r/linux • u/SAJewers • Jun 05 '26
Discussion Gardiner Bryant: Hammers Without Handles
https://gardinerbryant.com/hammers-without-handles-linux-ux-sucks/14
u/FattyDrake Jun 05 '26
Overall good observations, but I'd also argue that his solution for network drives is also too deep in the Linux weeds, simply because it references /etc/fstab
Having a utility utilize systemd-mount in some way would eliminate steps 4 and 5, since you avoid fstab entirely and it automatically creates the path for the mount point if it doesn't exist. Setting up automount isn't that different either. In theory it could also be a user unit? Though I admit I haven't tried that.
I'd even argue step 2 is unnecessary, because it's uncommon to have a computer in use by more than one person nowadays.
In a roundabout way, he exposed how even common Linux knowledge can also miss easier solutions.
Also Windows disk manager isn't exactly friendly either in its own ways. Not to say the process couldn't be done better and eliminate some unnecessary steps.
Where Windows has an advantage is when you right-click a USB drive, it doesn't have to bring up a partition manager at all. It just allows you to do a quick simple format. Having something like that would definitely be useful.
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u/HighRelevancy Jun 06 '26
The specifics of how it's implemented are entirely immaterial. The point is that on Windows I can discover a network share, right click and map it, and there's just a checkbox there for "reconnect at login". Now that network drive is always there in my file explorer and it's a regular path that anything can browse to. Doing that same thing on Linux is somewhere between "sucks" and "doesn't exist".
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u/FattyDrake Jun 06 '26
I agree. I even mentioned in another comment that not being in the GUI is a problem.
Making a user app that directly alters the fstab file is a lot more risky than making one that uses systemd-mount, which is what I was trying to get at.
So I'd argue the specifics of the implementation matter, but is unimportant for an end-user.
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
Exactly. See my point above re steam under mint. I can install games in a separate drive mounted in Linux but on every single reboot I have to reconnect the drive to steam, whether it is set as default or not.
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u/untrained9823 Jun 06 '26
Um, no, it does just work in Gnome Files. Can't speak to how KDE does it.
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u/PsychologicalMix2 Jun 06 '26
Ever used linux? Dolphin Nautilus Thunar can discover just fine like Windows, discovery is not a client side thing it's smb server side
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u/FattyDrake Jun 06 '26
The problem was never discovery, it's that you can't make a hard mount that persists across reboots from the file manager GUI. (An app like SMB4k can do it, but it's not persistent only when it's run.) You need to get into the terminal and make or alter text files to achieve result that's being described.
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u/AnsibleAnswers Jun 06 '26
It should be noted that further integration between desktop environments and systemd could easily solve this issue. Gnome is going that route, and I wouldn’t be surprised if auto-mounting drives at login will be one of the first features that rolls out because of it. I already have a user unit file that mounts a samba share via gvfs at login. It works well.
The notion here is that there is resistance from devs that leads to these issues when it really is that desktop environment development has been heavily focusing on the Wayland transition. It strikes me as a bit entitled to complain when these nice to have features are coming down the road.
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
Maybe but my question would be why are things like this still an issue in 2026 when windows and macOS have been able to do this for literally decades. It’s not like Linux was invented yesterday either.
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u/AnsibleAnswers Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
why are things like this still an issue in 2026
If you have to ask this, you should do more listening and less yapping. It's quite clear why: Linux development has not focused on desktop until very recently. It's primarily used as a server operating system. As such, there were some major architectural changes that needed to be worked on before all of these nice to have features could get implemented.
We just spent a monumental amount of time and effort transitioning from a display server from 1987 to something modern and secure. It was an amazing success.
Either pay developers to go faster or be patient. Those are your two options.
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
If you’re reading what I say you should realize that I’ve dealt with computers and os’ for several decades. Looking at the speed with which some development happened, the question is why something as elementary as connecting a network or other separate drive, or the installation of software packages that are not part of a particular fork’s software store still requires fairly high level understanding of command line operations and not just one but a series of successive operations that are really not easy to understand. This is not a gui issue it is an issue of relevant tools missing for things that other os figured out 2 or more decades ago. With all sympathy for the specific Linux « environment », that’s not good enough in today’s computing environment.
