Goes on to write an article with a bunch of issues that very few people will actually have. It’s like he’s deliberately gone out of his way to write a karma whoring post on Reddit.
I’m pretty sure nobody has enough money to pay me to give up my Linux…
I ask out of respect the the devs that make our wonderful distros we love so much:
Have you donated to them and their work?
If there’s not enough money to make you give it up, how much are you willing to give to keep it alive?
Sleep/Wake issues
I’ve had plenty of sleep/wake issues on Linux, including on my current setup which is Bazzite (based on Fedora, which the author uses). Currently on Bazzite, some things don’t restart correctly after a reboot (specifically Gnome tweaks and OpenRGB). Not the worst issue but still annoying.
AltGr Dead Keys
This is the default behavior on macOS
A desktop operating system needs to come with a solid, serviceable email client. I consider this non-optional.
The only truly useful email client I’ve used is the default macOS one. I am actively taking suggestions for Linux. I tried one called Evolution I think? It was ok but didn’t support all my different email providers. I tried Thunderbird but it baffles me that I can’t view an email and have the list of emails open on the side.
I honestly think the author might have a better time with macOS. Not that they would prefer it over Linux, but a lot of what they complain about is better on Mac.
Whenever I experienced a short stretch of time where I felt “perhaps this isn’t so bad?”, one (or multiple) of the problems and issues described above would snap me out of it.
This was my experience trying to switch to Linux until very recently (until I started using Bazzite).
I tried Thunderbird but it baffles me that I can’t view an email and have the list of emails open on the side.
You can do that. That is how I use thunderbird.
I don’t remember if I had to change the default config, but I think it comes like that, no? Anyways, if not, it’s probably an easy setting somewhere to get it how you like.
My latest version of Thunderbird comes with the far right side panel being used to read email, the center panel a list, and the left is my boxes.
I’ve been a computer geek since 1987. I started out on dos and spent a lot of my time in Windows, but I’ve used Linux as well for more than 25 years now.
This article was as useless and as stupid as I anticipated. They clearly are happy in Linux and they were not going to be happy in Windows.
I’m quite happy in both. I like both. I think there’s advantages and disadvantages to both. I will definitely say that there are some things I really prefer in Linux. But in recent years, a lot of that I’ve gotten to incorporate over on the window side things.
I now have bash under Windows. I have the compose key under Windows thanks to a third party utility called wincompose. It’s free.
It doesn’t take me excessive clicks to do things. In Windows I mean.
And thanks to modern technology, not quite everything is upgraded under Linux with APK anymore.
I’ve had very few problems under Windows. And I’ve had very few problems under Linux. As far as system stability.
Use what you like. Use what you enjoy. Use what works better for you. For me, that’s both.
He’s completely overlooked the thing that annoys me the most: the unbelievable number of clicks you need to make in Windows/Microsoft to get anything done. – Saving a file to a folder of your choice:
- Windows: Click ‘Save’ -> Click ‘Choose a different location’ -> Scroll down to skip all the favourites and default locations -> Click the drive where you want to save the file -> Find the folder -> Click ‘Save’
- Linux: Click ‘Save’ -> Go to the folder -> press ‘Save’
Not ot mention my recent attempts to rename a Bluetooth device (two devices of the same type were displayed under the same name, making it impossible to tell them apart) 🤮
Microsoft screwed this up when they tried to make onedrive the default and therefore purposely made saving to disk harder.
Now you need to know the F12 shortcut to bring up the expected behaviour breaking decades of muscle memory.
Onedrive is a fuckin’ pain in the ass! Sends your files to Microslop and the files on your pc become shortcuts.
I went back to Windows10. Much easier to create a local account upon install. With Win11 they make you jump through hoops.
Be fair though, “saving from a GUI app” is not exactly Linux’s strong point either.
