Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

It's happened constantly since I started using Linux: KDE 4.0, PulseAudio, btrfs (to be fair, most distros didn't really push btrfs as a default), Wayland, etc, and now Flatpak and Snap.

And it's not to say that I don't understand the dilemma: you need to get user feedback to improve the tech, and the pool of Linux users is very small (for desktop stuff). But what that means is that desktop Linux is almost always in a state of partial brokenness. (And please also note that I'm giving a 100% pass on driver issues--that's a given when hardware manufacturers simply only care about working with Windows.)

Honestly, when it comes to "just working," desktop Linux is worse today than it was when I first installed it on my budget laptop in 2007. Wayland is mostly fine for my uses, but others still struggle with its missing features; snaps/flatpaks are slow, bloated, and have strange behaviors because of the permissions models that are NEVER going to be obvious to a casual computer user; and managing an Ubuntu install is still really bad UX.

As an example of the latter, I usually run an "expert" distro on my personal machines, but I decided to slap Ubuntu on a PC that I hooked up to my TV, and after a year or so of just chugging along and running updates whenever prompted, it started displaying errors that my boot partition was full. You've gotta be kidding me... THIS is supposed to be the "easy" distro for normal humans? How the hell do you expect non-tech people to micromanage the /boot partition and delete old kernels and shit?

So, while I agree with all of the technical issues and complaints about things like permissions, security, etc, that advocate for Wayland and Flatpaks/Snaps and whatever, you can't pretend to care about adoption while also pushing out half-baked technology to "stable" versions as though everyone will be happy with beta-at-best functionality.

My 2c: If you use common PC hardware with standard peripherals, and stick to software in your distro's package manager, you're fine. Ubuntu and Mint are popular and easy-to-use choices. Most people have an easier time than I do, but it feels irresponsible not to post this; I've been trying Linux every few years for the past 20. My experience hasn't deviated much from this:

I've found that once you start installing drivers for non-standard hardware, or installing software not in your package manager, there's a pattern of

  - C+P text into CLI
  - Errors
  - Sudo edit system config files 
  - Browse internet forums, Stack Overflow, and generally channel XKCD: 979. Tens of browser tabs open; hopefully one has the answer.
  - End up kicked out of the GUI after a reboot
  - The system is totalled, in that it's easier to do a clean install than fix it.

Flatpak... I'll warily try it for "user facing" apps.

But after a clusterfuck of trying to get a flatpak Jellyfin to work (HW accel fell over, and it wanted me to dumpster dive into flatseal to unsandbox it so that media OUTSIDE OF HOME could be accessed... never got around to looking at getting it to even boot at startup) I'll shy the hell away from it for daemons.