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I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people. So I'

I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people. So I'm always surprised when I stumble upon somebody using it. Just recently I took a Google Cloud training course and the instructor used it as his daily driver. Not only was this impressive to see "out in the wild" but it was nice to see all the tools needed to lead a remote training course worked in his setup. He had a webcam working great (even focused/panned on him as he moved). He had a powerpoint/slideshow going. He had zoom/teleconferencing software working. And it all worked through the course. There was never 10-20 minute pause because something wasn't working right. Having this level of viability and operability is something I never expected to see.

AQuantized 2y ago
This comment is a bit odd to me since I don't think those basic things you mention have been difficult to get working on most distros for quite a while now.
- michaelt 2y ago
  I mean, Ubuntu did break screen sharing for a while 2 years ago [1] [1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407494/screen-share-not-working-in-ubuntu-22-04-in-all-platforms-zoom-teams-google-m https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407494/screen-share-not-wor...
- ryandrake 2y ago
  These threads always seem to oscillate back and forth between "It's 2024 and you can't get Peripheral X working with Linux!" and "Peripheral X's have worked for 20 years now!"
  - chihuahua 2y ago
    That probably means that it works for some people, but not all. So if you want to use peripheral X, maybe you get lucky and you have just the right versions of hardware and software, and it works. Or maybe you're unlucky, and it doesn't work, and you can spend months trying to get it work. It's just not how I want to spend my time.
    - fsflover 2y ago
      It's just that some people check the Linux compatibility before the hardware purchase, while others rely on pure luck.
      - pizza234 2y ago
        That's pretty much impossible. In a sibling thread I explained that even if a machine is Ubuntu certified, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's compatible in real world. Assembled PCs tend to be more compatible (because of more standard components), but on the othe hand each individual component doesn't receive the coverage (testing) as laptops. There was no way for me to know that my mobo's sleep is broken on Linux, even if the previous mobos from the same producer had good compatibility.
        pessimizer 2y ago
        > In a sibling thread I explained that even if a machine is Ubuntu certified, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's compatible in real world. I've never even heard of Ubuntu certification. I instead search for people who are using the product I wish to buy with Linux, and see what they say about its compatibility. This always works. So it is not pretty much impossible.
        pizza234 2y ago
        > I instead search for people who are using the product I wish to buy with Linux, and see what they say about its compatibility I'm not sure if you refer to friends or strangers on the internet. In the former case, one is restricted to a very small pool of models to choose from. In the latter case, "strangers on the internet" who say that their hardware "works perfectly", are typically completely unreliable; saying "my hardware works perfectly is treated as a badge of honor, so there's a perverse incentive. One example, in a lot I've personally experience, is that I've read from multiple "strangers on the internet" that the wifi from the laptop I'm typing from, "works perfectly". In reality, the Linux drivers are half broken (on Linux, it has a poor signal).
  - tomwheeler 2y ago
    I'd imagine that the Linux users who report success are probably more selective when it comes to hardware. It's been my primary OS for 25+ years and I've seldom faced compatibility issues, but I also do my research and buy accordingly.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Cunningham's law in action. The first camp are asking how to get it to work.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  It depends on which day of the week it is. Ok a bit flippant, but I've been running KDE on my NUC as a secondary desktop for years now. Most of the time it works fairly well, but then suddenly something breaks or needs tweaking. And when it does it's often not trivial for a non-geek to handle. That said, if they can get Krdp working properly, I'll almost certainly switch to KDE as my main driver, and demote Windows to my secondary.
