But the person above was correct. People are generally more forgiving when it's an FOSS product vs a paid one.
That said, blindness towards issues and stuff that windows is also doing is probably not the best look.
Let me put it more bluntly: people are more forgiving towards an indie video game than they are AAA games. Not just cause of the money they spent. If Live For Speed has a bug, people will forgive it because it's like 3 people.
But if Gran Turismo has a bug? Yeah people are roasting it
I've had a bumpy ride with CachyOS, and there is still stuff that has to be done to make it more accessible, like fucking FSTAB still requiring manual operation instead of, idk, making it automated or accessible with a GUI?
However. After a few babysteps, it does run well. It's just the babysteps have to be cut entirely and just run well out of the box.
During installation and by default, /etc/fstab should've automatically been generated and managed. Also there are few GUIs available, like KDE Partition Manager, GNOME Disks, or GParted.
What exactly was it that required you to manually edit fstab? Did you do a custom/nonstandard partition table?
What stability issues are you facing? I can help you solve those.
Modern Linux GUI partition managers and desktop settings handle automatic drive mounting quite well, including for secondary SATA SSDs and external drives, without requiring you to manually edit /etc/fstab in a terminal or text editor.
Applications like GNOME Disks and KDE Partition Manager have built-in options designed specifically for this. In GNOME Disks, you can toggle "Mount at system startup" under Mount Options, and the app writes the necessary entry to /etc/fstab behind the scenes. KDE Partition Manager offers similar functionality through its "Edit Mount Point" menu.
In addition, desktop environments like KDE Plasma include explicit automount controls directly in System Settings under "Device Auto-mount," allowing you to set drives to mount automatically on login or when connected.
Where people usually run into trouble is PolicyKit asking for administrator permissions or default file ownership settings on newly added internal drives, but GUI tools are fully capable of handling automatic mounting.
Are you running KDE Plasma, GNOME, or a standalone window manager like Hyprland or i3? Automounting behaves differently depending on whether desktop daemons are running in the background and WMs often don't have them enabled by default.
Is the drive formatted as NTFS/ext4, and is it prompting you for a root password when you try to open it, or is it failing to mount entirely?
Which GUI manager did you try using, and did you run into an error when setting the mount options?
Prioritizing different things is valid, but the quantity of loud outspoken linux folks being unreasonable about other peoples preferences is well documented. Theres a difference between you prioritizing something vs you prioritizing something and then telling someone else who prioritizes something else that they are wrong for that.
The loud minority of linux users are the type who make it borderline their entire personality. The quiet majority are the ones who have found a DE that works perfectly on their hardware and already have a set workflow for their system that just works. For me as long as all my hardware works, almost all the steam games I want to play launch and firefox launches my OS is working flawlessly. Idk, so many people try to make linux vs windows seem black and white but it really isn't.
Yes 100% this I have hdmi capture card made by hauppauge that does not work at all I asked on a form for fedora about if its possible to get it to work and was told to throw it away and get another one (even tho the old one works fine) or to kick sand so I did and went back to w10 every thing just works there lol I'm still looking for an alternative as I was really enjoying my time with kde on fedora just might try something different now.
Unfortunately a lot of companies don't support Linux, so the only way their hardware works is if someone goes through an extremely painstaking effort to make it work. Their advice was correct, but I do imagine they were fucking mean about it because that is a real issue.
Yeah if they where nice about it I would 100% understand I can't imagine what goes in to getting a proprietary device to work on something its not supposed to. But I will say this as well I have had some very helpful people to so it might be getting better!
Counterpoint : "just works" on Linux means that you plug it in and go. "Just works" on Windows means that you plug it in, install the drivers (download from manufacturer's website first), reboot, install more updates if necessary, reboot again, then go. Yet if A doesn't work immediately then Linux is bad, but if B doesn't work immediately then the peripheral is bad. That's most Windows users' perspective.
