Linux desktop will, most likely, fail for: [...]

• Developers and sysadmins, because not everyone is using Docker and Github actions to deploy applications to some proprietary cloud solution. Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client (similar WinSCP or Cyberduck) is an impossible task as there a few, but they all fail even at basic stuff like dragging and dropping a file.

This can't be serious.

Laptop computers have made significant strides, and in 2023, they're better than ever. However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: That a powerful gaming laptop is as user-friendly and productive as the Apple iPad, which is what everyone should obviously be using. After a few discussions on Lemmy, I believe it's important to provide a clear review of where these fancy "laptop" computers fall short as daily drivers for normal people like me.

PC gaming laptops will, most, likely, fail, for:

• People who need the App Store
• People that want everything to work exactly like it does on the iPad
• Anyone who wants a simple way to install Angry Birds without trying to use needlessly complicated things such as a mouse and keyboard
• Apple apps that won't run because you bought a non-Apple laptop
• The performance overhead of that extra complexity costs at least 5-15% of what you'd otherwise expect from such a powerful machine
• People who need to run FaceTime and whose friends won't consider any alternatives outside the Apple way of life
• Serious scientific labs with policies that require iPad-only data acquisition
• Musicians, artists, and customer service agents who've built their whole careers around iPad-only software
• Developers and sysadmins, because you're probably administering Apple systems for which the iPad is indispensible

Laptop computers are great, I love them but I don't sugar coat it and I'm not delusional like you.

If one lives in a bubble and doesn't to collaborate with other Apple iPad users then PC latop apps might work and might even deliver a decent workflow. But once you've got to work with other iPad users it's "game over" — the "alternatives" just aren't up to it.

iPads aren't that expensive and they work right out of the box. Software runs fine, everything on the App Store is supported whatever you're trying to do and you'll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they're way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you've to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive laptop computer experience.

It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months? aeons?) you want to spend fiddling with a mouse and keyboard to set up things which simply work out of the box on the Apple iPad for a minimal fee. Buy an iPad! You know it's the only sensible thing to do and the ROI will be fantastic!

You can buy a second-hand iPad for around €4 that comes with everything you'll need. And every iPad comes with IOS for no extra charge, so why wait? Buy it! Buy it now!

"They hated him because he spoke the truth. I can't even get "simple" apps like Apple iMove to run on my PC. And there's some kind of "video card driver" that needs "updating"? No sane person could ever cope with this. No amount of googling or even the fabled tech support genuis of "chatgpt" was able to help me. It just won't work. This whole Internet is delusional, if they think that laptop computers are usable for the average Joe and I'm an Apple iPad expert so I know what I'm talking about. It's too much hassle. I just want to get things done." — Average Joe

Still thinking that 2023 is the year of the laptop computer? Think again. The Apple iPad is all the computing you will ever need.

I'm pretty sure the average person wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between something like mint and windows.

Linux is as user-friendly as the user wants it to be.

However, there are still individuals perpetuating a delusion: that desktop Linux is as user-friendly and productive as its mainstream counterparts.

Couldn't agree more. We need to get rid of that stupid idea that Windows or macOS are anywhere near as productive as Linux.

I said it before and I will said it again: fuck off with the constant "Linux is not ready to go mainstream". Who cares? There will always be some software that doesn't support Linux and there will always be people who will prefer Windows. The goal was never to move everyone to Linux or create a OS perfect for everyone. The goal was to for Linux not to die because of shady MS practices, lack of HW support, DRM and proprietary standards. Guess what? Linux is not going anywhere now. We won. We can talk about something else now.

Windows licenses are cheap and you get things working out of the box. Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero. There are annoyances from time to time, sure, but they’re way fewer and simpler to deal with than the hoops you’ve to go through to get a minimal and viable/productive Linux desktop experience.

It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want spend fixing things on Linux that simply work out of the box under Windows for a minimal fee. Buy a Windows license and spend the time you would’ve spent dealing with Linux issues doing your actual job and you’ll, most likely, get a better ROI.

This is wild lol.

On my dual-boot machine, I once had to spend an hour on the phone with Microsoft because I put in a new GPU and Windows decided that meant it was installed on the wrong PC and locked me out of it.

I've had my printer for years and it still doesn't work properly on Windows. It prints, but it fucks up in subtle ways constantly such as setting the print scale to 100% which prints slightly larger. My SO prints sewing patterns so this can actually be a big fuck up.

I had to do a registry edit in Windows to get the fucking clock to display the correct time.

It can't even turn off properly. About 40% of the time when I shut it down from Windows it'll wait about 30 seconds and then turn back on again.

