Linux (Debian sucks)

[seth1911]

im happy for about 4 Years with Debian, but there are so many things that it sucks to use it as a daily OS

1. U need drivers for every shit like h264
2. Most wifi Cards dont work out of the Box (USB, PCIe)
3. U need self compiling the WIFI Cards (most dont work or being bugy)
4. Sometimes it can not copy things to another NTFS drive
5. Open source Burning Rooms are totaly stupid (i take x2 on my BD Drive with a BD RE x2, and the Program writes with 6-8x) (Error)
etc. etc.

The usabilty is like come fuck me iam open source im best nahh, ill go back to my fimary Windows 10 LTSC

 

[XL-R8R]

There are multiple other Linux choices... however, I do hope you enjoy using Windows again.



(not sure this needed a thread)

 

[kruk]

In Debian the repositories that contain the software that does not comply with the DFSG (non-free repositories) are disabled by default. You can enable them by editing /etc/apt/sources.list or (probably) via your package manager. After updating the sources list, you can then easily install non-free firmware and other proprietary stuff. No compiling needed. Alternatively, if you had picked Manjaro or (K)Ubuntu, your experience might have been much better.

Additionally, for me ntfs-3g was extremely stable and never in years I had problems with it. Please note, that writing support to NTFS is not available if the partition was not unmounted properly in Windows (BSOD, forced restart, Fast startup, etc.)

 

[Frick]

In my experience the Linux distros can definitely be finicky with hardware. I don't think I ever have had a laptop running Linux (*ubuntu/Puppy/DSL/Slitaz/Fedora/CentOS/others) where I have gotten everything running, the most common final culprit being enter sleep mode on lid closing.

 

[ColinB123]

I sympathise with the OP. It p...es me off every time I'm forced back to a Terminal and command line. In 2020! Every time that happens, I say "One day, Linux will be ready for the desktop......."

But then again, I sure am glad I'm dual-booting.

 

[silentbogo]

im happy for about 4 Years with Debian, but there are so many things that it sucks to use it as a daily OS

1. U need drivers for every shit like h264
2. Most wifi Cards dont work out of the Box (USB, PCIe)
3. U need self compiling the WIFI Cards (most dont work or being bugy)
4. Sometimes it can not copy things to another NTFS drive
5. Open source Burning Rooms are totaly stupid (i take x2 on my BD Drive with a BD RE x2, and the Program writes with 6-8x) (Error)
etc. etc.

The usabilty is like come fuck me iam open source im best nahh, ill go back to my fimary Windows 10 LTSC

The thing is, some of those same issues appear even on windows 10. I'll try to explain some nuances in the same order as yours.
1. That's weird... Did you perform a minimal installation? x264 and ffmpeg should install automatically with your media player if they weren't installed initially (assuming you used package manager and didn't compile it from source or something).
2. It only applies to older Atheros and Ralink cards, which is also a case for Windows. I used to have Asus PCE-N53, which didn't work properly on any OS. Re-compiling drivers on Ubuntu w/ community patch for kernel 3.xx and 4.xx was actually faster and easier than manually tweaking and re-testing several times in a row a driver config on Windows 10. On windows 10 it would lose 5GHz band, and intermittently work in 1x1 mode on 2.4GHz band (with ridiculous floating pings and packet loss). In either case, it's not Debian's fault, it's hardware OEMs fault. Almost all new AC/AX cards work OOB, including my Intel 7260, Intel 8260, and AX200. Most popular Realtek and Mediatek AC chipsets are also supported, with some exceptions, but those are crap anyways.
3. Once again, you probably have something similar to my old ASUS N53. Old Ralink chipset, which got lost in support not long after Mediatek acquisition. I was shocked, but Mediatek were kind enough to at least keep updating drivers for Win10(but a couple of years later). I suggest you get an intel WiFi adapter instead - much better drivers and best performance regardless of the OS.
4. I think it's because the system is using the wrong driver. Check if you have ntfs-3g installed, double-check your fstab if it uses ntfs-3g, or do the same if you mount your drives manually.
5. Which app do you use? And which Debian version? Too many suspicious issues.

I sympathise with the OP. It p...es me off every time I'm forced back to a Terminal and command line. In 2020! Every time that happens, I say "One day, Linux will be ready for the desktop......."

But then again, I sure am glad I'm dual-booting.

