Linux is still not ready to replace Windows

I'm someone who grew up on Windows but switched to Linux and holy shit was it so much nicer. I don't know if Windows massively improved or if people are just incapable of comparing something new with something they already know. Because Windows is hard.

99/100 basic users need someone to unfuck their windows install after what, one, two years?

Every time you need to do something non standard you're basically going from training wheels to "good luck, deputy sysadmin."

Broken registry. Orphaned cruft.

Malware, spyware.

It’s so wild that I have seen like, four Linux people in my lifetime admit the simple truth that every version of Windows and macOS, iOS and Android since conception have been geared progressively more toward being absolutely friendly to users that are dumb as rocks—in a good way—where Linux has absolutely not. And that this barrier is 100% of the difference between proprietary desktop environments and Linux. Linux is majority developed for power users, full stop. The closest I have seen to the contrary is like, maybe the Adwaita devs, and unfortunately they don’t have the reach to apply their knowledge to essential UX stuff like app installation or hardware compatibility.

This is why I get so frustrated with the “just switch to Linux, loser” crowd, because it’s so utterly disconnected with the reality that most people do not have the resources to invest in any kind of learning curve. It has to be intuitive and accessible from the start. Web developers understand this. MS, Apple, and Google get it. Like, even people who design public transportation understand that they must cater to a user who is drunk and not fluent in the local language when designing signage and systems. Why doesn’t the vast majority of the Linux community get it?

Is it still an unpopular opinion if I just hate that I agree with you?

(Writing this from my linux gaming desktop. I don't use arch btw)

Philosophy time: Is it unpopular opinion if 90% of PC users agree with you?

I think there is no general answer to "Is Linux mainstream ready to replace Windows?" because the use case is so important to consider.

If you just need a PC to browse the web and consume media then Linux is absolutely fine. This should more or less apply to a large group of users that don't do anything else with their devices.

Are you a gamer? Then I'd say more or less perfectly fine but it really depends on the games you want to play. Everything with the new, invasive anti-cheat tools doesn't work (e. g. League of Legends) but smaller, single player, or many multi player games do work at the moment.

Are you a professional or are using otherwise specific software? This is the biggest hurdle I see at the moment. CAD programs for engineering are a big problem for example.

And last but not least: Are you using periphery that needs specific drivers? Printers, audio interfaces, and whatnot. Then you might be out of luck as well if you can't script.

The last two points are the only ones that would worry me when I won't have at least one windows machine lying around.

don't worry about it. with the enshittification of win 11, that gap will close faster than copilot will record your activities.

windows isn't ready to replace windows. they never have been.

I need to disagree on pretty much all points. I switched both my mother and an old friend of mine to linux and neither of them had any major issues. They're not technical people, but they understood the basics needed for everyday use without problem.

I swear, half the issues people report after trying out linux are entirely related to the nvidia drivers and nothing else.

Linux is plenty ready for "most users." I recently saw a meme that applies here, about experts/enthusiasts overestimating the "average normie" in their field even when they're trying to account for most people not being on their level.

GPU Drivers, app stores

"Most users" scroll Facebook or Twitter and watch Netflix. Distro comes with firefox? GG. 🤷‍♂️ While I don't think its widespread (and hope lol,) ever since the Facebook app integrated a web browser there are people (usually younger iirc) who think Facebook IS the internet. Loads of people almost wouldn't notice if you switched their os overnight, if they have a desktop/laptop at all.

As for people looking to change to Linux due to MS business decisions, let's be real - they're by and large already techies. Its also not the 90s anymore, there are resources abound and SOOOO many users to have your problem before you do.

Personal nitpick for me, nothing to do with OP but the overall sentiment - Using the terminal is NOT THAT BALL CRUSHINGLY HARD as people still make it out to be, certainly not for stuff you may need it for in modern times. I have fedora, I need spotify. "sudo dnf install Spotify" "y" ta da. Certainly not an adventure, IMO.

EDIT: I'm thinking alot of you haven't used Linux in a long time. I've run into an issue before, but people run into issues with windows too and nobody is screeching about that. 🤷‍♂️ Some of you just straight didn't read my comment. 🤣

an adventure in terminal

That I do not understand. With APT, it's usually a single installation command for any kind of software packaged by the distribution. An adventure would in that case translate to a one-liner by your standards?

Who doesn't trust that people can learn new skills? This guy.

