When you say "Linux", I suppose you mean Linux distributions?

If so, then firmware updaters as mentioned above.

Also, more consistency. More standardization. Choice is great but there's way too much clutter, bloat and bugs around. Moving from one distro from another can be quite challenging with so many different package managers around. Remember when Systemd came out? Or the sudden switch from X11 to Wayland in some distros?

Removing certain unneeded packages can involve removing a host of dependencies you actually still need for other packages to work so your system ends up breaking and you need to do a full system reinstall. Sigh.

More stability. Great to have access to bleeding-edge software but not when it compromises stability and breaks your system.

More plug&play. I know this may be due to certain vendors making life hell for Linux developers but still.

More of an "out of the box" experience and better GUI integration if we want the average Joe who's not into tech to consider using Linux. Of course, this is related to the lack of consistency and standardization. And I say this as someone who loves using the terminal. They just want their stuff to work and setup their system intuitively. Can't blame them.

Depending on the distribution, more localization. Better documentation. Better support. This is related to the lack of consistency. Sometimes when you run into a problem, the solution is too distro-specific. Personally, I find the Arch wiki to be superb and it's often been of tremendous help even though I don't use Arch. I wish there were a wiki like that for Linux in general.

Integrated backup service?

That said, I still infinitely prefer using Linux to Windows given all the freedom it offers and my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. However, I tend to stick to one of the major distros for general computing.

I've switched most of my use to Linux, due to Microsoft's blatant disregard for user privacy and control and for the most part I'm happy with the direction things are going.

I've got a couple of Microsoft application that I need to run, and for that I use VirtualBox. Fortunately they don't need the internet, so I keep it isolated and don't worry much about updates. If it works, I likely don't update, and if/when I do, I make heavy use of snapshots to roll back anything that I don't like.

I think an area which needs more attention is installation tools. Setting up GRUB2 on a UEFI system with Windows is a nightmare. Especially on a laptop where Windows is factory installed. Having tools to trace the boot process and either "click to fix" or at very least provide detailed diagnostics would be a great help. I've been building and maintaining almost all of my own systems since about 1990 and I've never run across anything as hard to deal with as GRUB2/UEFI. For most users it would be a showstopper (which is exactly what Microsoft wants.)

I've put my 82 year old father-in-law on Linux and for the most part it is trouble free and "Just works" without all the forced updates and other MS BS.

If the masses (who just surf the web, send a few emails, maybe write a letter) had the support they needed to make the switch (and if the process was made easy) they would see how much better thing would be. LibreOffice is just fine for pretty much anything I'm doing and I suspect that the same would apply to most people.

Maybe when people are forced to pay under Microsoft's "subscription" model for Office (and maybe Windows), they will be much more open to alternative. The community needs to stop flaming each other, get together to come up with some common things that work (and a way for those common things to be easily customized for the nice that wants that customization). A stable base for the masses and ease of customization for those who need/want it. Once there is a large user base, the users need to vote with their wallets and the software houses will soon change their tune.

I hate Apple and their business practices, but the one thing we can thank Steve Jobs for is helping to push that security cess pit that is Adobe Flash out of a position of prominence. If everybody can influence 2 people to influence 2 people it wouldn't take long to change the world.

I'm a relatively new full-time Linux user (almost a year - have been dabbling for almost 10 years). I absolutely LOVE my current setup of Manjaro i3 and have *almost* completely cut all ties with OS X and Windows. I saw on Reddit last night that Office 365 is supported in Wine now, so that could be *totally* completely very soon

I'm missing attractive, user friendly apps with proper support for Google services:

Calendar: I've found nothing that reliably and fully supports Google calendars. There's always something missing like invitations, event sharing, alerts etc. I'm using the web version of Google calendar (so no proper OS integration - I get alerts on my mobile).

Contacts: Support in Gnome contacts was OK, but the syncing was glitchy for me and I've since moved to i3wm. I'm using the web version of Google contacts (so missing OS integration).

Mail: Thunderbird's Gmail support is decent but I find the UI stresses me out. It's way too crowded and busy for an app you spend so much time in. I hope their redesign isn't just a simple reskin, but a proper rethink of the UX. I'm using Geary which looks nice and works great, but is missing combined inbox and simple filtering for stuff like unread messages (I know you can type the filter but I can never remember it and my F1 help has stopped working so I can't find it). Apparently Google is about to release an update to the Gmail web UI - if it allows displaying multiple accounts in a single window I might switch to it. This would partially solve my problem of lacking OS integration with the other services because I'd have a Gmail window open all day.

I get the feeling that Google is a bit of a dirty word in the Linux community, but it's an unavoidable reality that millions (billions?) of people use their services, often as a work requirement, and imho they are the best around. I also love what they have done to move the web forward and their huge contributions to open source. I believe they have their own homegrown Linux distro - I wonder if they have desktop apps built for their services. If so, I wish they'd release them. Privacy issues can be solved by paying for G-Suite (which I do).