Seems to me you've never had to do mundane stuff like ipconfig /release & /renew after someone sleek decided to play around with shitty VPN software, or clean up UWP apps through powershell, or repartition a drive through diskpart, ping remote hosts, or traceroute spammers...
Command line on Windows is still a daily thing for most power users, so is terminal in Linux or OSX. No need to bring up this beat-up dead horse "2020" crap.

 

[ColinB123]

Seems to me you've never had to do mundane stuff like ipconfig...

My perspective is from someone who wrote their first program in 1969, diagnosed mainframes to the transistor-gate level, supported kernels, ran projects and built networking products for the telecomms industry etc etc. But I don't want to use any of that knowledge when I'm sitting at a desktop. I want the desktop to work for ME, as if I was completely incompetent. If I'm running a server, I pretty much expect to get my hands dirty, but a consumer-level desktop should just 'work', like an advanced iPad, especially when I'm restricting my use case to consumer activities.
While I understand your annoyance, I was simply expressing my frustration that after so much time and effort has been expended by so many, we are still fixing things that should have been fixed 5 years ago. The 'Linux Model' has its strengths and weaknesses.

 

[silentbogo]

I want the desktop to work for ME, as if I was completely incompetent. If I'm running a server, I pretty much expect to get my hands dirty, but a consumer-level desktop should just 'work', like an advanced iPad, especially when I'm restricting my use case to consumer activities.

No-hassle OS does not equal control (it's the opposite), and having terminal gives you more control and more flexibility. But just because it's there doesn't mean you have to use it.
Which brings me to another big modern problem : nowadays most people stopped thinking for themselves... Basically a good habit of deductive thinking and problem solving is slowly shriveling and dying.
Even some of my colleagues suffer from this condition... All they care about is "How to do it?", but never think about "What am I doing?" and "Why am I doing it?".
Instead of blindly following cookbook-tutorials off the internet they should learn the OS on their own terms and find easier ways to do things, if they want to (or call the professional if they don't, just like with cars and fridges). There's always more than one way to cook an egg. In most cases, for an average user, there is no reason to even open the terminal. Wanna add codecs? Open Software Center or whatever GUI for package manager is there, or download prebuilt binary from online repo. Wanna install drivers - open device driver manager or download it from the manufacturer's website (if available). Wanna install software - same thing. Want to edit config file - open a file manager as admin and do the same thing. Yes, it's longer and sometimes more frustrating to do anything via GUI, but as I said before - it's the same for any operating system.

In case of OP, who's MiA after letting off some steam, it seems... all of his issues boil down to:
a) Bad choice of software
b) Bad choice of hardware
c) Surface-only understanding of the OS (after 4 years, as he claims)
d) Most likely lack of upkeep and lack of updates, which would've solved at least 2-3 problems in his list.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I'm a dual-booter myself. I highly recommend buying a 2nd SSD for Linux-only.

Debian (and Ubuntu) occasionally gets GRUB updates and needs to mess with the bootloader. In my experience, the Windows Bootloader and Grub seem to "conflict" a lot. You can 100% avoid the issue by dedicating a 2nd hard drive entirely to Linux, while your 1st hard drive is entirely dedicated to Windows. That way, the bootloaders never try to overwrite each other.

Selecting which OS actually starts up by default becomes a BIOS / UEFI issue. Just choose one hard drive to have priority over the other in your motherboard's BIOS / UEFI menu.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

1. U need drivers for every shit like h264

Those aren't drivers, that's just the codec not being included. Because of H.264 and H.265 licensing issues. AV1, FTW!

 

[kruk]

I'm a dual-booter myself. I highly recommend buying a 2nd SSD for Linux-only.

Debian (and Ubuntu) occasionally gets GRUB updates and needs to mess with the bootloader. In my experience, the Windows Bootloader and Grub seem to "conflict" a lot. You can 100% avoid the issue by dedicating a 2nd hard drive entirely to Linux, while your 1st hard drive is entirely dedicated to Windows. That way, the bootloaders never try to overwrite each other.

Selecting which OS actually starts up by default becomes a BIOS / UEFI issue. Just choose one hard drive to have priority over the other in your motherboard's BIOS / UEFI menu.

With classic MBR, there were annoying problems, yes. But with UEFI, I never had an issue and I'm dual booting for years. Just boot in UEFI mode, format the disk as GPT, install Windows and install Grub in /boot/uefi/. Don't forget to set GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false in /etc/default/grub or Windows won't be detected (some distros set this to true).

