it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, or to only use Linux on the desktop
Does anybody say this? I've always interpreted the phrase "year of Linux on the desktop" to mean a year when people who wouldn't list "computers" among their personal interests were noticeably using it on their desktops. That still hasn't happened. There are a lot of "year of the -" things I've seen come, when things that were used by professionals and nerds entered common usage and parlance, like burning a CD or installing Firefox (granted those have come and now gone).
You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad. You ask a normie what their opinion of Linux is and most of them won't even know the word, let alone have one. That's why it isn't and may never be "the year of Linux on the desktop".
Yeah, the 'Year of Linux on the Desktop'-trope comes from the end of the nineties. Mainstream Windows was still the Windows 9x branch. Consumers didn't switch to the NT line until Windows XP. And there were a bunch of well-funded Linux distributions that wanted to be serious competitors to Windows (Corel Linux, Caldera OpenLinux, etc.). Given the sorry state of Windows at the time and the strong interest of the industry and press in Linux, there was a contingent within the press and Linux community that believed that desktop Linux could replace Windows. Which lead to the regular question "will this be the year of Linux on the desktop?".
The year of the Linux desktop didn't happen (unless you consider Android phones desktops), but Linux has been massively successful in other ways (servers, phones, embedded, IoT). If anything, the underlying OS matters less and less, since applications are steadily moving to the web (for better or worse).
It also came from an era when utter Microsoft dominance seemed like an existential threat to many people--and the native desktop (and its applications) was an important front in that war. So winning over a material number of governments and companies to Linux, OpenOffice, etc. on PCs seemed an important objective.
Today, what operating system people choose to run on their desktop/laptop just isn't a terribly important question any longer in the scheme of things especially given that most live largely in their browser anyway.
I have certainly heard it said that Linux as a desktop operating system is an utter mess or completely unusable.
> You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad.
The "normies" I know do not have an opinion on Windows 10. Many do not even distinguish between Windows and Word. They have a computer, they know how to get some of their shit done with it. But they don't have a concept of "operating system", let alone an opinion on any one of them.
Some have an opinion on Android vs iPhone, but more often than not it's the quality of the camera they point to, rather than any feature of the operating system.
That said, I agree with your Interpretation of what "the year of Linux on the desktop" means and the fact that it hasn't happened.
I noticed that normies — my extended relatives, SCA folks I know, neighbors — spend their time on mobile and not on the desktop. And Windows is as frustrating to them as anything else. They don’t really care if it is Windows or Linux; it’s mostly a means to get to the browser, or something their desk work requires it.
People don't author papers on mobile yet do they? I mean, an android tablet with a mouse and keyboard should be fine for that given webapps, but I just don't know people who have that workflow. And itbis a biased sampling because of internet pricing, but on planes as I look around I mostly see windows or mac laptops for actual work. A few adults will have tablets, but mostly kids. Adults mostly have a phone reading a book or watching a movie.
At work it seems like developers don't care what the machine they are sitting at is as long as it has ssh and vscode with remote plugin and of course a browser.
Some domain specific tools don't work so well remotely and those people have whatever that software requires, sometimes as a VM but often on metal with a beefy workstation.
For generic office productivity I still see people using Microsoft.
Given how many kids are and have been on ChromeOS since 2020, I wouldn't be surprised to see this changing fairly rapidly, moreso than I'd have otherwise expected. More and more it seems the choice for people is between a Macbook or a Chromebook -- the windows PC is just an expensive gaming device in the realm of personal machines.
Windows still rules the office, for now, but it's not gaining ground, and offices tend to move slowly, but steadily.
In my experience, 99% of people just want a browser and maybe Microsoft Office. Plus maybe some other software to work with random stuff. Office works with compatibility layers, so just the "random stuff" category, and the occasional printer issue, are all I see keeping most people from using Linux. That and not knowing about Linux in the first place.
So I believe since most of them use Adnroid (tablets/smartphones) possibly it is already that Linux achieved goal of pushing Windows out of the window.
While desktop computing still has its value everything shifted and yeah fight from 1990s or 2000s does not matter anymore.
> You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad. You ask a normie what their opinion of Linux is and most of them won't even know the word, let alone have one.
True “normies”, my mom for instance or most of my wife's colleagues, have no idea on which version of Windows their computer is running, let alone have an opinion on the specific version they are using. They don't even know what an operating system is.
People who do know about the different versions of Windows aren't “normies”, they are people who are somewhat tech savy but not nerd enough to try Linux (which most of them have heard about somehow, often from their nerd friend) because it sounds scary and time consuming (installing an entire operating system, wiping your entire Windows including the drivers that comes pre-installed is rightfully scary for most people).
“Linux on the desktop” for the masses cannot exist until it ships with the computer you buy without knowing it. Like Chromebooks for instance.
> You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad. You ask a normie what their opinion of Linux is and most of them won't even know the word, let alone have one. That's why it isn't and may never be "the year of Linux on the desktop."
The fact that the vast majority of consumers don't have any awareness at all that Linux is a simple, widely-available desktop is evidence of the opposite: that the public hasn't decided against Linux, and that the sky is the limit for growth.
i.e. If electric cars had 2% of the market, and 90% of people hadn't even heard of electric cars, the first approximation of the potential market for electric cars as they are is 20%. You'd refine that based on comparing characteristics of the 10% who had heard of them to the 90% who hadn't, but 20% is good enough for a napkin.
With 1) the slow decline in quality and growth of data mining and ads in Windows and MacOS, 2) the ending of Moore's Law, meaning that the development of at least single-threaded software is slower than it used to be, allowing FOSS to catch up where it is behind, 3) greater compatibility and shared software than ever between Windows, MacOS, and Linux through various subsystems, VMs and containers, and 4) the movement of a lot of software to the web, I believe that desktop Linux could take over at any time (or never.)
Windows could just pull another Vista at the same time Apple disables some functionality as a business strategy. Or they could both get cancelled due to major personalities associated with the brands also being associated with politics and the media; Bill Gates obviously, but Jobs' widow owns the Atlantic. Both, neither, or anything else could happen while the Linux desktop was in really good shape and compatible with most of the software that people use.
Agreed. Hardware support has gotten good enough that it "just works" for me 99% of the time, I can watch pretty much any video format, play a lot of video games when I care to, the application I need are there.
Different people have different needs, for mine, Linux has made a better desktop than Windows or macOS for many years now.
Ask a normie what they run on their desktop these days. Then say, okay, fine, your laptop, as you understand they don't have a desktop and haven't for years. Then say, "oh, no laptop either?" to the 30% or so of average folks outside of the tech industry -- turns out, they're using Linux or a BSD on their primary device, that simply doesn't happen to be a desktop anymore.
The year of the linux desktop is the year when the only ones left using desktops are linux nerds. The only desktop in my house has run Slackware for years, because the wife and kid have never had a desktop.
My main workstation is a fedora 36 install. I record videos on OBS for my YouTube channel, I edit those same videos using non-linear video editor. I game via steam and do all my work on it with no issues whatsoever. Oh and i3 changed my life. Tiling done right is amazing. And no vendor lock-in no BS corporate nonsense other than what comes from Redhat
Such anecdotal evidence is cherry picked and completely useless. Ask a random person on the street. If they still even have a laptop or desktop, 80-90 percent will run Windows and macOS as a distant second. In some domains (e.g. education) you'll find some Chromebooks, they run Linux, but it's largely irrelevant, because for most users it's just proprietary Chrome (and if they didn't have a ChromeBook, they'd be running Chrome on Windows).
I am wondering what is the cross-section between “no interest in computing” and sufficient knowledge of Microsoft to have an actionable opinion. I am not sure this group is what “normie” is meant to refer to in this thread.
You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and ...
... they'll tell you that they really like their now iPhone.
Most normal people don't know what Windows is. Maybe they'll find the sticker on their Laptop, but that's about it.
But what everyone knows from work is Word and Excel. And as long as they don't work well on a Linux desktop, Linux feels "broken" to them. Similarly, A LOT of people are stuck having to handle PSD and AI files. Good luck getting the Adobe suite running on Linux. But as long as all of their life's creative work is being held hostile in Adobe-proprietary file formats, they surely won't jump ship.
maybe it will happen, but maybe it will take 'a long time' until we pair/adapt commercial applications into the Linux/GNU ecosystem... as from a business perspective i really can not understand why you would not migrate to a free to use, as well to modify, OS... as long it have what you need
A half functional mainstream Linux distribution is infinitely more stable than Windows 10 and 11. They don't even pump ads into your start menu! There's no telemetry!
I've been using Linux forever in one form or another. It was tough in the Windows XP days (which is the most superior Windows distro to this day), but after Windows 7 released Linux came into it's own. I've had no problems running it on all sorts of hardware and gaming on it has gotten better since proton.
People are just set in their ways. Mac-people will mock Linux because they're the kind of people that will pay $1500 over marginal cost for a few extra pixels and some more color depth. Windows people will mock Linux because...it's not Windows. M1 is not cool enough to justify the cost. Once Windows started calling home every time I click something on my desktop it became too much for me to bear.
The reason is as you stated. When grandma goes to buy a budget PC it comes loaded with Windows crap. Their market penetration is deep and their budget is nearly endless. Based on my experience with Windows 11 demos I think Windows 11 will finally push people to look elsewhere. Either Macs, or a out-of-the-box Linux system. Until Linux natively supports Excel, however, I don't think it'll ever reach widespread corporate adoption. Windows and OS X are both moron-friendly as you can tell by their userbase. That's important when you're trying to sell something. It'll always be "people who know" vs. "people who think they know".
If I were you, I would just ignore the people who mock those who choose another platform. They're zealots or idiots and any attempt at conversation with them is a waste of time.
The truth is, in the wider world, nobody cares about their operating system. They are all good enough and have been for a while. What matters is the same thing that has always mattered - applications.
Mac vs Linux vs Windows feels like something from a bygone era. I don't think people are so zealous anymore. I've used all three as my primary OS at one time or another and currently use Mac and Windows. They're all better at some things than others. None could fully replace the others.
The only people I know of that are using Windows 10 at this point are primarily gamers, as they're the only people who didn't let the automatic update to 11 happen. To be fair, aside from having Windows for work, they're also the only ones I know at this point who have a Windows computer at all.
The real battle these days is BSD vs Linux, aka iOS vs Android. Linux is winning globally, but the domestic kids are still huge on their Fischer Price phones.
> The only people I know of that are using Windows 10 at this point are primarily gamers, as they're the only people who didn't let the automatic update to 11 happen.
Are you claiming that W10 autoupgrades to W11, if you have automatic OS updates enabled? Doesn't seem right to me.
I have Windows 10 with automatic updates enabled, and it hasn't tried installing Windows 11 even once. There is an option for manually triggering the upgrade to W11 in update settings, but I haven't clicked it.
The main sentiment in the article which I don't think I've seen addressed in other comments is the fervency of the people attacking the mere notion that Linux is a viable option. I can understand Ballmer's "Linux is cancer" (it was in his commercial interest to say so), but I'm often surprised with the confidence and sheer malice of people who will attack any notion of Linux being used as a desktop or for gaming.
I've seen it on HN, I've seen it in Gaming subreddits, I've had it in non-technical subreddits and I've had it in real life. People just have no qualms with shitting on it and it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view.
I've attacked it as a viable option because linux users seem to handwave some of the things that make it a non viable option for a large % of the population.
I've tried linux 3 or so times over the years, always the "friendly" distros.
I've dropped it each time because while yes, things do work, they tend to STOP working. Drivers, updates, compatibility lag, whatever it is, linux often has me "under the hood" trying to fix stuff that is literally never an issue on another OS.
And i say this as someone who wants linux to be a thing. It's unquestionably healthy for linux to be a real option, ESPECIALLY given windows penchant for trying to sneak in more and more tracking and ads, but even as someone decently techy, I have frequently found linux to feel like gambling, with a question of "will it work today, or am I about to go on a 10 min to multihour rabbit hole hunt to fix something"
"I've dropped it each time because while yes, things do work, they tend to STOP working."
I've used Linux on the desktop since 1994. In all that time I recall one breaking update on Debian affecting the wireless network driver. I've used Ubuntu since 2006 and never had any issues like you describe. That is across multiple machine types from Dell, Lenovo and HP. The same is true for my wife who is non-technical and has no issues using Linux (Ubuntu).
As another case in addition to the multiple I mentioned already, I'd vouch for the majority of Android phones running fine without issues caused by new updates, I mention Android since there are people who use their phone exclusively for computing, and oddly.
Summary, use Ubuntu on the desktop, pick a decent manufacturer like Dell, HP or Lenovo (I prefer Dell and/or Alienware from Dell or Lenovo) and maybe pick one that sells with Linux or made for Linux to further enhance your success. I've heard System 76 makes good systems too.
For a number of hobbies -- mostly but not entirely male-coded -- there is the hobby itself, and then the hobby of hacking around on the hobby.
