Six months into using Linux on the desktop daily on a Dell XPS 13, having moved from OS X due to hardware issues, I am sad to report that I am moving back to OS X.
Listen Linux, no hard feelings, it was fun, it was almost good, it felt liberating, and it was a great learning experience. But I am tired.
I am tired of having to disconnect and reconnect my external display whenever Gnome does not feel like picking it up, randomly. Race condition anybody?
I am tired of small software upgrades with unintended consequences. I am not paid to test, thank you. It is free software, but time is not free.
I am tired of USB issues with devices appearing, disappearing, reappearing, depending on how you feel after a boot process.
I am tired of Bluetooth being particularly worse than anywhere else. Yes, I know Bluetooth is not the most stable of protocols. But give me a break. Your memory is rather short.
I am tired of having to restart dnsmasq every now and then, just because Gnome decided to have its own dnsmasq daemon run in parallel to the base OS.
I am tired of having to remove the Pulseaudio settings every now and then because you get confused about my peripherals. I know it is not your fault, but I don’t want to dig whose fault it is.
And I am totally and utterly tired of getting a frozen OS in the middle of something. I don’t know if it’s X, or Gnome or the kernel. I don’t care.
And you know what thing, Wayland. Well, it’s been a bit too long.
I want to let you know that you are not alone however. I installed Windows 10 on this laptop on the side, since you were having some issues. I can tell you that it is not much better. Bluetooth also sucks. USB stability is a joke. The graphics card support is flaky and depends on the boot. It is a moody thing. And on top of all this, it is not free, it is spyware, and it has become a Frankestein impossible to configure.
What can I say? I am sorry. I am disappointed. I am saddened. I so wanted things to work out between us. I really did. I would have loved to be able to use a Linux desktop at work and at home. Every single day, every single hour. But I just can’t. I can’t afford to waste time trying to configure and reconfigure every single submodule.
As for you Linux, it is not goodbye though. I will be hanging out with your son, the Linux server, of which I have had a really good experience. But when it comes to my desktop, I am back to my old Mac and OS X. Apple fixed my hardware issues with the Mac by replacing the logic board, so I will be selling my Dell XPS 13 and its docking station. Sad, I know, but that’s life sometimes.
Sayonara, Linux Desktop.
blog comments powered by Disqus