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Linux isn’t ready. Not for home users anyway. And I’ve tried recently. Just constant problems that if I wasn’t getting paid I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with.
So long as you need a terminal to do anything on a Linux machine it’s not gonna get any mainstream appeal, most people can barely install a app on windows where they just have to click next a few times. Also if the laptop you buy comes pre-installed with windows what would motivate a regular joe to go out of his way to install Linux on it and risk messing things up by making a mistake. Also people don’t want to replace their windows only software and gaming is another reason to stick to windows for now. I’d rather use Linux, but I’ll wait till Steam has made most games compatible with Linux, and Nvidia and Amd give proper driver support for linux
Well you’re in luck - because Linux has reached the point where you don’t need the terminal for any kind of standard activity. You can easily install and uninstall stuff, and change various desktop UI stuff, and run all sorts of apps - all without ever touching the terminal.
Steam has made most games compatible, nvidia has a proper driver, and amd drivers are built in and you don’t need to do anything at all. Honestly at this point, Linux is easier to install apps and keep apps updated than Windows. You are 100% right about what already comes on the laptop, and that’s why they do it. Its called monopolizing.
I have had people tell me " I dont feel like building my own OS from scratch " I’m like what are you even talking about?
MFs be modifying regedit and throwing random bash scripts to make their windows PC barely usuable then say shit like “I have to run this one command in the terminal?, but Im not a hacker?!!”
Bitch stfu
I’m literally talking to a person, in this very thread, who bailed the instant they saw a
code blockbecause they thought I was telling them to touch the terminal. (I was not, and even included a picture of Dolphin with my instructions, but they still noped out)
If you want to see what linux was like 15 years ago try installing OpenBSD lol
It really wasn’t that bad if not for WiFi drivers. Considering you were comparing it to XP.
So, which distro is the ready one?
Fedora with KDE is stupid easy
Linux mint
Opensuse/Fedora.
Strange, because in this thread alone I have seen recommendations for PopOS, Arch, Mint Cinnamon, EndeavorOS, Bazzite, NixOS, and Ubuntu.
Even ZorinOS got a mention.
So why isn’t it Debian?
It depends on your hardware if it is Debian. Debian prefers to use an older kernel until the next point release comes, which is nice because a random update likely won’t break your system.
But… speaking from experience: expect issues (missing drivers etc.) if your hardware is too new.
Fedora the test bed bleeding edge is stable?
I often see people recommend arch and fedora to newbies and then wondering why people turn away from Linux, they should recommend Linux mint, or and steam os
Steam OS is based on arch, and outside of the Steam Deck it’s really not that great of a distro. It’s just tailor-made for that hardware and has good brand recognition.
Bazzite is a similar concept but operates better as an actual OS outside of being a gaming console.
Let’s be real. Most people can’t really use Windows, either. Anything harder than clicking the Chrome icon is beyond most users.
When is the last time you checked?
Windows XP 😭
Ooofty doofty.
Wow, so many wrong comments. My parents using Linux laptops for 10 years (which i give them second hand when i buy a new one). Now i set up NixOS with auto updates, and never needed to touch it again myself.
The other type I see is people who complain that Linux isn’t usable, and it gradually turns out that the only thing they’d consider usable is an OS exactly like Windows.
Because unfortunately nobody has made a better UI for an OS than windows, including the distributions that don’t copy windows.
I use Windows for work and I can easily say that KDE, Gnome, Xfce, Mate, all are better UI than Windows. The Windows start menu has become such utter BS it’s crazy. Even MacOS is better at this point. What are you smoking lol
You’re joking right? Not even going to mention Linux but most people I know prefer OSX UI to windows. It is much more unified and is extremely user friendly for 99% of things.
I have to use Windows at work and by early afternoon if I’m not forced to reboot for an update I have to reboot because the machine has basically ground to a halt.
Why does Windows slow down the longer it’s been booted?
This is not normal and not a Windows thing. This is either a you thing or your computer specifically.
It doesn’t, that seems to be just your device.
Most likely some third party software that is causing it.
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.
