Linux

Oh! Came up with a new one, though it’s more of a unixism than a Linux specific thing.

I really wish that the core utils and other cli tools had a standard structured output option, like yaml, json, or toml so that it would be easier to parse rather than all of the random regular expressions needed when piping output around.

Edit: And it would be great if we also picked that same format for config files instead of all the bespoke stuff in /etc.

Its users

• audio - Most of the time it works, but there have been plenty of times that after an install, I have to go in and make a handfull of changes to get it working.

• "you are using it wrong" developers - Lookin at you, Gnome, Mozilla and Pottering. Yes, you are donating your time, and I appreciate that, but don't be dismissive of people if they bring up valid issues. If you just don't want to fix problems, that's fine, but just be honest about that, instead of blaming the user.

• sleep/hibernate - I've never depended on sleep or hibernate to work properly. I gave up on that years ago, and whenever I come back and try it again, I remember why I gave it up.

• documentation - As a seasoned linux person, I love man-pages, but they are soooooo obtuse and hard to parse for newbies. I also hate it when the website has mountains of documentation, but they couldn't be bothered to put that into the man-pages.

• video/wifi drivers - Yes, I know that this is mostly a problem because of the manufacturers. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem.

• unsympathetic users - Just because it works for you, doesn't mean it works for other people. I can't wait for year-of-the-linux-desktop, but it just isn't there yet. As soon as you have to tell a non-tech to open a terminal, the vast majority of them are out. You and I know that 'editing /etc/somedir/somefile and running /usr/sbin/somecommand' is easy, but sooooo many of them don't know what that means, nor will they care. I hear that windows is pretty bad nowadays, but people will often stick with the devil they know.

We have awesome distributed systems like Kubernetes (rke2, or k3s as easy distro examples) BUT no desktop usage.

I want a distributed desktop dang it. My phone, my smart tv (media PC), my gaming computer, my SOs gaming computer, my router, my home lab, etc, etc should theoretically all be one computer with multiple users, and multiple interfaces.

I have spent way too much time fiddling with audio, both in PulseAudio and Pirewire. Granted, this sucks even more on Windows.

Weird how my absolute favorite thing about Linux is how easy and simple installing software is, at least on Arch. Never touched a flatpack or snap or whatever else they're called for my 13+ years if use.

The community's general overestimation of the average person's tech capabilities.

Not necessarily fair to pin this on Linux per se, but there's hardware that doesn't work well or at all still and alternative solutions still aren't there. So this would be mostly on companies making software for Windows but not for Linux, but it's still part of the Linux experience that I do not enjoy.

I have to troubleshoot things on Linux more than I did on Windows.

My one major complaint is audio in general. I've had so many audio issues. If you need an eq or noise canceling it's a pain to get it working. There's always a bug somewhere, always a random distortion.

Voicemeeter is the only thing I miss about Windows. I really do.

Having to install apps manually and figure out dependencies myself because a popular piece of software only officially supports Ubuntu and Debian. No normal human would ever do this. They would go back to Windows. Hell, I still haven't even gotten one piece of software to work on my new OpenSUSE system yet: Beyond Compare 4. There's no flatpack for it. The RPM test says all dependencies are satisfied, but when I run the program, nothing happens. I did some web searching, but I haven't dug too deep yet.

Why are there so many package managers with such different syntaxes? And why does one repo maintainer decide to call it "package" and another calls it "package4"? Or some entirely different name! It's maddening. I've had to create empty proxy packages that translate package names just to install some RPM file. Again, the average person is not going to do this.

In KDE plasma, the first thing most people do is set up Wi-Fi on their computer, but you need to set up KWallet first or else the password gets stored in some other dimension. I accidentally typed my Wi-Fi password wrong, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to clear it out and make it ask me for the proper password when I try to connect. I even went into network manager and switched the network to say, "ask me every time". It wouldn't! It would just sit there and hang on "authenticating". I never did figure it out. I ended up forgetting to encrypt my system partition, so I simply reinstalled the OS.

Terrible documentation that is written assuming far too much prior knowledge.

