Microsoft wants to give Linux a nice warm hug and then squeeze and squeeze and all the warmth disappears this is actually quite a high pressure oh that hurts Microsoft no ow are those needles coming out of your arms I think I hear bones splintering and screaming oh no it's me I'm screaming I'm hearing myself screaming I'm turning into
This is always a hilarious conversation because the diehard Linux users will lie up and down about how Linux has no problems and it’s just you that’s too dumb to understand how to use it.
Initial setup can be hard, and then, because GNU/Linux lets you do whatever you want, It’s not hard to bork the system if you’re using commands you don’t understand. The biggest realization for me was that if I want a stable system, I can’t expect to experiment with it / customize it to the nth degree unless I have a robust rollback / recovery solution like timeshift in place. Feeling very empowered after leaving windows, I have destroyed many systems, but truly, if you set up your system and then leave it alone, these days it’s not difficult to have a good experience.
But yea, you’re totally right: the userbase can be toxic AF, and there’s no one place you can go to learn the basics you really ought to know.
For context, LDAC is one of the few wireless audio codecs stamped Hi-Res by the Japan Audio Society and its encoder is open source since Android 8
LDAC is great, but simply stating that the encoder is “open source” is quite misleading (while technically correct). The codec is owned by Sony and heavily licensed. It’s a savvy business move of Sony to make the encoder free to use though, so everyone else can support their standard while charging manufacturers who want to integrate it into their headphones.
If we want a really free and open high quality codec, we should push for opus support via bluetooth
Yes… I made double sure to mention ‘encoder’ between that.
Xiph really won the lossy codec scene with Opus and I transcoded all my junk to that format. Hitting (my personal) transparency on 128k vbr is flat out impressive and it warms my heart that corpos won’t have a reason to collect taxes for basic things like audio codec. However it’s a different story with bluetooth audio codec in which I hope will change.
Not anything to do with the LDAC codec but why does wireless headphones on windows suck. On linux (even a wm) I just turn on my headphones and it works, on windows every time I have to remove the device and add it back again
Bluetooth drivers and the firmware on devices suck. Modern Windows with Intel Bluetooth seems to work as long as your devices don’t do weird shit. Broadcom chips are often problematic as hell, sometimes requiring a reboot to work after disconnecting a device.
Linux Bluetooth audio was a struggle for years. Pipewire made it Just Work for me. It’s still relatively new, but I don’t have any complaints, unlike in the Pulse+BlueZ days.
One word: tiling. And no, the autotiling script just doesn’t cut it. If I’m clicking something on Vivaldi on the left hand side, and I have a terminal on the right, but I also need thunar, my file manager, I would like it to open at the bottom of the stack, under the terminal, not under Vivaldi, where my mouse and focus are.
My first experience with linux was Ubuntu. Sue me, it was listed under most “most user friendly distro” listicles when I wasn’t smart enough to realize those were mostly marketing.
It worked fine for my purposes, though it took getting used to, but it would wake itself up from sleep after a few minutes. I would have to shut it off at night so that I wouldn’t wake up in a panic as an eerie light emanated through the room from my closed laptop. I did my best searching for the problem, but could never find a solution that worked; in retrospect, I probably just didn’t have the language to adequately describe the problem.
Nothing about the GUI was well-documented to the degree that CLI apps were. If I needed to make any changes, there would be like one grainy video on youtube that showed what apps to open and buttons to click and failed to solve my problem, but a dozen Stack Exchange articles telling me exactly what to do via the terminal.
I remember going off on some friends online when they tried to convince me Linux and the terminal were superior. I ranted about how this stupid sleep issue was indicative of larger, more annoying problems that drove potential users away. I raged about how hostile to users this esoteric nerds-only UX is. I cried about Windows could be better for everyone if the most computer-adept people would stop jumping ship for mediocre OSes.
I met another friend who used Arch (btw) within a year from that hissy fit, and she fixed my laptop within minutes. Using a CLI app nonetheless. I grumbled angrily to myself.
A few years later and everyone’s home all the time for some reason, and I get the wild idea that I’m going to be a(n ethical) hacker for whatever reason. I then proceeded to install Kali on a VM and the rest is history.
The point being that some people labor under the misguided belief that technology should conform to the users, and because we were mostly raised on Windows or Mac, we develop the misconception that those interfaces are “intuitive” (solely because we learned them during the best time in our life to pick up new skills). Then you try to move to linux for whatever reason and everything works differently and the process is jarring and noticeably requires the user conforming to the technology–i.e. changing bad habits learned from other OSes to fit the new one. The lucky few of us go on to learn many other OSes and start to see beyond the specifics to the abstract ideas similar to all of them, then it doesn’t matter if you have to work with iOS or TempleOS, you understand the basics of how it all fits together.
TL;DR Category theorists must be the least frustrated people alive
For most people computers are just the same as cars. People want a car that will drive them from place to place, are easy to refuel, easy to operate, and can be taken to an expert for anything difficult or that requires specialized knowledge. Same for computers. Most people want a computer to navigate the web, install the apps they are used to and that their friends use, is easy to operate, and can be taken to an expert for any involved work.
Even the friendliest of Linux distro don't check all those boxes. You cant get ready support from a repair shop, many of the apps are different or function differently, and it doesn't receive all the same love and attention from major third party developers as Windows does.
Most people could learn to use Linux; it's not that hard. Most people could learn to change their own oil. But for most people, it's not worth it. For most people it's not the journey, it's the destination and cars and computers are just tools to get there.
Linux user here, also once upon a time a Windows admin. I think the most difficult thing for most users is not that Linux is difficult, but that it is different.
Take Pop_OS for example. For the average "I check email and surf the web" user, it works wonderfully. But most people grew on Windows or Mac so its just not what they're used to. Linux is kind of the stick shift to Windows and Mac's automatic transmission... its not hard to learn, but most folk don't choose to make the effort because they don't need to.
I was just going to post the same thing. I actually split downloading duties with a friend of mine when we both had 1 (or maybe 2?) hr / day on our ISPs.
We even used coloured floppies to colour code the package sets.
At risk of sounding like an Arch shill, I've had the best experience with Hyprland on Arch. I first tried to get it working on Garuda but couldn't get it to work without weird issues, then found it wasn't available on Linux Mint (might be available now? Not sure). Worked pretty much out of the box on Arch with Sddm, and havent run into issues since.
That being said I tend to not install many packages, which reduces the chance of things breaking, so your miles may vary.
I think Hyprland might be available on Pop!_OS, might be worth checking that out.
A fully working Linux Phone with good battery life that supports a good matrix client with e2 encryption. GrapheneOS is good, but we need initiatives independent from Google.
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