We love to praise linux constantly and tell everyone to change to it (they should) but what are your biggest annoyances ?
Mine would be, installing software (made even more complex by flatpaks being added, among the 5 other ways there already were to install software) and probably wifi power management issues.
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Oh! Came up with a new one, though it’s more of a unixism than a Linux specific thing.
I really wish that the core utils and other cli tools had a standard structured output option, like yaml, json, or toml so that it would be easier to parse rather than all of the random regular expressions needed when piping output around.
Edit: And it would be great if we also picked that same format for config files instead of all the bespoke stuff in /etc.
We have awesome distributed systems like Kubernetes (rke2, or k3s as easy distro examples) BUT no desktop usage.
I want a distributed desktop dang it. My phone, my smart tv (media PC), my gaming computer, my SOs gaming computer, my router, my home lab, etc, etc should theoretically all be one computer with multiple users, and multiple interfaces.
I have spent way too much time fiddling with audio, both in PulseAudio and Pirewire. Granted, this sucks even more on Windows.
Weird how my absolute favorite thing about Linux is how easy and simple installing software is, at least on Arch. Never touched a flatpack or snap or whatever else they’re called for my 13+ years if use.
My one major complaint is audio in general. I’ve had so many audio issues. If you need an eq or noise canceling it’s a pain to get it working. There’s always a bug somewhere, always a random distortion.
Voicemeeter is the only thing I miss about Windows. I really do.
I have an audio issue where it starts chopping if (I think, but could be CPU as well) the GPU struggles (think shader compilation). I’ve tried a couple of things to fix it, but haven’t been successful yet. So far it’s been my only major complaint.
Snap. The very existence of it.
The fact that there is NO agreed single package standard across distros.
This is probably the biggest barrier to mainstream linux adoption - devs have to choose between supporting 5+ package formats or just say “screw it” and make a windows/mac app instead.
This is my own opinion, but I think Flatpak and Flathub need to be universally adopted as a standard. It’s already growing that way organically, even if major distro projects haven’t recognized it yet.
With usage of Flatpak growing over time, I think we are heading towards that way.
This has its pros. If all agree to use, say, deb, then some of the users will complain, “I downloaded package XYZ from Arch and it doesn’t work on Fedora!”
No, not really true, IMO.
If all distros come together and agree on a single package format (e.g. deb), then if arch makes a package available in .deb, it can be downloaded and installed on Ubuntu or Fedora, as it becomes an universal package format like flatpak.
Currently we have to compile the source code in such situations.
If flatpak is universal doesn’t it solve the issue ? Is it the sandboxing people dont like?
My system is a mix of .Deb, manual compiled, and flatpaks. As im sure many are. Im not an organized person.
Yep, it’s sandboxing that I don’t like. They feel “tacked on” and don’t integrate properly.
Same for my system which is also a mix of deb, flatpak and Snap.
The main complain of flatpak being size and performance in comparison to ‘native’ installations.
Security should be the default, but instead a lot of security features are optional things we have dig through docs to set.
TPM support is getting more common, using it should be too. Detected during install? Set it up as part of LUKs during install, and enable a password, and provide option for TANG (both usage or deployment).
fscrypt should be enabled by default and keys set by logical differences of file types. (Yes on top of LUKS). Honestly setup following selinux profiles and per user is a reasonable default. Hardware wrapped keys should be default.
Encrypted memory an option for this CPU? Enable it. Features for multiple key memory encryption? Enable it. Encrypt on a per VM and per container level by default.
Each service should be containerized, connections made explicit (ideally with l7 rules, l4 at least). If a user want to tinker with have a dev mode that opens that service up, with expectation that it’s temporary (track and warn user when active). Each service should run as it’s own non root user.
Each application should containerized. Wayland should be default to minimize shared data. Access by apps should be explicit and user approved and user configurable. Application should never run as root and escalations should be temporary and explicitly approved by the user. Application to the network should be explicit per connection and l7 aware.
MACSec WPA3 pki should be available during install. Wireless WPA3 PKI option should be default on wireless setup. IPSec/Wire guard VPN/Tor should be available option by default on setup. Vlan tagging should be available options on setup.