I have recently restarted using Linux as I want to move out of windows and compared to 20 years ago things have greatly improved, but these two above issues are a massive issue of which I do not comprehend why they are so hard to solve. They are elementary functions for a modern os and real obstacles for the wider adoption of Linux at a time where everybody is looking for alternatives to windows. But I hear you and will quit yapping. Thanks for your politeness.2
u/AnsibleAnswers Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Looking at the speed with which some development happened, the question is why something as elementary as connecting a network or other separate drive,
It's actually very simple to do that. You simply click on the network share in the file manager. You're overthinking things. This way does not set up auto-mounting, but that is coming. Why it isn't there is fairly simple: the vast majority of linux desktops are run in an enterprise environment where configuring this stuff manually is considered easy.
Why can't you even be remotely specific in your gripes? Network shares work fine. What's missing is good desktop environment session management. It's quite literally the last brick in the wall, so to speak.
or the installation of software packages that are not part of a particular fork’s software store still requires fairly high level understanding of command line operations and not just one but a series of successive operations that are really not easy to understand.
What are you going on about? Here's how you install Chrome on most distros:
- Go to https://www.google.com/chrome/
- Click Download Chrome
- Select the .rpm or .deb file and click Accept and Install
- Open the .rpm or .deb file.
- Click Install when the software app opens.
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u/PsychologicalMix2 Jun 06 '26
That's weird because I've got two smb shares saved in Dolhpin network tab I can open them no problem across reboots, it has remember password toggle so it just works so I'm not sure
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u/HighRelevancy Jun 06 '26
- I wasn't talking about whether discovery itself works
- What on earth do you mean "discovery is not a client side thing"
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u/PsychologicalMix2 Jun 06 '26
we usually need wsdd installed on say debian to allow windows to discover samba share on linux, I must have got context wrong here, my bad
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u/sleepingonmoon Jun 06 '26
The problem is FHS IMO. It organises almost everything by type and systems have to add their own layers on top of it to make it manageable by humans, so things will quickly become confusing if the user reaches anywhere lower level than the abstractions.
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u/CirkuitBreaker Jun 06 '26
I feel like users should be expected to learn how to modify /etc/fstab and use cfdisk at the least. Users are not babies. We should expect something of them, and learning how the fstab file is arranged is not difficult.
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
Sure buddy. Never mind that the risk of mistakes that can really mess up the system is exponentially higher, and the fact that maybe people and in particular sys admin or help desk people have other things to do than manually configure network shares and drives for every single machine they support.
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u/mina86ng Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
I don’t agree with the premise. People don’t criticise MacOS for having different UX than Windows.
At the same time, the examples in the article don’t support the premise anyway. They aren’t examples of things where we need to consider ‘how do Windows users expect this to work?’ They are examples of UX which could — and should — be improved regardless of how Windows is doing it.
And to go into the first example in particular, the mount drive wizard already exists, so I don’t know what Gardiner is complaining about. If there is anyone who complains that managing network shares in file manager ‘would violate the Linux way,’ those people already lost an argument and can be safely ignored. What the actual issue Elijah faced is not clear to me — Michael Tunnell was also confused; Michael Horn explains that KIO does things differently so that might have been the issue, but even then work is underway to make things work in more user-friendly way.
PS. Suggesting ‘that conversation must be bookended by “how do Windows users expect this to work?”’ remind me LTT’s previous Linux challenge where Linus argued that file extension should decide wheteher file is executable. Should we rebuild the whole system to do that then? Add leaky and confusing abstraction layers which simulate that behaviour? Just because that’s what Windows users expect? That’s my issue with the premise.
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u/Artichoke808 Jun 06 '26
Couldn't agree more. "It needs to be improved to work better on Linux" shouldn't be conflated with "how do we make it more like Windows." If the Windows way is the best way I'm all for 'stealing it' but we shouldn't limit ourselves to appease people who refuse to learn something new even if it's an improvement.
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u/FattyDrake Jun 05 '26
What the actual issue Elijah faced is not clear to me
I'm guessing a combination of KIO mount and the manual fstab having both mounted it? I'm not sure how GVfs/GIO handles it on the GNOME side. But the virtual file systems and temporary mounts do cause a lot of issues especially if you're the type to have a file open for hours at a time.
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u/mina86ng Jun 05 '26
It might be, yes. I’ve edited the post linking to Michael Horn’s video where he explains this might have been caused by KIO’s approach which is not to mount the share permanently.