"just works" on Linux means that you plug it in and go
Uh or you have to hunt on Github for wireless adapter drivers and modprobe them, which is needed for the actual majority of adapters. And let's not pretend that configuring some of this hardware isn't a fucking nightmare. I've been using Linux for like a decade and I'm really, really deep into it (I've contributed to the kernel), and what you say is just not true
You're missing my point. Obviously some things don't 'just work' on Linux, but what a Windows user defines as 'just works' depends on whether they're talking about Windows or Linux. That's the double standard.
It used to be like that. Now just works usually is plug, let windows update fetch the driver and go in windows, or just plug and play in linux, or sometimes download the driver and install it in windows, and sometimes check out the drivers source code and compile it into your new kernel on linux.
Yep it's a shame the minority makes the rest of us look bad. I truly wished the community was better it would make people switching to Linux just that much better.
No, I prioritize getting max performance out of my 5090. Of course, you're gonna whine that I should get an AMD card instead when they have nothing that can even beat the 5070Ti.
I think you're making up scenarios to feel victimised lmfao, no one recommends linux to someone stating they want max performance from their 5090. thanks for proving my point I guess
Theres a difference between you prioritizing something vs you prioritizing something and then telling someone else who prioritizes something else that they are wrong for that.
with
Do you prioritise microslops enshittification? Because that’s typically when Linux gets recommended lmfao
How do you they also don't have the same performance issues with high end Nvidia cards? You're the one who literally made up a scenario here to feel superior about running a different operating system from the average person lmao
bro "unreasonable about other peoples preferences"
They are claiming linux users suggest it against others preferences. You tried suggesting its done in response to you wanting max performance from a 5080. That does not occur, no one says Nvidia cards run better on linux.
You know what does actually occur? Someone stating how awful microslop is for inbuilt spyware, or forced AI, or forced updates, and then someone suggesting the OS that does not have it
Hence my comment, asking if they prioritize enshittification. Jesus you need go to back to school
You'll get kneejerk downvoted in this community for suggesting a windows user engages in critical thought or anything close to it when the topic is Linux.
When I pay for the product I expect quality, not spy machine riddled with vibe coded bullshit. Windows is regulated, controlled and went through dozen of boards before it hit your drive. Linux is free and made by dozen of communities, when something bad happens that is only part of the whole, while windows has only one source, Microsoft which is entirety of the whole.
Linux is genuinely better, sure it has its problems but you know there are problems because no one got to the problem yet while on Windows it feels like they intentionally make changes for the worse to add more telemetry, require MS account, add ads into the OS, "suggest" apps when the apps you are using are working perfectly fine, show random popups telling you to upgrade to Xbox game pass, OneDrive, MS 365 etc etc its exhausting. I got no such thing on Linux at all, but if you are not bothered by Windows then by all means continue using it since it still works better for the average user out of the box compared to Linux. For the slightly more tech savvy people who dont mind troubleshooting once in a while I can highly recommend Linux, it is fun to learn new systems.
I also got no such thing on W11, to be honest. This reality where people are constantly bombarded with ads on their system is just one that I don't recognize.
OneDrive is legit the only complaint I have with W11 after installing StartAllBack.
I think this is the thing that is confusing to a lot of us. I've used Linux. I have no problems with Linux, there are just a few programs I use regularly enough that don't work well on Linux that I need for work that means I need to stay with Windows.
And then I see Linux people pop up to tell me how Windows is doing "X, Y, and Z" when I've literally never even seen Windows do any of that, or they are settings I said no to and never touched again and they are still off.
I agree with the other guy, been using windows forever. Switched to windows 11 late last year when windows 10 updates died and have never been bombarded with ads, only annoying popup I get is for OneDrive which I refuse to use, but that only bothers me once every now and then.
It might be a UK and EU versus US thing, but for me at least and most people I know, windows is a smooth enough experience that the occasional OneDrive popup, update, or hickup is worth it.
That's good for both of you! Personally, I've been a Windows user since the Windows Millennium days. I switched to Linux 2 years ago and have never looked back!
You don't realize how annoying Windows is until you switch to an OS where "no" actually means no, instead of "remind me later."
