Don’t get me wrong. I love Linux and FOSS. I have been using and installing distros on my own since I was 12. Now that I’m working in tech-related positions, after the Reddit migration happened, etc. I recovered my interest in all the Linux environment. I use Ubuntu as my main operating system in my Desktop, but I always end up feeling very limited. There’s always software I can’t use properly (and not just Windows stuff), some stuff badly configured with weird error messages… last time I was not able to even use the apt command. Sometimes I lack time and energy for troubleshooting and sometimes I just fail at it.
I usually end up in need of redoing a fresh install until it breaks up again. Maybe Linux is not good for beginners working full time? Maybe we should do something like that Cisco course that teaches you the basic commands?
It’s the same way Mastodon and the Fediverse is so damn frustrating to many people. They don’t want to have to think and just want shit to work.
I can’t say I blame them when it comes to going with what’s comfortable.
I used Windows and Linux while in school so it’s what I got used to. Whenever I use MacOS I feel incredibly lost
I’m fine with Linux and techy stuff for my personal life.
My work stuff has to work. Always. Enterprise solutions are the only way I can get that without a personal army of IT guys.
macOS and iOS both have their own feel that just isnt intuitive for me.
I’ve been a windows user forever and ever (well, DOS before that…) but iOS feels intuitive as fuck to me. I was an immediate Android adopter (HTC Dream/G1, then the successor G2 immediately when it was released) and when my partner got an iPhone, I played around with it for like five minutes before I was like “holy shit this is smooth.” I’ll never go back to Android (well, I couldn’t now anyway since I don’t touch Google services or products)
Next weekend I set up my first linux box since 2008, though, and I’m nervous. But excited.
This is oft repeated but is short sighted, it is NOT that people do not want to think, it is that they don’t have the time and energy to constantly fight their devices to perform simple tasks.
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On the flip side try to get Linux to play back audio at above 48,000 Hz without breaking absolutely everything that isn’t already at the desired sample rate.
In Windows it is 5 clicks.
The few times a have some minor issue on linux, it is probably audio related or related to working with multiple different screens with different refresh rates, resolutions, etc, so you probably have a point.
However, I did have various issues with audio and multiple screens on windows as well, I would say even more frequently. However, on windows those issues were generally resolved after a restart, on linux I actually had to do some troubleshooting.
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Attacking people because there are valid criticisms of Linux, which you haven’t refuted at all, shows how utterly stupid you are.
Yes there are valid criticisms of Windows. No that does not give you a pass to attack people who use it, they have made their own choice.
One device, which you admit works with the correct drivers, doesn’t remotely compare to a glaring flaw with audio that I can find first mentioned in 2002 still impacting Linux today.
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Windows plebs
Yes you clearly meant that in an endearing sort of way.
It goes both ways, that’s what Windows plebs don’t understand. All the issues Windows plebs …
Does it make you a patrician to use Linux? Are you a father figure now to society?
We plebeians are just waiting on your glory to shine upon us, o high one.
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Calling anybody a pleb means everything you say is discounted. You have an arrogance that’s wildly unhinged.
I wish you luck, o wise patrician. May the glory of Rome shine forever upon you.
Try something simple in Windows like setting custom keyboard shortcuts… insanely frustrating.
You can set macro’s under Mouse and Keyboard center (though only in win11, welcome to 1995 Microsoft!) You can set a keyboard shortcut for a program under a shortcut’s properties (since at least a couple of editions ago).
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@somedaysoon @Cypher MS powertools allows some of those stuff, though not nearly as well. AHK is every easy to setup and get into even compared to some of the linux equivalents.
It goes either ways and one needs to find the way to make it work on either system. Often she exact same approach might not work in both.
it is that they don’t have the time and energy to constantly fight their devices to perform simple tasks.
Nobody wants to constantly fight their devices to perform simple tasks, but that’s exactly the reason why I almost exclusively use linux and get incredibly annoyed when I have to use windows (for business reasons)…
Sure, linux based systems often take up more time until you find the right system for your needs and for your hardware, you will have some effort to find alternatives to some software that you might be used to and depending on what software you need, linux just won’t be an option for you, but once that everything is set up, at least in my personal experience, things run a lot more consistently and expectedly in my personal experience.
Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m just lucky, but I have been using linux exclusively for about 3 years now on a desktop, multiple laptops and obviously servers. Have I experienced any issues? Yes, there were small issues from time to time, but nothing that I would not have with windows. But in terms of day to day operations and performing basic tasks, linux has been the superior user experience for me without a doubt.
