We don’t, really.

But you do! So much so that you keep trying to invade this place as if your life depends on it.

Here's the thing, bucko: most of us don't care even slightly that you run Linux on your desktop. Install Gentoo on your refrigerator and replace your car's infotainment system with LFS. Go ahead. Just don't preach it to us, and especially don't preach it here!

https://preview.redd.it/5rvg2rfbvljh1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=017389887a11180e7b865f47879ee88dbaba92d9

This sub exists because Linux evangelists insist on preaching about the damn thing in every single corner of the internet:

• Somebody complains about Windows? Install linux
• Someone needs Adobe software? Use GIMP
• A game doesn't work on Linux? The game is evil and it sucked anyway
• Looking for a burger recipe? Here’s a Nix flake for one.
• Someone simply says they don't like Linux? Well clearly they used the wrong distro, desktop environment, display server, kernel version, filesystem, bought the wrong hardware or simply existed in the wrong timeline.

The fact that a tiny corner of the internet where all that madness is explicitly unwelcome exists drives you up the wall.

You deliberately break the rules, get banned exactly as advertised and then parade the result as some sort of victory. The posts where you're bragging about your bans, calling them "badges of honor" are actually just diplomas in failing basic rule reading comprehension. Not gonna lie, it kinda feels like playing chess with a pigeon.

Anyway, just understand that this sub is an enemy of your own making, and it only exists because you couldn't tolerate people rejecting your ideology religion cult.

The best possible thing you could do is ignore this sub, but we both know that ain't happening.

See you on the next "badge of honor" thread, dorks.

Linux users talk as if Windows users are perpetually one bad update away from installing the flavor-of-the-month Linux distro. They often help that fantasy along by exaggerating real Windows problems or inventing problems Windows doesn’t even have.

But lemme tell you, Microsoft could add a thirty-second, full-screen, unskippable ad at startup and most people would still stay on Windows. They would complain, find a registry hack, install a tool like Winhance, switch to LTSC, delay updates or simply tolerate it.

If Windows became genuinely unusable, most would buy a Mac before even thinking of touching desktop Linux.

And the reverse is true too! If Apple made macOS unusable overnight, most Mac users would move to Windows (not start researching distributions, desktop environments, compositors and package managers).

Realistically, Linux only enters the equation if it solves more problems than it creates. And it simply doesn't, especially not on desktops.

This is also why the usual Windows criticism from Linux circles has less "oomph" than they think. I previously wrote about how telemetry is not the same thing as marketing data collection. Linux discourse often takes a real problem, strips away every technical distinction and inflates it into an emotional outburst about how "Microslop is spying on everything".

Even when their criticism is completely correct, it's still not an argument for Linux. Microsoft making Windows more annoying does not turn a pile of separately developed projects into one cohesive desktop platform.

I also went into the deeper reasons in Why don’t you use Linux?. The problem is not one missing application or one broken driver. The whole experience is a mess. It's structurally fragmented, ideologically burdened and routinely expects the user to become its unpaid systems integrator.

That’s really the gist of it. Linux isn’t the second option. Hell, for most people, it ain't even the third.

https://preview.redd.it/lc54kvskr9ih1.png?width=680&format=png&auto=webp&s=0bfd7a704e7522388e4577796746d777fe52be6a

This perfectly captures the loon response when you say you play Fortnite, Valorant, CS2 on FACEIT, or another anti-cheat-enabled multiplayer game with your friends.

They’ll explain that those games not working on Linux is actually an advantage, casually forgetting that being unable to play what your friend group is playing is an objective disadvantage.

To be fair, that limitation probably seems irrelevant when they’re not even invited to group calls anymore. Their friends got tired of the endless “muh spyware” lectures.

Heck, they’re probably not even friends anymore.

>inb4 “But they’re still in the Discord server” - the rest of the group has a voice channel hidden from them (Yes, this post is based on someone I know. How could you tell?)

https://preview.redd.it/imyirec8p2hh1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=c242f8418de31ddd1ad586dd3f17378e12e51ab6

Some loons seem to have absolutely no awareness of how openly hostile and obnoxious they are being. They barge into discussions, insult people, derail threads, evangelize Linux to anyone (especially people who didn’t ask), and then act genuinely surprised when they get banned.

