New Linux user’s experiences
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I’ve some weeks ago moved my main computer from Windows 10 to Linux, specifically OpenSUSE Leap with the Plasma user environment, mainly because it doesn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I had never used Linux and have been a Windows user since I was six years old or somewhere around then (I’m in my late twenties now). I’d just like to share my likes and dislikes.
Things I like about Linux (my specific install, anyway):
- Not being a corporate environment. There aren’t any cheeky attempts at making money or advertisement anywhere, like the annoying fake widgets in Windows 11 and the half-filled start menu. I’ve gotten used to that on my laptop (which is running 11), but you do always have the feeling of ‘what are they trying now?’ That not being a thing is quite refreshing.
- In that veign, having actual widgets. I loved them in Windows 7; I’ve got a webpage widget on my second screen showing a Zoho sheet I made with an RSS feed. Just being able to be a bit creative like that is cool.
- The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
- I’m positively surprised by how little I miss from Windows when it comes to programs. Steam having compatibility tools is great, for example. Otherwise there are often replacements for what I’m missing (I’ve found one to allow general settings for my Logitech mouse, for example).
- The general ability to change the way everything looks and feels. I feel technical people sometimes look down a bit on aesthetics, but I really care about the user interface I use day in day out looking and feeling nice. While I’m a fan of the Windows 11 look myself, I really like how much I’ve been able to get my UI to look how I want it to in Plasma. Though I’m a bit surprised that it’s so hard to change the appearance of the start menu and bottom panel. I’ve had to install a specific program to change their colouring.
- The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
Things I’ve found annoying:
- Not knowing where to find anything. Of course, coming from Windows I’m used to there being a program files folder with my programs’ folders, and a documents folder with (often) user settings for those programs. In Linux, everything just seems to be everywhere. What seems to be the ‘documents’ equivalent for the game Factorio is in my user folder in a hidden .factorio, but I’ve to no avail been trying to find out where my ‘documents’ for Workers and Resources are. I’ll find them eventually, I’m sure. In general, I’m looking around a lot, though.
- The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation...
- The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest. In Linux, this often doesn’t work as it somehow takes a while for the capslock press to go into effect, so you often end up with ‘LInux’, for example. After lots of looking around, I have found some script that seems to fix this (‘Linux CapsLock Delay Fixer Master’), but it also randomly stops working and there are other ‘oddities’ I can’t really explain.
- Every once in a while, my desktop icons get rearranged. This seems to be a known issue, but it’s really annoying.
- It seems impossible to get Firefox to not restore sessions after shutting down the computer with it still open. I’ve tried several things, but I can’t get Firefox to just give me a fresh session on startup.
- The above all add to a bit of a general ‘stuck together with adhesive tape and love’ feeling.
- Not knowing how to install programs. This is more of a learning-curve thing, obviously. The software centre didn’t contain everything I could find online - for some programs, you could use ‘one click’ in OpenSUSE, but that seems to work more like a self-destruct button: I’ve tried those several times and have always had bad results >.>. I’ve found it’s easiest to install programs just using flatpaks.
All in all, I am quite happy. Though I am still afraid I’ll mess up my installation, and I’m now at a point where that’d hurt. I have installed Timeshift, but also with mixed results...
The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest.
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I’ve some weeks ago moved my main computer from Windows 10 to Linux, specifically OpenSUSE Leap with the Plasma user environment, mainly because it doesn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I had never used Linux and have been a Windows user since I was six years old or somewhere around then (I’m in my late twenties now). I’d just like to share my likes and dislikes.
Things I like about Linux (my specific install, anyway):
- Not being a corporate environment. There aren’t any cheeky attempts at making money or advertisement anywhere, like the annoying fake widgets in Windows 11 and the half-filled start menu. I’ve gotten used to that on my laptop (which is running 11), but you do always have the feeling of ‘what are they trying now?’ That not being a thing is quite refreshing.
- In that veign, having actual widgets. I loved them in Windows 7; I’ve got a webpage widget on my second screen showing a Zoho sheet I made with an RSS feed. Just being able to be a bit creative like that is cool.