I used to believe that linux is great for servers, and sucks for desktops and laptops, but ever since I made the switch, I have completely changed my mind. I still use windows because I have to, but the most annoying part of switching to linux was that windows has become even more annoying to use.
This. I get a wild hair every couple years to daily drive Linux and there’s always something small but crucial that breaks within a day or so and there’s no way for me, a relative novice, to fix it.
Example: I picked up a old ThinkPad on ebay last year. I put Ubuntu on it and after a day or two the wifi just stops working. No error messages. Nothing. I tried digging into the settings via ui with no luck. Googling didn’t help because I couldn’t tell what was helpful, unhelpful, or would have been helpful but is five years out of date.
After a few days of trying to make it work, I just threw on windows and haven’t had any issues since.
I’ve always had the opposite experience, especially with hardware like older thinkpads. Trying to use windows, everything runs so slowly, I have to try to find the right wifi and sound drivers from the manufacturers website, and make sure you get the right driver version that works with Windows 10. Then windows update runs and overwrites your drivers with Microsoft drivers that don’t work.
Installing Ubuntu, everything works straight out of the box, don’t need to go hunting all over the internet for installer packages.
I have to try to find the right wifi and sound drivers from the manufacturers website, and make sure you get the right driver version that works with Windows 10.
Meanwhile these drivers don’t even exist for Linux
I’m pretty sure every thinkpad uses network adapters with linux drivers.
Sure, and ThinkPads make up like 1% of computing devices.
Fair, but the person above you was talking about ThinkPads… Laptops with network adapters that have no Linux drivers are very rare. In the large majority of cases network adapters have drivers in the kernel, and almost all of the rest have drivers that need to be installed after. I used to work at a PC shop where I would very often use a Linux live CD to test hardware if Windows was having issues that seemed to be driver related. 90% of the hardware we worked on were laptops, so I booted Linux on a lot of them. There was never a laptop that didn’t work out of the box on Linux. They certainly exist, but they are not as common as you think they are.
Whenever I’ve used an old Thinkpad with windows on it, it has been slow to the point of being unusable. Linux is much better in this regard, let alone after a few years of use.
Except can’t trust corporate clowns to keep shit working… Once they they obtain market share, they start doing weird things, recent example win11 where they make it less useable just because fuck plebs.
Yeah but everyone has a different line of what’s too far. Just like reddit, many knew things were getting bad but didn’t actually leave until recently. No doubt Microsoft will eventually piss me off enough to switch but for now I barely use my pc as is so it’s not worth the hassle.
Good news! Sh.itjust.works!
Shit ain’t working
Ahahahaha
I’ve resorted to just creating accounts for other people for them, updating the avatar and profile, following people and hashtags that might interest them, and then just handing them the login info.
Remember that Android is Linux-based – so keeping that in mind, a massive amount of normal users use Linux on a daily basis.
I think the key is, operating systems are meant to exist in the background. If it’s working well, you don’t think about it at all.
This is always a hilarious conversation because the diehard Linux users will lie up and down about how Linux has no problems and it’s just you that’s too dumb to understand how to use it.
Linux user here, also once upon a time a Windows admin. I think the most difficult thing for most users is not that Linux is difficult, but that it is different.
Take Pop_OS for example. For the average “I check email and surf the web” user, it works wonderfully. But most people grew on Windows or Mac so its just not what they’re used to. Linux is kind of the stick shift to Windows and Mac’s automatic transmission… its not hard to learn, but most folk don’t choose to make the effort because they don’t need to.
The following sums up my experience with Linux thus far: “It’s never been easier for the newb to jump right in, but heavens help them if they ever stray from the straight path”.
There’s been a lot of effort to make things easier for a newb (used to Windows and all that shit) to do what they need to do in most cases. There’s been all sorts of GUI-based stuff that means for the ‘average’ user, there’s really no need for them to interact with the command line. That’s all well and good until you need to do something that wasn’t accounted for by the devs or contributors.
All of a sudden, you’d have not only to use the command line, you may also have to consult one of the following:
- Well-meaning, easy to understand, but ultimately unhelpfully shallow help pages (looking at you, Libre Office), or the opposite: deep, dense, and confusing (Arch) Wiki pages.
- One of the myriads of forum pages each telling the user to RTFM, “program the damned thing yourself”, “go back to Windows”, all of the above, or something else that delivers the same unhelpful message.
- Ultra-dense and technical man pages of a command that might possibly be of help.
