Posted by summarity 10/24/2025
Just few days ago something updated and my virtual desktop switching now behaves erratically. I'm pressing <Super>+<1>, it changes to desktop 1 with vscode opened. And immediately it starts typing "1" into vscode. Seems to bug with all X applications. I fixed it for vscode to make it work under wayland, but now it doesn't draw border around vscode window. Another irritation and I have other X apps.
It works, it's free, I love it. But it's so not polished and it'll never be. I miss macOS polish, where basic things just work.
Funny, since iOS 26 my iPhone has been failing to bring up the screenshot UI half to time, completely broke guided access, and now I can’t figure out how to close all tabs in safari because all the buttons make no sense anymore.
Oh yeah and my battery life sucks now.
You should look into atomic Linux distros. They take getting used to but they’re awesome for being stable and easy to revert changes.
Stuff in Linux changes. Not quite as frequently, but it does change and in major ways that require significant amounts of relearning.
Example 1: audio
OSS -> Alsa -> Random Layers on top of Alsa -> Pulse -> Pipewire
Example 2: init
SysV -> OpenRC || runit || s6 || upstart -> systemd
Examples 3: desktops
KDE 1/2/3 -> KDE 4/Plasma
GNOME 1 -> GNOME 2 -> GNOME3+
Example 4: networking
ifconfig -> ip
Example 5:
Xfree86 -> Xorg -> Wayland
Now, it's important to note that people were attempting to resolve issues. The transitions weren't always clean, but the results are usually great. For example, moving to pipewire is possible the greatest advancement of audio ever. Linux audio finally doesn't suck. Xfree86 to Xorg was likewise great. For the last few years of X11, I usually didn't have to modify the config. I kind of don't care about init systems most of the time. The only major complaint for systemd is that disk I/O on embedded systems is kind of an issue, but things like Alpine are better there and Alpine doesn't use systemd.
With that said, I think the real issue is that people dislike advancements that break things. Early in Pulse's life, people absolutely hated it. Early in Wayland's life, people absolutely hated it, but it wasn't default so no one complained. With Windows and macOS, stuff changes seemingly constantly and randomly and breaks things, so people hate it. Saying, however, that Linux doesn't change seems a little daft to me. It changes faster than anything else on small levels, and different distributions have breaking changes at different rates.
Good job, Poettering.
And now I'm getting an Apple Silicon machine in a few months to replace my Intel Mac and I'm out of luck.