If anyone thinks this post is rubbish, please let me know which apps I should be checking out

I'd want a decent (native) substitute for Microsoft Access. It works (Office 2010, at least) under Wine, except that it won't open password-protected files, even when I supply the correct password.

Also, something has to be done about network configuration in Samba, especially to get Linux boxes to talk to Windows boxes. I've had to become a closet networking guru just to send files back and forth.

Maybe an undo/rollback option or a recycle bin from where I can retrieve accidentally deleted files.

Fluid Motion!

Valid points.

Here are a couple of things you can try to make it slightly less painful:

Many of the GNU commands have an info page which is often much more detailed and split into topics. They are especially good for sed, find, and grep. Just use info instead of man.

If you use a program like bash a lot, you can copy the man page to a file and edit it to your heart's desire, adding things like bookmark tags, explanations, and personal examples. The only problem is that you'll have to reapply your edits to the new man page when it gets updated.

pulseaudio will do almost anything you want. The problem is that it's so darn hard to figure out how to get it to do anything.

Huh? What desktop do you use? KDE / Plasma has exactly that...

1 members found this post helpful.

I work on Linux servers...CentOS/RHEL. Was talking about a command line interface.
Not very familiar with Linux desktops still.

I see. Sorry, I'm just a Joe-"home-user", I have no experience in the Server area.

... I do not know how to create a balanced exchange on viewpoints, when the question is asking for a mono-directional flow of statements.

Could we have “Things to keep out of Linux for all time”, please?

• Any apps for Google services

And Thank Youhou

You can create an alias & have it send 'deleted' items into a (hidden) folder.

1 members found this post helpful.

In my suggestion for what I would like to see in Linux I forgot to add the fact that I'm a complete newbie and I only know a very little about Ubuntu. At my age, and I think this comes with age, I now simply want things to work which is the complete opposite of my ethic since starting with computing in the 80's with DOS 2. To excuse myself, I like to think that I've done my bit and my only regret is that I came to Linux too late in life. This was probably due in great part, of needing to be on the same "wavelength" as others for work purposes. Also, are all the different distributions really necessary, I understand the desire of freedom of developing the way each wants but maybe a more community oriented effort would be of benefit to all? I may have this all wrong but now, as I've spent the greater part of my life in and with computing, all I want is to be able to do basic things, mostly office oriented on my computer and I'm quite happy simply using Ubuntu.

Hello,
The useless IT-linux-user is back.

To me what is missing from linux:
1- easiness of installation. If you don't know a geek to install it (install it completely with all the little things that work such as screen-shots, friendly corners, printer installation and many other things that do not come as standard, well you are stuck. If you don't have a minimum of knowledge on how to split the drive etc etc then you are stuck. You have CDs that install linux as standard but it is minimalistic, there are so many things that are not installed.
Here in France, linux-volunteer-groups do what is called "an install party" for one day every so often. People from the public come with their PC and the linux geeks install linux for free for these people and they explain how to use it.
If you want to install windows, you just download a file and it gets installed all by itself (well nearly).

2-Then what is also missing is to be sure that things work with linux. When I bought my laptop, I checked with people to ensure that linux would work with my laptop before buying it because apparently there are some issues with some laptops. Also some hardwares work with difficulties. I still print using windows (dual boot PC) because my linux-PC crashed when my brother installed my printer (brother MFCMFC-933OCDW) on my laptop (ASUS K456U) and he had to reinstalled linux totally (and I did not dare try another installation of the printer) so when I want toprint, I switch off linux, I re-start under windows, I print and then I re-start again under linux ....

3- What would be great, would be softwares that work with people using windows or MAC, I explain: 2 people use skype to communicate (skype is owned by google or similar ??), it would be nice to have a linux-similar-skype-software (but not skype) that could communicate with someone using a windows-skype or mac-skype (and F*** google, windows, microsoft and friends). I do not know if this is possible.

4- Also , someone mentioned an accountancy software. People you have a company, you need a calculation software (I use "libreoffice calc" similar to excel) but in France it is not aloud to use a free software for doing the accountancy of a commercial company (if the tax man finds out, you are in trouble) so when I open my company soon, maybe I will have to buy an excel license (and give money to microsoft!!!) for doing simple accountancy stuff.

5- A linux tuto would be nice as a standard with linux (thank you to you all on this web site and thanks to all the people who put many tutos in the internet including on youtube on how to do things and what things are called and how to use the software (where to find the things)) because when you switch from 20 years of windows and microsoft to linux and libreoffice, you must relearn everything. It is all similar but all different (it is like driving on the right side of the road and then going to England and driving on the left side of the road, the same but different).

I am not a geek so I have simple inquiries that have maybe already been answered on the web (simple tutos maybe etc) so if you have links to send to me, please do.

Why did I deliberately switch to linux if I find it difficult to readjust and I am not ready to spent half of my life learning on how to use it ? Because it is safer against viruses than windows and microsoft (apparently the French finance ministry uses linux), it is free, many nice people develop it, it is not owned by microsoft.

Thank you all and have a great day.

Joelle