when I first saw Linux it was Ubuntu 12.04 and oh boy was I in love. I was just a teen at the time and seeing Linux running better than Windows gave me joy, I was finally able to use my computer again because it was fun! And then the years came by and I realized that Linux maybe is just not for me anymore...
I know this is going to be viewed for many people as just a rant and probably be downvoted to hell, but if you are still here just hear (read?) me out.
1- Linux is too fragmented
And this has two sides to it, some people love how fragmented it is, some other's like me don't. It's that sort of thing that can be everything or a deal breaker. Over the years I have never really understood why are there so many spinoff's of Distros (Elementary, Pop_OS!, Neon, Mint, variants of Ubuntu [Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Budgie ubuntu] Manjaro, Endeavour, Arco, etc...). It's that sort of thing I really can't grasp, and if that wasn't everything you also have different package managers, different file formats for each system, the Kernel is the same but everything else is messy. Some people say it was all built for different purposes, and as such, it isn't technically all the same. I view it as it is. Countless times I have distro hopped from one distro to the next in search of the "best distro" when I realized I could've built it myself from a net installer on whichever distro I chose. But I also spent countless hours trying to figure out if "should I use Vim or EMacs?" "should I run this or that?"
All in all, I felt locked in the paradox of choice, as many people do when presented with Linux.
2- There's too much elitism in the community
I work in the marketing department of my company, and knowing how to sell people things I tried working with a few developers to try and bring the marketshare of some distros I loved up. I'm not going to enter in details here, but it went bad. Many distros don't want to work together and in fact, they only want their distro to succeed, which is a pretty odd situation. Not only that, there are a lot of people in this community that are not welcoming to new users, forums which I loved frequenting and helping people became unbearable, if anyone has a different opinion than a "seasoned" Linux user their opinion is invalidated. Also, many people see Linux as the pinnacle of Operating Systems (this is subjective, OS's are just tools in my PoV) and there is a lot of hostility.
3- Market Share
I wouldn't say this is a problem per se, Linux is fairly small in the Desktop side of things and these recent years have been amazing to the platform, there's been a lot of development and many big companies getting into it, but some people just don't like it getting "famous". Why are seasoned users afraid of Linux getting better? And why is there so much hate about things that are consolidating Linux for the first time in years? An example of that would be systemd, in my opinion it's amazing. So many people hate it and refuse to use it, I mean, it will all do a full round and go back to point 1. It seems at times that users of Linux don't want Linux to grow, and I'm tired of this.
4- Less = more
These days I feel burned out from the community, Linux has been more and more replaced by Mac OS in my workflow, I love Linux but I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of being overwhelmed by choice, I'm tired of communities that disagree on pretty much anything, I'm just tired. Today I made the switch on my home server from Linux (Fedora) to FreeBSD and I would say I am happier that way. Linux is amazing but it became too much without being anything. I am sad to part ways but it seems like it's the right thing to do.
I thought about creating my own distro, tailored to my own needs and to the way I think Linux should head, but then I would become what I don't like about this amazing OS.
If I went back in time and told myself of 3 years ago that I would feel the way I do right now I would laugh and claim it was a lie, I would never feel that way. Guess it's just me, guess it's the way Linux has become.
On a last note, I would like to say that one of the things I'll be carrying forward is FOSS. I would say more than half of the applications I use on a daily basis are free and opensource and I really can't see myself living without it. There are so many things I'll be carrying with me for as long as I use a computer that I have to thank the Linux community as a whole for teaching me and showing me the way. Thank you all!
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