The main problem still is that for some configuration you still need to use the CLI, the average user does not want to touch that no matter how powerful it is, they want a fully functional GUI that lets you so exactly the same thing but by clicking on buttons. Pair that with drivers that either do not exist or will not work for (some) of your hardware, odd crashed like the Bluetooth stack crapping out and not working anymore until you restart the system, or the system that hangs from hibernation with a black screen. So unless those hurdles are tackled the Linux adoption rate will stay low because the average user wants a system that works, and not one they have to debug.
I’ve been on and off different distros of Linux since Ubuntu 6 using Pop_OS! as my daily driver for work a few years now, and the same problems I had then are still here today which is a shame honestly.
The main problem still is that for some configuration you still need to use the CLI, the average user does not want to touch that no matter how powerful it is,
At this point this is just misinformation… you can easily live and configure everything an “average user” would via GUI in Ubuntu (and most of it’s derivatives) or anything running KDE Plasma as a desktop
The reason must of us still CHOOSE to use CLI is because it’s powerful but unless you are crazy as I am and running Hyprland as a daily driver, you really do not need CLI…
IMO, this is a demonstration of the problem. You’re blaming the poster/their equipment. Rather than any real solution to the problem the defacto answer is “well, it works for me so what’s wrong with you?”
I’ve never heard this kind of toxicity from other communities (like the apple/Windows crowds). Often you’ll get useful answers indicating what to check or pointing to another resource. There’s always the chance that the hardware is busted, but let’s face it, in the modern era, that’s far less likely to happen now than it was even 10 years ago.
Immediately blaming the user for their issue isn’t going to solve the problem, nor does it endear any average user to the Linux community or the Linux OS. This attitude is not going to help adoption even if the posters concerns are invalidated by newer/better drivers/software, and all they need to do is update, and/or try again.
This kind of statement actively harms Linux adoption.
Sorry I meant to say I dont even remember how many years ago I saw anyone with Bluetooth problems. Look how you conveniently ignore the fact Kde and Gome dont use the terminal contrary to what you had stated. Your shit is all fucked up.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/ubuntu-2404-bluetooth-connect-fix
Bluetooth issues are still a present problem in Ubuntu 24.04LTS, which appear to be fixed in 24.10.
If I want to restart the Bluetooth stack I have to do that in the terminal, on Windows, you go to the services window and restart it from there (not that I’ve ever had a Bluetooth issue on Windows).
Just because you don’t experience it does not mean it does not exist, you appear to be one of those toxic it works on my machine people.
There is your problem. I know I am being snarky but i have had several discussions over the last few days about how Ubuntu has always been a problem for me since it came out. It is kind of nice to see another example.
As an aside: On my old windows laptop, the wireless was crippled to half speed/ half features because it was not the “pro” wireless version. Turns out that in Linux is ran flawlessly and fast because it wasn’t being crippled artificially by the drivers. I have seen a lot of that over the years, including Bluetooth not working correctly in windows. There is a wide variety of hardware, and a wide variety of support of that hardware in both windows and linux communities.
It’s a brand new (one year old now) Thinkpad X1 Carbon, with a clean installed Pop_OS! system, so I don’t know why it does that, but it has done it at least ten times since I got it. Also after installing VirtualBox I’ve been have kernel panics occasionally when shutting down the system ¯\(ツ)/¯
There are also just a lot of personalization options that just aren’t there, particularly for power-lite users, because Linix power users use the terminal for everything.
Like, heaven forbid you want a full featured, advanced file manager or something, but aren’t interested in learning bash scripting…
I’m pretty sure they’re saying that customization, while present in Linux, is not accessible to most because of a lack of GUI options to configure a nontrivial number of the customization settings.