To me, their surprise is more baffling than the behavior itself; How can someone not tell they're being an absolute menace?

Either way, that stuff doesn't fly here. If that upsets you, feel free to rage out in the comments and mint your very own badge of honor.

This is thematically related to an older post I made, a server is not a desktop.

Android seems to exist in a state of quantum superposition. When adoption numbers come up, it is absolutely Linux:

>Linux runs billions of devices!

>Linux dominates mobile!

>You’re probably using Linux right now!

But often, in loon circles, when Google’s telemetry, proprietary services, locked bootloaders, and restricted user control come up, Android suddenly stops being “real Linux.” And when we point out that Android succeeded by burying the traditional Linux experience (pure insanity) beneath a usable interface, it also stops being "real linux".

I've really been thinking about this, and asked myself "why stop there?" Why stop at Android? Every modern Windows installation can run WSL, so we might as well count Windows as Linux too.

If I take a look at statcounter, I can see:

Linux: 2.31%
Windows: 29.68%
Android: 40.22%

That gives Linux an undeniable 72.21% market share.

TL;DR: Desktop Linux has finally achieved mass adoption, and it's so over for us.

Edit: Fixed broken formatting

Some Linux users complain that they are banned too easily. While I understand the complaint, and I would prefer the rules to be more relaxed, at this point, there does not seem to be another workable option unfortunately.

Case in point, two loons recently came into the community.

The first was immediately disrespectful, spammed tags, and somehow still could not understand the differences between a desktop and a server.

The second quietly posted a Nazi slogan and deleted it shortly afterward, hoping nobody would notice.

Both were banned.

This is not an isolated problem. We have tried giving people the benefit of the doubt before, and they repeatedly abuse it. They spam, preach, insult people, test boundaries, and then act shocked when the rules become stricter.

You cannot complain that the fence is getting taller while repeatedly trying to climb over it.

TLDR: I would genuinely like the community to be more open and the moderation to be less aggressive. But that requires people who can behave normally.

Some Linux users say the OS wars should stop, that people should just use whatever works for them, and that operating systems are only tools, and guess what?

I agree. You should not build your personality around an operating system.

But r/linuxsucks101 did not start this. You cannot go five minutes on the internet without finding some loon advertising Linux where nobody asked.

Someone posts about a Windows problem on r/windows?

>Bro, just switch to Linux.

Someone asks for help with macOS?

>Linux does this better.

Whenever someone mentions gaming, privacy, old hardware, programming, phones, smart fridges, or the weather, somebody will appear to preach about Linux, almost guaranteed.

That is why this subreddit exists. Nearly every other operating-system community has already been infested by evangelists who cannot resist turning every conversation into a recruitment drive.

Even communities specifically created to criticize Linux get invaded by people who worship a kernel and every half-finished distro built around it. Then they downvote everyone into oblivion for disagreeing with them.

We would love for operating systems to be treated as boring tools. In a vacuum, our position is already moderate: use whatever you like. Nobody is stopping you. The rules here only get stricter because loons keep becoming more and more disruptive, more dishonest, and more obsessed with forcing themselves into spaces where they clearly are not wanted.

And for the love of god, stop the LARP. Stop pretending your choice of operating system makes you smarter, more technical, more independent, or morally superior.

TL;DR: We’re not the instigators. We’re the consequence.

I’m seeing more and more Linux evangelists arguing that because Linux runs most servers, you should use it on your desktop. Even seen some commenting here on r/linuxsucks101, before they swiftly (and rightfully) got banned.

So I'm making this post to remind you loons: a server is not a desktop.

A server is built primarily to serve other machines. A personal computer is built primarily to serve a human.

In other words, running headlessly in a data centre does not prove that an operating system provides a good desktop experience.

Second reminder: Your grandmother is not a Kubernetes cluster.

We have already covered this great confusion in more detail here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxsucks101/comments/1u0nuqb/loonies_confuse_the_server_for_the_desktop/

I recently saw this exchange:

>I haven't seen a single professional or corporate office in my life that daily drives Linux. Fake-ass vocal minority that's too broke to buy proper laptops or socially eccentric.

Someone responded:

>Tell me you're not working with the top talent of the IT/SW industry without telling me you're not working with the top talent of the IT/SW industry.