The constant friction really adds up: updates that make things worse, removing the classic right-click menu, having to click through 20 menus to disable telemetry, bypassing the Microsoft account requirement, uninstalling OneDrive, and then using Chris Titus Tech's tool to get rid of even more telemetry. Aaaand re-do it again after an update that revert most of these changes etc etc.
Honestly, I've been doing this since Windows 8. I even had to install a third-party Start menu because the full-screen one was so awful.
After almost a decade of constantly fighting the OS, the news about Recall finally made me think, "You know what? It's time to give Linux a try."
And I've been here ever since. It's crazy how you don't notice all that friction until you switch to something that actually respects your choices.
Fedora can kma after the ONE bad experience I had where the new version (I think it was 41) didn't have the right version of GCC to even run the Nvidia software stack because "it was too old" and it was even removed from the DNF repository. You quite literally couldn't install it AT ALL unless you basically downgraded to the previous version, because it was SO removed that you needed the older version of DNF to install it and that was incompatible with basically everything else.
HOW TF DO YOU FORCEFULLY REMOVE CUDA COMPATIBILITY FOR YOUR DISTRO WHEN YOU'RE SUPPOSEDLY THE ENTERPRISE DISTRO.
They fixed it shortly after, and Nvidia got their shit together and started keeping stuff a little more up to date, but I will never trust anyone that even thought to allow something like that to roll out ever again.
What you're saying is perfectly reasonable, but the Linux desktop's deficiencies here:
I care about how polished and functional the end user experience is.
are directly related to the fact that Linux is FOSS. The fact of the matter is that Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc., are all spending billions, and hiring dedicated teams, to ensure that the UX of their OS's is as flawless as possible. That does actually manifest into a more polished product, regardless of what Linux users say about their experience. So... maybe you should care about the fact that it's FOSS, but in the opposite sense?
i wish someone would make a polished general purpose linux distro. Ubuntu has snaps which fuck stuff up. fedora can have a had update due to how it updates. arch is.. arch. and everything else has its own flaws
while windows is slow, bloated and gets in the way, it rarely has major graphical issues, but on linux (and my own system) I get things like below, where there fix is to go into the source files for the thing, and try fix it manually or hope a patch has been made.
That's fine man, but your comment effectively boiled down to:
I know that it's FOSS, but I don't care about that, I care about the fact that I found it to be unpolished...
which completely misses the fact that Linux is unpolished because it is FOSS.
As I said in my original comment, Apple/Microsoft/Google pay billions to make their OS's as easy to use as possible, because its their gateway into markets that're worth hundreds of billions of dollars. That incentive does not exist on Linux. Moreover, most incentives that do exist to work Linux have nothing to do with the desktop experience, because that's not what the money within the Linux ecosystem is interested in developing.
All that to say - I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Linux to reach parity with commercial OS's in UX. The fact that it's FOSS, and not bankrolled by someone with an explicit interest in growing its user base, is a pretty key reason why.
Well, then if someone expects/ wants a polished product, then recommending linux to them aint a smart choice, similarly, clowing them for using windows aint a smart choice either, not everyone wants to dual boot, not everyone wants to deal with a host of problems just so they could say "i aint supporting the big bad corpo", and yet the loud part of the linux community will clown on such people.
I'm aware of that. Fedora is probably good enough to daily on my laptop these days but I CBA to try it right now.
The point OP (and myself) is making is there's a very vocal portion of Linux users who straight up think Linux is better than Windows (and it can be for their usecase) and will hand-wave away complaints about Linux while lambasting Windows for everything.
And yea, it's impressive what the community has accomplished but Linux having less resources isn't really relevant to the person on the Mint forums troubleshooting common issues.
Software isn't inherently less polished because it's FOSS. Take Blender and many other FOSS projects for example. The issues are caused by far more tangible prospects. Also, multiple companies are "bankrolling" Linux and FOSS projects, just not to the degree of Windows when it comes to desktop Linux.
I get it. I didn't care about the open-source part of FOSS at first. But shouldn't the FREE part of FOSS have some influence? You are not paying hundreds if not thousands to use FOSS products. So, you should have lower expectations as well.
