I'm nearing a year of using this Linux laptop as a 50% daily driver and I really have to say…
Linux's quality of life on an ordinary laptop is *embarrassing*.
Like, I'm able to use it. But it is embarrassing. No normal person would put up with the garbage desktop Linux puts me through. I put up with it because I'm stubborn and ideologically motivated.
I see problems including, but not limited to
- When I close the laptop lid and open it again, a shocking percentage of the time it does not wake up and I have to force power it off ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-oem-6.8/+bug/2064595 , ongoing since April)
- Every time I briefly brush my fingers against the screen, GNOME enters an entirely broken "touchscreen mode" in which it pretends my keyboard and mouse don't exist. It fixes itself after an unpredictable amount of time ranging from 5 to 30 seconds. Can't be disabled
[Impact] On some OEM platforms observed bad suspend occurs on lid close and power LED stays on without normal sleep behavior at that time. Needs to call GFXOFF to the right state during the suspend stage. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/ca299b4512d4b4f516732a48ce9aa19d91f4473e Closes: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues/3132 Fixes: ab4750332dbe [Test case] test that s2idle works after installing the update [Regression potential] minimal
- Firefox can't show image previews when selecting attachments (because of "security", somehow)
- Often, when I direct a program to open a new window, GNOME refuses to let the program do it, and instead opens the window at the back of the stack and shows a top-of-screen notification letting me know there's a new window (I guess also "security")
- Just fresh weird stuff happening at random intervals. Since last week, when I right click in Firefox, I can't click on the menu. It's happening RN
@mcc > I just want Snap/Flatpak to like… work right.
That would be a huge improvement in my experience.
@mcc I agree that as an end user you shouldn't have to care about the philosophy of native v/s namespace v/s whatever snap does, you should just be able to trust the OS default to JustWork(tm).
but this is kind of why I have been against this whole snap and flatpak business. I trust my distro, and by extension, the native packages the maintainers have put in the repos to work well in concert with each other.
@mcc wait we have brew on Linux?
anyway yeah, you are describing why I slowly moved from ubuntu -> mint -> arch . ubuntu got annoying, and mint packages were always old. I know arch is a meme, but its been working for me, and I will move to something else when it stops working for me?
@double_a_runi I was using OS X locally and linux only on servers until quite recently! Then I rapidly abandoned Mac for Windows and then rapidly abandoned Windows for Linux.
But also, yeah, you can use Homebrew on Linux, if you're feeling adventurous… https://docs.brew.sh/Homebrew-on-Linux
@mcc curl to bash to install, looks promising.
sorry I have nothing useful to reply, I've used brew to install lima on macos, so I can have linux in there, but not beyond that. I don't know how it works, and what kind of conflicts it can have.
@mcc if you prefer newer versions, you may want to try Arch (or Endeavour OS, which is basically Arch, but with a more user-friendly installation process, and even more shiny new things). In the last couple of years, I barely did any maintenance to make it work for me, and I'm on Wayland and all.
Also, in my experience, KDE is much more sensible than Gnome. I love it. It's still nice even when compared to OS X, and a lot better than Windows 11.
@mcc @double_a_runi apologies if you already know this: ubuntu cuts from debian's "testing" repositories twice a year (for 04 and 10), and packages aren't really updated beyond that except for browsers and a few other bits.
distros with "fresher" packages exist: fedora is great for this, it has a solid testing process too before packages hit live.
ubuntu (and debian) have a long history of... kinda hacking packages up a bit. debian does it predominantly to split them out, ubuntu adds more to do "ubuntu-centric" things to them sometimes. occasionally this collides with upstream a bit.
like with package age, distros with "more vanilla" packages exist (again, fedora, incidentally).
Bluefin and Aurora have Homebrew well integrated
@double_a_runi @mcc It might be worth pointing out that Snap is the result of more than a decade of on-and-off work by the package maintainers you trust.
Like, “we need to develop something like Snap” was a topic at one of the first Ubuntu Developers' Summit I attended (back when those were big 6 monthly community events).
Snap and Flatpak are not some weird technology imposed on distro maintainers from outside. They are distro maintainer technology, built by distro maintainers to solve problems that distro maintainers have¹!
¹: And, by extension, solve problems that users have.
@RAOF @double_a_runi @mcc regardless of this being true or not, snap and flatpak are *horrifically* bad experiences much of the time (not least of which is due to seriously janky CLI and UI to manage them), and really should not be pushed so heavily.
I quite like the concept. It's important.
The implementations are an absurd travesty.
@mcc Snaps gave me soooo many problems in 2018 that I stopped using Ubuntu. It was a "Vista" moment for me.
