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99% of people want a drop-in replacement for Windows that will install and run every possible Windows-compatible application, game and device without them having to make any extra effort or learn anything new. Basically Windows but free (in all senses).
Any even slightly subtle difference or incompatibility and they’ll balk. Linux can never be that, and Microsoft will keep the goalposts moving anyway to be sure of it.
Sure, a lot more works and is more user friendly than 15 years ago, but most people won’t make the time to sit down and deal with something new unless it’s forced on them… which is what Microsoft are doing with Win11.
More user friendly doesn’t mean you won’t have to spend hours troubleshooting driver issues that you will never have on Windows, that’s a real problem…
(and when you find the solution you need to input commands in terminal that you can’t tell what they do, that’s a huge security concern as it teaches users to just trust anyone who tells them to do things they don’t understand)
Man, people really overstate the barrier to entry to the terminal. Windows troubleshooting is full of command line stuff as well.
It’s not the terminal, it’s the underlying issues. Having more GUI options to set certain things is nice, but the reality of it is that if an option isn’t customizable to the point of needing quick GUI access it should just never break, not be configurable or at least not need any manual configuration at any point. The reason nobody goes “oh, but Windows command line is so annoying” is that if you are digging in there something has gone very wrong or you’re trying to do something Windows doesn’t want you to do.
The big difference is that the OS not wanting you to do things you can do is a bug for people in this type of online community while for normies it’s a feature.
I’ve used Linux for 25 years now and I remember every time when back then people needed help with windows it was always "go to the registry editor and add the key djrgegfbwkgisgktkwbthagnsfidjgnwhtjrtv in position god-knows-where to fix some stupid windows shit. that, apparently, made windows user ready
On Linux I’d have to edit an English language file and add an English word and that meant it wasn’t user ready
Yeah, Linux was ready long ago
Right, that’s the reason alright, lol. Remember dconf on Gn*me? It’s like registry on windows, but worse.
No, Linux is still not ready for desktop, and it has nothing to do with this fallacy of yours.
I used Linux desktop for 25 years now and I never used Gnome, what is your point?
How was the gnome registry some how worse? Microsoft didn’t even have a document that could describe how theirs worked, much less an organizational structure. At least Gnomes was basically simple words and categories. And they built a settings manager for it too.
Not that I use gnome much, but still this is silly.
I know this is linuxmemes, but if you want a serious answer, I can provide, lol. It’s worse because it is an amateurish attempt at recreating windows like registry (like most things Gn*me lol).
boring technical details
Let’s start from the top:
Microsoft didn’t even have a document that could describe how theirs worked
Oh, really, I remember reading enormous amounts of info on MSDN describing how the internal registry hives work in 1998 (yes, I am that old lol) Also, there were/are excellent books on the topic, i.e. “Windows Internals” by Mark Russinovich. Can you tell me where I can find more info on how dconf works, what about dconf internal structure and organization? I don’t want to read the source code.
At least Gnomes was basically simple words and categories
Right, can you tell me what this dconf dump is about:
[org/gnome/nm-applet/eap/fea8b3cc-21a2-4a3d-a3bb-72b7459247b7] check-time=uint32 1742505110And they built a settings manager for it too
You mean like simplified UI for poor man’s regedit?
Windows registry is horribly over-engineered very very high performance binary database (dconf is a Gvariant binary db also, lol) deeply integrated within the NT kernel and overall system, it supports access virtualization, transparent path override, robust ACLs, and more. IMO, M$’ biggest mistake was allowing 3rd party access to the hive in the early days. Then backwards compatibility kicked in and the rest is history.
Don’t get me wrong it sucks, massively, but this attempt of Gn*me/freedesktop INI db is a joke, like the OP’s argument
I couldnt use linux on my laptop 15 years ago because suspend never seemed to work. Just tried it again last week on my generic desktop, suspend still not working. So ya linux has come a long way. Still cant use it.
Just installed KDE neon on two HP laptops and I might be mistaken but I do think they’re both asleep right now. I’ll check back on that later but usually it’s a bad hardware issue that can be rectified with some kernel parameters.
Implying suspend works on Windows either. I’ve got like a 50/50 chance my monitor connected with DisplayPort actually gets signal after waking on Windows. This shit has been a problem for a long time.
Ive been using windows 30 years and linux for 20, Ive never seen windows fail at suspending on any system in that time. Linux on the other hand Ive never seen it reliably suspend on any system. Dont get me wrong I want to use linux at home very badly, but none of the fixes I have looked into have solved the problem. Its a 100% required feature for me.
