I need to record samples of some Blu-rays I made, and I want to be able to show the pop-up menus. This (showing pop-up menus and full functionality of a Blu-ray) cannot be done with VLC. So does anyone know how I can record a DVD or Blu-ray not using VLC? I'm using the PowerDVD app. Thanks in advance.
Linux has a tons of glaring issues that are very obvious to see from someone coming from Windows or MacOS. There are billion of issues, I see with Linux and I'll list quite a few of them (I can't list of all of them It'd be way too long).
The first and biggest biggest biggest weakness of Linux is:
App support
I don't get why this is so taboo even among the Linux community to admit this, when objectively everyone knows that Linux is missing a lot of deal breaker apps. WINE seemed like a brilliant idea on paper, but in practice It doesn't work with all apps, It has bugs, It's quite difficult to configure If other people didn't try them and wrote a tutorial for you before. Also, the numbers of loud desktop linux supporters seem to be high and all, but I don't see a lot of them contributing to WINE, literally
THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF LINUX RIGHT NOW. There aren't a lot of WINE devs nor enough people writing guides and tutorial on them or reporting bugs (hint for all linux supporters, I'm contributing to WINE).
So for people who need to make a serious living using Photoshop and really can't waste time to deal with bugs or even worse crashes, with the current state of WINE right now, It's unviable. Not to say that WINE can't implement a lot of Photoshop features.
The other solution Linux has to solve this problem are virtual machines. And indeed they run all windows software bug free without any problem, except one: Virtual machines lead to a performance loss. That's a pretty big deal for anyone professional, you don't want to deal with lag and some apps are simply unuseable because they are too slow like Adobe premiere (2 hours + to render instead of 20 mins is unacceptable for anyone working seriously).
Fortunately there is a solution to solve the slowness problem, VFIO passthrough and indeed this time there's no scam. With VFIO passthrough, basically you give one of your GPUs to the VM and you can achieve near native performance. They didn't lie, It's real If well configured. The main problem with this is that you need at least 2 GPUs to do that and not everyone has 2 GPUs (hello laptop users). It's also quite complicated to setup (very hard sometimes).
Seamless window support (showing the window of a VM and running a virtualized app a normal/native app) is a bit shaky, but It can be improved over time and It's not a huge deal breaker.
If every computelaptop had 2 GPUs, honestly I would've said that Linux could have some future and that vfio passthrough could compensate for the lack of apps. Especially, with the new technology that is coming on some GPUs that allow you to only give a part of it to a VM.
But If VFIO passthrough is an option to you, then in my opinion It's a huge deal changer, Linux isn't the same OS at all and It really starts to become a viable desktop OS, in this case.
If you can't do a VFIO passthrough (like most people), then It's really limiting. Linux doesn't have that many software exclusives compared to Windows but lacks many of the important ones. Open source alternatives really don't cut it:
- Gimp is literally useless for serious professional work because It doesn't support non destructive editing. It has many other glaring issues, but this one is literally the biggest and no work around will fix this.
- Libreoffice can be considered If you work alone, but even then the experience is far from flawless depending of your luck. You can be hit by bugs and in my personal benchmark Libreoffice is a lot slower than Microsoft office for processing big files. It also lacks features. If you work with other people who use microsoft office however, unless you enjoy gambling with your job, you should just use microsoft office and not risk problems. You should be sure to see what others see and the same thing the other way around.
- For serious video editing, you need either Avid or Premiere. Davinci resolve looks promising, but It still lacks some features and can't be used for serious high quality video editing.
- For video recording, linux lacks camtasia, bandicam and others. Sure, OBS studio may not be bad, but It's not my cup of tea (I prefer bandicam and I doubt that I'm not the only one thinking this). The UI is complicated and It lacks some minor features that I only I care about, I guess. Linux has a lot of problem with proprietary formats in all these programs.
- No open source pdf vieweeditor comes close to Adobe Acrobat
- Note taking in Linux is in a very sad state, there is no onenote one of the best note taking apps. You're forced to use a subpar open source note taking app like xournal.
- For media consumption: Linux is blessed to have VLC, one of the best video players, but It lacks some alternatives like powerdvd.
- Linux lacks a powerful software to manage your music library. No mediamonkey, musicbee or foobar2000 sucks. I know that you can gamble your way with foobar with WINE but not many users use it, so you'll probably have to deal with some bugs.