According to Linux evangelists, the really talented developers all use Linux. If your workplace mostly uses Windows or macOS, apparently you're part of an organization of weaklings and haven't reached the upper levels of the industry yet (that's ridiculous nonsense).

Some professional developers do daily-drive Linux, but after roughly ten years in the industry, I have never noticed any meaningful correlation between desktop operating system and technical ability. The devs on linux are a random minority of developers who happen to prefer it, not the most skilled ones.

I have met excellent and incompetent developers on all three operating systems. Installing Arch does not unlock hidden programming knowledge, and configuring a tiling window manager does not make someone a better engineer.

I've also seen a deliberate conflation between working with Linux and using desktop Linux.

Plenty of developers work with Linux every day through servers, containers, virtual machines, WSL or SSH while using Windows or macOS on their actual workstation. That makes them Linux professionals and it does not mean they want it on their desktop.

Reminder: Actual professionals generally have work to do.

In fact, the people who have seriously used Linux for years are often among the least impressed by the propaganda. They know every sore spot firsthand, so the delusional propaganda actively annoys them.

TL;DR: Loons, the Linux pros also hate you

Edit: Fixed the broken quotes, fixed typos

I see this question asked a lot, along with "what would make you switch to linux though?"

The answer is probably going to vary a lot between people here, but since these questions get asked constantly, I figured I'd give my take on both:

Many of the problems with desktop Linux are, at their core, UX and ideological problems. On UX, Wayland's insistence on so-called "security" is a good example, it routinely makes life harder for the desktop users it's supposedly protecting. See this thread. (Many such cases!)

But the technical stuff is downstream of something worse: the ideology. The FOSS fixation actively holds Linux back, and the GPL is a big part of that. I wrote about this here. The title is deliberately inflammatory, but if you read past it the point stands: the license is actively hostile to anything that isn't itself GPL, which strangles the kind of investment that makes an OS pleasant to actually use.

You can see the same mindset in the kernel itself. Linux intentionally does not provide a stable in-kernel driver ABI/API. The official argument is that this lets kernel developers move faster, fix bad interfaces, clean things up, and avoid maintaining old internal cruft forever. That is the pro-Linux argument.

But the other side of it is painfully obvious: it makes out-of-tree and closed-source drivers a permanent pain in the ass. If your driver is GPL-compatible and lives in the main kernel tree, the kernel people will fix it when they break things. If it is not, good luck. You are on your own.

It is an ideological pressure mechanism that pushes hardware vendors toward the kernel’s preferred model, and desktop users get to live with the fallout. Then, the propaganda machine tells them to blindly hate the vendors. u/madthumbz thankfully goes into more detail, in this post.

You can see the same ideology in how the community behaves. Mild criticism gets you treated as guilty until proven innocent, which tells you the whole thing runs on belief, not on any real interest in whether normal people can use the software.

As a software dev, I'm mostly fine with Linux living in a box you ssh into. The tooling is there because corporations poured millions into it (but that money went into making Linux a good server, not a good desktop). Corporations have every incentive to use Linux for server boxes and basically none to make it a desktop anyone would choose. (Ironic how FOSS has been repurposed to make mega-corporations millions and billions, while loons like to pretend that their distro of choice is a middle finger to them, but that's a thread for another time).

The only incentive left for desktop is ideological - the loons who show up here to preach about "microslop" and "freedom", but all of that lands on deaf ears if the actual experience of using the thing is fundamentally broken.

Seriously - pretend I'm a newbie asking you how to start with Linux. We immediately have to talk about distros, update frequency, compositors, window managers, translation layers, desktop environments, init systems, and package managers. None of this exists on Windows or macOS, because each is one cohesive unit, not a stack of separately-built projects bolted together and shipped as a "distribution." Even when the individual pieces are solid, the seams show, and the whole thing feels flimsy.

So to actually answer the second question: sure, there are things that if changed, would get me onto desktop Linux. But they're so fundamental to what Linux is that, realistically, nothing ever will. And I suspect this feeling holds true for the rest of 101's members.

Now, on to its sister question

“Why do you hate Linux?”

And probably, for many of us, it isn't a pure hatred of Linux itself. It’s what can only be called "Linux fatigue".

