this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2025
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"Linux is ready" - which distro? Fractional (sometimes even non-fractional) scaling is a mess. Most things that go beyond changing the wallpaper image need some command line stuff. Linux Desktop is for nerds and definitely not ready.
Yes it works fine if you know what you are doing but most people don't. There is often not one thing of doing stuff, but hundreds. It already starts with the selection of a distro how would a "non-computer-person" decide on a distro. Just try them out? Install twenty different distros because reasons?
Unless resources are pooled into a single distro to polish it and make a defacto standard for ordinary people, homes and offices, Linux is not ready. If I need the freaking terminal because I want to see the day of the week next to the date it's not ready.
You're describing linux as it was when I switched. That was 30 years ago though. I don't think you're very familiar with current systems.
Ok here is a question someone recently asked me: "How to show the day of the week next to the date on my Desktop". Try to answer that for "Linux" and help that person on the phone.
That's not a linux question. That's related to whatever desktop environment is running and what clock or calendar widget it can display.
You know that, and I know that, but explain that to the person that asked that question.
Once I figured out it was Ubuntu with gnome I had to tell them to open the freaking terminal and spell them some commands over the phone. Not an environment I'd call "ready" for regular people.
The entire post in general is a bit weird, because it calls "Linux" "ready" as if Linux was something an end-user could install and use.
Right click widget, select options, click on show date, or day or whatever, click apply, done.
I don't know what bizarre stuff Gnome runs but it obviously hasn't gotten better.
You really ask to get the Stallman quote here.
Which one?
"What you are referring to as Linux..."
Of course the question about the clock is meant to be in regards to desktop environments, not "Linux". I don't think anyone here would suggest otherwise.
they're very correct. Last month I tried out Zorin (which was recommended by one of the linux communities here) and sound didn't even work properly. I plan on writing up a full doc for the linux community on the problems a staff software engineer had with a basic no-frills install (I'm trying to find a distro for my wife), but Linux is absolutely not ready for the general populace.
Any system that doesn't ship with the machine won't be friendly to the end user.
And on pc, linux always has to work with (or against) hardware designed specifically for that other os. Including ignoring established standards, because why not. It's honestly a miracle that it works as well as it does.
then why is every linux advocate stating that all that matters is picking your distro? If the system needs to have the OS preinstalled then the distro doesn't matter at all. Yet that still really isn't the problem. Installing an OS from a flash drive (distros are just as easy to install as windows is and people have been installing windows fine from hard media for decades) is a different realm of troubleshooting than driver issues. Either linux is ready for people to start installing any distro on their gaming rig to migrate off of Windows or it's not. And it clearly isn't.
Because linux users are people familiar with computers. The general public can barely use windows, they can't realistically install an operating system. If you think people can install windows, I'm afraid that's quite unlikely.
You're clearly surrounded by tech savvy users. Don't confuse them with regular users. They have nothing in common.
Basically any recommendation always has to come with the additional note for rich people: "If you want an optimal experience buy a Tuxedo, System76 or Slimbook Laptop" (that said, Slimbook offers a laptop for as low as 600β¬). Because even if they screw it up there is a hotline to ask.
For anyone else⦠well, it has to be an older system. The problem isn't necessarily Linux, but the lack of hardware vendors supporting it so the community has to do it themselves. However this obviously doesn't matter for end users, they just want it to work.
tl;dr Either buy yourself a good experience, or find sth. like a "Linux install party" or hackerspace with regular open days (also often offering said install parties). If you aren't an expert, do not move to Linux alone since there's always something unexpected that can happen.
Sound is almost always the sticking point for me in Linux installs.
But as I said in another comment, this doesn't actually matter for the general populace because they don't install OSes. The only situation where they'd use Linux is if they can buy a Linux PC ready to go, so config issues like this miss the forest for the trees.
sure, but then you're alienating an entire userbase that can install an OS (which is just a flash drive and hitting a few keys during startup), but absolutely does not have the willpower to sit and figure out configuration on their new OS that absolutely does not work out of the box. Shit, I have enough to deal with in my daily life, I don't want to be debugging driver issues. I haven't had driver issues in windows or mac for over a decade, yet it's the very first thing you encounter on a new distro install.
Non-computers people have been using Ubuntu for a decade. It's far from perfect, but I'd refrain from basing judgement on a niche platform
You could just said you havent used linux, muchacho.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted.
