Linux needs a shared API framework for all desktop apps for them to succeed. It’s ridiculous that gnome apps and other apps look different and have different theming conventions. I’d love to get into theming and application building, but I’m so afraid that I’ll waste my time on something that won’t apply to everything. macOS solved application cohesion perfectly.

A lot of Linux software has really stupid names, and has since before Torvalds even started. GNU is a garbagepuke name for an operating system, and they’ve just kept doing that. Recursive actronyms like NANO and LAME, Gpackages and Krograms, and then so many bash built-ins and common shell programs have names like lsphw.

I once had this conversation:

“This distro comes with a kernel that’s so new it breaks compatibility with [some piece of hardware]”

“use mainline”

“Yeah, okay, I have no idea how to do that in this distro.”

Turns out “Mainline” is a kernel management tool. I thought the guy was telling me to use a mainline Linux kernel instead of a customized one, because A. the name of the app is poorly chosen, and B. he had the communication skills of a homeschooled zoomer.

Having to install apps manually and figure out dependencies myself because a popular piece of software only officially supports Ubuntu and Debian. No normal human would ever do this. They would go back to Windows. Hell, I still haven’t even gotten one piece of software to work on my new OpenSUSE system yet: Beyond Compare 4. There’s no flatpack for it. The RPM test says all dependencies are satisfied, but when I run the program, nothing happens. I did some web searching, but I haven’t dug too deep yet.

Why are there so many package managers with such different syntaxes? And why does one repo maintainer decide to call it “package” and another calls it “package4”? Or some entirely different name! It’s maddening. I’ve had to create empty proxy packages that translate package names just to install some RPM file. Again, the average person is not going to do this.

In KDE plasma, the first thing most people do is set up Wi-Fi on their computer, but you need to set up KWallet first or else the password gets stored in some other dimension. I accidentally typed my Wi-Fi password wrong, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to clear it out and make it ask me for the proper password when I try to connect. I even went into network manager and switched the network to say, “ask me every time”. It wouldn’t! It would just sit there and hang on “authenticating”. I never did figure it out. I ended up forgetting to encrypt my system partition, so I simply reinstalled the OS.

The elitism

No easy way to play sounds in microphone(like Soundpad program)

Uh, um… I do not like how I have to install microsoft fonts seperately to have times new roman on my resume?

Having to use the terminal even once

Making distro clones with premade software, wallpaper, etc.

Systemback is easy to use, but then complex to install for normal people (lack of instructions, have to manually make the partitions, needs 3 partitions but nothing states that in the software).

Post-Cubic customizations are easy for normal people to install but way more complex to set up (basically terminal only, need to know more abstract terminal commands for specific customizations like pinning an app to the bottom panel).

Basically, the classic Linux GUI problems.

non copyleft software in general1

The community lmao

People that argue over Gnome vs. KDE. Shut up and use whatever you like. No need to yuck other people’s yum.

You want to do some cool thing and you find instructions online.

But that shit only works when t every single aspect of the s is the exact same version.

Which will never be the case, so now you’re at co desperately trying to improvise the steps that, if you inherently knew how to do, you wouldn’t have needed instructions for in the first place.

Nothing to hate… some forums have turned pretty caustic but other than that, the software and the community are awesome

Re Flatpaks, I did not like them so I do not use them… not need to hate a thing I have barely any interaction with, choosing not to use them has not limited me at all

Never had wifi power management issues either (15 years on Linux)

Linux is super cool when everything works out of the box. But once you need to make adjustments, you’re in a world of pain.

I recently had the distinct displeasure of using visudo for the first time and was flabbergasted that this should be the recommended standard app for its purpose. An app which randomly turns mouse and keyboard inputs into random letters, doesn’t have a visible command menu, doesn’t allow you to click to place the text cursor, doesn’t have an easy way of copy-pasting…WTF? 🤯

Now, I am actually a trained IT professional who has installed and managed a plethora of firewalls, virtual machines, file servers, VPNs, etc… but Linux has me stumped way too often when apps seem to lack the most basic attention to usability.

And the lack of standardization leads to absurd situations where to solve one problem you have to first dig into three different underlying subsystems and their peculiarities, spending hours on trial and error using scant & often outdated or non-applicable documentation (it’s for another distro and two years old). 🙄

Not a Linux thing directly but something that bothers me a lot: The complete lack of support from professional applications.
Wanna use this tool that cost hundreds of bucks on Linux? Lmao fuck you.
You’d think companies that actually make money could afford to support Linux and hobbyists doing FOSS stuff for funsies can only focus on the OS they use themselves but somehow we live in a world where the opposite is true.

This is what makes switching to Linux for me personally and probably a lot of other people completely unviable because it means having to give up on thousands of dollars of stuff for “freedom”.

And the onus is 100% on the companies developing software. They have to offer Linux versions first, so people can switch to Linux, giving them more Linux users. Doesn’t work the other way around.

Oh also psst don’t ever mention spending money on proprietary software around Linux people, they will have a heart attack.