I wouldn't says it's been smooth sailing. I've had a ton of technical issues which are not all resolved (I still can't get my laptop to wake from sleep, I have to do a hard reset if it sleeps) but at least everything else is working now.
A lot of minor display related issues (mostly involving using an external monitor as my main screen) were solved when I switched to Gnome on X11 instead of Wayland.
The most important lesson I'm taking from this is: if you want to use Linux, you need to buy certified hardware. Don't assume your laptop will work. Don't recommend other people to install Linux on random laptops, they'll probably have loads of minor and major issues that you don't have if you bought hardware specifically with the goal of running Linux.
Agreed. Note though that the Ubuntu live installer has a "Try" mode that gives you a nearly normal desktop experience without installing, and is an effective test environment to discover what will work and what won't. Wifi, graphics and suspend are worth trying out this way.
One thing I didn't have major issues with was my Nvidia graphics card, which was a surprise.
- wake from suspend - laptop power consumption - poor wayland support - sudden desktop restarts - hidpi, external monitors, virtualization
Nvidia's proprietary crap has always worked badly, the re-implement everything and put all their development effort into NIH syndrome instead of playing along with the already existing open source stack.
Now I'm a desktop user, so the first two don't really impact me, and the rest has been working fine for the ~2 years I've been in Wayland+Arch+Gnome across 3 different NVIDIA GPUs. Not sure why virtualization is there, but it also seems to work, although via WSL2 is slightly buggy, but I blame that on Microsoft rather than Linux/NVIDIA.
But if it does not work that is highly annoying of course.
For me, it was a ThinkPad X1 Gen 11 and Mint 21.2 (MATE) about a year ago.
> Linux Mint 21.2 features a Linux kernel 5.15 and an Ubuntu Jammy package base.
That's from Oct. 2021, so it wasn't new a year ago.
https://tuxcare.com/blog/is-linux-mint-based-on-ubuntu/
Doesn't time fly!
This is the weakest point of modern Linux - suspend/resuming not working properly on many machines. And the systemd-logind / inhibitor architecture makes it incredibly hard for non-technical users to opt out of suspend.
Random Windows laptops have been slightly more frustrating. Hibernation may not work out of the box, and sometimes one other piece of random hardware won't be usable. For a laptop that basically lives on a desk, you might get away with it.
Desktops are usually easier. They don't have as much built-in hardware, hibernation to disk may not be necessary, and it's easier to replace a webcam or something if you need to. I'd still check the graphics card, especially if it's an expensive one.
Or test yours with a live distro beforehand
That can often make all the difference, but it's not intuitive for Windows people who are used to install hardware drivers.
Especially for hardware like new Bluetooth or Wifi chips, fingerprint readers, but also when there is a new Intel or AMD CPU generation and chipset.
E.g. instead of Ubuntu or Mint, try Fedora or CachyOS. Or even Nobara or Bazzite for gaming-specific optimizations.
Personally I focused on reducing the boot time when the suspend never worked properly.
I would suggest to use Linux Mint or Pop_os for example.
Pop_os is in a weird state right now too, with the upcoming migration to their new GUI framework
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5r4hFY_oh8
Same story with clothes, paper and plastic recycling, it's just talk and green-washing.
When I purchased them, I had no idea that would be the case. My perfectly good iPhone 12 mini is already at its last legs (I bet a couple of years), thanks to iOS 26 and the liquid ass. Why is it so? Why should I stress about initial purchases? I’m not that poor and young, sorry, I’m worried about the footprint. And I hope you would one day too.
After that, don't stress at all. As you say, you had no idea at the time of purchase, so toss it in the dump and move on.
So does producing a new one:
https://www.networkworld.com/article/752694/computer-factori...
Instead of poaching to the adults, poach it to the kids. Tell them stories of hackers, etc.
We can also volunteer in schools for a few sessions of introduction to Linux.
What happened to IT lessons at school? I had IT starting at the age of 13 onwards, and that was in the early 2000s. By the time you graduated from school, you were guaranteed to have at least basic IT skills.
At one point it shifted to "everyone has a computer at home" to "everyone has a computer in their pocket, and learns typing by themselves" and the classes seems to have disappeared.
Any source for this? I grown on Atari, DOS and Windows. Most kids today are on mobile or consoles.
Linux does not need advertising, it is by far the best option from point of hardware selection, development, gaming and ease of use.
Thanks to Nvidia's Linux driver, my desktop environment breaks and hangs when it comes back from sleep, and every few days my screen starts flashing black until I reboot. I've been told the trigger may be the combination of DisplayPort and AdaptiveSync.