FIPS or equivalents should be enforced by default. Old encryption methods/cipher/etc should require explicit approval by the user.
Selinux should enabled by default and selinux tagging should be exposed in user applications, so users can choose the security levels, privacy tags (medical or tax docs or etc), or pseudonym access they want.
Sudo should be setup by default for least privileged roles and not god mode access. The combination of those into a single user could look indistinguishable but it should be set and ready for adding users that are limited in scope.
Encrypted backups following the 321 rule (at least 3 backups, 2 different types of media, 1 off site) should be the default and configurable on install. Schedule and triggered backups should be frequently (ideally constantly backup, with snapshot ting being periodic).
Multiple factor logins should be the default. Support for smart card, key fob, OTP, biometric, plus password built-in and encouraged on install.
Number of known CVEs for hardware, packages, and configurations should be tracked and obviously available for privileged users. Hardware missing for full best practices (like TPM 2.0, memory encryption support, etc). Software source should be kept easily accessable to users for remove and modifications. Software should adhere to SLSA build practices, exception explicitly choosen the user.
Systems should be immutable with expectations being explicit to the user and triggering snapshot ting.
DNSSEC and DNSoTLS/DNSoHTTPS should be default and configurable on install.
NTS should be default for NTP configuration. Hardware time sources should be configurable on install.
Applications should be privacy preserving by default (not defaulting to Google for example).
These are just off the top of my head stuff, stuff I had to annoyingly learn and set up myself to harden systems instead of it just being part of sane defauls. CIS bench mark has more controls that should be set.
Flatpaks apps & their runtimes is taking 20 gb, was 80 gb before I realize it and start cleaning up. That’s annoying. But I also like Flatpak. I may just prioritize DNF first (I’m on Fedora) to minimize Flatpak bloats.
60 gb is very significant for me being in 256 gb ssd.
As someone who started getting into Linux on a Raspberry Pi (and now dual-booting Mint and Windows on the bigger machines), I still have no idea what Flatpak is. I always used to hit the terminal with “sudo apt install” and got what I needed. Except for the occasional proprietary software.
It’s a separate package tool that works on every distribution. Usually Debian derivatives use
apt, Redhat ones usednfetc. Flatpaks work everywhere.
What do you install for that much space to be taken up??
carelessly lots of stuff. kde & gnome developmnt runtimes. nvidia driver duplicates. Firefox, Librewolf & Ungoogled Chrome. full latex packages. Ardour and various syntesizer.
I eventually cleaned up most packages out of Flatpak to DNF, especially the one that require big runtime and gtk/qt apps or does’t need sandboxing. I may also avoid electron apps since they also tend to be big lol.
Do
flatpak remove --unused, it will clear up unused dependencies.It never work. I’ve always done
flatpak remove --unusedevery once in a while. At one time I checked my root filesystem using gnome’s disk analyzer to see what takes the most space, that is when I found out/var/lib/flatpak/repo/ate 80 gb of my disk.As per several suggestion from github issues & forums, I did
sudo flatpak repairand finally it did clean them up down to around 40-50. Several months later I kind of gone mad and delete everything in therepodirectory. I noticed my apps still works. Until few days later when I wanted to update, Flatpak complained and redownload most of the deleted stuff 🤣But after redownloading, it only took around 20 gb now, and after that Flatpak also pinned every package lmao so I have to unpin unimportant stuff any case they can be deleted using
flatpak remove --unusedand I seem to be not the only one, like this person has their Flatpak directories almost 100 gb https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=435450
I realize I may also just remove all latex stuff, I was only using it to graduate. I’d just typst now for smaller things.
Bluetooth support can be a mix bag one point my keyboard constantly disconnects for every few minutes likely due to the hardware aggressively try to save power.
Suspending can be 50/50 especially on old hardware. Either you get it back up and running or you will have to forcibly shut it down since it refuses to accept any commands.
The norms on where files belong are really dumb.
Similarly, programs being entitled to strew files all over kingdom come.
Ten different ways to install software and maybe one or two of them actually keep track of where all the files are and clean them up properly upon removal.
Its users
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The lack of a universal application installation method which 98% of developers use. Windows has .exe and it makes it so much easier for developers to release one application which is dead simple for users to install. No instruction manual with different methods per distro. Just double click. This results in less support for Linux in general. Fewer games and applications an drivers with fewer features.
