1 month
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2 monthsthe confounding tribalism behind its modularity. options are great, but they also bring out the absolute worst in many of us.
it’s not much of a problem until those options actually manage to fragment the desktop and server ecosystems, but the attitudes at play surely drive prospective newcomers away a bit.
- halcyoncmdr@piefed.socialEnglish2 months
the confounding tribalism behind its modularity. options are great, but they also bring out the absolute worst in many of us.
Exactly. Parts of the Linux community, and FOSS in general, are extremely hostile. And for some new users, that’s the first (and probably only) impression they get when they have an issue trying it out for the first time. It’s a very small minority, but they are loud and aggressive, and are not ostracized by the community nearly enough.
Telling a new user that is going out of their way to figure out how to find and post an issue or feature request to Github, telling them to just fix it themselves isn’t a solution, it’s just being a dick. 99.9% of this planet doesn’t know how to code, just because they’re making a post on GitHub doesn’t mean they know how to code. Especially not at a level to fix an issue like that.
- 2 months
And that some programs are extremely opinionated.
Ignoring requests with thousands of posts, or even pull requests where the changes are already implemented
“No. I won’t add tabs, it’s better UX to have separate windows”
“No, I won’t allow the user to save the password, even if it’s local or not important”
“All the temporary shit will be saved on the hardcoded directory ~/.fuckyou and not /tmp”
“All the temporary shit will be saved on the hardcoded directory ~/.fuckyou and not /tmp”
.fuckyou 😂😂
A recent bugbear of mine has been hardcoded icons.
- 2 months
Did you just try to theme my app? We’re opinionated software, and that’s bigotry.
If I need to change the icons for accessibility reasons, does my anti-ableism cancel out my bigotry? 😅
- eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish2 months
they used to be a much larger part of the community when i first got into linux in the early aughts; i’m glad RTFM is no longer considered a reasonable response.
Init managers for sure! Amongst file managers and DEs, firewalls, package managers, modern packaging systems and their sandbox/security systems, display servers (probably the funniest one), audio servers, filesystems.
Lots of stuff we should appreciate having as FOSS, especially the options we don’t choose.
Fully switching over for the last couple years has made this modularity feel especially apparent compared to commercial systems (when things aren’t always so seamlessly integrated) but I’m glad for it all; it’s really fucking cool to think about how dramatically you can change the experience of a Linux desktop OS.
- 2 months
I mean, it could be so many things. Could just be people fighting over distros in general, or it could be the wayland vs x11 thing.
- 2 months
There’s also a lot of zealous discourse on the subject of atomic/immutable distros.
- 2 months
I wouldn’t say there’s “discourse.” That implies there are two sides engaging. It’s really just NixOS users telling everyone else they’re doing it wrong.
- 2 months
I didn’t really mean it in the sense that the communities of different atomic/immutable engage regarding the trade-offs associated by their respective methods of achieving atomicity/immutability. And, honestly, I’d actually love to see more of that. Even if NixOS users would dunk on the rest, at least until the learning curves are brought up.
Instead, what we often find are unproductive threads like this one 😅. In which, naysayers and proponents act like they’re engaging, but I simply fail to understand what’s happening.
- 2 months
Suspend , hibernation and resume
yes laptops may seem like they suspend and hibernate and resume properly on Linux. But they do not work reliably. Back in 2010, you could have laptop running hot inside your backpack just because it failed to suspend on lid close. Fast forwars to 2026, the lid close action works but for me, there are still small chances that it doesnt suspend properly or slow to suspend. I blame Intel and Micro$oft for the new standby mode.
As much as I hate Macs, those fucking money grabbers suspend 200% well. I dont care if you’re alert or drunk or 30,000 ft in the air, if you close on the lids on these laptops, they suspend quickly.
- 1 month
Oh, that’s not just a Linux issue sadly. My company uses Dell Laptops with Win11 as development machines and every single coworker has issues with their laptop overheating in their bag if they don’t completely shut it down beforehand (I say completely because if you close it before it’s fully shut down, it will still keep running and overheat, fun!)
- 1 month
Second this, hibernation and suspend could use some work.
All my thinkpads seem to have a problem with built-in I/O after waking. Sometimes it can get rather weird, like the buttons above the trackpad stop working but the ones in the trackpad work.
In my experience, the only OS that (usually) suspends when told to do so is mac. Linux and Windows both struggle with it depending on your hardware.
- 2 months
Microsoft gives my execs nice all inclusive all expenses paid retreats to think it over.
My department just gives them a PDF explaining with cool graphics how Linux can save more money, how more secure it is, how we can avoid the constant force fed bug filled updates that MSFT pushes, how we can customize it exactly to our and users needs, we can actually own our own keys… The goes on and on.
But they’ve already decided which OS we use and they never even open the email we sent them.
