this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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No Stupid Questions

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What are the main criticisms of Linux in desktop platforms?

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[–] shyguyblue@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

For me, it was the lack of support for certain Wi-Fi cards. I had to pull an older Wi-Fi card out of an old Chromebook, because no flavor of Linux supported the card that came with the (Windows 11) laptop. And guess who has two thumbs and no Ethernet port...

Finally got it working, but at one point i was almost willing to have a USB tether to my phone, just so i wouldn't have to fight with windows anymore.

Edit: Just realized it said desktop, but my desktop also has Wi-Fi, i just haven't had the courage to switch fully from my Spectre Win 10 install...

[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

AMD has open-source drivers that play better with Linux distros. If you're running post-2020 Intel hardware, good luck.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 7 points 2 days ago
  1. Just installed Debian, no wifi

  2. Lots more stuff just like #1, such as my 10 year old and 3 month old Logitech wireless mice weren't detected, and support for them is (fortunately) only available from a third party, which I found by searching the web for an answer.

I could give you pages of why Linux doesn't compare to Windows for the desktop, which I'd follow with where it really shines - as a server for all kinds of things. It's so good for specific tasks that even VMware replaced their own Workstation virtualization with Linux KVM.

[–] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (6 children)

For me if an application isn't on the pop-shop then its very hard to install, I've had people tell me to just not download things from the internet, but when the application I need isn't on the pop-shop or the repos its a non-starter.

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[–] floppingfish@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm using Linux Mint for my daily driver for about 5 years. It works great with no ads!! I'm not a gamer and Libre Office works well for me so no significant problems with software. I also do some basic python programming on it. The more complex command line stuff takes a while to figure out but Mint has been great!

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I've never seen an ad on Windows. Not sure what people do to get ads.

[–] mbfalzar@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Open the Start menu, usually

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago

Good thing Everything bypasses the need for this.

Play Solitaire

[–] snek_boi@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I’ve had loads of problems installing software and making it work.

[–] jasep@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] snek_boi@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sure. Please note that I am quite ignorant and unskilled when it comes to Linux. I will seem like someone who’s got shoes on but doesn’t know how to tie them. I’m sorry. I wish I was more skilled and knowledgeable.

ProtonVPN installed via YAST worked on OpenSuse Tumbleweed but didn’t work in OpenSuse Leap.

RStudio in NixOS was hard to update. For example, during the switch to Quarto instead of only Knittr, there was a period where I spent months without updates. I was using an old, old version.

With NixOS, Fedora, or OpenSuse, installing Signal from a program packaged by Signal itself was not possible. There was a Flatpack version run by a contributor, but nothing by an organization.

I totally recognize that I could learn more and become a better user. It’s just a bit frustrating that these weren’t problems for me over at the land of Surveillance Capitalism OSes. I hope these problems are solved with time.

On non-Ubuntu distros, for ProtonVPN, I've had better luck using their CLI interface. It works just fine, it just means learning a bit of the terminal. I like the automatic killswitch, especially since I'm a habitual pirate.

Proton advises against using third-party repos, which I feel is sensible. But for all other options, I tend to appreciate the plug-and-play nature of .deb and .rpm packages and Flatpaks. Flatseal puts my paranoia at ease. Set and forget. :)

Proton's a bit behind the curve, feature-wise, but I trust them more than I trust NordVPN or ExpressVPN. For one, their advertisement blocker ACTUALLY works as advertised.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Bluetooth sucks on my fedora desktop

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

To be fair, Bluetooth sucks on Windows desktops as well. The hardware is just garbage a lot of the time

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

weird it's so good on my iphone

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Your iPhone was designed for Bluetooth, on laptops and desktops its an after thought.

[–] Flagstaff@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Bluetooth has been pretty useful for me; the only problem I run into is device detection, sometimes, but once the two devices pair, rarely are there further problems in the file transfer process.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'll blame the drivers (and some of that blame lands on MS).

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

Some of the cheap USB hardware are unofficial clones, which get disabled by the official drivers. The clones sometimes work in Linux, but not reliably. It can be really hit and miss.

[–] ocean@lemmy.selfhostcat.com 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The transition from ALSA to Pulse never really fully happened and a lot of backend stuff is still dependent on ALSA. If you ever find that you have an audio channel that is just not working for no apparent reason (like audio input), run alsamixer and check if the channel is muted there.

I've found this multiple times on new Ubuntu-derivative installs, and the channel muting in ALSA is not reflected anywhere in the desktop GUI audio settings and can't be adjusted through them, but nothing is technically broken - you just have to raise the volume on that channel via alsamixer. It's a very annoying gotcha.

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[–] JGrffn@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

I can give you my experience so far, seeing as the common criticisms of Linux usually boil down to unwillingness to try it as well as kernel level anticheat and Adobe products, and I....honestly don't miss either of them, but I'm mostly a dev and a single player games enjoyer, so not much to miss, really.

The speakers on my Razer blade laptop (running EndeavourOS, btw) stopped working randomly, but I'm not convinced it wasn't my fault since I did have to work on the laptop internals for unrelated reasons and might have screwed something up.

My webcam on my desktop, a Logitech Brio, has been acting up as of a couple of weeks on Bazzite, where the microphone keeps kinda dying and I have to unplug/re-plug the webcam to have a working mic. Also the audio quality on my Sony XM5s keeps changing to shitty quality, mostly when I do the re-plugging of the webcam, but it's happened at random times before. Gotta go change the codec on the audio settings every now and then due to it.

Monitor brightness can sometimes behave weirdly, not going back to a brighter setting after auto-dimming.

Games with kernel anticheat don't let me play online.

This has mostly been it, to be honest. There's a microscopic learning curve for Bazzite since it's immutable, so I have flatpaks for most stuff, and "figure it out" for anything else, but other than that, it's just better than Windows ever was. If you run into an issue, you're most likely going to be able to solve it with a quick online search or by consulting the eldritch hallucinations of OpenAI or of your choosing.

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