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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

#201

Post by sangnoir »

SEJeff wrote: post #175
archimedespi wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Not so sure I really disagree. If I had to guess, I'd think there are a lot more people working on the Linux kernel in aggregate than on either the Windows kernel or the OS X kernel.

Aren't a significant chunk of those people "working on the linux kernel" 1-commit wonders? My guess is if we rank by man-hours, Windows would top the list, possibly followed by OS X.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#202

Post by MegaDeKay »

jmsdnns wrote: post #192

oh linux, don't listen to them... there will always be people who say your desktop experience isn't good enough. the reality for most of the computing world is that linux has already won, it's just that they're using everywhere but the desktop. it's in robots, servers, billions of devices, every android phone, the boxes that power our tv's, inside our tv's now too, and it keeps spreading. if it isn't already, it'll b…

Tesla runs Ubuntu in their cars :-)

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#203

Post by twblalock »

melted wrote: post #51
izacus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your single laptop datapoint sure makes this article invalid :)

The article is just as data free as my single data point. My experience contradicts it. I use Linux _everywhere_ these days, on the desktop, on the laptop, and on my workstation at work. It works well. It's just not Windows, which seems to be the author's main consternation.

>The article is just as data free as my single data point.

No it isn't. The article contains links that confirm most of the problems it mentions. The problems may not affect you, but they definitely exist, and you can't dismiss them just because your laptop works properly.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#204

Post by mAritz »

One problem specific to gaming: Adjusting mouse pointer speed and acceleration is a huge pain.

I've tried SteamOS for gaming but especially playing FPS type games is really bad with acceleration. Disabling it usually requires X.org config changes and knowledge of some semi-arcane acceleration math. It's doable, but certainly not in any way easy.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#205

Post by tatterdemalion »

enobrev wrote: post #110
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,…

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…

> Unfortunately it doesn't allow you to override the SIG* keys

You should be able to set these with `stty` (they're not actually a function of the terminal but of the tty, a detail no one should have to know).

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#206

Post by simoncion »

ggreer wrote: post #163
jkbyc wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this already happening? http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/desktop/

Beware. I went out of my way to get an Ubuntu certified laptop[1]. It took me months to get it to a usable state. Graphics drivers crashed or corrupted the screen[2]. Bluetooth didn't work. Wifi didn't work. While suspended to RAM, it drained 10% of the battery every hour. In short, it was a nightmare. I've had it for almost two years now, and I've given up on getting Bluetooth to work. After resuming from suspend, t…

> Beware. I went out of my way to get an Ubuntu certified laptop[1]. It took me months to get it to a usable state.

Why didn't you return it and get -say- a Thinkpad? (Were you -perhaps- just curious how shitty the "Ubuntu Certified Laptop" program is?) It clearly failed the "Fitness for advertised purpose" test. AFAIK -if you're in the US- the seller can't refuse to accept your return... unless it was sold as-is.

> I doubt I'll ever buy a Linux laptop again, but if I do, I'll be sure to try it hands-on before buying.

I've found great success with the following method:

* Get a detailed list of the parts inside a given laptop. (lspci info from the target model is a really good sign)

* Run screaming if the video card is made by Nvidia. [0]

* Find if there are in-tree kernel drivers for each of the parts. (If there are, this is a really good sign.)

* Find the out-of-tree drivers for the remaining parts, and see if there are solid plans to get them in-tree. (If there are any such plans, that's a good sign.)

* Discover the known issues for all of those drivers.

* If the drivers seem to do everything that I need them to, and the known issues list doesn't contain any show-stoppers, the laptop will likely work just fine. :)

[0] I know that this is a controversial opinion. I've had awful luck with the nouveau driver and really bad luck with the official Nvidia driver. Other people haven't. I'll stick with Intel-powered laptop video cards if I can. :)

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#207

Post by mlinksva »

nextos wrote: post #151
zanny wrote: post #63

When you think Gnome, you probably think Fedora. Fedora and Gnome are buddy-buddy, and being basically the upstream of RHEL makes it the place to be if you are big on Gnome. KDE has Kubuntu, kind of, since its sponsored by Blue Systems, but there is a huge issue with how KDE is presented to users in that the Ubuntu release cycle has no correlation to the KDE one, and since Plasma 5 has started shipping in Kubuntu tha…

Nix perhaps?

Relatedly the article mentions "No unified installer/package manager/universal packaging format/dependency tracking across all distros (The GNU Guix project, which is meant to solve this problem, is now under development - but we are yet to see whether it will be incorporated by major distros)."

I'm not sure this accurately characterizes the goal of guix or nix but am hopeful for them anyway.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#208

Post by AnimalMuppet »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #187
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, if it's in cars (even if only one CPU per car, or even only in high-end cars), then yes, that certainly is "widely used". (In terms of numbers shipped, not necessarily in terms of "design wins" - but then, Windows doesn't have that many "design wins" either.)

So now you're moving the goalposts with "design wins". Just what are the design wins of a SysV Unix clone like Linux, pray tell? It's hard not to be on the offensive when you seem to beg for it. Where did the Windows comparison come from? The design wins, of course, should be obvious to anyone willing to do a modicum of research.

Nope, not moving the goalposts. Re-read my previous post.

To clarify: Windows is, by any definition, both "mainstream" and "widely used". Yet it has very few "design wins". Therefore, the argument that cars are "only a few design wins" cannot be used to say that QNX, say, is not widely used or mainstream, since Windows is obviously mainstream and widely used.

> It's hard not to be on the offensive when you seem to beg for it.

You need to re-calibrate your sensitivity. You seem eager to take offense at nearly everything. Very little of it is worthy of your outrage.

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#209

Post by protomyth »

jacquesm wrote: post #193
serge2k wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there source available for this or QNX?

Not for my stuff, I do have it (obviously) but it is definitely not worth sharing in the state it is in. Essentially it is a kernel, some userland device drivers and a rudimentary (but functional) network stack cobbled together from various bits and pieces. The toolchain was GCC and djgpp to bootstrap the development until it was capable of self hosting. It would need serious work (several man-months) before it could…

Wasn't there a patent on the message passing part of the QnX kernel?

Re: Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2016 Edition

#210

Post by ChuckMcM »

This is my favorite -- "! Applications development is a major PITA. Different distros can use a) different libraries versions b) different compiler flags c) different compilers. This leads to a number of problems raised to the third power. Packaging all dependent libraries is not a solution, because in this case your application may depend on older versions of libraries which contain serious remotely exploitable vulnerabilities."

Sometimes I explain it that Linux is roughly 65,000 different operating systems with the same name :-) It isn't as bad as that of course but the freedom to choose means that people do choose, and the challenges of selling your non-opensource software into that pool of choices is insurmountable to most companies.

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