I have to use Windows at work. Once, apropos of nothing at all, a system pop-up asked me if I wanted to buy an XBox controller. When I lock the screen and come back, sometimes Edge will have opened all by itself, presenting me with the Bing homepage. Nice try, Microsoft!
Honestly, not being able to run Dolphin as root made me feel like my PC wasn’t mine more than anything windows did up until recently.
Your computer is yours… As long as you’re comfortable doing it via terminal… Yay…
On mine I just right click in the window and choose open as administrator. It asks for a password and that’s it. No terminal ever comes up.
I much prefer using the terminal than the GUI if I can.
But I understand that not everyone likes the terminal.
To be fair, I couldn’t tell you how to run my file manager as root from the GUI because I don’t use it that much.
Which is great for the people who have the time to invest to know how to use a computer via the terminal, I used to be one of those people, now I have had various full time jobs that don’t use computers for nearly a decade since then though and I don’t want to do much with terminal anymore (it took me like 10 minutes to remember ‘top’) It’s hard to take a polished, user friendly OS seriously when I couldn’t access the NTFS windows backup partition on my laptop without using terminal, because they needed elevated permissions to see because they were, naturallly, created by another user. I legitimately couldn’t just open the file manager as root to copy and paste my files into the new root partition without thinking about it. Ridiculous hand holding clunkiness.
That’s been fixed for nearly 2 years now.
Install
kio-adminThen in the location bar type:
admin:It’ll prompt you for your password and then:
You’ve given me instructions that require terminal use, your argument is invalid. If it doesn’t either work out of the box or is immediately fixable without going into the terminal, then it’s not ready yet.
I’m not making an argument, I’m telling you how to fix your problem.
Even if the instructions required terminal use, you’re on Linux. You’re not going to make it very far if you confuse having to use the terminal with a failure in the software.
Regardless, literally none of what I said requires you to use the terminal. It requires you to install a specifically named software package and type 5 characters into the Dolphin bar (note, the picture).
I fixed this ages ago, I am pointing out that it’s unacceptable from a UX standpoint. And it was in the last year for the record, this definitely wasn’t just a fully solved issue years ago.
I swapped to Arch Linux in the last month and it’s been great. Gaming has been fun. The Nvidia drivers are still kinda confusing, and honestly I wouldn’t put my mom on Arch Linux as of right now, but it’s good enough.
I’m writing a document so my SW engineering friends can swap over as well within a day and be up and running, and it’s just neat to see Linux gradually growing in my circles.
If you’re on Linux, don’t forget to donate to your favorite SW creators even if they’re less flashy than say Larian studios or what have you lol.
Perhaps they should have tried again sooner
I used to think I could just stick to macOS. But I don’t trust the USA and by extension, I don’t trust Apple.
Switching to Linux isn’t a choice anymore. It’s a requirement for freedom.
Yeah, Apple will just cave when necessary. Honestly, even if the USA is removed from the equation, nobody is really safe from any government or corporation. We’re only in better and worse condition because no one has done the unthinkable yet. The UK online safety bill, Signal’s threat to leave Sweden, France busting activists using Swiss VPN. If you can’t host it yourself, secure it yourself, rebuild it yourself, you can’t trust businesses and governments to do these things for you in the long run.
Hell, it’s starting to feel a lot less like freedom and more about the ability to hide, even if you’re doing nothing wrong, because someone may eventually decide that what you’re doing was wrong.
Encrypting your chats to keep them from being sold/mined for government oversight? ILLEGAL!
I think you’re 100% correct.
With all my Apple stuff I thought we were headed for a Star Trek federation. Instead we’re getting a starship troopers federation 😞
Linux is American by that definition
I think by America they pretty clearly meant corporate America and its corporate-owned government, neither of which controls how Linux works.
I hate to break it to you but Linux is maintained by corporate America. Everything from the Linux foundation to Linux focused companies like Red Hat, Amazon and Microsoft.
Sure it is probably better than anything else available but I think it is silly to focus on the region a company is based in when we are talking about international corporations.
