this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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Your literally commenting using a Linux server right now. A vast majority of the fediverse is hosted on Linux systems.
The vast majority of the internet is hosted on Linux.
thank god commenting on a linux server helps me with converting all the excel macros to libreoffice...oh wait.
Server OS is in no way comparable to desktop OS...saying Linux is king of servers means nothing to users, because Linux is not even close to having any significant market share on desktop. Linux desktop still have tons of quirks and weirdness that needs to be fixed before it has a chance of mass adoption, not to mention the vast compatibility issues with especially corporate software.
I encounter quicks and weirdnesses on the windows laptop for work, which won't even fucking properly sleep or don't fucking update by itself even after trying to stop it for a while, rather than on Linux.
Can you name any such quirks and annoyances on Linux specifically? Because I can give you plenty on windows, while Linux the past 10 years or so maintains my sanity.
Which reminds me. I can't even move the taskbar to the left of the screen anymore since windows 11 was forced upon me. Pffft.
Sleep mode that doesn't work consistently, WiFi driver issues, printer driver issues, touchpad driver issues, several different wonky ways to install programs instead of just double-clicking an .exe and pressing "next-next-OK", random shutdown of programs for no reason or error codes...the list goes on. And on topnof that, all the stuff that people are used to using that just doesn't run on Linux at all.
I love Linux, but I admit these are valid. I've had some of these same issues.
I haven't had any issues with sleep on my devices, but I have in the recent past on previous hardware.
My WiFi doesn't work at all on my desktop. Though it's worked on a live image from another distro so seems likely to be an issue with the distro's distributed kernel, not a Linux one. I run a rolling release distro so won't be that the kernel is too old. But don't care so haven't troubleshot it much. My printer requires the use of vendor provided drivers, which are only available for some distros. It works, but not a solution I'm happy with. Never had touchpad issues.
I think package repos > collecting and installing your software piecemeal from all over the place. But having to deal with repos, flatpaks, appimages, etc. can be daunting.
Sounds like an OOM process kill maybe? That'll show in your kernel logs if so. But no immediate visual feedback.
If there's proprietary software that doesn't run on Linux that someone wants/needs to run and there aren't any viable alternatives then yeah, probably a non-starter. There's wine of course but it can be a crapshoot. No shade intended towards the project. It's amazing what it can do, even if it can't do everything.
I love my Mac for development work, but the Mac window manager is more buggy than i3 window manager in Linux.
And much less secure.
But yeah we use all three big OSes work. The OS should be the least important part of the machine honestly. Programs are what are important.
It’s significantly more secure than windows, but yes there is much more malware available for MacOS these days.
I literally have tux tattoo’d on my chest and make my living writing software for Linux … but I’d choose my Mac to develop on every day of the week.
It’s weird that I’m here now, because I do love Linux and wish I could tile like i3 (or even easily replace the Window Managwr at all) but … it’s a easier daily driver for working
I should also add the caveat that if I was buying my own work machine I’d not buy a Mac, but if work is gonna provide the MBP I want my M chip lmao
Because Windows is so polished, flawless and frictionless, right? I don't believe it will EVER be the "year of the Linux desktop" because that's not even a thing, so I agree with you there. However, the one thing none of you Windows-defenders can't argue with is the fact that an extremely large percentage of people that try Linux, after a while, end up forgetting all about windows and never come back.
You can argue all you want in terms of marketshare, but that's all Windows has working for it. It's not because it's stable, or because it's 'user friendly' and certainly not because it's beautiful.
And it's been years since using CLI is entirely optional, unless you break something catastrophically (short of a hardware failure, guess what, you'd need CLI to make this happen). You can do everything over GUI. In Windows, anything that is even remotely damaged turns into a fucking reinstall that usually takes hours, vs just reinstalling ANY Linux distro, while keeping your home partition intact, only because you're bored and want to try something else, which takes around 15 minutes.
See how all your rant makes no sense at all? Once you've driven a Bentley, you'd be hard pressed to return to a Honda Civic.
I use Mint on my daily driver laptop, and I'm not defending windows, but the fact that things are way less intuitive in Linux makes it less user friendly and not a good solution for non-techies. I mean, I have to use one of 3 different ways of installing something depending in what the dev kind of feels for, that's insanely terrible UX.