My current dual boot install was done 4 years ago, and since then I regularly updated both Windows and Linux with zero problems.

 

[dragontamer5788]

With classic MBR, there were annoying problems, yes. But with UEFI, I never had an issue and I'm dual booting for years. Just boot in UEFI mode, format the disk as GPT, install Windows and install Grub in /boot/uefi/. Don't forget to set GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false in /etc/default/grub or Windows won't be detected (some distros set this to true).

My current dual boot install was done 4 years ago, and since then I regularly updated both Windows and Linux with zero problems.

Then when Windows 10 updates come in, and randomly deletes Grub and replaces it with the Windows bootloader and your Grub configurations no longer work... To be fair, this may have been my Windows 8 -> Windows 10 update that did that, but... yeah. I'm just not willing to deal with that crap anymore if the cost is only $50 for a new 250GB SSD. I have like 8-SATA ports in my motherboard and am only using 3 of them.

You either have to choose Windows's bootloader to be your main (and therefore manage things from the Windows side with c:\boot configuration stuff), or choose Linux to be your main (ie: Grub + /boot/uefi stuff). Either way, Linux might overwrite the bootloader (if you chose Windows to be the main), or Windows might overwrite Grub (if you chose Linux to be the main).

Or just keep em separated.

The Offspring - Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Separated)

 

[Frick]

Instead of blindly following cookbook-tutorials off the internet they should learn the OS on their own terms and find easier ways to do things, if they want to (or call the professional if they don't, just like with cars and fridges). There's always more than one way to cook an egg. In most cases, for an average user, there is no reason to even open the terminal. Wanna add codecs? Open Software Center or whatever GUI for package manager is there, or download prebuilt binary from online repo. Wanna install drivers - open device driver manager or download it from the manufacturer's website (if available). Wanna install software - same thing. Want to edit config file - open a file manager as admin and do the same thing.

Late reply, but a decade ago I would have agreed with this, but now? Lord no. I just want things to work. I shouldn't have to dig deep in documentation to get a NIC going. It should just work. Neither should I have to hire a professional. And the GUI package managers in at least some distros are god awful. Finding the package online and apt-getting or whatever is the simplest choice, which says a lot.

b) Bad choice of hardware

And this is a huge Linux gripe for me. On every machine I've ran Linux on there has always been something off, hardware wise, and the most common thing has been wireless NICs on machines which on Windows just works. I can run Windows on almost anything and it'll be fine, but fr Linux research is required, and it really sucks.

 

[Easy Rhino]

I've always encouraged desktop users to stick with the Ubuntu variants. Choose anything else for your server needs but if you simply want to turn on your linux desktop and have it work then go with Ubuntu variants.

 

[Shou Miko]

Last Linux based OS I ran at home was PopOS from System76 ran it off a USB to try it on my Dell laptop and it worked great everything worked as far as I can remember no weird issues.

So maybe try as @Frick suggest Ubuntu or another linux instead of Debian.

 

[ZenZimZaliben]

I still really like Ubuntu for desktop. Get that and openoffice and you have pretty nice and cheap desktop office machine.

 

[silentbogo]

Late reply, but a decade ago I would have agreed with this, but now?

What difference does it make 10 years later? You want to use an OS, you have to learn an OS. Just like everything else in life.
The most important thing my teachers thought me, is that learning and memorizing aren't the same thing.
Apt may be easier for you, because you are used to it. I'm the same way, cause old habits die hard, but at least I'm aware that there are easier options nowadays.
These "easy options" are the main reason why I'm seeing more and more Linux PCs in random places. Especially if it's work-related, most mundane tasks basically require an OS that can run modern browser.
Another thing that helps, is that local retailers now ship laptops with Elementary or Ubuntu preinstalled on models that previously would've been classified as "no-OS".

And this is a huge Linux gripe for me. On every machine I've ran Linux on there has always been something off, hardware wise, and the most common thing has been wireless NICs on machines which on Windows just works.