What's Windows?

It is a tough sale for sure.

I am trying to transition to Linux but there are a bunch of hurdles.

For example I installed fedora KDE spin in dual boot on my desktop. Then I installed steam as a flatpak and pointed it to my already installed game. Didn't work because of some permissions I didn't understand how to configure with flatseal.

Alright then noted I need to learn that shit but now I want to play a game so I uninstalled the steam flatpak and installed the steam package from the fedora repo. Checked the boxes in the packagemanager-gui (discovery) for nonfree steam and nonfree nvidia drivers, pointed to the library and it worked.

Great! Updated the games and downloaded the saves. So far so good. But after all that I had no time to play anymore because i had to look up a bunch of stuff to understand that I don't understand enough to make it work the way I tried.

I took my laptop with me which also has fedora KDE on it. When I had a little time I thought "hey maybe I can play a bit of moonring. After all I now know how to get steam running".

So I downloaded steam from the fedora repo, Logged in, downloaded moonring and... No save sync.

I go into settings and see that cloud save is enabled. Start a game maybe that triggers it? Nope.

It doesn't even say that sync failed or something like that beside the start button.

Okay so off to the web search. But as that gets more fucked by the minute I just get some problem adjacent stuff.

Like: "how to install steam on fedora". I already installed it, why isn't the cloud working? "Maybe it is because the path for savefiles is casesensitive?". Maybe but what am I supposed to do about it? And so on. So I closed my laptop with a bad taste in my mouth.

It is just frustrating to have to understand a bunch of shit you are not interested in just so that something works which worked before without a problem.

The world is just to complex and fast moving to understand everything and to retain everything. That's why we are an expert society. "I invest my time to understand this stuff really good and you invest your time to understand this and in the end we exchange our labor".

And that's the "problem" with Linux, that you have invest time into it. And people mostly don't have the time because they have lifes beside the PC.

1997 was the year of Linux on the desktop.

Also 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

2024 baby! I can feel it.

"replacing windows" should not be the objective of the Linux desktop ecosystem.

My wife's gaming pc runs on garuda for quite some time now and she never had any problems, just saying. To the more intricate things: people have to get already that they don't get the everything-button. If you want something as you specifically want it, you have to learn some stuff. If you want a table that's just right for you and well done, you'll have to pay good money or learn carpentry. Why should it be different with technology?

Bro get ready to be descended upon by the cult

Overall, can’t recommend this to a normal user.

How do you know you are not an abnormal user?

I'm willing to accept, that without a "mentor" Linux is hard to get setup for someone on their own.

For someone resourceful, they can ask every question and hopefully find the relevant Linux answers online, sometimes make a few mistakes but eventually figure it out.

Some users who are decent with computers and Windows might find some Linux things harder to use, and also sometimes hardware drivers or other features are missing. If they aren't willing to put up with it to get away from Microsoft spyware then I respect that choice.

For users that need help setting up Windows to begin with from their "computer guy" that get flustered anytime something goes the way they didn't expect, Linux actually can be a little lower maintenance. Have all the apps they need in an obvious place, have the system either update automatically or have them do it once every while. Linux has been very stable in my experience for that type of user too.

You tried Ubuntu and modified Ubuntu, why not throw your net further afield than Ubuntu?

Most people don't install anything beyond office tools (and even those are switching to various cloud systems).

Also, I know it is was a thing, but I never had driver issues (ok, one wifi card in like 2005), I think drivers aren't really an issue anymore, maybe some proprietary stuff (fingerprint readers?).
\ (As a funny side note, I have a wired laptop I can't get good Win drivers, but works perfectly out of the box with at least a few distros (openSUSE, Fedora, Debian).)

I manage 3 computers for my family, all run Linux for 10+ years. And I upgrade them frequently (with my old components most of the time :)). As I don't live with any of them I don't really want issues that would prevent their use. And beyond some bigger updates (versions or largely change from X11 to Wayland) over the years there is like an issue every few years. And now they all run Tumbleweed, so so no versions (set to upade monthly for their convenience).

Oh, and the og reason for Linux was because there were always constant issues with Windows. Im not gonna install XPs every few months.

I switched over a year ago and have had zero issues. The lemmings will surely stick with and defend w11, while the people that are tired of being spied on for their data to be better advertised to will move to Linux and realize how bad it was on windows and not believe they didn't switch sooner.

