Games on Linux are great now this is why I fully moved to Linux. Is the the work place Pc’s market improving.
being preinstalled on devices you buy. normal users just what to push some buttons and expect it to ‘just work’
as someone that has spent the past week working through different distros to figure out what I want to move to here is my list. Note that this is all coming from someone that actively wants to switch and not someone that doesn’t realize there’s other options like some of the other comments are getting at. This does not obviate everyone else’s comments that linux just needs to come preinstalled on stuff or that manufacturers and developers need to do more. Both of those are a given, but those are not something that distro maintainers or kernel devs can control.
- audio doesn’t work properly on half the distros I installed (linux mint, zorin both had popping and crackling anytime I played audio)
- video doesn’t work properly on many of the distros I tested (youtube being blurry is one example, zorin os couldn’t run games at all really). I understand this is a driver issue. But on mac I’ve never once had to maintain any driver, stuff just either worked or didn’t work. On Windows the most I’ve ever had to do was run an installer or uninstaller to re/un-install whenever something went wrong. Every distro has a different way of fixing drivers, and every help article is just “try this if that doesn’t work try this” for 15 different options. Here’s the thing, this isn’t something for driver maintainers to fix. Bazzite and CachyOS both have no audio or video issues, so it’s clearly working in some manner for the hardware I have, it’s just that some distros have it working and some don’t.
- choosing a distro is not as easy as loading up a usb with the live image and starting it up. lots of times things do not work properly in the live image, or they work differently. So testing out that way can give you errors, missing dialogs, etc. An example is CachyOS: in the live image (in CachyOS Hello) you do not get the “Install Gaming packages” option and as a result you might do what I did and try to install them a different way, resulting in broken Nvidia drivers or error messages that no sane person will ever take their time to figure out, they’ll just switch back to windows or mac.
- to expand on that point, lots of times testing in a VM would be a good way to see a new OS and that hasn’t worked for me a single time. Even more issues with that when I was testing Bazzite. Bazzite runs normally on its own partition, but in a VM it was terrible. Only way to figure this out is by installing on a partition and testing from there. That’s another friction point. The reason this is a friction point is because the common suggestions from the Linux community is that you should “find a distro you like”. No sane person is going to partition their drive into several 100gb sections like I did and test each one on an actual install rather than just testing on a live image. I know that because I have a bunch of non-computer friends and they want to switch to linux for the coming windows apocalypse and are just not going to because of the perceived difficulty. In my experience over the past week (and I tried this earlier this year as well) it’s not a perceived difficulty. It’s an actual difficulty.
- Testing multiple distros requires partitioning your drive up a bunch, which means dealing with bootloaders, which means dealing with grub vs limine vs rEFInd vs systemd etc. No sane person who has no computer experience is EVER going to understand these options. I don’t understand them and I run 20+ websites, have several (linux) servers at home, and have dealt with computers for decades. One issue I came across was that the CachyOS installer doesn’t make it clear that you have to choose your EFI boot partition so that it’s not the windows one, at least if you’ve already installed other linux distros (like I had). So I spent several hours trying to understand why the install kept failing (and according to the CachyOS instructions if it fails you have to completely reboot the live image due to the installer not unmounting the disks properly, which was another 30 minutes of troubleshooting) and it turns out that it was trying to install the bootloader onto the windows bootloader rather than the already existing grub bootloader from mint and bazzite.
- testing multiple distros requires understanding SO MUCH about how linux works that it’s just really not feasible for anyone. So it’s not just about choosing the right distro, but you have to get the right distro on the first time which means that every distro needs to work out of the box immediately. Which just isn’t the case.