I'm pretty technologically literate but just don't have a lot of experience with Linux, in the last year of trying properly to switch over the most frustrating part is trying to fix problems or follow peoples "guides" to various things. There is plenty of information out there for sure but when I have to keep looking up a string of things to try and get to my desired end result then the original documentation I'm trying to follow is not adequate.

I can only imagine what it might be like for users who are less inclined to learn about this stuff and just want to use it / solve a problem.

I think that a lot can be said for well written documentation that describes necessary processes to get a desired result in a way that everyone can follow regardless of their prior experience or knowledge.

Security should be the default, but instead a lot of security features are optional things we have dig through docs to set.

TPM support is getting more common, using it should be too. Detected during install? Set it up as part of LUKs during install, and enable a password, and provide option for TANG (both usage or deployment).

fscrypt should be enabled by default and keys set by logical differences of file types. (Yes on top of LUKS). Honestly setup following selinux profiles and per user is a reasonable default. Hardware wrapped keys should be default.

Encrypted memory an option for this CPU? Enable it. Features for multiple key memory encryption? Enable it. Encrypt on a per VM and per container level by default.

Each service should be containerized, connections made explicit (ideally with l7 rules, l4 at least). If a user want to tinker with have a dev mode that opens that service up, with expectation that it's temporary (track and warn user when active). Each service should run as it's own non root user.

Each application should containerized. Wayland should be default to minimize shared data. Access by apps should be explicit and user approved and user configurable. Application should never run as root and escalations should be temporary and explicitly approved by the user. Application to the network should be explicit per connection and l7 aware.

MACSec WPA3 pki should be available during install. Wireless WPA3 PKI option should be default on wireless setup. IPSec/Wire guard VPN/Tor should be available option by default on setup. Vlan tagging should be available options on setup.

FIPS or equivalents should be enforced by default. Old encryption methods/cipher/etc should require explicit approval by the user.

Selinux should enabled by default and selinux tagging should be exposed in user applications, so users can choose the security levels, privacy tags (medical or tax docs or etc), or pseudonym access they want.

Sudo should be setup by default for least privileged roles and not god mode access. The combination of those into a single user could look indistinguishable but it should be set and ready for adding users that are limited in scope.

Encrypted backups following the 321 rule (at least 3 backups, 2 different types of media, 1 off site) should be the default and configurable on install. Schedule and triggered backups should be frequently (ideally constantly backup, with snapshot ting being periodic).

Multiple factor logins should be the default. Support for smart card, key fob, OTP, biometric, plus password built-in and encouraged on install.

Number of known CVEs for hardware, packages, and configurations should be tracked and obviously available for privileged users. Hardware missing for full best practices (like TPM 2.0, memory encryption support, etc). Software source should be kept easily accessable to users for remove and modifications. Software should adhere to SLSA build practices, exception explicitly choosen the user.

Systems should be immutable with expectations being explicit to the user and triggering snapshot ting.

DNSSEC and DNSoTLS/DNSoHTTPS should be default and configurable on install.

NTS should be default for NTP configuration. Hardware time sources should be configurable on install.

Applications should be privacy preserving by default (not defaulting to Google for example).

These are just off the top of my head stuff, stuff I had to annoyingly learn and set up myself to harden systems instead of it just being part of sane defauls. CIS bench mark has more controls that should be set.

Snap. The very existence of it.

The fact that there is NO agreed single package standard across distros.

Linux needs a shared API framework for all desktop apps for them to succeed. It’s ridiculous that gnome apps and other apps look different and have different theming conventions. I’d love to get into theming and application building, but I’m so afraid that I’ll waste my time on something that won’t apply to everything. macOS solved application cohesion perfectly.

Bluetooth support can be a mix bag one point my keyboard constantly disconnects for every few minutes likely due to the hardware aggressively try to save power.

Suspending can be 50/50 especially on old hardware. Either you get it back up and running or you will have to forcibly shut it down since it refuses to accept any commands.

1. The lack of a universal application installation method which 98% of developers use. Windows has .exe and it makes it so much easier for developers to release one application which is dead simple for users to install. No instruction manual with different methods per distro. Just double click. This results in less support for Linux in general. Fewer games and applications an drivers with fewer features.

2. Poor backwards compatibility. Yes it results in bloat, but it also makes it much cheaper to develop for and maintain applications, and this results in more developers for Windows. More hardware and driver support. More applications. More games.

