Have you guys decided which distro is the ready one?
At this point it should be obvious, btw
If the average person can not use your OS, it is not ready. Period.
For example:
Windows - Open File Explorer > Add Network Drive > Find/plug it in > Enter creds > Bam. Ready to go and will automatically log you in at boot. Very nice, very intuitive UI.
Linux - Open Dolphin (or whatever) > Network > Add Network Folder/Find it > Enter creds > Does not automatically mount the drive when booting the computer back up > Must go into fstab to get it to automount > Stop, because that is ridiculous
In my own experience, I was able to get the hang of Windows with no one showing me how a computer ever worked, at the age of 10! Intuitive enough a child can do it.
On Linux, you have to read manuals/documentation, ask random (mostly rude) people on the internet, or give up because why the fuck would I want to go and enter 5 commands just to have something as simple as auto mount a network share? Not intuitive, therefore not easy to learn as you go.
I get it, Linux people like knowing how their computers operate, they like ensuring everything is working the way THEY want to, and that’s awesome! What’s not awesome is recommending Linux to the general populace and then getting upset at them for asking why they can’t do something or why don’t they just do these steps to do whatever it is they are having issues with. Then, you have a person who doesn’t even know what a terminal is confused as hell because they were told Linux is so much better than Windows.
Until we get a more intuitive (GUI focused) way of doing what I would consider normal computer tasks, it will not ever be ready. That’s just the way I see it.
the average person doesnt know how to mount a drive on windows or even what that is or why you would want to, they just need to be able to open a browser
Very good point!
Example 2:
I need to drag this file into my browser to upload it to the website I’m visiting for whatever reason. I’m an average user that has only ever really needed a browser. My OS came with Firefox, but when I try to drag the file onto my browser window like I’ve always done, nothing happens. Is my computer broken?
No, it’s installed as a snap/flatpak that doesn’t have the “privileges” to do that, and I will never know that since I’m an average user who only needs a browser.
“Nvidia GPU working”
If the driver feels like it, lol.
TBH, so many people I know don’t even know how to use Windows. Or even a browser. iOS or maybe Android is their PC, all through apps and feeds.
Like, if I explained laptop BIOS access for installing Linux, I’d lose them before I even started.
Thanks to the likes of Proton, gaming on Linux is a hell of a lot better than it was ~5 years ago. You can actually do it now for the most part without to much fuss in my experience as long as you stick to Steam.
But once you leave Steam or get something brand new made by an EA type and have to lean on third party implementations of Proton or raw Wine to get things working it gets a lot worse.
HDR is almost there not quite though.
Dolby Atmos is the other thing I’d love to see working
Plain 9.1 surround works fine with pipewire, and you can pretty easily hack together a virtual surround for stereo headphones that works pretty great. I’m even using a preset that claims to be atmos, although that seems unlikely to me lol
Yeah I’m using that preset too.
I just miss the Dolby Atmos on Windows which outputs a Dolby Atmos signal for all content (similar to DDL or DTS Connect).
Not too huge of a deal breaker for me though.
It certainly sounds like wayland is just about ripe. Any DE recommendations for a lifelong XFCE enjoyer like myself?
KDE. It’s working very well with Wayland. I’ve been using both on my daily driver for a year now and it’s come a long way since then. It was still a bit rough in the beginning but now I can’t see myself going back. It’s pretty polished.
I agree with Linus Torvalds. Linux is too fragmented. This makes consistent software deployment and support expensive and far too varied. Maintaining documentation alone requires an unlimited number of distros. From a user’s perspective, I really think Linux needs a universal install method like .exe. No user should ever need to use the CLI install software, no matter their distribution. Radarr, for example, is a very popular home media server application. It is one-click install on Windows. It is fucked on Linux.
Looks like a one click install on nixos - so youre right to say its fucked on Debian, but that hardly represents the whole OS (like my god you want to hate Linux try LFS and claim it represents the OS).
The way I see it the biggest fragmentation is just users expecting things to work like windows, ie navigating to a website, downloading the software and running it.
Usually Linux users just search their package repo. If you want more bleeding edge software, youre expected to understand Debian/Ubuntu repos probably aren’t the place to go.
Can’t really blame the wrench youre using to put in a screw for doing a bad job.
The way I see it the biggest fragmentation is just users expecting things to work like windows, ie navigating to a website, downloading the software and running it.
Usually Linux users just search their package repo. If you want more bleeding edge software, youre expected to understand Debian/Ubuntu repos probably aren’t the place to go.
Like it or not, most users expect to be able to go to a website, download software, and click it to install. It is objectively more intuitive than using a command line, or having users go somewhere else to install software. I don’t see the sense in fighting against user preferences. Embrace it. Offer it. Give the users what they want. That’s how we grow Linux. There is no reason that “bleeding edge” software needs to be complicated to install and use.
I’ll admit Linux users are more allergic to GUI’s than they need to be, but if snowflakeOS becomes more mature then I’d consider an app store much more intuitive and secure than arbitrary full system access.
Cause realistically we could start throwing ads in the system to really make windows users feel at home, but (like the mess that is windows dependencies) tradition can be a weakness more than a strength.
Flatpak as a software distribution solution already exists and is already widespread.
Flatpak is far from perfect
- bloated
- sandboxing causes confusion
- interacting with it in CLI can be interesting
- all packaged libraries rely on the developer of the package you installed to update
Now all we’re missing is the universal enforcement piece, which I think is non-trivial. It might take off organically but as per my example above, I’m not hopeful.
“Universal enforcement” meaning what? On its face your proposal sounds fundamentally antithetical to what linux is. It’s an open source environment, meaning literally anyone can create software and post it online. Are you wanting all directories to only accept flatpak? I don’t think that would go over well.
You highlight the issue: Linux users like it to be fragmented. So unless Valve forces consolidation, it will stay a mess, and it will continue to repel average users. If that’s what we want, cool. Let’s just stop calling every year the year of Linux, because that will never be the case.