- too many ways to install applications. Several other comments have covered this and then people respond saying that windows and mac have multiple ways to install things when really that isn’t the case. On windows 99.99999% of installs are going to be .msi/.exe. No normal user is installing chocolatey or winget packages. On Mac there’s two ways to install things and they’re always covered by the website: App Store or download and open and the file structure will literally tell you how to install in a nicely packaged window. Usually this is just “drag to this folder”. Sometimes it’s ‘double click this installer’. On CachyOS there’s no fewer than 6 ways to install things that you will get suggestions for: 1. Octopi 2. CachyOS Package Installer 3.
pacman4.paru5.yay6. tar.gz download. On Bazzite the options are completely different because it’s Fedora based. On Mint it was another set of options. Users are required to understand the underlying distro’s installation methods in order to figure out how to install stuff properly. Not only are they required to understand that, but they’ve got to figure out which install method for any given piece of software. For example, installing Dropbox one way vs another can make it work completely differently, including worse. Installing Spotify pops up a KDE Wallet dialog that users are expected to know how to manage. - system dark/light mode switching. I still haven’t figured this out. On mac it’s built in. On windows I just double click installed Auto Dark Light Mode or whatever it was called. On arch apparently I need to install darkman and then set up some scripts and I have no desire to do that. Why isn’t it a single button like Mac? or at least 4 dropdowns like Intellij/other jetbrains products, where you just choose your light mode and light mode editor theme and dark mode/dark mode editor theme. I know there’s something in the works, I’ve seen people talking about how this is a desired functionality, but wasn’t everyone complaining about how wikipedia didn’t have system dark mode for like a decade? And linux is still behind that? User’s have to manually write shell scripts to get dark mode to turn on at night?
I wrote this the other day and never finished it, but that’s just the stuff I’ve found so far.
The elitism mostly.
It’s seen as complicated because linux users behave a certain way
Tell me about it. The Linux crowd here on Lemmy is so god damn annoying, and that makes me not want to switch.
(For one, Linux needs to get a lot better support for gaming GPUs and HDR monitors before I’d consider ditching Windows for good. I can’t live without RTX HDR and the Nvidia Control Panel, but Linux supports neither. There’s no SDR-to-HDR upscaling support in the Linux version of Firefox, either.)
It’s kinda a catch-22 situation: the vendors themselves need to implement these things on Linux, but they don’t because it’s a relatively small slice of the market. However, users won’t switch because these things aren’t available
That’s a good point—and I don’t like that I’m part of the problem—but I also don’t want to have to dual-boot just to play games or watch YouTube in HDR. I don’t care who makes it; I just want one OS that covers all of my needs. It would be nice if that OS was Linux.
Plus I DJ on the side and find that my decade-old hardware doesn’t play nice with Linux. Not a fan of the DJ software options, either. Mixxx is decent, but I prefer the industry standard, Serato for it’s reliability and simplicity. Unfortunately it doesn’t work in WINE without massive audio latency, which is a non-starter in a Live DJ environment where near-realtime (sub-5ms) audio is crucial.
HDR works on Linux:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HDR_monitor_support
No, the NVIDIA Control Panel is not available but there are nvidia-settings and nvidia-smi
Yes it does but there is no SDR-to-HDR conversion. You need at least the Nvidia App for that.
Almost nobody “chooses” an OS. What needs to happen for wide-spread adoption is for first time computer users to be presented with something running Linux.
Microsoft understood this, that’s why Windows has been the default in classrooms since the 80s.
Windows was never the default in classrooms in the 80’s, that was Apple. First with the Apple II.
Windows didn’t even exist until 1985 and wasn’t widely adopted until 3.0/3.1 in the 90s.
Windows 386 in the late 80s was widely considered to be a joke:
Laptops sold in store. Vendor that targets schools elementary to college along with software and support to manage a fleet of computers. Would be relevant for corporations too. They would market and support Linux hardware
User friendly way to deal with permissions on flatpaks. Needs to be like Android and iOS where when it’s needed, you get a prompt box to affirm/deny or file/application picker to grant access to
Grow commercial support orgs for professional software support. Like orgs that support deployments of LibreOffice. Blender foundation is good. More of that for other open source pro/prosumer software. Sales and support staff separate from developers
I think LibreOffice should just be a PWA. I could easily be missing something, since I’m not an office suite power user, but AFAICT, everyone would be better off using an OSS version of Google Docs. Web apps are the most accessible option, they fit the collaborative use case well, etc.
solving the misogyny problem in the developer spaces and the community in general
No good enterprise management. Doesn’t run enterprise software.
