Uh, um... I do not like how I have to install microsoft fonts seperately to have times new roman on my resume?

No easy way to play sounds in microphone(like Soundpad program)

Having to install apps manually and figure out dependencies myself because a popular piece of software only officially supports Ubuntu and Debian. No normal human would ever do this. They would go back to Windows. Hell, I still haven't even gotten one piece of software to work on my new OpenSUSE system yet: Beyond Compare 4. There's no flatpack for it. The RPM test says all dependencies are satisfied, but when I run the program, nothing happens. I did some web searching, but I haven't dug too deep yet.

Why are there so many package managers with such different syntaxes? And why does one repo maintainer decide to call it "package" and another calls it "package4"? Or some entirely different name! It's maddening. I've had to create empty proxy packages that translate package names just to install some RPM file. Again, the average person is not going to do this.

In KDE plasma, the first thing most people do is set up Wi-Fi on their computer, but you need to set up KWallet first or else the password gets stored in some other dimension. I accidentally typed my Wi-Fi password wrong, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to clear it out and make it ask me for the proper password when I try to connect. I even went into network manager and switched the network to say, "ask me every time". It wouldn't! It would just sit there and hang on "authenticating". I never did figure it out. I ended up forgetting to encrypt my system partition, so I simply reinstalled the OS.

People that argue over Gnome vs. KDE. Shut up and use whatever you like. No need to yuck other people's yum.

The community lmao

Having to use the terminal even once

Making distro clones with premade software, wallpaper, etc.

Systemback is easy to use, but then complex to install for normal people (lack of instructions, have to manually make the partitions, needs 3 partitions but nothing states that in the software).

Post-Cubic customizations are easy for normal people to install but way more complex to set up (basically terminal only, need to know more abstract terminal commands for specific customizations like pinning an app to the bottom panel).

Basically, the classic Linux GUI problems.

Linux is super cool when everything works out of the box. But once you need to make adjustments, you're in a world of pain.

I recently had the distinct displeasure of using visudo for the first time and was flabbergasted that this should be the recommended standard app for its purpose. An app which randomly turns mouse and keyboard inputs into random letters, doesn't have a visible command menu, doesn't allow you to click to place the text cursor, doesn't have an easy way of copy-pasting...WTF? 🤯

Now, I am actually a trained IT professional who has installed and managed a plethora of firewalls, virtual machines, file servers, VPNs, etc... but Linux has me stumped way too often when apps seem to lack the most basic attention to usability.

And the lack of standardization leads to absurd situations where to solve one problem you have to first dig into three different underlying subsystems and their peculiarities, spending hours on trial and error using scant & often outdated or non-applicable documentation (it's for another distro and two years old). 🙄

non copyleft software in general1

Nothing to hate... some forums have turned pretty caustic but other than that, the software and the community are awesome

Re Flatpaks, I did not like them so I do not use them.. not need to hate a thing I have barely any interaction with, choosing not to use them has not limited me at all

Never had wifi power management issues either (15 years on Linux)

You want to do some cool thing and you find instructions online.

But that shit only works when t every single aspect of the s is the exact same version.

Which will never be the case, so now you’re at co desperately trying to improvise the steps that, if you inherently knew how to do, you wouldn’t have needed instructions for in the first place.

Not a Linux thing directly but something that bothers me a lot: The complete lack of support from professional applications.
Wanna use this tool that cost hundreds of bucks on Linux? Lmao fuck you.
You’d think companies that actually make money could afford to support Linux and hobbyists doing FOSS stuff for funsies can only focus on the OS they use themselves but somehow we live in a world where the opposite is true.

This is what makes switching to Linux for me personally and probably a lot of other people completely unviable because it means having to give up on thousands of dollars of stuff for “freedom”.

And the onus is 100% on the companies developing software. They have to offer Linux versions first, so people can switch to Linux, giving them more Linux users. Doesn’t work the other way around.

Oh also psst don’t ever mention spending money on proprietary software around Linux people, they will have a heart attack.

Honestly, the fact I don't have as much time as I'd like to contribute workarounds.