I got an espresso machine last year. I was looking for a grinder. A huge chunk of online coffee folks suggested buying a weird grinder from China and swapping out burr sets and and and and ... and all I wanted was a turnkey grinder. I just wanted coffee. I didn't need to make a hobby of the equipment itself.
This also exists with motorcycles. I just want to ride a motorcycle. I don't have any interest in the endless mod culture of motorcycles.
And so Linux on the desktop. Linux on the desktop is great if you enjoy having to actively sysadmin your work environment, but it's shit if you just want to get some work done. The people who run it full time are people, mostly, who like the hacking part of the hobby in addition to the using part of the hobby. And I don't see that changing.
There was definitely a window in the late 90s when this could've been different, but then Apple moved to OS X, and I think that window closed forever.
> , linux often has me "under the hood" trying to fix stuff that is literally never an issue on another OS.
no, on other OSes you just cannot fix it. e.g. for instance on my computer I have a win32 install and for some reason on it the ethernet network speed seems locked to 100mbit-ish while on linux I get my gigabit ethernet performance. what can I do to debug this on windows when i tried the usual install / remove drivers, etc etc ? absolutely nothing, I just learn to live with the issue like most people on that OS.
Been using Linux daily on laptops for 20 years. I haven’t ‘tinkered’ with anything for over 10 years of that. I install Debian, get my keys on it and then just clone my tools from git and run install. It’ll set it up so I have (far more) battery life than windows, have all my tooling and software. I upgraded laptops for a very long time without issues. I do pick my hardware for Linux support and I don’t care about gaming. I have really no idea what you or others mean by this? What breaks? Do you have blog posts with details? What do you do differently than me?
I know some use cases are different than mine so I wouldn’t know them, but I always wonder when I see people complaining about things like battery life (I consistently have at least double or more for Linux than on Windows for the same workloads across laptops, both 32 (aka old) and 64 bit), missing or broken drivers (I don’t use gpus locally) etc.
My non tech acquaintances have issues with Windows all the time but they just ignore them. Seems when installing Linux people suddenly want perfection?
It's an unfortunate side-effect of unreliable packaging systems like pacman. Systems like Fedora Silverblue and NixOS offer fascinating (if incomplete) glimpses into how this can be fixed, though:
- Fedora Silverblue wants to reduce software reliance on the OS as a runtime. Relying on Flatpaks allows you to freeze most dependencies in-place and have a fully reproducible (if a bit redundant) runtime environment.
- NixOS wants to eliminate software reliance on the OS by removing the OS altogether. A default NixOS install only has a symlink to sh in the /bin folder, everything else needs to be dynamically loaded by the package manager through the Nix Store (big nuclear soup folder with hashed/labelled package tarballs).
Both OSes have some rough edges that make them hard to recommend, but it does suggest a silver lining for Linux packaging in the future. It's definitely a problem, just more of a distro-specific one rather than a Linux-specific one.
I think the issue I would have with your sentiment here is that you say Linux users are hand wavy about things that make it non viable, but I also see your main argument as having a fair amount of handwave, especially the phrase "they tend to".
This isn't to say that your complaints aren't valid or that you're misrepresenting your own experience, but it doesn't further the discussion and depending on the context with which you are raising it can be seen as a disingenuous way of trying to discredit or undermine Linux as a viable option.
That is to say, in isolation your comment is fine. If a thread on a topic that is related to the Linux desktop only features people citing their unspecific list of issues with desktop Linux then it stop being a reasonable good faith discussion and starts becoming ideological Linux bashing.
> I've dropped it each time because while yes, things do work, they tend to STOP working
And over 25 years of Windows updates, I've had breakages too. And I've had disastrous upgrades from XP->7, and 8->10. I'd say I get one bad driver update with Windows every couple of years or so. Windows just seems to not break the main things like the desktop.
On the other hand, I've run a linux desktop for quite a few years: Arch/sway for 2yrs, Ubuntu/kde for 4yrs, and Fedora/gnome for a year. I had zero problems with Arch, a few problems with Ubuntu, and zero with Fedora.
The year of the linux desktop is now largely irrelevant because so many people are using other devices. Still, developers are now using it as their primary driver, as you can develop for the web or for Android on it.
As a counter point, I installed Ubuntu on a 5 year old laptop someone gave me because they bought a tablet and gifted it to a computer illiterate friend whose Windows laptop died. He didn’t notice it wasn’t windows and he has had 0 issues. This was over 5 years ago. He uses it for everything and takes it everywhere.
Like I said in another reply: do you have details on what happens when things break. I have never seen it myself and maybe the community can prevent it if they would know.
I've been using Linux as my daily driver for over a decade. I used to really fight things like multiple monitors, but things for better.
My current laptop is an HP Envy from Costco and I was kind of shocked that everything just worked, even the fingerprint reader.
And then it happened - one day my brightness keys quit working. Why? I have no idea and haven't spent time to find out. You are correct, it still happens, but it has been rare for me where it used to be common.
The worst part is that when they do stop working, I have forgotten the horrible kludge of steps I had to go through to get something working the first time around. Of course the answers are out there, but finding the one answer that worked on the distro I used? Needle, meet haystack. I feel this is due to a reliance on CLI to do almost everything. CLI wouldn't be so problematic if those steps worked on every distro. This is the reason that fragmentation is holding LoD back IMO.
> I've tried linux 3 or so times over the years, always the "friendly" distros.
I did the same thing, it wasn't until I used Arch Linux that I really started to understand Linux. It turned I wasn't looking for a wannabe-MacOS distro, I just really liked a minimalist Gnome 3.12+ (when Gnome hit the sweet spot) or i3 based Linux that had zero background processes, installed programs, or anything that I didn't opt-in to. If you want MacOS just use MacOS.
On Arch I could run `top` and know what everything is which had amazing performance and battery benefits.
Also learning Linux deeply (ie, the directory structures and meaning of /usr /etc, logging, managing services with SystemD, managing diskspace size, proper bash scripting w/ all of the unix tools, etc) really helped me at my job as a programmer ssh'ing into servers.
This is why I'm using Linux in the form of ChromeOS more nowadays; the updates are handled, generally, well by Google and the virtualized Linux container running on the side is quite stable because of its virtualized environment.
Weird, I’ve been using it as a professional desktop for about 20 years now, with a few forays into MacOS for a couple of years at a time thrown in. I can count issues like you describe on the fingers of one hand.
MacOS is generally very stable, of course, because they also control the hardware, but I have experienced unexpected reboots on MacBooks.
I find windows pretty frustrating and opaque, I certainly don’t know how anyone could work on it effectively. Having to find and install third party software packages just to get hardware going is a right nightmare. Recently my windows 11 (I keep it around for gaming) was complaining that it couldn’t activate a safety feature, memory consistency checking or something, due to outdated drivers, and listed stuff for hardware I no longer owned. I ended up on a multi-hour trip down the google rabbit hole to try to fix that because there were no updates and the official line is people should never uninstall any drivers!
All I’m saying is YMMV, maybe you just grok windows but not Linux. It’s not universal though.
> I've dropped it each time because while yes, things do work, they tend to STOP working. Drivers, updates, compatibility lag, whatever it is, linux often has me "under the hood" trying to fix stuff that is literally never an issue on another OS.
It's funny because this is, in fact, my reason for dumping Windows and macOS.
The only difference is that I can't open the hood if I'm on Windows or macOS. So, if something breaks there, I'm simply screwed.
Between forced upgrades on macOS (sure, you can keep your OS back, but things like XCode, for example, will do their damndest to force you to upgrade) and random "Windows Update" stupidity ("Nope, no work for you! I must spend 30 minutes upgrading. Oh, by the way, do you want to upgrade to Windows 11 and we put the GTFO button in 6 point italic on your other monitor and we'll harass you again tomorrow.) I finally decamped for Linux permanently and haven't regretted it one iota.
I've used linux for two decades and enjoyed every year of it. The recent 7 years or so have been as painless as windows in my experience. Honestly, handling updates on linux has been better I would say.
All OSes can stop working, or have a component that stops working. What I think is happening here, is that we are more forgiving towards our preferred OS. When something stops working on Windows, I first complain about yet another thing not working in Windows, and then I fix it. When instead something breaks on my favorite Linux distro (not naming it intentionally to avoid a distro war) I just fix it. In my experience, I have less problems on Linux than on Windows, but different users have different experiences and value different aspects of an OS.
> I've tried linux 3 or so times over the years, always the "friendly" distros.
In 2023, you should not try as many distros as possible. They are all similar enough. You should try hardware designed for Linux, instead of one forcing Linux developers to reverse-engineer WiFi and suspend to make it work. Ideally, try it preinstalled. I am happy with my Librem 15, no tinkering is ever required.
> I've attacked it as a viable option because linux users seem to handwave some of the things that make it a non viable option for a large % of the population.
Yep, exactly this. A portion of the Linux Desktop community is so high on its own farts that it can't tolerate the idea that people might have legitimate reasons for not using Linux as their desktop. If you have a problematic use case, their suggestion is to get a different use case.
IMO Linux Desktops can be the best option for both for a certain type of developer¹ and for extremely unskilled users².
¹ e.g. web, system development, backend, admin. KDE Plasma is both extremely usable and customizable. I haven't missed anything in comparison with Windows and Mac systems (in fact I always miss stuff when using the other systems).
² I switched my parents to Ubuntu a while back and it has been a surprisingly good decision (90% less support call about weird popup windows, missing icons, etc.) Linux comes with it's own challenges, but compared to 10 years ago most of the stuff just works now
I really love KDE's power user configurability as much as I hate Gnome's opinionated design :) I moved to Linux because Apple pissed me off too much so gnome was too much of the same. Though I can see how it does work for other people. So great that Linux still has choices.
If the Mac didn't exist, yeah, it would have been TEMPTING to try and get my parents onto it . . . except: no.
They wanted Quicken and Quickbooks. They wanted easy document sharing with Office. They wanted easy access to scanners for photo conversion. So the Mac was the right choice.
I can see setting up a Linux machine for a less demanding audience, but it's a narrow use case.
I think one of the best things that happened to me is that my desktop’s onboard graphics card died sometime mid 2021 or so.
What that meant was that Windows was incapable of booting my computer (even though I have a perfectly functional external graphics card) but Ubuntu was able to do so flawlessly on the first install.
So any “You’re an idiot to use Linux on the desktop because XYZ” comments are super easy for me to brush off. It doesn’t matter what Linux doesn’t do or does wrong, it’s given me a working computer, something neither Windows or MacOS could.
I am negative about linux on desktop because it has been a major disappoinment every time I try it.
Last two attempts - ever since I've built my 5900x desktop last summer I can't even get fedora to boot from stick without freezing. I don't have the energy to deal with such issues anymore - I've spent years rebuilding custom drivers, dealing with upgrade breaking my system, etc. Same desktop - windows just works - needed to download a few drivers manually - other than that - plug and play.
And MacOS is next level in that regard.
I dislike Windows choices very much but Linux desktop is just not an option if you want low maintenance/streamlined experience.
Your comment here is pretty typical of a medium grade HN response. That is to say:
* Thorough and well thought through. Well written (unlike, say, Reddit)
* Polite, doesn't attack the person you're responding to or represent their position as ridiculous
However
* Entirely rooted in personal experience and often missing the broader point or use case being described in OP.
In this case I can see that you're describing why you yourself are negative on the Linux desktop (which is on topic), but responses like this miss the context of Steam Deck, Proton and imply that the issues found are never going to improve, to the point you are writing off the whole concept of a Linux platform for all use cases.
On HN this seems to appear a lot and is used very often to stifle tangential discussions. A thread about how many games now run on Proton will have at least one and likely many people writing a list of all the technical issues they've had with Linux recently and then either explicitly or implicitly saying that as a result Linux is not ready or not suitable for case stated in the article.
> ever since I've built my 5900x desktop last summer
As someone who’s been using Ubuntu exclusively since 2008, this comment is bizarre. The pain point with pcs has always been compatibility and driver support. The Microsoft miracle was ubiquitous vendor support they enforced with their monopoly. Apple handles this by tightly controlling hardware and peripherals. Linux being the odd man out has always suffered.
The result of this dynamic has always been that Linux is best on previous generation hardware. So the question for the parent is; did you check support for the components used in your custom build? By explaining the history, I hope this question is received in a non hostile manner by the reader.
Maybe this advice or reality is lost today I don’t know. I find it to be annoying that many don’t know. Related to the way many dismiss the Linux desktop because they can’t use photoshop or application of choice; when cross platform apps have always been the exception.
> rebuilding custom drivers, dealing with upgrade breaking my system
If you compile custom drivers for your operating system, then maybe it breaking at some future upgrade shouldn't come as a great surprise? Presumably you know what you're doing and find these things fun and rewarding in their own right.
