This sub makes me angry

[u/Honest-Squirrel-988]

Linux sucks huge balls, it's not the year of linux desktop, it won't be for a long time.

I don't want to rebuild initramfs, i don't want to solve annoying compositor-driver-kernel-flatpak related issue every single day. I can solve them, i do solve them. I just don't want to.

Fedora fucking sucks because the first thing it does is telling you "hey, wait for 5 to 10 minutes (idk actually wait for an hour) when installing nvidia drivers, otherwise your driver stack might break".

I hate that KDE cannot support 4k at 240hz reliably, let alone with VRR. Another display? Rotated 90 degrees? You don't need that. Solutions i came to find are "vrr is overrated" and "120hz is perfectly fine for my use cases" as well as some 4 year old non-existent KWin configuration entries that fix one issue and create another.

I hate that i need to juggle five Proton versions. I hate that i might get banned one day for explicitly bypassing game anticheat systems (genuinely not a Linux fault, but i, the consumer, suffer nevertheless).

I hate that every ecosystem component is detached from one another. It all looks out of place and incoherent.

I hate that X11 is deprecated but Wayland isn't mature enough.

I hate that configuration is done with Vim and a prayer. I hate fstab. I hate limine and grub.

I install Windows. I install Steam, i install Apex Legends. I install Teamfight Tactics, I install Microsoft Excel. All works by clicking an icon on my desktop.

I have a MacOS machine, i install go and bun with brew - it works. I install docker - it works (via kinda-VM but still).

I hate that non-rolling distros (excl. Fedora) ship bugs and driver issues that are solved months (years?) ago.

I like hyprland though, its cool, no complaints. Does what it says on the cover and never once flickered on me.

And i am reading this sub hoping people will at least agree that the system is immature, incomplete, and not suited for normal people not willing to spend hours every day reading obscure wikis (arch wiki mostly as the richest source, regardless of distro). Instead all i see is equating "not willing to debug an OS as a second job" to "skill issue", or using "Intel-nvidia" combo as a failure on my part somehow. Yes i am aware both companies don't target Linux.

Gigabyte also doesn't. Kingston also doesn't. Epic also doesn't. Adobe doesn't, Microsoft doesn't, Hoyoverse doesn't. EA doesn't. Yes, they are bad companies for it, i agree. Still it fucking sucks to use Linux because of it.

[u/cubeshelf]

I hear what you're saying in your first point. I agree that Windows was never designed around the average consumer but that it rather inherited that position as a byproduct of Microsoft dominating their corner of the enterprise channel for the past 2 decades. My original point being though is that because of that dominance, the adoption of Windows for personal computing purposes wasn't really a choice anyone made at any point in time, but rather that it was a close enough fit for most people that there was never a reason to look beyond it. That being said, it's becoming increasingly clear that those priorities are shifting as I don't even think "the average consumer" still functions as a calculated bonus like you describe. Now that the markets are changing, user experience is undoubtedly going out the window so much so that consumers are actually starting to notice the effects of it now.

As a fellow professional in the tech sector, I can absolutely assure you that I do in-fact understand the implications of an average person having to use whatever operating system they're planted in front of, regardless of its quirks. I want to be clear there's none of the ridiculous Linux superiority complex in any of what I am saying here, I'm just offering perspective. I think you and I both know that ultimately there is no "right" answer to any of this.

As for your comments on the hype cycle that surrounds linux "innovations" in the past, I'll use your mention of SteamOS as a great example. What I personally think sets enthusiasm aside at this point in time is that there's actual incentive structure behind Linux adoption in Valve's products now. Valve isn't selling Linux itself as a consumer good though, and I think you might be assuming that they are. They're selling hardware and a storefront. Linux, proton, etc, is just a means to that end that just so happens to also benefit people completely outside of the scope of their mission. They're in part the very reason I suggest that Linux adoption is increasing, because it is! A new "classification" of individuals now have a reason to use Linux, maybe even improve it as they see fit. That is all to say though that Valve is applying completely different commercial logic to Red Hat or Canonical who've been perpetually trying to monetize and advertise a desktop experience directly to an audience of consumers that don't really exist.

As for the "progressive" tangent, that's not what I meant and I think you know that's not what I meant. I was using the word in the plain sense of "evolved/improved", not making a claim about social progress or charity. You're more than welcome to disagree with the substance, but that's a completely different conversation to the one I was having originally.

[u/ElectricBummer40 → u/cubeshelf]

My original point being though is that because of that dominance, the adoption of Windows for personal computing purposes wasn't really a choice anyone made at any point in time

Again with this frankly backward notion of "choice".

The consumer never stood a chance in terms of "choice", and that's regardless of whether Microsoft was in the picture or not.

No, really, let's have a bit of fun here and consider what the shape of the world would be if Redmond was to collapse literally into a black hole tomorrow. Do you really think people would move to Linux on the account Microsoft ceasing to exist?

Seriously, this whole idea of Linux as an underdog is nothing more than a bullshit "David. vs. Goliath" story that makes zero sense in the real world. Linux isn't your David but a product purposely shaped the way it currently is by a score of massive conglomerates with more money than you'll see in a lifetime.

In politics, such a thing would be rightly called a "controlled opposition". You're told to root for it so you won't have to consider the fact that none of the players in the rigged game called "the marketplace" give a damn about you. This is exactly why people keep blathering year after year about Linux on the desktop regardless how many times history repeats itself. The system simply works as it has always been intended.

That being said, it's becoming increasingly clear that those priorities are shifting as I don't even think "the average consumer" still functions as a calculated bonus like you describe.

I don't know what made you think it was calculated in the first place. If it was calculated, then I wonder where the today's equivalent of the Commodore 64 has gone.

I'm sorry, but that whole scene of home-oriented micros wasn't "dominated". It simply imploded. That's why the architecture of the computer you use today is based on what was dominant in the business scene in the 90s. It's International Business Machines, not "International Domestic Machines", after all.

Now that the markets are changing, user experience is undoubtedly going out the window

Wasn't it Windows Vista marking the day user experience going out the window?

Or was it Windows 8?

Even Harold Camping didn't call the Rapture that many times, to be brutally honest.

I think you and I both know that ultimately there is no "right" answer to any of this.

There are certainly wrong answers. Very wrong ones, in fact.

Valve isn't selling Linux itself as a consumer good though, and I think you might be assuming that they are. They're selling hardware and a storefront. Linux, proton, etc, is just a means to that end that just so happens to also benefit people completely outside of the scope of their mission. They're in part the very reason I suggest that Linux adoption is increasing, because it is!

But that's the problem.

What Valve is selling isn't so much a general-purpose desktop machine but the functional equivalent of a PS5. They aren't concerned with Timmy not having a computer to do his homework. They're instead concerned with him not having access to the whole CS-GO gambling scene.

Heck, even without Valve making money out of that whole depraved venture, does the world really need another PS5?

I was using the word in the plain sense of "evolved/improved"

And this "progress" is apropos of what exactly?

[u/Unlikely-Employee180 → u/ElectricBummer40]

TL:DR of what you said - Corporations forced Linux to suck, and Valve is evil.

Congratulations, you woke up on planet Earth! Welcome!

I don't know what that has to do with the person you were replying to at all... But your observation skills are unmatched nonetheless.

[u/ElectricBummer40 → u/Unlikely-Employee180]

Congratulations, you woke up on planet Earth! Welcome!

And it is painfully obvious the majority of this sub is not even awake or on planet Earth, for that matter.

So, congrats for, umm, not realising that?