Most people don’t really care what they use, they just want to be able to use it. If it doesn’t run their programs, it’s no good to them.
Companies don’t use it on the desktop because enterprise management sucks. There’s no equivalent to group policy. Ansible is not the same.
Yeah, this is pretty much it.
Microsoft took over the computing world because they built a really good enterprise management toolset. Say what you will about their shitty business practices both in history and today, both AD and GPO are fucking incredible pieces of software. Microsoft Office and Exchange email are also pretty much the only game in town unless you want to jump to Google which is objectively worse.
Those tools meant that workplaces adopted Windows instead of Mac and Linux and slowly transitioned their Unix servers to Windows. Then people started getting PCs at home, and they didn’t want to learn a whole new OS. Guess what, Windows is also available for home use and does all the same things that your office PC does.
Now that Microsoft has the vast majority of the install base on PCs, it’s not economically viable to develop or troubleshoot software for the other platforms, as you’re putting in a ton of extra time for about 5% of users.
Until Linux can promise ~90% compatibility with all software and they can put out some kind of real competition to AD and GPO, people are going to take the path of least resistance and just get Windows.
both AD and GPO are fucking incredible pieces of software.
AD is really the only way to manage an organization with thousands of endpoints and users.
I have some hope that someone in the EU will develop a competing product now that they’re pushing to get away from Microsoft, but it doesn’t exist yet.
the issue with this take is that they have been transitioning their enterprise services to web services. i and others on my team effectually use Microsoft enterprise tooling on Mac and Linux machines. i don’t think AD has anything to do with desktop Linux adoption?
You’re ignoring 20+ years of how it was the only player when web wasn’t so big as it is today. It was a major reason windows became the default OS in many offices, and as an extension of that, in the majority of homes in the 2000s to 2015. Thus majority of software industry and video gaming companies made their home in windows. Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD, and many other industry software was made to work in Windows first.
There was also the case of Microsoft tilting the playing field by significantly discounting laptop and Desktop OEMs for Windows license keys just to be the sole OS installed on many computers. The concept of a PC was one which was running some version of Windows.
This also lead to another compounding aspect: Piracy of windows software made the windows AD/Server experts of today. Since Linux was free, there wasn’t as much of an intrigue on running it vs. A pirated copy of windows running pirated copy of many software.
No good enterprise management
There’s Kolide and Intune.
Doesn’t run enterprise software.
Like what?
Adobe? Excel? Both of which are used in almost every large business on the planet lol.
Adobe is a garbage company. Big studios don’t use Adobe crap. And the alternatives are better anyways.
Excel also has alternatives. LibreOffice and even Google Sheets if you don’t mind Google.
And before you say LibreOffice isn’t good enough, take a look at all the European governments that have switched over to LibreOffice. I use it regularly at my company where everyone else uses Office 365, and no one has ever noticed. Compatibility with Excel is stellar. In fact, my wife uses Office 365 at her company and she’s daily running into issues with it. Either some outage, or some weird bug that’s been a complaint in the Microsoft support forums for years, or some other issue.
Whereas I never have any issues with LibreOffice.
You asked what enterprise software. You don’t just get to act like those aren’t being used in almost every enterprise on the planet. I don’t care if they’re crap companies or not. They could literally be literally run by Nazis. As it is right now I ask you to find a single enterprise company that doesn’t have either of those in use on their systems somewhere. And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to “studios”.
In regards to LibreOffice or excel alternatives not being good enough I can tell you they aren’t. Using Drools rules, software written by Red Hat, you are unable to create drools decision tables that work properly with Kogito (another software written by red hat) with anything other than Excel. That includes LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Drools is the most used rule engine on the planet. Software devs use it, business stakeholders use it. Excel is an absolute necessity if you’re using the decision table functionality of drools.