And that’s already assuming you’ve got a good idea of what the problem was, or what it is that you are to do. Trouble-shooting is another thing entirely. While it’s true that Linux has tons of ways to make troubleshooting a lot easier, such as logs, reading through them is a skill a lot of us don’t have, and can’t be expected of some newb coming from Windows.
To be fair to Linux though, 90% of the time, things are well and good. 9% of the time, there’s a problem here and there, but you’re able to resolve it with a little bit of (online) help, despite how aggravating some of that “help” might be. 1% of the time, however, Linux will really test your patience, tolerance, and overall character.
Unfortunately, it’s that 10% that gives Linux its “hard to use” reputation, and the 1% gives enough scary stories for people to share.
People hate Linux because shows they aren’t computer experts, they’re just Windows power users.
I’m a devops engineer, so I understand Linux well. I actually used exclusively Linux all throughout university.
Linux works just as good as windows for 98% of my uses cases. And for the 2% that it doesnt, I can probably figure out how to get it to work or an alternative.
But honestly, I usually just don’t want to anymore. After working 8 hours, I’m very seldom in the mood to do more debugging, so I switch to Windows more and more frequently.
If this is my experience as someone who understands it, most normies will just fuck off the moment the first program they want to run doesn’t.
There’s a lot of little things to you need to learn, that you don’t learn until actually messing around with in Linux which absolutely make or break your experience with Linux, and that Linux users will mock you for asking about.
For a lot of people windows just works how they want it, so when they’re convinced to switch by a friend/family member/youtuber they now have to relearn what was incredibly easy for them, which absolutely will cause frustrations regardless.
And a lot of Linux dudes get really defensive and elitist when you ask them to explain or help, like screaming that you’re afraid of the command line when you’ve just never needed to use it before. So the initial learning curve is rough, to het more or less what you had before(For an avg user)
Like. I’m sorry, but having an issue keeping you from using your pc, and only getting advice to read the documentation of the distro, when you could have just kept windows, is going to frustrate people
The command line is always going to turn people away from Linux. I’ve only had to use the command line to fix a windows issue once in the past 10 years while I regularly have to use it every time I have to work with Linux.
People like convenience and will almost always go with the more convenient option even if it’s not the best option.
Until the majority of issues can be solved using point and click (and help forums show that method over command line), Linux will always lag behind Mac and Windows.
I’ve been exclusively using Linux for almost a decade now. I started in high school when the computer we had at home was painfully slow with Windows. At start, it did seem a bit hard to wrap my head around. I was a kid, and there was no one who used Linux to teach me. I guess the installation etc. are much simpler nowadays. And the online spaces are much less toxic.
Even after all that, the main reason, I believe, is that it’s different. If someone is using a stable distro like Debian, and just wants to do what 90% of people do (i.e. browsing, looking at documents media etc.), Linux isn’t really a hassle. The installation process might be daunting to some people. But after that, they don’t need to open a terminal ever if they don’t want to. My sister is basically tech illiterate, and she’s been running Mint for a few years now. Never heard any complaints. Only issue she had was when she deleted her
.configfolder. But I had set up a script that backed up dotfiles to her external drive, so it was easily fixable.People get frustrated because whenever something happens on Linux, and they go online, they see all these walls of text that they need to read, and commands they need to run. But they forget that on Windows and Macs, that isn’t even an option. Most of the time, you need to reset your system. Or, in the case of Macs, get it replaced. The frustration that people experience is caused by conditioning. They accept the inconveniences of Windows and Macs because they grew up with it. But since Linux is new to them, the shortcomings stick out much more.
TL;DR: For the average user, the OS doesn’t matter (they should probably still use Linux for increased privacy). For the power user, unless some specific applications they need are missing, Linux is always the best choice. The frustration is mostly due to conditioning.
Have at look at this: https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian
I found this to be invaluable when I was borking stuff all the time.
the year of Linux ladies and gentlemen
My first experience with linux was Ubuntu. Sue me, it was listed under most “most user friendly distro” listicles when I wasn’t smart enough to realize those were mostly marketing.
It worked fine for my purposes, though it took getting used to, but it would wake itself up from sleep after a few minutes. I would have to shut it off at night so that I wouldn’t wake up in a panic as an eerie light emanated through the room from my closed laptop. I did my best searching for the problem, but could never find a solution that worked; in retrospect, I probably just didn’t have the language to adequately describe the problem.
Nothing about the GUI was well-documented to the degree that CLI apps were. If I needed to make any changes, there would be like one grainy video on youtube that showed what apps to open and buttons to click and failed to solve my problem, but a dozen Stack Exchange articles telling me exactly what to do via the terminal.
