[wcchandler]

I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people. So I'm always surprised when I stumble upon somebody using it. Just recently I took a Google Cloud training course and the instructor used it as his daily driver. Not only was this impressive to see "out in the wild" but it was nice to see all the tools needed to lead a remote training course worked in his setup. He had a webcam working great (even focused/panned on him as he moved). He had a powerpoint/slideshow going. He had zoom/teleconferencing software working. And it all worked through the course. There was never 10-20 minute pause because something wasn't working right. Having this level of viability and operability is something I never expected to see.

[AQuantized]

This comment is a bit odd to me since I don't think those basic things you mention have been difficult to get working on most distros for quite a while now.

[magicalhippo]

It depends on which day of the week it is.

Ok a bit flippant, but I've been running KDE on my NUC as a secondary desktop for years now. Most of the time it works fairly well, but then suddenly something breaks or needs tweaking. And when it does it's often not trivial for a non-geek to handle.

That said, if they can get Krdp working properly, I'll almost certainly switch to KDE as my main driver, and demote Windows to my secondary.

[ryandrake]

These threads always seem to oscillate back and forth between "It's 2024 and you can't get Peripheral X working with Linux!" and "Peripheral X's have worked for 20 years now!"

[vitorgrs]

Weirdly, by compatibility is better on Linux than on Windows.

On Windows, on a clean install, I need to install the drivers from WU to get audio working, etc. And then I need to open Intel website to get the latest Bluetooth driver, go to Dell to get the latest wifi, as on Windows Update's these are not the latest.

And even after all of this, some of the drivers on Linux is better maintained, because the support for old Intel GPUs on Windows is very short. Meanwhile, on Linux, I get Vulkan support, and all recent drivers on my Broadwell. Video perf is way better on Linux here.

[michaelt]

I mean, Ubuntu did break screen sharing for a while 2 years ago [1]

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407494/screen-share-not-wor...

[sickofparadox]

I'm always befuddled by comments like this. I have been daily driving Linux (arch,btw) for quite a while, and I have never once had a driver issue, even with NVIDIA graphics cards. The only times I run into issues is when I am trying to run games with anti-cheat, but even that is being worked on by Valve. Linux mostly just works in my experience, I don't see where the idea comes from that its a huge blocker, minus the lack of specialized software.

[bpfrh]

Friend of mine got a new laptop which i recommended without looking closely on the specs, as it was listed as supported on ubuntu a lenovo yoga x 11 gen I think.

Found out afterwards that the version with windows preinstalled(that the friend bought, because of the cheap windows licence that maybe needed) comes with a special mipi camera from intel with ipu6 out-of-tree driver that only supports specific kernels and specific distros and while there are packages for ubuntu I couldn't get it to work.

Linux works if you don't buy the wrong hardware, windows works on any bought hardware.

I'm not against linux and I use it and most of the time it works out of the box, but this "most of the time" will bite you when you stop looking at specific reviews and driver support and just buy a laptop.

[pizza234]

I'm a hardcore Linux user, and most of my machines always had some driver issues.

The laptop I'm writing from needs my mobile phone as wifi bridge, because the Linux driver is poorly written, and it causes extremely poor signal quality. I also can't workaround tearing that plagues the whole desktop environment.

My other laptop has issues with the speakers that will never be fixed. And another one or two issues that I can't remember.

I wanted to buy a certain Lenovo laptop that is officially Ubuntu certified. Lenovo doesn't offer the OEM Ubuntu that they used for the certification though, and the vanilla version doesn't work (I've stopped checking after an year or so).

My desktop has a wake from suspend problem.

To be fair though, I have no doubt that if one chooses a certain machine (laptop) based on Linux compatibility, they will be happy - but it implies a certain sacrifice upfront.

[aborsy]

I have used Linux desktop for around two decades on my laptops and never had any issues with drivers or anything else. Various distributions have worked very well out of box with different models of laptops and PCs.

[cyberpunk]

It's 2024 and we're suprised by a webcam working. It makes me a bit sad somehow.

[fanatic2pope]

I cannot even remember the last time I plugged in a web cam and it didn't work on Linux. Just yesterday I borrowed a USB inspection camera from a friend in order to help me run a new ethernet line to my shop. The kit came with a "WIFI dongle" that you are supposed to use with your phone and some random app, but instead I just plugged it into my laptop, fired up Cheese and it came up immediately.

[silisili]

Yeah, 20ish years ago I remember having to compile alsa drivers, network drivers, cups drivers, etc. I can honestly see why some left and never came back.

That hasn't been the case for a long time now. I can't remember the last time I plugged something in that didn't work. My home setup is a minipc with wireless kb and mouse on a unified USB receiver, hdmi to a large monitor, bluetooth speaker, wireless printer, and USB webcam with mic.

I didn't have to do a single thing. It all just works. And it has for years, through various distro hopping.

[TacticalCoder]

> I've been a linux desktop user for a long time now (~25 years?). I generally don't talk about it, as it's not a suitable environment for a lot of people.

Same: I was already using Debian 1.1 (1.1, not 11) on the desktop or something like that.

But why not talk about it? I switched both my wife (she's very OK with tech) and my mother-in-law (she's not good with tech) to desktop Linux.

If my mother-in-law can use Linux, everybody can. Most people nowadays only need one app: a browser and Linux is totally for that use case, which is about 99% of all users' out there's usecase.

[chgs]

My mother-in-law remarried about 5 years ago. Her husband used to operate some oven cleaning business pre retirement, not exactly “techie”

He uses linux, has done for years, he just wants something that works.

[p4bl0]

I felt taken back before mid-2000 reading this comment. I mean it's been easily 15 years since those very basic things really just works on all the major Linux distributions.

[neogodless]

I recently tried Linux Mint, initially Cinnamon, then installed KDE Plasma. In the former fractional scaling was badly broken. In the latter, I couldn't control screen brightness.

Overall almost everything worked but not all things. And I'm used to working through technical hiccups and being patient. But ultimately there's no guarantee "Linux" will be fully functional on your unique hardware setup, and it's still challenging to choose distribution, windows manager, desktop environment, etc and there's no way to know which combo is best for your hardware without a lot of time consuming trial and error.

[oblio]

Sorry to be a downer but a cloud instructor is still a techie. I'd be way more impressed with a lawyer or an accountant using it but I've never seen one so far.

[perbu]

fwiw; I worked in a company that was kind of a Linux pioneer back in the 90s. We ran Linux for everyone. The accountant ran a VM for his accouting software, but except that everything was Linux. And once set up, it worked very well, for techies and non-technical alike.

If you get past installation and initial setup, using Linux in a desktop role isn't really challenging if you've got access to support.

[layer8]

> Having this level of viability and operability is something I never expected to see.

It’s unexpected even in the case of techies.