Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#1

Post by gerbilly » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition
linuxfonts.narod.ru

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#2

Post by ninjakeyboard » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:31 PM UTC

Thanks you so much for putting a stop snowing link in. We released some christmas easer eggs without any way to turn the music off or make the snow stop and it drove everyone insane :P

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#3

Post by PaulHoule » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:34 PM UTC

This is a situation that hasn't changed much since 1996 and the story of why it hasn't changed is a lot more interesting than a large enumeration of the faults.

To compare it to Windows, Windows really has evolved a lot since the bad old days. Linux beat the pants off Windows 3.1 completely. Both Win95 and WinNT were unstable -- Win2K was the first decent version of Windows.

Linux 2.6 was the one really important thing that happened to Linux in all of that time because it was the first one that worked properly on multiprocessors.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#4

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:42 PM UTC

Main problems is still apps.

After 15years with OS X I'm more or less fed up with Apple for various reasons (some bad hardware, crashing and buggy OS, ...).

But what keeps me are the apps, like Lightroom, Omnigraffle, Sketch, Scrivener, ... - without them I'd use Linux.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#5

Post by jacob019 » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:43 PM UTC

As a daily user of Linux on the desktop for over 15 years, I can appreciate many of these complaints, but despite it's flaws Linux on the desktop is a pleasure to use and is better than any other options. This is a nice resource for kernel developers and OSS contributors who wish to make a difference and solve tough problems.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#6

Post by jjuhl » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:43 PM UTC

To me this reads as "I can't use hardware xyz on linux". Well, that's no surprise. There's "wxy" hardware that you can't use with Windows or OS X as well.

Today Linux supports the same amount (or more) hardware that Windows does. Hardware support is not a reason to use or not use Linux. The software ecosystem is much more important - not to mention the freedom aspect...

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#7

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:44 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#8

Post by crgabrieljr » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:47 PM UTC

Tried double-tapping in the article text to get it to reflow, and got one of those bogus popups claiming my phone is infected with a virus. Thanks for trying to make my new year interesting. :-(

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#9

Post by edtechdev » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:50 PM UTC

I've been using Ubuntu Linux as my primary OS since 2006, and I can't disagree with many of the annoyances. Especially with regards to graphics drivers and the switch to the Unity desktop. I tried Linux Mint with the Cinnamon desktop and it is nicer, but couldn't commit to it I guess.

But everytime I use Windows and Macs again, I get even more annoyed. Mainly with how slow things are. Even on a new Windows 10 desktop or laptop, it's not uncommon to have to wait minutes for things to settle down after booting and logging in, or waiting while updates are installed during startup or shutdown. And on OS X, the spinning beachball was one of the main reasons why I stopped macs for the most part in 2002 or so. I figured it was just a byproduct of OS X still being early in development and computers not being fast enough or having enough RAM. But no, everytime I try a brand new mac, it still pops up, especially when trying to type in a URL or something like that. The bouncing in the dock and not knowing if an app is running or shutdown or not is annoying, too.

But as long as you keep your stuff backed up or in the cloud (like google drive, google music, etc.), and stick mostly to stuff that works cross-platform (Chrome browser, Libreoffice, cross-platform IDEs, etc.), it's very painless to switch being OS's or devices or to wipe and reinstall things. Even Microsoft Word and Excel work in the browser nowadays, though I still usually just stick with Google Docs.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#10

Post by bkor » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 3:52 PM UTC

The website is hard to read on mobile because it is wider than my screen. Bit unfortunate.

Regarding VA-API: Since gstreamer-vaapi 0.7.0, Totem finally works with VA-API. Before only MPV worked. IMO if you used mplayer you better just switch to mpv. It still doesn't work perfectly in VLC, though AFAIK VA-API should be built in. In my experience filing bugs was enough to get improvements. Once it works well enough distributions should install it by default. IMO it pretty reasonable to achieve "va-api installed by default" for major distributions during 2016 provided enough people put their time in. Heard that gstreamer-vaapi will be merged into gstreamer itself, so that'll help a lot as well.

Regarding laptop support: Canonical seems to do a lot in this area. Testing Ubuntu and adding (upstreaming) workarounds/quirks to e.g. the kernel.

Some problematic items I wasn't aware of (good to have this list). E.g. font anti aliasing. Stuff like that is why freedesktop.org started, to have a way to agree on such things.

At least for some of the items on this list I have the idea that I can help to improve. Some items seems impossible. Still, just a little bit of effort can help a lot. Often I spend less than 30min to get improvements (though mostly thanks to actual paid developers putting in their effort).

Edit: The site should remove the swearing. You can be explicit in your disagreement without needing to swear.