Especially when you’re on Arch with KDE, you don’t have:
good update management
window tiling
saving window positions
I know because I’m on Arch with KDE.
By “good update management” I mean what MS does - all updates are pushed once a month, on Patch Tuesday (second Tuesday of the month). You can put it in your calendar and plan for a necessary reboot.
I know Arch is a rolling release so it doesn’t have that on purpose, but it’s not much better with Ubuntu - I was getting updates every couple of days, once a week at best.
Window tiling doesn’t exist “out of the box”, you need third party software (which, apparently still doesn’t give you what Windows has out of the box) or a switch from KDE to COSMIC, which still doesn’t give you the freedom of choice that Windows has (it’s either “everything is tiled” or “nothing is tiled”).
Saving window positions (on Wayland) is the most confusing one, because it seems like the one that’d be the easiest to implement, but KDE devs just flat out refuse to do it. I hear that it works on X11.
Multi-monitor support is piss poor. If I spread my windows across multiple monitors and then turn one monitor off, those windows are no longer accessible. SDDM displays the same interface on each monitor, and each is a separate instance of SDDM - meaning, you can type in your password on monitor 2, and if you press “OK” on monitor 1, it will fail, because the password field is empty. It’s just silly design. On Windows, if you disconnect an extra screen, all the content gets dropped on the main screen. Since Windows 11, if you then re-connect the screen, all windows will pop back into their places before the disconnect happened.
You might have configured something that broke it because there ain’t no way what you are saying is not supported on Linux.
I know Arch is a rolling release so it doesn’t have that on purpose, but it’s not much better with Ubuntu - I was getting updates every couple of days, once a week at best.
You don’t have to update if you don’t want to and you can schedule your updates as well with a bash script (although I prefer to do it manually once a week). I have a Windows VM used for MS office and Adobe that hasn’t been updated for months.
Window tiling doesn’t exist “out of the box”, you need third party software
It is out of the box. Meta + Arrow Keys and/OR Meta + PgUp. I use it all the time lol since KDE Plasma 5 and Gnome whatever version it was 3 years ago.
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Saving window positions (on Wayland) is the most confusing one
Confirmed works by FarrellPerks@feddit.uk in above comments. Although I never tested or cared for it.
SDDM displays the same interface on each monitor, and each is a separate instance of SDDM
I don’t know about desktop towers, for laptop it is always only one instance — my laptop display, monitor is dark before I hit enter. And for the normal KDE lockscreen, it does give it on both the screens but I can enter my password in any one of them and logon.
if you disconnect an extra screen, all the content gets dropped on the main screen. Since Windows 11, if you then re-connect the screen, all windows will pop back into their places before the disconnect happened.
Or rather: it used to work, but then just stopped.
I don’t know about desktop towers, for laptop it is always only one instance — my laptop display, monitor is dark before I hit enter
Interesting! On my laptop I also had two instances of SDDM.
same happens on KDE Plasma.
Not where I’m sitting. Tested via cat accidentally turning a monitor off. The browser window just stayed on that screen - the process was there, but the application was not available.
Huh, interesting. Because other than appearance and keyboard shortcuts, I haven’t configured anything to affect these behaviors.
I switched my laptop last year and installed Arch with Plasma 6 so it was working out of the box. My previous laptop had Arch with Plasma 5 and then updated to 6 and also had Gnome before that. So it could have been I might I have configured something over there to get those things working (I don’t remember doing that though) but the newer one had it by default.
Because other than appearance and keyboard shortcuts, I haven’t configured anything to affect these behaviors
Which is another aspect of the “Windows is more stabled” that I meant earlier.
I switched my laptop last year and installed Arch with Plasma 6 so it was working out of the box
The save window position thing was also working out of the box on mine. Only after it stopped I started looking into this and found that, apparently, it’s NOT a thing KDE/Wayland can do. I don’t know how it worked, but settings also show that feature doesn’t exist - if you go to System Settings → Window Management → Window Behaviour → Advanced → Window placement, I only have these options available: “Minimal Overlapping”, “Maximised”, “Random”, “Centred”, “In Top-Left Corner” or “Under Mouse”. There’s no “Remember” or “Restore previous” or anything like that.
Especially when you’re on Arch with KDE, you don’t have:
I know because I’m on Arch with KDE.
By “good update management” I mean what MS does - all updates are pushed once a month, on Patch Tuesday (second Tuesday of the month). You can put it in your calendar and plan for a necessary reboot.
I know Arch is a rolling release so it doesn’t have that on purpose, but it’s not much better with Ubuntu - I was getting updates every couple of days, once a week at best.
Window tiling doesn’t exist “out of the box”, you need third party software (which, apparently still doesn’t give you what Windows has out of the box) or a switch from KDE to COSMIC, which still doesn’t give you the freedom of choice that Windows has (it’s either “everything is tiled” or “nothing is tiled”).
Saving window positions (on Wayland) is the most confusing one, because it seems like the one that’d be the easiest to implement, but KDE devs just flat out refuse to do it. I hear that it works on X11.
Multi-monitor support is piss poor. If I spread my windows across multiple monitors and then turn one monitor off, those windows are no longer accessible. SDDM displays the same interface on each monitor, and each is a separate instance of SDDM - meaning, you can type in your password on monitor 2, and if you press “OK” on monitor 1, it will fail, because the password field is empty. It’s just silly design. On Windows, if you disconnect an extra screen, all the content gets dropped on the main screen. Since Windows 11, if you then re-connect the screen, all windows will pop back into their places before the disconnect happened.
You might have configured something that broke it because there ain’t no way what you are saying is not supported on Linux.
You don’t have to update if you don’t want to and you can schedule your updates as well with a bash script (although I prefer to do it manually once a week). I have a Windows VM used for MS office and Adobe that hasn’t been updated for months.
It is out of the box. Meta + Arrow Keys and/OR Meta + PgUp. I use it all the time lol since KDE Plasma 5 and Gnome whatever version it was 3 years ago.
Confirmed works by FarrellPerks@feddit.uk in above comments. Although I never tested or cared for it.
I don’t know about desktop towers, for laptop it is always only one instance — my laptop display, monitor is dark before I hit enter. And for the normal KDE lockscreen, it does give it on both the screens but I can enter my password in any one of them and logon.
same happens on KDE Plasma.
Ah, OK, nice! I didn’t see it as it’s not available via mouse, but found all those threads saying it doesn’t exist. Good to know!
Doesn’t work on Garuda (Arch-based) with KDE.
Or rather: it used to work, but then just stopped.
Interesting! On my laptop I also had two instances of SDDM.
Not where I’m sitting. Tested via cat accidentally turning a monitor off. The browser window just stayed on that screen - the process was there, but the application was not available.
Huh, interesting. Because other than appearance and keyboard shortcuts, I haven’t configured anything to affect these behaviors.
I switched my laptop last year and installed Arch with Plasma 6 so it was working out of the box. My previous laptop had Arch with Plasma 5 and then updated to 6 and also had Gnome before that. So it could have been I might I have configured something over there to get those things working (I don’t remember doing that though) but the newer one had it by default.
Which is another aspect of the “Windows is more stabled” that I meant earlier.
The save window position thing was also working out of the box on mine. Only after it stopped I started looking into this and found that, apparently, it’s NOT a thing KDE/Wayland can do. I don’t know how it worked, but settings also show that feature doesn’t exist - if you go to System Settings → Window Management → Window Behaviour → Advanced → Window placement, I only have these options available: “Minimal Overlapping”, “Maximised”, “Random”, “Centred”, “In Top-Left Corner” or “Under Mouse”. There’s no “Remember” or “Restore previous” or anything like that.