30 Days with elementary OS 7 - The Cost of Idealism - Linux Distro Review

Time to review elementary OS 7 after spending the last 30 days poking around and seeing what has changed. My question is though - amongst all of the projects well-established ideals, what is the cost of those ideals?

0:00 What is the cost of idealism?
1:09 Refresher on elementary OS
2:00 TL;DW take away
3:37 Desktops are expensive
4:03 AppCenter
6:19 Fixing papercuts
7:00 Gestures
7:32 X11 not Wayland
8:08 Onboarding & theming
8:31 Bugs & stability
9:56 GTK4
10:18 System Settings
12:48 Web browser
13:56 Final thoughts

#elementaryos #pantheon
Links:

[youplaymenot]

I can't believe how many years have passed since I have been watching your linux reviews. I know it isn't the most popular topic for people to watch but I love that you still do them.

[iaina]

I've seen several reviewers saying the same thing. They love the OS, the design, the vision and idea of if but it just falls short compared to other OS and desktops these days.

[sudipchatterjee]

You’ve hit a home run in this video, Blaine! Kudos! Your explanation here is perfectly on point: the elementary team’s ideals, while deserving of merit, are holding them back. The Linux Mint team’s approach is what they need to overcome those limitations; there is no other way than regular funding for a project like this. Since 2020, I am using elementary as my primary OS, and I am happy with the current version. The quirks with the Nvidia drivers are gone now after a couple of updates. And the system is quite snappier this time than earlier versions. Let’s hope that the team implements other quality-of-life improvements and lay a path toward implementing Wayland.

[neverthestranger]

Been a fan since Juno... Tried it but the "nuke and pave to upgrade" is just a deal breaker for me. That should be in huge bold letters at the beginning of the install - "YOU WILL HAVE TO WIPE YOUR INSTALL WHEN YOU UPGRADE TO THE NEXT RELEASE!"
Great, honest review as always, Blaine! Kudos!

[meliodas.]

These days I don't wanna spend too much setting up . And I don't wanna mess with not having things like status icons, etc. So I just don't feel like going for anything that makes it hard. I used to mess around a lot few years ago . But in the end I just want to get work done.

[dominolastley]

An excellent and thoughtful review. I considered using Elementary, but instead opted for Linux Mint some months back. My concern was that though Elementary hangs together beautifully, it had the feeling that it would not be around in the long term. Your comments on the funding model (or lack of a strong one) are spot on. Thanks for the work you do.

[MildMisanthropeMaybeMassive]

I remember downloading an Elementary Skin for Firefox back when the OS was still in development. I thought it was the most beautiful UI design I had seen.

[LabworksVapes]

I'm giving this another test run on one of my machines and so far so good and I hear what you're saying if this was to move forward an add more features this would be possibly the best Linux distro available

[CabbageBloke]

For me personally nothing will compete or come close to KDE. I love to tinker and change everything. If Pantheon or Gnome did that out the box like KDE I’d seriously take a look at it.

[deathbunny]

The refusal of system tray icons is enough for me not to install and stick to Pop OS. I rely on cloud sync storage and there's no way to tell if it has synced in Elementary OS.

[Big-Chungus]

Visually it is absolutely stunning in its consistency etc, i prefer it even over kde in that regard. It feels like something that could have been sold by a company like Apple.

I like how it looks both sort of old but new at the same time, a lot of linux distros have this. Icons arnt flat, there are subtle gradients, but they arnt so glossy or glass-like either. Its like a modern rendition of xp era UI design.

Otherwise id rather go with other linux distros like mint or even ubuntu, it feels limited and unfinished in quite a few ways.

[dodogobr]

I'm a longtime elementary OS user. But when idealism is above everything, even the user's first sight experience, this tends not to work out very well.

[habituallearner]

It makes me very sad that the developers still haven't included a basic office suite or at the very least provided a welcome app such as EndeavourOS or MX Linux provide to make such installation easy even for new users. My significant other, who hates computers but uses them to browse the web and to write documents, would never be able to figure Elementary OS out well enough to install a word processor or his preferred web browser. Yes, Elementary OS is breathtakingly lovely. However, so is KDE Plasma, yet it typically comes configured on a system containing at least a basic office suite and browser. On my machine, I use dwm tiling window manager. That's because I love to tinker. I suspect that their target audience probably won't want to do all that. It's a shame, again, because I love the consistent interface. I guess here the [idea of the] perfect has become the enemy of the good. It really makes me sad too when I think about the wonderful video you did a few years back on using a Elementary OS5 as a basis for an open source Mac alternative.

[AwSomeNESSS]

Found as I got deeper into my understanding of Linux, the less desirable EOS, PopOS, etc. got over just running on base Debian, Fedora, Arch, etc. This was mostly due to the cadence of updates and improvements differing from major releases, so if I wanted stable I’d just go Debian, if I wanted a mix I’d go Fedora, if I wanted full rolling I’d go Arch, etc. EOS and other derivative distros are interesting but feel limited in scope compared to the bases, and to me Linux is all about having the control over what you get out of your computer, which butts heads with how the derivatives usually function.

[tektauron]

I like something that looks at least somewhat OK, and that just WORKS.

What is that? Linux Mint.

[MatthewHarrold]

Quality review there "Joe" (because I don't know your name, sorry bro) ... I'm trying to weigh up whether to upgrade to a new laptop or crossgrade to a Linux based system from a now abandoned MacOS Catalina, as my laptop is 10 years old this year (MBP 13" Retina thingy). I also just enjoy the journey Linux has taken in my lifetime, I'm 51 and have used Unix and Linux systems for as long as they've been around. Cheers mate. $0.02 from Hobart.

[binaryboyo]

Nice analysis of what should be by now a perfect alternative to the 'walled garden'! :/

i guess it's hard when they lost their founder and main Dev. :o

I'm leaning to Mint now after trying Pop but as a Linux newbie I really need a good migration tutorial & list of alternate Apps and Utils etc. As well as a GUI backup utility ala Time Machine which seems for some reason to be a Unicorn in Linux Land!? :(

[earthoid]

Elementary OS sounds ideal for my old Macbook Pro that Apple no longer supports. I've tried several linux distros over the years but this one seems the most polished, and since I don't use the old Macbook anymore - why not? I'm going to save any files and photos I still want and go for it.

[MyReviews_karkan]

Elementary OS pisses off a lot of their users, and when your users are pissed, you don't get any funding. Simple as that. Don't mean to hate on it, but that's what I've noticed. Project is not enticing enough. Theme looks like it was made by a 12 years old. No system tray icons. No minimize button. Hard to theme...etc. yes, those are "silly" things that a lot of people care about. I feel bad for them, they do put a lot of work into it :/

[DakotahMiskus]

I used to love elementary OS back when I started with Linux and mistakenly saw it as a Mac clone. Now that I daily drive a MacBook Pro my desktop runs Arch and I see the actual point of Linux.