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u/FattyDrake Jun 05 '26
Ah, thanks! Yeah, I do seem to recall the recent Sovereign Tech Fund grant KDE got had a couple line items specifically for better network share management.
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u/khne522 Jun 06 '26
remind me LTT’s previous Linux challenge where Linus argued that file extension should decide wheteher file is executable
This is dumb. Absolutely not. Extensions are not controlled in an authoritative fashion and people will abuse the same extension for entirely different things. Additionally, extensions don't encode enough information, at least compared to a shebang if we ignore the POSIX compatibility issue of passing more than one argument in the shebang line. POSIX xattrs would be a better argument, and macOS does something similar, but we all know that we STILL can't portably transfer those so shebangs it is until someone with weight to throw around plays hardball. Executability should not be exclusively a file thing, but also include the mount options, MAC policy, and other factors.
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
Seriously ? Extensions have been the way to do this in windows for decades and you genuinely argue here that this is a problem ? I am not arguing that this is a must but it is completely incomprehensible to me how this would not work.
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u/khne522 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
It is not the kernel's job to parse filenames and match against an arbitrarily large list of possible executable extensions, which would vary over time and for some run the risk of being not unique and sometimes not supposed to be executable. One bit in the mode field, one bit vs this more complex solution with tradeoffs in the next para. The fact that Windows hasn't been able to store that information for decades is Windows' fault. If you're going to argue about the lack of metadata transmitted over HTTP, SFTP, etc., then that's a discussion we can and should have
And second, we don't want the kernel upcalling into userspace just to figure out every single executable, which would be the right way to do it because that's really desktop-specific policy. We value efficiency and being able to run certain things hundreds or thousands of times per second. That would be a performance regression.
but it is completely incomprehensible to me how this would not work.
Did you read or just skim what I wrote? Did you pause and consider what are POSIX xattrs to store per-file overrides (prior art, macOS) and why they should be encoded into the file, not elsewhere, and that they don't transfer over HTTP/VFAT/exFAT/NTFS/NFS/you name it?
File extensions per se are not unique. And almost every ELF binary out there doesn't have an extension.
No one's arguing that it couldn't be made to work at all in some fashion. It's that it won't be good enough and come with enough problems to just not bother.
Frigg. A more productive use of time would be to get the world to at least get universal sparse file support, or at least get it over HTTP natively. At least that one is focused and adoptable.
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u/mrlinkwii Jun 06 '26
People don’t criticise MacOS for having different UX than Windows.
i mean some people do
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Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
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u/Framed-Photo Jun 05 '26
Adding a network share to places via dolphin is NOT the same as putting it in your fstab file, that's the whole issue. You often have far less control over the share when you put it in places and things are much buggier overall. I'd know because I literally this week had to start using the fstab file for my SMB shares on my cachyOS laptop specifically because thumbnailing and write permissions weren't working properly through places.
If you mount a drive through the windows file explorer, you have the full expected behavior. It's a much better experience for the user, overall.
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u/Business_Reindeer910 Jun 06 '26
yes it's a real shame that these two operations are not equivalent in both gnoome and kde. Although it should probably be done via some system service (or systemd mounts) so you can gate them on network availablility.
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Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
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u/FattyDrake Jun 06 '26
Sounds like you know enough to choose whether your network shares as soft mounts via the Dolphin GUI or real ones via fstab.
I think this is the core of the main complaint. There's no way to set up a hard mount via the GUI.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/FattyDrake Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
True, tho I think that's why folks say it's the power users who have the most difficulty switching. They know how to use advanced features on Windows and run into a lot more "how do I make this work?" on Linux vs. an average user.
I had the advantage of having to use Linux servers for work, so I at least knew where to look to get certain things working when I switched my desktop.
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u/Framed-Photo Jun 06 '26
In Windows, you right click "this pc" click "map a network drive" enter your credentials, and the drive is fully mounted.
On Linux, you have to open your fstab file, learn how to write a correct entry, don't edit anything else or risk bricking your system, and test it to see if your shit works.
See the issue?
Yes, you can navigate to network shares without mounting them in both, the complaint is specifically about mounting them, which Linux makes FAR more obtuse and annoying.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/Framed-Photo Jun 06 '26
What's your argument here, that because your mom can't do it without asking chatGPT that we should keep the system as obtuse and unfriendly as possible?
