If you are talking about the arch installer. It’s still a commandline. Nothing like the popular calamares GUI installer. Anyone can follow steps to an install easy. The real juice is in maintenance of the installation.
Why would you want desktop icons? I mean I get it, there were quite popular back in the day, but I don’t see how a big junky place of a desktop has any benefit
Meh. The design and all is very good, great even, but the performance is donkey. And no, telling people to turn off animations and compositor is not a valid solution, when other DEs keep the animations, especially GNOME.
I really like Gnome but requiring extensions to work properly is bad design imo.
For example my moms laptop runs Gnome and she doesn’t need much except 3 basic features: a dock, desktop & tray icons. Tray icons are necessary because Nextcloud relies on them to show the sync status, desktop icons are great to have temporary files easily accessible for a presentation.
In my opinion the most frustrating decision of Gnime is to not allow making the “dash” permanently visible, in other words, a dock. I’d argue it’s even an accessibility option because it’s easier to click on something visible than having to open the overview.
It’s frustrating since Gnome is an almost perfect desktop for anyone who wants a simple, working desktop.
I use Gnome without extensions, it’s great. IMO Microsoft didn’t invent the perfect UX paradigm back in the early 90s. People use a task bar and start menu because they’re used to it, not because it’s better IMO.
I’m glad Gnome had the balls to do away with tradition and go with something different. It’s led to a much better workflow IMO.
Gnome is great for people who like the opinionated workflow. Sadly that is not most people, at least I know of 5 people who tried Gnome and 4 came to the conclusion that the lack of a taskbar/launcher/dock makes it unsuitable for their desktop usage.
If Gnome had an optional dock, they might’ve actually used it and found out how great Gnome is. Maybe at some point they’d even disable the dock and return to the blessed workflow.
I wonder if there’s a way they could neatly implement them without cluttering the desktop. Like what if they were somewhere in the overview or something?
For the 1000th time, those extensions aren’t even close to what something really native would offer. They fail in some circumstances like drag and drop to certain plains and behave inconsistently.
GNOME Extensions actually run in the gnome-shell process itself and can do most things that a builtin solution could offer.
They fail in some circumstances […] and behave inconsistently
That proves why they shouldn’t be part of GNOME Shell themselves. Offloading some (debatable) functionality to extensions helps keeping the core components reliable and maintainable.
The problem with older machines is the web browsing, not the system itself. You could use a browser with Java script disabled but a lot of websites will refuse to work.
You have to sacrifice with browser functionality to improve performance.
I’ve had good experiences with Midori and Dillo as alternative browsers on low-memory machines. Obviously features will take a hit but they’re surprisingly functional. Don’t expect to be able to open many tabs but you can do the usual things including YouTube etc.
Yep. All this optimization you see here about “minimal installs” and which DE to choose is completely moot, if opening Firefox takes up more RAM than the entire operating system.
Even 4gb are really low these days, if you actually want to do something in the browser.
Wine/Proton can run a huge amount of Windows programs.
Honestly though I’ve just been using Linux for 8 or so years now and just find some other solution. For general computing it really isn’t hard at all. Perhaps if you have some weird proprietary work software or absolutely need Adobe it could be an issue
Wine/Proton can run a huge amount of Windows programs.
Except for everything that people usually want such as the latest MS Office. Or that nice program developed for Windows 98 that works flawlessly under Windows 11 and it totally broken under Wine.
Video formats? There literally are VLC, ffmpeg and MPV. Every normal format works on every Distro.
Get most apps from Flathub.org, use any Distro you want but I recommend Fedora Kinoite.
Word documents for sure, PDF editing actually too. PDF editing is cursed in itself, but Okular + PDF arranger + Firefox + sometimes GIMP (for actually censoring) work.
Have a look at Stirling PDF, a project combining all of these effords. Its not yet a fully graphical desktop app but this command will work on Fedora Kinoite:
People who need MS Office because once you have to collaborate with others Open/Libre/OnlyOffice won’t cut it. If one lives in a bubble and doesn’t to collaborate with others then native Linux apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. Once collaboration with Windows/Mac users is required then it’s game over – the “alternatives” aren’t just up to it.
