We love to praise linux constantly and tell everyone to change to it (they should) but what are your biggest annoyances ?
Mine would be, installing software (made even more complex by flatpaks being added, among the 5 other ways there already were to install software) and probably wifi power management issues.
You must log in or register to comment.
Oh! Came up with a new one, though it’s more of a unixism than a Linux specific thing.
I really wish that the core utils and other cli tools had a standard structured output option, like yaml, json, or toml so that it would be easier to parse rather than all of the random regular expressions needed when piping output around.
Edit: And it would be great if we also picked that same format for config files instead of all the bespoke stuff in /etc.
We have awesome distributed systems like Kubernetes (rke2, or k3s as easy distro examples) BUT no desktop usage.
I want a distributed desktop dang it. My phone, my smart tv (media PC), my gaming computer, my SOs gaming computer, my router, my home lab, etc, etc should theoretically all be one computer with multiple users, and multiple interfaces.
I have spent way too much time fiddling with audio, both in PulseAudio and Pirewire. Granted, this sucks even more on Windows.
Weird how my absolute favorite thing about Linux is how easy and simple installing software is, at least on Arch. Never touched a flatpack or snap or whatever else they’re called for my 13+ years if use.
Snap. The very existence of it.
The fact that there is NO agreed single package standard across distros.
This is probably the biggest barrier to mainstream linux adoption - devs have to choose between supporting 5+ package formats or just say “screw it” and make a windows/mac app instead.
This is my own opinion, but I think Flatpak and Flathub need to be universally adopted as a standard. It’s already growing that way organically, even if major distro projects haven’t recognized it yet.
With usage of Flatpak growing over time, I think we are heading towards that way.
This has its pros. If all agree to use, say, deb, then some of the users will complain, “I downloaded package XYZ from Arch and it doesn’t work on Fedora!”
No, not really true, IMO.
If all distros come together and agree on a single package format (e.g. deb), then if arch makes a package available in .deb, it can be downloaded and installed on Ubuntu or Fedora, as it becomes an universal package format like flatpak.
Currently we have to compile the source code in such situations.
If flatpak is universal doesn’t it solve the issue ? Is it the sandboxing people dont like?
My system is a mix of .Deb, manual compiled, and flatpaks. As im sure many are. Im not an organized person.
Yep, it’s sandboxing that I don’t like. They feel “tacked on” and don’t integrate properly.
Same for my system which is also a mix of deb, flatpak and Snap.
The main complain of flatpak being size and performance in comparison to ‘native’ installations.
Having to install apps manually and figure out dependencies myself because a popular piece of software only officially supports Ubuntu and Debian. No normal human would ever do this. They would go back to Windows. Hell, I still haven’t even gotten one piece of software to work on my new OpenSUSE system yet: Beyond Compare 4. There’s no flatpack for it. The RPM test says all dependencies are satisfied, but when I run the program, nothing happens. I did some web searching, but I haven’t dug too deep yet.
Why are there so many package managers with such different syntaxes? And why does one repo maintainer decide to call it “package” and another calls it “package4”? Or some entirely different name! It’s maddening. I’ve had to create empty proxy packages that translate package names just to install some RPM file. Again, the average person is not going to do this.
In KDE plasma, the first thing most people do is set up Wi-Fi on their computer, but you need to set up KWallet first or else the password gets stored in some other dimension. I accidentally typed my Wi-Fi password wrong, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to clear it out and make it ask me for the proper password when I try to connect. I even went into network manager and switched the network to say, “ask me every time”. It wouldn’t! It would just sit there and hang on “authenticating”. I never did figure it out. I ended up forgetting to encrypt my system partition, so I simply reinstalled the OS.
And it’s not only obscure software on obscure distros.
The Arduino IDE doesn’t run on Fedora 42. It just doesn’t work.
I personally don’t need it, I use ESP-IDF on Platformio, but Arduino is an incredibly common piece of software and one I would have expected to work flawlessly on Linux.
-
The lack of a universal application installation method which 98% of developers use. Windows has .exe and it makes it so much easier for developers to release one application which is dead simple for users to install. No instruction manual with different methods per distro. Just double click. This results in less support for Linux in general. Fewer games and applications an drivers with fewer features.
-
Poor backwards compatibility. Yes it results in bloat, but it also makes it much cheaper to develop for and maintain applications, and this results in more developers for Windows. More hardware and driver support. More applications. More games.
It is no mystery to me why developers don’t focus more on Linux support. It’s more expensive. They tell us this. What is so frustrating is that Linux fans are so quick to blame developers instead of focusing inwards and making Linux a more supportive platform for said developers.
The lack of a universal application installation method which 98% of developers use. Windows has .exe and it makes it so much easier for developers to release one application which is dead simple for users to install. No instruction manual with different methods per distro. Just double click. This results in less support for Linux in general. Fewer games and applications an drivers with fewer features.