- 2 months
My department just gives them a PDF explaining with cool graphics how Linux can save more money, how more secure it is, how we can avoid the constant force fed bug filled updates that MSFT pushes, how we can customize it exactly to our and users needs, we can actually own our own keys… The goes on and on.
No, because there is no simple point and click group policy/active directory equivalent in Linux that allows a group of 5 IT techs to manage 2000 desktops. And if you get your shit together and actually use the tools that Microsoft provides, you don’t get surprise updates, you can image PCs via a gui over network booting, you get bitlocker keys backed up in your domain etc etc etc etc etc.
All the things that allow a business to manage hardware and software with the minimum amount of expensive employees, Microsoft provides it, for money of course. That money is offset by the reduction in IT guys needed to look after everything.
It’s that simple. CorporateLand won’t touch Linux on the workstation until that’s possible.
- 2 months
I know Linux can’t do that as well, I just don’t get WHY. It descends from an OS that was literally designed from the ground up for managing shared resources accessed from multiple clients.
- 2 months
That’s exactly why. You can manage users no problem. Multiple machines was never the paradigm.
90% of the current development effort (containers, virtualization) is about copying the working machine and giving it a nice safe space to run in, where no outside forces can reach in and disturb its peace.
- 2 months
I can’t really help my Windows friends anymore when they need troubleshooting for things like: why their audio channels aren’t working in OBS, or why their config is suddenly corrupted. I used to be able to when I was on Windows, but now I just have to watch helplessly while they struggle to make things work.
- 2 months
Oh, I have just written a comment about that. I forced a friend to install Fedora, as I couldn’t help him with Windows.
- felsiq@piefed.zipEnglish2 months
This is what I aspire to be, but I’m not quite there yet. How long did it take you to forget the windows stuff?
- 2 months
It’s not so much forgetting, but waiting until Windows “changes it” - the “yeah, just go here in the settings… oh… there’s not a setting any more… there used to be an option for this…”
- felsiq@piefed.zipEnglish2 months
Oh then I guess I’m fucked, cuz the parts I want to forget are mostly the registry and the dumbass isolated settings windows that haven’t changed in 20yrs 😂
- 2 months
I’ve been running Linux full time for 4 years and still have my Windows troubleshooting knowledge. I would say it’s more frustrating since logging isn’t nearly as good compared to Linux.
- 2 months
I’ve been on Arch full-time for about two years, and even though I use some similar software, I’ve had to troubleshoot and do things differently from my friends for a while (installing mods manually, adding launch options to certain Steam games, using entirely different software stacks to do the same things). My brain just can’t contain troubleshooting info for both, so the Windows stuff gets lost over time as Widows becomes more buggy and stupid.
- 2 months
For me its the nuance of things.
Like quality of life settings. Turn Bluetooth on automatically at boot. Yeah, you can do it, but not by looking at settings and turning that option on. No, you need to recognize that’s a problem then search for an answer, determine which of the 2 or 3 answers you find are right, then do it. Is it a deal breaker? Absolutely not. But I don’t want to “solve problems” for every thing I want to do.
My other gripes would be lack of software support. As great as some apps are, others there are no support for Linux.
- 2 months
Maybe it’s just the distros I’ve picked, but I’ve literally never had to do anything to get Bluetooth to turn on at boot
- 2 months
I was about to say, I’ve only come across that particular issue since moving to KDE, but I know what you mean about the lack of options, but then I looked in the settings, and found this:
It’s getting there!
- 2 months
This stuff unfortunately depends by the desktop environment and because there are hundreds of them, it’s inconsistent.
On gnome it remembers it correctly, although there are a handful of times where the gamepad doesn’t connect automatically and I have to manually do that
- 2 months
Gamepad… I just use it wired because it was an easier solution. Like I said, sometimes things that should be settings become problems you need to solve.
That’s just part of the Linux game.
Its not really a deal breaker to me for the other benefits I get, but it really can be annoying. And more annoying that on average the Linux community doesn’t really acknowledge this.
I can completely understand an average person not wanting to deal with stuff like this, especially since its so inconsistent across distros.
- 2 months
I think the main problem lies in the community.
Not everyone, but a few vocal rotten apples are hostile to new users who either:
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Don’t already know the answer to their own question
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Are not using their distro
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Didn’t immediately read the wiki entry for their exact problem
This kind of gatekeeping is why some people are put off of Linux and the community as a whole. Just because someone asks a question you think is obvious, doesn’t mean it’s obvious to them.
- 2 months
For number 3, it is only gatekeeping if the person asking for help can’t read.
- 1 month
Oh hi it’s me. Archwiki and tldr are great, but man pages explain things adequately about 20% of the time.
Many of the Ms we’re supposed to R aren’t very well written, and we need to be open to explaining how things work in different ways if we want others to take up with the things we like.