Click “save”; wonder which badly written save dialog this app is going to use; is it the one with the save button at the top? Or the bottom? Will it actually appear, or will it pop up below the window for Reasons, making you think the dammed thing has crashed? Maybe it’s one with a list of favourite locations in the left maybe it’s not… Maybe they’re actually my favourite locations, or maybe it’s an entirely different set ofnthe developer’s. If I’m lucky, there’s a way to navigate to my home directory without going all the eay to the root and working up from there, more than likely not…
Best of all, it’s one of those Save dialogues that thinks it’s smart tomenumerate the entire goddamned filesystem, network mounts and all, before it will respond to any input at all, leading to the window manager eventually fretting that maybe the application has crashed… Or perhaps it’s one of those ones related to Dolphin that thinks it understands WebDAV mounts better than davfs, except that it actually doesn’t and you end up saving to a temporary directory just so you can move the file where you actually wanted it from the commandline…
aaaaaargh
Don’t get me wrong, I use Linux on all my machines and have been a Unix user since NetBSD 0.8 (33 years, fml…) But clicking “save” or “open” is one of those things that has me shaking my head thinking “how can it STILL be this bad” every time.
Each application is using the save dialog from whatever graphics API it was made in. GTK, qt, some tK ones are still kicking around…
Wait till you use a Mac!
Somehow they saw that and said “Hold my Beer” and went out of their way to ensure their users get maximum RSI pain.
For someone used to desktop Linux, where respect for the user, consistency, customisability, and performance are still held in high regard, Windows 11 feels like an endless string of punches in the face.
I’ve been forced to use windows for some propriety software during uni. I got a laptop from IT with higher specs than my old one and:
- It runs worse than my old shitty laptop
- It boots up slower than my old shitty laptop
- The battery icon was missing from the taskbar for some ungodly reason (I had to get IT to force an update)
- The internet it gets is way worse than my old shitty laptop. I do not know why
So yeah I’m not using Windows 11 ever again
I use windows 11 at work. I run solidworks, which is a 3D CAD/modeling program so my work computer is reasonably powerful with a decent chunk of RAM.
My laptop from 2020 uses mint. It’s faster, although I havent tried to use solidworks on it because I’d have no idea where to start on getting that to run.
Only way I’ve found to get solidworks to run on Linux is to run a windows 11 VM using virtual machine manager (VMM). Ideally with GPU passthrough, among other optimizations. Kind of runs like shit on my Thinkpad T580 though, which is to be expected for an 8th gen quad core i5 laptop from 2018…
I’ve tried FreeCAD recently, and it isn’t that bad. The latest updates (v1.0 and beyond) have made it much better than it used to be. It helps to watch video guides, as the workflows are a little different. I found this one to be helpful: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9cqs3oTzpac
Every time I’ve tried to use freecad its been basically useless due to nothing working the way it does in pretty much every other CAD program. Every once in a while I give it a shot because someone swears that its been fixed.
Oh FreeCAD definitely works in strange ways, mainly in the UX department, where it still needs work (kinda like GIMP does). Building a model in a broad sense is similar to solidworks (sketches extruded to 3d, cutting off material from there, etc), but understanding which workbench does what and navigating things is kind of a pain, even now.
Then again, it was similarly frustrating when I had to use fusion 360 instead of solidworks for a project. CAD programs are generally complex pieces of software, so it isn’t surprising that switching to one you aren’t familiar with really slows you down.
Yeah i have to use W11 for work and the brand new Dell XPS, upper mid range, they gave me compared to my 2017 i3 with linux and all this is true.
About the half the time i boot it and the network just doesn’t connect. Wired or WiFi. Have to unplug the dock and reconnect it. DNS will drop for 10s at random.
There’s times my laptop shows it age like i was bulk processing a load of photos, just resizing, and it took several minutes when the newer cpu was probably several seconds but that’s the hardware, not the software.
I’m gonna ask a dumb question here and hope for a not dumb answer. When the author says “I know UI consistency has been a dirty word ever since the web and then iOS rose to prominence”, what exactly are they referring to?