Well, Linux has had a rough decade. The messaging around Wayland was like a stubbed toe for many users, with a lot of people trying it and denouncing it for being unfinished (a completely fair criticism). Now that Wayland is starting to get finished, the 'just works' quotient is increasing quite a bit for Linux, and people can share their recent success stories with a bit more impunity.
It's not unreasonable to assume Linux is bad, it's only unreasonable to assume nothing has changed since the last time you tried it. Make of that what you will.
All decades have been rough decades, from modeline generation, to the switch to PulseAudio to Wayland. There is always a construction ground in desktop Linux. That's the sad story of the Linux desktop. It's really a hard problem to crack, it requires vast amounts of manpower, a lot of coordination between various parts of the ecosystem and it doesn't help that most hardware vendors are not cooperative. Go back ten or twenty years and you'll find exactly the same message as yours "it used to be bad, but most problems are solved now, really".
Desktop Linux will always be in a state where it is great for technical users who have the expertise and time to fix and work around things. Because once you've done so, it is infinitely malleable. It will always be a miserable experience for non-technical users or technical users who don't have the time to fix the issues. Linux on the desktop only really excels when one party polishes the experience to be great and makes all the bit work togerther. E.g. like Google did with Android and ChromeBooks or to some extend Red Hat with Fedora (which is the best and most consistent Linux desktop experience).
Outside the desktop, little software is as successful as Linux. It's the substrate of the modern tech world.
Sinking a lot of time into Wayland (via Sway WM) around the pandemic is what finally got me off Linux on my Mac laptop (yes I've worked around the usual issues, it was an arbitrary switch). It's a solid operating system and the configuration can be powerful, but having to mess around with per-monitor screen scaling, installing extra software to get screen sharing to work, learning way too much about pulseaudio and the bluetooth stack to route audio around correctly, I decided it was not worth the effort to get what comes out-of-the-box in commercial operating systems. Modern software is complicated and we really expect so many things to somehow work correctly that it's any wonder that things work at all (and they often break in unexpected ways anyway).
X has worked great and continues to do so and is far more feature rich than Wayland will likely ever be. As long as X is available, I will use X. I can do remote desktop with X and I can so "ssh -X hostname" to run an X app.
FWIW as much as I want Wayland to become the norm already, I still run into bugs when I try to use it. My latest issue is that Firefox somehow stops responding to mouse clicks after I interact with a certain element (I still don't know which one). I'm sure this is an addon or plugin or extension or whatever causing issues, but even for me as an enthusiast, X11 Just Works (TM). My experience trying Wayland on Nvidia, the most popular GPU brand for PC gamers, is also not exactly great. Could just be my hardware though and I'll admit I'm due a reinstall after brute forcing system config files.
On the other hand, Pipewire has fixed so many small audio problems for me that I didn't even know I was having that I'm glad I switched over.
My biggest issue with Linux for mainstream is not Linux or its distros, but the guides online who are outdated, tell people to open a terminal for every little thing, tell people to add random software repositories that will definitely break something about the system within a year as a workaround without listing the implications, or are extremely condescending towards users.
Microsoft Certified Technicians and user forums will usually tell you to reinstall your OS every time an error shows up but at least they don't give detailed instructions on disabling all security on your computer, fucking up your bootloader config with a oneliner from 2009 that doesn't even solve anything or tells you to modify UEFI settings (like secure boot) for no reason at all.
People with no knowledgeable friends and family will find they get little support from help desks and other paid service centers and that's a big problem. Many normal people rely on external parties to help them with their computers when their printer decides to show some kind of error and computer service employees seem to only know Linux from their community college OpenSUSE server management course.
Back when I did helpdesk for a small ISP I had the occasional Linux user (often installed by friends or family because Windows XP stopped getting updates) and the problems I helped fix were all solveable by GUI settings and were documented in the internal IT knowledge base but still I got to do every single call because I "knew Linux". They did the same for OSX, whose users I also gladly helped to the best of my ability, but that's only because I bothered to Google and try because I'd never even seen a Mac. I've been gone for years but I don't think you'll get any support if you try to call that company with a Linux device today.
Strangely enough, this wasn't a problem for my coworkers when Windows released a new overhaul of all systems and settings. I remember when Windows 8 hit and everybody managed to sort out the terribly unintuitive GUI in a week.
My conclusion from this is that people have a very strange view of what Linux really is, based on something they've seen someone else do years ago. It's like basing all your opinions about Windows on someone managing a barebones Windows 2012 install through PowerShell. Several people were amazed when I showed them a screenshot of Linux running a GUI and the fact you could download Discord from a built-in software store blew their mind.
I think it's because some of us have heard about it for... 20 years maybe? And then lost a few days or weeks to trying to make it work.
I'm sure for some people it works perfectly, and I haven't tried for at least 6 years, but I was damn annoyed after the last time I lost a week to a laptop with no WiFi, 45 minutes battery life (instead of 5 hours in windows), and no external monitor support. I was sure (at the time) to tell other people of my issues, so they were aware, if they were being told how awesom a Windows replacement Arch (or whatever) was.
If you're still interested, I would try again now. The experience has come on in leaps and bounds in the last 5 years. I haven't had a WiFi issue since 2018
> The main sentiment in your comment which I don't think I've seen addressed in other comments is the fervency of the people attacking the mere notion that Linux is not a viable option...but I'm often surprised with the confidence and sheer malice of people who will attack any notion of Linux not being a viable desktop.
> I've seen it on HN, I've seen it in Gaming subreddits, I've had it in non-technical subreddits and I've had it in real life. People just have no qualms shitting on anyone who expresses problems with linux and it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view.
You can see it up and down this thread, anyone who expresses frustrations or compatibility issues immediately gets 3 replies to the effect of "You're wrong, I've been running linux since 1954 and it works perfectly and no issue like that exists".
I like linux. I maintain a cluster of linux machines at work, and have 2 linux boxes at home because it does things that windows just can't. But those 2 boxes take up about 90% of my "tech support" time.
I also see the complement. My comment's top reply is someone including an attack on Linux rather than expanding on their main motivations (unless they see them as one and the same?) and the responses and children thereof are then all about people either also attacking or trying to defend Linux.
It seems like a topic that is really deeply seated for this audience, but the fact that it is so deeply seated is a blind spot that doesn't seem like people have the ability or the interest to examine.
I think this is a phenomenon less specific to choice of OS and more based in some bad part of the human psyche that inclines people to punish nonconformity/“the out group”. 20 years ago using a Mac was often greeted with similar nasty attitude.
Maybe Windows fans holding onto one of its last remaining advantages? I have a Windows desktop solely for games. I’d be 100% done with Windows if all the games I play worked flawlessly on Linux
I’m working on running windows in a VM with near native performance and then running that under gentoo.
Not technically divesting myself of windows, but having it abstracted from my bare metal will give me a certain peace of mind and smugness. I think anticheat freaks out on one or two games I don’t play doing it like that.
I did the same until a few weeks ago. I then decided that if it doesn't work on Linux I'm not interested anymore. Same with games that I want to play but don't natively support ultra-wide resolutions (looking at you, Fallout 4).
The reason I gave up is because most games that I want to play but don't work is down to anti-cheat software.
I think it's likely just tribalism. There is no nuance to the comments, which is a hallmark of tribalism. A more nuanced discussion might make some key basic concessions:
- Windows will have better support in most cases.
- Linux users might need to be more technically savvy in most cases. (although most PC gamers are probably technically savvy enough to _use_ linux.)
- Windows will usually (but surprisingly not always) get somewhat better performance than Linux in gaming.
- etc.
A more nuance discussion might then state that all things being equal, Windows is usually the better gaming platform, however Linux is perfectly viable, particularly if your operating system concerns come before your gaming concerns.
My problem with people saying stuff like this in the open is that we all know it's not true - by recommending it to others, or even saying it out loud for others to hear, they are wasting the time of those who try it. It's malicious.
Just as surprising to me was walking my dogs down my street a couple months ago, and hearing one of my neighbors loudly talking about software that is free from corporate and government interference, and that you can see the source code for such things. And it wasn’t the neighbor that was getting rid of his rack-mountable equipment in a garage sale because he is retiring. Most of the neighbors tinker with cars and off-road vehicles.
Linux must run well on ALL laptops because every distro tells you to just burn a USB stick, install on your rando laptop, and it will work great! Which is, if course, a lie. You end up with a lot of disappointed users who have "done the experiment" and have determined that the Linux desktop doesn't work! Which is true, for their hardware.
Distros aren't doing anyone any favors by not warning potential users that their hardware may not be compatible.
I bought ubuntu-supported dell laptop, and there were still plenty of issues. Ranging from randomly wake up from sleep in my backpack, to display issue plugging it in an external monitor (this still happens to this day, Linux doesn’t work well with a 4k monitor + a lower resolution monitor).
Two years ago, I built a threadripper machine, and even more than 6 months after the CPU was released, linux didn’t work on that yet (iirc, you had to patch or used a special settings on boot, or it crashed). Ubuntu on that same machine suddenly decided last week to NOT recognize a monitor being plugged in via a KVM (there are 2 monitors), booting to windows still works so I am not even sure if it is a hardware or software issue.
At this point, I think people who are claiming linux works perfectly on their machines are the one with special hardware, either very old, or very limited.
>Ranging from randomly wake up from sleep in my backpack //
This has come up a few times on HN recently, it appears to be an issue with all brands of OS. There was an explanation for it to do with Windows wanting to keep the network stack live in "sleep" and so proper sleep having little support. Reports suggested it might be a problem with OSX too.
You have to go deep and really research it, which is confusing and rules out most users. If it’s not a well known Linux friendly model you have to search every chipset and other element of the system.
It’s too bad that Dell is selling supposed Linux-supported laptops that are not.
I’ve heard good things about the Thinkpad Carbon X1, System 76, and Star Labs.
> Ranging from randomly wake up from sleep in my backpack
This is so much of an issue in Windows that LTT basically took the stance to tell everybody to buy a MAC instead because they just can't take it anymore. It seems to be more an issue with gaming laptop, not that they wake up more, but that they go through their battery so fast that you charge it overnight, and by the time you take it out of your backpack, the battery is already dead.
Personally it's not that Linux "just works" for me, it's that Windows doesn't either anyway. Once, I had Windows 7 not being able to find my user account and I had to open Windows in failsafe mode and play in the bios.
The worst I've had happen to me in Arch is the DNS not working after an update and having to manually edit it in a file. The thing with Arch though is that when something breaks for you, there's a ton of other people with the same problem so it takes 2 seconds to find an answer. Ironically, Ubuntu, Debian and Mint always gave me much more smaller problems. Like KDE on Kubuntu makes the os bar disappear after I play a certain video game in steam, or my monitor stopped working one time after playing that game, etc.
I've had the exact same things happen to me with Windows machines - apparently computers are still hard. I won't disagree though that the Linux laptop experience is still pretty bad - basically the power management has made it unusable in my experience.
I'm a happy Pop!_OS (or however ridiculously they render their name) desktop user, and so I'm inclined to give their hardware a try next time I look at laptops. Framework may also be a contender.
Built my own machine early in 2022 with 12th gen intel chip and other new components and put arch on it. It has never given me an issue. The only occasional problem is KDE clock freezes rarely and I have to restart the window manager. Overall it’s an incredibly fast computer.
> Two years ago, I built a threadripper machine, and even more than 6 months after the CPU was released, linux didn’t work on that yet (iirc, you had to patch or used a special settings on boot, or it crashed). Ubuntu on that same machine suddenly decide
Are you perhaps thinking of a different Ryzen processor? I built a ThreadRipper PC 5 years ago, and got it running Linux weeks after launch. Interestingly, I couldn't get it to boot off a Windows USB stick; so it only ever ran linux.
Well, my Company provided a Dell XPS 13 running Windows, and that piece of crap doesn't work right with their own docking station. I think it's an issue with that particular company.
Same docking station, but with an Ubuntu based Hp DevOne doesn't cause any troubles at all.
Assuming Dell is providing this laptop, the fact Ubuntu doesn't work properly on it sounds like Dell being at fault.
I've said previously that Linux gets the blame for not working in situations the OEM gets blamed if windows doesn't work. I personally don't think that's fair.
> this still happens to this day, Linux doesn’t work well with a 4k monitor + a lower resolution monitor
I'm typing this response right now from a Thinkpad that is connected to a 4k monitor and two 1920x1080 monitors (using KDE Plasma); works perfectly. All the monitors are Dell.
I'm sincerely not trying to be contrarian here, but I'm curious what issues you've run into and on what hardware? I've installed Linux on literally hundreds of machines over the years, many different architectures, makes, amd models. The only real compatibility challenges I recall were modems in the early 2000s, and graphics cards up until around 2010? I actually have the impression that hardware support is pretty fantastic. As an example, on quite a few occasions occasions I've moved an existing linux installation from one machine to another. New laptop? DD the drive from the old to the new, alter the partition size, grow the filesystem, and you're off to the races.