- The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
- I’m positively surprised by how little I miss from Windows when it comes to programs. Steam having compatibility tools is great, for example. Otherwise there are often replacements for what I’m missing (I’ve found one to allow general settings for my Logitech mouse, for example).
- The general ability to change the way everything looks and feels. I feel technical people sometimes look down a bit on aesthetics, but I really care about the user interface I use day in day out looking and feeling nice. While I’m a fan of the Windows 11 look myself, I really like how much I’ve been able to get my UI to look how I want it to in Plasma. Though I’m a bit surprised that it’s so hard to change the appearance of the start menu and bottom panel. I’ve had to install a specific program to change their colouring.
- The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
Things I’ve found annoying:
- Not knowing where to find anything. Of course, coming from Windows I’m used to there being a program files folder with my programs’ folders, and a documents folder with (often) user settings for those programs. In Linux, everything just seems to be everywhere. What seems to be the ‘documents’ equivalent for the game Factorio is in my user folder in a hidden .factorio, but I’ve to no avail been trying to find out where my ‘documents’ for Workers and Resources are. I’ll find them eventually, I’m sure. In general, I’m looking around a lot, though.
- The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation...
- The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest. In Linux, this often doesn’t work as it somehow takes a while for the capslock press to go into effect, so you often end up with ‘LInux’, for example. After lots of looking around, I have found some script that seems to fix this (‘Linux CapsLock Delay Fixer Master’), but it also randomly stops working and there are other ‘oddities’ I can’t really explain.
- Every once in a while, my desktop icons get rearranged. This seems to be a known issue, but it’s really annoying.
- It seems impossible to get Firefox to not restore sessions after shutting down the computer with it still open. I’ve tried several things, but I can’t get Firefox to just give me a fresh session on startup.
- The above all add to a bit of a general ‘stuck together with adhesive tape and love’ feeling.
- Not knowing how to install programs. This is more of a learning-curve thing, obviously. The software centre didn’t contain everything I could find online - for some programs, you could use ‘one click’ in OpenSUSE, but that seems to work more like a self-destruct button: I’ve tried those several times and have always had bad results >.>. I’ve found it’s easiest to install programs just using flatpaks.
All in all, I am quite happy. Though I am still afraid I’ll mess up my installation, and I’m now at a point where that’d hurt. I have installed Timeshift, but also with mixed results...
No workee?
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No workee?
That’s turned off, yes.
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Do you need Timeshift on an opensuse system? I haven’t used Leap, but had a Tumbleweed install for years which has Snapper pre installed.
To be honest, I just installed Timeshift because I first tried Mint and that had Timeshift pre-installed, so it’s the only program I knew for making backups.
The firefox thing seems just firefox behaviour to me. Does it not do that in Windows?
It really doesn’t. The first think I’ve been doing is getting everything to behave as much like I’ve been used to on Windows, and this Firefox behavior is really sticking out like a sore thumb. But I’ll fix it at some point, hopefully.
Thanks for all the helpful information
If the Firefox thing is a real pain, do consider the librewolf project, since it won’t save your session every time, but also has ublock origin already set up by default.
Remember that even if you’re unsure some software is for you or not, just try the flatpak. One command to install, and one command to remove if you didn’t like it. Because it’s containerised you don’t need to worry about it leaving behind unused libraries or cluttering your system with leftover bits.
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Yeah, I first tried Mint, but I didn’t like the look and feel of Cinnamon. It felt a bit cheap for my taste.
By the way, the capslock issue is certainly also true on Mint (but I’m afraid I’m not allowed to complain about that here
)I find the looks of Cinnamon just fine with a bit of optimization, eg.. using the new theme and using cinnamenu instead of the default menu. Here's mine: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/537/970/191/106/160/original/2bfb19edd50e248f.jpg
What i like from mint is that it's clean looking. -
That’s turned off, yes.
If you try installing the flatpak version of FF rather than using the zypper version, does that work better? I'm not too familiar with OpenSUSE, but that seems like a problem with the packaging.
