Wha? Even a bleeping potato can run Linux nowadays, with zero issues at day 1.
t. Got a Orange pi zero 3, and the lil’ bastard is rocking solid – even with (near zero) support.
Imagine being in the orange forum and thinking everybody’s using Mac…
Some builds can get really tetchy about laptop hardware, but that’s almost always older hardware.
Though I will say it took entirely too long for most builds to have a “change what closing the lid” does menu option rather than making you modify a .conf file.
And don’t get me started on resolution switching when hot swapping display inputs.
I think the main trouble makers for consumers are the odd network or bluetooth controllers, especially in laptops, which often come with some exotic bullshit.
I have a lot of trouble with Bluetooth on laptops so I tend to run 2.4GHz wireless peripherals instead of Bluetooth. That’s my only complaint these days.
Imagine not having all your drivers baked in into your kernel
Imagine not knowing about kernel modules 🤣
shit like this comment thread is why regular people use windows. who the fuck wants to learn about this kind of stuff when you can just point and click? especially when the people who should be helping you post brain-dead self-congratulatory gate-keeping shit like this.
if y’all want people to use linux maybe make it palatable instead of maintaining its difficulty so you can get a chubby about how smart you are
If someone made a GUI to handle kernel modules and people could point and click through them, would that be okay?
that really doesn’t have anything to do with what i’m talking about.
You said people wanted to point and click. I agree: I’ve seen many Windows admins VNC to a desktop environment to get to a shell rather than use SSH
So if everything in Linux was accessible from a GUI, would that make it better? Because Windows does similar things, and so does Mac OS. They just use pretty pictures instead of words.
ah, i see now. it’s more about things just working and it being right there
even what distro to choose is already a thing people have to actively research. most people are more interested in just having the thing simply work, than they are having it work in a way that they’ve customized, if that road takes more than minimal effort. i think that the divide is actively growing now, and that the easy access of smartphones and most apps not having much customization is probably part of it.
You might need another muffin. You’re a little hangry.
another smug message! surprise
god forbid i actually want people to use FOSS
You could try not being a dick. Just a thought.
Edit: after seeing your other comments it’s pretty clear you’re a troll.
I’d say the same to you
pretty telling that the community takes criticism of gatekeeping superiority complexes as being equivalent to trolling
if y’all want people to use linux maybe make it palatable instead of maintaining its difficulty so you can get a chubby about how smart you are
I wont speak for others but personally, I’m not really interested in point and clickers using linux - there are people who work on mint and ubuntu and stuff for them.
again, personally, i don’t think linux is the right choice for people don’t want to learn some of that and who won’t ever use Command line interface.
I wouldn’t recommend it for them - tbf mostly because I’ve no interest in being tech support for them, just like i didn’t for windows back when i knew how to solve some problems ( type “regedit”).
unless they only have a potato, then i think linux is more likely to fit a decent amount of their needs.
though i would normally say it costs them little more than a few hours to test out a live usb boot system.but the main point is that the linux community is very diverse, as are all the different distros and projects - so it is not easy to pigeonhole all of them as sharing any one sentiment.
some of the people and distros will be supportive of those users, others won’t.
it’s a bit like most collections of humans in that respect.
shit like this comment thread is why regular people use windows
No, regular people use Windows because that’s what their device they purchased came with. If they bought a Chromebook instead for example, they’d be using ChromeOS which is based on Linux, and if they bought a Smart TV, it’d probably be running some sort of Linux-based OS as well.
Regular people don’t know or care about Linux, nor what operating system their device is running - they just want a device that’s easy to use, looks good, has a good price and can let them use Facebook, Zoom etc or whatever it is they’re expecting from that device.
who the fuck wants to learn about this kind of stuff when you can just point and click
There’s no need to learn about this stuff, Linux is already just point and click. The main hurdle these days is installing it on a PC, egular people don’t mess around with the OS on their device, they just use whatever it is that came on their device. They shouldn’t have any big issues using Linux (especially if it’s a user-friendly distro like Zorin OS), as long as it’s already installed on their machines.
