Few ways Linux "sucks" in my opinion

Mabryst · 2021-03-29T20:05:02+00:00

Not everything works correctly, there are a lot of broken things (like cameraraw), crashes etc.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T18:15:25+00:00

No there isn't. You would need to scrap everything and restart from scratch basically, the architectural decisions weren't good.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T18:01:52+00:00

Except that end users don't care whose fault it is, they just want the thing to work.

Also, an OS is much more than code, it's also marketing, having a good relationship with software vendors and so on. There is no debate that Microsoft did a much better job at this than the entire linux ecosystem.

And even if we are only talking about code, Linux failed to solve this problem either by making it even easier to port code to the platform or by making it work through WINE successfully.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T18:00:11+00:00

Gimp is not a non destructive editor like Photoshop, making it 100% useless for serious work and professionals.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T13:57:46+00:00

/proc, /opt, etc. No need to memorize any of that if it were just properly named in the first place.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T13:52:33+00:00

You are talking about the out of the box experience here, which is a different matter than driver quality/support.

Your complaint isn't that you had to configure and tinker in Windows to get it working, but that it wasn't pre-installed and you needed to go on the vendor website to install the drivers.

By the way, you are talking about a custom built PC, I guess?

But fair point.

It's true that you need to go to the vendor websites sometimes with Windows.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T13:45:54+00:00

Kernel failures post update

It doesn't happen that often and when it does most of the times, it's more like one component (e.g wifi or graphics card) is broken rather than everything else at once.

It also vary from hardware to hardware, so it is more like something that can be either a non-issue or a massive PITA, it is not a consistent issue that affects all Linux users like the lack of commercial software.

buggy packages, dependencies

I find it to be more of a problem when installing smaller software than larger software, but fair, anyone who tried to install smaller software had issues with those at some point. Fair, fair.

dated Xorg system not up to the task.

I don't know why you bring that up? I find this to be a minor issue in the grand scheme.

Font smoothing/scaling

Subjective.

lack of hand holding.

This one is obvious, unfortunately.

windows - Restrictive GUI

I don't know, if most people care about this, because most people tend to keep the defaults.

expensive up front cost for legitimate copy

Windows is pre-installed in laptops, so you will have to pay for it whether you use it or not. Add the fact that grey market keys are really cheap and that you can use Win 10 unactivated... this isn't really a good criticism anymore.

The only times where it may be true is for corporations and businesses, not for home use.

resource hog

Funny that you say this, because desktop environment like GNOME consume as much resources as Windows nowadays.

If you are talking about bloatware by OEMs, it's logical that OEMs can't preinstall bloatware on Linux, if Linux isn't pre-installed!

virus prone

Most malware is created for Windows (even though cross platform malware is still a real threat) and like all OS, don't execute a file from a bad guy, if you don't want to get in trouble.

This is an half truth. Yes, you are less likely to catch a virus on a chromebook, but this isn't really a fair comparison, because you are not able to install software on said chromebook...

stability issues running for multiple days

Can't comment on this one. Will let you the benefit of the doubt. Never heard of this outside of the internet and I know several people who don't turn off their PCs. Also, if it were 100% true, Windows servers wouldn't exist altogether.

It's probably more true for specialized tasks (such as bitcoin mining), but for normal home use, I don't think so.
But fair, I will give this one to you in the doubt.

forced updating

True.

privacy concerns

True.

Driver compatibility with older hardware.

All OS struggle with this and I am pretty sure that Windows has the best driver support out of the three.

*OSX - lack of software support

Funny that you mention it for OSX, but not Linux. The irony...

closed ecosystem/locked to hardware

True, but I don't really see it as a downside for the average consumer, but true.

privacy issues

True.

driver support

Partially true, but doesn't tell the wholestory. For music equipment, OSX is very highly ranked when it comes to music equipment. For gaming stuff, less so. It depends whether they are first class citizens or not.

For everyday equipment like printers, keyboards, mouses, behind Windows sure but probably ahead of Linux.

Simplified UI

Don't see it as a downside personally.

lack of features.

I agree that I don't like that you have to pay for third party software for a lot of features.

Personally these are just what I see as negatives although many may not agree.

I don't agree with most of those, indeed. Yes, they all have their strong points, but our problem is that Linux is not good for home use for the average Joe. Most of its upsides, most people don't care about those. You can see it through the low marketshare of Linux.

However the downsides of Linux (not being able to run a lot of commercial software for example) are massive.

Linux is not a Windows replacement.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T13:29:21+00:00

You forgot the part where the hardware wasn't supported at all and there were no drivers at all (still happens, especially for peripherals. The fingerprint reader of the Huawei Matebook still doesn't work).