That’s not true. .exe isn’t an installation method, it’s just a binary, the better equivalent would be .msi. Also you also have to consider (some) dependencies on Windows, e.g. you can’t assume the required vcredist is available on the target.
Poor backwards compatibility. Yes it results in bloat, but it also makes it much cheaper to develop for and maintain applications, and this results in more developers for Windows. More hardware and driver support. More applications. More games.
Not super sure about this. I was able to run an over 10 year old binary only game when I last tried (UT 2k4 in 2016 or so) and it worked after providing a single missing library. Yes, it did require manual intervention, but I think the situation is much better on Windows where compatibility also isn’t granted anymore.
10 year old binaries are only an achievement on Macs.
I have been able to run Lotus Organizer on Windows 11, 20-30 years old and only runs on a FAT formatted partition of maximum 4GB.
That’s not true. .exe isn’t an installation method, it’s just a binary, the better equivalent would be .msi. Also you also have to consider (some) dependencies on Windows, e.g. you can’t assume the required vcredist is available on the target.
I think one could argue this but it’s immaterial. My point remains the same. The lack of a universal installation method makes deployment expensive on Linux, and confusing for users.
Not super sure about this. I was able to run an over 10 year old binary only game when I last tried (UT 2k4 in 2016 or so) and it worked after providing a single missing library. Yes, it did require manual intervention, but I think the situation is much better on Windows where compatibility also isn’t granted anymore.
I can run a 1998 copy of StarCraft designed for Windows 98 on Windows 11. It’s true there are degrees of backwards compatibility here, but Windows is king. They invest a lot of dev time into ensuring applications remain operational for decades. Their API deprecation policies are legendary.
I think one could argue this but it’s immaterial. My point remains the same. The lack of a universal installation method makes deployment expensive on Linux, and confusing for users.
If you’re fine with an executable just writing stuff to your system, then .sh is Linux’ universal installer format.
It’s true there are degrees of backwards compatibility here, but Windows is king
I agree, Microsoft has invested a lot into backwards compatibility and some nifty tricks to deal with DLL hell which was a huge issue in the past and as a result, provide the best backwards compatibility, as long as you stay on x86-64. Nowadays, each .exe basically sees its own sets of dlls in the filesystem. I agree it’s best there. My point was rather that it’s not as bad on Linux as people make it out to be if the application was packaged correctly. Going forward, I think stuff like Valve’s Linux Runtime can provide compatibility.
If you’re fine with an executable just writing stuff to your system, then .sh is Linux’ universal installer format.
I would be, but it’s not enforced. Few developers use it. Any method needs to have almost total universal adoption. Then libraries get built around that standard instead of the other way around.
My point was rather that it’s not as bad on Linux as people make it out to be if the application was packaged correctly. Going forward, I think stuff like Valve’s Linux Runtime can provide compatibility.
That’s fair. It’s getting better. Linus Torvalds agrees with you. Valve might have to save us from this fragmentation.
-
My one major complaint is audio in general. I’ve had so many audio issues. If you need an eq or noise canceling it’s a pain to get it working. There’s always a bug somewhere, always a random distortion.
Voicemeeter is the only thing I miss about Windows. I really do.
I have an audio issue where it starts chopping if (I think, but could be CPU as well) the GPU struggles (think shader compilation). I’ve tried a couple of things to fix it, but haven’t been successful yet. So far it’s been my only major complaint.
I don’t like LibreOffice as the only open source Office software that seems to compete with Microsoft. It feels bloated and outdated and for years and years I have display problems with it. The community answers to problems are often written by arrogant pricks.
However, at the pace Microsoft Office is deteriorating with all that copilot crap LibreOffice begins to look better every day. They don’t even have to do anything for it.
Have you tried OnlyOffice?
Isn’t it Russian?
It’s in english for me (hah! jk) Dunno about it’s origins. I just installed the flatpack.
OnlyOffice is another shit clone of Office 2007. Fight me.
I am close to adopting LibreOffice but their excel equivalent lacks some table functions that I use almost any time I use Excel.
Have you tried Proton? It works like a charm for videogames.
I was able to get Office working without issue through Proton, but I couldn’t get my reference manager to work with Office within Proton. Ultimately I ended up acquiescing to LibreOffice, and I’ve ended up liking it more than the bloated monstrosity that is M$ Office in the latest iterations.
I’ve also found SoftMaker Office to be great (faster than OnlyOffice and even better docx compatibility) but it doesn’t respect Linux’s cursor blinkrate when you build from source (it’s supposed to respect the default, per the devs), and instead uses a really fast rate. I’m weird, but that issue is damning for me, and idk how/where to fix it. So, I stick with LibreOffice.
You want to do some cool thing and you find instructions online.
But that shit only works when t every single aspect of the s is the exact same version.