Best guess : Web interfaces are known for being inconsistent because they don’t follow any particular OS-specific design language. And I’ve seen people complaining about MacOS being really inconsistent, especially in its use of menu icons (what an essay!), and I’ve seen some people complain the bad UI practices come from iOS.
Going further down the rabbit hole, most software now, if not bundled with the OS, is produced 3rd parties who often have their own established brand and design language.
It used to be if you were making an app for Windows, you somewhat tried to use the existing design language for your app. Nowadays if you’re a big company you want your interface to be consistent no matter what is it’s running on, so you set your own rules.
Linux still has this as well, but its less prominent because of the general ethos of trying to create an app to do one thing and do it well. Things are shifting as big companies jump on the Linux train though, who knows what it’ll look like in 10 years.
There’s a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes.
Not sure why that warrants a yikes; macOS is far more usable than Windows 11. I’d go so far as to call it downright pleasant in comparison.
I wouldn’t say so. PowerToys and WSL are absolutely incredible tools for advanced users.
Maybe it’s because I’m more used to windows but my experience any time I’ve had to use mac at work is I’d rather just be fired. At least with a bit of work you can set windows up to mostly fuck off but I’ve never figured out how to do that with mac so it aggressively gets in my way when coding and doing qa
In what ways does it aggressively get in your way?
Most annoying thing for me was their file explorer thing. It’s as if I’m on a phone. It’s not a real file explorer.
I think real mac users have to buy third party software so they can have an actual file explorer…
Finder? I don’t really have a problem with it. I feel like it’s just as full featured as what you get on Lennox or windows.
I hate the multi desktop stuff.
Drag a window to top of screen and it doesn’t snap full screen fast enough or consistantly.
Doesn’t like to display 1 window across 2 screens.
Sometimes a window will shoot off to the side past the visible desktop for god knows what reason.
You can’t nativly set up the mouse scroll to work in reverse direction to the touch pad.
I’m still not sure how to uninstall things.
When my headphone cable is plugged in and I turn on the Mac it insists to make the boot sound though the speakers as an advertizment to the world that there is a Mac around.
If I click x on a browser or app, it doesnt actually shut the program, it just minimizes it.
I can’t easily see the size of hard drives/folders and how much space is left available.
Files are just scattered willy nilly in a folder instead of snapped to a grid unless I set that folders defaults…per folder?! Instead of across the whole OS
They are my personal top of mind gripes.
Longtime Mac user here. Most of this is valid, and some of these are my biggest gripes.
A couple tips:
I can’t easily see the size of hard drives/folders and how much space is left available.
In the Finder, go to View > Show Status Bar. That’ll show you free space easily. (This used to be on by default. I don’t remember when they changed it, probably with 10.7 Lion’s increased iOS-ification.)
Files are just scattered willy nilly in a folder instead of snapped to a grid unless I set that folders defaults…per folder?!
From a Finder window in icon view, go to View > Show View Options. Select Sort By > Snap to Grid, then click “Use as Defaults”. Then it will apply to all your folders that use the default view. Why is “Snap to grid” under “Sort” when it does not sort? WHO KNOWS?!
That said, icon view suuuuuucks. Learn to love list view and you will be happier for it. I gave up on icon view like 25 years ago, after migrating from Mac OS 9. Apple half-assedly ported the Mac OS 9 Finder, and then proceeded to neglect it for a decade or two. At least you can change the grid spacing now.
Doesn’t like to display 1 window across 2 screens.
I’m not totally sure how it works now, but I think this changes if you go to System Settings > Desktop and Dock and turn off the “Displays have Separate Spaces” box.
I’m still not sure how to uninstall things.
There’s no universal method. :(
Basic case: just drag the app to the trash. This will leave your user settings in place in ~/Library/Preferences.
Complex cases should have a vendor-supplied uninstaller. For manual cleanup, you have to hunt through your /Library and ~/Library folders to delete related junk from the vendor. Mostly this will be in the LaunchAgents and Application Support folders. But again, no universal method.
If I click x on a browser or app, it doesnt actually shut the program, it just minimizes it.