- vitorgrs 2y ago
  Weirdly, by compatibility is better on Linux than on Windows. On Windows, on a clean install, I need to install the drivers from WU to get audio working, etc. And then I need to open Intel website to get the latest Bluetooth driver, go to Dell to get the latest wifi, as on Windows Update's these are not the latest. And even after all of this, some of the drivers on Linux is better maintained, because the support for old Intel GPUs on Windows is very short. Meanwhile, on Linux, I get Vulkan support, and all recent drivers on my Broadwell. Video perf is way better on Linux here.
oblio 2y ago
Sorry to be a downer but a cloud instructor is still a techie. I'd be way more impressed with a lawyer or an accountant using it but I've never seen one so far.
- layer8 2y ago
  > Having this level of viability and operability is something I never expected to see. It’s unexpected even in the case of techies.
- perbu 2y ago
  fwiw; I worked in a company that was kind of a Linux pioneer back in the 90s. We ran Linux for everyone. The accountant ran a VM for his accouting software, but except that everything was Linux. And once set up, it worked very well, for techies and non-technical alike. If you get past installation and initial setup, using Linux in a desktop role isn't really challenging if you've got access to support.
  - szundi 2y ago
    I don’t believe lawyers can live without ms office
    - rossant 2y ago
      I sometimes work with lawyers and doctors. As a Linux user I always need to have a macbook around for when I need MS Word.
    - trelane 2y ago
      It used to be that they couldn't live without Word Perfect. Funny how that changed.
cyberpunk 2y ago
It's 2024 and we're suprised by a webcam working. It makes me a bit sad somehow.
- fanatic2pope 2y ago
  I cannot even remember the last time I plugged in a web cam and it didn't work on Linux. Just yesterday I borrowed a USB inspection camera from a friend in order to help me run a new ethernet line to my shop. The kit came with a "WIFI dongle" that you are supposed to use with your phone and some random app, but instead I just plugged it into my laptop, fired up Cheese and it came up immediately.
  - bpfrh 2y ago
    External webcams are no problem, agreed. New-ish laptops with intel tiger lake procesors use MIPI cameras with ipu6 and don't work out of the box or only on specific kernel/distro combos. There are efforts to mainline the driver and it is better than 2 years ago but still a big step backwards[1] [1]https://github.com/intel/ipu6-drivers https://github.com/intel/ipu6-drivers
    - jauntywundrkind 2y ago
      To Intel's credit ipu6 packs a ton a ton a ton of super advanced capabilities in. Having a good video pipeline is a huge edge. That it took a while for upstreaming to get really into gear on Linux does not super astound me. This feels like a place where we need to expect the open source world to have to find its purchase first before traction forward can really start. This was a super shitty experience though. It really felt unplanned & chaotic. Hopefully some of the kernel architecture carved out for ipu6 is good & useful for running other video pipelines. Most webcammers don't knowingly think heavily on color science, but ideally our devices can.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    We owe Apple here. The lack of device drivers for iOS means that manufacturers had to start getting serious about ensuring their devices follow USB class specifications, because otherwise they will not work on an iPad. Linux (which has USB class drivers) has only benefitted from this.
sickofparadox 2y ago
I'm always befuddled by comments like this. I have been daily driving Linux (arch,btw) for quite a while, and I have never once had a driver issue, even with NVIDIA graphics cards. The only times I run into issues is when I am trying to run games with anti-cheat, but even that is being worked on by Valve. Linux mostly just works in my experience, I don't see where the idea comes from that its a huge blocker, minus the lack of specialized software.
- bpfrh 2y ago
