer? Think again. The Apple iPad is all the computing you will ever need.
The thing with what you posted is that… none of it is wrong if you value iPad-style user-friendly above all. In the say way I value productivity and not having waste time fixing stuff that works out of the box under Windows.
I’m pretty sure the average person wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between something like mint and windows.
Linux is as user-friendly as the user wants it to be.
There us so much wrong with this article. From installing a fucking browser via flatpack, over ignoring the fact that office 365 is a thing to the fact that there are alternatives to Adobe.
Sure, not everything is perfect right now, and people have to learn new stuff.
I have migrated multiple people to fedora in the last two years. And guess what, regardless of type or age of user, they had no troubles with it to this day. They use gimp, play, have browsers with password managers, and write office documents. Yes. MS office.
Articles like this are one reason why people hesitate to make the switch. Doompainting, that’s all it is.
And what the hell are you talking about vrr? Kde, sway and hyperland support it for years now under wayland. Gnome still does not have it, but that is gnome.
And if more distributions would not per default use gnome, such misconceptions wouldn’t exist in the first place.
What rivals photoshop on Linux? Gimp is shit.
Photoshop Web is closest
Factual reasons for this please. Besides the horrible, privacy braking, AI stuff, what can photoshop do that gimp can not?
Collaboration with other Adobe users? Same thing with Office. If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once you’ve to collaborate with others who use Windows/Mac it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.
Factual will be relative, and no matter what I say you’ll find a way to turn this into a fight.
What other apps compete with photoshop besides gimp?
You started with “gimp is shit”, so why not provide reasons for it?
Or is this the apple vs android, coffee vs tea, stick vs automatic kind of subjective argument?
What other products on windows compete with photoshop in your opinion? I don’t get your reason>!!<
You answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.
The answer is simple, Gimp is the only “full featured” photoshop replacement. And the os doesn’t matter for this. There is no alternative in windows besides gimp. Apples products also fall short.
And now, why is gimp shit?
Affinity Photo is perfectly fine.
What are average users? That’s a really broad term. For example my parents and friends are considered average users and they all do their diligences on a web browser. So can they switch to Linux? Of course. For school learning about Linux and having to hand out work as a Word document hasn’t been a problem for me just use Microsoft 365 no problem at all. Adobe suite? Well there is plenty of tools capable of doing the work as good as you just have to take the time to learn them ,I agree on this one with author. But in reality I think we should all move away from Adobe their subscription is expensive , most of my classmates at my community college can barely afford a laptop to run Photoshop so it will be great if schools start teaching FOSS apps. If you are using keepass XC you can copy and paste a password and if you don’t want to deal with that use Bitwarden been using that for years. Virtual Manager is so simple to install and have a Windows 10 up and running in less than a hour.
I am a casual gamer and been able to play GTA V , Cyberpunk 2077 , Red dead Redemption 2 , Wildlands , Far Cry Primal , Spiderman remastered , Stray on my PC with little to no configuration.
Imagine Windows eventually charging you a monthly subscriptions and still collecting your data adding useless features like AI that will collect more and more data , to serve you better according to them. I don’t want that , that’s why I move from Windows to Linux. Was it easy? No but it was worth it :) to have the control back and the privacy I wanted.
Windows licenses are cheap and you get things working out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience.
It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.
This is wild lol.
On my dual-boot machine, I once had to spend an hour on the phone with Microsoft because I put in a new GPU and Windows decided that meant it was installed on the wrong PC and locked me out of it.
I’ve had my printer for years and it still doesn’t work properly on Windows. It prints, but it fucks up in subtle ways constantly such as setting the print scale to 100% which prints slightly larger. My SO prints sewing patterns so this can actually be a big fuck up.
I had to do a registry edit in Windows to get the fucking clock to display the correct time.
It can’t even turn off properly. About 40% of the time when I shut it down from Windows it’ll wait about 30 seconds and then turn back on again.
When I boot it from Linux, none of these things are issues and it just behaves like a normal computer.
Ahem, normal computer would be windows, it functions better than a normal computer
/s
A normal computer is a computer that is perpendicular to a plane.
Well at least you spent an hour on the phone and got it fixed. If you had the same issue under Linux it would be days of compiling stuff and most likely having to wait for the next big release to get it fixed. Meanwhile zero work done :)
Also your hardware must be really awkward / fucked up / old… because if every Windows installation behaved like that then entire countries would not work at all.
You have to edit the registry at install to get Win11 to install on most machines.
The fuck?
I am the average user. Linux is, and has been since at least 2012 when I started using it, been absurdly easy to install. You can get instructions for it in seconds, follow the directions, and you’re done in twenty-odd minutes. And I mean done as in you can do any of the basics the average user needs to do. If you wanna tweak things, that’s longer, but still as easy as windows (or easier in some aspects).
My fucking mom can handle a mint install, and she’s an idiot in regards to computers.
I think the biggest issue with linux on desktop/laptops is simply that most computer users are just not savvy enough to be comfortable installing themselves and feeling like they can fix it if something goes wrong and most come with Windows.
Steam deck has entered the chat.
Steam deck is proof that it is possible to sell linux based devices, but so is chromeos and android. Steam deck is more of a Switch alternative. I doubt most are using it’s desktop mode.
Some major manufactures sell Linux laptops/desktops running linux, but you usually have to buy those directly from their website and you won’t find them at local retailers and mostly targeting those who already run linux and want a linux compatible device out of the box.
Linux is definitely a suitable os for most these days as the most widely used use cases are web based. Even Edge is on Linux now and MS’s biggest non-windows product is Office and Office365 which has web based options. The ads on windows are getting to the point that I could see an opportunity for a company though.
I think the steam deck is becoming the first computing device for a lot of young people that had iPads, and it’s going to be a desktop computer for a lot of aspiring and broke college students. It’s definitely a gateway device.
It can definitely be used as an inexpensive computing device. I wonder what percentage of people use a docked devices in general which is really the only practical way that works with a deck on a regular basis. Screen is really too small for serious usage as a general computing device without docking. Linux will get some users from steam deck, but I wouldn’t expect a large percent and those are the more confident computer users.
Sad mafia troll posts today.
It may be true for some professional applications but Linux fits really fine in my life and would also fit really fine in most of my family’s life if they had the courage to get rid of windows.
About gaming, I don’t know, but most people just use their computer for browsing and administrative tasks so they should be okay.
