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Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

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Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#131

Post by e12e »

incarnated wrote: post #74
condescendence wrote: post #20

I don't get articles like these. First of all this website is worse than any OS environment I've ever used. So right from that standpoint I sorta gulped a bit before reading on. Graphics driver issues in linux are nothing new, Nvidia a few years back started officially porting drivers to linux but that doesn't solve all the problems. There's also projects like Nouveau; so if you're complaining about linux desktop fro…

Tell me how one can update a Windows system (incl. all installed applications) in a straightforward manner. Windows comes with no package manager, as far as I know.

OneGet and the Appstore might be taking steps in the right direction. Still no unified (apt-get upgrade and dist-upgrade) - but currently doing an in-place upgrade win7->win10 and I actually expect settings to be retained and programs to continue working.

For (especially) FOSS software, you might want to look at http://scoop.sh/

OneGet appears to be more of a wip:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/packagemanagement/archive/2015/05...

https://github.com/OneGet/oneget/wiki/cmdlets

But still useful.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#132

Post by e12e »

sandGorgon wrote: post #129
e12e wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically vim exposes the x11 clipboards (plural) as registers - I never use registers, but I think "+p [Ed: for those not familiar with vim: " can be thought of as 'with/from/into register named:', + is the register and p is paste. Similarily "+yw is 'yank/copy current word into register named +' ] should be paste x11 selection. I don't normally use gvim/vim as an x11 application, but looks like * (star) is typica…

why does it work on osx then ? is there something special happening at the OS level there ?

Afaik ctrl-v works in gvim? (I think its just bound to "+p or similar).

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#133

Post by vezzy-fnord »

archimedespi wrote: post #118
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…

> The monolithic Linux kernel is just too big. What is it now, 20,000,000 lines? There's no hope of debugging that. It shows. The Linux kernel is about 20MSLOC. The Windows kernel is about 50MSLOC. IIRC, OS X used to be ~80KSLOC. Problems with debugging are endemic to any monolithic kernel. Neither Windows nor OS X is easier to debug technologically , but Microsoft and Apple both have many employees and lots of money…

Kernel debuggers exist. Of course, we're all aware of Linus' opinion on the matter.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#134

Post by ris »

As a full-time "linux desktop" (whatever that is) user, all of these problems pain me. But of course the truth is that no other system "just works" either, so it's not as though it's unique. (We have an office full of Macintoshes which cause people endless trouble, so don't go there...)

I do feel that the "linux desktop" has regressed slightly in the last few years however. My transition from a debian wheezy to debian jessie desktop certainly felt like going backwards. GTK3-ified applications have significant focus and scrollwheel problems. KDE4 appeared to have reached a peak of maturity around 4.7/4.8 - jessie's now has notifications that steal focus. Akonadi/kmail2 has made what used to be one of my favourite applications essentially unusable.

NetworkManager continues to baffle as ever.

Systemd/journald, well, it's mostly that I'm not particularly used to them yet, and so tracking down problems requires grappling with a bunch of new concepts every time there is trouble.

It's a chore occasionally, but I still thank god every day I don't have to use macos or windows.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#135

Post by agumonkey »

wvenable wrote: post #19
edtechdev wrote: post #9

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…

> 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.

On what machine btw ?

I have a minimal system, but it boots in 4 seconds from BIOS to ion3 (arch). It's funny when the BIOS takes longer than booting. #coreboot

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#136

Post by ris »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #90
dman wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's quite telling though that most microkernel proponents tend not to be kernel developers.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#137

Post by enobrev »

sandGorgon wrote: post #122
enobrev wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the issue specific to terminal or are you seeing it somewhere else? The issue is that the default terminal behavior of ctrl+c sends a SIGINT to the running application[1], and so terminal programs override it with shift+ctrl+c, and likely add the shift for the others for consistency. I use "Terminator" as my terminal app - which allows you to set your keybindings - so I replace the "shift" in copy / paste and it's…

no please - I'm not talking about ctrl-C. I'm talking about CUA - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access Even on OSX, the bindings that are used are cmd-c and cmd-v. It is universal - if you have never used the terminal, vim and firefox on a mac... I really urge you to do that. you'll see what i mean.

I see, thank you for clarifying. Having used all versions of Windows up until 8[1] and 8+ years of ubuntu, I'm surprised I never realized this standard existed. It makes perfect sense that it does - I just didn't know it. I agree that it's unfortunate it's not as well supported on Linux as it should be.

Coming from the other side of things, I had a lot of trouble when I was lent a brand new Macbook Pro for travel during my last job. It seemed some things worked using cmd and others using ctrl. I don't remember the specifics, as I didn't use it often enough, except that I'd find myself mashing keys on occasion trying to figure out the right combination.

It was far worse when I dual booted with ubuntu. The keys made no sense to me there either. Finally, I replaced OSX completely and the keys were "normal" again (ctrl+* for everything).

1: Also lots of DOS, but I don't even remember what versions. I had managed lots of desktops and servers running DOS for a few years in IT a couple lifetimes ago.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#138

Post by lvs »

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.

Whether there's continuing support for a product is a very different issue. At some point, all consumer hardware was functional in a version of Windows or OS X, since it was released precisely with support for one or both of those OSs. Yes, updates break things, but that is a very different problem than the one facing Linux. The problem facing Linux is that manufacturers are not supporting (or not seeking with much vigor to support) any Linux distribution upon initial release of the hardware.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#139

Post by at-fates-hands »

ishbits wrote: post #18

I've been using Linux on the desktop daily since about 1998. It may look a little prettier today, but I find it crashes and freezes a whole lot more these days.

This is surprising to me. I do most of my web development on Linux Mint and crashes are rare - like Sasquatch rare.

I've also used:

Mandriva Unbuntu 14 Slackware

And had the same near-perfect performance with those distros as well. I was always told one of the great advantages with Linux is how stable it is and for the last decade or so, I've found that to be true.

Now I'm curious to know what you're doing to make your OS crash so much.

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