KDE can configure more things than there are atoms in this world. And All other DE are way more advanced than windows all through the GUI. So their point remains garbage
As a long-time Linux user who had to dive into the Windows world after taking an admin job, this is such a bizarre thing to hear. So many how-to articles that I found to make a change to user-level Windows settings start with opening the Registry Editor. Technically, that’s a GUI program, but still a major challenge for the average user. On the admin side, the documentation and how-to articles are dominated by PowerShell scripts, because Microsoft has embraced the command line.
Windows File Manager is superior to any linux file manager I’ve tried. I have tried switching to Linux many times and it’s really great, except the damn file managers, which always ends with me switching back to Windows. I just ended my last run with Linux Mint as my daily driver for 3 months. I really enjoyed it and had it configured just the way I wanted. But the file manager(s) just isn’t mature enough, so I caved in, again, and moved back to Windows. Oh well, maybe next time will be the one.
I’m not saying windows file manager is perfect and there isn’t better alternatives. But for my work flow, I haven’t found any linux file manager that fits the bill.
What file manager are you using, and what features does it have that makes it the right fit for you?
You have to be joking right? Windows file manager is one of the worst.
Lets see: Windows 11 finally got tabs. About time after we have had them for I don’t even remember how long.
Where is split view so I can have side by side comparison?
Where is greenbar highlighting so I know at a glance seperation of each row?
Where is the terminal emulator panel if I want to run a command?
Why is the right click menu so damn shitty and not have a quarter of the useful functions? And decent customization?
Can I tag rate and comment directly on files?
Lets not forget batch renaming.
Windows has no integration with other services out of the box, and the add ons are a mess.
Here is one that drive me absolutely up the wall with windows: why can I not see the amount of free space on the drive I am working on?
It is in the right corner in my file manager. Click again and it will tell me the free space of all the partitions. Click again and I can open filelight. It is displayed in gigs AND in a graphical at a glance line.
I put up with windows file manager, but it is quite possibly the worst one I can think of. What feature are you missing?
I guess we have very different work flows. All the things you mention are things I have no use for and I absolutely despise split view. :)
What I miss the most is a quick overview of all my drives and mounted network drives, showing disk size and usage. I also miss to be able to right-click drag and drop and then choose if I want to copy or move. Network management! Being able add a network drive with a few clicks and mount it permanently if needed.
A quick overview of all the drives and mounted drives? That is in the left panel for me, with device sizes. Right click to copy or move? We have that too.
Mount a drive? That one is interesting because of the underlying os. You can open a local network share, right click and add it to the left panel. It will then be available anytime you want to work with it. You can also add foreign shares, such as SFTP which I do not think windows can do.
This one though: showing disk size and usage which you CAN do in Dolphin, I do not think is part of windows natively. What settings do you do to show those?
For showing disk size+usage, you can just go to the “My Computer” tab. It even shows size and usage for networked drives that support it. The rest of your criticisms are pretty valid though.
I forgot that I would have to look in the columns for disk space, or that I would have to click on it. In dolphin the disk space is shown on the left panel without needing to click on anything. That is why I was confused.
Not Right click to copy or move. Right-click-drag-and-drop. In windows, when you left-click on a file and drag-and-drop, the default action applys, which is move if it’s to the same drive. Or copy if it’s to a different drive. Right-click-drag-and-drop gives you the option to copy, move or extract to the drop location.
You can open a local network share, right click and add it to the left panel. It will then be available anytime you want to work with it.
Will it be available after a reboot? Because I haven’t been able to do that without adding it to fstab or using extra software, like gigolo.
Showing disk size and usage is very native in windows. Can you get something simular with Dolphin?
I’d argue that as Windows continues to abandon its (relatively) sane configuration UI for the newer useless Settings screens, it has reached the point where it really is sometimes easier to just look up what you need to do in Powershell.
This problem is only getting worse over time, so I don’t think it’s fair to hand the win to Windows.
