From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I think the main problem lies in the community.
Not everyone, but a few vocal rotten apples are hostile to new users who either:
Don't already know the answer to their own question
Are not using their distro
Didn't immediately read the wiki entry for their exact problem
This kind of gatekeeping is why some people are put off of Linux and the community as a whole. Just because someone asks a question you think is obvious, doesn't mean it's obvious to them.
BLUETOOTH
Aha bluetoothctl connect f3:a2:de:e6:b5:a1 Connected Could not connect
People assume it's all terminal all the time. I haven't needed to open the terminal for months. It starts up. With the GUI I open the browser. Maybe steam, too. Do stuff. Shut down.
Audio.
And software availability.
Audio is so bad it’s unbelievable. I don’t know if it’s because laptops are built with shitty hardware and then compensated for with proprietary drivers (which Linux doesn’t ship with) but my God are they bad.
Nothing that can’t be fixed by wearing earbuds or plugging in some good speakers, of course.
Software compatibility is probably the biggest issue. If someone relies on a piece of software that is Windows or MacOS exclusive, that can be enough of a deal breaker. Open source alternatives may exist, but they do not always have the same features or behave as expected compared to what they are replacing.
Freedom is overwhelming.
You can change everything and anything... so that means a LOT of choices.
It deprives Apple and Microsoft of revenue. /s
It needs more pre installed machines on the market.
In Linux, you can configure everything. And you're will be forced to do it.
That really depends on distro. With something like Arch and Debian, that is definitely the case. On the other hand, Bazzite requires almost no configuration and has scripts for common use cases.
Regardless of which distribution you choose, there will come this moment...
distribution
Computer. The OS makes no difference. There will come a time you want to do something, and it will be up to you to do it.
Flatpak and Docker are great, but making them talk to each other can get as complex as solving the problems they came to make easier in the first place.
For me its the nuance of things.
Like quality of life settings. Turn Bluetooth on automatically at boot. Yeah, you can do it, but not by looking at settings and turning that option on. No, you need to recognize that's a problem then search for an answer, determine which of the 2 or 3 answers you find are right, then do it. Is it a deal breaker? Absolutely not. But I don't want to "solve problems" for every thing I want to do.
My other gripes would be lack of software support. As great as some apps are, others there are no support for Linux.
I was about to say, I've only come across that particular issue since moving to KDE, but I know what you mean about the lack of options, but then I looked in the settings, and found this:
It's getting there!
Maybe it's just the distros I've picked, but I've literally never had to do anything to get Bluetooth to turn on at boot
This stuff unfortunately depends by the desktop environment and because there are hundreds of them, it's inconsistent.
On gnome it remembers it correctly, although there are a handful of times where the gamepad doesn't connect automatically and I have to manually do that
the confounding tribalism behind its modularity. options are great, but they also bring out the absolute worst in many of us.
it's not much of a problem until those options actually manage to fragment the desktop and server ecosystems, but the attitudes at play surely drive prospective newcomers away a bit.
Go on, say it
You mean systemd, don't you?
Probably X vs Wayland. Everyone knows what the correct answer is.
GNOME too
It's Wayland, right? ^oh no^
the confounding tribalism behind its modularity. options are great, but they also bring out the absolute worst in many of us.
Exactly. Parts of the Linux community, and FOSS in general, are extremely hostile. And for some new users, that's the first (and probably only) impression they get when they have an issue trying it out for the first time. It's a very small minority, but they are loud and aggressive, and are not ostracized by the community nearly enough.
Telling a new user that is going out of their way to figure out how to find and post an issue or feature request to Github, telling them to just fix it themselves isn't a solution, it's just being a dick. 99.9% of this planet doesn't know how to code, just because they're making a post on GitHub doesn't mean they know how to code. Especially not at a level to fix an issue like that.
And that some programs are extremely opinionated.
Ignoring requests with thousands of posts, or even pull requests where the changes are already implemented
"No. I won't add tabs, it's better UX to have separate windows"
"No, I won't allow the user to save the password, even if it's local or not important"
"All the temporary shit will be saved on the hardcoded directory ~/.fuckyou and not /tmp"
get lucky you can patch shit out or in
"All the temporary shit will be saved on the hardcoded directory ~/.fuckyou and not /tmp"
.fuckyou 😂😂
A recent bugbear of mine has been hardcoded icons.
they used to be a much larger part of the community when i first got into linux in the early aughts; i'm glad RTFM is no longer considered a reasonable response.