You asked what enterprise software.
You’re right, I did. But the question was in relation to things that prevent adoption to Linux. Excel isn’t one of them, as Office 365 is available as a web version, but there are also many entirely compatible alternatives.
As for Adobe, I don’t know what software of theirs is used by enterprises. Unless you mean Acrobat, which again there are better alternatives that target the enterprise. I actually haven’t worked at a company that’s used Adobe products in over 10 years.
Using Drools rules, software written by Red Hat, you are unable to create drools decision tables that work properly with Kogito (another software written by red hat) with anything other than Excel. That includes LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
Drools is developed and maintained by the Apache Foundation. It’s FOSS software (Free and Open Source Software). Red Hat is the main sponsor of the project and the flagship product using Drools is Red Hat Decision Manager (formerly JBoss).
From the Drools docs:
Drools supports managing rules in a spreadsheet format. Supported formats are Excel (XLS), and CSV, which means that a variety of spreadsheet programs (such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc amongst others) can be utilized.
Software devs use it
I am a software dev, and I’ve used JBoss in the past. I can promise you that it’s not limited to Excel in the least. In fact, Drools isn’t even primarily designed for spreadsheets, and it’s generally deployed on Linux servers.
As it is right now I ask you to find a single enterprise company that doesn’t have either of those in use on their systems somewhere.
This is a valid point, but not because they can’t operate without them. It’s almost always because of ignorance of better alternatives, upper management comfort zone, and billions of dollars of marketing from Microsoft and Adobe for over 20 years.
And I’m not sure what you’re talking about in regards to “studios”.
Studios as in Hollywood studios and VFX Houses. Some of them might use Adobe stuff here and there, but the “serious” stuff isn’t done with Adobe.
You’re right, I did. But the question was in relation to things that prevent adoption to Linux. Excel isn’t one of them, as Office 365 is available as a web version, but there are also many entirely compatible alternatives.
It is, I gave an example why.
As for Adobe, I don’t know what software of theirs is used by enterprises. Unless you mean Acrobat, which again there are better alternatives that target the enterprise. I actually haven’t worked at a company that’s used Adobe products in over 10 years.
of course I mean acrobat. Please do list an alternative (that works on linux) that has Adobe Sign or something like that.
Drools is developed and maintained by the Apache Foundation. It’s FOSS software (Free and Open Source Software). Red Hat is the main sponsor of the project and the flagship product using Drools is Red Hat Decision Manager (formerly JBoss).
are you just reading off wikipedia? Drools was created by Red Hat, same with Kogito and Quarkus. Drools and Kogito have been donated to Apache, but are still majority maintained by Red Hat.
Drools supports managing rules in a spreadsheet format. Supported formats are Excel (XLS), and CSV, which means that a variety of spreadsheet programs (such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc amongst others) can be utilized.
yep, and as I’ve already told you, Excel is the only one that works properly. I’m a drools expert. I’ve been working in drools for 15+ years. There are issues with using drools with anything other than excel. Of course you can use CSV but you lose a lot of functionality in the process. I’m telling you this as someone that has tried to get around these things and use alternatives for years.
I am a software dev, and I’ve used JBoss in the past. I can promise you that it’s not limited to Excel in the least. In fact, Drools isn’t even primarily designed for spreadsheets, and it’s generally deployed on Linux servers.
smh. jboss is not the same thing as drools. Maybe you didn’t come across the bugs I have, but I have literally listed out to you the steps to encounter it. Use Drools, use Kogito. Use xlsx decision tables (not decision manager, which is now owned by ibm). And yes, Drools isn’t ‘primarily designed for spreadsheets’. it’s a rules engine. There’s ten thousand different ways to use it. I’m telling you that you will eventually encounter issues with using Libre or Open Office with drools decision tables. I did. My team did. We literally had to get an Office subscription (it was a google suite company) just to use drools because of all the issues we encountered. I understand this is most likely MS doing something internal to their xlsx format to fuck with anyone using other software. That is incredibly likely. The point still stands. Some software is absolutely necessary for businesses and there is no other alternative. Linux radicals seem to think that there’s always a way around it. But there isn’t.