The main problem still is that for some configuration you still need to use the CLI, the average user does not want to touch that no matter how powerful it is, they want a fully functional GUI that lets you so exactly the same thing but by clicking on buttons. Pair that with drivers that either do not exist or will not work for (some) of your hardware, odd crashed like the Bluetooth stack crapping out and not working anymore until you restart the system, or the system that hangs from hibernation with a black screen. So unless those hurdles are tackled the Linux adoption rate will stay low because the average user wants a system that works, and not one they have to debug.
I’ve been on and off different distros of Linux since Ubuntu 6 using Pop_OS! as my daily driver for work a few years now, and the same problems I had then are still here today which is a shame honestly.
At this point this is just misinformation… you can easily live and configure everything an “average user” would via GUI in Ubuntu (and most of it’s derivatives) or anything running KDE Plasma as a desktop
The reason must of us still CHOOSE to use CLI is because it’s powerful but unless you are crazy as I am and running Hyprland as a daily driver, you really do not need CLI…
PS: I fucking love Hyprland! hehehehe
I dont know wtf you are using, KDE and Gnome dont use the terminal and Bluetooth has never crashed for me. Your shit is all fucked up
IMO, this is a demonstration of the problem. You’re blaming the poster/their equipment. Rather than any real solution to the problem the defacto answer is “well, it works for me so what’s wrong with you?”
I’ve never heard this kind of toxicity from other communities (like the apple/Windows crowds). Often you’ll get useful answers indicating what to check or pointing to another resource. There’s always the chance that the hardware is busted, but let’s face it, in the modern era, that’s far less likely to happen now than it was even 10 years ago.
Immediately blaming the user for their issue isn’t going to solve the problem, nor does it endear any average user to the Linux community or the Linux OS. This attitude is not going to help adoption even if the posters concerns are invalidated by newer/better drivers/software, and all they need to do is update, and/or try again.
This kind of statement actively harms Linux adoption.
Sorry I meant to say I dont even remember how many years ago I saw anyone with Bluetooth problems. Look how you conveniently ignore the fact Kde and Gome dont use the terminal contrary to what you had stated. Your shit is all fucked up.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/ubuntu-2404-bluetooth-connect-fix Bluetooth issues are still a present problem in Ubuntu 24.04LTS, which appear to be fixed in 24.10. If I want to restart the Bluetooth stack I have to do that in the terminal, on Windows, you go to the services window and restart it from there (not that I’ve ever had a Bluetooth issue on Windows). Just because you don’t experience it does not mean it does not exist, you appear to be one of those toxic it works on my machine people.
There is your problem. I know I am being snarky but i have had several discussions over the last few days about how Ubuntu has always been a problem for me since it came out. It is kind of nice to see another example.
As an aside: On my old windows laptop, the wireless was crippled to half speed/ half features because it was not the “pro” wireless version. Turns out that in Linux is ran flawlessly and fast because it wasn’t being crippled artificially by the drivers. I have seen a lot of that over the years, including Bluetooth not working correctly in windows. There is a wide variety of hardware, and a wide variety of support of that hardware in both windows and linux communities.
Bitch please.
Just try to install a program that isn’t in the repo without dropping to the CLI.
I dare you, I double dare you.
It’s a brand new (one year old now) Thinkpad X1 Carbon, with a clean installed Pop_OS! system, so I don’t know why it does that, but it has done it at least ten times since I got it. Also after installing VirtualBox I’ve been have kernel panics occasionally when shutting down the system ¯\(ツ)/¯
Yeah, that sums up my experience quite well.
There are also just a lot of personalization options that just aren’t there, particularly for power-lite users, because Linix power users use the terminal for everything.
Like, heaven forbid you want a full featured, advanced file manager or something, but aren’t interested in learning bash scripting…
Are you truly saying personalization is not there on linux but Windows has it? LoL
I’m pretty sure they’re saying that customization, while present in Linux, is not accessible to most because of a lack of GUI options to configure a nontrivial number of the customization settings.