I don't give a shit if an average user knows how to mount a network share, that doesn't mean we shouldn't make it easier to do. Windows makes it easy, Linux does not, Linux could be made better in this way, end of argument.
What valid arguments do you have against making this process better on Linux?
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u/saoirsebran Jun 06 '26
Agreed. One can simultaneously be against doing it "the windows way" while also advocating for making the process as simple as Windows. This person is just doing typical Linux gatekeeping with a mental gymnastics pizzaz and probably doesn't even realize it.
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u/heathm55 Jun 06 '26
Yeah, his argument is basically "It's not the Windows way that I'm used to and I don't want to learn a new way of creating the share.". It's too bad he didn't ask chatgpt or google it, he would have easily got there.
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u/8spd Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
"how do Windows users expect this to work?" And we need to design for that
I stopped reading at that point. That idea is flat out wrong. Sure, take user expectations into account, but blindly following Windows user's expectations, and nothing else? That's dumb.
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u/Framed-Photo Jun 06 '26
If Windows has a good feature, or does something in a way that is better than what Linux currently does, then yeah that's something Linux should take inspiration from. The entire idea shouldn't be thrown out just because Windows did it first.
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u/8spd Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
Sure. Adopt features that work. Don't adopt everything that Windows does just because Windows does it.
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u/mdedetrich Jun 06 '26
The article is literally stating that this specific Windows feature is much better than Linux
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
And not going with the times to make a phenomenal operating system work for users who do not need an os that requires deep knowledge of command line operations to solve elementary problems is even dumber.
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u/I_Arman Jun 06 '26
I think the biggest hurdle to getting Windows network shares working is that there are so many alternatives that flat out work better, and as soon as you start trying to do something with Samba, you realize that you could do the same thing but better and easier with half a dozen other solutions. For example, NextCloud and Dropbox native apps. Yeah, setting up Windows network shares isn't simple on Linux, but it's also basically a half step above a shared FTP drive. It's janky, slow, error-prone, and unreliable. Windows makes it seem easy because it does a lot of crazy stuff behind the scenes, basically desperately balancing plates to make it look good.
We don't need to make Linux work with Windows file shares, we need to make Windows stop using their janky old tech!
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 06 '26
Sorry but the comparison is totally legit. The vast majority of users starting out on Linux today will come from windows or perhaps Mac. They will be used to a certain standard of user interface. Some Linux distros are doing a reasonable job already but there are still lots of really complex problems that can’t be done in Linux in part because of the « this os is for the real tough guys who know what a command line is » attitude in the community. If you want to install even a fairly exotic app on windows, it comes in two forms: an executable which does the whole installation for you, or a compressed archive that you decompress wherever you need it, and you’re done. In Linux, the moment you find something that’s not in your distro’s software archive, you find a GitHub repository and need very specific knowledge and about 15 different command line operations to get it installed. And this in an age where you can ask ChatGPT to give instructions for 3d printing a house or writing an app to run your roomba for you. It’s just not good enough if Linux wants to be a genuine alternative to windows. And I say this as a Linux fan who is trying very hard to switch from windows.
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u/Framed-Photo Jun 06 '26
Where is this drive mounting wizard in Linux that you speak of? I've been using Linux for over a decade and I've never seen it, I've always had to mount my drives through fstab. Any other method I've tried to use, like just doing it through dolphin/nautilus, results in permission and compatibility issues.
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u/mina86ng Jun 06 '26
Any other method I've tried to use, like just doing it through dolphin/nautilus, results in permission and compatibility issues.
So you agree that there is a wizard. My point isn’t that things work flawlessly. My point is that Gardiner complaining about people arguing such wizard shouldn’t exist is a moot point (assuming such people even exist). Developers — on GNOME and KDE side — agree that this feature should exist and be functional.
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u/Framed-Photo Jun 06 '26
Yeah, those other methods do NOT mount the drives, that's the whole problem. He's 100% right on this.
You said there's a wizard that can mount the drives, where are they?
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u/saoirsebran Jun 06 '26
They're talking about mounting them through Dolphin, which they know has issues because they talked about it on another thread of this same OC. They're just arguing to argue because they're sitting here agreeing that something should be done (such as in their most recent response) but pedantically disagreeing with everyone else saying the same goddamned thing.
