128
What do you hate about linux? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@lemmy.world
240 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

We love to praise linux constantly and tell everyone to change to it (they should) but what are your biggest annoyances ?

Mine would be, installing software (made even more complex by flatpaks being added, among the 5 other ways there already were to install software) and probably wifi power management issues.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 23 points 1 year ago (13 children)

When I was running a Linux distro regularly (1995-2015), audio output would break every couple of upgrades.

It was frustrating, because I was pretty happy with the rest of the OS.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 13 child comments
    •
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Ironically, it's only gotten better since 2015ish. For the most part I've used pulseaudio like most others, but I've also used jackd when I need to do audio stuff. After pipewire became usable it's more or less flawless for me.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Audio output doesn't "break," but it's easy for it to get redirected to the wrong device (e.g. by plugging something in, like headphones or an HDMI monitor, and the system trying to be "helpful" by automatically reconfiguring). With so many layers (OSS, ALSA, PulseAudio, JACK, PipeWire) it's hard to figure out how to fix it.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    After switching my gaming PC from Win 11 to Linux Mint earlier this year, audio is the only thing I consistently have issues with. I have the PC connected to my living room TV via HDMI via an Onkyo AVR. I have pipewire installed (correctly, I think).

    Whenever audio starts, there's a couple second delay before I can hear it. Haven't been able to solve that so I just live with it.

    The more annoying thing is after an update earlier this week, the audio output is now defaulting to "Dummy Output" instead of HDMI. I have to manually switch it via pipewire. It randomly switches back and I haven't figured it out either.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Whenever audio starts, there’s a couple second delay before I can hear it. Haven’t been able to solve that so I just live with it.

    That can be because of a power saving feature - basically PulseAudio puts your sound card to sleep when nothing is playing, and then there's a bit of lag before it wakes up. In my case it was really annoying because I use the optical output, so when PulseAudio put the sound card to sleep, my receiver would also go to sleep after a bit, and resulted in quite a bit of a delay when it was time to get it come back up.

    This fixed it for me (see part 4.8): https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I tried this and it worked for about a day haha.

    I've gone through a couple pulseaudio configuration tutorials, but nothing is working consistently. Seems to work fine after initial reboot, but almost every time after waking from sleep I have to reconfigure the audio outputs. I swear this all worked fine until I updated something last week.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] [S] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I've amazingly not had a single audio problem, and i mess with inputs and outputs on the front and back panel often, as well as use usb audio devices. Mint and pulseaudio

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    This does need some attention from the Pipewire profiles perspective. It's mostly a hardware combo thing though. Even if you're using an audio code that has kernel support, the speaker configuration from manufacturers changes CONSTANTLY, really causing problems. They need to break this out into its audio profile IMO.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] -2 points 1 year ago

    I hope image-based distro can solve this issue. In general I feel a lot of these breakages are caused by repeatedly migrating configuration files, yet fresh install usually fixes these issues.

    I think one of the advantage of image based distros is that they are much more principled in migrating config files.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent