Surprising to myself, I have been a Linux user for over 12 years…
Through the many years I have bounced between and tried Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Arch, Parrot OS, Linux Mint, Manjaro. I have tried Gnome, Cinnamon, XFCE, KDE, Mate, Deepin. And more. I have 3 computers, all using a Linux distro right now.
I love the idea of Linux - free, free as in freedom, free of telemetry. And well, I thought I would never entertain the idea of switching, here I am today, strongly considering Mac OS.
Lately, I have become extremely frustrated and tired of dealing with little bugs, crashes, versions, and dependencies. Not to mention notable UI issues. It is starting to hamper my productivity when working.
Right now I am using Ubuntu and I cannot drag and drop into VS Code from Nautilus, I can’t drag and drop from the default archive manager, I am experiencing screen tearing issues, one piece of software I use crashes often but not Debian and vice versa, I have to manually reset screen brightness when it dims after timeout, etc. I have experienced issues of similar nature across all distros I have used and I am becoming burnt out.
I think part of the issue is that there is a huge variety of Linux distros, different combinations of kernels, desktop environments, window managers, package managers, file managers, network managers, etc… Not to mention devices. There is too many variables, and too many projects to maintain.
Sorry for the rant, I have seen many similar posts, but I have been using Linux for over 12 years, powering through, ignoring and working around these issues and I am pretty fed up.
While I am conflicted, I am thinking Mac OS looks like a good middle ground.
Any suggestions? What has been the most stable distro and compatible for you?
You should really try a distro that’s actually up to date instead of ubuntu or debian, things are changing rapidly because of wayland, and you might not have a good experience on stable distros until the big transition is done.
What would you recommend here instead? Or rather what are you using for your daily driver?
Personally I’m using Fedora and it’s as painless for me as it gets. I don’t think Linux desktop can get any smoother than that.
As far as I know the Fedora Workstation (with Gnome) is really polished. I’m personally using KDE, which - being KDE - has a rough edge here and there, but it’s getting so much better with each upgrade that I’m really impressed now.
I’m not the person you commented to but just this month I switched to KDE neon, because I believe I was having issues with some games and Mint’s Cinammon WM with constant crashes and freezes. So far everything on Neon has been running great. I like having a bleeding edge GUI on a rock solid, widely compatible base. Neon is basically Ubuntu but tweaked and molded by the KDE people to run KDE to its fullest potential.