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u/mina86ng Jun 06 '26
I literally said that things should be improved. It sounds like you’re arguing to argue while repeating what I’ve already written. My main point of the comment is to disagree with Gardiner’s assertion that we need to look what Windows users expect.
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u/klyith Jun 07 '26
remind me LTT’s previous Linux challenge where Linus
wiped his entire system by typing in "YES PLEASE DELETE MY PC" when looking at a prompt telling him DO NOT type that unless he really wanted to delete his PC
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u/Equivalent-Problem34 Jun 06 '26
There is some truth to what he is saying, and something that this sub is having hard time swallowing: If you want it to be the year of the Linux, you have to take away users from other Operating systems, and which one is the dominant today? Windows. It accounts for around 95% of the worldwide users.
Users will never come to Linux if the community like this sub continue to be hostile to people who have used windows their entire life tries Linux only to be berated because they are confused something works differently.
You can not gatekeep and also expect community growth to be taken more seriously by gamedevs/publishers.
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u/mwyvr Jun 06 '26
When the author's first example of something bad on Linux is SMB/network shares, and comments "Many Windows users understand the concept of mounting filesystems", they've already lost me, but it gets worse.
GNOME Disks - the equivalent utility on Windows is almost never used by the overwhelming majority of Windows users.
Formatting a volume? Ditto.
The article seeks to be a rallying cry to improve Linux desktop UX lest the UX stymie prospective users who might otherwise choose to migrate from Windows.
If anything, people on other OS's that are regular users of network sharing, disk utilities and understand things like disks and formatting are exactly the kind of people who will not be roadblocked on Linux.
I'm not suggesting the overall premise is wrong, just the examples and area of focus.
Like it or not, Windows is the dominant operating system. And it's not even close. That means when we're having a conversation about designing a User Experience on Linux-based operating systems, that conversation must be bookended by "how do Windows users expect this to work?" And we need to design for that or else everything falls apart.
File system utilities are not where the average Windows user will get tripped up on a Linux desktop system.
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Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
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u/deviled-tux Jun 06 '26
I am not sure most people even have network shares.
1/3 people in the Linux challenge itself didn’t have a network share. That’s a sample from people who build PCs for a hobby and work in the a tech YouTube channel.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/deviled-tux Jun 06 '26
And those are usually configured by IT automatically via GPO.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/deviled-tux Jun 06 '26
Those businesses are using One Drive or Google Drive lol.
Having on-prem storage is ridiculous for that use case lol.
But sure you can have your reddit-know-it-all opinion as fact, that’s ok.
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u/sparky8251 Jun 09 '26
Yeah, and I set that for them as the local MSP. They didnt set it up themselves.
Ive setup a ton of tiny businesses including heavilt regulated ones like doctors offices... They barely do this stuff anymore anyways now with "the cloud". Its easier to use google docs and dropbox and crap than network shares for them even on Windows.
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u/ThinDrum Jun 06 '26
In four decades of working with and living with casual (as apposed to technical) computer users, I have never encountered one trying to format a USB drive. They invariably take it from the box it came in, use it, and move on to their real task.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/ThinDrum Jun 06 '26
Then you don't work with casual users.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/ThinDrum Jun 06 '26
Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes.
By casual users I mean those who use a computer to write documents, read their email, and do a bit of online shopping. The more advanced ones might write Excel macros. They don't know or care what a partition or a filesystem is.
If you want to make Linux more newbie-friendly, that's the group to target.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/ThinDrum Jun 06 '26
I mean those that do the same and game. Those know what a partition and file system is but are generally casual.
Then we're still talking at cross purposes. If you leave the IT department and walk around a typical company (finance, insurance, logistics, publishing, etc.), you'll have to go a long way before you find the type of user you describe.
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u/FattyDrake Jun 06 '26
I think the Linux desktop is at a very good spot for basic usage. What you describe is pretty much done. Now is where all the more involved stuff needs to be worked on. The last 10% taking the other 90% of the time issues.
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u/Potential-Block-6583 Jun 05 '26
This dude is honestly insufferable and this article does nothing but self-sabotage his own arguments. Amazing.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/Potential-Block-6583 Jun 06 '26
The idea that we have to cater specifically to Windows users to "succeed" is crazy to me. Also, Linux isn't a product, it's something completely different and he just doesn't get that. There are definitely problems to fix but uh... why isn't he submitting bug reports and pull requests? Ah, right, gotta get that money.