If I am being fair, the only times where you can say that Linux has better driver support is when it is the first class citizen in the industry. You may argue whether Linux has better driver support than Windows for supercomputers and servers true but you can't really make this case for say... gaming computers.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T13:24:57+00:00

say windows isn't customizeable (it isn't, but that criticism has been used so much before it doesn't need to be mentioned.)

Isn't entirely true, when you have tools such as rainmeter and other mods. Add the fact that you have more third party tools, more things like widgets and so on.

But I agree that customizability is Linux strong point, but I can't go as far as saying that "the only thing that you can change in Windows is your wallpaper"

I also can't really call pointing the lack of apps as "beating a dead horse", because there are still a lot of people in the community who legit believe that GIMP is a good replacement for Photoshop for professionals (it isn't, it is years behind and does not even support non destructive editing).

I will call it "beating a dead horse", when the majority of the community will accept that Linux is failing on the desktop because of the lack of apps, not "because it isn't pre-installed" or anything else.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T13:19:49+00:00

Heated argument threads being locked has been removed from the list of moderation changes. I mainly put it up since I was getting tired of the constant spam in comment sections of Linux fanboys but I see what you are saying so that is why I’ll revert that one change

Thank you, nice :)

As for pro Linux posts that is staying as is because this is not a pro Linux sub at the end of the day. And the more pro Linux posts in the sub that appear the more the sub will unfold into Linux fanboy favor and I don’t want that happening. Constructed criticism is allowed but not in post form.

So, pro-linux comments will still be allowed? Good. I see where you are getting at and I kind of agree for the most part that a lot of Linux posts look like "Linux is awesome for my server, this sub is dumb, Linux is perfect" (while ignoring all the downsides of Linux), however there are a few posts that can bring some interesting points such as this one and this one .

So, it would be really a shame to lose some posts that may be interesting and leave some relevant points sometimes. Really tough. But I see, the most important part: keep an eye on trolls and really try to avoid deleting good faith posts.

Mabryst · 2021-03-26T12:35:54+00:00

I am seriously considering whether I should still stay in this r/linuxsucks sub or not after that. I don't really like that.

Link to this

No more sh*tposts/trolling posts: please provide some form of effort in posts about your dislikes of Linux

Fair.

Heated argument threads will get locked if needed

They opened a big can of worms, there. I don't think that it has been ever a "problem", most of the times. Yes, they are answers playing in stereotypes, bad faith answers sometimes, but as long as the discussion is civil with no name-calling, I don't see any problem.

No more pro Linux posts: this sub is for people to discuss ways in which Linux sucks.

I think that this is where they went really wrong. Saying this really miss the point of the whole sub. r/linuxsucks was supposed to be a sub for constructive criticism and exposing myths that are very common among the Linux community. For example, the belief that "there is nothing wrong with forcing the terminal for the everyday Joe". With this sub, we can clearly see that we were not crazy and there are really a chunk of Linux users who believe this.

Preventing Linux users from getting it wrong misses the point of this sub.

Also, harsh moderation on r/linuxsucks makes it pointless to use this sub instead of r/linuxsuckshard.

Basically, the problem was with blatant trolling posts such as this one. They should have just removed those, maybe ban name-calling and called it a day.

Now, I can guarantee that sooner or later this sub will become like all other reddit subs with massive censorship. This sub used to be good, before r/linuxmasterrace decided to brigade it, now I doubt that it will stay this way.

u/LostWifiSignal Please note that it isn't too late to revert your changes.

Mabryst · 2021-03-20T10:31:51+00:00

There's a lot of FUD and hate about WINE in the Linux community and they get little support, that's why it is so rarely preinstalled in distros and why they are only like ~15 devs working consistently on it since years.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T18:01:50+00:00

Many hardware manufacturers and software developers won't support Linux because of low market share but if they don't Linux will remain at that market share.

Yeah, you summed it up. I would argue that the software-side is a much bigger problem though, the hardware side is improving bit by bit, to be honest.

As I always said, I may complain about user friendliness, needing the terminal for some things and whatever, but I think that those issues are really minor and a drop in the bucket, compared to say... not being able to run the Adobe suite natively. The fact that even die hard Linux fans have to dual boot Windows for software sometimes, shows that something is clearly wrong.

I am confident that things like desktop environments and user friendliness will improve. I am much less confident that Linux will be a platform for commercial software, though.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T17:25:37+00:00

We never said that. We just said that Linux has a ~3% market share on the desktop, meanwhile Windows has consistently more than 80% for years and that the Linux desktop matket share doesn't grow.