Brand new hardware can have an issue if Linux hasn't integrated support yet. You get that from day one with a Windows Update or through the shipping hardware. But after a few months it's usually plain sailing. Linux installs nowadays are trivial that my mother-in-law can't even crash them anymore.
Do they say ALL laptops? Here's a direct quote from page 1 of Ubuntu's installation guide:
"Whilst Ubuntu works on a wide range of devices, it is recommended that you use a device listed on the Ubuntu certified hardware page. These devices have been tested and confirmed to work well with Ubuntu."
No, it's not straight up on the download page but should it be?
If you substitute "windows" for Linux, you have a true statement.
All the (mostly rando) laptops in my house (5) which were shipped with windows pre-installed, with broken features/drivers were wiped, and Linux was installed. Many things didn't work under windows. Wifi was the big thing that failed under windows. Then the more generalized networking stack, which was stock, was unable to connect to the internet, despite getting wifi working.
With Linux, none of these were issues. Sound worked well. Networking just worked. GPUs just worked (though there was was some stupidity with nouveau and 2060 bits early on, that's been the only GPU issue I've had in the last 15-ish or so years running linux on laptops/desktops).
I migrated family to MacOS, as it was easier to support than windows, and like linux, it just worked.
Your mileage may vary of course, and you may be the occasional unlucky user with an odd problem. But really, none of the problems are worse than windows, and from my perspective (using computers since 1979 or so), if you start with a well designed distro (Linux Mint, Pop!, elemental, ...) you really won't have a problem. FWIW, Linux Mint is a reworked Ubuntu, with better defaults, drivers, codecs, etc. .
I know people get worked up over this and often try to make jokes about "this year is the year of linux desktop" ... but its been my daily driver for 23 years, its been my desktop/laptop OS as long. Its figuratively all over but the shouting.
So argue against it if you wish, there are many other windmills you can tilt against which might bear better argumentation. This battle is over. Ordinary people are using it, migrating to it.
I'm happy that you have success, but I think there must be something seriously weird with your setup if the default windows install can't connect to WiFi.
If WiFi didn't just work out of the box, I'm sure most people would just return the laptop, as it's most people only connectivity.
I have run Linux as a daily driver on probably 50 laptops/ desktops over 25 years. I have never found a problem I could not solve. Sometimes that required me to use a search engine and understand a bit about debugging. In a few cases issues required my to gain an understanding of how the Linux kernel works, and make some patches. I got code upstreamed in the kernel before I was old enough to drink.
These days you can buy plenty of computers that ship with Linux and everything will work great. If you just want it to work you can pay money and even have a support plan.
That said, if you work in tech you should take note that the whole world runs on Linux now. You will do yourself a major favor just buying any random machine off the shelf, build a DIY distro like Gentoo on it, and learn how to make it run rock solid.
The ability to fix anything about Linux to adapt it to virtually any hardware it was not designed for is a feature, not a bug.
I needed to install Linux last week on a new Intel NUC.
* The NUC has an intel Ax411 Killer 1690i and Linux wouldn't recognize it.
* On my monitors (I tried two different ones) the setup screen didn't fit and the OK/Next buttons on the bottom weren't displayed. I had to guess how many times to "tab" to finish the install. There was no way of fixing that.
* The video card isn't quite compatible. It won't come back after the screen blanking kicks in. I disabled the screen blanking.
* The machine won't wake after a sleep or a suspend
Most systems that run Linux are unsupported by the vendor who refuse to provide support. This is the dividing line I find. The vendor might provide source code to the community to make their widget work with Linux but it's provided as-is and unsupported.
I found this out with a dodgy NUC recently. Intel support told me that Linux is unsupported so they can't help. I had to install Windows and show the same issue before the issued the RMA.
"occasional peripheral" is usually WiFi, trackpad, Bluetooth or GPU. Bluetooth may be manageable from that list, but if one of those 4 doesn't work pretty much out of the box, it's a non starter for most people
Power management and sleep (like, closing the lid of the laptop and it waking up correctly every time) has basically never worked for me on Linux machines - of which I had several.
In my experience: hardware out for fewer than six months will have issues, especially on outdated LTS systems like Ubuntu. For example, my laptop (which I bought before it was even on the Lenovo website) had issues with Intel's audio driver that they forgot/didn't bother to submit firmware for to maintainers, though there was an easy workaround.
In my experience, Linux will usually just work if you don't have any hardware from crappy vendors. Nvidia is one of the most important vendors that refuse to work normally, but many "gaming" vendors also haven't done any work to support Linux. Elgato and friends have hardware that's useless without software support and for that you need Windows or some weird project from Github.
Unlike ten years ago, bluetooth, WiFi, ethernet, sound, video acceleration, suspend/sleep, and all the usual suspects just work if you give the kernel people time to merge the drivers (Windows drivers are ready before release, while Linux often gets them later) and if you pick a recent enough Linux distro.
I think most people can grab a copy of the latest version of Linux Mint and just get started. Maybe Pop_OS! if you want a more Ubuntu feel without the Ubuntu hassle.
I installed Ubuntu on a Dell laptop recently that wasn't on the approved list. It required a few tries, and running some scary commands in my BIOS to change the filesystem parameters. It works fine, and I can still dual boot to my old windows partition.
The issues, funnily enough, happen when I go back to windows: the clock has been set back to UTC time, and the Bluetooth has forgotten my mouse.
And now I switch back to Windows so rarely that it doesn't matter.
Not really. The most successful Linux laptops are probably the various Chromebooks. They sell in the order of tens of millions per year, and certainly doesn't advertise running on any other hardware.
It's mostly a problem with the semi-free Linux distributions that found their market share in this niche. It is not intended to be some majority option, despite what the marketing says.
And with Proton and the Steam Deck, Valve is also removing the argument that you can't game on Linux.
For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things).
It has very good specs for a handheld, and you can emulate most games up to the Switch, and some Switch games run even better on the deck than on the Switch.
As it's open, you can even install Windows or replace parts if you want.
It has surpassed all my expectations and it feels like the deck together with Proton is solving the last big obstacle with Linux on desktop.
> For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things).
Not just "basically a PC" but an actual PC running a modified version of Arch Linux (called SteamOS). One of the options in the menu is "Enter Desktop Mode" which does exactly what it says; drops you to a KDE desktop with all the bells and whistles of a normal Linux desktop. From there, you can use it as a normal PC if you want. Hook it up to a USB-C hub with HDMI and USB I/O, and you have a portable computer you can connect to displays with your keyboard and mouse.
Flexible as hell, and it's also pretty nice as a gaming device.
I've had about 2 decades of experience hearing that gaming on Linux is here and being disappointed. I started hearing about Proton and how it was really doing it this time and I was skeptical as always, but I figured it was worth a shot based on who I was hearing it from. And I'll say that for me, Proton is it. Not only does it provide awesome compatibility, it's basically just a checkbox in Steam to enable. I'm sure you can still find issues; even Windows can't provide 100% compatibility with decades of games, but for me, it's arrived.
You're putting up a scarecrow... you're saying people said that linux was perfect for gaming, except for the fact that it doesn't have anti cheat? No way. If anything, people said: If Linux wants to take off, it needs to have anticheat, but a whole lot more too.
> "Linux won't be viable for gaming until I can run Fortnite, Destiny 2 and Xbox Game pass"
> Well you have me there..
FYI MS Game Pass has worked on Linux for months now.
Fortnite and Destiny 2 are two games where the developers have both, for whatever reason, specifically gone on record to say they will ban players that attempt to play their games on Linux.
If Steam Deck was being sucessful by having game studios write Steam Deck games like they bother with Android, iOS, Switch and PlayStation, that would be inovative, emulating Windows and DirectX via a translation layer, not really,
It isn't going to be something I choose to run until there's a VR system that works for it that doesn't feel like it is alpha quality. Even Valve's own Index only kinda-sorta works with half of the features.
Sure proton is great and it does a good job on my steam deck.
But to me the fact that the games are not natively supporting Linux and are instead needing a tool like Proton still means that Linux is not ideal for gaming. Just like Mac is not.
It has nothing to do with the OS itself and everything to do with developer support.
I love my steam deck but I also strongly believe that going with Linux was a short cited decision on Valves part to try to protect themselves from Microsoft. Many (most, all?) of us here are technical enough to understand at least on some level what proton does and what native actually is. But most users are not and that is where the problems come up.
When a game pushes an update that breaks support on the steam deck most users will go to complain to the developers. But the developer was not involved in supporting Linux and rightly so they don't test every update on it.
That is not the right path here.
I strongly believe that to claim that an OS can be good for something it must be targeted by the developers of whatever that thing is and run natively (or at the very least if it is prepackaged with something like proton, it is still distributed by the developers for that OS)
And yes I fully realize this is a chicken and the egg problem with linux and gaming.
> But to me the fact that the games are not natively supporting Linux and are instead needing a tool like Proton still means that Linux is not ideal for gaming. Just like Mac is not.
You’re holding a proof that it isn’t so in your hands and still claim something opposite. The biggest issue with gaming on Linux has always been impossibility of providing a binary build that works everywhere due to lack of a stable kernel API and ABI. Turns out, win32 API is exactly that and works really well on Linux if you put in the work, see proton.
IOW Linux is ready for gaming thanks to and because of Windows, not despite it.
While I respect your ideological opposition to this and understand your logic, I'm not sure if you've ever seen the lifecycle of a Linux-native game.
For the first 6 months of its release, everything works great! A few minor bugs to fix but your game engine figured everything out for you. Flash forward 2 years - your game is broken on every distro. An Ubuntu hotpatch broke your game on most systems months ago, and glibc changes have decimated the runtime for every user. Steam's own runtime has already bumped it's versioning and is missing 3-4 libraries you used to rely on. The Windows version boots through Proton though, so nobody is complaining yet.
Linux shouldn't need Windows as a stable runtime, but until it fixes it's packaging issues this will continue to be the status-quo.
I used to think this. But with so many Linux variants out there I think supporting it is harder than just supporting the windows api that makes it work.
It’s odd but things like docker and the JVM and browser based software mean the software will run abstracted a bit, less optimally, but good enough. Even among the different Linux distros software is distributed differently (rpm, debs, flat pack, pacman….)
Brining more people to Linux is the goal, more developers! and better software packaging eventually.
I do wonder if Valve has tried to discuss with Microsoft what it would like to see out of Windows in the future (potentially Windows 12) to make it a useful OS for a Steam Deck device.
Some sort of advanced suspend/resume functionality similar to the Series X's Quick Resume would be a killer feature. And I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind having native Game Pass hooks into a device like that
Yes and no - the work that's gone into it, and into Proton in general has made game support on linux generally leap forward. I don't have a Steam Deck myself, but because it exists, things are getting patched in Proton often before games even come out, which is a far cry from where things used to be with Wine.
Having a site like ProtonDB to be a single place to go look up any tweaks or config flags for Wine/Proton to get a game to work is invaluable, and it's now actually getting good traffic and data because of Steam Deck.
Presumably you mean that as a criticism but "being supported by a multibillion company" is normally a fantastic sign of success, and "a single hardware configuration" is an indicator of seriousness about guaranteeing a good UX.
Look no further than power management/sleep/awake, which is flawless and snappy on steamdeck. That's more than you can say for 95% of "supported linux laptops".
I don't think Linux will ever be the dominant desktop OS, but that no longer matters because Desktop is no longer the dominant method of interacting with a computer.
You could argue that linux 'won' with Android (and unix 'won' with Android and iOS) but really those OSs are even more locked down than Windows ever was.
We won, but also we lost big.
MacOS and Windows keep getting worse, though, and Lxqt keeps not surprising me. That's all I need, but I fear for the next generation.
Termux used to be around to make Android feel like I was carrying linux around, but eventually Google (afaik) killed it by breaking everything so now I have JuiceSSH and a raspberry pi.
I'm weighing the price of keeping a cloud instance around just to play on when I'm not at home like I used to...
Unlike with windows or Mac, you can get android as unlocked as you want - just buy one of the brands (like Google’s) that intentionally make it super easy to unlock and install a different Android distro. And since Google releases the full kernel and drivers there are no drivers issues.
Some applications, like banking, will refuse to work on systems that aren’t locked down, but they would present the same problem to any Linux system.
To me the year of Linux on a desktop arrived years ago. I'm waiting for the year of Linux on a laptop, because unfortunately, and I'm a free software supporter, I've to say that a Macbook works objectively better than a laptop with Linux on it (and there is small to blame to Linux to be fair, but to hardware manufacturers that doesn't provide a good support, and to be fair even Windows on the same hardware doesn't work that great in most laptop that I see...).
I'm having a very different experience. I've been using Linux on and off for many years, but 2022 was the first time I installed it on a new laptop (Thinkpad X1 Carbon) and I like my overall setup + work experience more than on a MacBook Pro. I was able to tweak a lot of things related to my flow that are more difficult to tweak on macOS. Battery life is excellent, performance maybe not on-par with M1, but still very good and I like the keyboard a lot more.