This is a valid point, but not because they can’t operate without them. It’s almost always because of ignorance of better alternatives, upper management comfort zone, and billions of dollars of marketing from Microsoft and Adobe for over 20 years.
I think it’s more that enterprises want support and they want to trust other companies. You do not get that with linux. Like I said, give me an alternative to Adobe Sign that works on linux. You’re not going to find one that is open source, because the fundamental trust model is that adobe is your signatory, and you trust them and their servers.
Studios as in Hollywood studios and VFX Houses. Some of them might use Adobe stuff here and there, but the “serious” stuff isn’t done with Adobe.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing up vfx houses. Adobe doesn’t have any vfx software. Their major products are Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator. All things that any major company would need to operate any sort of marketing material. None of those are used for VFX. There are good alternatives for Photoshop and Premiere and Illustrator, even ones that work on Linux (no not Gimp). But I don’t see you replacing Acrobat anytime soon. And Lightroom (which I didn’t list) is far better than Darktable (I literally started with Darktable and it was so horrid I literally got an adobe sub because there was no other option at the time). Now there’s some others, but I haven’t tried them. I’m going to look at RAWTherapee though and see how it does.
of course I mean acrobat. Please do list an alternative (that works on linux) that has Adobe Sign or something like that.
Well, Adobe Sign is a cloud based offering, which is distinct from Acrobat itself. And it can only work as a cloud offering because they need to ensure audit trails for compliance reasons. In that regard there’s DocuSign which is also cloud based. But as for Acrobat, there’s Xodo, OnlyOffice, and LibreOffice.
are you just reading off wikipedia? Drools was created by Red Hat
No I wasn’t, but I wasn’t aware that Red Hat developed it.
Excel is the only one that works properly. I’m a drools expert. I’ve been working in drools for 15+ years. There are issues with using drools with anything other than excel. Of course you can use CSV but you lose a lot of functionality in the process. I’m telling you this as someone that has tried to get around these things and use alternatives for years.
Ok, fair. I have limited experience with it, but in the time that I did work with it, it seemed fine.
smh. jboss is not the same thing as drools.
You’re right, I was referring to JBoss BRMS. It’s been a long time since I’ve touched it, over 10 years ago.
Maybe you didn’t come across the bugs I have
Clearly not, because as I mentioned, the project I was working on that used it switched to a different system. And no, I don’t remember which.
Some software is absolutely necessary for businesses and there is no other alternative. Linux radicals seem to think that there’s always a way around it. But there isn’t.
And that is fair. I always tell people to use the best tool for the job, and sometimes the best tool is the one they know how to use best. So if it’s Windows, then so be it.
I think it’s more that enterprises want support and they want to trust other companies. You do not get that with linux.
Sure you do. There are many companies with commercial offerings that support Linux.
give me an alternative to Adobe Sign that works on linux.
You can actually use the web version of Adobe Sign from any OS. I know that’s not what you were asking, but it’s still a workable solution.
I’m not sure why you’re bringing up vfx houses. Adobe doesn’t have any vfx software. Their major products are Acrobat, Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator.
And After Effects.
https://www.adobe.com/ca/products/aftereffects/vfx-visual-effects.html
They literally call it VFX software. And that is what it is. And Photoshop, Premiere, and Illustrator all fall into the VFX category because you would utilize all of them in a VFX workflow.
Anyways, I brought it up because that’s generally what people refer to when they mention Adobe when talking about Linux compatibility.
I’m going to look at RAWTherapee though and see how it does.
I know someone that does professional photography and uses Linux. They say they love RAWTherapee.