Lie: "Most things that go beyond changing the wallpaper image need some command line stuff."
Incomprehensible: "There is often not one thing of doing stuff, but hundreds."
"It already starts with the selection of a distro how would a βnon-computer-personβ decide on a distro. Just try them out? Install twenty different distros because reasons?"
Yeah, go install a distro, don't like it , try another or go back to windows. We don't really care but making crap up to be a gatekeeper? That's a bit much
"Unless resources are pooled into a single distro to polish it and make a defacto standard for ordinary people, homes and offices"
Ohh so even if every option works fine, it's not ready unless it's windows....
Going back to look at his history, he's just a ball of incoherant complaints.
I'm with ya buddy: Today, Linux is good enough for most purposes. If you try it and don't like it, go buy a new PC for windows 11.
Linux is a kernel and not an operating system. My phone is runs Android, two of my root servers run debian bookworm, my living room media center runs Ubuntu, so I guess I have used Linux at least a little bit. But no distro I've seen (tried even more on some VMs) is really enough for me to suggest it to anybody that isn't a "computer-person".
I'm neck-deep in Linux and am responsible for getting developers at work up and running with it in servers, WSL and in 3 cases desktops.
I would suggest you're just blind to the new user experience at this point. You're focusing on a lot of stuff that works out of the box on most hardware these days. (but were kagey a year ago)
Bookworm on a late model laptop installs with 0 work. Onboard Nvidia is fine, sound is fine, steam is fine. Printer is fine.
No terminals required, Gui's and Settings are fine.
Scaling (even fracitonal) is fine on KDE for the past few months.
You know who has had scaling issues for a decade? Windows.
Drag that notepad from your 4k screen over to your 1080 screen in windows an watch it blow up 6x, if you accidentally let go before it resizes it on the 1080, the top bar is off the screen. We've been dealing with that forever.
Servers are fine. VM's are fine.
What non expert level things are you expecting a newb to open a terminal and do?
IMHO, The majority of the issues at this point are apps only supporting X when trying to run under wayland.
A question I got last week over the phone: "How do I show the day of the week next to the date in the desktop on Linux?" - what would you tell them?
I tell them it's not windows and some things are going to be different. I'd offer up some widgets, maybe *the linux equivalent of rainmeter.
They can also trade out for one of the windows copycat distros If it was that important to them that it look and work just like windows.
Likewise if somebody in Windows 11 wanted to see the time but didn't want to see the date in their tray like win95, there's no GUI option for that.
Now if somebody really wanted to die on that hill, of course it can be changed in Linux, which is a clear advantage over Windows, But you're going to have to get your hands dirty to do custom work.
As far as I can remember Windows 11 only shows the time on default installations and there are GUI options to change the shown format on the taskbar.
"Some things are going to be different" basically means that they would have to learn to deal with manual config changes and command line stuff.
I personally don't expect the "end-user readyness" of Linux Distros to ever be a serious competition to OSes developed by huge teams driven by trillion dollar companies like Apple and Microsoft. Basically all Linux Distributions I'd consider "end-user ready" and polished are themselves developed by huge companies - like Android, ChromeOS, SteamOS.
I think the biggest issue Linux has on the desktop is the sheer amount of choice for practically everything. The ecosystem is so fractured.
So the choice is actually not between Windows, Mac and Linux, but between Windows, Mac and about thirty Linix distributions where not even experienced Linux Desktop users can agree on which they should suggest to the general public.
Which distro should I suggest to my neighbor? And are you sure other "Linux experts" would agree with your answer?
Negative. Date and Time or nothing, I'm on it at the moment. I use OSX, Windows, Debian, Android, and NixOS daily for different things.
No, they don't need it, it's not even a changeable option on windows, mouse over it, get the date move on with life. If you can't survive without customizing every element on your computer, no OS will suit you
While I disagree, that's an opinion, and it's your opinion, and you're welcome to it.
This line of thinking has a fault. You're punishing choice and options because they're alien. Every time someone is unhappy with the way people are doing things, they make their own because they can. The very fractures you're upset about are the same fractures that bring you https://linuxfx.org/ a distro with the time/date in the tray by default.
What kind of jeans should you buy? What kind of socks should you wear? Hell you can't even get a consensus on Windows VS Mac or IOS vs Android from pros.
If they must have a windows clone, check out linuxfx, there's less community support there, but it will be very close to what they're used to.
If neither of those suit them Fedora is the next standout.
