The Truth Behind Elementary OS: Why They Chose to Create Problems Instead of Solutions
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- Опубликовано: 19 май 2023
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At some point in time, I know you have used Elementary OS and you were really amazed by it. You thought it was a stunning Linux distro and everything about it was super polished. I also know it’s not your current operating system. Why is that?
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Elementary OS 7, Horus, which came out early this year, was based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and came out with many iterative improvements.
With this big release, Elementary OS brought the same great old experience that its users fell in love with. It also brought the same old inconveniences.
Right out the box, the desktop looks super premium. No arguments here. But pressing the windows button doesn’t bring out the application menu. Instead we get the shortcuts. No issue, it can be changed from the settings. I would have liked it if, this was default and shortcuts message on holding down the super key.
Let me open up an application. And if i want to minimize it, there is no minimize button. Okay, this is an issue as I have multiple apps open at the same time and i need to minimize apps to focus properly. Maybe I can change this from the settings, apparently not.
And the available window controls are placed on the opposite sides here. Not the most intuitive thing here. While I can get used to this, I don’t understand the developers vision here. Anyway, can I change it from the settings. You guessed it, no.
But there must be a way I can fix these things. Let me go online and check for a solution. Where’s firefox, oh, we get epiphany web browser or gnome web here. Just fantastic.
While Epiphany is not a bad browser, it’s not a good browser either. Only recently has it become capable of playing youtube videos properly. Yeah.
Epiphany is slow, janky and overall is not an enjoyable experience. With the latest version, there have been many improvemnts and we can even use extensions now, but there are way better alternatives. But Elementary chose Epiphany.
Elementary OS chose to go with Flatpaks only. Personally, I was not a big fan of this decision. I understand the scope of unified pacakge managers like flatpak and snap and I've had great experiences because of these. I use few. But at the end of the day, I prefer to use full native packages like .debs or rpms. They are faster, they take up way less storage space and they integrate nicely with the system.
So I was a bit down about the decision to ship only flatpaks. Whataver, flathub has a great library of apps and whatever you want, you can find there, yeah this is not that kind of video bruh. This is not a love story. this is a horror story.
Elementary OS uses Flatpaks, but not the ones from flathub. Elementary OS provides it’s own curated library of apps. You can’t find any apps that anybody realistically uses here. There’s no browser, there are no popular apps.
One thing about the apps that are available here though. These apps are curated and specially made for Elementary OS. They are made by individual developers and look and integrate amazingly with Elementary OS. As an aspiring indie developer myself, I have massive respect for these developers and what Elementary OS tried to do here. Really, take a bow.
But as a user, I need the vlc media player, I need firefox, kdenlive, gimp, some games and many more software. Realistically, alternatives for all these apps cannot be created only for Elementary OS.
The software choice path that Elementary OS takes, this can be off putting for many and a big hurdle for Linux newcomers.
All these things combined with few more issues like over complicated NVIDIA driver installation, made what could have been a great experience plain inconvenience. I recently did poll and these were the results. 
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Linux Tex: "I also know it is not your current operating system."
Me watching on Elementary: ...
They guy clearly hasn't used the OS for very long.
Something I love about linux over windows is that if I don't like what the distro is doing I can just easily move to a better one. Since I stopped using windows I no longer feel like I have to just accept whatever is forced on me by the devs. Linux users aren't the captive audience that MS & Apple have.
It's sad when change for changes sake trumps ease of use and intuition/muscle memory. So glad I'm married to Mint.
Mint is the most stable Linux distribution I've ever used. I haven't used many, but of the ones I have, Mint has never failed. So robust!
Amidst all the distro pollution, i fell in love with Mint and never bothered with other distros anymore.
@@SearchFinger I tried a few distro's, and likes a couple of features of them, but definitely Mint wins overall each and every time. There is some merit (albeit slight) in the multitude of distro's even if it's just to have their dev's skilled.
Mint used to have malware in their isos. 😮
@@Alexander-ix2jp Malware or inadvertent vulnerability? When did this happen?
I've always loved your videos brother. Always very informative!
If you ever have any desire to improve your audio I recommend getting some sound insulation panels to prevent the big echo I'm getting from the audio.
I can't complain, as your audio and video is always improving over time, but food for thought!
Not being able to download debs or even Flathub software by default + no OTA upgrades make Elementary unusable for me.
I just use Fedora with GNOME and Dash to Dock.