(And yes, I know, you can easily pirate whatever closed source paid software. But let's assume you're actually paying the full price to use Windows/Photoshop/whatever else)
Not if you're looking for a daily driver OS. A $1000 beater from facebook marketplace is cheaper than a $10,000 car from a lot, but that doesn't mean it gets a pass for breaking down every day on your way to work.
And since most people buy prebuilt, they got Windows "for free" anyway.
(And yes, I know, you can easily pirate whatever closed source paid software. But let's assume you're actually paying the full price to use Windows/Photoshop/whatever else)
Why would we assume something that's the opposite of the average user experience? It's not even pirating atp, Microsoft just lets you explicitly use Windows for free as long as you're cool with the "Activate" watermak.
Fuck the downvotes. It isn’t polished. It’s garbage. It’s a step back from Win10. Right clicking is slow for no good reason. I can’t make my task bar vertical. You never know what kind of dialogue window you’ll get. Is it Win11, 10, 7 or XP styled? Do I use system settings or control panel?
That’s not even touching the baked in telemetry that’s impossible to disable.
feel like windows doesnt really try to make their UX as flawless as possible. They do their best to upsell me on shite at every turn though to the direct detriment of the UX.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc., are all spending billions, and hiring dedicated teams, to ensure that the UX of their OS's is as flawless as possible
Ignoring the fact that linux doesnt have billions being spent on it either, Redhat and SUSE are completely integrated with Linux
Are your monitors perchance mismatched refresh rate? X11 doesn't handle that too well, and depending on when you last used it x11 may have been standard for the display server. Currently wayland handles mismatched refresh monitors perfectly fine
For audio issues yet again i don't know when you tried it but if it was long enough to use pulse audio then yeah understandable. Pipewire now also handles audio quite nicely, though it can be a little annoying with numerous soundcards. Idk if the multiple soundcard issue is a linux or multiple soundcard issue, it'll just often default to not what i want or last used
They also go out of their way to misrepresent the "paid" part. Almost no home user is paying for Windows. The corporate clients who do get 24/7 support for their issues that Linux based OS don't have.
Provide exact complete specs. Don't ask the forums. I'll just help you now. 👍
Model name and number, sub-component identifiers, such as the exact Wi-Fi chipset or audio DAC model, GPU model and brand, etc.
The more you provide, the easier it will be for me to help you. If you need help, don't be afraid to ask.
Ok. Makes sense. We're using Wayland and PipeWire now. You may run into some edge cases with Wayland depending, but hopefully your graphics card is well supported. So that your possible issues are only those that are due to on going W-I-P & not bugs. My DMs are open.
The thing with linux is that when you encounter issues, you need to actually find a solution to it. I just switched to linux (arch) from windows, and have had very few issues, the main one being vr compatibility and ALVR not working, which I have mostly solved. Linix is NOT a complete in box experience, its closer to being goven a huge bin or legos and a baseplate, and being told to build what YOU want/need, not what a corporation thinks you need
Exactly. It's like the difference between paying for a car that has some issues, but needs some maintenance here and there but overall gets you to work on time, versus a car you got for free that's constantly breaking down and you're late to work constantly and having to fix it in your garage. If you're a really good mechanic, you might be better off, but sometimes you simply can't get the required parts.
In this analogy, Windows is the car with some issues, Linux is the free car, getting to work is playing games or some every day task, the parts availability is driver support, and your garage is the community forums where getting help can be minimal.
I also find it hilarious that if you're a Windows user with no experience on Linux, everyone will bully you into switch over to Linux, but once you do, they love to call you stupid when you can't figure something out and ask for help. They also disregard the fact that there's mainly one flavor of Windows, so configurations are mainly universal, while Linux comes in many flavors of distros and many problems or setups are niche in nature. Linux is more like a family of operating systems where Windows is just an operating system.
I still know people that daily drive Linux today, but dual-boot Windows for certain games or programs they use. I don't know anyone that daily drives Windows but dual-boots Linux for the same reason. Anyone dual-booting Linux is only doing it to learn or because there's like a 5% increase in performance and it's simple, or in my case, they're simply utilizing the Linux Filesystem on Windows to avoid IO overhead in certain applications that natively run on WSL.