I had to implement a GPO to disable suspend on windows 10 AND 11 for everyone at my company equipped with HP zbook laptops because it was requiring a hard reset every… Single… Time.
No amount of bios upgrade ever fixed the issue.
With our HP laptops they would work perfectly so long as you only ever used them with one brand of dock. If you mixed dock brands without doing a full restart (like say having one brand at home, suspending, and then using another brand’s dock at the office) Wi-Fi, suspend, and several other features would no longer work or work intermittently. We had HP and Targus working on it, even their engineers were puzzled.
Problem was non-existent on Linux…
An HP by any chance? These don’t handle suspend well and you need to add a parameter or three at boot via grub (or systemd too). Otherwise the system gets tied up filling the log endlessly with rapidly cycling pcie errors and you end up crashing or frozen pretty quickly. If this might be your problem, see
And
https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/yh3nkw/freezing_issue_finally_solved_here_is_how/
Where there’s a problem there’s usually a solution, you just might need to root around the web for answers.
Where there’s a problem there’s usually a solution, you just might need to root around the web for answers.
Thats a huge problem for linux, average users are never going to do that. But as a long time linux user myself I have been trying to find solution to the suspend problem for a long time and I still cant find one. So Id say its a big problem.
Let’s be real. Most people can’t really use Windows, either. Anything harder than clicking the Chrome icon is beyond most users.
Ship laptops with LM and people will stray on Linux. Some might switch due to windows OS locked apps like ms365 but for most watching YouTube and maybe managing photos is all they do.
I run dual boot and honestly, if only all things which run on windows would run on Linux without tribal shamanism rituals, is never ever had to switch. But my favorite DAW is not running Linux. My occasionally useful editing software is not there (but kdenlive is cool tho). My very specific apps for games are not running native or at all.
When I’m not using these, I just flip a switch and run DAS with Bazzite. And I love it. But you just can’t substitute everything windows offers. It is a gaming and working software OS after all.
A whole lot of people who just do web or email or whatever could live with a Chromebook actually. They don’t really need the latest CPU/GPU and gobs of ram and disk space for simple stuff
Some might switch due to windows OS locked apps
Fusion360 is literally the only reason I still have a windows install. I’ve had people try to recommend Linux alternatives before, and none of them can match my level of stupidity. If I can’t draw a circle in your CAD program without looking up a tutorial, then I really can’t design a webcam adapter for my telescope
Windows hasn’t been a ‘gaming and working software’ OS for a while. Kernel-level DRM, paywalled productivity suites, the requirement to log into a ms account for more and more things, telemetry and ads in everything from the start menu to taskbar? The few windows-unique softwares and functionalities are not worth it.
I hate to be one of the “Linux isn’t ready” people, but I have to agree. I love Linux and have been using it for the last 15 years. I work in IT and am a Windows and Linux sysadmin. My wife wanted to build a new gaming PC and I convinced her to go with Linux since she really only wanted it for single player games. Brand new build, first time installing an OS (chose Bazzite since it was supposed to be the gaming distro that “just works”). First thing I did was install a few apps from the built in App Store and none of them would launch. Clicking “Launch” from the GUI app installer did nothing, and they didn’t show up in the application launcher either. I spent several hours trying to figure out what was wrong before giving up and opening an issue on GitHub. It was an upstream issue that they fixed with an update.
When I had these issues, the first thing my wife suggested was installing Windows because she was afraid she may run into more issues later on and it “just works”. If I had never used Linux and didn’t work in IT and decided to give it a try because all the cool people on Lemmy said it was ready for prime time, and this was the first issue I ran into, I would go back to Windows and this would sour my view of Linux for years to come.
I still love Linux and will continue to recommend moving away from Windows to my friends, but basic stuff like this makes it really hard to recommend.
Alright, I have shared my unpopular opinions on Lemmy, I’m ready for my downvotes.
I’ve been using Linux for over thirty years and the nice looking App Stores that have appeared those last few years have always been shit and have always been mostly broken in various ways. I don’t know why.
On the other hand, the ugly frontends to the package manager just work.
You don’t see how terrible Windows is until you’ve switched to another OS and need to interact with it again.
The constant pop-ups, the ads everywhere, the settings hidden away.
It really feels like your PC isn’t yours.
“Have you tried installing Linux on your computer recently?”