Long live Linux.
Edit: Oh yeah, the hibernation is still crappy on Linux, but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
I'm curious about the battery life on the X1 Carbon (and the model/specs).
I'm on an M1 Air, but over the years I've also been running (mainly) Mint on various ThinkPads and whilst I loved the experience I never got more than a few hours. And I'm now getting days with Mac OS on the Air, which is the main reason I'm using it - I have become used to not worrying about the battery life, and certainly never having to constrain performance workloads to preserve it.
So I read "Battery life is excellent" and am curious. I get that it won't be M1 (ARM) level, but for doing stuff like a mix of writing plus development (with for example smallish Go compilations) do you have a feel for any kind of averages?
Everything on laptops has been good enough for a few years for me now in Linux. Maybe not perfect and there are things that are better out there, but I am not chasing perfection. Good enough is good enough.
> but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
Well... no, since most new laptop manufacturers had removed the S3 state (classic suspend to RAM) because Microsoft said that today they have to go with "Modern standby" that basically is leave the system on at a lower power settings. Beside that it doesn't work and will overheat your laptop if placed in a bag... and unfortunately since it is removed from the UEFI Linux can't do too much to put it back.
I dunno what you're talking about. I have a 2022 T14s with AMD 6850U. It runs fast and battery lasts at least 5h (not epic, but more than good enough for a day, and I've done no tuning whatsoever). As a daily driver, I have not had serious problems with Linux (Ubuntu) on a notebook (though I stick to Thinkpads) for a long, long time. Until about 5 years ago, battery story wasn't great, but no real issues since then. Have not had problems with suspend to RAM or other day to day features in quite a long time. In fact I tried a Macbook around 2000 and it had those problems, couldn't wait to get rid of that silver blimp.
While hacking is neat, I prefer things to just work with an -intentionally- open ecosystem, one that can't be taken away because of a marketing decision disguised as something else, with companies that are there for this fundamental idea first, and am more than happy with the constant ability to manage the system comprehensively.
It’s not hard to find examples of people having problems with Linux on modern laptop hardware, there are already half a dozen anecdotes as I’m typing this if you scroll down the thread a bit.
I don’t know why this is such a thing in Linux-land, but people love to say, “works for me, case closed”. Desktop Linux is more forgiving with each passing year, but it’s not productive to ignore problems just because you aren’t experiencing them.
That is interesting. I have a T14s with 5850U. The high-dpi display was tough nut to crack for me -- I want to use i3, so I need Xorg. Of course, there is also Sway, which is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for i3 on wayland. But for some reason Sway never felt as clean, fast and crisp as i3 to me. I can't even quantify it, and maybe it is in my head, but if I can, I will take i3 over Sway. So Xorg it is. After tuning and tweaking font DPIs and scaling factors for weeks, I got brave and tried to hook up an external display to my docking station. Many i3 config tweaks later, supplying a flurry of arguments to xrandr, bound to arcane key combinations, I got it to work, with readable font sizes on both displays simultaneously. Battery life is still crap though (~3-4h).
In all honesty, I find myself using the old T450s with a fat battery pack from Aliexpress more often than my new glass cannon T14s.
I can't get Linux to not drain my laptop battery when the lid is closed. On my M1 Air I can close the lid and come back a week later with maybe a couple percent less battery; on my Framework with PopOS it drains after just a day (default settings).
I run Linux on a T480s and it’s pretty good, but there are issues. I’m using Ubuntu 22.04. It’s comfortably usable for me but it would be silly to pretend that these things aren’t major problems for many (perhaps a majority) users.
Off the top of my head:
- Waking from sleep with the lid closed while using an external monitor straight-up doesn’t work. Not with keyboard and mouse input, not even by hitting the power button.
- Thunderbolt hotplugging JUST started working in 22.04, and it still flakes out quite a bit. I think my laptop would normally maintain days to weeks of uptime if it weren’t for Thunderbolt-related issues.
- Battery life in-use is like three hours, max. I’ve never used anything but Linux in this machine so I don’t know how battery life stacks up in Windows, but I know that I was using a MacBook Air at work over a decade ago that did 6+ hours.
I strongly prefer to run Linux and I’ve used it as my primary desktop OS since 2001, but I can’t think of a single Linux laptop in the past 22 years that hasn’t presented me with significant problems that I had to either work around or accept.
Two things I really miss having moved to Linux are the MBP touchpad and power management (battery-life/sleep/hibernate).
There are also weird audio/mic UX issues. Not sure if this is the same across all platforms, but -
I usually have my laptop hooked up to an external monitor, audio output set to the external monitor, and my headphones plugged into the monitor. Yesterday, I locked my desktop and stepped away from my desk with the music still playing. When I came back, music was playing out loud from the laptop speaker. That's because the monitor went to sleep, so the HDMI audio sink went away, and the OS "helpfully" switched audio output to the laptop speaker which was set to full volume.
Logically, it makes sense that would happen. Clearly, I am to blame.
The classic problems are suspend and hibernation issues, along with worse performance and battery life compared to windows (with manufactur optimised drivers).
I have to agree. My M2 Air is a fantastic dev machine. I'm looking forward to installing an immutable Linux with 100% working and stable hardware support, sleep, multitouch, Wayland, etc., but in the meantime all I can do is continue donating to marcan and crossing my fingers.
Same here... should I use a desktop computer, Linux has been fine for that for quite a while. Laptop is an entirely different matter though. When called to the meeting room, it's sure fun to see my colleagues go there with their lid open and their chargers.
Agree macOS on M1 is the best DX you can get today. However, I've been running Ubuntu 22 on a Framework (Intel 11th gen) laptop - and it's 90% of the DX of macOS.
My $150 Costco special 14" 1080P Chromebook gets as much use as my M1 MacBook Pro because it's also 90% of the DX of a system 10x its cost.
I was initially interested by the Framework, but if I'm spending $1000 or more, I really don't want something that generic in every regard. After moving to OLED, HDR, and/or HFR this year, "here's a laptop that might cost you less if it fails from a repairable issue outside of our 1-year limited warranty, otherwise it's another $1000 for a new mainboard" didn't seem like that awesome a feature in the face of AppleCare+, upcycled ThinkPads, etc.
don't you understand that MSFT and OEM contracts are literally locking the boot process right now -- the cheaper the laptop, the more locking of the boot process. This is an active situation, while smart people here wail like sheep
Linux doesn't run as universally on laptops as Windows does. Microsoft has an army of programmers and partnerships that make that happen, Linux has demand and voluntary contributions.
My Lenovo X1 Extreme runs Linux great, but Lenovo now produces Linux drivers on a regular schedule. Most other folks rely on generic drivers.
I think the most interesting idea in this space would be the following.
Try to consider how locked down and garbage both Windows and Apple desktops would be if it weren't for the pressure and innovation of the Linux desktop(s).
This is where I realized the Linux Desktop is "winning" -- or at least doing exactly what it should be doing and is doing an exemplary job of it; being the free example that's coming to eat your lunch and keeping everyone else honest and quality. True competition.
It's roughly similar to the difference between email and Twitter. It's not great that email is very centrally controlled by gmail et al, but a hell of a lot better than the Twitter trashfire.
> Try to consider how locked down and garbage both Windows and Apple desktops would be if it weren't for the pressure and innovation of the Linux desktop(s).
I tried but I can't say I can imagine anything on the Windows or MacOS desktops that are influenced by pressure from Linux desktop tbh. What are the things you are thinking about?
CLIs, which are becoming increasingly more supported and important on both Windows and MacOS are thanks to Linux. Windows is a really straightforward example of this where Powershell has aliased a bunch of Linux commands to the powershell command (e.g. grep is an Alias for Select-String in powershell).
Window management features are being driven by Linux. The most successful example of this is tiling window functionality driven largely by tiling window managers from the Linux world.
Developers on both Windows and MacOS depend on package management software picked up straight from Linux, such as chocolatey/scoop in the former and brew with the latter.
Almost every Windows and Mac software is developed using git. Git was literally invented for writing Linux.
The list goes on, but Windows and MacOS have a lot to thank Linux for.
Linux has also been a major pillar of open source in general. Much of the open source software ecosystem depends on Linux and the development and philosophy around it to sustain it.
The one thing that I experienced on Linux for the first time was multiple workspaces. Does that come from MacOS or Windows? I haven’t used anything other than Linux in over a decade.
This is one of those things that's so prevalent that it's kind of hard to even say.
One quick example: Look at every version of Windows from Vista to 10, and then look at what KDE was already looking like at the time. Hard to not see major influence.
To me it never made sense, people point out issues that makes linux not suitable for desktop use by quoting how it should follow Windows or OSX approach... to me someone wanted to use linux but without using linux, at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? I also use linux on the desktop and the way it behaves matches my thinking process, If I wanted it to be used as Windows or OSX I would be using Windows or OSX
> to me someone wanted to use linux but without using linux, at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? I also use linux on the desktop and the way it behaves matches my thinking process, If I wanted it to be used as Windows or OSX I would be using Windows or OSX
People want Linux to act like other operating systems because:
1. They want an easy alternative that doesn’t require extensive relearning should their original OS of choice become unpalatable for some reason
2. Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes?
The first is particularly big, because remember that at this point a lot of people have decades of usage of Windows/macOS under their belt, and even if switching to Linux is a practical consideration for them, such users probably aren’t keen on tossing out all their little bits of power user knowledge and productivity boosting tricks and having to start out from almost scratch.
> Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes?
This is something that I always bothered me. I love using middle click to scroll (you middle click, then move your mouse up and down) in Windows, but there isn't any way to do this in Linux. You can enable it in Firefox for Linux but not on the entire OS, and trying to ask people about this just makes people reply with "why would you want to do this if the default is middle click to copy??".
There are ways to sort of mimic this behavior, but none 100% matches how Windows work.
Part of this is about distro selection. I have a decade plus of windows9x, XP, and 7 experience, so I use Lubuntu which works pretty much exactly like they did, and is honestly less surprising/confusing than Windows 10 (I skipped 8.)
My understanding is that there are also distros that closely match the mac experience.
If you pick up a distro like mainline Ubuntu you might be confronted with potentially confusing new opinions about how desktops should work. I lucked out and tried it back in the Gnome 2 days when it felt like XP.
People who say linux should follow a Windows or OSX approach 1) don't use linux and 2) don't understand what makes a good product or brand.
I don't really care how many people use Linux, it's been my daily driver for a decade and I don't need other people to use it - I just need them to use compatible file formats or sometimes the same web apps as me which is increasingly a solved problem, for people who really need Adobe CS or something they are not going to be using Linux this decade.
Linux can enjoy great success if it finds a suitable OS market segment -- hello Steam deck and Steam OS? After a few tries Gabe may be on to something.
If it happens it will have nothing to do with competing with Microsoft or Apple on their terms.
In the meantime I don't really give a shit because it's great for me and I use it.
I do think the GPL world in general is missing some kind of amazing positioning opportunity - don't know what exactly or how to fix it but basically most of Big Tech are not liked because they're abusers, and GPLed software is the antidote.
> at that point why don't they use windows or OSX?
Because for a lot of people the point is to use a free (as in speech) OS. They are fine with how OSX or Windows works, and they want Linux to work the same. They simply want a good, user-friendly free desktop OS.
Does Linux finally have something like a Device Manager on Windows? Because last time I tried, there is just no BFU suitable way to figure out what is status of this or that peripheral.
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Does anybody say this? I've always interpreted the phrase "year of Linux on the desktop" to mean a year when people who wouldn't list "computers" among their personal interests were noticeably using it on their desktops. That still hasn't happened. There are a lot of "year of the -" things I've seen come, when things that were used by professionals and nerds entered common usage and parlance, like burning a CD or installing Firefox (granted those have come and now gone).
You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad. You ask a normie what their opinion of Linux is and most of them won't even know the word, let alone have one. That's why it isn't and may never be "the year of Linux on the desktop".
The year of the Linux desktop didn't happen (unless you consider Android phones desktops), but Linux has been massively successful in other ways (servers, phones, embedded, IoT). If anything, the underlying OS matters less and less, since applications are steadily moving to the web (for better or worse).
Today, what operating system people choose to run on their desktop/laptop just isn't a terribly important question any longer in the scheme of things especially given that most live largely in their browser anyway.
I have certainly heard it said that Linux as a desktop operating system is an utter mess or completely unusable.
> You ask a normie "what's your opinion of Windows 10?" and they'll have one, good or bad.
The "normies" I know do not have an opinion on Windows 10. Many do not even distinguish between Windows and Word. They have a computer, they know how to get some of their shit done with it. But they don't have a concept of "operating system", let alone an opinion on any one of them.
Some have an opinion on Android vs iPhone, but more often than not it's the quality of the camera they point to, rather than any feature of the operating system.
That said, I agree with your Interpretation of what "the year of Linux on the desktop" means and the fact that it hasn't happened.