The app store or software center on most Linux distros are bad. I think Linux developers underestimate the importance of this part of the OS. For new users, the app store is one of the big 3 aspects of an OS: launcher, settings, app store.

Gnome settings app is easy to use, but missing a lot of controls.

The app store (software center) is just not helpful for exploring apps, and updates are always problematic.

Have you tried popos?

I think we're about 95% there. I think Linux needs to be streamlined a bit. I know that's a personal list and some Linux cracks might not even get what I mean, as it's so natural to them, but I'd like to see better guidance on 1. the installation 2. about updating and 3. about the permission system.

1. There are so many distributions that the general "pick what suits you most" or the "hey, just pick XY and go!" are no good answers. When someone is ready to switch away from Windows, the burden of choice is a real factor. I know often people say, just get Ubuntu and that's it. But you still have people actively recommended Mint, popOS etc to new people, as if it fixes all their issue. But what's suggested, just depends on what is the new hype, instead of focusing on one.

Also for a newby it is totally not clear what kernel is and which I need. I still don't understand why there are so many and which I need for that OS I installed. I recently tried to get Linux on a surface tablet and I couldn't figure out how to make touch work properly. I installed Ubuntu surface, then switched to wayland, then tried KDE and a different UI, I think it was x11 or something like that and while touch works, it now randomly stops working for no reason and no way to find the process that froze. Then you find threads that say you did everything wrong and no one uses what you do, but I just did read a new thread about it. No it's all wrong, start with Z.

This is totally unintuitive. Make a Ubuntu mainstream pleb version and force every Linux user to only recommend this one version. Period. There needs to be a consent on where to direct people to. It's nice to have options but 99,9% of the people switching away from Windows don't need it. Also make it so people really don't need to know how kernel and different UIs work, I don't need that for windows either, unless we talk about major version changes. Which already feel different and people already have issues switching from win10 to win11.

Also you always got to read endless lists of installation processes, because every distribution works differently. Then you want to use a console command, but it doesn't work, because the underlying library is missing, so it throws unknown errors. That's where people quite, as it's piling up issues instead of resolving them.

2. updating feels still a bit strange. This needs to be as easy as windows. Zero clicks at best and one at most. I still had programs that needed multiple dependencies and multiple individual installations for things to work. It's practical that Linux isn't as bloated as windows, many Linux fans love that, but it sucks when you come from Windows and things simply don't work. I don't remember the last time I needed to find a windows driver other than a GPU driver and even those have automatic updates now, including my mainboard and other chip drivers. Not so on Linux. It's really nothing windows user want to deal with anymore. For gaming for example, if I want to use CUDA or raytracing or FSR options for a game, this should work out of the box.
3. The permission system needs to be as intuitive and easy as windows. Yes windows sometimes suck, especially if you don't run it under an admin account and yes sometimes you simply don't get the permission for a folder for no real reason, but that's about it. Linux it feels twice as complicated. Maybe speaks for it's security but it's also a huge weight, causing all sorts of frustration where a ton of people simply say quits and move back to windows.

Overall it's still too much of a nerd thing. If all you do is install Firefox, you might get by, but as soon as you try to do much else, you get hammered with options and therefore possible frustration.

Hopefully steam OS will solve this as gamer will recommended this one OS and not one of the thousands of different Linux versions. Because from the outside it doesn't feel like a different color, it feels like "maybe I should have picked Linux version Y, instead of X, and save myself a lot of frustration." And you do this once or maybe never and are done trying. There's a reason why Linux has so few users still. It's not simple resentment of windows users.

The first Linux that makes gaming a non issue, as all DRM and anti cheat work, will get my attention and even then, I know there'll be frustration, by setting something up outside the norm, because I will likely need to tinker with some hidden config and read obscure online threads to fix that one issue I would never have on windows. Download an extra missing config file. And this doesn't even keep in mind, that if you dare to ask someone about your specific Linux issue, you get replies like "get good".

I really like what Linux tries to do, but I think the users all brush off the very rough edges, to make themselves feel superior. If you watch some Linux subreddit or Lemmy, you can smell the superiority and every discussion I had about linux in real life with Linux fans, always was like "oh I don't have this issue under Linux" but then they hide all the issues they have and the thousands of hours the spend on fixing a specific issue. But at least they can say they don't touch the evil windows, and so shouldn't you.