If anything will finally result in the “year of the Linux desktop,” it’s shit like this. No one wants their operating system actively working to make it harder and more annoying to use their choice of applications.
The OS isn’t the reason anyone uses a computer, it’s the applications it can run.
(my personal experience)
A couple of months ago, I bought a new laptop that came with Windows 11. I turned off the safe boot stuff, plugged in a Linux USB drive, wiped out Windows, and went to it.
The next 6 weeks or so, i spent about 75% of my time reading articles that included things like, “In order to get this non-Microsoft program/service/etc. to mostly work (‘will still randomly crash, we don’t know why’), you have to get Linux to pretend to be Windows, here is a lengthy process, different than how you made Linux pretend to be Windows for that other program.” The other 25% of the time, I was reading articles about why I chose the “wrong” Linux flavor, and that was the cause of the rest of my problems. “We know you have this wide choice of Linux options, but if you don’t pick this one variety of Linux (that has a fair amount of controversy), no one wants to support you, sorry.” (this just sounds like Windows, with extra steps)
Some of these things to me were basic, like, running Windows I have a good amount of control over the CPU speed, which indirectly helps me manage how much noise the fan makes. The Linux options were “Do you want the worst CPU speed or best? That is all we can do.” Or, i wanted to connect to a hosted file sync service, which it could only do through it’s own graphical file manager, that not all installed applications supported, and that WAS NOT SUPPORTED ON THE COMMAND LINE. An app, built natively for Linux, didn’t support the command line. (meaning, i couldn’t open the command line and see the mounted remote source in the folder structure and correct file names, it was mounted there, but all the file names were IDs in one giant folder) My brain broke a little that day as someone that has dabbled with Linux for Server for 3 decades.
I feel like anyone that has tight enough app expectations where Linux/Windows doesn’t really matter, is probably someone who would be well served by a Tablet and could stay entirely out of the whole conversation. I really wanted Linux as my primary OS, and I worked hard at it, but I have a family and 1-2 jobs, and just couldn’t spend any more time fighting the OS to run basic apps/have basic control. Went back to Windows, installed WSL and a Linux on VM, and spend less time fighting to get non-MS things to work.
edit: For the people down voting, I would love to hear how my personal experience was wrong. I had what I considered basic needs that were not being met, and so I altered what I was doing until I could gain enough information to try again, rather than staring at an expensive doorstop. :)
You are mostly right. Its tricky to get into Linux.
- Linux is not for running windows programs. Linux alternative of such programs suffice my need. although some can be installed using wine but its highly likely you will likely run into bug. Some apps such as adobe suite, office 365, etc won’t work at all.
- Those distro recommendation websites are garbage, don’t trust any of them. There are “basically” three main flavours
- Arch
- Debian/Ubuntu
- Redhat
Everything else is just based on them. Like pop os, Mint, Zorin are basically same under the hood. You can make any distro do whatever you want.
For Steam/games, i was trying to run “windows” stuff, as the games were not native. For other things, like sound (never worked right), Blender (took me a few days to learn i had to run Blender through an app that forces GPU), or the file sync, they were supposed to be native. But I was doing a lot of fighting. I wasn’t reading distro recommendation sites, I was trying to troubleshoot issues. “Here is how you fix this issue on Ubuntu, no instructions for any other flavor).” (but I installed a derivative of Arch because I was interested in the rolling release instead of fixed releases, and turns out there was significantly less troubleshooting material)
I might go back again, maybe with a dual boot scenario, and try again without
Arch wiki is the most comprehensive Linux wiki. Try that.
My experience was 100% different. I bought a new laptop, plugged in my Linux USB drive, wiped Windows, installed Linux, and did exactly none of the things you went through.
And that’s largely down to two things:
- The fact that I bought a laptop specifically known to have excellent Linux support.
- The fact that I’m a software developer.
So everything I want to do on a computer tends to work better in Linux than in Windows, rather than the other way around. My compile times are faster, my IDEs are more stable, and my OS just… gets out of the way, which is exactly what it should do.
Mind if I ask what programs and services you were trying and failing to run on Linux? You’ve got me curious, because our experiences are so different.
- When I decided to get a new laptop, I failed to look for reviews of Linux driver compatibility while making my selection. That one is on me. I’ve run Linux on servers for so long, where I need network only and no graphics, sound, or even input usually (just remote in), that I forgot about the driver limitations.
