Unpopular Opinion

I'm conflicted. I always upvote actually unpopular opinions on !c/unpopularopinion.
But I always downvote posts that include things like "cant speak bad about X on Y now can we" and "X has the same circlejerks Y has").

On topic: Linux is an operating system that does some things better than Windows and other things worse. Most of its issues are a direct result of lacking support from third party closed source software vendors. That lack of support is a direct result of its low market share on desktop computers.

I use Linux because my user experience with it is MUCH, MUCH better than with Windows overall.
Things like:

• the global search opening a browser that was designed to be as annoying as possible
• GUI settings I set being reverted with an update
• popups nagging me to use NEW_PRODUCT
• error messages telling me "sorry we did an oopsie, please try again later"
• forcing me to create an online account for installing the OS
• reminding me again to do it with each update
• vendors installing a gig of crapware and PUPs when I just need a printer driver
• Outlook connecting to the M365 e-mail account after I just specifically told it to connect to my own Exchange server
• uninstalling and preventing reinstall of software I bought when I click on the shiny "fix problems" button
  make me tear my hair out. Just let me use my computer, for fuck's sake!

And on top of all that and more, I've had way fewer issues running Linux-supporting software on Linux than running Windows-supporting software on Windows. And that's the thing people don't understand: Linux is not Windows.
If you try to use it as a drop-in replacement for Windows, you're gonna have a sub-par experience. You need to switch ecosystems, not just the OS.
(but I'm still impressed that games made for Windows work well using graphics drivers made for Windows, 80-90% of the time).

Your opinion OK, but what makes it really unpopular, even like lukewarm-shit-unpopular, is the fact that it is some very poorly substantiated criticism.

How can you flame like this without mentioning the distribution so we can shit on it!

Proton works great for me. Windows also has problems with selecting the audio source. I only have one monitor so I can't tell for the others.

I find it very unfair that people will forgive any shortcoming of windows but Linux should be absolutely perfect or it's not usable. No one can make a printer work on windows better than on anything, and projecting a presentation is always going to fail 50% of the time. When it fails on windows, it's a stuff problem, but when it's on Linux it's a Linux problem somehow...

I've been using Linux since 2004, in various distros, exclusively as my desktop for any computer I own or control.

I nonetheless agree with you 100%.

Linux¹ is an OS that appeals to a very narrow spectrum of a very narrow subculture of people. As a desktop OS for the general public it is basically a disaster area. If video doesn't fuck you up, audio will, or Bluetooth, or networking, or any number of other sharp corners and rusty nails sticking out. You either get used to fixing these (and then never touching them ever again once solved ... and hope the next kernel update doesn't fuck you over!) or you get the joy of sifting through a myriad of subtly incorrect and/or out of date "help" articles online. (Documentation?! Don't make me laugh. You wouldn't like me when I laugh.)

There are a few reasons for this. Of these, one is out of the control of the Linux community. The rest are the Linux community's to fix, however. But they won't. (The reason for this is one of the items listed.)

• Manufacturers of hardware won't release the information needed to write drivers for their products, and won't commit to writing and maintaining good drivers of their own.
• The kernel has its ABI changed more often than, I suspect, an average kernel maintainer changes their underwear. (This contributes to why manufacturer drivers tend to drift into shit.)
• The development community is almost pathologically opposed to writing proper documentation. (Hint: reference documentation is not sufficient and never has been.)
• People who do write documentation (often third parties), are not supported in any way by those who don't: changes aren't checked against existing documentation and the latter updated, for example.
• There's a strong "it was hard for me to learn; it should be hard for everyone to learn!" vibe in the user community.
• There's also a strong element of denial in said user community: a lot of "works for me, so it must be your problem". The problem being with Linux is not considered seriously and, indeed, is strongly denied when mentioned as a possibility.
• Fixing complicated (albeit often entirely unnecessary) problems is literally addictive. A lot of users are addicted specifically to the dopamine hit of solving a complicated, if pointless, problem and thus don't see this as a problem. They expect other users to be similarly addicted.
• A lot of users view the computer's OS as the end, not the means to an end. This clashes with the viewpoint of users who just want their OS to get the fuck out of their way so they can work on their actual ends.