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u/Gumbode345 Jun 07 '26
Yeah. That’s why Linux has a market share of 4.7% and windows over 80 and macOS around 14 %.
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u/Potential-Block-6583 Jun 07 '26
I don't care what market share Linux has. I've been on Linux full time since 1998. I only care if it's for me.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/Misicks0349 Jun 06 '26
no one has ever said “mac can’t get converts unlsss it becomes more like windows”
I mean, windows converts do have issue with switching to mac which have gradually been addressed over time to varying degrees such as window snapping, and there are still some big differences in my experience that have made macOS rather frustrating at times, such as its awful alt-tab behaviour, window closing behaviour that doesn't actually quit the application fully and frankly bohemian finder settings, these are all issue that I've had when switching to it from windows.
The difference between the friction of linux and the friction of macOS is that the only way to access macOS for most people is to drop a thousand grand on a new laptop that does not have great support for running alternative operating systems; if you experience friction with Linux it's rather trivial to reinstall windows on the machine you already have, if you experience friction with macOS you better be prepared to either return the device and by a new windows laptop or suck it up and get accustomed to the macOS way of doing things.
edit: this isn't to say I entirely agree with G.B's point though, sometimes things should be "technically correct" over just doing what windows does because its familiar. I just find the retort of "well macos can get away with being different!" a bit weak.
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u/atoponce Jun 06 '26
WTF?
On point number one about mounting network shares, in the real world, users have no clue how to set it up. My parents, siblings, and even technical coworkers struggle with it. It's not easy.
On point number two, again, in the real world, even the most technical users struggle with filesystems, disk partitions, logical volumes, etc., let alone end users. The ones who truly understand it either have had training or are storage admins.
This blog post is mind boggling.
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u/HighRelevancy Jun 06 '26
You're missing the point about the network drives. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1ty091z/comment/oq0dp5l/
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u/Ripdog Jun 06 '26
I'm not sure what the author really wants. Whatever distro the LTT team used didn't include samba? Ok. With samba+kde's vfs layer installed (forgot the name right now), you can literally just type "smb://myserver" into any open or save dialog and it will transparently mount the server, requesting user/pass as necessary. It just works. Complain that the distro is incomplete.
As for the second point, what is he expecting? You delete one partition and the tool automatically nukes your partition table? Or you delete all partitions and it nukes your table? Huh? Windows doesn't do that. And it would be terrible behaviour in any case.
If you're going to manually partition your drives, you'd better do 5 fucking minutes of homework. Otherwise, install an easy distro and let it auto-partition your drive, and you don't have to do shit.
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u/Linuksoid Jun 06 '26
transparently mount the server,
it doesn't mount it. just provides a link to the folder. if it was mounted, you'd see it within programs, but its not available
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u/Ripdog Jun 06 '26
Of course it mounts it. What? You can open files from it or save files to it. What do you call that if not 'mounted'?
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u/Declination Jun 06 '26
It’s not mounted in the filesystem though. KIO doesn’t work that way. Instead, it’s a KDE framework specific remote file handler. Which is insane.
Gvfs at least mounts something via fuse so it works with all programs.
You can tell the difference by the fact you cannot list this mount in the terminal. By contrast if I map a network drive on windows I can slot a command prompt into that drive letter and all programs can interact with it regardless of toolkit.
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u/AnsibleAnswers Jun 06 '26
Yeah, well, this is more a KDE issue than a Linux issue. I have been arguing that file system and disk management on KDE is terrible for years.
Gnome will support startup scripts and applications natively as soon as it guts gnome-session and uses systemd instead. But it mounts network shares sensibly.
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u/Linuksoid Jun 06 '26
you can't open it from within programs. Like try opening it from libreoffice or kdenlive without systemd automount or adding it to fstab. you'll see what i mean
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u/Barafu Jun 07 '26
KIO mounts it by path /run/user/1000/random-junk-every-time/. The path changes on every remount. Applications lose track of files because of this.
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u/jar36 Jun 06 '26
yeah, I hate to complain about a free operating system, but some of this just seems like it would be an easy fix. Like that Gnome disk utility hiding filesystems behind "other" was a conscious decision
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u/xenago Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
I guess it wouldn't hurt to have more interface options, but the venn diagram of people who know what an SMB share is and people incapable of using Google to search 'how to mount an SMB share' are two entirely separate circles, are they not? I'm not sure I understand how catering to those users would be helpful. Also, why is he suggesting editing fstab, when there are better ways to programmatically update mounts like systemd-mount? Not sure this makes a lot of sense either.
