Linux

My concerns are mostly all unfair. Just want to acknowledge that right up front. Compared with macOS:

• Cider is an admirable but buggy solution for Apple Music (whose own web player is barely usable)
• I wish Alt+Tabbing had the option to bring to the fore all window instances for a given app like macOS's Cmd+Tab; as it is I am always having to hunt down stray Firefox or Files windows, which get further buried down the Alt+Tab bar(in Cinnamon) when you minimize them.
• no OS does common alternate characters (dash and em-dash, accented characters, etc. all accessible with variations on the Alt key) or Japanese language input (Ctrl+space and then just start typing phonetically) as well as macOS does. The composition key is useful to a degree but it feels like second class citizen shit compared to the macOS implementations that make some typing and much language learning basically useless for me on my Linux devices.

Compared to Windows:

• pretty basic (and again Cinnamon centric) but Files / the file browser in other apps could use some love. Typing the first few letters of a file name in Files takes me there and highlights it which is great but if memory serves (not near machine now), I can't just hit Enter from that point to open the thing. Equally annoying is when browsing for a file to open or save, there is often not a create folder option or button, and when there is, it isn't tied to a keyboard shortcut like Ctrl+Shift+N or F12. I sincerely hate switching input methods when it isn't called for, so having to grab my mouse just to click the new folder button and return to typing or worse, to leave that browser altogether to go to Files and create the folder because the button or command to do so didn't exist in the browser window is a real drag.

In general:

• the least fair complaint of all because it seems especially like the answer is "well then why don't you pitch in and help?" (The answer to which is, "I don't have the skills, I'm sorry, I'll be quiet"), is trying to replicate workflows in off-brand software. I love LibreOffice spiritually but trying to do some basic PowerPoint stuff recently, it really let me down. ONLYOFFICE was much more usable but it still has a lot of jank and, I suspect, a memory leak because the longer I use it, the slower and less stable it becomes. Krita seems more usable than GIMP, but neither is as usable as Affinity Photo, let alone Photoshop. Put another way, it's tough to be constantly reminded you're compromising in order to live a largely faster, stabler, freer computing experience. MacOS is a pile of shit these days but when compared to Windows (since I'm not gaming with it) I never feel like I'm compromising. It can do everything Windows can, and often better. If there isn't Windows specific software, macOS may have competitive indie darling software to fill the void. Pixelmator for example (before being gobbled up) didn't feel like it was a somewhat rudderless, good faith effort by a tired gaggle of volunteers…it felt premium. I'm still waiting for that experience on Linux.

The only issue I have faced, and still no solution that I can find is that I can't sleep my desktop. I'm running Arch (i7-12700KF, NVIDIA RTX 3090, Asus motherboard)

I've looked at the Arch wiki, and nothing I have found has helped.

[Kubuntu 25.10]

Fingerprint support is weird. The hardware works after installing a driver from Dell but I could never get it to work on both login and lock screens at the same time - I get one working, the other breaks. Also, even when it works the behavior is not consistent between those screens, and also requires mouse movement or key presses before the sensor responds which is annoying.

Bluetooth support has some oddities, like the fact that some apps can properly swap my headset from "High Fidelity" and "Headset" codecs and others can't. I've gotten used to doing it manually when necessary but it drove me crazy earlier on.

rclone is awesome but I really wish it had a way to set auto-mounting or auto-syncing as part of the setup. Took me quite a few attempts to get it working as I wanted.

Not daily, but sim racing. Game and peripheral support is all over the place. Wheels/wheelbases generally need Windows to update firmware or adjust features.

Some games will detect wheel, pedals, handbrake, etc. no prob in Windows but not at all in Linux. Certain games need reg fixes in Windows that are more complicated to apply in Linux.

It’s a pain, and the best supported wheel is also one of the cheapest/poorest quality ones on the market (Logitech G29). If you have higher end DD gear or mix and match stuff, it can get complicated or unviable.

I tried to install it on a friend's 2012 macbook air, but the wifi didn't work even after trying different distros and trying suggested answers like installing several additional wifi drivers.

I realize 2012 is a quite old machine, but the reality is that many (most?) people are going to be trying Linux for the first time on their very old computers. So having showstopper failures on old machines probably leads to a good amount of people thinking Linux doesn't work well.

Utilizing TPM for full disk encryption.

Running Windows in VMWare Workstation: I do development work that really has to be done in Windows, so that's where I spend my day. Even on my Windows machine, I keep the dev environment in a Virtual machine so that I can go anywhere with it, or use if from any machine with VMWare loaded.

I find myself having to stay booted into my Windows Drive to run VMWare without a bunch of lag / weird issues. So at that point I just kept working from that drive and don't really boot back to the Linux drive.

I also seem to have a heck of a time seeing files on my NTFS drives from Linux.

Some of this is probably the older Nvidia card that I have, and the fact that I run 3 monitors, and running VMWare on 3 monitors acts weird in Linux.

My Bluetooth devices constantly drop in and out of connection. And that's once they're paired, pairing in the first place is a PITA and always takes multiple tries, and very often things unpair overnight so I have to re-pair frequently. I have three computers running Mint and they all do this with all Bluetooth connections.

My Mac had no such issues, you pair something one and it's stuck like glue till you unpair it, and even automatically re-pairs after a reboot no problem.

1. Ubuntu memory allocation and limits (I think). I haven't dug too much into finding the root cause, but I have a recurring issue where the GUI freezes up, and it looks like it might be related to not handling well how much memory it needs for the task.

Maybe it thinks it has more memory available than it does, or the gc isn't running efficiently, or it's allocating to 100% without including a sensible safety gap, something like that. It's a significantly low-level enough problem that I'm wary of tinkering with values I don't fully understand even if I wanted to spend the probably large amount of time necessary to find root cause.

2. The fact Ubuntu now withholds package updates unless you're paying for their "maintenance and compliance subscription", but that's probably on me to change distros. I get that Ubuntu employees need money so they can eat, just like I do, but ... The idea of paying for core package updates feels like a nightmare waiting to happen, for both Ubuntu developers managing package dependencies and end-user experience.