Windows licenses are cheap and things work out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’re productive from day zero. Sure, there are annoyances from time to time, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience.
It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want to spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.
Linux desktop is great, I love it but I don’t sugar coat it nor I’m delusional like most posting about it.
People who need MS Office because once you have to collaborate with others Open/Libre/OnlyOffice won’t cut it;
I use office almost daily, Libreoffice is fine for local editing and office online works if I have to collaborate.
People that just installed a password manager (KeePassXC) and a browser (Firefox/Ungoogled) via flatpak only to find out that the KeePassXC app can’t communicate with the browser extension because people are “beating around the bush” on GitHub instead of fixing the issue;
I simply installed the Bitwarden extension in Firefox and it worked flawlessly. I’m not quite sure why you would want a desktop app for a password manager (never needed this even on windows), but if you do, basically distro ships a regular Firefox package which will work just as on windows.
Anyone who wants a simple Virtual Machine and has to go thought cumbersome installation procedures like this one just to get error messages saying virtualization isn’t enable when, in fact, it is… or trying to use GNOME Boxes and have a sub-par virtualization experience;
4 commands doesn’t seem that cumbersome, it can quite literally be done in 30 seconds. Add to this the fact that it will be updated together with all other apps managed by you package manager, which is incomparably faster compared to windows update (or even most apps’ integrated self-updater)
My experience with gnome boxes was also one of the most hassle-free one ever when working with virtualisation. Worked without advanced setup on a very low-end laptop (i3 4th gen, 4gb DDR3), so I’m not quite sure what would be “sub-par”.
Designers because Adobe apps won’t run properly without having a dedicated GPU, passthrough and a some hacky way to get the image back into your main system that will cause noticeable delays;
Adobe doesn’t have a monopoly on design software. I’m not an artist though, so it could be true that the Linux alternatives aren’t full replacements. I would like to point out that, IIRC, Linus Media Group (a company with 100+ employees) uses macs for Adobe apps; windows would constantly crash, so even here the author’s conclusion (just buy a windows key) doesn’t hold up.
Gamers because of the reasons above plus a flat 5-15% performance hit;
In my experience running games though proton, this is more like a 5% difference in either direction. Native games generally run significantly better for me. Though I will admit this can depend on specific hardware and games (and proton has improved a lot over the years).
People that run old software / games because not even those will run properly on Wine;
Wine is actually starting to support an API which Microsoft has deprecated (www.phoronix.com/news/Wine-8.16-Released). These apps might only work on Linux in the future, not on windows anymore. I will admit that I’m not much of a retro gamer, and other API’s might be a different story.
Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as the ones that exist fail even at basic tasks like dragging and dropping a file.
Want to start using a new language? Just apt install the new interpreter/compiler and start right away. Want to use sftp? Just type sftp into your terminal. Also, most regular file managers just support these protocols out of the box; not having to install a separate app to use these protocols sounds like a Linux win to me. Furthermore, when developing software intended for server use, linux is simply superior due to its similarity to the environment the software will eventually run on.
Just to make it clear, I understand that Linux is not perfect for everyone. But this article appears almost wilfully ignorant to multiple facts. It almost sounds like the author tried Linux for 2 hours, had a single issue they couldn’t resolve during that time (probably nvidia related, which is nvidia’s fault), and decided to give up and write salty articles instead of seeking help.
I use office almost daily, Libreoffice is fine for local editing and office online works if I have to collaborate.
So you’re essentially making the point of the article “office online works if I have to collaborate” implied that LibreOffice really isn’t up for collaboration.
Yes, libreoffice doesn’t really work for live collaboration. But office online is a good solution for that collaboration, and it works in any browser (including Firefox on Linux). Therefore, the author’s conclusion (you need windows to collaborate on word docs) is still wrong.
I personally also believe that WYSIWYG editors are highly overrated: markdown is significantly better for note-taking and similar small documents, and reports would often be better off with LaTeX or something similar. But I understand why the “4 commands is too much hassle to install VirtualBox” crowd might prefer word.