So why do I still use Linux, given all my negativity above?

• I do a lot of work with programming languages that most people haven't even seen used in anger. Many of these aren't supported under Windows in the first place; those which are tend not to be very well supported. Unix-like systems are the most common supported systems in that space.
• I really, really, really hate all the spying that gets done by commercial software and would rather deal with the problems that crop up using Linux than feeding a bunch of sociopathic billionaires even more data.
• This is probably the big one: I don't play computer games. I hate the fucking things enough without wanting them in my entertainment. Many of the problems that people have vanish into nothingness if you're not a gamer.
• I am a gigantic nerd. (In all senses of "gigantic" here.)

¹ Before some Yahoo tries to "own" me by pointing out "BUT ANDROID IS BASED ON THE LINUX KERNEL TOO!!!!111oneoneoneeleventy!", here I'm using "Linux" as a shortcut for "Linux on desktop systems as a desktop OS. That Android thing is not the killer line you think it is. It just makes you look intellectually dishonest.

Use the OS that fits your use case.

Windows doesn't fit mine. Microsoft now aims to be like Google and Apple: All of Windows 11 is designed to steer you into the MS ecosystem. If you submit to its will and use all the MS services, the nagging stops and you probably have a good UX.

Linux fits my use case much better: I want an OS that translates between my hardware and my software, otherwise gets out of my way and lets me, the sole user, administrator and owner of the PC control it.

user server does not check out

I’m a software developer with about twenty years in the field, spending my first half of that working in a Unix environment. I have tried so hard to make Linux my home desktop solution. I’ve come back to it every five years or so, hoping it’s finally figured out the UI/UX thing.

Things I like:

• no comercial motivation
• intrinsically programmer-oriented
• free with available sources, as deep as I care to dig

Things I don’t like:

• High barrier to entry (which distro?)
• Poor support for newer hardware (not a fault of Linux but a reality)
• Too much competition in very basic facilities like package managers and desktop environments
• Well-intentioned but largely unhelpful community support due to the above points

I’m back using Linux again (Fedora) because at the moment I’m doing a lot of embedded and SoC work, and again I love the dev experience. But so far it seems like not much has changed wrt how fiddly daily driving can be. I can’t stand W11 for a lot of reasons, but I’m constantly tempted to try my luck with WSL as a better compromise.

Linux is my main driver for work, so I don't have the same challenges as you do for gaming or graphics, but am interested in which distro you're using?

There are warts definitely, but haven't had the issues you point out with monitors or audio using Debian or Fedora. That said it still is a lot like Lego when it comes to desktop use - dozens of ways to build something and it can vary a heap in the different ways you approach it.

Agreed it is still a ways off mainstream with the exception of power users or very streamlined environments like the Steamdeck.

It does have quite a bit of problems, bugs and fails at the basics more often than not.

I kinda feel like I'm being gaslit whenever I bring it up and people say it "just works".

Because. Well. It doesn't.

Yep, Linux is certainly not perfect, and it's not for everyone, though it's improving all the time. A lot of the problems you were seeing come down to distro and Desktop environment, paired with hardware.

Because of the amount of choice and preferences we have, not all the desktop environments are feature parity, and each team has their own priorities. It's just a shame that you practically have to do homework in order to have the best experience, when Linux users themselves say that the biggest benefit is choice.

I don't think you are being fair. There are a ton of issues that people experience with Windows but everyone just accepts it because Windows is seen as "Normal".

Any issue you experience in Linux is magnified by it being a different issue than the ones you are used to in Windows and your unfamiliarity with Linux.

One of the cool things about Linux is you actually have a hope of being able to fix issues yourself without waiting for a company to solve your problems.

I don't try to run Windows applications on Linux, but I imagine that could be frustrating. But that is a bit like being angry at your dog for not being a cat. You can buy your dog a cat costume but it's still just a good boy trying his best to do what you want.

I haven’t tried gaming on linux, but I completely agree on the audio part. I have a laptop running PopOS, had a meeting and it just won’t change from the built-in mic, and some mic’s won’t even get recognized. Let’s just say meetings are now like my gaming, windows only.

I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with Linux.