Imagine you’re not really in the mood for McDonald’s. Also imagine McDonald’s advocates show up every single day to tell you your food is evil, that McDonald’s is morally superior, that you only dislike it because you’re ignorant, and that if you don’t eat McDonald’s you’re basically a corporate slave.

Guess what, eventually you’re going to become a McDonald’s hater. Hell, maybe some people will even make a sub called r/mcdonaldssucks, which will promptly be invaded by mcdonald's advocates, forcing you to spin up an r/mcdonaldssucks101, with stricter rules.

I think it's all pretty clear, that’s the Linux desktop discourse.

Conclusion

I’m not even sure these questions are always genuine.

People here, especially u/madthumbz, have been documenting what makes desktop Linux suck for a long time. The UX problems, the fragmentation, the ideological baggage, the compatibility issues, the community defensiveness (And so much more!). None of this is new.

But instead of engaging with any of it, the usual Linux evangelists just dismiss it all as ignorance, FUD, user error, Microsoft brainwashing, or whatever else lets them avoid the actual point.

So while I hope this thread clears things up a bit, I’m not exactly holding my breath.

We’ll see.

Edit: fix typos

Every time someone criticizes Linux, and especially the Linux Desktop, the same smear campaign starts.

“Nooo, you just don’t understand Linux.”, “You’re just used to Windows.”, "You live in an echo-chamber", “You probably tried Ubuntu once in 2014 and gave up.”, “You’re just ignorant.” and worst of all - "You're too dumb to use the smart people operating system, unlike me, whom is very smart indeed ☝️🤓"

case in point, read this insane comment left by a loon on a previous thread

But all of that is false, some of us have been long time, experienced users. My first contact with Linux was Slax 6 back in 2008. I’ve maybe used Linux longer than some of you loons have been alive. In production systems too, at work.

So no, I’m not here because I clicked the wrong download button, installed the "wrong distro", or didn’t know what a terminal was, like this other loon was claiming.

https://preview.redd.it/0xmxlwv298ch1.png?width=824&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e916ae5f3f49d9091a5ffa100c55112824e8af4

I’m here because I know exactly what Linux is like. I’m here because I’ve seen the same excuses recycled for decades, and I've seen how the linux community has monopolized the entire world's hopium and copium supply. The propaganda has been straight up delusional.

The year of the Linux desktop is perpetually currentYear + 1, and somehow it’s always the fault of some evil external force. Never Linux itself, never the community.

That’s why places like this exist. It's the one safe place from all of that madness.

We’re not helpless idiots who need a wise Arch user to descend from the mountain to enlighten us. Be real.

Linux is free. It’s one search away. You can download it, install it, copy it, fork it, redistribute it, and so much more. So if it’s so easy to obtain and supposedly so ready for everyone, why isn’t it the default choice by now?

The answer is obvious.

The average person is not using Linux as their main OS because it is simply not ready for the average person.

Now take off that copium mask and breathe in the fresh air.

A while back I made a post about “works on my machine” and how absurd it would be if software engineers treated bug reports that way. But maybe I was being too generous.

Maybe “works on my machine” isn’t a bad support answer, but an ego that has grown too big. Because after seeing it enough times, it stops sounding like “I can’t reproduce this issue” and starts sounding like “Runs on my PC, so you can go eat dirt”.

Someone says their audio breaks after suspend, their Bluetooth stack randomly dies, or their secondary monitor doesn’t work at the proper resolution/refresh rate, and instead of curiosity, diagnosis, logs, troubleshooting, or even basic sympathy, they get:

“Weird. Works fine here.”

Cool. What am I supposed to do with that? Frame it? Print out the comment and tape it to my desktop? In normal engineering, “works on my machine” is the starting point of an investigation, whereas in Linux discourse, it’s often treated like the end of the conversation.

It’s not just that the answer is useless. It’s that it subtly reframes the bug as a personal failure - Your hardware is wrong. Your distro is wrong. Your config is wrong. Your expectations are wrong. Your attitude is wrong. You are wrong.

And at the end of the day, the thing still doesn’t work.

At some point, “works for me” stops being information and starts being a smug little purity test. Because if Linux works on their setup, then clearly Linux is fine.

And if it doesn’t work on yours? Well...

Skill issue, apparently.