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I find the looks of Cinnamon just fine with a bit of optimization, eg.. using the new theme and using cinnamenu instead of the default menu. Here's mine: https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/113/537/970/191/106/160/original/2bfb19edd50e248f.jpg
What i like from mint is that it's clean looking.I’m going more for a mix between Windows 7 and 11 with more colour:
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If you try installing the flatpak version of FF rather than using the zypper version, does that work better? I'm not too familiar with OpenSUSE, but that seems like a problem with the packaging.
Interesting idea. I’ll give that a shot soon.
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Interesting idea. I’ll give that a shot soon.
Yah, it sounds like a quirk. I kinda like it reopening my tabs, but I just tried it on the stock FF in a fresh Fedora KDE install and it works fine.
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I’ve some weeks ago moved my main computer from Windows 10 to Linux, specifically OpenSUSE Leap with the Plasma user environment, mainly because it doesn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I had never used Linux and have been a Windows user since I was six years old or somewhere around then (I’m in my late twenties now). I’d just like to share my likes and dislikes.
Things I like about Linux (my specific install, anyway):
- Not being a corporate environment. There aren’t any cheeky attempts at making money or advertisement anywhere, like the annoying fake widgets in Windows 11 and the half-filled start menu. I’ve gotten used to that on my laptop (which is running 11), but you do always have the feeling of ‘what are they trying now?’ That not being a thing is quite refreshing.
- In that veign, having actual widgets. I loved them in Windows 7; I’ve got a webpage widget on my second screen showing a Zoho sheet I made with an RSS feed. Just being able to be a bit creative like that is cool.
- The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
- I’m positively surprised by how little I miss from Windows when it comes to programs. Steam having compatibility tools is great, for example. Otherwise there are often replacements for what I’m missing (I’ve found one to allow general settings for my Logitech mouse, for example).
- The general ability to change the way everything looks and feels. I feel technical people sometimes look down a bit on aesthetics, but I really care about the user interface I use day in day out looking and feeling nice. While I’m a fan of the Windows 11 look myself, I really like how much I’ve been able to get my UI to look how I want it to in Plasma. Though I’m a bit surprised that it’s so hard to change the appearance of the start menu and bottom panel. I’ve had to install a specific program to change their colouring.
- The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
Things I’ve found annoying:
- Not knowing where to find anything. Of course, coming from Windows I’m used to there being a program files folder with my programs’ folders, and a documents folder with (often) user settings for those programs. In Linux, everything just seems to be everywhere. What seems to be the ‘documents’ equivalent for the game Factorio is in my user folder in a hidden .factorio, but I’ve to no avail been trying to find out where my ‘documents’ for Workers and Resources are. I’ll find them eventually, I’m sure. In general, I’m looking around a lot, though.
- The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation...
- The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest. In Linux, this often doesn’t work as it somehow takes a while for the capslock press to go into effect, so you often end up with ‘LInux’, for example. After lots of looking around, I have found some script that seems to fix this (‘Linux CapsLock Delay Fixer Master’), but it also randomly stops working and there are other ‘oddities’ I can’t really explain.
- Every once in a while, my desktop icons get rearranged. This seems to be a known issue, but it’s really annoying.
- It seems impossible to get Firefox to not restore sessions after shutting down the computer with it still open. I’ve tried several things, but I can’t get Firefox to just give me a fresh session on startup.
- The above all add to a bit of a general ‘stuck together with adhesive tape and love’ feeling.
- Not knowing how to install programs. This is more of a learning-curve thing, obviously. The software centre didn’t contain everything I could find online - for some programs, you could use ‘one click’ in OpenSUSE, but that seems to work more like a self-destruct button: I’ve tried those several times and have always had bad results >.>. I’ve found it’s easiest to install programs just using flatpaks.
All in all, I am quite happy. Though I am still afraid I’ll mess up my installation, and I’m now at a point where that’d hurt. I have installed Timeshift, but also with mixed results...