This is the one thing I strongly disagree about, although I totally understand how it feels wrong when you’ve spent years learning different behavior.
It’s one of the biggest fundamental differences between Mac and Windows UI design, going all the way back to the 80s: Windows is window-centric (I mean…hence the name, right?), while Mac OS is application-centric.
You can still interact with Mac applications with no windows open, via the menu bar. Closing a window and quitting an application are two entirely different concepts. This is not the same as “minimizing” the app. An app can be in the foreground with no open windows. There are plenty of times when I close the last window in an app with the intent to continue using the app (e.g. opening another file or creating a new one).
Fun fact: many years ago, Apple made a few of their apps behave this way by default, with an option to change it back to normal Mac behavior. TextEdit, Preview, and maybe QuickTime Player. Just those few. I guess they wanted to accommodate Windows users’ expectations, but it was so half-assed that all it did was ensure that everyone was confused at some point by the inconsistency. They only recently changed it back so we have consistency by default again, but now there’s no option at all. Go figure. I wouldn’t mind if they implemented an option in a whole-assed way, but I’d go absolutely batty if Windows-like behavior were forced on me.
I get frustrated with the track pads. Sometimes they click, sometimes they drag, sometimes they right click. I know its number of fingers and pressure/speed of clicking? I’m sure it’s great if you learn it, but nobody else has adopted it.
Oh, and 2 programs side by side and you have to jump between menus of both of them for whatever reason. The whole “1 menu per desktop” is frustrating
Turn off the force click option and it’s WAY easier. Force click makes it so pressing “soft” and “hard” are two different actions. If you aren’t used to it, and even sometimes when you are used to it, it does some unexpected things.
Thanks I’ll have a fiddle when I get back to work.
Coming from an IT background. I 100% agree with this assessment.
The scroll thing is annoying. I like the “natural” scroll on a touchpad but not a mouse also.
The multi desktop is the same as on Windows and Linux… I don’t use it on any system. I like how MacOS handles fullscreen apps better than either of those.
You can disable the startup sound very easily: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102230
I have only used mirroring to external monitor and not extending a desktop, so I don’t know. As far as maximization I personally hate windows expanding when I move them to the top of the screen. It’s rarely what I want so I turn it off. If I want to maximize it, I hit the green button.
You uninstall Apps by dragging their folder from the Applications folder to the trash can.
Closing the window and leaving the application running is how MacOS has worked forever for some Steve Jobs reason. I am used to hitting Cmd-Q.
The folder stuff can be weird. The way the Desktop icons work is one of the worst aspects, thigh they kind of fixed that (using expanding smart folders or whatever used to be chaos if they had a lot of items in them).
You can check the usage of a Volume from right clicking it in Finder and choosing Get Info. Or just df -h
There’s an app called scroll reverser, can change scroll direction for trackpad and mouse separately. I’m the same as you and want “natural” for trackpad and “normal” for mouse.
These seem like mostly familiarity issues, where Windows issues are malicious in nature.
No, OS X aggressively resists customization or convenience. There’s the Apple way to do pretty much everything and the painful way which is anything but the Apple way. Windows is anti-consumer because they want to harvest your data and cram ads down your throat. OS X just doesn’t care what you want or what you would prefer and will actively punish you if you attempt to deviate from the way it thinks you should be doing things. If something doesn’t work the way you want tough, OS X makes you adapt to it rather than trying to adapt to you.
This is because a Mac is basically a giant iPad with a keyboard. Everything is abstracted away, so if you’re actually a computer person and try and take command of what’s going on, the giant iPad will say “no you can’t do that” constantly
It feels like trying to drive a car with no steering wheel or pedals, and you’re expected to vibe your way through it with an overly helpful touchscreen interface running interference. Like just please God just give me the steering wheel
Not quite. They’ve tried to adapt some iOS stuff to Mac now that iOS is by farther bigger operating system, but Max are at the core Unix, and you can access everything. You have a zsh shell and can do whatever you want with it. For instance if you get sick of the music app opening, just go remove the x flag from the executable. Can’t do that on an iPad. It’s really quite a capable desktop operating system and after using Linux for 15 years, I decided that I was tired of spending six days a year trying to configure my sound card and I’ve been pretty happy with a MacBook.
