You’re always going to see people with problems in support forums. If your Linux system is running well, you’re less likely to post about it than if you’re having problems.
Those communities got a little stale when enough people started reporting uptime in decades. Also, unless you’re on a flavor that can upgrade the kernel while the system is live, good uptimes these days are just the time between kernel updates.
I’ve usually run linux until I got sick of having problems with it and then install windows… until I got sick of having problems with it and then switch to linux again.
There is no OS without issues. In my experience, that may not be the same as others, linux problems tend to be more frequent, smaller and easier to fix. While windows problems tend to be less frequent but more problematic and harder to fix (I’m looking at you windows update which destroyed all my OS).
But if you are going to use linux you are going to need to tweak some things. The tinkering to make it all work is easy as the community forums have all the answers (btw windows support forums are the WORST, 99% of proposed solutions are useless).
I have linux distros that i like and work for me, i almost never have issues. I think it depends on hardware, and i think a lot of the issues are just people trying to do things as they used to on windows and things just work a bit different
I use Ubuntu for everything I do (except building and testing windows binaries) beside upgrading when it asks me to I never really have to worry about anything, everything I use just works and the ui is fine.
I’m not a big gamer and I only really use open source software so I don’t know if you’ll want to do things I don’t but I do pretty much everything else: image editing, video editing, CAD, coding, all sorts of weird internet stuff.
People will say I’m crazy but I love freeCAD, the sketch and part benches are all i really need because I’m mostly using it to make project boxes and dial holders but it’s nice that it can do so many other things. Not great for artistic tools I’d use blender for that but technical stuff it’s great.
Tbh motherboard matters. Updating my msi motherboard actually fixed a major issue for me preventing grub from letting me select what OS to load on boot.
I installed linux mint and did have to do a bit of tinkering to get my audio to work from the front panel too. Found answers in the mint forums.
Other than that my discord streams have no audio and discords screen capture daemon or whatever keeps the computer from shutting down for like a minute after i try to.
Those are the only issues Ive had though.
As for lack of features, no HDR sucks, but other than that I’m good.
Warpinator is nice for syncing files with my phone.
Also enjoying the simpler feel compared to windows, and no ads.
Yes Stable Linux variants (also known as distros) are very widely used, and range from Linux mint which is completely stable with no issues for day to day use (assuming you don’t use an Nvidia card) to Debian which which has a selling point of not changing anything beyond security updates for like 6 years straight
Most people here will be talking about there bleeding edge systems which will use code that is often in beta or use systems so new they don’t have proper documentation (the bcachefs file system which showed up last month comes to mind).
Just ot make it clear to OP, Stable does NOT nesesarily mean bug free. Just like how most people are on the “stable” branch of Windows 10 or 11,but they still encounter bugs, “stable” Linux distros can also have bugs.
The difference between “stable” and not stable is that: 1.) The system is “stable” in that it’s very unlikely to crash. Stable Linux distros are much preferred for servers, for instance. 2.) Any OS related bugs you find will still be there likely until the next big release. (with Debian iirc this is like every 4 years)
I never had issues with Nvidia on Mint, but I recently upgraded to a 7800xt and had issues in some games. Switched to Ubuntu 23.10 with Wayland and back to no issues. I recommend Mint for all new Linux users, unless you have current gen hardware. Then you might want a newer kernel. Linux Mint is very stable and you can expect the same amount of bugs as Windows 10. Less bugs than Win11 I think.
What?! Damn… That’s what I get for just apt updating in the terminal and assuming it’s fixed to 5.15. I’ve read that Mint is still behind on Wayland support though, so my switch to Ubuntu still feels justified.
Well since a few days my laptop speakers do not work anymore lmao. I had to install it 4 times to make my gpu drivers work. If you’re not that teck savy it’s fine but you need to atleast be interested in it and ready for it, and also patient. If you have a laptop I strongly advise you check online to see how well supported it is and if you have a nvidia card check if people are having issues.
Good luck on your journey, so far i don’t regret my choice mostly because i know that linux is so maleable no matter the issue i’ll get it fixed.
This seems to imply that other operating systems don’t have issues and don’t require editing files.
Compared to Windows, I’ve had fewer frustrating issues on Linux. I think the reason you hear about these issues is because the Linux community naturally encourages sharing these issues. If I have a niche problem, I can share it, then the community will work together to solve it so it isn’t an issue anymore. On Windows, you might run a troubleshooting wizard that might solve the problem, and if it doesn’t you’ll probably take it to MS support who’ll walk you through it. If that doesn’t fix it, you’ll likely just wait for a bug fix in the next update. Point being, they get talked about less because the system doesn’t encourage problem solving on the users end (as much as Linux does).
As for editing files, sure, you do a lot of that on Linux. On Windows, you use a settings menu to fiddle with things, but all that settings menu does is give you a button to press. Pressing that button is just a fancy visual way of editing a file somewhere. Linux just often forgoes the graphical interface and encourages you to get used to editing those files directly.
Just to add one point to the end there, a lot of times in Windows it isn’t even a file it’s editing, or at least not a plain text file you could even edit manually, so it’s much more obfuscated even than that.
Or it’s a setting in the registry that pretty much everyone says “do not touch if you don’t know what you’re doing, you will break your system”… Nowhere in Linux will you be editing something that can break your install while configuring your default keyboard layout (as an example)
Yes thats definitely something worth noting. I was just bringing up the point that in the end, all settings are just little parameters in some file or registry, and that there’s no practical difference between flipping a switch in a GUI to the off position vs adding a ‘#’ in a config file to comment out a line or option. One just looks intimidating if you aren’t used to it, but in reality it gives you much more control and teaches you more about your system.
It really depends on what distro you choose because they are different Operating Systems using the same kernel and somewhat similar structure. Some are meant to have lots of user input and tweaking, some come ready to go with no real need to mess under the hood. I.e. Gentoo you will compile stuff, nixOS you will setup a config file or two, arch you might do tweaks after bleeding edge updates need some fiddling, then there is OpenSUSE where you have GUI for all settings and never need to edit files manually.
Part of the linux experience is trying a bunch and finding one that suits your interest.
There’s a common joke that it’s not linux, it’s gnu linux and this is followed by a long copy pasta about how linux is only the kernel which is the code that handles managing how your machine is used
In this case this is important, linux can be a stable os (notible examples include android os, linux mint, debian stable, as well as the server distributions) these generally update slower in order to make sure bugs get squashed. On the other hand there are linux operating systems that are difficult to use for a beginner such as arch, void, and gentoo. There are also distrobutions that have a bad habit of breaking manjaro, gentoo, come to mind. If you want a linux experience that is set it up once and have no more problems than anyone might expect to have on windows you can do that (sometimes you’ll run into a situation where you have a device that doesn’t play well with linux like an algato streamdeck or a device that doesn’t have a driver yet like my sister’s laptop webcam (thanks acer much appreciated) but in general you can have a stable easy experience as long as you aren’t trying to do anything crazy
Here’s my recommendation, make a linux mint thumbdrive boot off it, play around with it, and test varius hardware you have (ie bluetooth, webcam, that one usb dingle doop that no one else has but you use every day). Maybe don’t install it (or do chances are it’ll be just fine) but boot off it often, and once you’ve learnt the os pretty well, back up everything you care about and install linux mint
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