“WTF is a computer?”
you know, I’m begining to think this whole “readiness” idea is completely arbitrary. The same people who today complain about linux’s supposed difficulty, were just fine using their home micro-computer in the 80’s. If you ask me, the only people who are defining what “ready” means, is Microsoft’s marketing department.
The average ‘advanced’ window user: CLI is scary!
Also the average ‘advanced’ windows user: if you open regedit and add this DWORD entry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Microsoft/application/windows/something, then you can stop Microsoft from screwing you, but it’ll revert after each update so you gotta keep fixing it
Linux user: Hey I made a PowerShell script for you that’ll change the entry so you don’t ha… “advanced” Windows user: KEEP YOUR HACKER LOONIX AWAY FROM ME
But downloading a .reg file from some rando website is a-okay.
Ubuntu lets you have the worst of both worlds by forcing you to use some arcane incantations to banish snap after every update
I just tried using Linux as my main Gaming OS desktop probably about a month and half ago after using it for college for 5 years.
I love Linux but for NVIDIA drivers and gaming it still very much isn’t there.
Nobara’s got you covered.
Funny enough, that is what I was using my friend.
You used the driver manager to handle Nvidia drivers?
I use an NVIDIA card, running bazzite on my gaming setup, and it works really well. What issues where you having?
Just now seeing your comment. I was using Nobara my monitors just freeze as in become completely unresponsive and it was entirely random. And there was a keyboard combo that was designed to fix it and that didn’t work then the community’s answer was, “we don’t know.”
To me the Linux systems are great but the community acts as if people shouldnjust switch without a second thought then get rally together when someone says, “I am having issues and don’t understand.” The Linux community then almost always proceeds to say, “did you try Googling it?” What would the person even know to Google if they don’t even know entirely what they are facing and when Linux issues get involved you are deep diving into Terminal and bash commands and most people barely understand how a Driver in Windows works or how to uninstall it. Then the response from the sake community is, “well clearly your the issue.” Its just odd to sell something the community won’t really assist with but then get offended when someone doesn’t want to switch.
Yesterday a guy was mad about that why everything has to go through his igpu and why not directlg through dgpu then I told bro that hdmi or anyother port on your laptop doesn’t use your dgpu then he understood.
Some laptops have hardware MUXes that switch the port between igpu and dgpu. Not very common tho
Last year with Ubuntu.
Installed it on an old laptop. Booted once then never again.
Installed windows. Worked like a charm.
This is Ubuntu, the OS that makes all the decisions for you like windows.
That’s crazy, I’ve never personally used Ubuntu so I can’t comment on it.
But I’ve used other great one’s like Mint and PopOS, I’d say they’re pretty easy to install and use, especially if you’re aiming for a primary clean install over a dual boot.
I’ve installed windows enough times as well to confidently say a clean install with maximum privacy settings and debloat takes atleast equal if not more efforts.
The main problem still is that for some configuration you still need to use the CLI, the average user does not want to touch that no matter how powerful it is, they want a fully functional GUI that lets you so exactly the same thing but by clicking on buttons. Pair that with drivers that either do not exist or will not work for (some) of your hardware, odd crashed like the Bluetooth stack crapping out and not working anymore until you restart the system, or the system that hangs from hibernation with a black screen. So unless those hurdles are tackled the Linux adoption rate will stay low because the average user wants a system that works, and not one they have to debug.
I’ve been on and off different distros of Linux since Ubuntu 6 using Pop_OS! as my daily driver for work a few years now, and the same problems I had then are still here today which is a shame honestly.
the average user does not want
The average user wants their problem gone. And will use whatever helps. Windows users were editing register and editing ini files since Windows was an addon to DOS, and continue doing it. For a literate person there is absolutely nothing more inheritly more intuitive or easy in clicking a checkbox in a fifth submenu than entering a command in a console. Stop perpetuating this weird myth.
It’s not a myth though. How do you know what to type in a CLI? You either google it or you read the man pages and god help you if you have to do that because they are not noob accessible documents. What do you do in a GUi? You either google it or you read plain words that are low in technical information on the screen in the menu labeled after what you want to change. GUIs exist for a reason. They brought in the masses for a reason. Pretending that they aren’t easier is a demonstrably wrong position.
GUIs exist for a reason.
What is that reason? To obfuscate what is really happening? To make it difficult to support a computer because it takes 20 pages of pictures and a flow chart to explain something when a person could just copy paste a single line? I don’t buy that gui’s are easier or intuitive, or all that useful every time.