- There is no hardware decoding in firefox and chrome. There is a hacky VA-API patch that isn't too hard to implement in chromium but It doesn't always work.
- Some asshole websites don't seem to support hd videos for linux and changing the user agent can fix this.
- Most other specific work-related apps don't work on Linux too.
- There is no Sketchup, no solidworks, no autocad, no solidedge.
- Linux lacks games, even though It's getting better at this. There are a lot of poor linux ports too with more bugs than the windows version.
- Funnily enough, Linux lacks chessbase meaning that It can't be used for serious and top chess players, a real missed opportunity, given that Linux isn't unpopular in the back end of the chess world. TCEC: multiple chess engine tournaments run on Linux.
I'm sure that there are many others important software that Linux lacks. More than half of the programs on my Windows machines are basically unusable on Linux. Even If open source alternatives were on par with proprietary software, It's unacceptable and unreasonable to expect anyone to change more than half of his workflow like this on his desktop OS, let alone If the quality of software is actually inferior.
Second biggest problem of Linux is:
Poor hardware support
This one is the second most important and annoying issue. There are some laptops where Linux straight up won't boot, but getting your wi-fi, video card, sound, microphone and webcam working out of the box is still not so likely. But even If you managed to get everything "working" somehow, you will have a poor battery life out of the box and even after some tinkering the battery life is still poor compared to Windows on most laptops. You may also experience subpar drivers, missing features and slower performance in some aspects.
If however, you have something specific going on for your laptop, like a touchscreen: 2-in 1 tablet, tactile numpad, the touchbar on the macbook gimmick or anything else: you can be pretty much
GUARANTEED that your experience will be complete garbage compared to the OS given with your hardware.
It really does not help that we're moving from laptops to 2 in 1 gimmicks slowly and It will give linux an even harder time to catch up. Linux is so terrible for touchscreen and 2 in 1 tablets, It's really unbelievable, I feel like Android 10 years ago was much smoother than this garbage.
Accelerometer to change the screen rotation is truly garbage. Put an Ipad or even a fucking android tablet or smartphone and you'll see what I mean. On an Ipad, you get a nice transition and the screen rotates smoothly. On Linux, the screen turn off completely and then rotates 3-5 secs later, It's not reactive at all.
For touching your screen, the UI is plain laggy and not responsive. Compare it to any iPhone or iPad and It's day and night, really. Linux is not responsive to touch and sometimes touch does not even work. There is significantly more input lag on Linux than Windows on 2 in 1 tablets.
It also really does not help that no DE, even GNOME gives a really polished tablet experience, UI and layout of apps. It says a lot when fucking Windows is more optimized for tablets than your DE.
There is no DE 100% focused to give a polished tablet experience. None of them. The linux community and devs don't give a fuck.
I'm still not over with hardware, If your hardware even works AT ALL, you will definitely miss the software features on it, most of the times. If you buy a random gaming mouse that bundles a software to remap the side buttons or use a technology in software to readjust the aim, YOU'RE IN FUCKING BAD LUCK, NONE OF THIS will be supported in Linux.
RGB keyboard? Ha, no lights for you boomer! Because who buys an RGB gaming keyboard in 2020?
Specialized and latest hardware won't work PERIOD.
THESE are the DEALBREAKERS, MAJOR POINTS, on why Linux really sucks dick at being a desktop OS.
There are other points where linux sucks, like the fact that It's buggy: a lot of bugs in this OS, being a dick to troubleshoot, the awful package management system forcing you to update your whole os to update a tiny app: It's like they are begging for bugs to happen, bad ui in many DEs, being forced to use the terminal for a lot of basic tasks, the community not focusing on functionality but on forcing their morals on others, the religious attitude that linux is perfect holding it back and so on.
But these are of course somewhat important, but very minor. Yes, It sucks to regularly encounter bugs with no user error besides daring to turn on my computer (something that never happened with windows before, I never had bugs with Windows that weren't 100% my fault),
but honestly the software + hardware problem is really the biggest issue.
Linux is really behind, I feel like It was created in the stone age. 15+ years behind Windows and Macos in terms of useability.
What the Linux community is doing on the desktop scene, is
CLEARLY NOT WORKING.
In the long run, I believe more in
ReactOS, but the development is very slow and I may never see the light of such a project, assuming that It isn't abandoned.
I still contribute to Linux and even use it from time to time, fantasizing about what Linux
should've been, but I guess that It is only going to stay a dream for a very long time.