When people talk about Ubuntu, Mint, POP, or any of the other 30 flavors, they're just great-grandchildren of Debian or Fedora. They try to make games easier or add their own flare to default installs. The vast majority of the fractures came about because old-school Debian didn't do non-free, so you had to fight for video drivers and MP3. Ubuntu was first and did great until Cannocial started getting money-hungry. Then they started with snaps. Just as Ubuntu came from the discontent with Debian, Mint and Pop came from the discontent with Ubuntu. Now that Debian gave on non-free and most of the non-free's now support free, Debian is fine and few people will say it's not ok. Of course the pop users will say use pop, like the mac users say use mac.
Truth is, it mostly doesn't matter what you use. With the exception of Arch, NixOS and Ubuntu, they're all close to being the same OS with minor customizations. They're mostly pulling from the same couple of repos even if they do it through upstream.
I rechecked the windows taskbar stuff and you are right there is no setting for that, the only way to change it would be to chnage the region date format which would change it everywhere not only in the taskbar
I don't really have an issue with choice but people use computers to do specific tasks and what's important are solid defaults with the option to (in a simple manner) change some stuff later.
The ones that fit. I don't really have hugh demands for my socks. And I think that's a good example how regular people think about computers. They buy something and expect it to "just work" and not get in the way. Imagine entering a store asking for socks and instead of "they are over there" they start to ask you so many questions you never thought about and really aren't interested in. I don't want to answer questions about which yarn I like, and if I want different socks for left and right or the same ones. The exact ratio between length and width, etc. I don't care. Most people don't. Just give me "the black ones".
That doesn't mean there should only be one color and type of socks. If you are a sock enthusiast go for it. But that's exactly what happens with most Linux distros when you install them. Some ugly terminal user interface ask you about which package managers, desktop environments, while switching back and forth between fast running console log output and ugly TUI questions and everybody watching thinks you sre trying to enter the matrix.
Most people don't care. Just give me the stuff that work in 95% of the cases and has the best support or most stable, or whatever, so basically "black socks".
Do some testing. Put a non-technical Windows or Mac user on Linux for a week. Donβt explain anything to them, so they can figure it out on their own. Let me know how it goes.
The average Steam Deck user does not even know it's running Linux. How it's going: millions sold and counting.
Right. Because theyβre interacting with an overlay the entire time, so they donβt have to deal with a shitty UI or manually performing any tasks.
So thatβs an irrelevant example.
SteamOS is Linux.
And? Most of the web servers people interact with run on Linux, too. But in both examples, they are not interacting with the Linux UI whatsoever, which is the thing we are discussing.
The UI of SteamOS is a Linux UI. What else would it be?
If you're trolling, at least do some of the classics like confusion about too many UIs but denying that the UI of SteamOS isn't a Linux UI is just dumb.
My grandma is using it without problems. What now?
What the hell is Grandma doing that can't be handled by a mail client and a browser and a handfull od built in card games?
Can she to the package manager and install games? Sure
That's it. Grandma's not trying to install office or photoshop. She not trying to run Roblox or hit 90fps on Cyberpunk.
Why? My mom is 70 and has used Mint for a decade. She isn't computer savvy but has little issues with her laptop. It works mostly the same as Windows, and is fine for her usage (Web browsing and emails).
How about a few million school kids on chrome books. My 6YO is AOK.
Can you open a web browser? Done, Ship it.
My Parents and my Ex were fine on it 20 years ago. (given back then I HAD to do the setup)
The only problem they ever had was when my mother bought bargain bin CD full of shareware and I said no, that's not going to work. She shrugged and I pointed her to some online solitare games.
Then theyβre better off with a Chromebook or tablet. The only reason to be on a pc instead is to access all of the additional functions that would be a nightmare for them to figure out on Linux.
The vast majority of people don't need to be on a PC.
I'd argue that steam on Linux PC for casual gaming is pretty ready mainstream. Video drivers just work in anything that support non-free, Gui steam Install, the only thing you need to know is to check proton on each Windows Game you want to run. If they'd turn that on by default they'd be fine for light PC gaming.
I was pretty shocked the last few times I did a setup for someone and it needed nothing.
Hell, even NixOS works out of the box, that's just nuts.
You're arguing with a person that says that Linux sucks, yet also says that people should use a Linux PC because ChromeOS is a Gentoo-derived Linux distribution. That person is obviously trolling at this point.