I don’t see any difference
googlingusing a decent search engine for one over the other.And lets not forget that windows is a confusing mess of self help support pages and command line entries for almost everything that goes wrong.
You can definitely have your opinion. But seeing how so many people have a hard time switching to Linux because of this particular issue, I’d say your position on the subject is quesionable. There are hordes more people on Windows and Mac because they made things easier through accessible software. A large part of that was the GUI.
There are hordes more people on Windows and Mac
Because it came with their computer. I have not used a command line at all on two laptops over the past year. It is the exception not the rule these days.
However I have had to use the command line many, many times with Windows. Which is fine, it is MUCH easier to do this “Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted” instead of trying to find the gui to deal with it.
That example just proves my point further. No average joe is going to alter the execution policy because they aren’t running unsigned powershell scripts. They just want their applications to install and work. They don’t want to debug shit. You being fine doing all that is great but other people don’t want to mess with it and won’t.
Half the time instead of downloading and running an executable that works with nearly all versions of their OS, they have to figure out which os flavor they have since it’s not just “Linux” it’s Debian, Red Hat, Arch, Kali, Suse, CentOS, Mint, Pop, Ubuntu, etc. and then does it need to be compatible with gnome or kde or something else, then is the configuration even a supported option, oh wait it only supports versions newer than 5 years where anything older will fail, or only till 5 years ago and anything newer will fail. Or the one project that solved the issue stopped developing it 10 years prior and no longer works. Or there just plain isn’t a native app so now you have to try and find an alternative way to connect to a service you pay for that has an equivalent feature set and price.
Linux is a fractured mess overall. It is not user friendly. It is not out of the box ready. It’s a great option for someone technical that wants to type shit in a terminal. And it’s a bad option for anyone that doesn’t want to figure out what the magic words are that took the place of their double click.
My example wasn’t literal, I have had to do similar things for drivers, sound, USB, search etc. And windows support is just randos telling you what they think might work.
As to your second point, the sane applies as windows is a collection of who knows that the hell software and random hardware. Which hardware? What driver? What vendor?
I’m obviously going to be downvoted for this, but the second you ask me to use the terminal is the second the OS is not ready.
Last week I reinstalled Windows after trying MintOS. I have a 54" Ultrawide screen monitor and I wanted the windows to snap in 3 sections.
I spent a few hours in terminal trying to install something after trying everything in flatpak. Windows 11 split screens out of the box. It can even tile. You can even use hotkeys to snap left and right.
In order for normies like me to switch, you have to make the OS at as easy to use as Windows. Don’t make us use terminal like I’m on DOS.
I’m obviously going to be downvoted for this, but the second you ask me to use the terminal is the second the OS is not ready.
Well then I suppose Windows is not ready if every update you need to run a PowerShell script to debloat and disable telemetry.
I spent a few hours in terminal trying to install something after trying everything in flatpak.
And you didn’t consider to use the graphical package manager which can do the same thing?
Windows 11 split screens out of the box. It can even tile. You can even use hotkeys to snap left and right.
So can I, on KDE Plasma. Admittedly, I don’t know what the situation on Cinnamon is.
In order for normies like me to switch, you have to make the OS at as easy to use as Windows.
For non power user use-cases it is absolutely possible to use as easily as Windows.
Respectfully, please dont spread misinformation about what Linux is and is not capable of.
The mass majority of normies don’t need to run PowerShell or debloat. A even bigger mass of people have no clue what telemetry is to even disable it. I think before we both disagree with each other, we should agree with one thing. Regular, non tinkerers people, normies have different needs, none of which Linux has a advantage on.
Can KDE snap to 3 screens evenly? Or4? Or 1/4, 1/2, 1/4? Because Win11 does it out of the box.
KDE Snapping left and right is nice. Windows 7 has this feature. Maybe even Win98.
I started with the GUI flatpak interface first and after those apps didn’t work, I went to google/forums. At the end of the day, I still didn’t accomplish a simple task Win11 has out of the box.
You saying I’m spreading misinformation implies you don’t acknowledge my frustrations and grievances. This is perfectly fine if we all acknowledge that Linux is not made for regular people and memes like this is actually harmful to your community. If someone has a misconception that Linux is now equal in feature sets and usability, this user is going to not try again for another 15 years.
Regular, non tinkerers people, normies have different needs, none of which Linux has a advantage on.
Speed, privacy, old hardware support, benefits from community modifications (gaming performance kernels etc).