Whoa, your channel quality got a lot better! I think I last visited in like 2019?
that's a video I really wanted! I used Elementary a lot before, when I couldn't afford a better PC. After I got a nice laptop, I tried Elementary a number of times, but I just couldn't NOT use Pop!_OS
I still use elementary, but will switch soon. There are plenty of issues with it, slow file explorer and search functionality. Lack of minimize button, no toolbar icons for applications like Dropbox.
Pantheon Tweaks is a necessary tool for theme, icons and cursors. And to set the buttons the way you want, Windows or Mac. The Pantheon Files is limited. Replace it with the superior Nemo Files, which allows you to run root right click and put icons, folders and files on the desktop. Next, replace Elementary Terminal with GNOME Terminal. Finally, you want to swap the App Center for GNOME Software Center with the flatpak plugin. That will make elementary OS what it should have been in the first place.
Yeh, I totally agree.I will add that currently most distributions, and desktop environments like gnome, kde, etc. offer much more possibilities than the current Pantheon. in addition, there is a mass of unrepaired bugs. Which with the mentality the system will come out when it's ready is irrelevant. It looks like the system has not been tested by developers at all.
In addition, the information that appeared when installing other applications is lame from the creators. Not to mention all the Elementary OS drama present. They're all for free software, and freedom, but they're not for free speech. In addition, they begin to mix the world of linux with politics.This is just pathetic, and ridiculously lol 🤢🤮.
I agree that the defaults are very opinionated, however they not inherently bad ans many Linux users are used to spend a day setting everything up to personal taste. I think the major (and almost only) issue is that pantheon development is stuck.
I had seen when Informix 4GL was piched it had code migration/ upgrade tool. Instead of focusing on creating Apps for Elementary, can they focus on creating a Tool which wiil migrate an app to Elementary asthetics because App is functioning properly even without Elementary OS. Eg. Freefilesync app works as designed & desired.
I am fairly new to Linux. Taught myself about Linux during the pandemic by watching lots of youtube videos. I tried quite a few distros in virtual machines. I have settled on Arch Linux and Arch-based distros. I found a channel that walked me thru an Arch Linux install with the KDE desktop and that is what I am using now. I'm a longtime Windows user but I have to say I am really liking Linux. Really loving this channel too. Great content. Thanks for all you do!
This is so good. Totally relatable.
He summed it up in the first 13 seconds :)
I have tried it a few times over the years and every time it looked beautiful but didn't work properly. On my latest try the Software installation application didn't work until I did some fiddling. That's so basic I gave up there and then.
Nothing a Linux Mint / Cinnamon user have to be afraid of.
Devs need to understand that we already have what we need: GTK and QT. People only need two choices for most of the things they use.
I have HP Pavilion laptop, AMD RYZEN 5500 integrated graphics. Which linux distro would be good for it?
Touch screen gestures simply didn't work when I tried Elementary OS. The config settings mismatched the actual number of fingers in a gesture. Where is the QA - Quality Control with Linux distros? If those that champion Linux on the desktop really want it to be a success then they can't expect ordinary folk to be motivated to tinker: not everyone has the time and that's not laziness or any other negative attitude. As for anyone who might say that touch screens with Linux is a niche market: no, it isn't. Touchscreens ARE mainstream: iPad, Windows 10/11 touchscreen, Android (which is based on Linux). I do still feel that there's a fair bit of intellectual masturbation about which windows manager is better: KDE, GNOME, "K" this, "G" that and regular folk don't care. They just want something that works.
i am using ubuntu in my laptop for mobile and web development and for personal use. and its owsome 😇
Elementary OS could be a good distro, but they choose to make boneheaded decisions that are not in the interest of the their users. They could easily have a driver manager like Linux Mint, they could easily show all flathub apps (if they are adamant about curated apps, then show them as non-curated) and just have a better user experience. Also system upgrades should be a top priority rather than having to nuke and pave every major version.
I wish elementary OS was more of a flagship for eOS software the way the pixel installation is the flagship for android. Then we could use eOS themes, apps, wm, de, could be more easily used on other distros.
I switched after the Elementary OS upgrade wouldn't install on my DELL Inspiron.
TL;DR: It's very slow with its updates and improvements as compared to other distros.
I used elementary for two years and loved it then it wouldn't let me update it, so I switched to q4os linux and been using it for 4 years.
Elementary OS is eye-candy that works well enough for all purposes. That's all there is to it.