Familiarity and “just-workitude” really are by far the most important factors for people picking OSs, and these days it’s possible to stick with one platform for decades.
Gaming? No. Hardware selection? Lol absolutely not.
Our daughter initially had a Linux machine (also for the reasons you outlined). But she quickly ran into issues when doing work for school, collaborating with other kids, etc. So we gave her a Mac Mini M1. It was not very expensive, she can run many common apps (MS Office is a fact of life) and it's more secure (app sandboxing, sealed system volume, etc). But many of her skills are be transferrable to Linux if needed (in contrast to using an iPad or Android tablet).
So cool that your kid was able to use a Hackintosh in high school!
I'm running Linux on five different machines, and two of them are portables: a ThinkPad Z13 and a GPD Win Mini 2024 - and have none of the issues you mentioned. In fact there's literally zero issues at all, I couldn't be any happier to be honest.
I went through this not too long ago. And the effort required feels like a very deliberate dark pattern move.
I primarily used Linux in various ways since Ubuntu 6.06, and every year it gets a little bit better, useful and stable, from my point of view at least. But I also moved to Arch some years ago, and CachyOS this year, so that might cloud my view on how well things work, and I also stopped using laptops, which makes Linux life a lot easier.
As W10 user, W11 denialer I’m waiting for that day!
I also tried to install various Linux distros on a partition but all of the installations failed towards the end of the process, causing various boot loader and other problems that required a lot of uncomfortable fixing in terminals and BIOS.
I would have liked to be using Linux but as it turned out a de-bloated Windows 11 experience is very good for me.
[1] https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat?utm_source=perplexit...
herbst•10h ago
c0balt•8h ago
tonyedgecombe•7h ago
esperent•8h ago
daveoc64•7h ago
https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2025/technology#1-computer-o...
HN is atypical of the world, particularly anything outside of the USA.
aussieguy1234•7h ago
CaptainOfCoit•7h ago
mrsmrtss•3h ago
By the way, I'm not using Windows (but love .NET) and prefer Linux, but I'm not fooling myself that it's a popular choice on the desktop by any metric.
CaptainOfCoit•3h ago
Probably someone remembers the history better than me and have more clarity and/or corrections.
lostmsu•6h ago
hshdhdhj4444•7h ago
Unfortunately Microsoft decided to stuff it with user hostile spyware instead.
CaptainOfCoit•7h ago
Saying this as someone who've used both Linux and Windows as a main OS for decades, and would dump Windows 100% if I could get Ableton to run properly on Linux. I'm still using WSL2 from time to time, but for things I need to be productive with, I prefer my Linux environment 99% of the time.
esperent•7h ago
I used WSL2 for years and never had any issues with it.
CaptainOfCoit•6h ago
A year ago or something, changing the size of the WSL disk via some Powershell command also corrupted the disk after it was done, I had to start from scratch which was a bit annoying.
axus•7h ago
osigurdson•7h ago
CaptainOfCoit•6h ago
osigurdson•5h ago
I do actually start up Arch / Ubuntu / whatever in WSL for some things but mostly just use the above setup which is most Linux like without having to shell into WSL all the time. That being said, I use actual Linux / Arch whenever I can - yeah, I use Arch btw.
CaptainOfCoit•4h ago
But developer focused software is trash on Windows, if I want to remain productive I need a Linux environment so I can just run stuff without having to fuck around to configure it for Windows and what not.
osigurdson•28m ago
BSDobelix•7h ago
https://www.autodesk.com/products
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer-aided_manufac...
Ylpertnodi•7h ago
Daneel_•7h ago
microtonal•7h ago
Sorry, but this is just nonsense. I used Linux on the desktop from 1994 to 2007 (lucky enough to start using Linux when I was 12). I have used macOS as my main desktop since 2007, but I also have a ThinkPad with NixOS and a Linux workstation (currently used headless though). I feel like I'm able to make a fair comparison.
macOS for me feels like a much more mature version of the Linux desktop, on more mature hardware, with applications that are not available on Linux. macOS is rarely getting in my way. The primary reason I also use Linux (and contribute in various ways) is that I find FLOSS morally preferable and hope for that reason that the Linux desktop wins in the long term.
Though having been around for many 'Linux is soon ready for the desktop'-moments since around 2000 (anyone remember Corel Linux?), I don't hold high hopes. As long as basic things like waking sleep results in a kernel panic because waking your Thunderbolt display puts the kernel in a weird state (and the 999 other paper cuts), Linux on the desktop won't happen.