One of the problems with that family of systems is hardware compatibility. Unfortunately if your hardware is not (proven) to be compatible with Linux, you will have problems. Sometimes those problems are of the "my system won't start" kind. Often, these will be hard to identify and fix.

Linux is not yet IMO a system for general use. Fixing problems can be long, tedious and require you to read a lot of docs. Yesterday I spent a few hours fixing my package manager, which was recently broken by a system update. Yay.

I have been using dual boots for years for that very same reason. I am a software developer and Linux makes a lot of sense for my work. But for videogames (and other software not supported on Linux), Windows is my platform of choice.

The question I would ask myself if I was you is: do you need Linux? If so, I would next check (before anything else) hardware compatibility with some distro that makes sense for you (one that comes shipped with good graphics drivers for example). There are a few distro that work reasonably well for some of those cases. If you don't need Linux (and you don't like tinkering with systems) then I would suggest reconsidering your choice of platform.

Anyway, I wish you all the best settling for a system that works for you and hopefully you can see a quick end to your frustrations.

Edit: typo

Honestly youre right. When i first started using linux it was for fun, something different. It had so many issues that by default id boot into windows and use ubuntu occassionally to learn it some more. A few years later and endeavour is my daily driver and im lucky enough to have 0 issues whatsoever, i love it but its probably dumb luck that all my hardware works well. The issues people have with linux seem totally random, some people breeze through it, then theres people like you that just encounter so much seemingly random bs.

Youre right about the circlejerks, enjoy the comments that are gonna come pouring in lol

I put Linux Mint on my laptop about ten years ago. Finally, this year, my track pad started working.

You're not alone, but it's an unpopular opinion among geeks. I guess most of them are just bored and therefore love to tinker with these kind of issues. I value my time and prefer not to care about my OS doing things for me. I like to have the option to do so, if I need, but I shouldn't have too. Windows allows that, MacOS doesn't and Linux allows too much of that, even requires it.

Another part is the dopamine rush when an issue got solved. Obviously you don't get any if it works right away.

My windows 10 is running flawless since 2019 and it didn't slow down or get bloated. I have disabled a few options but that's about it. Meanwhile my coworker is fighting bad drivers every day. Not even talking about games that simply don't work at all.

I use Linux at work and it's great when you set up a VM to do one thing and then forget about it.

I have been trying to transition my every day desktop to Linux for 15 years, they aren't there yet.

And now that all the energy is going into making thousands of functionally identical distros there will be zero effort made to actually turn it into a standard desktop OS.

Add on top of that the fact that EVERY FUCKDAMN LINUX community I have visited is populated by arrogant assholes that think niche expertise gives them the right to harass newbs.

Peripheral support is shit, even LTS distros drop support for common packages whenever they fucking feel like.

I'm gonna say it.

Fuck Linux, and fuck every neckbeard that brought us to this place.

Linux was supposed to be the cure, was supposed to be the hero, was supposed to show just how good open source software could be.

Instead it became a vast ocean of user-antagonistic steaming shit.

Do you have a Nvidia GPU? That's probably 99% of your problem, in addition to a lack of configuration most likely. Just try a different distro more suited to your use case, if you're lazy. It'll probably fix a lot.

Fwiw, I switched to Linux a couple months back (pop_os!) and I've been very happy. I've had some minor issues (random gaming proton crashes, os freezes) and some learning experiences. Occasional fiddling with stuff seems required but not an every day thing. The benefits of Linux vastly outway the minor issues.

Enough Linux spam...

Let's watch this guy get crucified.

1. Zero awareness of what linux actually is or means.

2. No clue what DE they're using. Talks about "linux UI".

3. Clearly some borked distro problems, none of this would happen on any modern user-oriented distro.

4. Blatantly consumerist attitude towards a FOSS product.

To the last one, OP, go eat shit. You can pay Apple however much they ask you, and be their happy slave, or you can keep allowing windows to push their big fat aDs down your throat. Nobody has forced you to use linux.

Oh, and the more of such garbage users like you switch back to windows, the better for us. We're never planning to run this as s for-profit catering to every Karen's demands. We just kick Karens out of this bar while continuing enjoying our hard liquor.

Btw, all of this reads like a copypasta from like a decade ago, which I suspect it might just be.