- I’m also a developer. :)
Sound never worked right, occasional app worked, but not most things. CPU control was touchy, and this new laptop on full performance drowns out the TV on high volume, so I need fine control to manage the noise in order to stay where the family is and still use my system. :)
Blender was a problem until I learned you have to use “prime-run” (or something like that) to force the dedicated GPU, then that started working. Was trying to determine a system to make 3D environments (like Unity, Unreal, etc.), but didn’t find anything great, and then found out that that a secondary interest of VR/VR development is poorly (or not at all) supported on Linux (something about the window manager not managing display access correctly). File syncing with services like Dropbox and Google Drive were problematic.
Then of course is gaming. I have a small handful of games I enjoy, and after a couple weeks I finally found a Steam setting using an older Proton version that worked well enough (but a lower overall performance compared to native Windows), with only occasional crashes for no reason.
Driver/System support can also be a bit spotty. I had problems with a Live Linux instance blow up the speakers on my old laptop, and the line-out left channel on my current desktop, because the default volume was maxed out, and that was way too loud for them to handle.
It’s a bit better now, since a lot of distros come with a relatively simple graphical installer and defaults that cover most use cases, but even as a relatively technical person, it was a massive pain sometimes.
We do get some Linux systems, like Chrome OS, or Steam OS, but I doubt that it will go mainstream as a fully functional desktop. Not only is it not monolithic, where you have the Lemmy problem of there being a hundred different distros, but there’s an expectation of someone being technical to both install and use it. Never mind that each distro has its own package manager and package versions.
Just look at LTT’s Linus Sebastian’s attempts at using Linux. He’s more used to Windows, so inevitably ends up breaking things because he has no idea what he’s doing, being in the gap of having a little technical knowledge, but not that much at all.
but even as a relatively technical person, it was a massive pain sometimes.
I’m glad to hear this… I’ve been writing code and using Linux on servers since Red Hat (pre-fedora) had “Redneck” as a language option… But so often I get told, “Oh, you must be a technical newbie, because real techies can handle recompiling the kernel in order to get everything to work…” ( rolling eyes ) There is a world of difference between a headless server, and wanting to use an OS for your primary direct interaction. :)
Vanilla OS 2.0 sounds like it could be for you. That distro can install everything. I mean everything. Ubuntu stuff, Fedora stuff, Arch stuff and whatever else!
How is it with Windows applications?
It really depends on what kind of applications you’re talking about. There are still a number of things it can’t run (or well, probably without a lot of meddling around to get there) in the professional space, like CAD. Hopefully this will change over time.
For a lot of these products there are free alternatives available, but they often don’t cut the mustard and/or aren’t worth retraining for.
Another thing you should consider before choosing Linux is hardware support. This is often lacking in Linux. For example, your fancy tablet might work fine as a tablet, but if you want to configure anything about it you might need windows depending on the device.
The good news is, you can try it without worrying about harming your windows install by doing it say on a usb stick or hdd. It’ll only cost you time and effort.
I would assume as any other distro. Windows applications are run through Wine or Proton on Linux. I am not currently using Vanilla OS on my machine (using arch btw), still waiting for the stable 2.0 to dive in deeper.
To run Windows applications I would install flatpak package support in any of the subsystems (arch, fedora), then install Bottles for Windows applications and Steam or Lutris for games. Never tried Lutris for applications but it might work well too.
Thanks, I’ll look in to this and maybe dual boot and try it out. I tried with Arch/Garuda and liked the window manager experience, but ultimately ran in to problems.
This result is predictable for a lot of different things that started as products and seem to be ending up as services.
Microsoft wants Windows to be a subscription service with the associated perks to the company (namely, targeted ads, and also extreme control over anything the system does, including this ad scheme), and so an increased number of people seek a more traditional OS.
The movie industry pushes streaming down everyone’s throat as a highly fragmented market where media ownership no longer exists; thus an increased number of people start to return to physical media.
Car companies push to paywall features of their cars behind subscription services. An increased number of people seek used cars which have no such paywalls.
The patterns are clear, in my view, but the C-suite is always driven by a naïve lust for ever-increasing profit.
I’m seeing that Linux market share is slowly but surely rising.
Give it a break, Linux will never takeover. Most end-users can’t figure it out and corporations don’t want the hassle.
My mom was making an effort to understand Ubuntu just before she died…
Where possible I always use local accounts on Windows, none of this signed in to MS bullshit.
At work we can only use Edge. But we search using Google. Which you had to fight Microsoft to do. “Do you really want to change your default search engine?” Yes, I’m required to use it and Bing is annoying. But while searching on Google using Edge it is annoying the corner pop up asking me if I want to switch to Chrome. I can’t, stop asking! I want to switch to Firefox but I want all of them to shut up about “switching”, “downloading”, or “trying”.
Gotta keep the shareholders happy with the pyramid scheme.