This just isn’t true. How much experience do you have using Mac’s and iPads? They are wildly different.
I’ve used both a lot. iPads are good, they get the job done. Macs piss me off
That’s very interesting to me. iPads are essentially toys, Mac’s can actually do real work.
Maybe everyone has their biases, but MacOS is often terrible in comparison to Windows, at least in my experience. Hell simply things like snapping windows appropriately MacOS absolutely is trash at still.
It’s always seemed to me that MacOS is still suffering from design decisions made back in the 80’s when it was running on a single 9" monochrome screen, and Apple is far too stubborn to change it.
At least Microsoft isn’t afraid to change things up, even if a lot of their UI changes are end up pretty questionable.
Different workflow, macOS does not expect you to snap windows. I’m not 100% familiar with the macOS workflow, but I know it’s different.
That’s the issue. IMHO. A desktop environment should not dictate how the user use it. That’s just stupid.
You realize you can change it right? Macs aren’t locked down at all, you can configure anything you want.
Mine works very similar to windows (I think, haven’t used windows in ages), where you drag to the edge/top for full screen or split screen.
Not locked down at all? I’d be surprised if you can even change the wallpaper. :D
I like being given a workflow designed by UX engineers, it means I don’t have to think about it and I can just do my work instead of figuring out the best workflow.
My opinion is that computers should stay out of the way as much as possible. It’s an appliance.
I like being given a workflow designed by UX engineers, it means I don’t have to think about it and I can just do my work instead of figuring out the best workflow.
And that’s perfectly fine, and probably the most sensible thing ad well. However. The user should have the option to do whatever they want to.
My opinion is that computers should stay out of the way as much as possible. It’s an appliance.
Exactly! And that’s not possible if you have to fight it every time you use it.
I agree, user choice is important, which is why I use Linux :) (GNOME)
Linux based operating systems is great! However. GNOME? Can you even change the wallpaper there? :D
Yeah mac os is the best middle ground. It is a lot more like Linux than Windows will ever be
God I really hope someone figures out Wayland+Wacom. I cannot wait to escape Windows
I’m stuck on windows for HDR compatibility reasons.
Absolutely sucks. I hate it so much. You can’t do anything with the computer.
Wacom tablets should work with KDE and Wayland. They work great with X11 though.
Yea, I know. Thanks. It’s what people told me (users and developers) but it just doesn’t work for me. You’re right that it works fine with the X11 session. The problems have been the same in every Wayland distro I tried (Debian Trixie, Nobara 42 and Bazzite something) and are consistent between two (very different) tablets, so I ended up ruling out the hardware. At least on the tablet side…, because I have yet to try the same thing on my laptop to rule out any potential signal issue with my USBs
tl;dr it needs a little more investigation on my part to explain why it doesn’t seem reproducible for other users
X11?
Apparently Wayland has become default in most distros, and actually installing X11 back on some of them is a lot of work (it was straightforward only on CachyOS) and I don’t have the tux-fu to wedge it in by sheer hackery.
So there’s this end of life situation and the fact that I work with different monitors and do CGI so there’s a few more downsides there too (scaling, color management)
Oh, yes… to input specific characters or disable caps lock, one needs to hack the registry with hex codes…
Stunning Windows goes still as user-friendly.
Edit: If you were lacking a reason to try modern Linux user Interfaces, try GNOME desktop with PaperWM. It works great on my 40’ display…
You can use PowerToys for Windows to (among other things) disable caps lock. I’m no fan of Microsoft, but they do provide PowerToys for free and there is a lot of useful stuff in it.
Should I applaud them for collecting a bunch of open source tools, which should never even have to be written and instead included in the OS, and bundling them in PowerToys?