At work it seems like developers don't care what the machine they are sitting at is as long as it has ssh and vscode with remote plugin and of course a browser.
Some domain specific tools don't work so well remotely and those people have whatever that software requires, sometimes as a VM but often on metal with a beefy workstation.
For generic office productivity I still see people using Microsoft.
Windows still rules the office, for now, but it's not gaining ground, and offices tend to move slowly, but steadily.
While desktop computing still has its value everything shifted and yeah fight from 1990s or 2000s does not matter anymore.
True “normies”, my mom for instance or most of my wife's colleagues, have no idea on which version of Windows their computer is running, let alone have an opinion on the specific version they are using. They don't even know what an operating system is.
People who do know about the different versions of Windows aren't “normies”, they are people who are somewhat tech savy but not nerd enough to try Linux (which most of them have heard about somehow, often from their nerd friend) because it sounds scary and time consuming (installing an entire operating system, wiping your entire Windows including the drivers that comes pre-installed is rightfully scary for most people).
“Linux on the desktop” for the masses cannot exist until it ships with the computer you buy without knowing it. Like Chromebooks for instance.
The fact that the vast majority of consumers don't have any awareness at all that Linux is a simple, widely-available desktop is evidence of the opposite: that the public hasn't decided against Linux, and that the sky is the limit for growth.
i.e. If electric cars had 2% of the market, and 90% of people hadn't even heard of electric cars, the first approximation of the potential market for electric cars as they are is 20%. You'd refine that based on comparing characteristics of the 10% who had heard of them to the 90% who hadn't, but 20% is good enough for a napkin.
With 1) the slow decline in quality and growth of data mining and ads in Windows and MacOS, 2) the ending of Moore's Law, meaning that the development of at least single-threaded software is slower than it used to be, allowing FOSS to catch up where it is behind, 3) greater compatibility and shared software than ever between Windows, MacOS, and Linux through various subsystems, VMs and containers, and 4) the movement of a lot of software to the web, I believe that desktop Linux could take over at any time (or never.)
Windows could just pull another Vista at the same time Apple disables some functionality as a business strategy. Or they could both get cancelled due to major personalities associated with the brands also being associated with politics and the media; Bill Gates obviously, but Jobs' widow owns the Atlantic. Both, neither, or anything else could happen while the Linux desktop was in really good shape and compatible with most of the software that people use.
I don't care if anyone else does or dosen't use it
Different people have different needs, for mine, Linux has made a better desktop than Windows or macOS for many years now.
The year of the linux desktop is the year when the only ones left using desktops are linux nerds. The only desktop in my house has run Slackware for years, because the wife and kid have never had a desktop.
I know a number of "normies" with no interest in computing that use Ubuntu because they trust it more than Microsoft. (Rightfully so)
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Chromebooks are at around 10-20% of laptop sales, running Android (based on Linux)
... they'll tell you that they really like their now iPhone.
Most normal people don't know what Windows is. Maybe they'll find the sticker on their Laptop, but that's about it.
But what everyone knows from work is Word and Excel. And as long as they don't work well on a Linux desktop, Linux feels "broken" to them. Similarly, A LOT of people are stuck having to handle PSD and AI files. Good luck getting the Adobe suite running on Linux. But as long as all of their life's creative work is being held hostile in Adobe-proprietary file formats, they surely won't jump ship.
but the community is allowed to be excited in growth, albeit small, right?
I've been using Linux forever in one form or another. It was tough in the Windows XP days (which is the most superior Windows distro to this day), but after Windows 7 released Linux came into it's own. I've had no problems running it on all sorts of hardware and gaming on it has gotten better since proton.
People are just set in their ways. Mac-people will mock Linux because they're the kind of people that will pay $1500 over marginal cost for a few extra pixels and some more color depth. Windows people will mock Linux because...it's not Windows. M1 is not cool enough to justify the cost. Once Windows started calling home every time I click something on my desktop it became too much for me to bear.
The reason is as you stated. When grandma goes to buy a budget PC it comes loaded with Windows crap. Their market penetration is deep and their budget is nearly endless. Based on my experience with Windows 11 demos I think Windows 11 will finally push people to look elsewhere. Either Macs, or a out-of-the-box Linux system. Until Linux natively supports Excel, however, I don't think it'll ever reach widespread corporate adoption. Windows and OS X are both moron-friendly as you can tell by their userbase. That's important when you're trying to sell something. It'll always be "people who know" vs. "people who think they know".
The truth is, in the wider world, nobody cares about their operating system. They are all good enough and have been for a while. What matters is the same thing that has always mattered - applications.
The real battle these days is BSD vs Linux, aka iOS vs Android. Linux is winning globally, but the domestic kids are still huge on their Fischer Price phones.
Are you claiming that W10 autoupgrades to W11, if you have automatic OS updates enabled? Doesn't seem right to me.
I have Windows 10 with automatic updates enabled, and it hasn't tried installing Windows 11 even once. There is an option for manually triggering the upgrade to W11 in update settings, but I haven't clicked it.
I've seen it on HN, I've seen it in Gaming subreddits, I've had it in non-technical subreddits and I've had it in real life. People just have no qualms with shitting on it and it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view.
I've tried linux 3 or so times over the years, always the "friendly" distros.
I've dropped it each time because while yes, things do work, they tend to STOP working. Drivers, updates, compatibility lag, whatever it is, linux often has me "under the hood" trying to fix stuff that is literally never an issue on another OS.
And i say this as someone who wants linux to be a thing. It's unquestionably healthy for linux to be a real option, ESPECIALLY given windows penchant for trying to sneak in more and more tracking and ads, but even as someone decently techy, I have frequently found linux to feel like gambling, with a question of "will it work today, or am I about to go on a 10 min to multihour rabbit hole hunt to fix something"
I've used Linux on the desktop since 1994. In all that time I recall one breaking update on Debian affecting the wireless network driver. I've used Ubuntu since 2006 and never had any issues like you describe. That is across multiple machine types from Dell, Lenovo and HP. The same is true for my wife who is non-technical and has no issues using Linux (Ubuntu).
As another case in addition to the multiple I mentioned already, I'd vouch for the majority of Android phones running fine without issues caused by new updates, I mention Android since there are people who use their phone exclusively for computing, and oddly.
Summary, use Ubuntu on the desktop, pick a decent manufacturer like Dell, HP or Lenovo (I prefer Dell and/or Alienware from Dell or Lenovo) and maybe pick one that sells with Linux or made for Linux to further enhance your success. I've heard System 76 makes good systems too.
I got an espresso machine last year. I was looking for a grinder. A huge chunk of online coffee folks suggested buying a weird grinder from China and swapping out burr sets and and and and ... and all I wanted was a turnkey grinder. I just wanted coffee. I didn't need to make a hobby of the equipment itself.
This also exists with motorcycles. I just want to ride a motorcycle. I don't have any interest in the endless mod culture of motorcycles.
And so Linux on the desktop. Linux on the desktop is great if you enjoy having to actively sysadmin your work environment, but it's shit if you just want to get some work done. The people who run it full time are people, mostly, who like the hacking part of the hobby in addition to the using part of the hobby. And I don't see that changing.
There was definitely a window in the late 90s when this could've been different, but then Apple moved to OS X, and I think that window closed forever.
no, on other OSes you just cannot fix it. e.g. for instance on my computer I have a win32 install and for some reason on it the ethernet network speed seems locked to 100mbit-ish while on linux I get my gigabit ethernet performance. what can I do to debug this on windows when i tried the usual install / remove drivers, etc etc ? absolutely nothing, I just learn to live with the issue like most people on that OS.
I know some use cases are different than mine so I wouldn’t know them, but I always wonder when I see people complaining about things like battery life (I consistently have at least double or more for Linux than on Windows for the same workloads across laptops, both 32 (aka old) and 64 bit), missing or broken drivers (I don’t use gpus locally) etc.
My non tech acquaintances have issues with Windows all the time but they just ignore them. Seems when installing Linux people suddenly want perfection?
- Fedora Silverblue wants to reduce software reliance on the OS as a runtime. Relying on Flatpaks allows you to freeze most dependencies in-place and have a fully reproducible (if a bit redundant) runtime environment.
- NixOS wants to eliminate software reliance on the OS by removing the OS altogether. A default NixOS install only has a symlink to sh in the /bin folder, everything else needs to be dynamically loaded by the package manager through the Nix Store (big nuclear soup folder with hashed/labelled package tarballs).
Both OSes have some rough edges that make them hard to recommend, but it does suggest a silver lining for Linux packaging in the future. It's definitely a problem, just more of a distro-specific one rather than a Linux-specific one.
This isn't to say that your complaints aren't valid or that you're misrepresenting your own experience, but it doesn't further the discussion and depending on the context with which you are raising it can be seen as a disingenuous way of trying to discredit or undermine Linux as a viable option.
That is to say, in isolation your comment is fine. If a thread on a topic that is related to the Linux desktop only features people citing their unspecific list of issues with desktop Linux then it stop being a reasonable good faith discussion and starts becoming ideological Linux bashing.
And over 25 years of Windows updates, I've had breakages too. And I've had disastrous upgrades from XP->7, and 8->10. I'd say I get one bad driver update with Windows every couple of years or so. Windows just seems to not break the main things like the desktop.
On the other hand, I've run a linux desktop for quite a few years: Arch/sway for 2yrs, Ubuntu/kde for 4yrs, and Fedora/gnome for a year. I had zero problems with Arch, a few problems with Ubuntu, and zero with Fedora.
The year of the linux desktop is now largely irrelevant because so many people are using other devices. Still, developers are now using it as their primary driver, as you can develop for the web or for Android on it.
Like I said in another reply: do you have details on what happens when things break. I have never seen it myself and maybe the community can prevent it if they would know.
My current laptop is an HP Envy from Costco and I was kind of shocked that everything just worked, even the fingerprint reader.
And then it happened - one day my brightness keys quit working. Why? I have no idea and haven't spent time to find out. You are correct, it still happens, but it has been rare for me where it used to be common.
The worst part is that when they do stop working, I have forgotten the horrible kludge of steps I had to go through to get something working the first time around. Of course the answers are out there, but finding the one answer that worked on the distro I used? Needle, meet haystack. I feel this is due to a reliance on CLI to do almost everything. CLI wouldn't be so problematic if those steps worked on every distro. This is the reason that fragmentation is holding LoD back IMO.
I did the same thing, it wasn't until I used Arch Linux that I really started to understand Linux. It turned I wasn't looking for a wannabe-MacOS distro, I just really liked a minimalist Gnome 3.12+ (when Gnome hit the sweet spot) or i3 based Linux that had zero background processes, installed programs, or anything that I didn't opt-in to. If you want MacOS just use MacOS.
On Arch I could run `top` and know what everything is which had amazing performance and battery benefits.
Also learning Linux deeply (ie, the directory structures and meaning of /usr /etc, logging, managing services with SystemD, managing diskspace size, proper bash scripting w/ all of the unix tools, etc) really helped me at my job as a programmer ssh'ing into servers.
MacOS is generally very stable, of course, because they also control the hardware, but I have experienced unexpected reboots on MacBooks.
I find windows pretty frustrating and opaque, I certainly don’t know how anyone could work on it effectively. Having to find and install third party software packages just to get hardware going is a right nightmare. Recently my windows 11 (I keep it around for gaming) was complaining that it couldn’t activate a safety feature, memory consistency checking or something, due to outdated drivers, and listed stuff for hardware I no longer owned. I ended up on a multi-hour trip down the google rabbit hole to try to fix that because there were no updates and the official line is people should never uninstall any drivers!
All I’m saying is YMMV, maybe you just grok windows but not Linux. It’s not universal though.
It's funny because this is, in fact, my reason for dumping Windows and macOS.
The only difference is that I can't open the hood if I'm on Windows or macOS. So, if something breaks there, I'm simply screwed.
Between forced upgrades on macOS (sure, you can keep your OS back, but things like XCode, for example, will do their damndest to force you to upgrade) and random "Windows Update" stupidity ("Nope, no work for you! I must spend 30 minutes upgrading. Oh, by the way, do you want to upgrade to Windows 11 and we put the GTFO button in 6 point italic on your other monitor and we'll harass you again tomorrow.) I finally decamped for Linux permanently and haven't regretted it one iota.
In 2023, you should not try as many distros as possible. They are all similar enough. You should try hardware designed for Linux, instead of one forcing Linux developers to reverse-engineer WiFi and suspend to make it work. Ideally, try it preinstalled. I am happy with my Librem 15, no tinkering is ever required.
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Yep, exactly this. A portion of the Linux Desktop community is so high on its own farts that it can't tolerate the idea that people might have legitimate reasons for not using Linux as their desktop. If you have a problematic use case, their suggestion is to get a different use case.
¹ e.g. web, system development, backend, admin. KDE Plasma is both extremely usable and customizable. I haven't missed anything in comparison with Windows and Mac systems (in fact I always miss stuff when using the other systems).