if y’all want people to use linux maybe make it palatable
It is already palatable, we just haven’t gotten mainstream manufactures to sell preloaded devices to the masses. There are some OEMs like System76 that are doing a good job, but they haven’t hit mass market yet. What Linux needs is a partnership with mainstream manufacturers and some big $$$ invested into marketing, plus partnering with retail outets like Best Buy etc. And maybe have a hardware certification program, like how Windows has the WHQL. Market the hell out of it, pass out shiny “Linux compatible” stickers to vendors, put Linux on sleek and shiny MacBook-like devices, and you’ll find regular people getting into Linux.
also the front page of this very community has multiple posts from people whose systems aren’t working, or who are worried about software being incompatible with linux. it’s still not easy. and Ubuntu came pre-loaded on computers a decade ago and that didn’t really do anything.
this is copium my friend. look at these forums, you don’t find people talking about proselytizing ubuntu and mint, it’s people circlejerking about how cool they are for using kali and arch and knowing whatever minutiae of computing
What a weirdly specific thing to get mad about.
i sort of get them, actually. as a nontech person who shifted to Linux out of necessity, i just wanted it to work.
i dont have to imagine not knowing what a kernel module because i still dont, despite using it for years.I guess I would also be pretty sore if I didn’t have… checks notes - all my drivers baked into my kernel?
A joke about potatoes? You elitists.
@sab @OsrsNeedsF2P @GustavoM @Kidplayer_666 @db2 @AngrilyEatingMuffins @bear I bet these idiots don’t even butter their drivers before baking them into the kernel
smug senses of superiority in the FOSS community?
amazing… no wonder linux use has only grown if you include the steam deck and closed off governmental systems
The reason Linux only grew with the Steam Deck is because an operating system only grows if it’s preinstalled on a popular device. Average users do not install their own OS. If you were actually in tune with average users, you would know this. It has nothing to do with Linux users making jokes amongst themselves.
I remember when you had to use this newfangled “kernel module” business if you had two Ethernet cards using the same driver, because a non-module driver would only detect one …
Nvidia users
I tried to daily Linux on my laptop but gave up because it didn’t support the fingerprint reader or the speakers. Windows 11 drains the battery faster and feels sluggish more often.
I’d suggest Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC if you’re sticking with M$. It’s the least bloated and least intrusive modern OS. You should see improvement in battery life and your devices can use the same drivers. The official MSDN ISOs aren’t hard to find. Then find “massgravel” on GitHub and you can pretty easily figure out permanent activation via HWID.
I’m taking it as an opportunity to learn win11 since I have to deal with it at work. My plan is to buy a Framework or System76 laptop down the line and give Linux a second chance as my daily driver.
That makes sense. My Win 11 skills are definitely lacking. They are going to drag me kicking and screaming. I’m holding out for LTSC before I install it on a test rig (to play with at home). I only run 10 and Debian at the moment.
I’ll give up fingerprint before I give up battery!
I know hardware compatibility has massively improved, but back when I was messing with Linux in high school compatibility was a huge issue. I managed to end up with two laptops and some desktop hardware that were truly difficult to get running. It’s like I somehow found a list of incompatible hardware and chose the worst options.
The most frustrating were an evil Broadcom (I think) wireless card and an AMD switchable card (they did actually make a few). That graphics card wasn’t supported for very long and was a bother even in Windows.
Edit to add: I was just saying that to point out why some people might have that opinion, even if it isn’t valid anymore. I’m actually thinking of jumping back on the Linux bandwagon.
Linux OSes have always been the ones to run on everything lol, it took Microsoft like a decade to make Windows run on ARM
Isn’t the CPU support reason solely specific to a new feature Windows 11 was going to use, and you can just use Windows 10 while it’s still in support? Plus Windows 10 knows this and won’t even try to update your PC to windows 11?
It’s not a really strong argument when most hardware drivers are made with Windows in mind first, and maybe someone is going to write up a Linux driver if they’re interested. I mean Linux went for years having to do some hack&slash solution to broadcom drivers until they were finally added in. That affected at least 2 laptops in my lifetime.
I will stop to say that currently, I think Linux is in a good spot. But you can’t just pretend the issue absolutely doesn’t exist because your specific setup works.
I don’t think people are pretending Linux is perfect. More people than expected though, are simping for windows despite the fact that the money and energy spent on it truly ought to have led to a better product than what we got.