No I do not advise new users who are coming over from Windows to use this desktop. I am testing this out right now and have installed the Pantheon Desktop which is Elementary on Linux Mint. Sorry to say that it falls short of many customisation options as well as settings. No moving the top panel and menu to the bottom of the screen. Although you can change the menu view from icons to list view but that's not enough. The terminal has no menu bar they took that out. No menu bar in the file manager either and no way to add icons to the desktop. There are not many apps in the App Center so you have to install from Synaptic or the terminal or use another software center. That's not good. The plank dock is useless. I don't know why it's there. While the Pantheon desktop is usable you are very restricted in what you can do on this desktop. Also Pantheon depends on Flatpak so you cannot remove it or most of the software won't work. I have never had this problem on other desktops. So it's a no for me. I will never run the Pantheon desktop as my main OS. Stick with KDE or the main desktops. At least you know where you are with them.
I have to confess the rancor of former lovers. There was a time when elementary was almost as light as Xfce (while Ubuntu was Unity). Now I use Plasma/Kubuntu on a MacBook - after having removed macOS. When you give up macOS you don't do it for elementary!
I have stopped using elementary at some point after waiting for a while for some flexibility (something like the damned synaptic by default, and the tweaks for that button - how ridiculous was that and still is that people have to do tutorials on that!) , but things went downhill, even design-wise: replacing default blue folders with the color of some organic liquid was already a bad sign. But I had no idea they went totally cuckoo.
To be honest, I don't think their admiration for Apple was sane in the first place. Look at the wallpaper. They try to imitate even that. - But the fully flatpak thing? Sorry. It's lunacy. On a Macbook like mine, with their small drives? Oh, and if I'm on a normal PC with a big drive? Will I use this OS? That would be masochism. The author of this video is too kind.
I have found building a desktop environment with Alpine to be super stable and fairly simple :) no more Elementary for me :)
I feel like Elementary OS is like the MacOS of the Linux world...so to speak.
❤
“Yeah… this isn’t that kind of video bruh. This isn’t a love story, it’s a horror story 😱” hahaha that got me good 😂
😉😂😂
Elementary is the biggest UI honey trap with a terrible UX payload. It is the reason one of my relatives now won't touch Linux with a ten foot pole. That's to say I eventually moved people I know to Mint or Ubuntu. Only thing I miss are the 1 to 1 gestures
Except that GNOME and even KDE do touchpad gestures as well or even better than elementary now. Hell, Ubuntu 22.04 even has the two finger swipe right and left in Firefox to navigate back and forward. I'm not sure I've ever seen another Linux distro do that.
I tried it an hour ago and it performs buggy and full of stutterings. My laptop should be able to handle it since it's a thinkpad x230 but still alot laggy and stuttering is unbearable. I tried heavier Linux distro than this but my laptop can handle them easily.
RUclips is the graveyard of all EXPOSED videos
I'd say that the Human Interface Guidelines for their App store were part of why they didn't make much money in the end, almost no one wants to pay for low functioning software, especially since free as in free beer Prosumer Open Source software already existed.
They never really understood the Desktop market and think they're more correct than end users.
Has anyone tried Neptune Linux? how is that ?
btw i'm currently on fedora 38 , should it be right to upgrade it to 39(beta) right now? if anyone is into this comment something...
I can get over having to manually enable flatpacks and install NVIDIA dumb drivers.
Not having minimise button is unacceptable 😖
"This is not a love story -- this is a horror story" 😁
Finally someone told the truth about this distro.
Elementary os still don't have Wacom tablet support
Elementary OS is heading to this PAY-TO-WORK endgame 😂
Elementary OS looks like too much Mac OS like.
It tries to offer new lnur environment but fails to present any advantage to it.
Nah Bro, After 4 Years just the terminal matters to me.
Bruh i just installed it again last night bahaha you can keep your Arch im good
So, it is NOT dead yet?... 🤔😏
As someone who gave money to the project for years I was and am so disappointed in the project.
Nothing else to say this video pretty much covers it.
I lasted with Elementary Os for about 3 hours. It's not for me. I need far more than they offer.