The installation options for software (not OS), in the vast majority of cases (apps) we are given the option of FlatPak, appimage or packages (and fucking Snaps), and choosing a GUI 'app store' or CLI. Yes there are cases in which you only have 1 option, but those are not the rule, but the exception. How exactly is this worse than in Windows having to download a .exe file and go through a whole lot of 'accept' dialogs, or Windows store? Isn't this more accessible and friendlier to any taste? One of the reasons my wife is so sold on Fedora Workstation on her PC (while having to use Windows on her laptop because of some backwards bullshit system she needs to maintain our company taxes) is because, believe it or not, stuff just works, anything she wants to do has an option in the 'Software' app for her to just install, and move on (mostly FlatPaks). Windows is constantly giving her issues, pushing crap she's not interested in, suddenly breaking for no apparent reason, wifi randomly disconnecting, or the amazingly insightful 'an error has occurred' or something like that which only serves to state the obvious with absolutely no way to figure out what the fuck went wrong and try to fix it to avoid it happening again.
You actually think Windows provides a better user experience than the shittiest Linux distro with the most horrible DE or WM? You're out of your mind man.
No Linux distro is perfect, but Windows is objectively the biggest pain in the ass to install, maintain, use and even shut down.
I'll challenge you, or anyone, to purposely break your windows system, to the point that reinstalling is the only option to get that computer back up and running, and do the same with any Linux distro (short of fucking Arch). See what provides you with more frustration and longer down time. This is the one thing in which Windows wins every time, fucking down time and frustration. No other OS comes even close.
My what is literally commenting? My phone? My computer?
And yes, I'm aware a lot of highly technical people use Linux. This whole "next year will be the year of Linux on the desktop" is silly. We can talk for days about what highly specialised platforms use Linux. It doesn't matter until Boomers are using it and not questioning. Which they have been for years since Android is mobile Linux.
Desktop anything is down, statistically, worldwide. I've been using computers for over 40 years. When I started, only nerds and geeks used them. The cool kids only used them when they had to, in computer/typing class... which was an elective when I was in school. It was never required. At some point, computers became cool. Then smartphones came out, and all of a sudden everyone's running Linux (Android) or UNIX (iOS), only they don't know it. They don't need to know it. And now computers are suddenly not cool anymore, because it's all about smartphones these days.
So it's not a push for Linux (the kernel, Linux is a kernel, not an OS, Android, Arch, Gentoo, Fedora Core, Mint, Ubuntu and others are distributions that bundle the Linux kernel with other stuff), it's a push for Linux on the desktop. But even that's not good enough, it's gotta be the command line. And Boomers are never gonna use the command line. Neither are kids. It's a moving target that will never be reached. The original idea? Give Linux a market share? We did that 15 years ago. The only reason Windows has any market share left is some schools and businesses and governments use them. *nix has been the majority for over a decade now. But it's never been "the year of Linux on the desktop." *nix has been in the palm of everyone's hands since 2007 (iPhone; Android was 2008, so close enough for Linux specifically). And 2008 was 17 years ago. Next year, there will be kids old enough to vote (in the US) who, for their entire lives, have existed in a world where *nix dominated.
You can use Linux on a desktop and literally not know what a command line is... Sounds like you were trying dual boot (complex a.f.). I absolutely get your frustration but you could also like, just buy a laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed or pay someone to do it for you.
You'd have difficulty dual booting Windows and Mac, or mucking with Powershell in Windows. I'm curious to hear what you tried in Linux and if there isn't an easier path for you.
I'm a professional software engineer so I find it comical when people say installing Linux is "easy". I slaved away for my technical skills... Using computers generally is not easy. They are bragging or lying.
How is "installing Linux" not easy? Download Ubuntu and run it. They make it easy.
You mean Arch? You mean something where you have to build it yourself and use the command line? That's not necessary to run Linux. Or to say you ran Linux. Sure, it might be more efficient, or it might be better at some things. But I have to ask where your goal post is if you say installing Linux is not easy. Ubuntu makes it easy and I imagine most of them do as well.
Or maybe I've just been using computers so long I take what I know for granted. I dunno, it's easy for me.
I was a Mac user for maybe two months when a beta came out. With ease, I created a new partition, downloaded the beta, and ran a beta (of macOS Sonoma) in the partition. I dual booted on a MacBook Air, my first Mac, which I'd only had a couple months. Okay now granted, Mac is easy mode most of the time, but they made it real easy. Though I fully understand "the average user" wouldn't know where to start, let alone have the thought that that could be done.
So, maybe I am the weird one. But it's just normal to me. Just how I am.
You're forgetting what it's like the first time. My first time I installed everything by source instead of apt and rm -rf /'d causing grub to disappear and bricking my computer.