"Compatible hardware" is nothing new.
I've been having same issues with lots of hardware on various OSes.
On FreeBSD I can't get my HP NC550 running (even though it should work off the bet), but it works just fine in Ubuntu. My old Asus PCE-N53 adapter didn't work OOB in any OS. Even in Win10 you had to manually install Mediatek driver and fix config files in order to at least have 5GHz or fully functional MIMO 2x2 on 2.4GHz. And I'm not even gonna start on printers and scanners, which work plug'n'play on any Linux distro, but manage not to work or glitch-out on windows all the time. WIA scanners are my worst nightmare. More recent Windows nightmares include bugs with PS/2 support (e.g. non-working keyboards and touchpads on laptops), bugs with built-in dual graphics subsystem, glitches with RNDIS modems etc. etc. etc. Most of those issues require cmd, powershell, or digging through registry in order to get fixed.

In regards to Wireless adapters specifically, I can tell you one thing and one thing only: buy Intel. Modern wifi chipset drivers are usually fine regardless of manufacturer, but when it comes to old garbage from Ralink and Atheros - you have a 99% chance that it won't work. Windows needs a driver, Linux needs a driver, everyone needs a driver, but it's either glitchy or incompatible or needs to be compiled from source. This has nothing to do with Linux or Windows.... it's manufacturer's fault. Another big factor in this, is a series of semiconductor corp acquisitions, in which Ralink ended up with Mediatek and Atheros became part of Qualcomm. Ralink and Atheros weren't that good at supporting their stuff to begin with, and after these mergers lots of stuff got "lost in translation". It may sound funny, but Mediatek did a much better job at this. Over the years they filled in most of the gaps for Ralink products. Better late than never.
Also, don't ever buy laptops with hardware whitelists. Those will make your life even more miserable once parts start to die. If you ever had to replace a WiFi card on old Lenovo or HP lappies, you'd be more than familiar with a sad feeling of "[facepalm] Why do I have to use this?!". Hell, I've seen even weirder things, like Haswell laptops refusing to work with 1.5V DDR3, and telling me in fancy colored letters that I'm stupid.

 

[johnspack]

I will parrot the above... get Ubuntu. And make sure to check install 3rd party drivers during install. You will have all codecs, and all drivers. Amd and Nvidia drivers are also installed out of
the box. You don't need to compile anything. My recommendation, Kubuntu. Debian is for those who don't mind compiling and adding a lot of extra crap. Ubuntu is for those who want a
working desktop out of the box. They both rely on the same repositories, so you get everything in Debian, but actually a lot more.

 

[qubit]

And that's exactly why I've stuck to Windows all this time. I dabbled with Linux about 20 years ago, saw these problems and walked away. Alas, it's no better now and I've repeatedly seen the Linux faithful make frustrated complaints like this.

The simple reason is mainstream support. It doesn't matter how good the product is (and Linux on the whole is top notch and very powerful), but if it doesn't have wide / mainstream industry support, then you're stuck with problems like this, which can be intractable. As hard as it is to hear it, that makes the product about as useful as a chocolate teapot. That's the unfortunate situation on the desktop for Linux and has always been that way. I can't see that ever changing.

For Linux, it's home is on web servers and datacentres where it does very well indeed.

Therefore, I recommend that you give up on Linux as your main operating system and move to Windows 10 which is supported by everything.

 

[johnspack]

I've fully switched to linux from windows. I started at windows 3.0. Then came windows 10. Nope. I now use Kubuntu with winehq wine, and I can run all my windows apps, and
a ton of linux apps too. I can run dx10, 11, and 12 games and apps. There's only a few exceptions. I will never use win 10, ms lost my trust with the bs they call win 10 period.
They said if I don't like it, then switch to linux. I did.

 

[dragontamer5788]

And that's exactly why I've stuck to Windows all this time. I dabbled with Linux about 20 years ago, saw these problems and walked away. Alas, it's no better now and I've repeatedly seen the Linux faithful make frustrated complaints like this.

The simple reason is mainstream support. It doesn't matter how good the product is (and Linux on the whole is top notch and very powerful), but if it doesn't have wide / mainstream industry support, then you're stuck with problems like this, which can be intractable. As hard as it is to hear it, that makes the product about as useful as a chocolate teapot. That's the unfortunate situation on the desktop for Linux and has always been that way. I can't see that ever changing.

For Linux, it's home is on web servers and datacentres where it does very well indeed.

Therefore, I recommend that you give up on Linux as your main operating system and move to Windows 10 which is supported by everything.

I have considered paying for SUSE or Red Hat, but they're at least as expensive as Windows.

