Linux

Turns out that is your experience, and it cannot be extrapolated to the rest of the world.

In fact, my experience is actually opposite. Everytime I go back to Windows to do some task... Wi-Fi has trouble finding my access point, and when it finally connects (sometimes after having to reboot) the connection is simply not as strong. Oh, and some bullsh*t software got reinstalled and it even set itself up as launching-at-start-up, after I had to almost hack the OS to allow me to do that.

So, do I extrapolate to the rest of the world?

Microsoft is shit. Windows, is shit. Windows 11 is a privacy goddamn nightmare.

But in the end of the day, it just fucking works, those damn bastards ensure that. And even when something doesn't work, it seems, for some unknown reason, most of the online solutions do fix the issue.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

(Pause for breath)

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

Only if you count "most of the online solutions" as "run SFC /SCANNOW and if that doesn't work, just reinstall your OS".

You're having a bad day and you're letting off steam - understandable.

Just yesterday a friend said "Fucking Linux, every time I hit Esc it opens some program" only to be followed up by "lol, my mic was standing on the Ctrl key!". Another friend was having issues with a bluetooth headset and thought for a while that it was linux. After much debugging, we found out the product was just defective and had tons of people complaining about connectivity issues on multiple platforms.

I'm not saying what you're experiencing doesn't exist, nor that it's a fault of your own. Sometimes software just doesn't work and it sucks. Sometimes it really is linux, sometimes it's something else. Once you've calmed down and taken a breather, do upload a hardware probe. I'm guessing something's fucky either with your driver or with the hardware itself.

Now imagine someone who’s less likely to open up a terminal using Linux. They won’t. They’ll sacrifice their privacy because they might have full time jobs in something not remotely tech related and just wanted to watch some YouTube and don’t want to spend the little free time they have fixing their own computer.

Yep, true. It's been a long-standing issue with linux and the opensource community. Sometimes it's due to lack of time, sometimes it's due to lack of interest, but I can bet you that most of the time it's due to lack of funding. Unfortunately, sometimes it due to elitism too ("I don't want lusers using my software"). Hopefully someday we'll get to a point where there's a bigger focus on non-technical users.
We've come a long way though. Back in the 00's we had to fiddle with ifconfig and friggin' /etc/network by hand. Things have gotten a lot better.

Anti Commercial-AI license

You are going to get lots of downvotes, and this comment will too.

Linux on desktop has come a long way in usability, but it is still far behind Windows/Mac. It has lots of small issues that add up to a frustrating experience for mainstream users.

It is good for power users who don’t mind tweaking and going to the terminal.

It is ok for users who perform very simple tasks (e.g web browsing), and occasionally have the support from power users.

But for most people in between, it is a struggle. I dislike Windows and I have tried migrating to Linux many times, there is always something that requires unnecessary effort to make it work the way I need.

tl;dr a skill issue

Dang bro, how much did you pay for it? I'd try to get my money back if I were you.

Almost sounds a bit like a hardware issue (apart from Bazzite working, though depending on how much time you've spent on it it might just be luck)

Also since you got to vent it's my turn now. Windows by no way just worked for me. Within a few months of installing it it managed to nuke its own bootloader which I had to fix by booting into it from a live USB. I think I probably just chose a bad card but my Graphics drivers were really finicky too, though Linux had that issue too until I started using flatpak versions.

For me this is Bluetooth.

I very often have to restart the entire service to get it to recognize things, and sometimes it just seems "dead" only to just "fix itself" after a few minutes.

Macos and windows I never experience this

Anecdotal for sure.

Linux doesn't always work. We know that. But it looks like you're misconstruing your specific issue with some broader argument for Linux being mainstream. The fact that you connected it to a switch tells me that youre already more advanced than the average user. I get you're annoyed, but you can also just ask about your specific issue.

probably just a badly supported network card/chip, have you considered getting a better supported one?

As long as people think that a largely volunteer run ecosystem can be held to the very same expectations as products from some of the most wealthy companies on the planet without willingness to contribute or accept setbacks, I'm very glad that Linux isn't mainstream.

All I can think of is the time I had to give up Windows 10 because no matter what I tried, webpages would always take a few seconds to load on first connect. Like if I went to banana.com for the first time, it would take 3-4 seconds. If I went back a week later, it would be instant. But the same computer worked fine on Linux.

Basically my point is, yes your situation is crappy and you can go to Windows. But bugs like these for whatever arcane reason happen on MacOS and Windows too.

Broadcom and Realtek NICs have given me loads of headaches over the years. If you can manage to swap them for Intel ones, they tend to work WAY more reliably.

My Internet doesn't work, I've spent a shit ton of time trying to solve it but I'm not going to post any actual logs or error messages. I'm just going to complain about my unique issue.

Good luck. Enjoy whatever you end up using.

Yeah, Ethernet connectivity is a common issue in Linux. This is why it's almost never used in servers. It's definitely not something you are doing wrong.

I was using mint on an older thinkpad, I could only connect to the internet with a wired connect. After months, I uninstalled the driver it insisted I needed for my WiFi card and went back to the generic. That fixed it.

I always get bad vibes when beginners talk about internet connectivity issues and are using a switch. You do have a router too, right?

The fact that it does not work out of the box is already a bug, why not open an issue on linux mint instead of endlessly trying to tweak things? (possibly a problem of unrealistic perfectionism tbh).

Linux is already mainstream (according to statcounter 1 in 25 people in the US use Linux). but hardware can be a problem and if you don't check if your hardware is supported (or probably even better buying hardware that officially supports linux) there is a risk there will be problems.

With that said use what works, you are getting this for free and nobody owes you anything.

I made a small winwoze gamebox for gaming, photoshop & 3dsmax.

Dude, intalling windows was totally shit. I remember when you chucked in a winxp cd in the drive and off it went, those days are long gone it seems.

Installing and setting up Linux (mint) is a fresh breeze compared to windows.

It's time to go to bed man

This is actually timely. I have this old Dell laptop that's running mint for a jellyfin server, which out of nowhere lost its Internet connection. Well not actually lost, it just became really, really slow, like 100 kbps instead of the usual 100mbps. Turning the WiFi off and on again worked, but I still had to crawl out of my comfortable bed to do it. I've had the same thing happen on my windows devices though so idk.