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Poor backwards compatibility. Yes it results in bloat, but it also makes it much cheaper to develop for and maintain applications, and this results in more developers for Windows. More hardware and driver support. More applications. More games.
It is no mystery to me why developers don’t focus more on Linux support. It’s more expensive. They tell us this. What is so frustrating is that Linux fans are so quick to blame developers instead of focusing inwards and making Linux a more supportive platform for said developers.
The lack of a universal application installation method which 98% of developers use. Windows has .exe and it makes it so much easier for developers to release one application which is dead simple for users to install. No instruction manual with different methods per distro. Just double click. This results in less support for Linux in general. Fewer games and applications an drivers with fewer features.
That’s not true. .exe isn’t an installation method, it’s just a binary, the better equivalent would be .msi. Also you also have to consider (some) dependencies on Windows, e.g. you can’t assume the required vcredist is available on the target.
Poor backwards compatibility. Yes it results in bloat, but it also makes it much cheaper to develop for and maintain applications, and this results in more developers for Windows. More hardware and driver support. More applications. More games.
Not super sure about this. I was able to run an over 10 year old binary only game when I last tried (UT 2k4 in 2016 or so) and it worked after providing a single missing library. Yes, it did require manual intervention, but I think the situation is much better on Windows where compatibility also isn’t granted anymore.
10 year old binaries are only an achievement on Macs.
I have been able to run Lotus Organizer on Windows 11, 20-30 years old and only runs on a FAT formatted partition of maximum 4GB.
That’s not true. .exe isn’t an installation method, it’s just a binary, the better equivalent would be .msi. Also you also have to consider (some) dependencies on Windows, e.g. you can’t assume the required vcredist is available on the target.
I think one could argue this but it’s immaterial. My point remains the same. The lack of a universal installation method makes deployment expensive on Linux, and confusing for users.
Not super sure about this. I was able to run an over 10 year old binary only game when I last tried (UT 2k4 in 2016 or so) and it worked after providing a single missing library. Yes, it did require manual intervention, but I think the situation is much better on Windows where compatibility also isn’t granted anymore.
I can run a 1998 copy of StarCraft designed for Windows 98 on Windows 11. It’s true there are degrees of backwards compatibility here, but Windows is king. They invest a lot of dev time into ensuring applications remain operational for decades. Their API deprecation policies are legendary.
I think one could argue this but it’s immaterial. My point remains the same. The lack of a universal installation method makes deployment expensive on Linux, and confusing for users.
If you’re fine with an executable just writing stuff to your system, then .sh is Linux’ universal installer format.
It’s true there are degrees of backwards compatibility here, but Windows is king
I agree, Microsoft has invested a lot into backwards compatibility and some nifty tricks to deal with DLL hell which was a huge issue in the past and as a result, provide the best backwards compatibility, as long as you stay on x86-64. Nowadays, each .exe basically sees its own sets of dlls in the filesystem. I agree it’s best there. My point was rather that it’s not as bad on Linux as people make it out to be if the application was packaged correctly. Going forward, I think stuff like Valve’s Linux Runtime can provide compatibility.
If you’re fine with an executable just writing stuff to your system, then .sh is Linux’ universal installer format.
I would be, but it’s not enforced. Few developers use it. Any method needs to have almost total universal adoption. Then libraries get built around that standard instead of the other way around.
My point was rather that it’s not as bad on Linux as people make it out to be if the application was packaged correctly. Going forward, I think stuff like Valve’s Linux Runtime can provide compatibility.
That’s fair. It’s getting better. Linus Torvalds agrees with you. Valve might have to save us from this fragmentation.
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Bluetooth support that only sometimes works with my soundcore q30’s.
Multithreaded performance is awful. The system becomes completely unresponsive if a single process uses a lot of CPU despite another core being available. Copying a file in the background slows everything down to a crawl.
That and laptops. Will hibernation work this time? Will it wake up or do I need to forcefully restart it? Will my second monitor work after hot-plugging it? Will the battery last 2 or 6 hours this time?
Middle click to free scroll not working in non-FF browsers