The caps lock thing hurts my feelings (ಥ_ʖಥ)
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Brilliant. Gonna use this idea myself
Config files for programs are in hidden folders in ~ (as you discovered) OR in ~/.config OR in ~/.local/share (yeah it's a bit of a mess)
Config files for flatpaks can be found under ~/.var/app (usually, some flatpaks have permissions to write outside that directory).
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I’ve some weeks ago moved my main computer from Windows 10 to Linux, specifically OpenSUSE Leap with the Plasma user environment, mainly because it doesn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I had never used Linux and have been a Windows user since I was six years old or somewhere around then (I’m in my late twenties now). I’d just like to share my likes and dislikes.
Things I like about Linux (my specific install, anyway):
- Not being a corporate environment. There aren’t any cheeky attempts at making money or advertisement anywhere, like the annoying fake widgets in Windows 11 and the half-filled start menu. I’ve gotten used to that on my laptop (which is running 11), but you do always have the feeling of ‘what are they trying now?’ That not being a thing is quite refreshing.
- In that veign, having actual widgets. I loved them in Windows 7; I’ve got a webpage widget on my second screen showing a Zoho sheet I made with an RSS feed. Just being able to be a bit creative like that is cool.
- The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
- I’m positively surprised by how little I miss from Windows when it comes to programs. Steam having compatibility tools is great, for example. Otherwise there are often replacements for what I’m missing (I’ve found one to allow general settings for my Logitech mouse, for example).
- The general ability to change the way everything looks and feels. I feel technical people sometimes look down a bit on aesthetics, but I really care about the user interface I use day in day out looking and feeling nice. While I’m a fan of the Windows 11 look myself, I really like how much I’ve been able to get my UI to look how I want it to in Plasma. Though I’m a bit surprised that it’s so hard to change the appearance of the start menu and bottom panel. I’ve had to install a specific program to change their colouring.
- The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
Things I’ve found annoying:
- Not knowing where to find anything. Of course, coming from Windows I’m used to there being a program files folder with my programs’ folders, and a documents folder with (often) user settings for those programs. In Linux, everything just seems to be everywhere. What seems to be the ‘documents’ equivalent for the game Factorio is in my user folder in a hidden .factorio, but I’ve to no avail been trying to find out where my ‘documents’ for Workers and Resources are. I’ll find them eventually, I’m sure. In general, I’m looking around a lot, though.
- The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation...
- The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest. In Linux, this often doesn’t work as it somehow takes a while for the capslock press to go into effect, so you often end up with ‘LInux’, for example. After lots of looking around, I have found some script that seems to fix this (‘Linux CapsLock Delay Fixer Master’), but it also randomly stops working and there are other ‘oddities’ I can’t really explain.
- Every once in a while, my desktop icons get rearranged. This seems to be a known issue, but it’s really annoying.
- It seems impossible to get Firefox to not restore sessions after shutting down the computer with it still open. I’ve tried several things, but I can’t get Firefox to just give me a fresh session on startup.
- The above all add to a bit of a general ‘stuck together with adhesive tape and love’ feeling.
- Not knowing how to install programs. This is more of a learning-curve thing, obviously. The software centre didn’t contain everything I could find online - for some programs, you could use ‘one click’ in OpenSUSE, but that seems to work more like a self-destruct button: I’ve tried those several times and have always had bad results >.>. I’ve found it’s easiest to install programs just using flatpaks.
All in all, I am quite happy. Though I am still afraid I’ll mess up my installation, and I’m now at a point where that’d hurt. I have installed Timeshift, but also with mixed results...
For backing up my home folder, I just plug in my external drive and use rsync from the terminal, like so (change to your user name; mine is gecko. Double check the paths and edit as necessary)
rsync -av /home/gecko/ /media/gecko/media/emmahomebackup/ --delete --dry-run(test first, check for errors at the end of output, there shouldn't be any unless you messed up the paths)then,
rsync -av /home/gecko/ /media/gecko/media/emmahomebackup/ --deleteThis command will back up your home folder the first time you run it, and on subsequent runs will sync any changes that have occured since the last run.
