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Over the years I have been using Linux distros (Slackware, RedHat, LFS, Gentoo, CentOS, Debian, Arch). Most of my use was for servers, some of it were my attempts to use it for day to day desktop use.

Every time I used them for servers it was set it and (mostly) forget it since nowadays even Linux has automatic updates.

Every time I tried them for desktop use the experience was outright broken from the installer onwards. For example, Debian couldn't bother to include working Intel e1000 driver in their net install ISO several years ago. None of the systems came with ClearType font rendering out of the box and the only one you could set up to render fonts to look sharp as tack like in Windows instead of a blurry mess was Arch Linux but you needed arcane magic to configure it.

Just today I tried installing Debian 12.5 in a VirtualBox VM. That outright failed repeating a message about not being able to compile a keymap in a loop. Turns out that back in May 2023 it has been reported during 12.0 release candidate testing, but it is still not fixed in 12.5 release eight months later.

Yesterday, I installed the same Debian 12.5 with KDE Plasma on a HP ProBook 440 G9 laptop. That went fine until I got to the desktop. Then I decided I want to remote into it from the comfort of my desktop PC instead of using the tiny laptop screen and started searching for a built-in way to do so.

You can probably guess how that turned out -- in 2024 there's no remote desktop functionality out of the box which you can enable with a click of a checkbox in your desktop environment of choice. I tried installing TigerVNC server, TightVNC server, and finally Krfb (KDE specific VNC server) and I couldn't get any of them to work with the desktop environment I have chosen.

Today I sat down to try to figure it out in a VM and after finding a workaround for the installer bug, I managed to find a workaround for Krfb. It turns out that pipewire is missing in the default KDE Plasma install. This does not affect only Krfb, but also Zoom, OBS, and any other applications a regular user might need to use. To be able to add it, you need to use apt from the shell and be in the sudoers group.

I thought that shouldn't be hard, you just change your user type from Standard to Administrator in the Settings, click Apply, enter root password and you can sudo as much as you want from the Konsole... except it won't work not until you log out and log back in but until you reboot!

Apparently, KDE and Wayland in 2024 are incapable of checking user group membership and permissions when you log out and log back in again, let alone refresh them dynamically after you explicitly change them in Settings. So, a reboot later I had a working desktop sharing... until the desktop session locked itself and I wasn't able to unlock it remotely using UltraVNC. So much for that "unattended access" checkbox in Krfb.

If I add to that how poorly Linux CPU schedulers cope with modern CPUs and almost soft real-time nature of modern desktop use (streaming, gaming, remote access, DAW, etc), I can only conclude that Linux, with it's fractured distro and desktop environment landscape will never be ready for everyday desktop use. Poor man's internet browsing and office? Sure. Anything more advanced? Hell no. Now get off my lawn.