Yes, libreoffice doesn’t really work for live collaboration. But office online is a good solution for that collaboration (…) Therefore, the author’s conclusion (you need windows to collaborate on word docs) is still wrong.
The author isn’t wrong neither he’s right as the actual answer is: it depends. We don’t even have to go as far as “live collaboration” if you’ve to do serious work in MS Office apps just emailing a document to a co-worker that uses LibreOffice can end up badly. LibreOffice works, yes, until you find your custom TOC broken, macros not working, embedded content from other documents not there… images scattered around or even paragraphs ending on a different page just because the MS version of some font is slightly different from what comes with LibreOffice but different enough to totally trash your document. Even Office online has issues with some of the things I described, let alone LibreOffice and this is precisely why people in big companies buy MS Office.
Let me show you even on a very simple document I just made how wrong you are. I created the following document in MS Word and then proceeded to open it in LibreOffice just look at the comments:
So… LibreOffice can’t even ensure that the most basic formatting and features are displayed and saved properly. So much for “it works fine”.
I personally also believe that WYSIWYG editors are highly overrated: markdown is significantly better for note-taking and similar small documents, and reports would often be better off with LaTeX or something similar.
Let me guess you’re someone who works in IT and never had a typical “office job” that includes spending 90% of your time writing reports and pushing spreadsheets around. This is why you don’t get it, you’re not the typical user of MS Office and you don’t share the same use cases the OP, the article author and myself share.
Yes, some minor formatting changes occur when opening a docx file in libreoffice. Hardly sounds like a deal breaker to me. And yes, you do get a pop-up when saving to docx in libreoffice (with the toggle to disable the pop-ups right there in the message). Microsoft office does the exact same thing when saving to an odt file though: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/7c7c3a1b-df3b-48c5-aeca-8e0f2b766ba9.png
Once again, if you have to collaborate with office-users (and you cannot deal with the horror of having a different amount of space between the items), just use office online. How many times do I have to repeat myself?
Let me guess you’re someone who works in IT and never had a typical “office job” that includes spending 90% of your time writing reports and pushing spreadsheets around.
No, I do not work in IT, nor do I aspire to work in IT. I’m just a regular PC-user, who just so happens to have other opinions than you do. HOW DARE I?!?
Wouldn’t IT-workers of all people know what the more optimized editors are?
This is why you don’t get it, you’re not the typical user of MS Office and you don’t share the same use cases the OP, the article author and myself share.
The article you shared was talking about gaming, the adobe creative suite, virtual machines, electrical engineers, labs, architects and sysadmins/developers. Please don’t try to claim that the article author and OP ever had “the same use cases”.
I guess you are finally correct though, I’m indeed not the typical user of MS Office (thank god). The typical user pays $70 a year just to edit word docs, while calling the family tech support each time they try to add a horizontal page in word. If your use case is being trapped into a proprietary office solution, where you have to provide a reason before microsoft allows you to shut down your onedrive, where all your documents are saved in a mythical “cloud”, then I am glad that our use-cases differ.
I hope you see the irony of you using markdown in a comment describing why I am “out of touch” for using markdown.
If you want to use windows, that’s fine. But please don’t share such blatantly ignorant articles, and don’t try to defend them when multiple people point out why it is wrong about so many things.
I probably won’t reply to your next reaction (should there be any) unless you come up with some actual arguments, instead of “the line spacing is broken, you’re out of touch, not me”.
And how many times do I have to tell you that Office Online doesn’t have all the features of Office Desktop? It isn’t even close.
When LibreOffice can’t even make sure text ends up on the same place (as on the screenshot) it isn’t good for collaboration with MS Office users.
Why is it so hard for you look at the screenshot and admit that it isn’t as good as you’ve been saying?
using markdown in a comment describing why I am “out of touch” for using markdown.
No, you’re not “out of touch” for using markdown, you’re “out of touch” for implying that markdown can be a solution for the typical MS Office user as you did.
I try my best to look for open source alternatives. If a company does not support Linux, they don’t deserve my support as someone who has only used linux for almost 5 years now. Luckily I am not dragged all the way up into many of these ecosystems which don’t work on Linux
linux
Active
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.