To restore, reverse the paths.
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For backing up my home folder, I just plug in my external drive and use rsync from the terminal, like so (change to your user name; mine is gecko. Double check the paths and edit as necessary)
rsync -av /home/gecko/ /media/gecko/media/emmahomebackup/ --delete --dry-run(test first, check for errors at the end of output, there shouldn't be any unless you messed up the paths)then,
rsync -av /home/gecko/ /media/gecko/media/emmahomebackup/ --deleteThis command will back up your home folder the first time you run it, and on subsequent runs will sync any changes that have occured since the last run.
To restore, reverse the paths.
JBOD is nice, but if you're interested in backups, check out an actual NAS. They're very much worth the expense.
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Do you need Timeshift on an opensuse system? I haven’t used Leap, but had a Tumbleweed install for years which has Snapper pre installed.
To be honest, I just installed Timeshift because I first tried Mint and that had Timeshift pre-installed, so it’s the only program I knew for making backups.
The firefox thing seems just firefox behaviour to me. Does it not do that in Windows?
It really doesn’t. The first think I’ve been doing is getting everything to behave as much like I’ve been used to on Windows, and this Firefox behavior is really sticking out like a sore thumb. But I’ll fix it at some point, hopefully.
Thanks for all the helpful information
I think the Firefox thing might actually be KDE restoring your session and not Firefox. Try to check KDE settings to see if you can start with a blank session on login.
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As for it feeling quicker due to it being a fresh install, don’t really expect it to slow down. Windows always slows down over time because its Registry is clogged, the code gets more bloated over time with updates, and the filesystem is kind of trash.
Linux generally stays quite nimble and quick in the long-term. It’s why you can take a decade old computer and still accomplish quite a bit on it with Linux.
My single longest install of Linux was 6 years and only ended because I built a new PC. Windows I generally reinstalled at least every two years. I couldn't stand how slow it got.
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JBOD is nice, but if you're interested in backups, check out an actual NAS. They're very much worth the expense.
I'm happy with my routine. Simple, quick.
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Config files for programs are in hidden folders in ~ (as you discovered) OR in ~/.config OR in ~/.local/share (yeah it's a bit of a mess)
Config files for flatpaks can be found under ~/.var/app (usually, some flatpaks have permissions to write outside that directory).
Just want to point out that, while it's a mess in practice, there is a correct place for these files and the problem is that many applications ignore it. Configuration files should be written to an aptly named folder in ~/.config/ (or more precisely, in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME which is set to ~/.config/ in most systems). ~/.local/share/ (or $XDG_DATA_HOME, respectively) is for user data, which is different from config.
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I think the Firefox thing might actually be KDE restoring your session and not Firefox. Try to check KDE settings to see if you can start with a blank session on login.
I already had that turned on as I want to start with a completely new session everytime anyway.
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Yah, it sounds like a quirk. I kinda like it reopening my tabs, but I just tried it on the stock FF in a fresh Fedora KDE install and it works fine.
It seems to have done the trick, cheers! I do get the ‘Your Firefox session has closed unexpectedly, do you want to recover it?’ screen, but I read earlier that Firefox on Linux indeed thinks it has crashed when it’s not closed the ‘proper’ way, which is by closing it from the menu. It doesn’t do this on Windows, which is really odd. But I should be able to just turn off that screen in about:config. Perfect.
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I’ve some weeks ago moved my main computer from Windows 10 to Linux, specifically OpenSUSE Leap with the Plasma user environment, mainly because it doesn’t have the magic Windows 11 chip. I had never used Linux and have been a Windows user since I was six years old or somewhere around then (I’m in my late twenties now). I’d just like to share my likes and dislikes.
Things I like about Linux (my specific install, anyway):
- Not being a corporate environment. There aren’t any cheeky attempts at making money or advertisement anywhere, like the annoying fake widgets in Windows 11 and the half-filled start menu. I’ve gotten used to that on my laptop (which is running 11), but you do always have the feeling of ‘what are they trying now?’ That not being a thing is quite refreshing.
