[d3Xt3r]

> sub-par desktop experience.

I strongly disagree. Linux (KDE) is a far superior desktop experience these days, compared to Windows 11. Have you even seen the new Win11 taskbar and the shitty Start Menu - they ruined something which they perfected in Win7. The overall UX has taken a deep dive - like with the unwanted removal of classic Control Panel applets like "Window Color and Appearance" (which doesn't have a replacement), and the continued bolting-on of unwanted crap like Copilot and forced MS Accounts - like, even the CLOCK app requires you to sign-in (why?) [1]. There are even ads in MS PAINT [2]! Tell me if this is acceptable?

> It will always take a herculean effort to stay on par with Windows or MacOS, and no one really wants to put their money where their mouth is.

I also disagree with this, in fact, Linux has surpassed Windows and macOS in many areas.

Take updates for instance: especially on distros with atomic updates, they are far more reliable and a pleasant experience compared to Windows. Atomic transactions means updates either apply or don't - there's no partial/failed state, so no chance of an update failing and potentially borking your PC. Plus, distros which offer atomic updates also offer easy rollbacks - right from the boot menu - in case of any regressions. Updates also do not interrupt you, nor force you to reboot unexpectedly - you reboot whenever YOU want to, without any annoying nag messages.

Most importantly, updates do not hold your PC hostage like Windows does - seeing that "please wait, do not turn off your computer" has got to be the #1 most annoying thing about Windows.

It's amazing that even with 40 years of development + trillions of dollars at their disposal, Microsoft still can't figure out how to do updates properly.

Finally, your PC will continue to receive updates/upgrades for its entire practical lifespan, unlike Windows (regular versions) which turns a perfectly capable PC into e-waste. Win11 blocking Kaby Lake and older CPUs is a perfect example of planned obsolescence and honestly, it's disgusting that people like you find this acceptable.

There are several other areas where Linux shines, like immutable distros, Flatpak apps, sched_ext schedulers, x86_64 microarchitecture optimisations, low resource usage... I could write an entire essay about this, but that will make this lengthy post even lengthier.

> But being a contrarian and dogfooding what KDE and GNOME put out

Please don't put KDE in the same sentence as GNOME. The GNOME foundation have lost the plot and have betrayed their fans, ever since they released the abomination that is GNOME 3. KDE on the other hand, still delivers what users want (ignoring the KDE 4 era). KDE v6 has been a near-flawless experience, and still has a classic, familiar desktop UX that any old time Windows user would love and feel right at home with, unlike Win11.

> fighting with Nvidia and AMD

Please don't put nVidia and AMD in the same sentence. nVidia sucks and that's completely nVidia's fault for not supplying a full opensource driver stack (their new open kernel module is an improvement, but many driver components are still proprietary and rely on their GSP).

AMD on the other hand, has been a super-pleasant experience over the past few years. Ever since Valve got involved with their Steam Deck efforts, AMD drivers, KDE, Wine and several other related areas have seen massive improvements. I seriously doubt you would have any major complaints with AMD GPUs if you've tried them on a recent distro.

> not having proper commercial software support

What sort of commercial software does your family require? Mine don't need any (and nor do I). The family members who are still working have their own work-supplied Windows/macOS laptops, so that takes care of the commercial side of things, and outside of work we don't need any commercial software - and we do everything most normal PC users do - surfing the web, basic document/graphics/video editing, printing/scanning, file/photo backups etc. Everything works just fine under Linux, so I'm not sure what we're missing out on by not using commercial software.

> These distros have had 35 years. I don't know what else to say.

Maybe don't use an ancient distro that's stuck in the past? Try a modern immutable distro like Aurora [3] or Bazzite [4] and see for yourself how much things have changed.

[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/ztv70n/since_a_f...

[2] https://bsky.app/profile/d3xt3r.bsky.social/post/3lhhltgbtos...

[3] https://getaurora.dev/en

[4] https://bazzite.gg/

[CRConrad]

> the unwanted removal of classic Control Panel applets like "Window Color and Appearance" (which doesn't have a replacement)

Annoys the fsck out of me too. Hmm... Just occurred to me: What if one copied the correct .cpl file into the C:\Windows\System32 directory of a Win 10/11 box and just ran it (if nothing else, from the command line)?