  Friend of mine got a new laptop which i recommended without looking closely on the specs, as it was listed as supported on ubuntu a lenovo yoga x 11 gen I think. Found out afterwards that the version with windows preinstalled(that the friend bought, because of the cheap windows licence that maybe needed) comes with a special mipi camera from intel with ipu6 out-of-tree driver that only supports specific kernels and specific distros and while there are packages for ubuntu I couldn't get it to work. Linux works if you don't buy the wrong hardware, windows works on any bought hardware. I'm not against linux and I use it and most of the time it works out of the box, but this "most of the time" will bite you when you stop looking at specific reviews and driver support and just buy a laptop.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    > but this "most of the time" will bite you when you stop looking at specific reviews and driver support and just buy a laptop. I've never once looked at reviews. The only time I've been bitten in the last 20 years was when given a MBP for work (the intel model with butterfly keys). There's definitely edge cases out there. But these days they're exactly that: edge cases.
    - bpfrh 2y ago
      I said that linux mostly works out of the box, but your "edge cases" where in this case: All lenovo yoga x1 models from the 8. gen onwards with windows preinstalled e.g. over 2 years All lenovo carbon x1 models from the 10. gen onwards with windows preinstalled e.g. over 3 years I'm pretty sure it also affects all newer hp and dell models since at least ~2023 It's great that your choice of laptops are never the ones that are broken, but then again, I never said linux never works. Even if you set aside the webcam problem, the lenovo laptops who where always called out for their good linux support had problems: The 2016 yoga x1 model couldn't get to sleep (s3i problem which many laptops had) and if it good back from sleep it need a special command to reconnect trackpad and trackpoint. There where some special patches to make it work and after about a year it worked, still not a possibility for non technical people The 2016 thinkpad x1 carbon gen. 6 model sometimes needs a special command to reconnect the trackpad and trackpoint, think that got fixed after ~3 years. Neither of theses devices have a working fingerprint sensor, I can't even think of one that works with linux Neither of these devices had a supported mobile (lte) modem, as the built in modem wasn't supported and you can't change it because the bios has only whitelisted the preinstalled model. The new s3i sleep modus also made it impossible for linux laptops to sleep for about a year until it was fixed. Did all of this get better over time? Yes Will every big new hardware thing still mean that some linux things are broken for some time? Yes Again, linux works for most of the hardware most of the time, but this will bite you when you expect certain things or devices to work.
p4bl0 2y ago
I felt taken back before mid-2000 reading this comment. I mean it's been easily 15 years since those very basic things really just works on all the major Linux distributions.
- neogodless 2y ago
  I recently tried Linux Mint, initially Cinnamon, then installed KDE Plasma. In the former fractional scaling was badly broken. In the latter, I couldn't control screen brightness. Overall almost everything worked but not all things. And I'm used to working through technical hiccups and being patient. But ultimately there's no guarantee "Linux" will be fully functional on your unique hardware setup, and it's still challenging to choose distribution, windows manager, desktop environment, etc and there's no way to know which combo is best for your hardware without a lot of time consuming trial and error.
chgs 2y ago
My mother-in-law remarried about 5 years ago. Her husband used to operate some oven cleaning business pre retirement, not exactly “techie” He uses linux, has done for years, he just wants something that works.
TacticalCoder 2y ago
> I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people. Same: I was already using Debian 1.1 (1.1, not 11) on the desktop or something like that. But why not talk about it? I switched both my wife (she's very OK with tech) and my mother-in-law (she's not good with tech) to desktop Linux. If my mother-in-law can use Linux, everybody can. Most people nowadays only need one app: a browser and Linux is totally for that use case, which is about 99% of all users' out there's usecase.