When I boot it from Linux, none of these things are issues and it just behaves like a normal computer.

There us so much wrong with this article. From installing a fucking browser via flatpack, over ignoring the fact that office 365 is a thing to the fact that there are alternatives to Adobe.

Sure, not everything is perfect right now, and people have to learn new stuff.

I have migrated multiple people to fedora in the last two years. And guess what, regardless of type or age of user, they had no troubles with it to this day. They use gimp, play, have browsers with password managers, and write office documents. Yes. MS office.

Articles like this are one reason why people hesitate to make the switch. Doompainting, that's all it is.

And what the hell are you talking about vrr? Kde, sway and hyperland support it for years now under wayland. Gnome still does not have it, but that is gnome.

And if more distributions would not per default use gnome, such misconceptions wouldn't exist in the first place.

People who need MS Office because once you have to collaborate with others Open/Libre/OnlyOffice won’t cut it;

The average user doesn't need specifically MS Office. But if they do, they do.

password manager via flatpak only

Use (always) your package manager. The trend of using Flatpak has severe downsides as you pointed out.

Virtualbox [...] GNOME Boxes

Use libvirt and the virt-manager UI

Adobe apps won’t run properly

Might as well be the case. I haven't tried.

Gamers because of the reasons above plus a flat 5-15% performance hit

My experience is the other way around.

old software / games because not even those will run properly on Wine

Old games don't run on a recent Windows either. I've tried.

electrical engineers as typical toolsets

If you need specific proprietary tools, you might need Windows or Wine. Depends on the specific use-case. But the 'average user' we're talking about isn't an electrical engineer. If you're a student, try KiCad it's not Eagle but it is something.

specialized hardware

You need specialized software along with the specialized hardware. Again, more niche than 'average user'.

AutoCAD isn’t available

Same. If you need special software, you need special software. It's arguable if the 'average user' needs exactly that. Special needs might render Linux unusable in your situation.

Finding a properly working FTP/SFTP/FTPS desktop client

My file manager does this. And it's more like the windows people do their webdev. I rarely work like this. I don't have a need for WinSCP on my desktop but webdev works fine.

Why do most people use Linux instead of Windows to host their servers, then? Why is almost all of the web powered by Linux if Windows is better? All the devs and sysops wrong? AWS? Almost all cloud services?

Software runs fine, all vendors support whatever you’re trying to do and you’ll be productive from day zero.

Really? I need to throw away printers because people update their Windows and the printer has no drivers available for the new Windows version. Printers stop after a service pack got rolled out and need fixing. People have Ransomware sent to them. Graphics drivers and sound drivers sometimes do silly stuff and don't detect the headphone plug properly. HDMI doesn't switch over to the projector. All sorts of small annoyances and they happen regularly.

It all comes down to a question of how much time (days? months?) you want spend fixing things on Linux

Agree. If you learned Windows and have no idea of Linux, you'd have to learn this now. It takes time. If you had learned Linux, you'd know where the logfiles are and you'd struggle with Windows. Sometimes learning new things (properly) is a good things. Sometimes you can't be bothered or lack time to do it.

TL:DR; the Linux experience might be great but it isn’t for everyone and anyone. If you need to do your job without small annoyances that will curb your productivity it isn’t, most likely, for you.

The 'average user' doesn't need all the specific tools in exactly that version. The average user needs an office suite and a browser, not Eagle and Adobe. If you live in one ecosystem and have to share stuff with your colleagues, you live in that ecosystem. I agree. I have far less issues with my linux machines and debugging is so much easier with them than the Windows machines and servers I had. It's sometimes been days of trial and error to tackle problems there while Linux usually has good debug messages available instead of 'Error 33492, program closed.'

The average user needs a stable and user-respecting system that get's out of the way. They need Office, a browser, E-Mail, a network-share and a working printer. All the specific tools and WinSCPs and so on are additional knowledge you learned during your times with Windows, while the average user struggles with their Antivirus. I agree, it's more complicated for you if you have 10+ years of windows experience and now try to apply it 1:1 to Linux. It doesn't work this way.

(My general advice is: If you want it 100% like Windows: Use Windows.)

"INStallINg VirtUalBOx is hARd" is quite a statement when you choose like the most difficult way to do it...

I switched to Linux/Ubuntu when I found out all of my Steam games work on Linux. I was shocked but it was true. I heard there are a few games that don't work because of EAC but I don't have any of those. I even added all my non steam games to steam and they work. Even Project 1999 works, Baldur's Gate 1, and 2 works...and works very well. I am playing the newest games too like Baldur's Gate 3 and Lords of the Fallen on max settings with my XBox controller.

