I have used linux for a couple of years now and it was one of the most bumpy beginnings (and ends) i ever had with software. There was little a moment that wasnt marred by some kind of problem.
I could write a book on all the problems i had encountered and some of them happen several times, but here are some highlights:
- monitors not being all recognized unless its plugged in in a VERY specific order
- monitor 2 not having the correct colors
- audio not coming out of the correct source, the default source changing when something else that can sue it is plugged in, and also changing after a restart
- gaming, proton barely EVER worked, rated gold or platinum on protondb? fuck you it wont even start for you
- wine is not much better, lutris also fucked up several times
What broke the camels back today:
I stream, on wednesday my controller stopped working so i couldnt continue to stream, an hour after i stopped? the controller started working again great right? no, today the same shit, controller doesnt work.
Linux continues to have awful roadblocks that make even the most stubborn user (me) switch back to windows for now
But ah i am not dont yet, getting support from other users is about as much a fools errand as it is for windows, just sprinkled in with a lot more brown nosing elitism. And i imagine i will get similar comments here cause lemmy has the same circlejerks reddit has.
As long as linux continues having the most mundane problems with NO solution anywhere it wont get anywhere, if it werent for steamdeck it would still hover around at below 3%
See i like linux, i like how the ui feels and all, but i just cant anymore, i want shit to actually work and linux just cant provide that yet
You’re not alone, but it’s an unpopular opinion among geeks. I guess most of them are just bored and therefore love to tinker with these kind of issues. I value my time and prefer not to care about my OS doing things for me. I like to have the option to do so, if I need, but I shouldn’t have too. Windows allows that, MacOS doesn’t and Linux allows too much of that, even requires it.
Another part is the dopamine rush when an issue got solved. Obviously you don’t get any if it works right away.
My windows 10 is running flawless since 2019 and it didn’t slow down or get bloated. I have disabled a few options but that’s about it. Meanwhile my coworker is fighting bad drivers every day. Not even talking about games that simply don’t work at all.
I use Linux at work and it’s great when you set up a VM to do one thing and then forget about it.
Honestly youre right. When i first started using linux it was for fun, something different. It had so many issues that by default id boot into windows and use ubuntu occassionally to learn it some more. A few years later and endeavour is my daily driver and im lucky enough to have 0 issues whatsoever, i love it but its probably dumb luck that all my hardware works well. The issues people have with linux seem totally random, some people breeze through it, then theres people like you that just encounter so much seemingly random bs.
Youre right about the circlejerks, enjoy the comments that are gonna come pouring in lol
seemingly random bs.
Most of the problems listed are graphics related. OP mentioned having an Nvidia GPU. Seems to follow. 99% of the issues I ever had on Linux were resolved with an AMD GPU. Nvidia’s support for Linux is atrocious (outside of the enterprise space).
That’s true, but also a very bad thing.
Most users (read: laptop users) cannot just swap their GPU. They’d have to swap the whole device.
Combine that with the fact, that many people get interested in using Linux when Windows doesn’t work any more (e.g. because they don’t qualify for Win11 or when they have issues in Windows that they can’t resolve), and the general popularity of Nvidia cards (they used to be much better than AMD for a long time) and you get a lot of users with problems.
Obviously, Nvidia is to blame here, but that doesn’t help users who can’t use their PC fully on Linux.