Take yesterday, I got Magic and Mayhem (the classic) running via wine, but I had to create a new wine prefix to remove dpi scaling (because, Apparently, the winecfg graphic tab is global, and if dpi scaling is used it truncates the game's display). Still can't get the music working, but that's what MOC is for, and I did use an old cracked version.

I want to make a lutris install script for this, but I lack the time. That's my main dislike of Linux - I wish there was a solid indexed forum to share game workarounds that had a drop-down search by game.

Snap. The very existence of it.

Ubuntu and GNOME

I'll be nice in case the developers are reading.

I just think they're both pretty misguided in their goals.

Ubuntu used to be Debian plus your laptop's Wi-Fi works out of the box. The hardware support has improved and now Debian in 2025 is better than Ubuntu, plus Debian never shows you terminal ads or prompts you to snap install something that obviously isn't going to run well inside the default Snap sandbox.

I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu to any new users now. I'd sit and install Debian stable with them, and if something is missing, I'd try Debian unstable or the proprietary repos.

No offense to on-the-ground Ubuntu devs, but Ubuntu really feels like Debian plus a billionaire's desire to make money reselling Debian.

GNOME... Wants the desktop to look like a phone. Got rid of the system tray and then you have to do a little dance t re-install it. I don't know why. I've had useful stuff in the system tray since Windows XP.

I think GNOME might have also spearheaded the trend of ruining SEO and documentation by naming apps what they do instead of with real names? Like "Movie player" or "Web Browser". I don't know if they did any studies or if it helps new users but it's real weird for advanced users. Most people know that "Chrome" is a brand of web browser, so why would you name your web browser "Web Browser" and make things weird? I like KDE's thinking. Pick a name and wedge a K into it. And then make an anime furry its mascot. Can't beat that!

There was a conspiracy theory years ago, because someone from Microsoft was making decisions at GNOME, that GNOME was going to be eaten inside-out by MS, like Nokia was. They were rolling .NET Mono stuff and some kind of object model... I don't think it got far but I don't care. I switched to xfce on my desktop and KDE looks great on the Steam Deck and laptop. KDE used to be heavy, but hardware got bigger.

I actually love the package managers on Linux. Apt would be better if you could install multiple versions side-by-side, but I get why that's hard. Whenever I use Windows it's like, gross, I have to use MSIs again? I can't just apt install git curl wget screen lua? And on macOS I can install brew but a lot of apps use that funny pattern where you drag it into the Applications folder, and then you must remember to unmount the disk image, and also some apps aren't in the Applications folder.

I actually love systemd and everyone can fight me on this. Systemd is really nice.

The fact that there is NO agreed single package standard across distros.

vendor support

I don't know if I agree with the issue of installing software. Sure, there are a lot of ways to do it, but it's better than navigating to a website, downloading an executable, and having it install for you. There's too many points for error to cause issues. Plus, you have to do that for every update usually.

Is it perfect on Linux? No. It's better than Windows though.

The norms on where files belong are really dumb.

Similarly, programs being entitled to strew files all over kingdom come.

Ten different ways to install software and maybe one or two of them actually keep track of where all the files are and clean them up properly upon removal.

Libinput. I want to use wayland. I would use wayland. I will not use wayland because libinput is the antichrist.

Every now and then I update my system and go to move my cursor and say (aloud) "wow, this is ass!" And that's when I know that I'm in a wayland session or libinput has otherwise been selected as my touchpad's input driver. And it's not like other Linux things where I can just change some settings to tune it, noooo, because why would you need to do that?? Let's just make an input driver that shakes the cursor with my every heartbeat and a hardcoded acceleration profile that is simultaneously too sensitive to click small things and not sensitive enough to move a window across the screen without multiple touchpad strokes because that's perfect on every system and everyone should just be okay with that because it's the standard and good and I hate it hate hate hate hate

Hate hate hate hate hate

Hate

(I very much appreciate you, libinput developers, you do great work and I am grateful for it, and I just have some (kind of maybe very strong) suggestions about configurability in your design philosophy)