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Comment by tannhaeuser | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately the Linux desktop is in its worst state it has been since two decades with containerized apps/frameworks/browsers updating when they feel like it all the time and the related unsolvable permission and layering problems on top of the usual WLAN, touchpad, and power management issues unsolved for nearly 30 years as a growing number of second system effect frameworks bring new issues with ungooglable solutions so Linux users themselves flock to Mac OS.

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That is highly debatable, largely subjective and probably hardware dependent to an extent.

I'm running Linux on five different machines, and two of them are portables: a ThinkPad Z13 and a GPD Win Mini 2024 - and have none of the issues you mentioned. In fact there's literally zero issues at all, I couldn't be any happier to be honest.

A year after Windows 7 reached EOL, we began running Debian with XFCE for internet facing boxes. They all run uninterrupted with zero issues, and are orders of magnitude more stable than Windows 11. The biggest bonus to me is, Linux/BSD sets up in minutes and you're done; literally done and ready for work/pleasure. Properly setting up Windows using group policy and other privacy controlling mechanisms takes five+ hours. I still use Windows 7 which was the last user friendly OS put out by Redmond; it is still a great OS when kept off the internet.

> setting up Windows using group policy and other privacy controlling mechanisms takes five+ hours

I went through this not too long ago. And the effort required feels like a very deliberate dark pattern move.

> Unfortunately the Linux desktop is in its worst state it has been since two decades

I primarily used Linux in various ways since Ubuntu 6.06, and every year it gets a little bit better, useful and stable, from my point of view at least. But I also moved to Arch some years ago, and CachyOS this year, so that might cloud my view on how well things work, and I also stopped using laptops, which makes Linux life a lot easier.

Well, my first Ubuntu (circa 2006…07) wasn’t working well on me (with wired internet, no Bluetooth and an average Intel PC. These days, only one obsolete GPU wasn’t working for me. Basically, a default Fedora installation works well with everything I throw at it. In my view, the situation improved tremendously.

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