KDE can configure more things than there are atoms in this world. And All other DE are way more advanced than windows all through the GUI. So their point remains garbage
As a long-time Linux user who had to dive into the Windows world after taking an admin job, this is such a bizarre thing to hear. So many how-to articles that I found to make a change to user-level Windows settings start with opening the Registry Editor. Technically, that’s a GUI program, but still a major challenge for the average user. On the admin side, the documentation and how-to articles are dominated by PowerShell scripts, because Microsoft has embraced the command line.
@MystikIncarnate @_carmin try different DE like TDE, XFCE, KDE
Which means you are shit out of luck in windows, but comes by default in Plasma. Go figure.
Windows File Manager is superior to any linux file manager I’ve tried. I have tried switching to Linux many times and it’s really great, except the damn file managers, which always ends with me switching back to Windows. I just ended my last run with Linux Mint as my daily driver for 3 months. I really enjoyed it and had it configured just the way I wanted. But the file manager(s) just isn’t mature enough, so I caved in, again, and moved back to Windows. Oh well, maybe next time will be the one.
You can’t be serious? People buy other file managers because the Windows one sucks so bad. I would know, I purchase our software.
I’m not saying windows file manager is perfect and there isn’t better alternatives. But for my work flow, I haven’t found any linux file manager that fits the bill.
What file manager are you using, and what features does it have that makes it the right fit for you?
You have to be joking right? Windows file manager is one of the worst.
Lets see: Windows 11 finally got tabs. About time after we have had them for I don’t even remember how long.
Here is one that drive me absolutely up the wall with windows: why can I not see the amount of free space on the drive I am working on?
It is in the right corner in my file manager. Click again and it will tell me the free space of all the partitions. Click again and I can open filelight. It is displayed in gigs AND in a graphical at a glance line.
I put up with windows file manager, but it is quite possibly the worst one I can think of. What feature are you missing?
Edit: fixed layout for clarity and readability.
I guess we have very different work flows. All the things you mention are things I have no use for and I absolutely despise split view. :)
What I miss the most is a quick overview of all my drives and mounted network drives, showing disk size and usage. I also miss to be able to right-click drag and drop and then choose if I want to copy or move. Network management! Being able add a network drive with a few clicks and mount it permanently if needed.
A quick overview of all the drives and mounted drives? That is in the left panel for me, with device sizes. Right click to copy or move? We have that too.
Mount a drive? That one is interesting because of the underlying os. You can open a local network share, right click and add it to the left panel. It will then be available anytime you want to work with it. You can also add foreign shares, such as SFTP which I do not think windows can do.
This one though: showing disk size and usage which you CAN do in Dolphin, I do not think is part of windows natively. What settings do you do to show those?
For showing disk size+usage, you can just go to the “My Computer” tab. It even shows size and usage for networked drives that support it. The rest of your criticisms are pretty valid though.
I forgot that I would have to look in the columns for disk space, or that I would have to click on it. In dolphin the disk space is shown on the left panel without needing to click on anything. That is why I was confused.
Not Right click to copy or move. Right-click-drag-and-drop. In windows, when you left-click on a file and drag-and-drop, the default action applys, which is move if it’s to the same drive. Or copy if it’s to a different drive. Right-click-drag-and-drop gives you the option to copy, move or extract to the drop location.
Will it be available after a reboot? Because I haven’t been able to do that without adding it to fstab or using extra software, like gigolo.
Showing disk size and usage is very native in windows. Can you get something simular with Dolphin?
Yes it will be there after a reboot.
Ah I forgot about that disk size which you have to click to find (which is no longer showing on home in my windows 11 by the way).
I thought you meant can you see disk size by doing… Nothing? It is always in my panel on the left.
I’d argue that as Windows continues to abandon its (relatively) sane configuration UI for the newer useless Settings screens, it has reached the point where it really is sometimes easier to just look up what you need to do in Powershell.
This problem is only getting worse over time, so I don’t think it’s fair to hand the win to Windows.