AQuantized 2y ago

This comment is a bit odd to me since I don't think those basic things you mention have been difficult to get working on most distros for quite a while now.

michaelt 2y ago
I mean, Ubuntu did break screen sharing for a while 2 years ago [1] [1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407494/screen-share-not-working-in-ubuntu-22-04-in-all-platforms-zoom-teams-google-m https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407494/screen-share-not-wor...
ryandrake 2y ago
These threads always seem to oscillate back and forth between "It's 2024 and you can't get Peripheral X working with Linux!" and "Peripheral X's have worked for 20 years now!"
- chihuahua 2y ago
  That probably means that it works for some people, but not all. So if you want to use peripheral X, maybe you get lucky and you have just the right versions of hardware and software, and it works. Or maybe you're unlucky, and it doesn't work, and you can spend months trying to get it work. It's just not how I want to spend my time.
  - fsflover 2y ago
    It's just that some people check the Linux compatibility before the hardware purchase, while others rely on pure luck.
    - pizza234 2y ago
      That's pretty much impossible. In a sibling thread I explained that even if a machine is Ubuntu certified, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's compatible in real world. Assembled PCs tend to be more compatible (because of more standard components), but on the othe hand each individual component doesn't receive the coverage (testing) as laptops. There was no way for me to know that my mobo's sleep is broken on Linux, even if the previous mobos from the same producer had good compatibility.
      - pessimizer 2y ago
        > In a sibling thread I explained that even if a machine is Ubuntu certified, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's compatible in real world. I've never even heard of Ubuntu certification. I instead search for people who are using the product I wish to buy with Linux, and see what they say about its compatibility. This always works. So it is not pretty much impossible.
        pizza234 2y ago
        > I instead search for people who are using the product I wish to buy with Linux, and see what they say about its compatibility I'm not sure if you refer to friends or strangers on the internet. In the former case, one is restricted to a very small pool of models to choose from. In the latter case, "strangers on the internet" who say that their hardware "works perfectly", are typically completely unreliable; saying "my hardware works perfectly is treated as a badge of honor, so there's a perverse incentive. One example, in a lot I've personally experience, is that I've read from multiple "strangers on the internet" that the wifi from the laptop I'm typing from, "works perfectly". In reality, the Linux drivers are half broken (on Linux, it has a poor signal).
- tomwheeler 2y ago
  I'd imagine that the Linux users who report success are probably more selective when it comes to hardware. It's been my primary OS for 25+ years and I've seldom faced compatibility issues, but I also do my research and buy accordingly.
- randomdata 2y ago
  Cunningham's law in action. The first camp are asking how to get it to work.
magicalhippo 2y ago
It depends on which day of the week it is. Ok a bit flippant, but I've been running KDE on my NUC as a secondary desktop for years now. Most of the time it works fairly well, but then suddenly something breaks or needs tweaking. And when it does it's often not trivial for a non-geek to handle. That said, if they can get Krdp working properly, I'll almost certainly switch to KDE as my main driver, and demote Windows to my secondary.
vitorgrs 2y ago
Weirdly, by compatibility is better on Linux than on Windows. On Windows, on a clean install, I need to install the drivers from WU to get audio working, etc. And then I need to open Intel website to get the latest Bluetooth driver, go to Dell to get the latest wifi, as on Windows Update's these are not the latest. And even after all of this, some of the drivers on Linux is better maintained, because the support for old Intel GPUs on Windows is very short. Meanwhile, on Linux, I get Vulkan support, and all recent drivers on my Broadwell. Video perf is way better on Linux here.

oblio 2y ago

Sorry to be a downer but a cloud instructor is still a techie. I'd be way more impressed with a lawyer or an accountant using it but I've never seen one so far.

layer8 2y ago
> Having this level of viability and operability is something I never expected to see. It’s unexpected even in the case of techies.
perbu 2y ago
fwiw; I worked in a company that was kind of a Linux pioneer back in the 90s. We ran Linux for everyone. The accountant ran a VM for his accouting software, but except that everything was Linux. And once set up, it worked very well, for techies and non-technical alike. If you get past installation and initial setup, using Linux in a desktop role isn't really challenging if you've got access to support.
- szundi 2y ago
  I don’t believe lawyers can live without ms office
  - rossant 2y ago
    I sometimes work with lawyers and doctors. As a Linux user I always need to have a macbook around for when I need MS Word.
  - trelane 2y ago
    It used to be that they couldn't live without Word Perfect. Funny how that changed.

cyberpunk 2y ago

It's 2024 and we're suprised by a webcam working. It makes me a bit sad somehow.

fanatic2pope 2y ago
I cannot even remember the last time I plugged in a web cam and it didn't work on Linux. Just yesterday I borrowed a USB inspection camera from a friend in order to help me run a new ethernet line to my shop. The kit came with a "WIFI dongle" that you are supposed to use with your phone and some random app, but instead I just plugged it into my laptop, fired up Cheese and it came up immediately.
- bpfrh 2y ago
  External webcams are no problem, agreed. New-ish laptops with intel tiger lake procesors use MIPI cameras with ipu6 and don't work out of the box or only on specific kernel/distro combos. There are efforts to mainline the driver and it is better than 2 years ago but still a big step backwards[1] [1]https://github.com/intel/ipu6-drivers https://github.com/intel/ipu6-drivers
  - jauntywundrkind 2y ago
    To Intel's credit ipu6 packs a ton a ton a ton of super advanced capabilities in. Having a good video pipeline is a huge edge. That it took a while for upstreaming to get really into gear on Linux does not super astound me. This feels like a place where we need to expect the open source world to have to find its purchase first before traction forward can really start. This was a super shitty experience though. It really felt unplanned & chaotic. Hopefully some of the kernel architecture carved out for ipu6 is good & useful for running other video pipelines. Most webcammers don't knowingly think heavily on color science, but ideally our devices can.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  We owe Apple here. The lack of device drivers for iOS means that manufacturers had to start getting serious about ensuring their devices follow USB class specifications, because otherwise they will not work on an iPad. Linux (which has USB class drivers) has only benefitted from this.