² I switched my parents to Ubuntu a while back and it has been a surprisingly good decision (90% less support call about weird popup windows, missing icons, etc.) Linux comes with it's own challenges, but compared to 10 years ago most of the stuff just works now
They wanted Quicken and Quickbooks. They wanted easy document sharing with Office. They wanted easy access to scanners for photo conversion. So the Mac was the right choice.
I can see setting up a Linux machine for a less demanding audience, but it's a narrow use case.
What that meant was that Windows was incapable of booting my computer (even though I have a perfectly functional external graphics card) but Ubuntu was able to do so flawlessly on the first install.
So any “You’re an idiot to use Linux on the desktop because XYZ” comments are super easy for me to brush off. It doesn’t matter what Linux doesn’t do or does wrong, it’s given me a working computer, something neither Windows or MacOS could.
I am negative about linux on desktop because it has been a major disappoinment every time I try it.
Last two attempts - ever since I've built my 5900x desktop last summer I can't even get fedora to boot from stick without freezing. I don't have the energy to deal with such issues anymore - I've spent years rebuilding custom drivers, dealing with upgrade breaking my system, etc. Same desktop - windows just works - needed to download a few drivers manually - other than that - plug and play.
And MacOS is next level in that regard.
I dislike Windows choices very much but Linux desktop is just not an option if you want low maintenance/streamlined experience.
* Thorough and well thought through. Well written (unlike, say, Reddit)
* Polite, doesn't attack the person you're responding to or represent their position as ridiculous
However
* Entirely rooted in personal experience and often missing the broader point or use case being described in OP.
In this case I can see that you're describing why you yourself are negative on the Linux desktop (which is on topic), but responses like this miss the context of Steam Deck, Proton and imply that the issues found are never going to improve, to the point you are writing off the whole concept of a Linux platform for all use cases.
On HN this seems to appear a lot and is used very often to stifle tangential discussions. A thread about how many games now run on Proton will have at least one and likely many people writing a list of all the technical issues they've had with Linux recently and then either explicitly or implicitly saying that as a result Linux is not ready or not suitable for case stated in the article.
As someone who’s been using Ubuntu exclusively since 2008, this comment is bizarre. The pain point with pcs has always been compatibility and driver support. The Microsoft miracle was ubiquitous vendor support they enforced with their monopoly. Apple handles this by tightly controlling hardware and peripherals. Linux being the odd man out has always suffered.
The result of this dynamic has always been that Linux is best on previous generation hardware. So the question for the parent is; did you check support for the components used in your custom build? By explaining the history, I hope this question is received in a non hostile manner by the reader.
Maybe this advice or reality is lost today I don’t know. I find it to be annoying that many don’t know. Related to the way many dismiss the Linux desktop because they can’t use photoshop or application of choice; when cross platform apps have always been the exception.
If you compile custom drivers for your operating system, then maybe it breaking at some future upgrade shouldn't come as a great surprise? Presumably you know what you're doing and find these things fun and rewarding in their own right.
It's not unreasonable to assume Linux is bad, it's only unreasonable to assume nothing has changed since the last time you tried it. Make of that what you will.
Desktop Linux will always be in a state where it is great for technical users who have the expertise and time to fix and work around things. Because once you've done so, it is infinitely malleable. It will always be a miserable experience for non-technical users or technical users who don't have the time to fix the issues. Linux on the desktop only really excels when one party polishes the experience to be great and makes all the bit work togerther. E.g. like Google did with Android and ChromeBooks or to some extend Red Hat with Fedora (which is the best and most consistent Linux desktop experience).
Outside the desktop, little software is as successful as Linux. It's the substrate of the modern tech world.
On the other hand, Pipewire has fixed so many small audio problems for me that I didn't even know I was having that I'm glad I switched over.
My biggest issue with Linux for mainstream is not Linux or its distros, but the guides online who are outdated, tell people to open a terminal for every little thing, tell people to add random software repositories that will definitely break something about the system within a year as a workaround without listing the implications, or are extremely condescending towards users.
Microsoft Certified Technicians and user forums will usually tell you to reinstall your OS every time an error shows up but at least they don't give detailed instructions on disabling all security on your computer, fucking up your bootloader config with a oneliner from 2009 that doesn't even solve anything or tells you to modify UEFI settings (like secure boot) for no reason at all.
People with no knowledgeable friends and family will find they get little support from help desks and other paid service centers and that's a big problem. Many normal people rely on external parties to help them with their computers when their printer decides to show some kind of error and computer service employees seem to only know Linux from their community college OpenSUSE server management course.
Back when I did helpdesk for a small ISP I had the occasional Linux user (often installed by friends or family because Windows XP stopped getting updates) and the problems I helped fix were all solveable by GUI settings and were documented in the internal IT knowledge base but still I got to do every single call because I "knew Linux". They did the same for OSX, whose users I also gladly helped to the best of my ability, but that's only because I bothered to Google and try because I'd never even seen a Mac. I've been gone for years but I don't think you'll get any support if you try to call that company with a Linux device today.
Strangely enough, this wasn't a problem for my coworkers when Windows released a new overhaul of all systems and settings. I remember when Windows 8 hit and everybody managed to sort out the terribly unintuitive GUI in a week.
My conclusion from this is that people have a very strange view of what Linux really is, based on something they've seen someone else do years ago. It's like basing all your opinions about Windows on someone managing a barebones Windows 2012 install through PowerShell. Several people were amazed when I showed them a screenshot of Linux running a GUI and the fact you could download Discord from a built-in software store blew their mind.
I'm sure for some people it works perfectly, and I haven't tried for at least 6 years, but I was damn annoyed after the last time I lost a week to a laptop with no WiFi, 45 minutes battery life (instead of 5 hours in windows), and no external monitor support. I was sure (at the time) to tell other people of my issues, so they were aware, if they were being told how awesom a Windows replacement Arch (or whatever) was.
> The main sentiment in your comment which I don't think I've seen addressed in other comments is the fervency of the people attacking the mere notion that Linux is not a viable option...but I'm often surprised with the confidence and sheer malice of people who will attack any notion of Linux not being a viable desktop.
> I've seen it on HN, I've seen it in Gaming subreddits, I've had it in non-technical subreddits and I've had it in real life. People just have no qualms shitting on anyone who expresses problems with linux and it confuses me that people care so much and have so little consideration for the opposing point of view.
You can see it up and down this thread, anyone who expresses frustrations or compatibility issues immediately gets 3 replies to the effect of "You're wrong, I've been running linux since 1954 and it works perfectly and no issue like that exists".
I like linux. I maintain a cluster of linux machines at work, and have 2 linux boxes at home because it does things that windows just can't. But those 2 boxes take up about 90% of my "tech support" time.
It seems like a topic that is really deeply seated for this audience, but the fact that it is so deeply seated is a blind spot that doesn't seem like people have the ability or the interest to examine.
It's extremely easy for people to absorb what they do into their identity.
Not technically divesting myself of windows, but having it abstracted from my bare metal will give me a certain peace of mind and smugness. I think anticheat freaks out on one or two games I don’t play doing it like that.
The reason I gave up is because most games that I want to play but don't work is down to anti-cheat software.
- Windows will have better support in most cases. - Linux users might need to be more technically savvy in most cases. (although most PC gamers are probably technically savvy enough to _use_ linux.) - Windows will usually (but surprisingly not always) get somewhat better performance than Linux in gaming. - etc.
A more nuance discussion might then state that all things being equal, Windows is usually the better gaming platform, however Linux is perfectly viable, particularly if your operating system concerns come before your gaming concerns.
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Just as surprising to me was walking my dogs down my street a couple months ago, and hearing one of my neighbors loudly talking about software that is free from corporate and government interference, and that you can see the source code for such things. And it wasn’t the neighbor that was getting rid of his rack-mountable equipment in a garage sale because he is retiring. Most of the neighbors tinker with cars and off-road vehicles.
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But I have great faith in Linux; partly because I have a lot of faith in the "Linu" part of "Linux."
Despite his acerbic reputation, Torvalds is one hell of a coder.
Distros aren't doing anyone any favors by not warning potential users that their hardware may not be compatible.
Two years ago, I built a threadripper machine, and even more than 6 months after the CPU was released, linux didn’t work on that yet (iirc, you had to patch or used a special settings on boot, or it crashed). Ubuntu on that same machine suddenly decided last week to NOT recognize a monitor being plugged in via a KVM (there are 2 monitors), booting to windows still works so I am not even sure if it is a hardware or software issue.
At this point, I think people who are claiming linux works perfectly on their machines are the one with special hardware, either very old, or very limited.
That seems to be common to many laptops including those running Windows at this point in time: https://youtu.be/OHKKcd3sx2c
This has come up a few times on HN recently, it appears to be an issue with all brands of OS. There was an explanation for it to do with Windows wanting to keep the network stack live in "sleep" and so proper sleep having little support. Reports suggested it might be a problem with OSX too.
It’s too bad that Dell is selling supposed Linux-supported laptops that are not.
I’ve heard good things about the Thinkpad Carbon X1, System 76, and Star Labs.
This is so much of an issue in Windows that LTT basically took the stance to tell everybody to buy a MAC instead because they just can't take it anymore. It seems to be more an issue with gaming laptop, not that they wake up more, but that they go through their battery so fast that you charge it overnight, and by the time you take it out of your backpack, the battery is already dead.
Personally it's not that Linux "just works" for me, it's that Windows doesn't either anyway. Once, I had Windows 7 not being able to find my user account and I had to open Windows in failsafe mode and play in the bios.
The worst I've had happen to me in Arch is the DNS not working after an update and having to manually edit it in a file. The thing with Arch though is that when something breaks for you, there's a ton of other people with the same problem so it takes 2 seconds to find an answer. Ironically, Ubuntu, Debian and Mint always gave me much more smaller problems. Like KDE on Kubuntu makes the os bar disappear after I play a certain video game in steam, or my monitor stopped working one time after playing that game, etc.
I'm a happy Pop!_OS (or however ridiculously they render their name) desktop user, and so I'm inclined to give their hardware a try next time I look at laptops. Framework may also be a contender.
Are you perhaps thinking of a different Ryzen processor? I built a ThreadRipper PC 5 years ago, and got it running Linux weeks after launch. Interestingly, I couldn't get it to boot off a Windows USB stick; so it only ever ran linux.
I've said previously that Linux gets the blame for not working in situations the OEM gets blamed if windows doesn't work. I personally don't think that's fair.
I'm typing this response right now from a Thinkpad that is connected to a 4k monitor and two 1920x1080 monitors (using KDE Plasma); works perfectly. All the monitors are Dell.
"Whilst Ubuntu works on a wide range of devices, it is recommended that you use a device listed on the Ubuntu certified hardware page. These devices have been tested and confirmed to work well with Ubuntu."
No, it's not straight up on the download page but should it be?
All the (mostly rando) laptops in my house (5) which were shipped with windows pre-installed, with broken features/drivers were wiped, and Linux was installed. Many things didn't work under windows. Wifi was the big thing that failed under windows. Then the more generalized networking stack, which was stock, was unable to connect to the internet, despite getting wifi working.
With Linux, none of these were issues. Sound worked well. Networking just worked. GPUs just worked (though there was was some stupidity with nouveau and 2060 bits early on, that's been the only GPU issue I've had in the last 15-ish or so years running linux on laptops/desktops).
I migrated family to MacOS, as it was easier to support than windows, and like linux, it just worked.
Your mileage may vary of course, and you may be the occasional unlucky user with an odd problem. But really, none of the problems are worse than windows, and from my perspective (using computers since 1979 or so), if you start with a well designed distro (Linux Mint, Pop!, elemental, ...) you really won't have a problem. FWIW, Linux Mint is a reworked Ubuntu, with better defaults, drivers, codecs, etc. .
I know people get worked up over this and often try to make jokes about "this year is the year of linux desktop" ... but its been my daily driver for 23 years, its been my desktop/laptop OS as long. Its figuratively all over but the shouting.
So argue against it if you wish, there are many other windmills you can tilt against which might bear better argumentation. This battle is over. Ordinary people are using it, migrating to it.
If WiFi didn't just work out of the box, I'm sure most people would just return the laptop, as it's most people only connectivity.
These days you can buy plenty of computers that ship with Linux and everything will work great. If you just want it to work you can pay money and even have a support plan.
That said, if you work in tech you should take note that the whole world runs on Linux now. You will do yourself a major favor just buying any random machine off the shelf, build a DIY distro like Gentoo on it, and learn how to make it run rock solid.
The ability to fix anything about Linux to adapt it to virtually any hardware it was not designed for is a feature, not a bug.
* The NUC has an intel Ax411 Killer 1690i and Linux wouldn't recognize it. * On my monitors (I tried two different ones) the setup screen didn't fit and the OK/Next buttons on the bottom weren't displayed. I had to guess how many times to "tab" to finish the install. There was no way of fixing that.
