Until X11 has all the features that Wayland has, X11 people should stop bragging about it.

You are the one preaching and yelling.

Stay on X if you want. As you say, that is the freedom Open Source provides. I use ancient hardware. To each their own. If I was still using XFCE, I would still be using X myself*.

But if you are going to voluntarily stay behind, stop complaining that the bus left without you.

Wayland users are in the majority. By the time Mint (Cinnamon) flips to Wayland (2026?) and GTK5 is released (2028?) it will be over 90%. Almost all GNOME and Plasma users are Wayland now and that must be 60% already (without even counting Hyprland, Sway, COSMIC, or Niri).

We already have Wayland only distros (eg. RHEL10). GNOME will not even be the first Wayland only DE (COSMIC). The ship has sailed.

• I have one box that uses XFCE on Wayland but if I wanted to use XFCE as my main desktop, I would probably use X. My daily drivers are Niri and Plasma Wayland.

It is pretty hard to improve if you are not allowed to change anything.

Yes, the design of Wayland means that some of the techniques that work on X will not work on Wayland (on purpose). So yes, some apps have to be adapted to use the techniques that do work on Wayland. And no, changing Wayland to support the old ways is not the answer (because they were changed on purpose).

Wayland has been criticized for taking away previous capabilities before providing new ways to do things. That is a fair critique, though somewhat par for the course when replacing old tech. But at this point, almost everything necessary is possible and Wayland users are in the majority (the massive majority soon).

At this point, it really is the apps developers responsibility to support Wayland properly. I mean, they do not have to of course but that means their app will be broken for 80% of Linux users on two years (and more than half today).

Because CEOs in general lean pretty right?

Always remember: Linux is about choice

That is one of the advantages of Linux. Let’s not let it be a liability.

When coming to Linux, it is about “taking that first step”. If you are coming from something else, any distro is a positive move and they are much more alike than they are different (compared to the OS you are coming from). So, start with something safe. I do not use Mint but it is an awesome choice.

Once you learn more about Linux and about what you like, you will learn that you have 1000 choices. Once you know the difference and know which once suits you, you can switch. At that point, you will find switching easy.

The idea that people “have to choose” at the beginning holds many people back.

Any of Mint, PopOS, Fedora, or Ubuntu would serve a new user just fine. I recommend Mint because the UX is familiar to Windows users, it is “batteries included”, and it is conservative (stable). But the others are great too.

Really looking forward to seeing where COSMIC goes now that they have the basics in place. It could really give Plasma and GNOME a run for their money.

As a Niri user, I am also very thankful for the maturity that COSMIC is driving in projects like Smithay.

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AerynOS seems to be ok though. Tune Morling (erno) seems to be very active in their repos and he is the current project lead.

I mean, we will see. I guess it is still in Alpha.

Agree. Here is a different take.

Unity was created by a corporation with massive resources. It was abandoned when that corporation changed its priorities. If proprietary, Unity would have died long ago.

Due to the efforts of a 10 year old volunteer, it was fully modernized and became quite popular again, offered in many distros. The lifetime of Unity as a project has already been extended by years. A 10’tear old kid. That is the power of Open Source.

The main contributor is not able to work on Unity right now. Others can take up the effort, because it is Open Source. That includes any user or group of users that live or rely on it. The opportunity is available to anyone.

Absolute worst case, the world already got more Unity than it would have. And it could be revived at any time.

Distrobox solves a great many problems. I use it in Cachy all the time.

Also, I am not sure what security Podman under Distrobox is making worse. Got an example?

You are suggesting Flatpaks for security? Um. Ok.

And how is calling the entire Freedesktop platform just to run an app better than the much more limited dependencies that Distrobox will pull in? And, if I already use Podman, Flatpak is a lot of extra complexity compared to Distrobox.

Exactly! Keeps the core clean. I use use Arch distroboxes on Arch or EOS for exactly this reason.

Distrobox changed the way I use Linux. I cannot imagine going back.

First, you are exactly right that it allows you to separate app repo from the rest of what you live about a distro.

I use an Arch Distrobox with every machine. Using Chimera Linux that uses MUSL, Clang, libc++, and BSD userland? Install anything from the Arch repos or AUR in seconds.

But it is not just package repo size. Using an app that targets RHEL? Install it from a RHEL Distrobox.

Doing dev for a project whose users are Ubuntu people? Build it in an Ubuntu Distrobox.

Want to try something and do not want it to mess up your system? Do it in a Distrobox.

Need some software for a class that will just be cluttering up your system after? Make a Distrobox for that class.

I have a .NET Distrobox. I have a Java Distrobox. Just not having to update the IDE and frameworks all the time is a huge win.

Mature application that I use every day that I do not want to change or break on me? Install from a Debian Distrobox.

Rapidly developing app where I want the latest for features and fixes? Install from an Arch Distrobox.

Tools you like that only Mint offers? Install a Mint Distrobox.

Distrobox is the greatest.

I love Debian. Literally the worst possible choice for GPU drivers.

This was widely anticipated

First off, thank you for that.

That the FSF sees the value in permissive licenses in promoting the success of free data formats is an important calibration.

I do not believe the tolerance for permissive licenses extends to standards in general. They do have the LGPL though.

Given that the GPL was created explicitly to license the GNU implementation of the POSIX standard, we for sure know where they stand on POSIX specifically.

A legal clause that says a US corporation does not have to hold to laws passed by the US government? Good luck with that.

There is virus protection for Linux if you really want it (both free and paid).

https://www.safetydetectives.com/best-antivirus/linux/

There is a good chance that this guy is a bit counter-cultural and does not want to use the obvious version of anything.

Look at the Windows mail client he tried to go with.

We have seen that a lot. It often ends with an article a lot like this.

That said, many, maybe even most Linux users started Windows users first. So, not everyone writes a snarky article and goes back.

I think a Windows user that is adventurous enough to try Linux is more likely to be pragmatic and open minded about it. They can push through basic issues like the ones raised in this article to get to the real experience underneath. Many of them like what they find enough to stick around.

But we get our fair share Linux sucks articles that are not better than this one.

I agree that an email program is not Microsoft’s problem. However, there was a real issue there.

His point was that he knew how to easily use SSH to get around a badly behaved Linux GUI program that was monopolizing or disabling the UI. He did not know how to accomplish that on Windows.

As a Linux user, this scores points for me as it does highlight the flexibility, power, and control that Linux offers. It is also true that you have more power at the Linux command-line (even in a world with PowerShell) which is what SSH gives you access to.

That said, this article came across too much like “Windows does not work exactly like Linux and does not have all the things I love about Linux”. It also came across like a Linux expert being frustrated with a system he does not know as well.

We have had years of these kinds of articles slamming Linux when Windows people expect it to work exactly like Windows does. Those articles are dumb. We do not need to start filling the world with Linux versions of the same.

All of the stuff on this arrival is small time, first time run noise. Use it for a month and give an honest assessment of the pros and cons. What saved you time once the system was set up? What took longer? What entirely new capabilities got added to your workflow? What limitations were you just not able to overcome?

The two that I think are more systemic are OneDrive and Ads. Those are going to continue to drag on you long after the initial setup issues have faded into the background.