I remember going off on some friends online when they tried to convince me Linux and the terminal were superior. I ranted about how this stupid sleep issue was indicative of larger, more annoying problems that drove potential users away. I raged about how hostile to users this esoteric nerds-only UX is. I cried about Windows could be better for everyone if the most computer-adept people would stop jumping ship for mediocre OSes.
I met another friend who used Arch (btw) within a year from that hissy fit, and she fixed my laptop within minutes. Using a CLI app nonetheless. I grumbled angrily to myself.
A few years later and everyone’s home all the time for some reason, and I get the wild idea that I’m going to be a(n ethical) hacker for whatever reason. I then proceeded to install Kali on a VM and the rest is history.
The point being that some people labor under the misguided belief that technology should conform to the users, and because we were mostly raised on Windows or Mac, we develop the misconception that those interfaces are “intuitive” (solely because we learned them during the best time in our life to pick up new skills). Then you try to move to linux for whatever reason and everything works differently and the process is jarring and noticeably requires the user conforming to the technology–i.e. changing bad habits learned from other OSes to fit the new one. The lucky few of us go on to learn many other OSes and start to see beyond the specifics to the abstract ideas similar to all of them, then it doesn’t matter if you have to work with iOS or TempleOS, you understand the basics of how it all fits together.
TL;DR Category theorists must be the least frustrated people alive
For most people computers are just the same as cars. People want a car that will drive them from place to place, are easy to refuel, easy to operate, and can be taken to an expert for anything difficult or that requires specialized knowledge. Same for computers. Most people want a computer to navigate the web, install the apps they are used to and that their friends use, is easy to operate, and can be taken to an expert for any involved work.
Even the friendliest of Linux distro don’t check all those boxes. You cant get ready support from a repair shop, many of the apps are different or function differently, and it doesn’t receive all the same love and attention from major third party developers as Windows does.
Most people could learn to use Linux; it’s not that hard. Most people could learn to change their own oil. But for most people, it’s not worth it. For most people it’s not the journey, it’s the destination and cars and computers are just tools to get there.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind being more knowledgeable about cars. I’m just afraid to touch anything, because I figure I’ll break it and incur a massive bill to replace whatever part I broke. PC operating systems carry no such risk; you can give up on whatever you’re trying and reinstall your old OS at any time without paying anyone anything.
Even PC hardware isn’t that risky to tinker with. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than a car; lots of people have old, obsolete, but perfectly functional PCs lying around that they’d like taken off their hands; most components are within easy reach; and the component that isn’t within easy reach (the power supply unit) is pretty tough to break.
Every software generates errors, problems, and weird bullshit. The main difference I see in this regard, is that Linux usually explicitly tells you what’s wrong, and there is always at least couple of ways to deal with it. You have a range of solutions, you have paths to understand and fix the problem, or at least copy enough random commands from StackOverflow to either fix it or break it completely.
With other OS you kind of stuck. Either your problem has a solution someone already thought of, or there is nothing to be done.
As an example, my colleague and me bought the same bluetooth headset, and it didn’t work out of the box neither with his windows machine, nor with my Linux. He did the usual reinstall drivers - reboot - reconnect - google shit routine, didn’t find a solution, and returned the headset. I did my routine, found the patch for bt-pipewire app, applied it and it finally worked. Later he said “your Linux is stupid, you always have to do some complicated stuff with it, and my windows just works”, but I couldn’t hear him over the sound of music I was enjoying with my new working headset.If you want a fair comparison between Windows, MacOS and Linux then I think its wrong to compare distros that don’t come pre-installed when you buy your device.
Not one single MacBook owner had to install their OS and configure drivers etc. None of my family, friends or coworkers had to install Windows on any of their PCs (I know that some people do but not in any of my social circles).
Consider Pop_OS from System76 or Tuxedo OS from Tuxedo Computers, they have identical user experiences as Mac or PC:
Step 1: Buy computer Step 2: Turn on Step 3: Answer some one time setup questions Step 4: Get on with your life
If you have the opportunity to build your own PC and fresh install an OS from scratch then when you come across a problem that you don’t have experience with you will be understandably frustrated.
Specifically Windows has the advantage that hardware manufactures always make drivers for Windows. If your hardware is supported then the Linux OS installation is not very different, but when the hardware is not plug-and-play then configuring Linux becomes its own kind of frustration torture.
TL;DR Get your computer with the OS already installed, then Linux is no more frustrating than a Mac or PC. Install Linux yourself and your mileage may vary.
