Hi all,
I apologize in advance for this posting but I am getting increasingly frustrated over the recent years with Linux and was wondering if I am just unlucky or if this is a general trend.
I have noted that over the last few years I have more and more crashes on Linux. It started on Linux Mint Cinnamon with random crashes during Zoom conferences when I was using Open Office as well. The computer would just freeze and only a hard reset would make it usable again. I thought it might be Mint and the Asus laptop I was using so I upgraded to a Framework laptop and Ubuntu 22.10. Now the Desktop environment crashes randomly, often when I am using Freecad but also unpredictably at other times. Sometimes I can login again and it may have the programs still running, sometimes it requires a reboot through another terminal. This is not weekly but may occur 1-2x/month. As I am using my computer for productive work, this is not acceptable. My windows PC at work is much more reliable.
I can understand that single programs may crash at times but it speaks of bad design of the Desktop Environment if a program can crash the whole desktop environment. I am starting to wonder if the developers have lost track of their code and we are working with systems that are full of bugs. I even cannot help finding the issue as there is no error message, not even in the logs (at least I cannot find one). I suspect the crashes may have something to do with my setup as I am using the internal computer screen and two external 4k monitors. Also, I am not using stock Gnome but have installed the ArcMenu and Dash to Panel extensions. If this suspicion is correct then it would support the notion that the software is not properly written with appropriate error handling but just made to work on a mainstream setup.
I am really starting to consider switching to Windows or even try out Mac. I am using Linux since nearly 20 years (mainly Ubuntu, then Mint Cinnamon to avoid Unity) and it has always been rock solid until about 2-3 years ago.
Has anybody observed a similar trend? Are there any suggestions on how to avoid such issues?
Many thanks and best wishes
Karl