I don’t know what argument you’re having, but what I said was that the Linux Foundation doesn’t have any control over the code.
I never see much love for ZorinOS, but I find it a very solid replacement. I still use my Macbook for certain things, but I am slowly moving away from even that thanks to Apple’s spying and whatnot.
I love Linux, but it isn’t ready.
Two weeks ago my side mouse buttons started working (they require Logitech software on Windows, wasn’t expecting them to work). Last week they stopped. This week they work again.
Is this major? Not at all. Would it drive my mother-in-law into a rage rivaling that of Cocaine Bear? Absolutely. Spare me from the bear, keep Linux for the tinkerers.
By this standard, Windows isn’t ready either. I use Mint, Windows and Mac interchangeably at work, and of the three, Windows is definitely the one with the most unpleasant surprises: computer slowing down for no apparent reason, printers disappearing, updates forcing you to reboot in the middle of something…
Mac is fantastic if you don’t mind feeling like your computer doesn’t belong to you.
they require Logitech software on Windows
This seems more like a logitech issue than a linus issue.
The issue isn’t that they didn’t work, as I said I wasn’t expecting them to when I bought the mouse.
The issue is their behavior has started changing with updates. I don’t mind, but I’m a tinkerer. My wife, my MiL, most of my friends, absolutely do not want to deal with an inconsistent computer experience.
Different definitions of ‘ready’ I guess. Been using primarily Linux for years, so it was ‘ready’ for me back then - but nothing has changed in the mean time that would change my recommendation for people who just want a boring stable computer.
Was the logitech mouse not supported by libratbag (backend of Piper)?
This sentence alone is why Linux is a hard sell for the average person.
I don’t know what defines “the average user”, but the average user does not use a mouse that requires proprietary software for its side buttons to work, in my experience.
I agree with you on that one, but since we do not have official support we will have to get by with the hard work of the community.
Steam OS is getting us closer as far as gaming goes.
You given bazzite a run on a gaming setup? Works remarkable well
What distro are you on? I’ve been out of Linux for like 3 months now but never had issues with my mouse randomly changing behavior in the year or so prior to that. Whether they work or not is up in the air, but random behavior changes seems like a weird practice
Probably KDE settings can deal with this. At least that worked on mine. Hyprland also has stuff for remapping extra mouse buttons.
I am sorry, is your mother in law really buying logitech mouses that specifically require a software to run even on Windows?
Sounds more like your hardware isn’t ready for Linux.
Same. I have a Kensington trackball with a decent config and button mapping software in Windows that I will NOT give up. I tried Mint for a few weeks, but it just became too stupidly cumbersome to Google every single thing. Like I wanted to implement the Windows PIN thing for startup on my PC… Yeah no.
Linux has come a long way but it’s not ready for the commoners like me. And a free open source OS probably cannot be developed for the masses without some major funding with a dedicated team.
So back to Win 10, Enterprised with massgrave.
implement the Windows PIN thing for startup on my PC
If you’re that specific in your requirements, you’re gonna have a bad time. I don’t think Microsoft makes “Windows PIN” for Linux.
I can’t tell if you’re being a pedantic smart ass, or really don’t know that Windows allows a 4 digit PIN on their system rather than type in the full password each time. And Linux does not have such a similar feature to simply activate, like Windows Hello. I got tired of typing in the 16 letter and characters password every single time for every single thing after 2 weeks. It’s my personal PC on my desk at home, not an office. And I don’t know why I should spend money on an ergonomic trackball with special features that works in Windows, and then just throw it out because the manufacturer doesn’t support Linux. They don’t develop an app because hardly anybody uses Linux in their market. So that’s just me and my experience.
Like I said, Linux isn’t for common plebs like me and it isn’t easy to switch over when expected features that exist in Windows don’t exist in Linux. The people that keep saying to switch to Linux here on Lemmy don’t seem to understand that the majority of computer users are just like me.
Busted. Pedantic smart ass it is.
That said I think the windows PIN code system is absurdly insecure but … eh you do you.
KDE has settings for extra mouse buttons. Linux Mint is kind of behind in several areas unfortunately.
