Honestly what is wrong with ‘just works’. If the policies behind the project and the security and privacy is all in place using this option is nothing wrong.
For linux to grow it needs to be more ‘just works’. Let the complex stuff and simple stuff be there. It’s not one or the other.
Just works is definitely something Linux should strive for, but at least in my experience and in experience of my friends, “just works” has always been a poor experience.
What I’m talking about is how you install a just works distro like mint or garuda, and then some package refuses to work or maybe hardware such as a sound card or multi monitor setup, so you gotta go troubleshooting, which isn’t very “just works”. What’s worse is that some of the issues aren’t talked about/documented, so you pretty much have to rely on making a post and wait for potentially hours for a response to get help. It’s also very hard to troubleshoot the system by yourself if you don’t have experience, as you don’t really know what’s running under the hood as in what came prepackaged by the distro.
Fedora definitely doesn’t “just works”. Try installing the proprietary NVIDIA drivers then updating your kernel.
Ford definitely doesn’t “just works”. Try installing a jet engine on the roof then fueling it with unleaded.
I don’t want to blame you, but I think sometimes Nvidia really enjoys messing with Linux users.
Regardless of whose fault it is, it’s unacceptable that half the people with a discrete GPU have nigh incompatible hardware. It’s more akin to using snow tires breaking your car than a jet engine.
That was my experience ten years ago : mobile Geforce 660 with “Optimus”, two flavours of drivers, of which none worked reliably. I remember fiddling with Nouveau & Bumblebee for hours. I should try another, more stable distro on my desktop, but I rely a lot on some Windows-only programs.
Not just that, but ever since F32 every single fricking update managed to either break something completely or made some part of the OS too unstable for daily use. Bluetooth issues, crashing display server, system hanging on suspend, broken bootloader on some Secure Boot sysems (handover from EUFI to bootloader no longer happening) therefore rendering the system completely unable to boot… Just some issues I ran into when using Fedora as my daily driver for well over a year.
Fedora is great when it works, but always keep in mind that having a bleeding edge system comes at the cost of stability.
Why should I use Arch btw if Ubuntu does everything I need? It’s not some locked down os like Windows and I can tweak it however I want
I think it’s funny that so many Linux users talk about how locked down Windows is, when 90% of them live in an effective walled garden defined by their package manager, or other inborn restriction of their distro. I doubt that even 10% are compiling from source with any regularity.
Why do you need to wait for someone to repackage FF for you before you install it? Just go get it if you run Arch BTW, but you know the overwhelming majority of ArchBros really only know how to install it through Pacman.
What‘s wrong with installing software from a package manager when the package I need is on there and has a decently up to date version? If its not on there I can still build from source.
When I‘m in a situation where I just need a specific lib or cli tool or whatever and don‘t have time to potentially debug a niche compile error, installing from a package manager is more convenient and saves time.
Except snap, which can burn in hell.
Exactly.
When I was younger, tinkering around was a hobby in itself. But today I actually used my machine and I want it to work without hassle. I don’t want to think about swap partition sizes, modeset kernel parameters and that kind of stuff. I want a reliable tool.
That’s why so many devs use MacBooks. They’re essentially Unix machines with a proper GUI and mostly work absolutely flawlessly.
I’ve been using MacBooks for over ten years now and had exactly one crash: when the drive was failing so hard, it couldn’t even spin up anymore.
This is exactly me. For a server it’s Linux but for everyday use/work a MacBook Pro is great. It just works. It’s great as you can fire up the command line to manage Linux servers easily. That’s how I admin my Lemmy Ansible install.
For gaming I use Windows. It’s all about the best tool for the job.
To be fair I’ve been using mint, and whilst THE FUCKING MULTIMONITOR DOESN’T FUCKING WORK (Uhh I wanna punch a drywall)! otherwise it has been suprisingly smooth. Especially since it is my main computer, and I use it to burn discs for older game systems (incl. x360!!!), unity development, and a bunch of other stuff. So I have to say, it is VERY close to it just works.
It works but it kinda forgets the monitor layout, especially if you remove the computer from the dock while the os is sleeping.
It is a pain in the ass to set it up again, especially since it thinks it is a great idea to use the inbuilt monitor, even though the lid is shut.
Also when you undock when suspended sometimes it forgets to check after waking up, and some programs, especially fullscreen video playback has a tendency to continue on a “ghost display”
Overall it is livable but annoying especially because 33% of times it just works.
Also this is xfce. Cinamon and Mate may be much better.
