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Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

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Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#141

Post by ordu »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #111
jrockway wrote: post #27

I feel like a lot of the usability quirks that Linux has are trying to shoehorn a multi-user system into a single-user context. For example, there is so much work done (and even complaining in favor of doing that work in this article) to make it possible for multiple people to sit at the same computer. Nobody does that! Most people have more than one computer! Why do people spend their free time on that use case? Thi…

Right? The only reason user accounts exist at all in Desktop OSs is that all of them today were originally server OSs. Placing restrictions on user accounts is only useful for protecting the system from users, which is a valid concern on a network with shared resources but worse than useless on a personal desktop. Mobile OSs got this right: on a personal device, the permissions model should be applied to the applicat…

> Mobile OSs got this right: on a personal device, the permissions model should be applied to the applications.

I cannot agree. If I want to run another browser instance, I cannot do that on a mobile system. Maybe it would possible to do with some support from browser's developers but with multiuser system I need no support from developers, I can create new user and run another browser that would believe that it is the only browser instance running.

It is not just browsers. I can easily experiment with program configs, for example. Something doesn't work, I want to check is it due to some application configs or it's installed plugins. All I need is to create one more user and to start program instance from that user.

Android relies on SELinux, and SELinux allows much more than old user system, but SELinux is much bigger headache when you are trying to use it in a way that was not supposed by Google. So in reality SELinux on Android allow me to do nothing, I even cannot run app that requires access to a contact list without allowing it to access a contact list. It would be nice to create one more user on Android with empty contact list and to run this program from that user. Moreover I'd like to create user with faked contact list, faked browser history, with faked all the private information, and to run most of the apps from that user.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#142

Post by shrimp_emoji »

darkpuma wrote: post #136
godelski wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally my only (big) complaint about Linux. Video drivers just SUCK . I have NEVER had a plug and play solution for display from my laptop. I do expect to be able to plug in an HDMI cable and be able to give a presentation. And I expect to be able to do this with an nvidia card. But they have always failed me and I don't understand why this problem still exists (I would actually be interested if someone kn…

It's an Nvidia problem. Nvidia's proprietary drivers suck and they're nasty to anybody who tries to develop open source drivers for their cards. AMD and Intel GPUs have been flawless plug-and-play for years now. AMD plays nice with linux developers and you should give them, not Nvidia, your money.

I was surprised when I saw the newest Vega firmwares show up in my /lib/firmware/amdgpu/ with a kernel update only 6 days after the release of the last AMD GPU -- and on Manjaro, where updates are supposedly delayed a little. AMD touted "day one Linux support", which I don't know if they fulfilled, but they're certainly more committed to Linux than Nvidia.

Unfortunately, Nvidia's so dominant (and rightly-so from a price-per-performance unit standpoint).

Also, though: would someone on Ubuntu or a point release distro (which is the majority of Linux end users) have these new firmwares, ever, until they reinstalled to the next OS version? Since hardware driver support seems so tied to the kernel version, I would think not unless they manually updated the kernel (which, not only is that scary on a distro meant to run with a specific kernel but it's something they have to go out of their way to do), which also means they'd miss out on DE improvements and other hardware/protocol support by as much as a year or more, depending on their upgrade cadence. TL;DR: rolling release provides the best Windows-like experience, and an Arch-based distro that emphasizes usability and mitigation of updates that break the system is what best fills that niche, so Manjaro master race.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#143

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

ilovecaching wrote: post #107
baroffoos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found its super dependent on what hardware you get, Especially on laptops. I always pick hardware that works perfectly with linux and I am left with a very premium experience but when using linux on bad hardware like macbooks and broadcom wifi everything just doesn't work right.

Yep. Exactly this. If you get a laptop that a GNOME developer uses, chances are you’ll run into maybe two issues a year. But try to get GNOME to run on two 4K displays and an RTX. But here’s the thing. Linux has won. Desktop is a dying market. Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone and in the data center, which is where it counts. The DE has gotten much better transitively from all the work that’s…

> Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone...

