So, I got a Raspberry Pi 500+ and a 4Tb SSD to play with.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

So, I got a Raspberry Pi 500+ and a 4Tb SSD to play with. And I have just been playing with it.

And I have to say that I'm unimpressed in the extreme with the modern Linux UX, onboarding, and documentation.

[root42@chaos.social]

@cstross I am grabbing some popcorn. 🍿

[ulexus@fosstodon.org]

@cstross "The" modern Linux ux, as experienced from whatever came with a raspberry pi? I mean, I'm sure it's not whatever you are expecting, but this is like forswearing all fruits on the basis of trying one apple from a random food cart.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@root42 I am too tired and jaded to toot about it. At least, for now.

Let's just say that in the 20 years since I stopped writing about Linux every month in the computer press, things seem to have gone *backward*.

[ulexus@fosstodon.org]

@cstross Which is not to say that you are likely to be wrong in you generalization. Polish is not generally something at which anything in the Linux ecosystem excels.
On that basis, cornucopia or not, I'm fairly confident it will always fail to meet expectations.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@ulexus I got a sense that Ubuntu desktop is designed with the unspoken assumption that all desktops these days run on laptops (with trackpad built in). And it's designed and tested by able-bodied young-to-early-middle-aged adults only.

[isaackuo@spacey.space]

@cstross @root42 FWIW, I'm pretty happy with how XFCE4 has NOT evolved. It has quietly gotten a few new features here and there, and getting more refined, but ...

Look. I have been okay with the Windows 98 UI since the 1990s. XFCE4 gives me that, with a couple big improvements (multiple workspaces, and vertical toolbar with rotated text). I don't remember exactly when XFCE4 added those features, but I want to say 2010-ish.

All I want is a Win98 style UI, and I can get that with few headaches

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@cstross @ulexus *raising hand* for the record, Ubuntu definitely works worse on laptops. I don't know if they expected you to use a laptop, but they definitely didn't succeed at the laptop experience.

I know this is not the most helpful thing to hear when you just finished installing, but one way to reduce frustration is to swap out Ubuntu for Debian. Ubuntu got… weird, at some point in the last 15 years. I used it for a year in frustration, switched to Debian, and a buncha problems evaporated

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@cstross I mean it doesn't have to be Debian, but if Ubuntu is what you're used to, Debian will be closest to Ubuntu. And the frustrations that would have lead one to pick Ubuntu over Debian back in idk 2010 are a lot better now. Like, Debian infamously has old software, but now most software is installed via FlatPak (it's like Docker for GUI apps) so that's not really a problem anymore. (And Debian did a major release like last month, so AT THIS MOMENT, its versions are pretty fresh.)

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@cstross I don't think this advice will address your *initial concern* of "wow the emphasis on onboarding and documentation has been lost". I've been using Linux since the 90s and my perception is we were all really focused on being the next desktop OS back then. And at some point Linux became an OS you run on virtual machines on servers, and that's where all the development emphasis goes, and desktops are an afterthought.