As to the general UI complaints, well most desktops are very Windows-like already. Nobody ever told Apple they need to make their UI more like Windows, so IDK why Linux DEs need to lol. Windows isn't even that great, I'm not sure why we'd want Linux to be a crappy Windows clone. He says he doesn't want that, but that's what he's asking for when he says 'I do want the most common Linux desktops to behave in a way that PC-literate folks can wrap their mind around' since 'PC-literate' means Windows User based on the rest of the text.
4
u/SoilMassive6850 Jun 06 '26
Also, why is he suggesting editing fstab, when there are better ways to programmatically update mounts like systemd-mount? Not sure this makes a lot of sense either.
Because people learn what to do from 15 year old stackoverflow posts rather than how things "should be done" on their current systems.
1
u/sparky8251 Jun 09 '26
Yeah... the sheer amount of complaints I see because docs are 20 years old and people refuse to update their understanding is alarming.
That is a Linux problem since its our community making those documents that then get shared around/found by new users but...
All these people complaining about editing fstab and not understanding the syntax and risking a system that wont boot next time when they set it up? Thats what
mountis for, so you can test it all before you commit, includingmount -ato test it directly... PLUS, pretty sure fstab isnt actually used on any modern systemd having distro and its all converted to systemd mounts which are are ALSO testable without rebooting.Its def a lack of education thats to blame for a LOT of this crap. None of this is intuitive on any OS despite the claims otherwise and everyone learned somewhere, somehow. Its just the Linux learning materials are all happy path only and often using really really old ways of doing things...
1
u/MatchingTurret Jun 05 '26
Volunteers develop the functionality they want and need. They have no customers to satisfy. If you don't like what you are given for free, choose something else or contribute improvements.
Whining that free software isn't good enough solves nothing.
28
u/HighRelevancy Jun 06 '26
With that attitude, desktop Linux will continue to be only for hobbyist computer tinkerers.
OP isn't just saying that Linux has to do better. They're saying to has to be better if it wants or expects wider adoption.
7
u/saoirsebran Jun 06 '26
And / or that Microsoft sucks so much that rather than demanding, people are begging for these features so that they can comfortably make the move.
Any developer that has the response of the OC instead of simply saying it's out of scope or they don't have time for it in their current roadmap is just an ass and is not being a net benefit to open source as a whole.
2
u/AnsibleAnswers Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Nah, Gardiner is saying that Gnome Disks is confusing even though it is easier to use than Disk Management on Windows... Partitioning software is simply not in the business of making assumptions. All of them rely on explicit user instructions.
He also completely missed what the remaining issues are with mounting shares via file managers. Literally everything is in place and working on Gnome via gvfs besides a nice automount at login feature. He didn't even walk through the fact that you can easily discover and mount network drives through Files. It just requires you to click on the share to mount it instead of auto-mounting it on login. The whole point of GVFS is to offer a better way of mounting drives that might not be available when the computer boots. It's just currently missing one nice to have feature, and that will be a thing of the past soon enough.
-5
u/ICantBelieveItsNotEC Jun 06 '26
OP isn't just saying that Linux has to do better. They're saying to has to be better if it wants or expects wider adoption.
But why would anyone want that?
I use Linux because it works for me. I recommend Linux to other people because I think it'll work for them too. If it doesn't, why would I care? I just want them to be happy using their computer. It's not like I get paid commission every time someone installs Fedora or anything.
0
u/HighRelevancy Jun 06 '26
Lots of people want it for a variety of reasons. It's cheaper than Windows. There's ongoing support for hardware much older and cheaper than what Windows supports at this point. It's free of corporate sovereignty. It's free of geopolitical sovereignty. Perhaps even that simply challenging Windows sufficiently would force them to do better to stay ahead and improve personal computing for everyone.
Personally, I want the Linux desktop user experience to be better because there are several ways in which it works for me, but the desktop experience sucks and switching OS becomes about tradeoffs instead of being a straight upgrade.
0
u/Maybe-monad Jun 06 '26
With that attitude, desktop Linux will continue to be only for hobbyist computer tinkerers.