Turns out that maintaining an OS is hard work. I'm not sure if "community support" is ever going to be good enough for a serious OS. Its not like $100 or even $200 is very costly for what this software does: its literally needed to make any other program run on your computer. There was a time in the 80s when an OS cost $1000+ (until Bill Gates / DOS / Windows came in and set the $100 price point that we're all familiar with now).

EDIT: I just do most of my stuff in Windows these days, and then an Ubuntu install because Linux stuff is still cool (even if its not 100% working all the time). My sound is borked for example in Linux, but that's not an issue since I don't really use the Linux-boot side for anything aside from programming.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I have 2 Linux machines, and I find Mint to be my preferred distro. My desktop works just fine, with no extra effort at all (9700K, B365M, Intel Graphics). My laptop, an XPS 17 9700 took a bit more effort to get sound going (though in the last week has actually been fixed by simply running updates and then using the 5.6 kernel). The only other fix was adding a line to GRUB and a few BIOS tweaks to get S3 sleep.

Laptops are always harder to get going due to each OEM seemingly configuring their stuff a little differently--it's mostly things like integrated items like speakers, mics, webcams, etc. The XPS is actually one of the harder laptops to get sound working, and now it's not so hard, though it's still not automatic depending on the distro. The other big catch is that if you want the latest and greatest hardware, you're probably going to need to run the latest and not-so-greatest kernel to get the most out of it. My XPS has a Canon Lake CPU, so I believe that was part of the issue for me. Majaro rolling release does quite a bit, but I struggle more with Arch.

Really, it's not nearly as hard as it once was, and there's a reason Linux is free and Windows costs money--support for odds and ends falls on the user and the community for Linux. It's really quite amazing just how good it is for being completely free. If you have a lot of specific needs, then Windows might really be your only option, as you would run into some of the same limitations with a Mac, especially the M1 versions.

 

[demirael]

Late reply, but a decade ago I would have agreed with this, but now? Lord no. I just want things to work. I shouldn't have to dig deep in documentation to get a NIC going. It should just work. Neither should I have to hire a professional. And the GUI package managers in at least some distros are god awful. Finding the package online and apt-getting or whatever is the simplest choice, which says a lot.


And this is a huge Linux gripe for me. On every machine I've ran Linux on there has always been something off, hardware wise, and the most common thing has been wireless NICs on machines which on Windows just works. I can run Windows on almost anything and it'll be fine, but fr Linux research is required, and it really sucks.

Hey, at least on Linux you mostly can use even ancient hardware. Windows may drop the support completely between driver models. Incidentally, my Windows desktop has a NIC (Realtek L8200A) that I can't get to wake up on resume. Could be the specific 10G Netgear switch it's connected to but no power setting, link speed, auto negotiate or other setting on either end did anything. In the end I just decided to install one of my 5G Aquantia cards (that have issues when receiving on Linux; Google seems to point at inter-frame spacing but I haven't found a way to adjust it).

 

[TheLostSwede]

Hey, at least on Linux you mostly can use even ancient hardware. Windows may drop the support completely between driver models. Incidentally, my Windows desktop has a NIC (Realtek L8200A) that I can't get to wake up on resume. Could be the specific 10G Netgear switch it's connected to but no power setting, link speed, auto negotiate or other setting on either end did anything. In the end I just decided to install one of my 5G Aquantia cards (that have issues when receiving on Linux; Google seems to point at inter-frame spacing but I haven't found a way to adjust it).

Did you update the firmware on your Aquantia cards? Fixed it for me.

 

[qubit]

I have considered paying for SUSE or Red Hat, but they're at least as expensive as Windows.

Turns out that maintaining an OS is hard work. I'm not sure if "community support" is ever going to be good enough for a serious OS. Its not like $100 or even $200 is very costly for what this software does: its literally needed to make any other program run on your computer. There was a time in the 80s when an OS cost $1000+ (until Bill Gates / DOS / Windows came in and set the $100 price point that we're all familiar with now).

EDIT: I just do most of my stuff in Windows these days, and then an Ubuntu install because Linux stuff is still cool (even if its not 100% working all the time). My sound is borked for example in Linux, but that's not an issue since I don't really use the Linux-boot side for anything aside from programming.

Oh yeah, there's nothing easy about maintaining an OS. I'm so glad that Windows / Microsoft does the heavy lifting automatically. Despite all the problems I hear about patches breaking things, I've had very few problems since I moved to W10 a few years ago. If there's an update, I just let it do its thing and then carry on as if nothing had happened. That's how it should be.