Can KDE snap to 3 screens evenly? Or4? Or 1/4, 1/2, 1/4? Because Win11 does it out of the box.
Yes
I started with the GUI flatpak interface first and after those apps didn’t work, I went to google/forums. At the end of the day, I still didn’t accomplish a simple task Win11 has out of the box.
I still dont understand what you were trying to achieve that you couldn’t have done, at worst, in Synaptic package manager (a GUI program).
You saying I’m spreading misinformation implies you don’t acknowledge my frustrations and grievances.
I don’t mean to say you’re doing it intentionally, just that when you state Linux can’t do these things it’s not exactly correct.
Regular, non tinkerers people, normies have different needs, none of which Linux has a advantage on.
Speed, privacy, old hardware support, benefits from community modifications (gaming performance kernels etc).
Speed is relative to the task. On my window’s machine, I’m running a 7 year old gaming computer and never thought that my computer is super slow. Also, after installing Mint on it, the speed is barely noticeable at best.
Old hardware support? Shoot, Mint could barely get new hardware working properly. I had trouble with both my nvidia card and my logitech steering wheel working correctly. I eventually got the Nvidia card working using chatgpt. It took me a few days, but the steering wheel finally started working after reinstalling Windows.
Also, as far as gaming is concerned. You performance might see a few fps faster on Linux on some games, but if you enjoy games like Rocket League or Fortnite or many multiplayer games, it flat out doesn’t work.
Can KDE snap to 3 screens evenly? Or4? Or 1/4, 1/2, 1/4? Because Win11 does it out of the box.
Yes
Good, I can check it out. Mint and PopOS and Ubuntu does not have this feature.
I started with the GUI flatpak interface first and after those apps didn’t work, I went to google/forums. At the end of the day, I still didn’t accomplish a simple task Win11 has out of the box.
I still dont understand what you were trying to achieve that you couldn’t have done, at worst, in Synaptic package manager (a GUI program).
I’m trying to snap my windows to different ratios or tile out of the box. Mint, PopOS and Ubuntu does not have these features and I was trying to install it first from Flatpak and then in apt-get. Both failed.
You saying I’m spreading misinformation implies you don’t acknowledge my frustrations and grievances.
I don’t mean to say you’re doing it intentionally, just that when you state Linux can’t do these things it’s not exactly correct.
What is inaccurate? That I had a hard time trying to install a very basic feature on Mint and failed? Seems pretty straight forward.
Don’t get me started on installing Tailscale. While I was ultimately successful doing this in terminal, I would not want my mother in law trying to figure it out.
Speed is relative to the task. On my window’s machine, I’m running a 7 year old gaming computer and never thought that my computer is super slow. Also, after installing Mint on it, the speed is barely noticeable at best.
I was more talking about lower power computers, not gaming PCs.
Old hardware support? Shoot, Mint could barely get new hardware working properly.
This is because hardware manufacturers regularly never release the specs for their devices, so the drivers have to be reverse engineered first (or the manufacturer’s proprietary drivers installed in whatever weird way they dictate). Old hardware has already had this done, so it absolutely works. New hardware is irrelevant to this.
I’m trying to snap my windows to different ratios or tile out of the box. Mint, PopOS and Ubuntu does not have these features and I was trying to install it first from Flatpak and then in apt-get. Both failed.
I still don’t understand what you were trying to install? You can’t install features, you install programs. This is the same for all operating systems, it’s not unique to Linux-based ones.
Good, I can check it out. Mint and PopOS and Ubuntu does not have this feature.
Kubuntu is the KDE spin of Ubuntu and it should work too.
What is inaccurate? That I had a hard time trying to install a very basic feature on Mint and failed? Seems pretty straight forward.
That you’re saying Linux can’t do these things.
Don’t get me started on installing Tailscale. While I was ultimately successful doing this in terminal, I would not want my mother in law trying to figure it out.
Why would your mother in law be installing Tailscale?
I think you want KDE. I’m using KDE on vanilla EndeavourOS and it snaps windows just fine. Hotkeys work too, just slightly different (super + page up instead of up arrow to maximize).
I will admit In have not tried KDE. I have tried popOS and Ubuntu outside of MintOS. Does it snap into 3 or 4 sections? I’ll give it a try if it does.
It is the most ‘Windows-like’ of the mainstream desktop environments. I don’t usually snap into quadrants but you can, here’s an example of how that would look in KDE.
This is exactly what I am looking for. Thank you .
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