It is no mystery to me why developers don't focus more on Linux support. It's more expensive. They tell us this. What is so frustrating is that Linux fans are so quick to blame developers instead of focusing inwards and making Linux a more supportive platform for said developers.

Bluetooth support that only sometimes works with my soundcore q30's.

You want to do some cool thing and you find instructions online.

But that shit only works when t every single aspect of the s is the exact same version.

Which will never be the case, so now you’re at co desperately trying to improvise the steps that, if you inherently knew how to do, you wouldn’t have needed instructions for in the first place.

Multithreaded performance is awful. The system becomes completely unresponsive if a single process uses a lot of CPU despite another core being available. Copying a file in the background slows everything down to a crawl.

That and laptops. Will hibernation work this time? Will it wake up or do I need to forcefully restart it? Will my second monitor work after hot-plugging it? Will the battery last 2 or 6 hours this time?

The elitism

A lot of Linux software has really stupid names, and has since before Torvalds even started. GNU is a garbagepuke name for an operating system, and they've just kept doing that. Recursive actronyms like NANO and LAME, Gpackages and Krograms, and then so many bash built-ins and common shell programs have names like lsphw.

I once had this conversation:

"This distro comes with a kernel that's so new it breaks compatibility with [some piece of hardware]"

"use mainline"

"Yeah, okay, I have no idea how to do that in this distro."

Turns out "Mainline" is a kernel management tool. I thought the guy was telling me to use a mainline Linux kernel instead of a customized one, because A. the name of the app is poorly chosen, and B. he had the communication skills of a homeschooled zoomer.

Not a Linux thing directly but something that bothers me a lot: The complete lack of support from professional applications.
Wanna use this tool that cost hundreds of bucks on Linux? Lmao fuck you.
You’d think companies that actually make money could afford to support Linux and hobbyists doing FOSS stuff for funsies can only focus on the OS they use themselves but somehow we live in a world where the opposite is true.

This is what makes switching to Linux for me personally and probably a lot of other people completely unviable because it means having to give up on thousands of dollars of stuff for “freedom”.

And the onus is 100% on the companies developing software. They have to offer Linux versions first, so people can switch to Linux, giving them more Linux users. Doesn’t work the other way around.

Oh also psst don’t ever mention spending money on proprietary software around Linux people, they will have a heart attack.

Having to use the terminal even once

When I was running a Linux distro regularly (1995-2015), audio output would break every couple of upgrades.

It was frustrating, because I was pretty happy with the rest of the OS.

Electron apps (more like erection apps), I rather burn my computer quit civilization and live on a deserted island than using any apps that has electron as a dependency.

Flatpaks apps & their runtimes is taking 20 gb, was 80 gb before I realize it and start cleaning up. That's annoying. But I also like Flatpak. I may just prioritize DNF first (I'm on Fedora) to minimize Flatpak bloats.

60 gb is very significant for me being in 256 gb ssd.

I don't like LibreOffice as the only open source Office software that seems to compete with Microsoft. It feels bloated and outdated and for years and years I have display problems with it. The community answers to problems are often written by arrogant pricks.

However, at the pace Microsoft Office is deteriorating with all that copilot crap LibreOffice begins to look better every day. They don't even have to do anything for it.

Suspend/sleep. I bought a specific laptop so it works, but these manufacturers need to let our developers know what the fuck is going on in the hardware

Ubuntu and GNOME

I'll be nice in case the developers are reading.

I just think they're both pretty misguided in their goals.

Ubuntu used to be Debian plus your laptop's Wi-Fi works out of the box. The hardware support has improved and now Debian in 2025 is better than Ubuntu, plus Debian never shows you terminal ads or prompts you to snap install something that obviously isn't going to run well inside the default Snap sandbox.

I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu to any new users now. I'd sit and install Debian stable with them, and if something is missing, I'd try Debian unstable or the proprietary repos.

No offense to on-the-ground Ubuntu devs, but Ubuntu really feels like Debian plus a billionaire's desire to make money reselling Debian.

GNOME... Wants the desktop to look like a phone. Got rid of the system tray and then you have to do a little dance t re-install it. I don't know why. I've had useful stuff in the system tray since Windows XP.