IME I don't have problems with Flatpaks but I don't use them often either
@mcc I try not to use snap because got tired of path and config issues, and that there's no easy way to remove cache or old installs, it can quickly fill a drive.
My experience with Linux desktop is similar to windows nowadays in terms of time invested in removing bloat and configure tools, and cursing the system due to crashes (I don't have access to freshly new hardware so whatever I get has some years of testing and fixes on top)
@mcc A lot of this sounds like problems with the desktop environment rather than Linux itself, granted that it's hard to distinguish for new users definitely, but you might try with KDE.
I'm running Kubuntu on my laptop, under the hood it's the same as Ubuntu, but it's kitted out with KDE as my desktop and haven't seen these issues.
@double_a_runi I am very picky about margins on interface elements and IMO the ones in GNOME are Good and the ones in KDE and FVWM are Bad . Despite this I may switch to KDE at some point simply because I very much like Qt.
My current plan is to shelter in place until Cosmic lands (see post elsewhere in thread) and if I'm already doing that then switching to Kubuntu only to quickly tear it down again is not a good use of time.
@mcc @double_a_runi You can install multiple DE/WM and swap between them to try them out without installing a new OS. This command offers the basic options, but there are more:
sudo tasksel
At the login prompt when booting up, there is probably a drop-down somewhere to choose which of the installed options you want to boot into this time.
COSMIC will naturally take some time to mature as a new project, so perhaps it won't be a waste of time to install Kubuntu until that happens.
Despite using openSUSE Tumbleweed, I do think that Kubuntu is a rather good KDE distro to pick. However with some of your issues, you may want to look into installing the native DEB or Flatpak Firefox package instead.
@mcc I didn't see it in the thread, but what laptop are you using?
(Not that it's relevant to your case, but I've used Ubuntu on Thinkpads -- never, ever the latest model, however -- for a long time with good results.)
@dangillmor Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 (AMD). I specifically selected this machine for Linux compatibiliy… >_>
I think that my most serious problems stem from:
- Using newest versions of Ubuntu instead of 22.04
- Third parties having poor support for HiDPI and high resolution scrollwheel events
- Me trying (at first, not now) to use Wayland
- Intentional features of Snap, and my refusal to use non-Snap methods of installing software when a Snap is available
@levlaz @dangillmor Yeah. I … didn't expect this to be the case. "Well of course you don't install LTS until it hits .1" is apparently common knowledge in the Linux desktop community but was not common knowledge to me.
LTS: "Long term support but NOT short term support"???
@mcc Yeah, I'm cautious about using the latest OS if I have a choice. I'll probably wait for 24.04.2 before I upgrade Ubuntu on my primary machine (and will do a clean install).
Also yeah re screen resolution stuff, not ideal (though I mostly use the machine in clamshell mode with big external monitor).
I like/hate Snaps and Flatpacks and even .deb but wish the ecosystem would settle on something and stick with it.
If you ever have to use the command line, an OS is not for "regular" folks.
> If you ever have to use the command line, an OS is not for "regular" folks.
Hmm. I'm old enough to remember when Windows users used the command line too. Regular folks did that. (I am quite old, though.) And later plenty of Windows "how to" guides would tell you to do it, or worse, screw with the registry. Isn't that still a thing?
Perhaps you're right; I don't know. Maybe those guides aren't for "regular" Windows users.
Except -- "regular"? All users are different...
@fishidwardrobe @dangillmor @mcc Macintosh came out in 1984 and demonstrated, then, 40(!!!) years ago, that the command line was not necessary to run a computer. If the Linux community hasn't internalized that learning in FORTY YEARS than they deserve to be roundly mocked for it, in my opinion.
"Regular folks" did that, ever, because they didn't have a choice, not because they enjoyed it.
@mcc @fishidwardrobe @dangillmor It's no stretch to convince me Windows is getting worse over time. All software companies seem to have just given up on the entire concept of QA.
I've never had to use the registry editor or CLI in Windows, though, so maybe you have to "often" do it, but I think you're an outlier there frankly.
@blakeyrat @mcc @fishidwardrobe @dangillmor you don’t get it for free though. even if it comes with your device, manufacturers pay microsoft licensing fees to include it by default, which drives up the cost of their devices.
and even if that weren’t the case, i strongly disagree with allowing that to simply be the “price you pay,” when it comes with all sorts of social ills
@blakeyrat @mcc @dangillmor Speaking personally I find there is a large gap between "I found it neccessary to do X" and "I wanted to do X". Not at all the same thing.
Nor am I sure you are getting Windows for free in any real sense, unless off Pirate Bay?
Just my POV; don't know that MCC would agree.
@mcc Sorry you're experiencing all this. Luckily you didn't get any "patches welcome" response...
That some people still "don't understand" why folks keep using Windows or macOS is astonishing.
mcc
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