I know it’s not polite to critisize other systems, but I just could not believe how poor the user experience is for the mainstream Linux distro. Yes, I know that they have better hardware support, better performance, tons of apps etc, but the quality control is poor. Some examples:
- selecting fractional scaling (for HiDPI) on nVidia and the screen goes black, and no simple method to restore the setting. No easily accessible safe mode. Reinstall is quick.
- regardless of fractional scaling, the software center launcher has the filenames clipped for > 30% of applications. No tooltip to indicate what you’re launching. This is on 1366x720 laptop and 2880x1440 laptop.
- no easy method to adjust global font sizes.
- entering a wrong password in the login box, and the replacement GUI box is invisible, no instructions, no visible text box.
- software snap center on one laptop shows categories, on another there are no visible categories. Both installed from same USB stick, no customisations.
- enterring Wifi password for 802.11 b/g networks at 2.4GHz accepts 26 chars, but for 5G (802.11h/j/n/ac/ax) networks it only accepts 13 chars. My router broadcasts both, but the passwork is 26 chars.
- no visible boot splash on Uefi boot. Just black screen until login prompt. I wasn’t sure if the laptop even booted since no indication on screen.
- the dock can be repositioned. Moving it to the right, moves the left most desktop icons a bit to the right (to make room for non existant dock). Moving the dock to the left, and it moves the desktop icons below the dock. Someone got the indexing wrong …
- constant password entry, and constant reverting to terminal to fix things
All this in the first 30 minutes of install, the quality control is really poor.
Hopefully by the time R1 final comes along we can offer a better user experience.
