This is the standard reaction I’ve heard so often from experienced Linux users, but you tend to forget all the trouble you’re able to solve because you know what you’re doing.
Consider proprietary graphics drivers - ordinary people won’t even know why that is an issue, where to look if the display flickers, or what even drivers are.
And that’s just the start of it… I’ve never had a Linux box that didn’t require me to open a terminal to fix something after a while.
Updates definitely break something sometimes, because the people publishing them are humans that make mistakes. Why shouldn’t they?
If you’re using a Thinkpad, you’re well of. Try a cheaper machine, and be surprised by exciting tinkering opportunities like fast battery drainage, issues connecting external displays, external printers not being recognised, or Bluetooth speakers not playing audio.
We can fix it, my mom cannot.
> Consider proprietary graphics drivers - ordinary people won’t even know why that is an issue, where to look if the display flickers, or what even drivers are.
Why would an employee that wasn't part of IT procurement ever be thinking about that? If you're telling me that it's impossible to hire a single person for procurement who can figure out whether your machines will run on the OS your organization has chosen, I'm going to insist that's not true.
> I’ve never had a Linux box that didn’t require me to open a terminal to fix something after a while.
I'm going to make the guess that you never run a stable distribution for your own personal desktop, like Debian stable, for example. For some reason, most individuals pretend to need a bleeding edge desktop. Organizations don't. Debian Stable is as fragile as a mountain.
What does "up to date" even mean in this context? It's not like there is a new version of Kmail every day. Why do you care if your version is a bit older?
That said, the exception is a browser, where I would prefer to use the upstream version for security reasons.
> What does "up to date" even mean in this context? It's not like there is a new version of Kmail every day. Why do you care if your version is a bit older?
Honestly, anything that a developer has pushed. Sometimes I want an SVN build of DOSBox or need a bleeding edge feature of some tool I use all the time. On Windows, this is simply a matter of downloading a binary, but by and large Linux software doesn't work that way. Distros expect that you will use whatever version of a package they have seen fit to grace you with, or you compile from source like it is 1975.
It is not unreasonable or unrealistic to ask for a stable platform upon which one can run bleeding edge applications, yet this remains painful on Linux Desktop.
For this we now have the AppImage format! (or snap/flatpack depending on your preference)
For the few cases were you need bleeding edge you can just download and run it just like on Windows. For most applications bleeding edge is really not necessary and you can just normally install via package manager.
If only that were true, but there isn't an AppImage (my preference, but same applies to flat and sanp too) for every program. Or even most programs in my experience.
Yeah, honestly I don't understand understand why it is not more popular. Probably still needs a bit of time to really catch on.
Though I don't think the situation is that bleak. Any popular application where user have a reasonable interest in having the latest version should have some way to ship it on Linux?
Thinking about what I personally use, blender just has a tarball, no trouble, VS Codium, Godot, Unity, Love2d all have AppImages, the IntelliJ IDEs can be installed via snap. Browsers are handled by package manager. Most of my dev stuff is running on docker anyway.
Yes, it is a bit of a mess with all the different ways to ship binaries but I can't think of something I am painfully missing. I don't care about having the newest version for most apps though so maybe I am more easily pleased.
None of that matters in this case, since the users don't purchase or administer their computers.
The IT department selects appropriate configurations that support the software they need. My university has no problem supporting a Linux laptop and desktop, and Germany's administration would be doing something similar.
If you’re using a Thinkpad, you’re well of. Try a cheaper machine, and be surprised by exciting tinkering opportunities like fast battery drainage, issues connecting external displays, external printers not being recognised, or Bluetooth speakers not playing audio. We can fix it, my mom cannot.