My PC and I think a lot of people's PC are used for gaming. Now I also installed Google Chrome when I did have to do some business. I was able to make Office friendly files for my resume and PDFs with Google docs. When I did need to do some graphic work I used gimp. Ubuntu saw my Brother network printer and I printed what I needed.

I am sure there are people who need software that will not work on Linux, but a lot of people could use Linux for their everyday PC use. Most people game or use the web browser.

I like how the majority of the list is "stuff that doesn't exists on Linux can't be properly used on Linux". Yeah, no fucking shit, Sherlock.
I also like how it's supposed to be about the "average user" and then lists a ton of stuff that's only used in niche applications when put in relation to the entire desktop market.

Additionally:

People that run old software / games because not even those will run properly on Wine;

A good amount of old games won't run properly on Windows anymore, either.

I can't see any of the downvotes that DerisionConsulting mentioned, possibly because I'm on kbin, but I can absolutely understand why people would downvote this completely braindead article that doesn't mention a lot of the actual issues (i.e. hardware compatibility on laptops, friction from the slow transition from X to Wayland, inconsistent user interfaces, updates breaking stuff on some distros, ...).

I see we still have the problem of people who don't know how to use Linux writing drive-by hit pieces about Linux.

How 2010 of them.

What are average users? That's a really broad term. For example my parents and friends are considered average users and they all do their diligences on a web browser. So can they switch to Linux? Of course. For school learning about Linux and having to hand out work as a Word document hasn't been a problem for me just use Microsoft 365 no problem at all. Adobe suite? Well there is plenty of tools capable of doing the work as good as you just have to take the time to learn them ,I agree on this one with author. But in reality I think we should all move away from Adobe their subscription is expensive , most of my classmates at my community college can barely afford a laptop to run Photoshop so it will be great if schools start teaching FOSS apps. If you are using keepass XC you can copy and paste a password and if you don't want to deal with that use Bitwarden been using that for years. Virtual Manager is so simple to install and have a Windows 10 up and running in less than a hour.

I am a casual gamer and been able to play GTA V , Cyberpunk 2077 , Red dead Redemption 2 , Wildlands , Far Cry Primal , Spiderman remastered , Stray on my PC with little to no configuration.

Imagine Windows eventually charging you a monthly subscriptions and still collecting your data adding useless features like AI that will collect more and more data , to serve you better according to them. I don't want that , that's why I move from Windows to Linux. Was it easy? No but it was worth it :) to have the control back and the privacy I wanted.

This is really and truly terrible all around. Firstly, its a link to a website talking about a post on Lemmy... Why the hell is this just not a post? Why do we need an external website for this terrible excuse for "an article"? Secondly, the writing is terribly done with poorly reasoned arguments and a lot of just plain wrong information. It is yet another example of someone that tried switching to Linux once, sucked at it, and decided that everyone here in the Linux communities must just be lying about having no issues using linux and they should come here to the Linux communites to tell us to stop and we can't do what we already do every damn day. Jesus, it seems like half of the posts in any Linux community on Lemmy is people that don't use Linux telling everyone how bad Linux is and how great windows is... wtf guys.

The fuck?

I am the average user. Linux is, and has been since at least 2012 when I started using it, been absurdly easy to install. You can get instructions for it in seconds, follow the directions, and you're done in twenty-odd minutes. And I mean done as in you can do any of the basics the average user needs to do. If you wanna tweak things, that's longer, but still as easy as windows (or easier in some aspects).

My fucking mom can handle a mint install, and she's an idiot in regards to computers.

I think the biggest issue with linux on desktop/laptops is simply that most computer users are just not savvy enough to be comfortable installing themselves and feeling like they can fix it if something goes wrong and most come with Windows.

As professional shit poster and semi pro gamer along with light domestic office use case, I will never go back windows.

Privacy and security nightmare where the paying customer gets treated like a brain dead pleb.

i've supported home users for over two decades.

the 'average' of those is dumb as bricks when it comes to PCs or the internet. a mainstream linux distribution will not work for them unless their needs are basically a browser only--and for that limited use case, a chromebook is the better fit--dirt cheap to buy, and integrated with the google ecosystem they probably already got sucked-into via their android-based phone.

i have one user that calls me every year or so for an updated ubuntu live boot disk, they run a browser off that for everything--don't even have a hdd in their pc, and a couple others that boot a kiosk-type setup off hdd.

i do have a few that have a full linux desktop--but they aren't among those 'average' users and are mostly self-sufficient in maintaining them.