I think GNOME might have also spearheaded the trend of ruining SEO and documentation by naming apps what they do instead of with real names? Like "Movie player" or "Web Browser". I don't know if they did any studies or if it helps new users but it's real weird for advanced users. Most people know that "Chrome" is a brand of web browser, so why would you name your web browser "Web Browser" and make things weird? I like KDE's thinking. Pick a name and wedge a K into it. And then make an anime furry its mascot. Can't beat that!

There was a conspiracy theory years ago, because someone from Microsoft was making decisions at GNOME, that GNOME was going to be eaten inside-out by MS, like Nokia was. They were rolling .NET Mono stuff and some kind of object model... I don't think it got far but I don't care. I switched to xfce on my desktop and KDE looks great on the Steam Deck and laptop. KDE used to be heavy, but hardware got bigger.

I actually love the package managers on Linux. Apt would be better if you could install multiple versions side-by-side, but I get why that's hard. Whenever I use Windows it's like, gross, I have to use MSIs again? I can't just apt install git curl wget screen lua? And on macOS I can install brew but a lot of apps use that funny pattern where you drag it into the Applications folder, and then you must remember to unmount the disk image, and also some apps aren't in the Applications folder.

I actually love systemd and everyone can fight me on this. Systemd is really nice.

The norms on where files belong are really dumb.

Similarly, programs being entitled to strew files all over kingdom come.

Ten different ways to install software and maybe one or two of them actually keep track of where all the files are and clean them up properly upon removal.

vendor support

I recently began hating devices and how each distro does it slightly differently. /dev is the worst. I plug in a usb, look for it under /dev/usb, not there, oh it's /dev/serial I suppose that makes sense. Plug in a different usb, not in either, no by-path or by-id, oh, I can only find it by the bus... but that path changes each time I plug it in, and that's the only place I can find it. Permissions are black magic on devices. I've been root and can't open a cdrom, get permission denied. Other times I can give a user 777 and it seems like they have it all, but still can't open that drive. Everytime I reboot my coral usb changes bus paths and breaks my frigate docker, but I can't find any stable path to it. Fought for days trying to get proxmox to forward a cdrom drive to a container then a vm. Went through half a dozen tutorials and threads of people getting it working and I couldn't. Spin up my laptop and do it bare metal, and STILL can't get it to work. VLC can play the disk just fine, but not the docker container. Switch to ubuntu instead of my arch distro, and boom everything works.... most of the time. Other times I have to do a ritual of removing the database, logs, reboot, start the container, unplug usb, plug in usb, and then it works.

Uh, um... I do not like how I have to install microsoft fonts seperately to have times new roman on my resume?

Linux is super cool when everything works out of the box. But once you need to make adjustments, you're in a world of pain.

I recently had the distinct displeasure of using visudo for the first time and was flabbergasted that this should be the recommended standard app for its purpose. An app which randomly turns mouse and keyboard inputs into random letters, doesn't have a visible command menu, doesn't allow you to click to place the text cursor, doesn't have an easy way of copy-pasting...WTF? 🤯

Now, I am actually a trained IT professional who has installed and managed a plethora of firewalls, virtual machines, file servers, VPNs, etc... but Linux has me stumped way too often when apps seem to lack the most basic attention to usability.

And the lack of standardization leads to absurd situations where to solve one problem you have to first dig into three different underlying subsystems and their peculiarities, spending hours on trial and error using scant & often outdated or non-applicable documentation (it's for another distro and two years old). 🙄

Middle click to free scroll not working in non-FF browsers

I don't know if I agree with the issue of installing software. Sure, there are a lot of ways to do it, but it's better than navigating to a website, downloading an executable, and having it install for you. There's too many points for error to cause issues. Plus, you have to do that for every update usually.

Is it perfect on Linux? No. It's better than Windows though.

Sometimes I dislike how most distros are against proprietary and closed source code. But then I remember all of the money those companies are making off of war, genocide, and slavery and I feel better about it.

Games that just open on Windows require extra work to play on Linux. Sometimes it's just a few extra clicks, sometimes it takes a whole afternoon to figure it out, especially if you're like me and not very experienced with Linux.