Fix long-standing issues that create headaches for new users. I’m not sure if it’s Mint-specific, but:
Backing out of the OS installation should not make it crash to the point that I have to rename a file in the USB to fix it.
Downloading the new video codecs while installing the OS and ticking some box should also not make it crash.
And warning me beforehand that I need to disable secure boot should be a must.
Fix that and you just saved your users three attempts at installing and a couple of hours of troubleshooting just to get their feet in the door.
Most of that feels like Mint specific. The secure boot thing is sometimes mentioned in the installation instructions…but not always.
None, sadly. Most of the things that make Linux a bad OS are problems in Linux, but not problems of Linux so there’s little that can be done.
True secure and verified boot, robust MAC systems with easy control (similar to what MacOS uses).
deleted by creator
Installing an OS will always be a hurdle. Most people don’t want to spend that much time thinking about how their computer works, they just want to turn it on and have it work. For more people to use Linux, it will have to be preinstalled.
After that, it needs to be stable. If the audio stops working, most people don’t think “maybe I need to roll back my driver” or “maybe ALSA has muted my output channel for some reason”, they just think “my computer is broken”. These kind of problems have to go away, or at least be reduced to <1% of users.
Also, very few people are going to have any patience for any kind of difficulty related to “oh you have to add a different repository to your package manager to play common media formats” or w/e (e.g. AUR or Ubuntu Multiverse &etc). Normal people spend exactly 0 time considering what codecs they might need to install to listen to some music, or where they might need to get those codecs from, or whether those codecs are open or proprietary or freeware or whatever.
Needs brainless application management.
Windows is basically: download the installer, run it, and boom you’re good to go.
Linux distros typically have 2-3 different ways to install applications and multiple mechanisms for updating/maintaining, where most of the good ones are non graphical. It’s confusing for even experienced users let alone someone who doesn’t know what a “package” is.
Say I want to uninstall something, I need to know how it was installed (apt? Snap? Flatpak? Manual build from source?) in order to do so. On windows, they have a registration scheme where installers log to a common OS level application management on what to run to uninstall.
Most users just open the app store on their distro and install things there. It’s painless. Your complaint is the equivalent of somebody on android deciding not to use the google store and saying that they have too many places to install applications from.
I actually find it hilarious that you even think windows installers are good. They are friggin mess and leave behind a bunch of crap when uninstalled. There’s a good reason windows needs stuff like reg-cleaners and debloaters and what have you. Let’s not even get into how easy it is to get adware or malware on windows, because searching for “rar installer” gets you a bunch of paid malware sites on the top of the search results.
Wishing to go back to the “simplicity” of a windows installers is madness. Linux isn’t perfect for packaging software, but let’s not pretend windows is better.
OEM integration. i feel like there is a lot to like about Linux that most people who can will. but i think the thing that’s grown Linux a lot (other than geopolitical shifts) in recent time is SteamOS. not just because of Proton, but they’re literally selling a computer as an OEM with a 1st class linux OS. imagine if Dell and HP and Razer started doing the same
The main things that have kept mainline adoption from happening:
- Driver support for new hardware (this is mostly an OEM thing)
- Dead simple tools for regular use, like updates, and printers or devices (Gnome has simplified quite a bit in the past few updates)
- Opinionated UI or package selection. Lots of options overwhelm many users
On #3: I totally wouldn’t mind defaults that could be overridden later, or better yet, a wizard that gives you a bunch of options and source material for making an elective decision for something else.
Pre installed hardwares. It’s not just about “being easy to use” or “working software X”. 90% of the users are not going to install Linux themselves, because they have no idea that Windows is something that can be replaced like any other softwares.
Even then, they’d not just begrudgingly use Linux because it was preinstalled. They’d find tech support and complain about how everything’s just completely changed and they want their normal PC back.
So no, Linux desktop will stay niche no matter how it gets, at least for a long time. Something as braindead simple as ChromeOS may help though.
