Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition • Hacker News Board

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#81

Post by belleandsebasti » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

I agree with all the points here.

Despite all of this, Linux is still my preferred desktop. Why?

The power! I can literally do anything with it. Including writing my own drivers/applications. Linux is my go to for doing things with zero crap. The same can't be said for Windows nor Mac.

For me, this pro weighs very close to all of the cons I have experienced, experience daily, or will experience.

Also as a desktop Linux user since 2002, it has gotten a lot better. Xrandr and pulseaudio apt-get are good examples of this, despite their design criticisms.

Of the things he listed, the things I would like to see most:

* application-level Sandboxing

* stable and universal high level application API, like Win32/GDI32/DirectX or Cocoa. GTK2+/Xlib/Xwhatever really dropped the ball here. An API that not only assumes a file system, or additionally a graphics system, but an all-encompassing desktop.

* stable and universal application packaging

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#82

Post by condescendence » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

geggam wrote: post #53

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would consider entry level? I use a Mac mini from 2012 (i7 with 8GB) every day and I'm not seeing any beach balls unless Flash crashes some web page.

http://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini?product=MGEM2LL/A... Dont add any extras... its simply not usable on the net Hardware 1.4GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz) 4GB 1600MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM 500GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm Intel HD Graphics 5000 User's Guide (English) Accessory Kit

Not usable on the net?? Shit this was close spec'd to my compiling machine a few years ago.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#83

Post by sandGorgon » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

aerique wrote: post #79

sandGorgon wrote: post #61

I don't understand - I never see a mention of the biggest annoyance to developers on linux : consistent copy paste. It is a cognitive exercise to copy from the terminal or paste to the browser...or (the horror) copy from the terminal and paste on vim. It does not help that this works beautifully on the Mac. Is this not an annoyance to anyone else...and more importantly, considering all distros are now using libinput,…

Oh, this was an annoyance until I installed a clipboard manager (parcellite in my case) which automatically syncs the different clipboards.

But how do you paste? I mean I have all sort of keymaps to enable paste in vim using CUA (shift-insert), but try explaining that to a first time user.

Its the small things that OSX does right.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#84

Post by agentultra » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

I stopped using Linux as my primary desktop OS around 2012. Until then I was an Arch user with my own desktop environment built on StumpWM and a hodge-podge of hand-selected tools. There was no Gnome or KDE in my setup. I liked it quite a bit.

I used Ubuntu on my laptops since I wanted to spend less time administering drivers and arcane configuration formats.

This is a good list.

I just got tired of the configuration formats, crappy drivers, inconsistencies, dependencies... I was irritated at how easy it was for Apple users to plug in a projector and have it just work. I was irritated by every update to some random library that would cause a sub-system to stop working. I hated having to spend any amount of time administering my desktop environment. To me it should just work and the less time I have to spend trawling forums, logs, and restarting processes to find the correct incantations of dependencies and configuration variables the better.

I've stuck with my MacPro Retina, despite my early trepidation about a GUI-driven proprietary OS, because I've spent probably less than an hour in the last 4 years administering it. It's still snappy and works as well as it did on day one (also the hardware is nothing short of amazing). The only thing that sucks at this point is that the OpenGL drivers Apple ships are woefully out of date and I'm thinking of jumping to Windows unless something changes (damnit I wants me compute shaders).

I still use Linux every single day... just in a VM, container, or on some server.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#85

Post by pdabbadabba » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:10 PM UTC

xioxox wrote: post #21

lvs wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there's no consumer-level desktop hardware you can't use on either Windows or OS X or both. That's false. Hardware support is indeed a reason not to use Linux, but the question is who needs to pick up the slack. With other operating systems, manufacturers put (more or less) effort into writing device drivers that are functional. With Linux, they really do not. It's a large and moving target, and the market value…

Really? There's plenty of old hardware which no longer works in recent Windows versions. It's not in a manufacture's interest to update a driver to recent OS versions. In Linux drivers usually remain for a long time.

Yeah. GP's point was overstated. But there's a weaker claim that is just as important and, I think, indisputably true: Windows supports virtually all hardware that is popular among desktop users. Or, even better, Windows supports far more hardware than desktop Linux, especially if you weight hardware by popularity.