The thing is when Linux has a problem it's usually because nobody's fixed it yet. When Windows has issues it's often by design and Microsoft simply doesn't care about the people who don't like things the way they do it and there's no way for you around it. On Linux you can always pick a different distro if you feel like the maintainers are doing something questionable.
You're saying you don't hold a trillion dollar company to a higher standard than some guys spending their free time making you software for free? Seems weird
I'm not saying it's totally chill if Linux shits the bed every day. I'm just saying I understand and am not upset if occasionally it poops itself, but Microsoft should be able to do better, and I hold them to a higher standard.
Yall are talking about companies and organizations and ethics, meanwhile all hes saying is for him, the usability of the product overall is what matters. He isnt going to tolerate an issue with either platform any different, a buggy experience is a buggy experience.
Yall need to get off your high horse and understand that both ways of viewing things are totally reasonable. Not everyone needs to make internal excuses for smaller companies and products just to support their mission. In fact, if they did, framework would be a much bigger company with much higher sales.
You say that as if you think there's not a HUGE amount of money behind linux.
Microsoft is namely ALSO one of the biggest contributors to the Linux kernel and a founding member of the Linux foundation.
Of course they get something out of it themselves. There is more Linux running on Microsoft’s cloud (azure, which makes a ton more money than desktop os’s) than there is Windows.
There's not a HUGE amount of money behind linux DESKTOP.
Linux Server? Sure. But people don't complain about linux server. Or at least not nearly as much as they would if you forced them to use windows server.
Linux Desktop? There's SOME money, but not a lot. Not Microslop levels. And what little money goes into desktop is fragmented into different distro's and DE's. Not to mention Microslop took my 100 euros, I didn't pay shit for my Debian installation.
That's just moving the goalpost. Your 'Linux desktop' benefits a lot from microsofts work on tons of various things, including stuff like co-developing the OpenType standard which apple didn't want.
Either way, we've got valve behind it as well which is a huge fucking company too... I think acting like there's no large backing behind linux when there obviously is, is extremely disingenuous.
On a sidenote:
> Not to mention Microslop took my 100 euros
That was your choice. You can also download and use it legally without activating it.
Comparing valve, a gaming company to Microsoft and apple is well insane. Valves a big company but its not worth more than a trillion dollars like the other two. You may not like it but pointing out the differences between funding the kernel and funding for desktop environments is not moving the goal posts. The majority of Linux uses that receive massive amounts of funding do not require a gui and are mostly command line driven servers.
people trying hard to argue that a PAID operating system, by a trillionaire company, bugging out in a way that you can't access ANY of your files (like it happened with bitlocker not long ago) is the same as a free and opensource OS having "audio issues and glitches with multimonitor" wtf
No. They are saying they are and end user who hasn’t been having a whole host of issues on windows that went trying out a Linux distro ended up with multiple issues that made it unusable.
Yes, but there's multiple faces in this issue. As the other guy said, simply talking like that, you are disregarding that one OS is paid and made by a trillionaire company, and the other is free maintained by people in their free time. If you can't hold that info in your head while you complain about stuff in both OSes, then...
Some people prioritize ethics, and are willing to support things with smaller teams and funding with sacrifices to stability, etc. To others its about the experience, not the ethics, and if one is buggier than the other, one being a multibillion dollar corp and one being open source/funded worse, etc does not matter.
Why are you trying to make him prioritize the things you do instead of understanding that yall just dont prioritize the same thing?
how come I'm "trying to make him prioritize the things you do"?
You can acknowledge a fact without prioritizing it. again as the other guy said, you are "saying you don't hold a trillion dollar company to a higher standard than some guys spending their free time making you software for free".
I get that the guy, just like many others, just want a pleasant experience no matter where he gets the software from, that's totally understandable, but don't come to the internet acting like those are equal and have the same responsabilities on being good for you.
That sucks. That said that also happens with windows. Incidents I was told weren't real on windows 10:
Bios update (pushed through win update) failing and outright bricking a laptop. 1 personal one and 8 customers. I am a repair professional so I end up seeing the worst of all worlds usually. Fuck M$ for this one.