sickofparadox 2y ago

I'm always befuddled by comments like this. I have been daily driving Linux (arch,btw) for quite a while, and I have never once had a driver issue, even with NVIDIA graphics cards. The only times I run into issues is when I am trying to run games with anti-cheat, but even that is being worked on by Valve. Linux mostly just works in my experience, I don't see where the idea comes from that its a huge blocker, minus the lack of specialized software.

bpfrh 2y ago
Friend of mine got a new laptop which i recommended without looking closely on the specs, as it was listed as supported on ubuntu a lenovo yoga x 11 gen I think. Found out afterwards that the version with windows preinstalled(that the friend bought, because of the cheap windows licence that maybe needed) comes with a special mipi camera from intel with ipu6 out-of-tree driver that only supports specific kernels and specific distros and while there are packages for ubuntu I couldn't get it to work. Linux works if you don't buy the wrong hardware, windows works on any bought hardware. I'm not against linux and I use it and most of the time it works out of the box, but this "most of the time" will bite you when you stop looking at specific reviews and driver support and just buy a laptop.
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  > but this "most of the time" will bite you when you stop looking at specific reviews and driver support and just buy a laptop. I've never once looked at reviews. The only time I've been bitten in the last 20 years was when given a MBP for work (the intel model with butterfly keys). There's definitely edge cases out there. But these days they're exactly that: edge cases.
  - bpfrh 2y ago
    I said that linux mostly works out of the box, but your "edge cases" where in this case: All lenovo yoga x1 models from the 8. gen onwards with windows preinstalled e.g. over 2 years All lenovo carbon x1 models from the 10. gen onwards with windows preinstalled e.g. over 3 years I'm pretty sure it also affects all newer hp and dell models since at least ~2023 It's great that your choice of laptops are never the ones that are broken, but then again, I never said linux never works. Even if you set aside the webcam problem, the lenovo laptops who where always called out for their good linux support had problems: The 2016 yoga x1 model couldn't get to sleep (s3i problem which many laptops had) and if it good back from sleep it need a special command to reconnect trackpad and trackpoint. There where some special patches to make it work and after about a year it worked, still not a possibility for non technical people The 2016 thinkpad x1 carbon gen. 6 model sometimes needs a special command to reconnect the trackpad and trackpoint, think that got fixed after ~3 years. Neither of theses devices have a working fingerprint sensor, I can't even think of one that works with linux Neither of these devices had a supported mobile (lte) modem, as the built in modem wasn't supported and you can't change it because the bios has only whitelisted the preinstalled model. The new s3i sleep modus also made it impossible for linux laptops to sleep for about a year until it was fixed. Did all of this get better over time? Yes Will every big new hardware thing still mean that some linux things are broken for some time? Yes Again, linux works for most of the hardware most of the time, but this will bite you when you expect certain things or devices to work.

p4bl0 2y ago

I felt taken back before mid-2000 reading this comment. I mean it's been easily 15 years since those very basic things really just works on all the major Linux distributions.

neogodless 2y ago
I recently tried Linux Mint, initially Cinnamon, then installed KDE Plasma. In the former fractional scaling was badly broken. In the latter, I couldn't control screen brightness. Overall almost everything worked but not all things. And I'm used to working through technical hiccups and being patient. But ultimately there's no guarantee "Linux" will be fully functional on your unique hardware setup, and it's still challenging to choose distribution, windows manager, desktop environment, etc and there's no way to know which combo is best for your hardware without a lot of time consuming trial and error.

chgs 2y ago

My mother-in-law remarried about 5 years ago. Her husband used to operate some oven cleaning business pre retirement, not exactly “techie” He uses linux, has done for years, he just wants something that works.

TacticalCoder 2y ago

> I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people. Same: I was already using Debian 1.1 (1.1, not 11) on the desktop or something like that. But why not talk about it? I switched both my wife (she's very OK with tech) and my mother-in-law (she's not good with tech) to desktop Linux. If my mother-in-law can use Linux, everybody can. Most people nowadays only need one app: a browser and Linux is totally for that use case, which is about 99% of all users' out there's usecase.