Which will never be the case, so now you’re at co desperately trying to improvise the steps that, if you inherently knew how to do, you wouldn’t have needed instructions for in the first place.
Suspend/sleep. I bought a specific laptop so it works, but these manufacturers need to let our developers know what the fuck is going on in the hardware
The sleep/hibernate is specifically designed to work only with windows, especially on modern hardware. It’s a known problem and it’s not easy to reliably get around it.
That stuff doesn’t even work right on Windows anymore.
It’s kind of sad, 10-15 years ago I’d say everyone (both Linux and Windows) more or less had the whole sleep/hibernate thing figured out. But it’s all gone to shit in the past few years.
Presumably, it’ll work in a few years. Which is when Microsoft will change it to something else.
Flatpaks apps & their runtimes is taking 20 gb, was 80 gb before I realize it and start cleaning up. That’s annoying. But I also like Flatpak. I may just prioritize DNF first (I’m on Fedora) to minimize Flatpak bloats.
60 gb is very significant for me being in 256 gb ssd.
As someone who started getting into Linux on a Raspberry Pi (and now dual-booting Mint and Windows on the bigger machines), I still have no idea what Flatpak is. I always used to hit the terminal with “sudo apt install” and got what I needed. Except for the occasional proprietary software.
It’s a separate package tool that works on every distribution. Usually Debian derivatives use
apt, Redhat ones usednfetc. Flatpaks work everywhere.And its sandboxed, with permissions.
What do you install for that much space to be taken up??
carelessly lots of stuff. kde & gnome developmnt runtimes. nvidia driver duplicates. Firefox, Librewolf & Ungoogled Chrome. full latex packages. Ardour and various syntesizer.
I eventually cleaned up most packages out of Flatpak to DNF, especially the one that require big runtime and gtk/qt apps or does’t need sandboxing. I may also avoid electron apps since they also tend to be big lol.
Do
flatpak remove --unused, it will clear up unused dependencies.It never work. I’ve always done
flatpak remove --unusedevery once in a while. At one time I checked my root filesystem using gnome’s disk analyzer to see what takes the most space, that is when I found out/var/lib/flatpak/repo/ate 80 gb of my disk.As per several suggestion from github issues & forums, I did
sudo flatpak repairand finally it did clean them up down to around 40-50. Several months later I kind of gone mad and delete everything in therepodirectory. I noticed my apps still works. Until few days later when I wanted to update, Flatpak complained and redownload most of the deleted stuff 🤣But after redownloading, it only took around 20 gb now, and after that Flatpak also pinned every package lmao so I have to unpin unimportant stuff any case they can be deleted using
flatpak remove --unusedand I seem to be not the only one, like this person has their Flatpak directories almost 100 gb https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=435450
I realize I may also just remove all latex stuff, I was only using it to graduate. I’d just typst now for smaller things.
Linux needs a shared API framework for all desktop apps for them to succeed. It’s ridiculous that gnome apps and other apps look different and have different theming conventions. I’d love to get into theming and application building, but I’m so afraid that I’ll waste my time on something that won’t apply to everything. macOS solved application cohesion perfectly.
There’s now game developers dropping native support for proton, because proton has a more uniform, stable and predictable API.
So while Linux in many ways becomes the better way to play Windows games, it’s also better to play Windows games on Linux than Linux games on Linux.
I can see a future where more and more of Linux just becomes a wrapper around Proton.
Proton for everything would be pretty heavy though. I’m referring to user facing APIs that could be made consistent.
Proton is not that heavy. In many cases it’s less heavy than Windows.
And sadly I cannot see a future where all of Linux rallies under the same APIs without giving in to the urge to forge.
Not a Linux thing directly but something that bothers me a lot: The complete lack of support from professional applications.
Wanna use this tool that cost hundreds of bucks on Linux? Lmao fuck you.
You’d think companies that actually make money could afford to support Linux and hobbyists doing FOSS stuff for funsies can only focus on the OS they use themselves but somehow we live in a world where the opposite is true.This is what makes switching to Linux for me personally and probably a lot of other people completely unviable because it means having to give up on thousands of dollars of stuff for “freedom”.
And the onus is 100% on the companies developing software. They have to offer Linux versions first, so people can switch to Linux, giving them more Linux users. Doesn’t work the other way around.
Oh also psst don’t ever mention spending money on proprietary software around Linux people, they will have a heart attack.
This is the most important issue facing Linux adoption by far. I wish Valve or someone would step in and start improving Wine/Proton’s general application support. A couple years ago someone made a fork of Wine that got Affinity running, but those improvements never made it back into the upstream project. Productivity software not being given serious consideration is a common problem with Wine/Proton as projects.
I mean the way i see it, not everything can be free. People are putting their time and lives into these programs. And not everyone donates even to projects they’ve used for decades.
The elitism
