It's not ready for everyday users when you disable basic multimedia codecs. I know it's a US patent issue but still, you can't expect newcomers and everyday users to just "install a browser via flatpak instead" or "just get your mesa and ffmpeg from this third party repo"
Installing any OS is not for everyday users. Most people wouldn't have any idea how to install windows either. Whoever is setting up the computer should take care of all of that to begin with. I've set up multiple computers for older family members with SUSE and they are all happy with them, and I get almost no tech support calls. The one exception is printing, but you get that with anything because printing sucks. It's really to my advantage with my step father's computer because he has negative computer knowledge. He was one of those people who had a million add on bars in IE because he'd click the accept button on every shady website he visited.
I love that Linux exists, but I really don't appreciate the bullshit PR speak about how regular users can switch from Windows with little-to-no friction. The second something doesn't work as expected, even a minor thing, they'll be at a complete loss about how to even investigate the issue, let alone correct it. Windows competency doesn't transfer to Linux for even the most basic under-the-hood stuff. The less honest you are about that, the fewer people will try Linux a second time, and the more people will write off the entire endeavour as being the domain of computer experts/enthusiasts.
The second something doesn’t work as expected, even a minor thing, they’ll be at a complete loss about how to even investigate the issue, let alone correct it.
In the majority of cases, this is no different from Windows users on Windows.
True, but users will be differently confused in Linux.
Most people don’t give much thought to their operating system, but with Windows 10 support ending in October 2025, many will start searching for alternatives...
I predict most of them are going to waste a ton of money and buy a Window 11 device. Or waste a shit-ton of money and buy a Apple device. Or just say "fuck it" and keep Windows 10 (that's what my mom will surely do. I stopped caring, as my dad still wants to use his even older Windows 8 shitbox and my mom 100% agrees to this).
I think that all the people that are on Windows 10 today will keep even if the support ends
Except it throws big, scary-looking, fullscreen warnings already...
Well, that's what I said. Old shitboxes and such. May be old, but would run like a charm with Linux. But is a shitbox because the installed OS (WIndows in this case) is completely obsolete.
I would argue that win 10 that’s been working on there for a long time will also run like a charm. Or enough of a charm that they won’t care to change it. And if it starts throwing errors, preventing the from doing things they want, or breaking down, they’ll just think it’s the machine and replace it. Most people don’t think of OS and Machine as separate, independent things.
or think they're smart by using a script to bypass the win 11 hardware restrictions
People actually do this shit? Bruh. Why jump through hoops installing Windows 11 when installing Linux (the ones with graphical installer) is much easier and much less of a hassle? smh
people get their info on foss from normie-catered sources like linus tech tips that echo back normie sentiments for relatability
Combination of software availability and the perception that Linux is only for developers/servers and you have to be a computer genius to use it. Even if you can convince someone that just running Linux isn't rocket science, there's still commonly used software like the Adobe suite and MS Office that just don't have feature-parity level alternatives, even if those alternatives are almost there. I can do most of the stuff I used to do at work on LibreOffice compared to MS Office, but not everything. And while compatibility with the MS Office file types has really improved leaps and bounds over time, there's still some noticeable issues when opening those documents with one program after making changes with the other. People mention Photoshop a lot as a deal-breaker, but especially with GIMP 3.0 coming, GIMP will be a lot closer to Photoshop than most Linux PDF editors are to Acrobat. The only one I can find that has even close to Acrobat's features is Master PDF Editor, a piece of paid software (if you want all those features without an annoying watermark) that I don't think the free version of is in many repos. People say to use LibreOffice Draw, but that's drawing software meant for entirely different file types and is really not good for any PDF with any type of formatting in it because Draw isn't designed to handle it. I don't need those features on my own home PC, so I've been running Linux on my personal machines since 2009, but for those who do need those things, it might be a hard sell.
Latest Tumbleweed snapshot has a Mesa bug that causes 50% chance of black screen after login. A few weeks before that Plymouth was broken causing >1 minute boot times. To solve these issues users need to learn how to rollback updates from command line, so it's certainly not a good replacement for Windows.
I know it's rolling release distro but you can't claim "it's rolling release so bugs are expected and it's your fault for using it" and "it's betest and stablest system ever, everyone should use it" at the same time.
The article doesn't mention or recommend Tumbleweed as far as I can see.
Is this fakenews or is my tumbleweed install at home hardened... any TW users here heard of this?
https://forums.opensuse.org/t/snapshot-start-up-slowdown-18112024/180434
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1233532
https://forums.opensuse.org/t/after-todays-upgrade-tumbleweed-i-can-no-longer-log-in-via-the-wayland-session/180541
https://bugzilla.suse.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1234302
https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/12253
Not all hardware seems to be affected (at lest in case of second issue). I have a AMD GPU though and I hit both of them.
Well, I have AMD too and I haven't encounter either of them.... so far. Hope it stays that way.
This is not an accurate depiction. All those parts look like they will fit out of the box and all the parts are there.
Lol
what a dogshit boomer humor type lemmy community lmao
I enjoy them. But I'm a dogshit boomer.
Is there good humor somewhere on Lemmy?
Little do they known that both Clone Hero and YARG are native, the old crummy PC ports run fine on Wine (Even the WTDE mod) and RPCS3 works fantastic for Rock Band
the article does not tell about how to keep the system up to date
Yeah too bad, they should have hilighted that on GNOME DE with OpenSUSE it prompts you that updates are available and you hit OK or cancel. KDE might have something similar.
KDE too, but those users who have literally no idea how does the computer work, they won't even remember to check that popup window. an automatic solution is what is needed.
GNOME puts it right in your face as a dialog message...but yeah people will ignore it
I also sometimes (but often enough, including a time this week) hear people discuss to not install updates because of this and that.
but then if I think about it, I have trained myself too to this:
TV I agree, my LG updated and now streaming video is broken.
For android phone GrapheneOS.
I haven't found Linux to be fragile. I think that is distro dependent.
I'm on same OpenSUSE (with version upgrades) since 2017. Every update has been fine, only time it was an issue is when nVidia driver got ahead of the kernel for a few days. But OpenSUSE you just choose the previous snapshot.
My wife's laptops is NixOS for maybe 3 years now, no issues.
For android phone GrapheneOS.
it does not fix a lot of the bullshit changes
But you can install older versions , or choose when you update
which is not a solution, only a hotfix
Most of the list is either websites or websites on steroids (Electron), it's more than sufficient for "everyday users", but it doesn't really say anything new about the state of the Linux desktop, it's been like this for a few years in that aspect, but it has progressed a lot as of recent on many other aspects which are worth making a notice about.
On the other hand I think it's important to mention those things we don't have or can't ever (or who knows when) have, because the companies behind those products don't care at all for the platform, or care about in a negative way, several of those are used by "everyday users" and I'm sure it can be a deal breaker for them.
I guess it's a decent campaign to cater to those looking at their options with the incoming end of Windows support at least
What sets opensuse apart from distros like debbie?
Cute gekko
Zero-setup snapshotting, GUIs for system settings, more sophisticated repo management, less custom-patching of software, more utilitarian than minimalist.
For me it’s that Tumblweed at least uses BTRFS by default, so rolling back to a previous snapshot is a breeze if needed.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0