Well… You do? It’s a software for a small userbase, mostly for edge-case scenarios - there’s no wonder why it’s not built-in. Nonetheless, it’s a first-party, very good software that was created with a big love.
PowerToys is incredible. It would be good if we saw suits like this for other platforms.
I love powertoys. It’s potentially (along with C#/.Net) the best thing Microsoft have made.
PowerToys is the sole reason I somewhat get along with binbows on my work laptop.
I linked to the top search result.
Stunning Windows goes still as user-friendly.
I mean I get we are supposed to hate Windows here but highlighting a specific thing that very few people would even want to try and use that as a reason to doubt it’s user friendliness is just picking at straws. There’s tons of reasons that Windows can be interpreted as not user friendly already.
Matches my experiences between using Linux at home for decades, and being forced to deal with Windows at work. Luckily, I can drop all the shitty problems on IT…
Thanks! Lol
aww…he deeed
Windows has went to shit. But I have a soft spot for older versions.
Win2000 was my favorite. I ran multiple beta ISOs up until it’s official release. Thanks to Microsoft Partners uploading them to newsgroups.
I’m actually messing around with it now. I am looking at all the old games. I got super confused with the FreeCell game it came with. I totally forgot how to play it and had to look it up, lol.
Windows 7 was peak Windows, at least from a usability standpoint.
What Windows says now, LOL!!
Coming from XP, 7 felt like an upgrade, but I wouldn’t say I was enamoured. Peak Windows for me was 2000, and while it probably lacks more useful modern features than I recall, I definitely still think it’s the best looking, and the visually most well put together version of Windows there has ever been.
I love Linux, and I love how it has managed to bring back, or even surpass, the enjoyment and the sense of wonder and possibilities, that I used to feel in regards to computer use, back then. And I love how it enables me to install, create and customise any graphical elements of the desktop environment to my liking. One of the first things I managed to do, after switching to Linux, was, in fact, to convert my desktop into a very convincing Windows 2000 look-alike - just looking at the desktop, I doubt many people would have been able to tell that it wasn’t actually the real McCoy. Nowadays, though, I wouldn’t want my desktop to look like Windows of any variety. I use a few different styles, depending on mood, that are all either replicas of other, real desktop environments from the 90’s, or they’re imaginary “fantasy desktops” from the 90’s of an alternate reality. I love that can just do that, not just because I love that particular aesthetic, but also because it is SO much more usable for me. The current trends in visual design, aren’t just off putting to me, it’s difficult and straining to parse too, what with the contrasts that are all out of whack, and lines and outlines all but seemingly banned, and with all the drop shadows and the transparency effects, and things fading and sliding around everywhere all the time, it’s just so much visual noise, and it makes my head hurt. The late 90’s is when GUIs and the graphical part of UX were at their peak, in terms of usability and readability, if you ask me. It’s sad to me that almost every type of design since has seemingly been a direct or indirect rejection of that period. I wonder how much better GUIs could be, if they had stuck with all the things that worked well from back then, and had then continued to build off of that.
Sorry I think I went off on a tangent there.
As for 7 being the peak in terms of usability, what with some of the features it had over earlier versions, you may be right. I think 7 was the first version that had indexed searches, or at least had them enabled by default, and I remember how good that felt, experiencing it for the first time. But wasn’t 10, on release, pretty equivalent to 7, really? IIRC, much of its dark patterns, ads, spyware and enshittification was only added gradually over its lifetime, wasn’t it? Going by memory, I think I even appreciated the minor facelift it got, as it seemed essentially like the same thing, but with the Vista-esque/Aero-style glassy, glossy, noisy stuff gone or heavily muted and toned down, which made it much less distracting.
Please tell me you have posted screenshots somewhere of your fantacy 90s desktops. Sounds awesome.
I still think Win2K was the true peak. Everything since has been clown shoes and bloat.
… but I have to admit that my Mint Cinnamon customisation looks a whole lot more 7 than it does 2K.
Ah, yes! Light gray text on white background. Perfectly legible.