One thing I keep seeing all over the internet is Linux fanatics telling people, “If you have a problem with Linux, contribute to it.”

Which is funny, because apparently their idea of “contributing” is making new accounts, invading a subreddit where Linux glazing is explicitly against the rules, getting banned, and then doing it all over again.

They constantly tell critics to stop complaining and help improve Linux, but they themselves spend all day defending it in places where nobody asked, pretending every issue is user error, and acting like Linux is already flawless.

Imagine if even half that energy went into fixing the problems people actually complain about.

Better UX. Better app compatibility. Better audio. Better drivers. Better consistency. Better documentation that doesn’t assume everyone wants to live in a terminal 24/7. An internal ABI that doesn't break compatibility every 5 minutes, and lastly, some standardization.

Hell, Linux might've been closer to Windows or macOS for normal users by now (Ballsy thing to say, I know, but with the amount of time they spend invading this sub, who knows?).

But no, they’re too busy trying to convince a subreddit called r/linuxsucks101 that Linux doesn’t suck 🤦

Genuinely scary levels of delusion.

https://preview.redd.it/eguesocfg0ch1.png?width=640&format=png&auto=webp&s=2dfa99d413784844541a22b66799a872b7b1c632

I don't even know where to start with this one. Found it doing my normal rounds and I think it gave me actual brain damage.

The thing that kills me is the framing. This sub gets called an "echo chamber" constantly, like we're the ones huffing all that copium. Buddy. We don't care what you run. You like Linux? Genuinely, go use it. Nobody here is going to show up in your linux subs to tell you to switch to Windows. Literally nobody here is losing sleep over your distro choice.

You're the ones who can't stop bringing it up. You're the ones treating a kernel like your identity. You evangelize this thing with the energy of someone getting a fat paycheck. You are spending actual hours of your actual finite life coming in here, trying to convince strangers who explicitly do not want to hear it. That's why the rules are strict, and that's why you're getting banned every single time.

This goes far beyond what a hobby should be. It's an extremely unhealthy obsession. Stop it and get some help.

Anyway. Posting this as a public service so someone else can feel the same brain cell die that I did.

https://preview.redd.it/jwf19j7obbbh1.png?width=942&format=png&auto=webp&s=e930aad319fd1afa976059304570b208327e03b9

Recently came across this post, and I think it deserves a full read. I find OP's whole arc interesting. Reformed hater buys a Mac and stops fighting his own computer, all because it's a finished product, built for people who have things to do. But I've got a few things to add.

>everyday there's like a 1 in 100 chance that you're going to have to deal with straight bullshit

Even if your hardware is perfectly supported, everything's configured the way it should be, and you actually know your way around linux, "a 1 in 100 chance" is generous. In practice it's higher, and it climbs the closer your distro sits to the bleeding edge.

First timers on this sub and pedantic loons might already be typing "but this happens on Windows too!". Sure, broken updates ship on every platform, these things happen. The difference is that rolling back KB1234 is a few clicks and a reboot, while working out why your GPU dropped to a black screen after a routine pacman -Syu is an afternoon in the TTY. One of these has a name, a number, and an uninstall button while the other has a wiki page and your evening - and that's if you're lucky.

Every other day someone shows up in modmail or makes a sad callout post, crying that they got banned "for using Linux." Heartbreaking stuff. Real persecution.

But it's all lies. We can't see your OS. There's no user-agent sniffer wired into the modqueue. Reddit doesn't tell us what you booted this morning. You could be the sweatiest nerd ever, running Linux From Scratch (LFS) and we'd be none the wiser (unless you told us).

It's not the OS that you're running but rather you telling us. And more often than not, it's you telling us that we should run your OS. Read Rule 1. The overwhelming majority of bans here are for breaking Rule 1.

I really don't get it, the rules are as simple as possible, the bar is literally below the floor, and somehow people trip over it daily.

TLDR: You were banned because your shilling couldn't be stopped otherwise

In all my years on this earth, I've watched the Linux community do one thing with remarkable consistency: blame the user.

It happens in Windows and Mac circles too, sure. But nowhere near this scale and intensity - seriously, it's not even close.