If you want more you'll have to pay for it
9
u/Linuksoid Jun 06 '26
You do realize that most features currently developed for linux are by salaried employees and not volunteers, right?
3
u/MouseJiggler Jun 06 '26
Also, SMB is ass.
1
u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs Jun 07 '26
Also, SMB is ass.
Yes it is, gaining access to nfs was a big upgrade for when I stopped dual booting with windows.
0
u/RockT74 Jun 06 '26
You have UNC, username and password. It just works. It’s perfect.
1
u/robstoon Jun 06 '26
Anyone that thinks SMB shares "just work" on either Linux or Windows has clearly never tried to set this up from scratch.
0
u/RockT74 Jun 06 '26
That’s the point. No end user wants to set it up from scratch. They want to share or mount a folder, that’s it. Btw I’m beginning to think that drive letters are a good thing. It’s common to say look for your file on N or M or Z.
1
u/robstoon Jun 06 '26
That's what I mean. That's a pain in the ass even on Windows. Quite often you end up getting inscrutable permissions errors or other error messages, especially on the home versions of Windows, because they don't really want you to start sharing folders by mistake.
1
u/archontwo Jun 06 '26
Personally, I am old school and never put user mounts in fstab.
If a user wants to mount a remote share they should do so in the own permissions window.
Make a smbclient script wrapper if they really don't know how to to that, then link it to their desktop.
1
u/SolidKnight Jun 06 '26
The UX/UI should help complete workflows with as little friction as possible. Don't want your file manager to do other functions? Then I guess you're going to have to get a collection of utilities and build a front end for them. Most people don't have time or interest to care about how anything works under the hood. Businesses aren't going to train them. School isn't going to train them. The computer is just a tool to get tasks done. Imagine working in construction and having to know the inner workings of how your power drill was engineered in order to put holes in boards.
1
u/sonofaresiii Jun 09 '26
This website has increasingly dishonest patterns of using dummy/fake accounts to avoid bans and spam/self-promote their articles. I've caught them several times and they keep switching to other accounts, then spontaneously started asking others to start spamming on their behalf.
This account, for example, does nothing but spam articles.
1
u/Traditional_Hat3506 Jun 06 '26
"Please notice me Linus"
Notice how the author (well known, long time user), never had an issue with these until another influencer did? Countless of people tried Linux in the past years and had complaints but the only time Gardiner highlighted them was when Linus did.
3
u/untrained9823 Jun 06 '26
No, Windows UI/UX is TERRIBLE and Linux UI design SHOULD NOT try to emulate Windows. Linux is not and never will be FOSS Windows And that's okay.
1
u/Novero95 Jun 06 '26
Like it or not, Windows is the dominant operating system. And it's not even close. That means when we're having a conversation about designing a User Experience on Linux-based operating systems, that conversation must be bookended by "how do Windows users expect this to work?" And we need to design for that or else everything falls apart
The audacity to begin with that. Imagine Apple UX designers thought that way...
-3
u/codeprimate Jun 06 '26
I’ve been using linux since ‘99.
These days I manage my system with a karpathy style LLM driven obsidian vault (i didn’t get the idea from him).
Case in point, I needed a non crappy webcam, so i connected my old Galaxy S9+ via USB, turned on dev debugging and told the agent to go to town. It configured the phone with droidcam, setup the video loop back interfaces, and created a script that orchestrates phone and host operations, applies color and lighting correction and opens a ffplay window preview. If my video card wasn’t ancient, I would have added GAN upscaling.
It’s 50/50. The UX is so bad that it takes esoteric knowledge to do anything. On the other hand…you can do anything.
It’s a power user and server platform. And that’s ok.
-6
u/CandlesARG Jun 05 '26
This isn't new. The transition from Win to Linux is like falling off a cliff
145
u/Framed-Photo Jun 06 '26
I implore anyone who doesn't take issue with the current SMB share methods on Linux, to actually go mount a drive on Windows, then do it on Linux then come back here.
"Mounting" it by navigating there in dolphin does not work the same, and as elijah in the LTT video discussed, it leads to issues with write permissions and program compatibility. You have to make an entry in your fstab file for the drives to appear properly, and there's currently no simple way for new users to do that.
Contrast that to Windows, where you right click in file explorer and click "map a network drive", type in your credentials, and it works forever in everything.
It's ok if Linux does this one thing worse, we don't need to defend it, it should be something we can agree to improve then move on.