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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.
You know whats worse than doing things in windows command line or powershell? The registry
“Nooooo! I cant $sudo nano /etc/some.conf!!!”
Regedit -> HKEY_USERS/microsoft/windows/system/some_setting --> value=FUCK type=DWORD
That’s because you are sending your Fucks to the wrong key. You are missing the /feedback folder under system
Shit, I can’t get Windows to print on my network printer. Have to uninstall it, reinstall it, manually set the IP, restart Windows, and then it’ll work for like one session and then not work again. Windows won’t even throw an error, it’ll just tell me it printed while my printer sits silent.
On linux it works every time. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even try to print in Windows anymore, I just forward all documents to my laptop and print in linux.
Disable IPv6.
Windows and some printers just choke on IPv6 for some reason. I was having sporadic issues with network printers and windows until I disabled IPv6 for other reasons and noticed a noticeable decrease in printer error metrics.
It’ll also affect SMB shares
I wish I could do that, but CGNAT makes ipv6 the much preferred option for a lot of things.
But it’s good to know that this might be the cause…
Well, my brother installed linux (mint) on more than 30 laptops that we were fixing to reuse. Im pretty sure none of them had any driver problems.
Tbh, unless you have a NVIDIA graphics card, or are using arch*, driver issues almost never happen.
*my personal thinkpads wifi board didn’t work in arch, but that may be because I had already borked that install completly.
Even the Nvidia graphics card sentiment is becoming outdated. There have been sizeable improvements in their drivers over the past couple years.
Windows 11 doesn’t even support first gen Ryzen CPUs. The amount of hardware that runs Windows 11 without tinkering is a tiny fraction of the hardware that runs Fedora Workstation without tinkering.
Linux is much better with drivers and hardware support than Windows. Windows only works well if you use the very small subset of hardware it supports.
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.
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…
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.
if installing a plugin and typing something into the admin bar requries a terminal then every password prompt on windows is also a terminal.
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).
Counter arguments are not allowed on Lemmy. Especially this topic. It’s non negotiable and you will always be wrong or downvoted for being right
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.
“Have you tried installing Linux on your computer recently?”
“WTF is a computer?”
Everything’s computer!
Let’s be real. Most people can’t really use Windows, either. Anything harder than clicking the Chrome icon is beyond most users.
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.
On the other hand, the ugly frontends to the package manager just work.
The misery I have trying to get a newer(or sometimes older) version of a package I want is sometimes immeasurable. Yet somehow usually the right version is extremely accessible on choco.
Windows is just more familiar. It definitely has problems just like this all the time. There’s a reason most companies have to have a test environment to try out every update to make sure it doesn’t break everything.
Yep. Somehow people forget windows update breaking shit, weird issues, having to go to device manager to uninstall a shitty graphics driver update you didn’t want, etc.
Rose tinted glasses.
I think you guys have hit the nail on the head. So much of the Linux argument has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with what people already know.
Everyone forgets the bugs and crashes they’ve always had to deal with even exist, because they become background noise. Then they change to a new OS and might run into completely new “roadblocks” and cry about how broken and useless the OS is even though their new problems are just as minor (or more so) than the problems they left behind.
In reality, any OS is a complicated piece of kit. The more you do with it, the more likely you are going to run into something that does something you don’t expect - and the more tech literate you believe yourself to be, the more likely you think the OS doing something you don’t expect means it is broken.
Yeah that’ll happen if you run Bazzite. It’s extremely hardware dependent. It “just works” if you get lucky and use the same hardware as the developers. Otherwise, it’s a shitshow
I would probably not recommend newcomers an esoteric linux distro tbh. People hate canonical but if people in academia can daily drive Ubuntu, anyone can
Choosing Bazzite was a big mistake, you could’ve gone for NobaraOS or PopOS
I’m used to the CLI world of Linux. I wanted something for my non-technical wife that would “just work”. I’ve heard good things online about Bazzite and how it already has everything installed (Steam, Wine, Proton, graphics drivers, all that) and I didn’t want to mess with installing any of that stuff by hand. Idk, maybe it’s my fault for expecting a distro to have basic functionally out of the box.
I think blaming me for choosing a distro based on what it says it’s supposed to do is a bit silly. Sure, I could have installed any distro and worked to install and maintain everything by hand, but that’s not what I was looking for. I don’t want to play tech support every week when something breaks and spend hours trying to fix it when my wife just wants to play a game. If you enjoy that, great, more power to you. Sorry for not choosing your favorite distro, I guess.
It’s not my favorite distro, the maintainer of Proton-GE created NobaraOS
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.
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.
People who are like this today, tried to install red hat 5/6 using popular mechanics magazine as an instruction booklet and with floppy disks
Either that or they tried to install Open BSD once and survived: https://xkcd.com/349/
By all standards, a completely understandable outcome
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
If you see this meme and think “well actually, I had a really difficult time last time I tried to install Linux” - did you ask for help? That’s what the internet is for.
did you ask for help? That’s what the internet is for.
And wait 3-5 business days for whatever menial problem
It’s almost like people have gotten really used to instant gratification and it’s not reasonable. A certain amount of figuring it out should be expected.
It’s almost like people have gotten really used to instant gratification
Being able to work is not “instant gratification”. People need it to be able to afford to live, and often in doing jobs that are directly essential for the life or quality of life of others. Incredibly out of touch take imo
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.
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.
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’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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Every time I install windows I needed to use the terminal to bypass microsoft’s online login requirement. Clearly Windows is not ready.
Let’s be real for a second. A normie would appreciate that there is a login that have saved their favorites and how their desktop is setup. A normie would appreciate that it remembers they are giving you localized news and weather and traffic.
A normie does not put privacy that high as a priority than you.
Trying to suggest that Linux is now ready for normies is a disservice to normies that try it and will never try it again for another 15 years.
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.
Do your parents never need/want to download anything?
If you mean documents, they do it with phones.
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.
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.
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.
That’s why I specified it’s my personal computer at home on my desk. It’s in a secure environment, not an office work computer. Obviously a 4 digit PIN is insecure for a password, but it depends doesn’t it? Windows Hello doesn’t replace the password and 2FA security on my PC itself for my Microsoft account. If it’s somehow stolen through a burglary I can easily lock my Microsoft account through my phone to not accept the PIN. It’s just a convenience for me at home. And for millions of other users. I wish you all would understand that most computer users are plebs like me, or worse. It’s like you IT guys are in a bubble and keep braying that everyone should use Linux… but can’t understand that most people cannot until there are easy to use features like mainstream Windows or MacOS. TBH most people don’t care about privacy or security that much too, like regarding the whole Chrome and Firefox debate. Most people watch ads on YouTube and accept it as a fact of life. That’s just the way people are. People won’t switch to any distro of Linux until it becomes easy, really really easy.
