Linux

Every time I have tried to mainline Linux for my gaming rig. Although I haven't tried anything recently, IE since the Steam Deck has made large improvements. I am now waiting for SteamOS to be available for non-AMD GPUs and can be dual-booted so I can try it without also getting rid of Windows right away if it still gives me headaches. I know there are other options I could try now, but I'm fine waiting.

I have not been disappointed in Linux when used for servers, tho. Far, far more reliable than Windows when you want stability and long up times.

While I can point out a lot of times I was dissapointed in IOS, Mac and windows, only time I ever got dissapointed was in the beginning where I was aggressively distrohopping because my first distro (POPOS) was extremely slow and buggy. Gentoo felt too sluggish for daily use and other nuances that weren't exactly Linux's fault but I didn't know any better.

I use void btw

How could I be disappointed in FOSS? Conduct of people involved, maybe, software? Never.

Having to actually manually mount network shares to my filesystem in KDE in order to do simple stuff like drag-and-drop files from them to a browser window, which just works in ol' Windows.

But really, I'm generally very happy with my experience with Linux in 2026. Most problematic things are because of the behavior of shitty OEMs or publishers, not Linux developers. Things have improved in leaps and bounds over the past few years.

I have been extremely disappointed with the broader Linux ""community"" at times, but never Linux.

I'm now completely free from Windows in my personal life. After running Linux on my notebook for years and occasionally dual-booting on my Main PC, I purged the Windows partitions back in March and switched over to Bazzite. Everything works like a charm - with Firefox being the only exception. I can't get the new profile manager to work in the flatpak version or native via rpm-ostree. I have a workaround using distroshelf, which is not perfect (e.g. not being recognised as a browser by the "Webapps" application) I never had any problem with this feature on my Notebook (EndeavourOS). Anyone with similar experiences?

With Linux itself or with the broader realm of 'Linux software'?

By itself, Linux is a fantastic family of operating systems. Has never failed me and probably never will. At least not until I care enough about differences in userland handling in Linux vs FreeBSD, for instance. And even then, I might just switch out of preference, and not because one or the other disappointed me.

As for broader Linux software, or GNU software, or just FOSS in general - by far the biggest potential issue is probably systemd, and it's still meaningless for the vast majority of users. Other than that, my personal biggest issue was Hyprland breaking completely after updating. But it's not a super major issue, because I can just use Plasma instead.

I’m disappointed by Linux on almost a daily basis. And MacOS. And iOS. And Android.

(I haven’t used Windows in a long time, so I guess it’s the only major OS I’m not routinely disappointed by? Whoa, that’s a realization…)

But this is just what happens when you’re constantly messing with stuff.

I love Linux but for ease and convenience a iOS / Mac based home has been a lot easier to coordinate and orchestrate and tie together.

There is no equivalent tv box to the Apple TV on the Linux ecosystem without tinkering which makes it tough now that tinkering isn’t as fun cuz my time is so restricted.

Without a Linux phone and Integrated set top box I can’t mainline it, but it still is my go to for running all my services (saving for the odd bsd here and there)

Just gaming on Linux Mint. Most big modern games work, but support for older and smaller games just isn't there. I tried to play Doom 3. It wouldn't start. Shadowrun Hong Kong was so slow it was unplayable.

A little I guess. When I had finally convinced my dad to try out a dual boot, and was trying to install it for him on his new Threadripper system, it failed. The platform support Threadripper wasn't ready even though it had been out for at least a little while.

But I don't remember the details it has been around 8 years. Nowadays I know to confirm these things first, so in a sense it was my own mistaken assumption. But still it fits the question because at the time I was disappointed.

Recently I’ve been disappointed that my speakers keep switching which one is left and which is right, and I’ve been too lazy to figure out why. I don’t regret dropping windows at all, though.

One word: systemd

It doesn't run on old 2010 year Intel/AMD laptop, while FreeBSD does. Maybe because of the philosophy of destroying the old to build something completely new (pipewire, ip, firewalls etc.). Maybe I should spend more time finding working distro.

Also, It's sad to realize that politics has actually always been a part of FOSS (when they removed Russian maintainers). Still I really like Linux.

My printer has a regular paper tray and a photo paper tray. I find it very difficult to print things properly to the photo tray. And I had to get drivers for one of my PC's Wi-Fi adapter off github. Other than that, I have been quite happy over the last few years of daily-ing Linux

i would like to see more cutting edge attempts. this is more of a linux ecosystem thing but try new things even if they dont work out. until very recently, parental controls have been non existing or barely functioning.

for the linux ecosystem to be mainstream it needs to cover more people.

Yes.

When Pulseaudio and Wayland were still kind of rough I migrated to Macs for like 5 years.

The failure to properly protect against file access between programs is kind of disappointing. Flatpak has made great progress here, but it isn't quite universal.

Nah I'm alright.

I mean i'm currently in a learning process with Linux, i would like to be a power user like in windows, but i'm just not yet. I don't know if i would say disappointed, but i tried to use KDE first and would say my experience was rather bad, it was a bit buggy here and there and i didn't found out how to fix my problems. I'm surprised by it because i though i would like KDE for sure more, but i'm happy i switched to Gnome. So as the op said, part of the experience is choosing the right distro or in my case desktop enviroment is part of the experience.

Sure had few driver issues, or installing japanese was a bit of a struggle, but i have fun solving problems.

My installation of arch broke, kept breaking, and the AUR has been unusable for weeks, I switched back to fedora (after using Arch for about a year)

I'm very disappointed about Discord on Linux. I've been having a problem for months where the audio input stops working for several seconds at a time during voice calls.

Specifically with the Cinnamon Panel (taskbar) on Linux Mint during fullscreen gaming. I like to tab out during long matchmaking and under Windows the taskbar would be visible and usable when another window gets focused over the fullscreen game. With Cinnamon, the space for the panel is there, but not the panel itself. When you press Super, the menu pops up and shows the panel with it, but the panel isn't usable...

There is an active issue on the cinnamon github from 2012. No one even knows if this should be a bug or a feature request, so it's just all undefined behavior right now.

Edit: it's even worse, a newer issue was closed last year after a discussion that can only be described as very linux.