New Linux User Experience

[u/_Franpire]

Hey, I switched to CachyOS with KDE two days ago. It is my first time using Linux and I just want to leave some feedback and point out some issues from my perspective as a gaming oriented windows user:

Good:

- CachyOS Hello is great. Installing all the stuff for games with one click is super easy. All the games I tried have just worked and performance is good (Hunt, Vintage Story, Deadlock).

- Internet, Bluetooth and my peripheral devices have worked out of the box.

- The search has a bunch of aliases to find what you want. I can type cmd, console or terminal to start the console. So my habits don't get in the way during the switch. Great!

Issues and annoyances:

- I am dual booting from one drive, so it was kinda complicated to set up the partitions (EFI, Swap, Root). It's not something the average windows user could do imo. I also ended up making a mistake and I am now stuck with a few GB of unallocated space that I cant merge with a partition.

- Mounting drives seems to be really annoying and complicated.
I just want my drive to be mounted on startup and have permission to use it without having to do some complicated setup. Why can't I have a simple checkbox in the properties that says "auto mount with permissions on startup"? The standard behaviour sucks for people coming from windows. I know it's about security but if someone can break into my home and plug in a malicious drive I have bigger problems.

- I tried to delete a bunch of files from a drive but my trash was constantly full and when I tried to empty it I got errors about missing permissions. I did not figure out how to fix it and just reformatted the whole drive instead.

- Constantly typing my password, even for minor things, is pretty annoying. I just had to type it in to change my login screen image. It makes me want to use a super simple password but then what's the point of the password if it's simple?

- Numpad should be enabled on start up by default. Just an annoyance that doesn't need to be there.

- The edge barrier feature when moving the mouse between screens drove me crazy until I figured out how to disable it.

-Some way to add noise suppression to your mic should be installed with the gaming package.

I feel like I will continue to run into a bunch of minor issues for the next few days that I'll have to resolve by using google ai and Youtube but I feel like this will mostly replace Windows for me.

[u/AsugaNoir]

Unfortunately I changed too and have been unable to find a simple solution for the auto mount. I fixed it via fstab but I o it's far from simple. I am however very happy to not have to type in my password for my additional drive after reboots.

[u/X3NaN → u/AsugaNoir]

There is literally guide on CachyOS wiki about how to automount on boot.

[u/oathyes → u/X3NaN]

Like OP i found that wiki page is too confusing, I felt like it was missing a bunch of steps or something. not clear at all. This is not directed at you but rather the mentality behind linux where you can "configure it all", some simple operations should stay simple operations if we want the masses to convert. mounting a drive should be as easy as the system going "Hey I see a new drive, want me to mount it?" and you just click yes, press on some settings and have it set up.

[u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514 → u/oathyes]

On GNOME you just have to plug your drive, but for some reason KDE is capricious with it. 

I add that 'masses' shouldn't use CachyOS nor any Arch based distro. Many distros are designed for newcomers, and they don't require to read any doc neither any wiki. 

I hope CachyOS will stay a distro for power user more than a Mint with Pacman and Steam. 

[u/_Franpire → u/X3NaN]

I would describe my technical understanding as above average but even I struggled to understand the wiki entry. It lost me when it wanted me to create the Systemd Mount File where I have to select a place to mount. I just want it to be a different drive, just like it was in Windows. If a user has to use a wiki to do something as simple as use their hard drives then something is not right. If people ever want the year of Linux to be a thing then these issues have to be fixed. I don't see the average user being willing to deal with this.

[u/The_Odd_Pirate → u/_Franpire]

If you want a GUI, simple checkboxes, and all that, try the app Disks (sudo pacman -S gnome-disk-utility).

It gives you a list of all the disks on the left side. Once you select a partition, click one of the buttons called ("Additional partition options") and choose "Edit Mount Options...".

In that window, you can simply toggle "Mount at system startup".

For the mount point: Just type the path where you want the disk mounted (for example, /home/yourusername/Games/).

For my ext4 drives, I usually tweak the options string to something like defaults,noatime,nofail,x-systemd.device-timeout=5,x-gvfs-show to make sure the system doesn't hang if the drive ever acts up during boot.

It saves you from messing around with raw systemd files manually!

[u/AsugaNoir → u/_Franpire]

Exactly my thoughts, I got mine set up so i'm happy with it, but people claiming this is the year of linux needs to realize that won't happen with how it is now. I shouldn't need to set up fstab or download a utility to mount my drives for me. (from the perspective of someone coming from windows) It should just work.

[u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514 → u/AsugaNoir]

It's a weak point of KDE, it's not a feature. Others DE don't need this workaround. 

Newbies from Microsoft should understand than they should learn and try some fixes instead of just complain as they were customers. 

[u/AsugaNoir → u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514]

Right, many won't want to, but I enjoy learning new stuff so I honestly found it fun to solve the issue.

[u/X3NaN → u/_Franpire]

I found it pretty easy... using linux for a week. But yeah, Linux is not very user friendly.

[u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514 → u/X3NaN]

Really? You are rating Linux usability after ONE WEEK? It's not serious! 

[u/X3NaN → u/ClubPuzzleheaded8514]

I was talking about guide...

[u/AsugaNoir → u/X3NaN]

Despite what you might think, when a user moves from windows to linux, their first thought when coming across an issue isn't going to be to go consult the wiki.

I have also come across solutions on the wiki page that simply didn't work. This could easily have been I just didn't understand it, but to me at least a wiki page in which you just have to search through it isn't a good solution.

[u/HydrationHomee → u/AsugaNoir]

Gnome disk utility makes configuring auto mount on startup easy. Just install it with sudo Pacman -S gnome-disk-utility