* The video card isn't quite compatible. It won't come back after the screen blanking kicks in. I disabled the screen blanking.
* The machine won't wake after a sleep or a suspend
Windows 11 works perfectly on this machine.
Fwiw, Windows frequently doesn't support Wi-Fi out of the box but, when it's preinstalled, the drivers usually are too.
I found this out with a dodgy NUC recently. Intel support told me that Linux is unsupported so they can't help. I had to install Windows and show the same issue before the issued the RMA.
In my experience, Linux will usually just work if you don't have any hardware from crappy vendors. Nvidia is one of the most important vendors that refuse to work normally, but many "gaming" vendors also haven't done any work to support Linux. Elgato and friends have hardware that's useless without software support and for that you need Windows or some weird project from Github.
Unlike ten years ago, bluetooth, WiFi, ethernet, sound, video acceleration, suspend/sleep, and all the usual suspects just work if you give the kernel people time to merge the drivers (Windows drivers are ready before release, while Linux often gets them later) and if you pick a recent enough Linux distro.
I think most people can grab a copy of the latest version of Linux Mint and just get started. Maybe Pop_OS! if you want a more Ubuntu feel without the Ubuntu hassle.
The issues, funnily enough, happen when I go back to windows: the clock has been set back to UTC time, and the Bluetooth has forgotten my mouse.
And now I switch back to Windows so rarely that it doesn't matter.
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But almost any older laptop works, if it is made by any from the top10 biggest manufactures.
It's mostly a problem with the semi-free Linux distributions that found their market share in this niche. It is not intended to be some majority option, despite what the marketing says.
For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things).
It has very good specs for a handheld, and you can emulate most games up to the Switch, and some Switch games run even better on the deck than on the Switch.
As it's open, you can even install Windows or replace parts if you want.
It has surpassed all my expectations and it feels like the deck together with Proton is solving the last big obstacle with Linux on desktop.
Not just "basically a PC" but an actual PC running a modified version of Arch Linux (called SteamOS). One of the options in the menu is "Enter Desktop Mode" which does exactly what it says; drops you to a KDE desktop with all the bells and whistles of a normal Linux desktop. From there, you can use it as a normal PC if you want. Hook it up to a USB-C hub with HDMI and USB I/O, and you have a portable computer you can connect to displays with your keyboard and mouse.
Flexible as hell, and it's also pretty nice as a gaming device.
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until it has Anti-cheat"
EAC and Battleye announce Proton support
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until there are AAA titles working"
Apex Legends, Fall guys and a bunch of other titles get support
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until the Steam Deck can meet demand"
Valve increase production
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until I can run Fortnite, Destiny 2 and Xbox Game pass"
Well you have me there..
Fortnite and Destiny 2 are two games where the developers have both, for whatever reason, specifically gone on record to say they will ban players that attempt to play their games on Linux.
But to me the fact that the games are not natively supporting Linux and are instead needing a tool like Proton still means that Linux is not ideal for gaming. Just like Mac is not.
It has nothing to do with the OS itself and everything to do with developer support.
I love my steam deck but I also strongly believe that going with Linux was a short cited decision on Valves part to try to protect themselves from Microsoft. Many (most, all?) of us here are technical enough to understand at least on some level what proton does and what native actually is. But most users are not and that is where the problems come up.
When a game pushes an update that breaks support on the steam deck most users will go to complain to the developers. But the developer was not involved in supporting Linux and rightly so they don't test every update on it.
That is not the right path here.
I strongly believe that to claim that an OS can be good for something it must be targeted by the developers of whatever that thing is and run natively (or at the very least if it is prepackaged with something like proton, it is still distributed by the developers for that OS)
And yes I fully realize this is a chicken and the egg problem with linux and gaming.
You’re holding a proof that it isn’t so in your hands and still claim something opposite. The biggest issue with gaming on Linux has always been impossibility of providing a binary build that works everywhere due to lack of a stable kernel API and ABI. Turns out, win32 API is exactly that and works really well on Linux if you put in the work, see proton.
IOW Linux is ready for gaming thanks to and because of Windows, not despite it.
For the first 6 months of its release, everything works great! A few minor bugs to fix but your game engine figured everything out for you. Flash forward 2 years - your game is broken on every distro. An Ubuntu hotpatch broke your game on most systems months ago, and glibc changes have decimated the runtime for every user. Steam's own runtime has already bumped it's versioning and is missing 3-4 libraries you used to rely on. The Windows version boots through Proton though, so nobody is complaining yet.
Linux shouldn't need Windows as a stable runtime, but until it fixes it's packaging issues this will continue to be the status-quo.
It’s odd but things like docker and the JVM and browser based software mean the software will run abstracted a bit, less optimally, but good enough. Even among the different Linux distros software is distributed differently (rpm, debs, flat pack, pacman….)
Brining more people to Linux is the goal, more developers! and better software packaging eventually.
Some sort of advanced suspend/resume functionality similar to the Series X's Quick Resume would be a killer feature. And I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind having native Game Pass hooks into a device like that
Having a site like ProtonDB to be a single place to go look up any tweaks or config flags for Wine/Proton to get a game to work is invaluable, and it's now actually getting good traffic and data because of Steam Deck.
Look no further than power management/sleep/awake, which is flawless and snappy on steamdeck. That's more than you can say for 95% of "supported linux laptops".
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You could argue that linux 'won' with Android (and unix 'won' with Android and iOS) but really those OSs are even more locked down than Windows ever was.
We won, but also we lost big.
MacOS and Windows keep getting worse, though, and Lxqt keeps not surprising me. That's all I need, but I fear for the next generation.
This is why the Steam Deck is important. It's a reminder that computers work for us and that games are supposed to be fun.
It's a shame that the mobile equivalents (Pine Phone, Librem 5) aren't competitive yet.
I'm weighing the price of keeping a cloud instance around just to play on when I'm not at home like I used to...
Some applications, like banking, will refuse to work on systems that aren’t locked down, but they would present the same problem to any Linux system.
Long live Linux.
Edit: Oh yeah, the hibernation is still crappy on Linux, but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
I'm on an M1 Air, but over the years I've also been running (mainly) Mint on various ThinkPads and whilst I loved the experience I never got more than a few hours. And I'm now getting days with Mac OS on the Air, which is the main reason I'm using it - I have become used to not worrying about the battery life, and certainly never having to constrain performance workloads to preserve it.
So I read "Battery life is excellent" and am curious. I get that it won't be M1 (ARM) level, but for doing stuff like a mix of writing plus development (with for example smallish Go compilations) do you have a feel for any kind of averages?
Well... no, since most new laptop manufacturers had removed the S3 state (classic suspend to RAM) because Microsoft said that today they have to go with "Modern standby" that basically is leave the system on at a lower power settings. Beside that it doesn't work and will overheat your laptop if placed in a bag... and unfortunately since it is removed from the UEFI Linux can't do too much to put it back.
What WM or DE do you use? Is there anything that you miss from the macOS GUI?
While hacking is neat, I prefer things to just work with an -intentionally- open ecosystem, one that can't be taken away because of a marketing decision disguised as something else, with companies that are there for this fundamental idea first, and am more than happy with the constant ability to manage the system comprehensively.
I don’t know why this is such a thing in Linux-land, but people love to say, “works for me, case closed”. Desktop Linux is more forgiving with each passing year, but it’s not productive to ignore problems just because you aren’t experiencing them.
In all honesty, I find myself using the old T450s with a fat battery pack from Aliexpress more often than my new glass cannon T14s.
That would be a serious downgrade for anyone running an M1 machine. Total non-starter for me.
Off the top of my head:
- Waking from sleep with the lid closed while using an external monitor straight-up doesn’t work. Not with keyboard and mouse input, not even by hitting the power button.
- Thunderbolt hotplugging JUST started working in 22.04, and it still flakes out quite a bit. I think my laptop would normally maintain days to weeks of uptime if it weren’t for Thunderbolt-related issues.
- Battery life in-use is like three hours, max. I’ve never used anything but Linux in this machine so I don’t know how battery life stacks up in Windows, but I know that I was using a MacBook Air at work over a decade ago that did 6+ hours.
I strongly prefer to run Linux and I’ve used it as my primary desktop OS since 2001, but I can’t think of a single Linux laptop in the past 22 years that hasn’t presented me with significant problems that I had to either work around or accept.
There are also weird audio/mic UX issues. Not sure if this is the same across all platforms, but - I usually have my laptop hooked up to an external monitor, audio output set to the external monitor, and my headphones plugged into the monitor. Yesterday, I locked my desktop and stepped away from my desk with the music still playing. When I came back, music was playing out loud from the laptop speaker. That's because the monitor went to sleep, so the HDMI audio sink went away, and the OS "helpfully" switched audio output to the laptop speaker which was set to full volume.
Logically, it makes sense that would happen. Clearly, I am to blame.
I was initially interested by the Framework, but if I'm spending $1000 or more, I really don't want something that generic in every regard. After moving to OLED, HDR, and/or HFR this year, "here's a laptop that might cost you less if it fails from a repairable issue outside of our 1-year limited warranty, otherwise it's another $1000 for a new mainboard" didn't seem like that awesome a feature in the face of AppleCare+, upcycled ThinkPads, etc.
My Lenovo X1 Extreme runs Linux great, but Lenovo now produces Linux drivers on a regular schedule. Most other folks rely on generic drivers.
I think the most interesting idea in this space would be the following.
Try to consider how locked down and garbage both Windows and Apple desktops would be if it weren't for the pressure and innovation of the Linux desktop(s).
This is where I realized the Linux Desktop is "winning" -- or at least doing exactly what it should be doing and is doing an exemplary job of it; being the free example that's coming to eat your lunch and keeping everyone else honest and quality. True competition.
It's roughly similar to the difference between email and Twitter. It's not great that email is very centrally controlled by gmail et al, but a hell of a lot better than the Twitter trashfire.
I tried but I can't say I can imagine anything on the Windows or MacOS desktops that are influenced by pressure from Linux desktop tbh. What are the things you are thinking about?
CLIs, which are becoming increasingly more supported and important on both Windows and MacOS are thanks to Linux. Windows is a really straightforward example of this where Powershell has aliased a bunch of Linux commands to the powershell command (e.g. grep is an Alias for Select-String in powershell).
Window management features are being driven by Linux. The most successful example of this is tiling window functionality driven largely by tiling window managers from the Linux world.
Developers on both Windows and MacOS depend on package management software picked up straight from Linux, such as chocolatey/scoop in the former and brew with the latter.
Almost every Windows and Mac software is developed using git. Git was literally invented for writing Linux.
The list goes on, but Windows and MacOS have a lot to thank Linux for.
Linux has also been a major pillar of open source in general. Much of the open source software ecosystem depends on Linux and the development and philosophy around it to sustain it.
One quick example: Look at every version of Windows from Vista to 10, and then look at what KDE was already looking like at the time. Hard to not see major influence.
If public opinion is to be considered, Windows gets worse by the time. Ads, forced updates, questionable UI decisions, ...
People want Linux to act like other operating systems because:
1. They want an easy alternative that doesn’t require extensive relearning should their original OS of choice become unpalatable for some reason
2. Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes?
The first is particularly big, because remember that at this point a lot of people have decades of usage of Windows/macOS under their belt, and even if switching to Linux is a practical consideration for them, such users probably aren’t keen on tossing out all their little bits of power user knowledge and productivity boosting tricks and having to start out from almost scratch.
This is something that I always bothered me. I love using middle click to scroll (you middle click, then move your mouse up and down) in Windows, but there isn't any way to do this in Linux. You can enable it in Firefox for Linux but not on the entire OS, and trying to ask people about this just makes people reply with "why would you want to do this if the default is middle click to copy??".
There are ways to sort of mimic this behavior, but none 100% matches how Windows work.
My understanding is that there are also distros that closely match the mac experience.
If you pick up a distro like mainline Ubuntu you might be confronted with potentially confusing new opinions about how desktops should work. I lucked out and tried it back in the Gnome 2 days when it felt like XP.
I don't really care how many people use Linux, it's been my daily driver for a decade and I don't need other people to use it - I just need them to use compatible file formats or sometimes the same web apps as me which is increasingly a solved problem, for people who really need Adobe CS or something they are not going to be using Linux this decade.
Linux can enjoy great success if it finds a suitable OS market segment -- hello Steam deck and Steam OS? After a few tries Gabe may be on to something.
If it happens it will have nothing to do with competing with Microsoft or Apple on their terms.
In the meantime I don't really give a shit because it's great for me and I use it.
I do think the GPL world in general is missing some kind of amazing positioning opportunity - don't know what exactly or how to fix it but basically most of Big Tech are not liked because they're abusers, and GPLed software is the antidote.
Because for a lot of people the point is to use a free (as in speech) OS. They are fine with how OSX or Windows works, and they want Linux to work the same. They simply want a good, user-friendly free desktop OS.