- 1 month
Man pages are the only reference material I know that has more information-free circular definition chains than Wikipedia. And I imagine that it’s for much the same reason; they’re primarily written and fought over by experts who only need terse reminder notes for themselves, and who can’t remember what it was like not spending every day up to their elbows in the subject.
- 1 month
And Google sucks more and more every day…
There’s a good way to point people to existing documentation without being a jackass.
If someone doesn’t find the wiki article that answers their question because they didn’t know how to ask it with the right keywords, just point them to the wiki article and add any missing context to help the next person out.
A rude “rtfm” response with closing the ticket isn’t helpful.
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- 2 months
Freedom is overwhelming.
You can change everything and anything… so that means a LOT of choices.
- 2 months
People assume it’s all terminal all the time. I haven’t needed to open the terminal for months. It starts up. With the GUI I open the browser. Maybe steam, too. Do stuff. Shut down.
- dx1@lemmy.mlEnglish2 months
While this may be true (I really have no idea at this point), terminal is a superpower, pretty much the best option for anything except manually dragging and dropping files one by one.
- 1 month
Nautilus can move groups of numbered files, which is useful for image frames stored separately. But it has bugs. One of them won’t let you start a sequential move from any number other than 1. Which is idiotic.
Dolphin can’t even do that.
The command line can, easily.
I never use the terminal. It’s not necessary for me. I’m not an IT user. I’m not missing out on anything. Many things I do don’t even have a terminal command. It’s important new users know this if they are not in to IT.
There are no cli commands that I can use in my drawing and 3D modelling applications. Or when working with complex schematics. Where things don’t often have names. It would be unproductive to leave the app to go to the terminal, type in ‘the blue thing in the top right, No the dark blue one…’ then come back to the app to see the result.
Also, not all user types are the same. Visual users need different things from text users. That’s basic usability.
We’re not all IT people with no interest in UX.
- 2 months
There isn’t a default beginner distro anymore.
There are a dozen good choices with half a dozen different default desktop environments, all with their pros and cons.
But as a beginner, you have no idea what’s best for you.
It used to be a lot easier to choose your first distro, back when Ubuntu was still good (looong ago).IMO Mint could be it, if they used Plasma instead of Cinnamon, which still doesn’t support Wayland.
- 2 months
I’ve heard real good things about the plug and play ability of Bazzite. Though I say that as a guy that’s been debating the switch for a while, my main holdout being that I like to play weird indie games and spend a lot of time away from my computer, so would rather not have to spend my limited free time troubleshooting
- 2 months
I feel like maybe I’m missing something because I tried Bazzite for a bit (before switching to vanilla Fedora) and found it kind of overwhelming? Like there was so much stuff installed by default and it wasn’t super clear to me how it all was supposed to work together to do basic things like package management (esp. since dnf doesn’t work)
- 2 months
I don’t know about Cinamon as I’ve never used it, but I would never recommand KDE Plasma to a beginner.
It’s way too messy even if it’s really customizable.
Gnome is great, but I also think it’s too different from Windows for a beginner.
Plasma desktop is totally usable out of the box to a beginner, especially if they come from Windows.
- 1 month
Being so impossibly sexy and yet still intimidating for no reason.
Also Wifi support for certain chip sets.
- 1 month
The wifi/blue tooth chipset for my PC just got skipped over. The version be and after have drivers but for what ever reason meditek just never made a driver for mine. ):
- 2 months
That really depends on distro. With something like Arch and Debian, that is definitely the case. On the other hand, Bazzite requires almost no configuration and has scripts for common use cases.
- 2 months
Debian can be installed without doing any configuration. In the installer choose to have KDE, Gnome or another desktop and you will get a functional desktop with most normal apps and games. I’ve only made small changes to configuration but nothing that was blocking me from using it. Might not be the case for everyone and some other distros will be better at automatically configuring more things.
- 1 month
Seconded. The only configuration that I felt I needed to do on debian out of the box was install Flatpak and enable flathub repos. Everything else worked.
- 2 months
This is more about open source in general than Linux specifically, but anyway.
Minor details.
I get the impression that often the developers are passionate about getting things working, but once it works it’s hard to keep going to fix ‘papercuts’: minor UI issues, documentation, small usability improvements, consistency, etc. They want to move on to the next big feature.
Of course commercial products can suffer from the same, but if large enough they may have a program manager who assigns people to specific areas like that which get less coverage when it’s based on the devs’ desire to work on them.
- fizzle@quokk.auEnglish2 months
This was my experience in the before times but over the last 5 years or so I’m consistently pleasantly surprised that everything just works, and works well at that. I guess I’m talking about hardware, docks, monitors, peripherals, printers, et cetera.
Software can be a mixed bag but that’s really those software projects rather than “linux”
