alt Hacker NewsAs I had zero plans on moving to Windows 11, I was looking into which distros are popular nowadays over the past few weeks. Today, I tried Cachy OS and Aurora(non-gaming version of Bazzite) in VirtualBox and after 5 minutes I knew that after 30 years of using a computer with windows(dos, then w95 and onward) Linux is still not there yet on the desktop. I just can't believe how they still can't get the utmost basic things right. Yet here we are.
And yes, you can game on linux nowadays, finally! Even get better performance due to Windows bloat. Office, OBS, internet, video...everything is working...yet it still is not there in usability.
To be specific what irked me today when I tested them was installing new programs. On Cachy, I wanted to test jetbrains IDE. Last time i tested it was on suse and fedora in virtualbox last year and it worked but neither distribution was there just yet in UX. This time, I downloaded the tar version from jetbrains website. I could not open it(maybe due to it being run in live cd mode in virtualbox) or extract(no option in dir manager or decompression program) the content in Cachy. So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version. Cachy has its own packages that can be opened(website) via its welcome screen(otherwise there is no program manager - no snaps, flatpacks...) and after downloading it with some arch file extension i could not install it. I could open it and see usr and bin directories but that helped me fuckall and i was not willing to tinker with this bs in 2026. Then in Aurora, it has bazaar for flatpacks, before i wasted bandwidth to download the IDE in vain again i preemptively wanted zip manager, there was pea..something. So i clicked install, it did and .. nothing. Nowhere to be found. Tried multiple times and no result. Could not find it anywhere. So I said F that and am sticking with the indian windows spyware. The devil you know and whatnot.
Replies
Thanks for your review of five minutes of using Linux after 30 years of Windows use. Sorry to hear that zero effort didn't work out, but what can you do.. it's just not ready for the desktop. Enjoy Windows 11.
Use a standard Linux distro like Kubuntu if you like KDE (Windows like) or Ubuntu if you like Gnome like and stay away from those ultra customized, time bomb distros and you will be fine. That's assuming your desired is sincere.
> So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version.
Of course 7zip has a Linux version. I'm pretty sure it went a long time exclusively on Linux without having a Windows version. I'm also pretty sure your problem is that you were looking for a 7zip GUI because I don't even remember installing 7zip the last time I installed.
Stop using weird distros and just install Mint or something basic. If you're not a power user and you don't want to be doing power user things, don't pose as one. Mint and Ubuntu are made for handholding people who are afraid to type, and will give you tools to avoid having to do it.
Or, instead, you can realize that if you learned how to use the commandline in Linux 25 years ago, the skills you learned would still be useful. If you learned unix on a mainframe, you could still figure out what to do. It's not a wasted investment, like all of the time I wasted getting good at .BAT files.
And typing "apt install 7zip" isn't exactly hard. Or "7zip x [myfile.7z]".
Linux Mint or Ubuntu cinnamon Desktop is less specialized, and has a GUI very similar to legacy Windows.
https://ubuntucinnamon.org/ (recommended for new players)
https://linuxmint.com/ (recommended for students)
Ubuntu Desktop 24 LTS: Kernel 6.0.8 will work on older GPU/Laptop hardware, but OS will be deprecated in 2029
Ubuntu Desktop 26 LTS will be out in a few months: Will be supported till 2038, but note old GPU drivers may not work on more modern Linux Kernels above >6.0.15
The normal Ubuntu Desktop requires a few days to make it usable, and a lot of customization to make it enjoyable. However, network printer and webcam access is usually trivial to install. google equipment installs before you buy... ymmv
Dual boot from two SSD if you need to work on the machine. You will swear less when (not if) you break something, and not everything windows works in Wine or kvm. =3
> So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version
You didn't need 7zip, you can extract compressed tars natively. In fact, IntelliJ's docs tell you exactly what command to run.
https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/installation-guide.html#...
sudo tar -xzf idea-*.tar.gz -C /optYou seem to have missed a couple of things that have caused you a bit of a headache here, I'm hoping I can encourage you to try again with a little bit of info. I've been using Linux for as long as it has existed, I'm also a backend-dev that works on a Linux machine and targets Linux-based platforms for deployment, even my kids use Linux. Windows went downhill for me after about Windows 2000 and Linux has only gotten better.
> yet it still is not there in usability
I want to wholeheartedly disagree with you. Nothing comes close to Linux in terms of usability for me, but a lot of it is about what you're used to, I've used Window's, I've used Mac, Mac I could live with, but I'll never intentionally use Windows again.
> To be specific what irked me today when I tested them was installing new programs. On Cachy, I wanted to test jetbrains IDE
Ok, let's begin; this one is partly JetBrains' fault, and partly yours.
You can open a terminal and type `paru jetbrains-toolbox`, hit enter a couple of times and it's installed. Don't know what `paru` is? I recommend reading the frankly excellent documentation from CachyOS[0].
> or extract(no option in dir manager or decompression program) the content in Cachy
You didn't specify which Desktop Environment you chose, this is important when helping newcomers because each comes with its own set of tools; but in Gnome's (what I use) the file manager, called Nautilus, I can right-click almost any archive type and will be presented with "Extract", "Extract to..." as well as a few other options. I just looked up how KDE does it, in case you're using that, the file manager is called Dolphin, and apparently you might need to install an archive tool first such as Ark and/or 7zip, gotta give you that one, I'm a little shocked, that's a pretty shitty OOBE in my opinion, but a quick search and you'll now probably be confused because the solution is here[1] but they say to use `apt install...` which you don't have on an Arch based distro. But once you know what the file managers you do have access to are, it should be easier.
> So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version
There certainly _is_ a Linux version. `paru 7zip` and I get at least 3 legit options; the base package, an architecture optimised package, and a GUI for it, as well as a dozen or two community options. You can also try the standard arch package manager aptly named "pacman"; `sudo pacman -S 7zip` and it installs it for me after I hit enter to confirm, don't even need to choose the package. Wtf is `sudo`? That's how Administrator is typically done in Linux.
> Cachy has its own packages that can be opened(website) via its welcome screen(otherwise there is no program manager - no snaps, flatpacks
On Gnome there is "Software" which supports Flatpaks as well as other package types; don't worry about snaps, you don't want them, and there's Octopi from CachyOS. In KDE there's a GUI called "Discover". There are a bunch of others such as Bazaar which you mentioned.
Usability really isn't an issue in Linux once you know the way of your distro; If you're used to Windows, then it's _different_, sure, and in that case I'd suggest taking an hour to read the CachyOS docs; Arch Wiki (CachyOS is based on Arch) is also an amazing resource for all things Linux, and learn a little about how software management is different, we don't (usually) pull random crap from websites, we install from package managers, and sometimes compile the source ourselves.
If you didn't choose one of the two DEs I've mentioned (Gnome, KDE), I'd recommend giving them a go, they're both very mature and usable. If you're into Discord, I can suggest hitting up the CachyOS or another distro's Discord servers, there's lots of helpful people there willing to help, if you had any other questions give me a shout.
[0] https://wiki.cachyos.org/cachyos_basic/navigation-guide/ [1] https://discuss.kde.org/t/how-to-add-extract-here-right-clic...
>So I wanted to get 7zip but there was no linux version.
Maybe Cachy don't have 7z, I don't know. But Arch (its base) has it: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/7-Zip , and I never had any trouble opening 7zips in any Linux either from console or any graphical tool.