Here's the pattern that you've already seen a hundred times: OP posts about a linux problem they're hitting. Before anyone's actually read the thing, the replies roll in: "works on my machine". Or my favorite, the dogpile of "skill issue, sounds like a you problem". OP gets treated as a criminal.

https://preview.redd.it/w361nru6ir8h1.png?width=848&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6cadae8adf2ff73bd93ae3243c48b105841d4cd

https://preview.redd.it/rcs2ugxzrr8h1.png?width=796&format=png&auto=webp&s=3a113a013fa53e8585c8438604febd13b0e12a2a

https://preview.redd.it/ofu3k7kext8h1.png?width=891&format=png&auto=webp&s=424bcc22c76ce4e01d7567f386c8ddb5b0ac11f8

And then, more often than not, when someone actually digs into it, the cause turns out to be a UX problem, a functionality bug or straight-up something just randomly failing.

(For anyone seeking context, OP was installing ubuntu, and it failed installing the bootloader on its own. OP was able to fix their issue via Mint's Boot-Repair, not thanks to these "helpful" replies)

So I keep asking myself: why is this tolerated**?** Why is it so widespread that at this point it's just the expected behavior?

• Is it that the community is so fundamentally broken, that it can't admit Linux has flaws? Every bug report feels like ammo handed to "the enemy", so the reflex is to defend the OS (or the kernel, depending on the issue) by blaming the user instead?
• Is it an ego thing? Some people clearly stand a little taller after stepping on someone. "I configured my way through this, so if you can't, that's a you problem".

Honestly, I can't tell. Maybe it's both. Or maybe there's a third reason I'm not seeing.

What I can tell is that unless someone actually bothers to troubleshoot, the OP leaves no closer to a fix. And if you're someone who pulls this, know one thing: every time you do, you're stocking r/linuxsucks101 for free. You think you're defending Linux, but you're the main exhibit.

To any regular person watching, dogpiling someone for asking a question or complaining doesn't read as "based power user", but reads as unnecessarily cruel, makes the whole community look like the unreasonable, deranged ones, and leaves yet another stain on the community's reputation

I used to be a hardcore loon. Daily-drove Fedora, defended it to the death, and genuinely thought people were just lazy for not putting up with Linux shenanigans.

I had opinions on Microsoft and Apple that I'd share with no one asking me to, and worst of all, if you used Windows or Mac OS I'd have already decided something about you.

What pulled me out wasn't an argument specifically. It was friends and coworkers who just... didn't care about it. They used whatever worked, shipped good stuff, lived full lives, and never once made their OS anyone else's problem. It was a slow process, but it made it hard to keep believing Windows/Mac users are lazy when the people I respect the most were quietly using them to get more done than me.

One line I still remember came from a senior at work. He said I should stop assuming my personal preference was an objective standard everyone else was failing to meet. Then he added the part I think about the most: "don't let an operating system become your personality".

It stung back then, but I eventually realized that mindset wasn't making me a better engineer. It was just giving me a cheap way to feel superior to people who'd never asked to be ranked.

Around the same time, I started noticing how other Linux users came across: preachy, superior, contemptuous of anyone who hadn't seen the light. And it was a mirror. That was exactly what I sounded like.

My loon phase was about 8-10 years ago. And leaving the evangelism behind, looking back, feel like leaving a cult. No longer a loonix priest, if you will.

There's a specific type of person who finds out someone uses Windows and immediately reaches for "computer illiterate".

https://preview.redd.it/6zcoeywpeg8h1.jpg?width=1643&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9046925d75ceea4634f2613bf032b817065b4e9d

And maybe that person can't recompile a kernel, sure. But here's what never occurs to this person: they can't hold a conversation without steering it back to their setup. They can't meet someone where they are. They can't read a room, take a hint, or talk to a human who isn't them.

Between computer illiteracy and social illiteracy, only one actually matters when you have to exist around other people.

You can teach someone the terminal in a couple of days. You can explain what a kernel is, and you can educate them on the differences between various filesystems. But you can't teach someone to stop being insufferable about it.

A "skill issue" with a package manager is fixable. A skill issue with basic human decency follows you around for life.

Because that's all the insult ever is: someone who feels small puffing themselves up by deciding they're better than you at the one thing they happen to be good at. Putting others down to feel okay about themselves, in total denial about their own shortcomings.