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  • Enough with the fan wars. Let's be perfectly honest for once. Windows, Linux, MacOS - they all suck. Sometimes in similar ways, sometimes in different ways. But they all suck.

    Windows users - I get you, you use it because it sorta works 40%, of the time and sucks in the way you understand.

    Linux users - I get you, you know all of the arcane incantations you need to quickly install, update, and troubleshoot your os in a terminal window. It works - once you apply your custom bash script that applies every change you need to get everything exactly how you like it. But again, it sucks in the way you understand.

    MacOS users - well I don't really get you. You know what you've done.

    We deserve better than this, guys. We deserve an os that just works, is easy to use, easy to configure, doesn't require an IT degree to use, and that we can recommend to our grandma without a second thought.

  • They have a point. I'm in the market for a new laptop and I have, so far, returned two of them.

    First, I tried a Huawei Matebook 16. I was foolish, but I thought it was "easy". No NVidia, no dGPU at all - just part that looked very standard. It was based on the info I had gathered from a few years of Linux usage: "Basically avoid NVidia and you're good". It was anything but. Broken suspend, WiFi was horrible, random deadlocks, extreme slowness at times (as if the RYZEN 7 wasn't Ryzen 7-ing) to become less smooth than my 5 year old Intel laptop, and broken audio codec (Senary Audio) that didn't work at all on the live, and worked erratically on the installed system using generic hd-audio drivers.

    I had a ~€1500 budget, but I raised it to buy a €1700 ThinkPad P16s AMD. No dGPU to speak of, sold with pre loaded Linux, boasting Canonical and Red Hat hardware certifications.

    I had:

    • Broken standby on Linux
    • GPU bugs and screen flickering on Linux
    • Various hangs and crashed
    • Malfunctioning wifi and non working 6e mode. I dug, and apparently the soldered Wi-Fi adapter does not have any kind of Linux support at all, but the kernel uses a quirk to load the firmware of an older Qualcomm card that's kinda similar on it and get it to work in Wi-Fi 6 compatibility mode.

    Boggles my mind that the 2 biggest enterprise Linux vendors took this laptop, ran a "thorough hardware certification process" on it and let it pass. Is this a pass? How long have they tried it? Have they even tried suspending?

    Of course, that was a return. But when I think about new laptops and Windows 11, basically anything works. You don't have to pay attention to anything: suspend will work, WiFi will work, audio and speakers as well, if you need fractional scaling you aren't in for a world of pain, and if you want an NVidia dGPU, it does work.

    Furthermore, the Windows 11 compatible CPU list is completely unofficial arbitrary, since you can still sideload Windows 11 on "unsupported" hardware and it will run with a far higher success rate than Linux on a random laptop you buy in store now. Like, it has been confirmed to run well on ancient Intel CPUs with screens below the minimum resolution. It's basically a skin over 10 and there are no significant kernel modifications.

    To be clear: I don't like Windows, but I hate this post as a consumer of bleeding edge hardware because it hides the problem under the rug - most new hardware is Windows-centric, and Linux supported options are few and far between. Nowdays not even the manufacturer declaring Linux support is enough. This friend of mine got a Dell XPS 13 Plus Developer Edition, and if he uses ANY ISO except the default Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 audio doesn't work at all! And my other friend with a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition has various GPU artifacts on the screen on anything except the relative Dell-customized Ubuntu 20.04 image. It's such a minefield.

    I have effectively added €500 to my budget, to now reach an outrageous €2000 for a premium Linux laptop with no significant trade-offs (mostly, I want a good screen and good performance). I am considering taking a shot in the dark and pre ordering the Framework 16, effectively swaying from traditional laptop makers entirely and hoping a fully customized laptop by a company that has been long committed to Linux support will be different.

  • To be fair, Nvidia support on Linux has been historically quite poor, with users having to manually install drivers (something the average person shouldn't have to think about). Though even that has gotten much better recently, with Debian now allowing forks to have proprietary drivers built in.

  • Ah yes... it is easy as long as you do something difficult first.

    Reminds me of that comment on Dropbox where some guy said it's going to fail because he can easily build something similar with an ftp server.

  • Surely we can admit that Linux is ready for general population on the desktop? It's the better choice overall, but the barrier to entry is very high.

    Edit: I mistyped and missed the word "not". It's "not ready for general population on the desktop". Sorry guys.

  • Windows 11 and its goddamn picky-ass CPU requirements... What the actual fuck, Microsoft? Did someone over there drink a tall glass of stupid juice and think, "Hey, let's royally piss off a chunk of our user base just because we can?" This is tech elitism at its absolute shittiest.

    It’s like Microsoft's throwing a party, and instead of a guest list, they've got some half-baked, cockamamie CPU blacklist. "Oh, you're rocking a perfectly functional CPU from a few years ago? Tough titties! Go fuck yourself with a USB stick!"

    This isn't progress; it’s goddamn techno-discrimination. It's like being invited to a buffet and then being told you can only eat if your fork is from the latest silverware collection. I mean, who's making these decisions over there? A drunk leprechaun playing darts with a list of CPUs?

    Look, I get wanting to advance, to push the boundaries of what's possible. But this? It's like serving someone a gourmet meal and then punching them in the gut for not having the right kind of fucking taste buds.

    Windows 11, with its bizarre-ass CPU criteria, is a masterclass in how to cock up a product launch. Dear Microsoft, next time you decide to drop a steaming turd of a decision on your users, at least have the decency to hand out some goddamn air fresheners, because this shit STINKS.

  • Can confirm, Mint was easier to set up and have everything working than Windows. Couldn't believe Linux had better driver support. What a world.

  • Just the other day I was posting complaining about a thing I was trying to do that should have been simple but Linux made really hard for some reason. Still prefer it to Windows tbh.

642 comments