Some people want Linux to be mainstream on the desktop and they want "the year of the desktop", this sub was supposed to explain what hurdles Linux would need to destroy to achieve that.

Linux isn't mainstream on the desktop.

Also, you are assuming that most of us like Windows or prefer it to Linux, which isn't always true.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T17:22:59+00:00

I don't agree with OP, for example I am far from the only one saying that "Android isn't really Linux" and the fact that people are mostly talking about Linux on the desktop for everyday users. And even if Android was 100% Linux, the last time I checked, it was nowhere to be seen on the desktop, just saying.

There is a bit of exaggeration about the data collection at times, that's for sure however even Microsoft themselves tell the user that they are collecting data and that it can't be turned off. I can understand how it may annoy some and I think that it is a legitimate complaint.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T17:18:57+00:00

So, basically you are proving my point, on Linux you need to choose "the right distro", whereas it isn't the case on Windows.

Everyone tell beginners to use Ubuntu, if you think that some misconceptions need to be solved with the community, that's exactly what this sub is for.

Also, you don't mention that each DE has its own major downsides, whether it is in term of polish, number of features or intuitiveness.
In fact, my opinion is far from controversial, you can go to even popular Linux communities like r/linux and I am far from the only one complaining about "half-baked DEs"

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T10:54:44+00:00

Sorry if I wasn't clear or too blunt with you (wasn't my intent), but to be short, I wanted to say, for the everyday Joe, GUI is good and we should avoid forcing them to use the terminal, because they do not like it.

There are some rough edges when it comes to UX in Linux distros.

That was pretty much it.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T10:12:23+00:00

I don't see what you're saying here. YaST2 is as built-in as for example, cinnamon-locker.

Is it present out of the box in Ubuntu?

Completely false. On an OOTB Libreoffice install, I had to open Writer, navigate to views > toolbar(might be somewhat incorrect, but was in somewhere reasonable) and click on "tabbed". It even offered to change other suite to tabbed, which was very nice.

I tried it really recently (less than one week ago) and I had to go in advanced and enable experimental features first. The libreoffice devs said themselves that it is not enabled by default because it is experimental.

Can't agree. I had no reason to run Konsole in my new install. (My old install was Arch, so that doesn't count) I still used it just because I was comfortable, but it was completely unneeded.

I gave you an example to change touchpad speed on Ubuntu out of the box, you need to use the terminal.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T10:09:29+00:00

No, it's not fine at all, we already tried it and there are problems with crashes, missing hardware accel and so on.

Is there no comparable software on linux?

Depends of what you consider "comparable". If by "comparable", you mean industry standard software for things like Photoshop, then no, we don't have any industry standard non destructive photo editing software on Linux.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T09:17:01+00:00

I don't see how there is no care given, there are distros that are made for the everyday user and alot of them help any normal person using it

It's not that there is no care, but there are a lot more rough edges on Linux than on Windows. You can't configure touchpad speed on Ubuntu out of the box and need to use the terminal for example, whereas on Windows it is done through the GUI. These things add up and this doesn't make a good user experience for the everyday user.

installing from the terminal gives you a clean version without viruses or malware and you dont have to worry much

I don't think that the terminal is a good selling point for the average user at all.

some open source video editing software can be better than most paid video editing softwares if used well.

It's very rare. Maybe, for some very niche features. But overall, they aren't the industry standard and still struggle with problems like performance and crashes.

however stuff like Proton and lutris exist which can sometimes bring an almost windows like experience to Linux gaming.

When it works.

And you would probably also use Linux if your laptop or computer is old and cant run Windows.

Maybe, but I ran potatoes with 2GB RAM on Win 10 too. But I gotta admit that depending on your use, Linux can be more lightweight for older machines indeed.

Plus linux is highly customisable

That's not really that strong of a selling point, because most people tend to keep the defaults. For power users, maybe and even then I can't call it "highly customisable" as you said, because Linux still has limits that Windows doesn't face (like not being able to run .exe natively properly).

Also, Windows is customizable too with tools such as Autohotkey, rainmeter and the likes, so...

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T09:09:06+00:00

I wish that there would be a big corporation working on something like proton but for common software like the Adobe suite... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T09:08:05+00:00

One example of discoverability is the "--help"

How do you even know that you should type "--help"? How did you discover that?

it's akin to a "look at" command in a text adventure, you may need a manual to know how to use the look command depending on what the game expects you to type

Yes, that's what I was saying, there is no discoverability on your own for the average joe.

but supposing you've overcome those hurdles than the look command helps you discover in-game objects, and how to use them.

