Linux

Lol no. I've been using Linux for 10 years and it's been a continuous dumpster fire. Constant issues l, especially with Nvidia, across many different machines. Issues with wine, no X11 (or Wayland) after updates, games not starting, etc, etc. Across Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch (and derivatives).

Yet I almost exclusively use Linux nowadays. Why? Because it's a dumpster fire I can influence. Windows is going to shit, they were taking my PC hostage, installing spyware, ads, forcing updated without my consent. On Linux I have to invest hours to fix shit, on Windows I can get fucked whenever something happens that I don't want.

With proton advancing, Wayland working somewhat usable even with Nvidia,my threshold was passed. I'd rather fix the fixable Linux issues that cost me time than deal with Windows any longer. But for the layman I'm not sure I'd recommend it. I'm a computer scientist. I can fixodt issues, it's just a question of time and energy. But that doesn't go for everyone.

I have been using Linux for a long time and it's only been in the post chrome os era that I've really seen updates and maintenance begin to turn the corner.

A lot of Linux users will tell you their system is perfect but it kinda reminds me of that documentary where all these inventors came to show off their sex robots at a sex robot convention. Its obvious how absurd it is when you're on the outside looking in at a bunch of people who are like "I know she's rough lookin' but just check out this feature".

ChromeOS was really a first class experience on third rate garbage hardware. It did however really spark the potential for a new paradigm that projects like ChimeraOS, universalBlue, vanillaOS, blendOS, and even steamOS are tackling.

Ubuntu is a bit "dated" in its design. (For lack of a better description even though they keep trying to re-invent the wheel). There is a reason why everyone is rushing to make Linux usable now and that's namely because it's become valves chosen desktop platform moving forward. Immutable/atomic distributions are set to fix the problems the average user deals with when it comes to Linux.

I'm actually using bazzite-dx with Nvidia and gnome right now. Its been an overall success with some kinks due to the average jank you get with Nvidia drivers. For instance, Bambu studio flatpak was busted for a week but I just checked tonight and it looks like it's been fixed.

Its ok to be frustrated about this. You're not alone.There are dozens of us! Dozens!

I began writing this comment with the intention of answering your question, but it actually ended up mainly being me venting myself.

Obviously no, it's never been a flawless experience, but a few months back I decided I wanted to try gaming so I put an nvidia card in my pc and reinstalled linux to start fresh. All of the examples you've given sound like the sort of problems I've had since then, but never in the ten years before when I was using intel integrated graphics. I was aware going in that nvidia is massively more problematic than AMD, but this card was a spare from someone I know.

Obviously there are games I can run well now that were unrealistic before, but there are also a couple 2D games with SNES-quality graphics that I've tried which spike my CPU to 100% and lag like crap in spite of working perfectly before I installed the card. I've had two experiences where a game suddenly has issues immediately after an update to the nvidia-utils package. I'm not new to linux, but I am new to gaming on it and I've kind of given up on troubleshooting this stuff in favor of "maybe there will be an update tomorrow that fixes this".

There's reason for optimism, everyone is saying the situation is steadily improving because nvidia has been much more cooperative in the past couple years. It's not realistic to say you won't find annoyances regardless, but it wouldn't surprise me if over half of your struggles are a direct result of decades of one company's deliberate decision to ignore pleas to stop making life as hard as they possibly can on software developers trying to support their hardware.

I am waiting for SteamOS 3 Desktop to be released, so that I don't have to worry about this sort of thing, and have support from an 800lb gorilla. When I tried Mint back in January, my games weren't working right - Lutris, Hero Launcher, ect. Considering the amount of retro and Japanese games I play, having broken GOG installations wasn't a good start.

For now I am just sticking to Windows 11 IoT, but sooner or latter Microsoft's issues will be too much. Hopefully, SteamOS will be out by then.

More or less,

Arch gave me some issues on install getting steam games to run on my main graphics card but since fixing then it's been maintenance free. There were some other issues that resolved with system updates, e.g. HDR on Wayland/KDE but Plasma update fixed it almost a year ago.

I'm running AMD/AMD/ASUS RoG.

My windows dual bout however takes 5min for all the bootup apps to launch and explorer is unstable. Probably because of local account and some policies I've been locking AI and metrics down with. Also Office clock to run burns my cpu when at idle and it ignores the manual start setting in services as well as startup-apps menu. It's just there for work.

Edit given below comments: I am NOT suggesting Arch for a beginner who wants simple and easy. Plenty of more beginner friendly distros will need even less maintenance.

I don't dare do hardcore gaming on Linux 'cause I'm lazy. I went and bought a Raspberry Pi at some point and only tried out some distros on it. I had troubles from day 1 where like OP, I could figure out. Right now, I can't even get Redshift to work on basically a RaspberryPi OS fork and I have no clue why.

It does not "just work" for me and I love it that way. I got bored of using Kubuntu LTS because nothing interesting happened. Now I'm running prerelease versions of everything and get to file (and fix!) bug reports on the reg.

I've always had issues with it too. You're not alone. Thanks to Windows 11,I plan to convert my laptop to Linux and I'm hoping since I only use it lightly for a few simple tasks it will be ok. But my desktop daily driver will have to be Windows. Rock and a hard place.

Not flawless but on windows I couldn't find solutions so I gave up and forgot about whateer it was I was trying to do or fix, on linux I fix it and rememeber next time a similar issue occures, I have a flawless experience because I make that flawless day to day experience through the ocasional day each month I fix something. Windows is always just mid, like I've had apps refuse to open or work no matter what solution I tried, always had weird issues and crashing, linux I find the source fast or the app crashes/freezes not my whole system, it's better at preventing that.

cpu hungry and eating memory? ram? 3gb is lowish for a browser, you must use very few active tabs

Flawless? No. But the bar is very low.

No but it is less painful than dealing with microshit slop

Nope, but they have extremely short memories. They spent 2 hours yesterday tinkering with 4 issues. But when you ask them, their system has been solid for months.

Linux is very much a boat. Or more accurately the same engine used in 50 different boats all with their own quirks.

No that's Linux. If you point it out Linux users just yell at you real hard and bully you into submission. That's how we get the newbies from finding out the truth.

I don't know. FWIW, once you get it tuned, þe maintenance drops sharply. Þere are a lot of caveats, þough.

You're on Ubuntu, which I would normally say should be un-boat-like once you work out þe kinks, except þat Ubuntu has been doing þings like pushing Snap and Wayland, which introduce variables and can cause whole new issues for some people.

Þis is why many of us steer new users towards distros like Mint, which tend to stick wiþ more tried-and-true technology stacks. It's hard to beat a Debian-derived distribution which excludes Snaps and Flatpacks, and ships with Xorg and some GTK3/2 desktop, like xfce or cinnamon. It won't be þe most sexy, but you'll probably get a more "just works" experience.