Oh no, I believe no one is under any delusions that Linux is a perfect OS that does everything well and has no issues (well, beyond a few nutcases). It’s just that on Linux you CAN solve issues, you CAN find causes, you CAN solve things, and in general once it works, it just keeps working indefinitely. Compare this to windows, which has new mysterious shit frequently, that breaks in unfixable ways to the point that even now the standard troubleshooting procedure is still the three Rs: Reboot, Reinstall, Reformat, and which frequently pulls the rug on you related to support of both hardware and software, all the while being full of telemetry and ads.
It’s still a pain, just dramatically LESS of one.
Agreed! I was talking to someone last night about revitalizing their laptop with Linux and they asked me how much RAM they needed. I checked my pop os machine ram usage with no apps running, just under 4 GB. Then checked windows 10 after closing like 10 autoloading programs. 9 GB. Windows is bloated af. It’s honestly a miracle it runs.
In the last five years, I’ve run Linux across a vast range of differing hardware, and I’ve encountered no more issues regarding driver support than I have under Windows.
I simply attach the hardware, and it works. At most I installed NVIDIA drivers via my package manager, which was simple and painless; or I downloaded the drivers as .Deb’s for my Brother printer and installed them quickly and easily using the supplied script.
I’m sure I’m not the only one with such experience.
That just means you didn’t use the hardware that had the issues. Which is entirely possible given the nature of hardware issues. It happens all the time on Windows as well.
Which is also the case under Windows. As stated, no OS is immune to driver issues.
I don’t think I’ve met anyone who enjoys windows 11 unless they’re like 75 years old and only click on google chrome and the power off button
One word: printers. Linux isnt event plug and pray, it just detects it.
The only real hardware problems I come across these days with Linux is WiFi cards being shit. As far as I’m concerned, carefully selecting hardware is a problem for the *BSDs at this point. Am I missing something?
I was flirting with Linux for 20 years. There was always something that put me off an I went back to Windows. Recently I installed ubuntu with Kde plasma and I’m not going back. It just works and is heaps faster on older hardware. The old driver issues are gone, compatibility is awesome. The only issue is getting used to new software names.
carefully select hardware
lmao, i’ve exclusively run linux on franken pcs cobbled together out of mostly second hand parts
That’s much easier grounds then… checks notes… a modern laptop straight from the factory.
I have a Jellyfin server running in the office. The video card is about 6 months old. The CPU, case, and motherboard are going on 12 years old.
The first thing I installed windows on was an discarded office tower that I had to put new memory And hard drives in. Shit was ancient and specifically did not want anything but windows installed on it. Installed Linux anyway. Works great. No specific hardware
Linux has always been my go to for that specific use case as well, and I honestly have very little Linux experience. Linux just makes bizarre half broken hardware, like bad ram, work.
Pop OS has native drivers for nVidia GPUs even 😎🐧
Correction: POP!_OS has their own APT deb farm that has the latest hardware stack. This includes the proprietary 535 nvidia driver and later as well as the kernel and mesa.
This is part of the history of the distribution as it was made to support system76’s latest hardware lineup on top of an Ubuntu base.
Nouveau is the libre driver for Nvidia on GNU/Linux with Nvidia slowly segregating their proprietary driver into a firmware blob.
I think this is a bit misleading.
Most or at least the majority of distros offer the proprietary nvidia driver.
Pop, Zorin, Ubuntu, Garuda, etc just bundle it in the install media as an option.
I definitely had much less issues with my Nvidia card on pop os than I did with any of the other like 5 distros I tried.
have been using various distros over the years and never had issues with the nvidia driver on any of them 🤷♂️
Do you game?
I did back then. Not such much these days.
Elementary OS didn’t work for me (broke during install – people online said it was video drivers), and on mint and Ubuntu gaming wasn’t working exactly right. In pop os 85% of my games run though
I want to use Linux at the desktop, but I want HDR and Freesync support. Not sure if Linux supports either in a big way.
You get to choose between hardware dependency hell and software dependency hell these days.
Linux has better support for the long tail of hardware. Windows has better support for bleeding-edge hardware. The main reason for this is money.
The new CPU requirements for Windows 11 are why I wiped it and am now on Linux Mint. No dual-booting.
Windows 11 on a Pentium 4 - barely usable, though
