Linux has made significant strides, and in 2023, it’s better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: that desktop Linux is as user-friendly and productive as its mainstream counterparts. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it’s important to provide a clear review of where Linux falls short as a daily driver for average users.
EDIT: can I just make it clear I don’t agree with this article one bit and think it’s an unhinged polemic?
Linux desktop will, most likely, fail for: […]
- Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as there a few, but they all fail even at basic stuff like dragging and dropping a file.
This can’t be serious.
This one too:
Linux desktop will, most likely, fail for:
People that just installed a password manager (KeePassXC) and a browser (Firefox/Ungoogled) via flatpak only to find out that the KeePassXC app can’t communicate with the browser extension because people are “beating around the bush” on GitHub instead of fixing the issue;
Desktop Linux is a failure because this one specific thing doesn’t work right now in only the Flatpak version of this one specific application. Good thing every Windows app has 100% functionality and works perfectly as soon as it’s released lol.
lol - let’s also ignore the other installation methods of keepassxc that work for this specific use case
Also I’m not sure why it doesn’t work, but if it’s just a file access thing (which is usually the issue for me whenever a flatpak is acting up) then it’s like one toggle in Flatseal to unfuck it lol.
What if you wanted to use 1pass or LastPass? They work flawlessly as browser extensions.
It’s true, this has been an issue that has stumped developers and sysadmins for decades. They cannot function without WinSCP!
This author be trollin.
Like I can’t remember the last time I actually needed an FTP client, but FileZilla was fine on Linux a decade ago, I can’t imagine it’s got worse
I’m just connecting to FTP directly from Nautilus, it’s so user friendly it feels like I’m cheating.
Typical problem of switching OS and keeping the same aproache to using it. In little defence of that statement, Linux file managers don’t really announouce support for ftp and ssh inside them. There usually is Network tab that lists Network drives. Samba and media devices, forgot name of protocol, but ftp and SSH is a bit hidden in address bar.
I was about to quote the same.
… I mean, when you’re this clueless, maybe don’t put out ‘articles’ for others to read – it’s wasting everyone’s time.
I thought the title of this article was intriguing; because in the Linux community certain aspects of the desktop experience do get hyped; & there’s a tendency in general to sweep various usability issues under the rug, with the unwarranted confidence that we’re already “better than everyone else” in every way; though the article doesn’t address any of those.
Laptop computers have made significant strides, and in 2023, they’re better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: That a powerful gaming laptop is as user-friendly and productive as the Apple iPad, which is what everyone should obviously be using. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it’s important to provide a clear review of where these fancy “laptop” computers fall short as daily drivers for normal people like me.
PC gaming laptops will, most, likely, fail, for:
- People who need the App Store
- People that want everything to work exactly like it does on the iPad
- Anyone who wants a simple way to install Angry Birds without trying to use needlessly complicated things such as a mouse and keyboard
- Apple apps that won’t run because you bought a non-Apple laptop
- The performance overhead of that extra complexity costs at least 5-15% of what you’d otherwise expect from such a powerful machine
- People who need to run FaceTime and whose friends won’t consider any alternatives outside the Apple way of life
- Serious scientific labs with policies that require iPad-only data acquisition
- Musicians, artists, and customer service agents who’ve built their whole careers around iPad-only software
- Developers and sysadmins, because you’re probably administering Apple systems for which the iPad is indispensible
Laptop computers are great, I love them but I don’t sugar coat it and I’m not delusional like you.
If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with other Apple iPad users then PC latop apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. But once you’ve got to work with other iPad users it’s “game over” — the “alternatives” just aren’t up to it.
iPads aren’t that expensive and they work right out of the box. Software runs fine, everything on the App Store is supported whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive laptop computer experience.
It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months? aeons?) you want to spend fiddling with a mouse and keyboard to set up things which simply work out of the box on the Apple iPad for a minimal fee. Buy an iPad! You know it’s the only sensible thing to do and the ROI will be fantastic!
You can buy a second-hand iPad for around €4 that comes with everything you’ll need. And every iPad comes with IOS for no extra charge, so why wait? Buy it! Buy it now!
“They hated him because he spoke the truth. I can’t even get “simple” apps like Apple iMove to run on my PC. And there’s some kind of “video card driver” that needs “updating”? No sane person could ever cope with this. No amount of googling or even the fabled tech support genuis of “chatgpt” was able to help me. It just won’t work. This whole Internet is delusional, if they think that laptop computers are usable for the average Joe and I’m an Apple iPad expert so I know what I’m talking about. It’s too much hassle. I just want to get things done.” — Average Joe
Still thinking that 2023 is the year of the laptop computer? Think again. The Apple iPad is all the computing you will ever need.
I’m pretty sure the average person wouldn’t even be able to tell the difference between something like mint and windows.
Linux is as user-friendly as the user wants it to be.
However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: that desktop Linux is as user-friendly and productive as its mainstream counterparts.
Couldn’t agree more. We need to get rid of that stupid idea that Windows or macOS are anywhere near as productive as Linux.
I said it before and I will said it again: fuck off with the constant “Linux is not ready to go mainstream”. Who cares? There will always be some software that doesn’t support Linux and there will always be people who will prefer Windows. The goal was never to move everyone to Linux or create a OS perfect for everyone. The goal was to for Linux not to die because of shady MS practices, lack of HW support, DRM and proprietary standards. Guess what? Linux is not going anywhere now. We won. We can talk about something else now.
Generally speaking, Linux is already mainstream on most things except for the desktop. And I’d agree, perhaps we don’t want to be mainstream anyways.
I wouldn’t say that we don’t want to, just that it was never the true objective. 20 years ago to goal was to make Linux just popular enough so that big corporations would stop ignoring or directly fighting it. There was a real danger that MS will convince PC manufactures to lock the bootloaders, most websites will run only on IE and Linux will not have drivers for most devices. I could end up just like all the opensource phone OSes: few supported devices, few contributors and few users. But we managed. Most big corporations now actively support Linux and Linux has support for most devices. I would like to see more articles acknowledging this win and less articles saying that “still non everyone loves Linux”.