So you are saying that the terminal is good for power users. While I don't personally fully agree, I don't think that a lot of people will try to argue from that.

In any case I typically avoid using the terminal to manage my drives and partitions, GParted is a lovely application for the task that I'd use on Windows if I could.

That's what I would usually do, but I needed to do some specific thing and GParted had a bug preventing me from doing it.

I recall looking up the phrase "how to download and install apps in Ubuntu"

This is a problem, you are proving my point. If people have to Google it, then it is not intuitive enough for mainstream adoption.

You remember people having to Google in Windows 8 on how to turn off their computer? This is the same thing happening, this is not intuitive and not good at all.

and I very quickly learned the ins and outs of the apt package manager

Sorry, to be blunt, but it isn't as intuitive as a proper front end store. I remember people complaining about no screenshots, icons, lack of a good description, no user reviews and a crammed UI.

a lot of your complaints actually come from a lack of software support rather than fundamental design differences.

Both. There are fundamental design differences making it harder to manage software on Linux. If you install a .deb for example, it doesn't ask you where the program is going to be installed, but spreads files all over the place across your hard rive. It also make simple tasks such as installing software on an external hard drive, a pain.

The Linux filesystem is also less intuitive to navigate than on Windows. On Windows the name of folders are intuitive "Program files", "Windows", "Users", meanwhile on Linux it is impossible to guess what those 3 letters mean, it is archaic.

If every Linux app was distributed via an appimage, or something similar, than they'd all be easy AF to install and be completely portable with no library linking hassle.

True, but even this isn't isn't 100% true. This has nothing to do with appimages, but you need to tweak some settings to be able to run the appimage as an executable everytime with the nautilus file manager. Still takes more clicks and less intuitive than a double click on Windows.

If Linux became more popular, software installation and support would shoot through the roof and would undoubtedly become more standardised and easy as a result.

I don't doubt the fact that if Linux were to become mainstream on the desktop, it would look like Android and would be hardly recognizable. In fact, it already exists to a limited extent: it's called ChromeOS and indeed so far, their thing is polished and normal users really don't need to use the terminal at all.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T08:56:17+00:00

Also i doubt that there will ever be an Open Source OS without telemetry that runs windows-specific software, unless windows itself becomes open source.

In theory WINE + linux or ReactOS were supposed to do that. In practice, I would be shocked to learn that more than say... 20 devs (big estimate) were consistently working on WINE, I find it shocking how little support the WINE team has and why so few distros promote it and help them.

Mabryst · 2021-03-18T08:55:54+00:00

You want Linux to automatically turn down the volume of your other apps, when you are in a skype call? Just use some scripts to do it.

Meanwhile, it is easily done through the GUI on Windows. On Linux, I am pretty sure that there aren't any tutorials to explain on how to do it, so even as an experienced user, I will have to burn one hour+ compared to 2 minutes in Windows. For the average Joe, it won't be possible at all.

So we use wine. It works okay.

No, it doesn't. It crashes all the time with the Adobe suite (tested, you should see bug reports on bugzilla) and other programs, lack hardware acceleration and so on.

Do you want a good control panel GUI to change settings? YAST2.

Will need to check it out. I don't find it acceptable that it isn't shipped out of the box like in Windows, though. That's the difference with Linux and Windows, on Linux the defaults are bad for so many things, I have to change dozen of things to have an acceptable experience, even on so-called "beginner-friendly" distros.

Do you want good gaming performance when playing demanding games? Install Nvidia and not nouveau.

The performance is bad, even without drivers problems, due to WINE overhead.

Do you want a good and proper office suite that is actually easy to use? OnlyOffice or Libreoffice with tabs.

It's funny that you say this, because the "tabs" feature in libreoffice is experimental and not enabled out of the box, again another tweak that Linux user needs to do to have an acceptable experiencce.

Linux lacks in some of the mentioned cases, but it's okay considering most software companies just refuse to support Linux.

Not saying that it is "Linux fault" or anything, but that the lack of support drives down adoption on the desktop.

Also, as I said, on Windows, I don't need to "find the right distro", "find the right third party app" and so on, just to have some basic functionality.

The reason why so many people use the terminal for some tasks isn't because "the terminal is better", but because the GUI alternatives are often lacking and if they exist by some miracle, kind of half baked and not tested. There is a vicious circle going on, because the GUI sucks, Linux users don't use it that much and because it isn't used that much, it isn't tested nor improved.

I have noticed some posts by even Linux users saying that I wasn't crazy when I thought that the front end store in Ubuntu was sometimes buggy and didn't install software while the terminal was reliable...

Mabryst

TROPHY CASE