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Last active July 25, 2026 01:54
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GNU/Linux sucks.
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GNU_Linux_sucks.md

GNU/Linux sucks

  • Android spams Music app and just starts playing music on alarm.
  • apt - Sometimes metapackages require too much, leading to wanted packages being marked for autoremoval when removing unwanted packages.
  • Can't keep your data while reinstalling after dist upgrade failed due to not checking for sufficient free disk space first.
  • Chromium browsers need chrome://settings/?search=swipe "Swipe between pages" disabled to avoid doing that by accident.
  • Dell webcams have poor support.
  • Conflicts with key ring service for Chrome passwords when trying a different desktop after Gnome.
  • Devs too lazy to fix critical exploits.
  • Elitist users who tell you to not expect anything for free.
  • GNU sometimes uses random file content to determine its type, leading to not being able to print on Tuesdays.
  • Gnome
    • Clicking the active media notification does not focus the relevant Firefox window/tab.
    • Files:
      • 46.3 failed to refresh after extracting a .gz.
      • Lacks way to copy/paste the path.
      • Lacks image preview size selection.
      • Lacks thumbnails view toggle.
    • Terminal 3.52.0 doen't clear command on pressing Escape, only on Ctrl+U (backward), Ctrl+K (forward), or Ctrl+C (cancel and prompt anew).
    • Terminal 3.52.0 broke when trying to copy my PS1 using the mouse. (Random letters on cursor blink, lag, and scrolling with Chromium window?! I switched to Ghostty, but that lacks a scroll bar!)
    • Themes are a mess, often requiring manually unzipping an archive into your ~/.themes folder and finding most apps don't use it.
    • To waste less space by using a single system bar, sudo apt install gnome-shell-extensions and install Dash to Panel. P7 Borders also helps to distinguish the focused window with more than a slightly different shadow.
    • Window management kinda sucks; can't simply super+arrow windows to external monitor. Shift+Super+arrow worked again after dconf shortcut view/edit. Erratic like Ubuntu 24.04.04's touchpad responsiveness on a Dell 5690.
    • 2nd Thunderbolt display and 1st one's mouse randomly stop working.
  • KDE:
    • Opens context menus on mousedown and menu entries on mouseup, so many terminal windows were closed by opening the context menu too low on the screen while accidentally moving the mouse a few pixels.
    • Knows it's rebooting yet panics about it shutting down Konsole unexpectedly.
  • No shared Bash terminal history. Need that command you used in another terminal? Too bad; you should've added PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a; history -n' and maybe HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups to your .bashrc.
  • Poor UHD support in Gimp (tiny icons).
  • Nouveau display driver from xserver-xorg-video-nouveau (open source) often corrupts/shakes/blanks laptop display of a Dell Precision 5690 using Wayland (echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE) on Ubuntu.
  • "Problematic" and/or cancelled for being "problematic". Commies eating their own again.
  • Ubuntu
    • Can't Hibernate! cat /sys/power/state only says freeze mem, no disk. lockdown=none in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT should not be needed with the /swap.img (resized from 8G to 64G via sudo swapoff /swap.img && sudo fallocate -l 64G /swap.img && sudo mkswap /swap.img && sudo swapon /swap.img to fit RAM if very busy and assigned as hibernation file via resume=/dev/mapper/ubuntu--vg-ubuntu--lv resume_offset=3633152 via df /swap.img and sudo filefrag -v /swap.img |head -10) on an encrypted partition but mokutil --sb-state being SecureBoot enabled says no because the stored RAM might still have juicy session keys.
    • Can't even Suspend as critical battery action, maybe due to /etc/systemd/sleep.conf still listing #AllowSuspend=yes (note the #) despite suspend working fine as power button action.
    • 24.04.04 freezes with first lock screen of the day when suspending after updating without rebooting.
    • Fails to run startup commands like cd /home/c-t/apps/stay_awake && source venv/bin/activate && python stay_awake.py which work fine in Terminal.
    • Intrusive update dialogs
    • System-breaking updates.
      • Dell 5540 webcam and Dell Precision 5690 display kept breaking, even after switching to Nvidia drivers Ubuntu automatically reverted back to broken Nouveau drivers.
      • Kernel 6.17.0-40-generic fails to boot Dell 5690 beyond initramfs prompt; hold power button to shutdown, power up and tap Esc (or hold Shift for old BIOS PC) for Grub menu, select the older 6.17.0-35 kernel from the Grub menu to boot normally and remove the dysfunctional kernel using dpkg -l |grep linux-image to get the version and sudo apt purge *6.17.0-40* && sudo apt autoremove && sudo rm /boot/*6.17.0-40* && sudo update-grub to remove it from your system and Grub's /boot partition.
    • Kernel updates are hard in Ubuntu, but Mint has a nice GUI for that, but company policy is Ubuntu due to paid lobbying/marketing/business support, and main Mint lagging behind Ubuntu.
    • s2idle aka S0 sleep randomly fails in Ubuntu 24.04 so expect losing battery charge and data over night. Fix by setting to S3 (just keep RAM awake instead of network and CPU as well to update/spy on you) like it used to be: 
      echo deep | sudo tee /sys/power/mem_sleep
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash mem_sleep_default=deep"
sudo update-grub

See also other tech fails.

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