- In that veign, having actual widgets. I loved them in Windows 7; I’ve got a webpage widget on my second screen showing a Zoho sheet I made with an RSS feed. Just being able to be a bit creative like that is cool.
- The system seems quite a bit quicker than it was in Windows - though in all honesty this will also be because I’m still on a fairly fresh install.
- I’m positively surprised by how little I miss from Windows when it comes to programs. Steam having compatibility tools is great, for example. Otherwise there are often replacements for what I’m missing (I’ve found one to allow general settings for my Logitech mouse, for example).
- The general ability to change the way everything looks and feels. I feel technical people sometimes look down a bit on aesthetics, but I really care about the user interface I use day in day out looking and feeling nice. While I’m a fan of the Windows 11 look myself, I really like how much I’ve been able to get my UI to look how I want it to in Plasma. Though I’m a bit surprised that it’s so hard to change the appearance of the start menu and bottom panel. I’ve had to install a specific program to change their colouring.
- The little icon jumping next to your cursor when opening a program (I know, I’m easily amused).
Things I’ve found annoying:
- Not knowing where to find anything. Of course, coming from Windows I’m used to there being a program files folder with my programs’ folders, and a documents folder with (often) user settings for those programs. In Linux, everything just seems to be everywhere. What seems to be the ‘documents’ equivalent for the game Factorio is in my user folder in a hidden .factorio, but I’ve to no avail been trying to find out where my ‘documents’ for Workers and Resources are. I’ll find them eventually, I’m sure. In general, I’m looking around a lot, though.
- The lingering feeling of instability. This is my second install of OpenSUSE, after I messed up something leading to my computer having some files which it wanted to update, but using urls which didn’t exist. After this, I’ve been feeling a bit insecure and afraid of doing something that ruins my installation. I know there’s the saying that Linux ‘just works’, but I’ve never messed up a Windows installation...
- The capslock works differently, apparently. I’m used to writing every capital letter using the capslock key, meaning if I write a capital at the beginning of a word, I press capslock, then type the first letter, then quickly press capslock again and type the rest. In Linux, this often doesn’t work as it somehow takes a while for the capslock press to go into effect, so you often end up with ‘LInux’, for example. After lots of looking around, I have found some script that seems to fix this (‘Linux CapsLock Delay Fixer Master’), but it also randomly stops working and there are other ‘oddities’ I can’t really explain.
- Every once in a while, my desktop icons get rearranged. This seems to be a known issue, but it’s really annoying.
- It seems impossible to get Firefox to not restore sessions after shutting down the computer with it still open. I’ve tried several things, but I can’t get Firefox to just give me a fresh session on startup.
- The above all add to a bit of a general ‘stuck together with adhesive tape and love’ feeling.
- Not knowing how to install programs. This is more of a learning-curve thing, obviously. The software centre didn’t contain everything I could find online - for some programs, you could use ‘one click’ in OpenSUSE, but that seems to work more like a self-destruct button: I’ve tried those several times and have always had bad results >.>. I’ve found it’s easiest to install programs just using flatpaks.
All in all, I am quite happy. Though I am still afraid I’ll mess up my installation, and I’m now at a point where that’d hurt. I have installed Timeshift, but also with mixed results...
I will answer to your annoyances from my context:
I use Bazzite on my gaming rig and Aurora on my work laptop.-
I only use Flatpaks for GUI apps and Homebrew for CLI apps, things are stored in their respective folders.
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My chosen distros are atomic / immutable, only user files can be changed, the system is shielded from breakage. You just can't brick it unless you really want to.
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Caps lock works the same as windows.
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Desktop shortcuts rearranging, didn't happen to me / haven't noticed.
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Firefox restoring session no matter what: I'll try that and get back to you.
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Bazzite & Aurora are very polished.
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Flatpaks are the best, for CLI apps I use homebrew.
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Bazzite / Aurora have automatically generated rollback images.
Honestly, if you want something that works for you and not the other way around, I suggest you use an Universal Blue distro.