It's understandable, of course--Windows has a greater consumer installed base resulting in greater manufacturer interest in supporting the platform. For Linux desktop users, unfortunately, the dynamic is often the opposite: the manufacturer has no interest in supporting the platform, and users/volunteer developers have to do all the work...which the manufacturer may then break at will.

But that doesn't mean that hardware support is not still a major problem for Linux desktop adoption.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#86

Post by agentultra » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

agentultra wrote: post #84

I stopped using Linux as my primary desktop OS around 2012. Until then I was an Arch user with my own desktop environment built on StumpWM and a hodge-podge of hand-selected tools. There was no Gnome or KDE in my setup. I liked it quite a bit. I used Ubuntu on my laptops since I wanted to spend less time administering drivers and arcane configuration formats. This is a good list. I just got tired of the configuration…

Oh... and integration with my devices too. I use hand-off to take calls from my phone on my MBPr all the time. I also use the Keynote app on my phone which controls the application on my laptop. The sync features I don't use as much only because I trust their cloud about as far as I can throw it.

I don't remember Bluetooth or any device integration working well or at all on any Linux distro I've tried. Maybe that has changed but that kind of stuff is nice!

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#87

Post by pdabbadabba » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

thescriptkiddie wrote: post #39

wvenable wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's not uncommon to have to wait minutes for things to settle down after booting and logging in This is no longer my experience with Windows on an SSD. I'm always a bit shocked when I reboot and I'm back at my desktop in under 30 seconds. On a machine without an SSD, I'm annoyed at how slow everything is -- not just booting.

I've got a windows 10 machine with a pretty fast NVMe SSD. It takes 10 seconds to get to the login screen, and another three minutes to load up all of the services that are set to run on login. I'm convinced that the NTFS driver must be a nightmare of blocking I/O.

I have to agree with others who point out that this is not at all typical. I have two SSD-backed Windows 10 machines (one at home, one at work), both with much less fancy SATA SSds than yours. Neither takes more than 20 seconds to go from powered off to fully usable (unless I mistype my password a few times).

I'd check my autoruns if I were you.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#88

Post by scarmig » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #59

et1337 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think just the opposite - most of my software runs on Linux, but hardware is the main obstacle. I've installed Linux many times on desktops and laptops, and I have yet to simply install a graphics driver and have it work first try. My laptop locks up the cursor after two minutes of use, doesn't support two-finger touchpad scrolling, and exhibits constant graphical artifacts, all under multiple driver and kernel com…

The parent is correct, modern Linux supports a lot more hardware than any single Windows version. The difference is that Linux is much better at supporting old hardware, and Windows is slightly better at supporting new hardware. Try using a 20 year old non-generic printer on Windows 10, for example.

As it so happens, I'm pretty sure the marginal Linux laptop installation is on a new machine. So from the universe of possible hardware installations, Linux might be superior; from the universe of actual installations in 2015, it lags well behind Windows.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#89

Post by pera » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

jacob019 wrote: post #5

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.

Same here: started using Linux in 2000. Back then hardware support was a real big issue, software was missing, graphical environments for normal people not completely ready, etc. I think things really started to change after Ubuntu, and I would say that Linux got "ready for desktop" around 2008-9. My parents for instance have been using Ubuntu for many years (they also have a windows 7 laptop that is completely owned by malware) and they are very happy with it. Things changed a lot, but yeah, Linux isn't perfect yet, and I agree with some points (for instance the dpi thing). The only way that Linux could be massively used on desktop is by having a company like Microsoft making deals with every single manufacturer in the world for decades.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#90

Post by vezzy-fnord » Wed, Dec 30, 2015, 5:20 PM UTC

dman wrote: post #67

Animats wrote: post #62

He's right. Many of the driver problems come from the fact that Linux finally worked on the desktop about the time desktop machines were replaced by laptops. Desktops with slots tended to have relatively well-defined hardware, and plugging in third party hardware was normal. This is much less true for laptops. OS development for laptops requires that laptop. It needs a Q/A organization which has one of everything you…

Is Tanenbaum going to have the last laugh?

Tanenbaum was vindicated two decades ago, but most people have yet to get the memo. A lot are under the impression that basic software design principles apply to everything besides operating system kernels, for some reason. And the myth is highly persistent.