I loved the look of Elementary os and it's newish design compared to others but what got me out of love of it was the "no-no" of it. No installing apps that wasn't made for Elementary. No updated apps that was made for Elementary. No software center with massive free apps. Linux is suppose to be free and customizablly free but if I got to pay $5-10 per app to get the same software experiences that I get from FOSS apps, then it's not technically a free OS. It's like those games with DLC or paywall to complete. Even as money crazy windows and Apple is, at least they let you download apps from other companies. I just wish someone would fork this OS and fix the wrongs. And then there's Solus OS :(
You don't have to pay anything. It's a "pay what you want" model. You can install any app you like, from anywhere. You just don't have a smooth path to it by default, and there's good reasons for that. I use EOS since 2020 and has proven to be extremely stable too
This is pretty bad, I have tried several Linux Distros and everything I try is worse than the last for some reason ( the ones I manage to even install)
The EU is going through a lot of changes in terms law in the digital front. I expected the dev and corp do what they need to do, to stay in business.
And having no defaults, can also mean the end user have the freedom to choose what apps/programs/packages they want in their system aka making informed decision.
I’m not an Elementary user since I found my home in Zorin, but did used it quite a bit during Loki.
And the Power button has always revealed the shortcut button (as I think that’s where people will likely press first upon booting), thus leading the end users to lear more about the system.
This criticism in this video on EOS is ok; just need more context where the people making them.
And on packages, Ubuntu will be transitioning to Flatpacks from 24 onwards and, I think they’re just preparing for the change. I too do not like the switch to Flatpacks, but unless you write, maintain and push your own personal apt repo, you’re out of luck. But it does bring us back to user freedom in thinking about and making good decisions.
Ps: it’s “vee eye” editor 😂
I agree with pretty much everything in this video. EOS is replete with unnecessary horseshittery out of the box. And yeah, flatpaks, snaps, appimages, and whatever else out there in the same category are ridiculous resource hogs. When a 50mb program suddenly takes up 500mb, not to mention the speed (so I'll mention it) -- it doesn't make sense to use them except for an absolutely last resort on any system. SSD's have come down in price considerable, but 250gb systems are still common new.
I tried it but never liked it.
Same.
Still using Elementary OS as main distro 🥱
turning the window control to windows style is a crime.. it's super ugly.. instead, EOS has amazing touchpad gesture so we don't need minimize button.. I like how they made their apps simply works.. though they are mostly outdated apps, but they are works,, also i love how EOS made micro app, apps that only do 1 thing and work, like the color picker, the screen recorder and more.. i found those micro app very amazing,, i don't need tomany options, to many features on a single app, i just want an app that do one thing amazingly, thats it.. and EOS do that.. the screen recorder that didn't have too much codec option is actualy amazing.. just one, and works, if you want to convert it, use converter app.. i love that..
Elementary also still doesn't support Wayland and Epiphany is awful. I have never had a browser crash that much.
Yeah and neither does Mint. For that reason (and others), I don't use Mint and use Arch.
Most nonsense distro i have ever used
Elementary seems to be hell-bent on self destruction. I used to really like it because it looked great and it was the ONLY non-kde Linux OS that implemented a single-click interface properly (instead of the garbage implementation that you get Gnome, Cinnamon, xfce etc). Elementary's single-click behaved logically and consistently, and for those people who wanted double-click instead, they could get that via the Tweaks add-on, so everyone was happy.
But then Elementary then decided to go and ruin everything for no reason at all. They changed the single click to an illogical chaotic mess of both single and double-click at the same time, and they hard-coded this change to prevent the user from changing it to their own preference (which just annoyed both single-click fans and double-click fans). By destroying such a fundamental feature as clicking (which pretty much everybody does hundreds of times a day) it made the system utterly unusable, and it could not even be "fixed" using an add-on anymore. Elementary deliberately choosing to make usability worse than before, was the last straw for me, and it proved that they were clueless with regards to UX.
When I later found out that the project was now being run by a nasty deranged lunatic, that just sealed the deal for me that I would never use Elementary again (unless the project completely reinvents itself under new management).
Ok look it's called innovating maybe you should try to read more and inform yourself before talking. Just a suggestion though.
The day linux would allow me to install windows os software then i would shift immediately
You’re not a Linux user 😂
What a waste of what was a promising distro!
I never liked Elementary OS. A PAID version (no matter what the reasons behind is NOT the true ethos behind Linux). It looked good, but always lacked common sense, logic and performance.
Sorry but its a hard NO from me, and to be honest I'm kind of glad its own stupidity seems to have killed it this time around.
BTW, you forgot to post the commands you used in the description.. With the new release of 7.1 pending, my guess is that there will be a slew of new users finding this video for the very reasons detailed in the vid. 🤣😃
Horus is nice bur I had to make changes. Stock setup didn’t work for me and I couldn’t stand the theme.