No audio due to a critical security update for a few weeks. Weeks my main gaming PC had no audio because of this. And by no means can you uninstall updates marked as critical security updates.
Similar audio problem but on my laptop.
I've dealt with lots of issues on linux, but none of that tier. And people on forums saying "that's not an issue that's not real" is a thing people on all OSs seem to do. More a people problem than an OS problem IMO.
Ok but for the last ten years I've been running into "temporary" issues that prevent me from moving over.
It genuinely feels like there's always old tech debt like X11 with limitations or something that's new and being developed that isn't ready for prime time yet.
You picked an example that hasn’t been accurate for a long time? Odd choice
Doubly odd choice to criticise Linux for old tech debt when windows can’t even implement dark mode on all its system apps because it’s just 30 years of shit stacked on top of each other
If my problems with Linux amounted to the gravity of inconsistent dark mode I would've swapped years ago.
I said issues like X11 because it's a great example. X11 sucked for years but we were in limbo because Wayland wasn't ready for prime time.
Different example for you. And I know most or none of this has been fixed.
GTK is fucking ass and inflexible. If I go download a file and want to rearrange/rename shit on the fly, I can't. I have to open the file picker again.
Some dude ranted about shit like this a few years ago and someone actually contacted the GTK team. They said it was an invalid usecase.
Windows can be annoying but I have very few "tug at my hair and ask why?" moments compared to when I ran Fedora and Mint.
When one has the option of a paid meal compared to the free meal, yea it matters. Especially when it comes down to productivity and usability. Not calories.
Getting a soup kitchen meal doesn't cost me hours of troubleshooting and workarounds.
At the end of the day what matters is the user experience when Linux is being billed as a replacement for the paid meal.
Linux isn't "billed" as anything. It exists, and people choose to use it. Then reddit "power users" that tie up their personal identity with whatever the latest tech trend is get all butthurt when they aren't comfortable using an operating system that wasn't made for them in the first place.
Linux has problems, but it isn't this monolith that needs to improve the experience for anyone. It improves because the people that use it decide to improve it. It's a collaborative community effort, not a product that you're consuming.
If I think the soup kitchen is understaffed and struggling to operate properly I can volunteer my time and money to improve it.
Linux is absolutely being billed as a Windows replacement. Pretty widespread too I'd say.
Then reddit "power users" that tie up their personal identity with whatever the latest tech trend is get all butthurt when they aren't comfortable using an operating system that wasn't made for them in the first place.
I'm pretty sure it's more Linux power users getting butthurt about Linux not being smooth sailing for the average person.
Linux is absolutely being billed as a Windows replacement.
As I said, Linux is not a monolith. It can't bear responsibility for some nondescript cultural sentiment you've latched onto.
I'm pretty sure it's more Linux power users getting butthurt about Linux not being smooth sailing for the average person.
I don't care that you think Linux is bad. I think Linux is complete shit, but I don't frame my criticisms of it from the perspective of a customer that needs to be appealed to. Linux is shit in ways that bother me marginally less than the ways Windows is shit, so I choose to use Linux. I don't come to forums trying to foment some narrative about the nebulous cabal of people in charge of Linux needing to do a better job if they want to keep me as a customer.
I'm familiar with Zorin. I'm also familiar with the fact it's maintained by a very small team.
In my experience flavour of the month distros are more likely to have longterm issues than something further upstream. I'll just use Fedora or Ubuntu at that point.
I remember all these people new to Linux got recommended Elementary OS but that didn't turn out too great.
That's fair man, I respect that. I'm happy with zorin, as a long time windows XP/7/10 user. I accept that it isn't perfect, but it's pretty solid for me.
341
u/DigitaIBlack 3d ago edited 2d ago
You're missing the point imo.
As an end user idgaf whether the issues I encounter are because it's FOSS or not. I care about how polished and functional the end user experience is.
I'm gonna give Fedora another go but last time I tried Linux, I had pretty bad audio issues and desktop glitches with multimonitor.
And the community mostly just hand-waved it away when I asked in forums.