Probably won't help. :-( AFAICT, the Control Panel applets just put the values you specify into the correct place in the Registry, and the latest versions of Windows just don't care what's there any more. Source: I used to edit the Windows Border Width value directly with RegEdit, but after a while it stopped using that value (and even started setting it back IIRC).

[mellosouls]

"Maybe don't use an ancient distro that's stuck in the past? Try a modern immutable distro like Aurora [3] or Bazzite [4] and see for yourself how much things have changed."

This has always been the riposte to Linux-for-normies sceptics - "you haven't tried these modern distros, X, Y, Z".

I've gone down that route several times and they always have issues, from drivers to config settings to just being too different compared to Windows or even MacOS.

Non-tech (and especially older) people will generally have expectations that obscure linux distros (despite their good intentions) cannot meet; they may well suit users who are more confident and curious with sorting things out themselves but this idea that somehow "this time its different" is ultimately on the distro-champions to prove; they've been wrong too many times in the past.

[d3Xt3r]

> I've gone down that route several times and they always have issues, from drivers to config settings to just being too different compared to Windows or even MacOS.

You really should give KDE-based distros a try, the UI isn't that much different from the traditional Windows UI paradigm. In fact I'd say KDE is more similar to the Windows 7 UI, than Windows 11 is.

Also, drivers aren't really a problem with compatible hardware. As the person recommending/installing Linux, it is your duty to ensure that they've got compatible hardware. In my experience, anything older than a couple of years, from mainstream brands, work fine. The only couple of cases where I've had to manually install a driver was for printers, but even that is now almost a non-issue these days thanks to driverless/IPP printing.

> Non-tech (and especially older) people will generally have expectations that obscure linux distros (despite their good intentions) cannot meet

I'm surprised you mentioned non-tech and older people, because that's exactly who my ideal targets for Linux are, because their needs are simple, predictable and generally unchanging. It's usually the tech-savvy and younger people who've got complex software needs and specific workflows that find it hard to adjust to Linux. This was also the case for me, I had over a decade worth of custom AutoHotkey scripts + mental dependencies on various proprietary software that I had to wean myself off from, before I ultimately switched.

Older, non-techy folks are mostly fine with just a browser and a document editor. This was the case with my mum, and pretty much most of my older relatives. As long as you set up the desktop in a way it looks familiar (aka creating shortcuts on the desktop), they don't cause too much of a fuss. Initially there may be a "how do I do this" or "where did xxxx go?" depending on their needs/workflow. At least in my mum's case, there wasn't much of an issue after showing her the basics.

I'm curious what needs the older folks you know have, which can't be met with an atomic KDE-based distro like Aurora.

[graemep]

I agree. I prefer KDE to any other desktop I have tried, although i also like XFCE.

> Please don't put nVidia and AMD in the same sentence.

and in general I have not had hardware issues. You can pretty much avoid them completely by buying hardware intended for Linux.

[Gormo]

XFCE is probably the closest thing around to a traditional Windows desktop environment.

[eviks]

> Have you even seen the new Win11 taskbar and the shitty Start Menu - they ruined something which they perfected in Win7.

Yes, one of the biggest visible downgrade of a core feature with W11! It's is awful and buggy, but then Windhawk mods and menu alternatives and app launchers exist, so it can tweaked to be good again (though they didn't perfect anything in any W7 or any other version, there is not a single perfect UI component)

> The overall UX has taken a deep dive - like with the unwanted removal of classic Control Panel applets like "Window Color and Appearance" (which doesn't have a replacement)

Again, bad stuff, though the classic control panel was also bad, the only consolation is that at the steady state you don't use those often

> CLOCK app requires you to sign-in (why?) [1]. There are even ads in MS PAINT [2]! Tell me if this is acceptable?

It isn't , but then why would you ever use these bad stock apps even if they had no ads??? Much better options exist!

But all of those mostly fixable annoyances pale in comparison with the inability to have a great file manager like Directory Opus or being able to find any file anywhere instantly with Everything or having a bunch of other apps (and then you'd have plenty of other issues tweaking OS UI or have sleep or hardware compatibility issues people keep complaining about)