Last time I tried (Mint) the dealbreaker for me was battery management. I tried various utils and settings but I couldn't get as much juice of of the same charge using Mint and still have good performance. If anyone has any suggestions I'd be grateful!
Depends on the hardware.
I have a gaming laptop that I use for Teams for work. I put linux on it so it would shut up and be silent. On windows, even on silent settings, it is always wasting resources and causing the fans to come on loudly.
With linux it is silent. On top of that, battery life is much better because windows is not doing all that crap it does in the background. Still not great, its a gaming laptop after all, but better.
Also, does mint come with good power management tools? I opted for Cachyos due to the gaming (nvidia) driver support. My other laptop is Fedora, and it too does really well with battery life. Both are more up to date than Mint, right?
Employers some don't like you using non MicroSlop.
Microsoft gives my execs nice all inclusive all expenses paid retreats to think it over.
My department just gives them a PDF explaining with cool graphics how Linux can save more money, how more secure it is, how we can avoid the constant force fed but filled updates that MSFT pushes, how we can customize it exactly to our and users needs, we can actually own our own keys... The goes on and on.
But they've already decided which OS we use and they never even open the email we sent them.
My department just gives them a PDF explaining with cool graphics how Linux can save more money, how more secure it is, how we can avoid the constant force fed bug filled updates that MSFT pushes, how we can customize it exactly to our and users needs, we can actually own our own keys... The goes on and on.
No, because there is no simple point and click group policy/active directory equivalent in Linux that allows a group of 5 IT techs to manage 2000 desktops. And if you get your shit together and actually use the tools that Microsoft provides, you don't get surprise updates, you can image PCs via a gui over network booting, you get bitlocker keys backed up in your domain etc etc etc etc etc.
All the things that allow a business to manage hardware and software with the minimum amount of expensive employees, Microsoft provides it, for money of course. That money is offset by the reduction in IT guys needed to look after everything.
It's that simple. CorporateLand won't touch Linux on the workstation until that's possible.
I can't really help my Windows friends anymore when they need troubleshooting for things like: why their audio channels aren't working in OBS, or why their config is suddenly corrupted. I used to be able to when I was on Windows, but now I just have to watch helplessly while they struggle to make things work.
This is what I aspire to be, but I’m not quite there yet. How long did it take you to forget the windows stuff?
It's not so much forgetting, but waiting until Windows "changes it" - the "yeah, just go here in the settings... oh... there's not a setting any more... there used to be an option for this..."
There isn't a default beginner distro anymore.
There are a dozen good choices with half a dozen different default desktop environments, all with their pros and cons.
But as a beginner, you have no idea what's best for you.
It used to be a lot easier to choose your first distro, back when Ubuntu was still good (looong ago).
IMO Mint could be it, if they used Plasma instead of Cinnamon, which still doesn't support Wayland.
I've heard real good things about the plug and play ability of Bazzite. Though I say that as a guy that's been debating the switch for a while, my main holdout being that I like to play weird indie games and spend a lot of time away from my computer, so would rather not have to spend my limited free time troubleshooting
Sounds like Bazzite would be a good fit.
I feel like maybe I'm missing something because I tried Bazzite for a bit (before switching to vanilla Fedora) and found it kind of overwhelming? Like there was so much stuff installed by default and it wasn't super clear to me how it all was supposed to work together to do basic things like package management (esp. since dnf doesn't work)
I think that's what makes it good for beginners: it's a lot like a mobile OS. There's an "app store" where you get your programs (bazaar/flathub) and OS updates just happen automatically. Once you find yourself wanting to tinker then hopefully you're confident enough to start installing "normal" distros.
My main issue often boils down to the amount of people still on Windows. The huge market there pulls developer attention that way so much that often my choice in software is narrowed down to "the one that has a Linux build". And sometimes that isn't even the case and now I need to find a way to simulate Windows for this piece of Software to work in some capacity.
Now, that's not all that often that this is true, but when it is, it's annoying.