So what happens if/when Google switches to Fuchsia on their phones?

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#144

Post by ilovecaching »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #143
ilovecaching wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Exactly this. If you get a laptop that a GNOME developer uses, chances are you’ll run into maybe two issues a year. But try to get GNOME to run on two 4K displays and an RTX. But here’s the thing. Linux has won. Desktop is a dying market. Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone and in the data center, which is where it counts. The DE has gotten much better transitively from all the work that’s…

> Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone... So what happens if/when Google switches to Fuchsia on their phones?

At this stage, I’d say I’ll believe it when I see it. I don’t doubt that Google has the capacity, but replacing a kernel that works is fraught with peril, and it could very well be that Fuschia remains yet another Google research project.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#145

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

ordu wrote: post #141
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? The only reason user accounts exist at all in Desktop OSs is that all of them today were originally server OSs. Placing restrictions on user accounts is only useful for protecting the system from users, which is a valid concern on a network with shared resources but worse than useless on a personal desktop. Mobile OSs got this right: on a personal device, the permissions model should be applied to the applicat…

> Mobile OSs got this right: on a personal device, the permissions model should be applied to the applications. I cannot agree. If I want to run another browser instance, I cannot do that on a mobile system. Maybe it would possible to do with some support from browser's developers but with multiuser system I need no support from developers, I can create new user and run another browser that would believe that it is t…

Nothing you're describing is a problem with the model, just the implementation. All of those things are easily solvable by being able to choose how the program sees the world. You can do it today with the various namespaces in Linux.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#146

Post by JonathonW »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #111
jrockway wrote: post #27

I feel like a lot of the usability quirks that Linux has are trying to shoehorn a multi-user system into a single-user context. For example, there is so much work done (and even complaining in favor of doing that work in this article) to make it possible for multiple people to sit at the same computer. Nobody does that! Most people have more than one computer! Why do people spend their free time on that use case? Thi…

Right? The only reason user accounts exist at all in Desktop OSs is that all of them today were originally server OSs. Placing restrictions on user accounts is only useful for protecting the system from users, which is a valid concern on a network with shared resources but worse than useless on a personal desktop. Mobile OSs got this right: on a personal device, the permissions model should be applied to the applicat…

> Placing restrictions on user accounts is only useful for protecting the system from users, which is a valid concern on a network with shared resources but worse than useless on a personal desktop.

True for home users; not necessarily true for corporate users-- where computers are IT-managed (i.e. "don't let end users fuck them up") and may be shared (which is highly situational-- the degree to which computers are shared varies highly from company to company, or even deployment to deployment).

Heck, it's not even unheard of to end up with multiple "simultaneous" users on a single-seat desktop machine-- every major OS these days supports some form of fast user switching, which will leave one user's programs running while another user's physically sitting at the machine.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#147

Post by copperx »

darkpuma wrote: post #136
godelski wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is literally my only (big) complaint about Linux. Video drivers just SUCK . I have NEVER had a plug and play solution for display from my laptop. I do expect to be able to plug in an HDMI cable and be able to give a presentation. And I expect to be able to do this with an nvidia card. But they have always failed me and I don't understand why this problem still exists (I would actually be interested if someone kn…

It's an Nvidia problem. Nvidia's proprietary drivers suck and they're nasty to anybody who tries to develop open source drivers for their cards. AMD and Intel GPUs have been flawless plug-and-play for years now. AMD plays nice with linux developers and you should give them, not Nvidia, your money.

The TFA mentions video issues as Nvidia/AMD's fault. To a reader, it might seem they are equally bad.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#148

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #135
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flatpak is over-engineered garbage. You still can't even install things on different disks without setting up an entirely new 'installation' or whatever they call it. And you still need a repo. Meanwhile I can trivially make most Windows software work from a USB drive I can carry around between computers. AppImage can do that too, since it is a lot less over-engineered, but sadly very few developers use AppImage and…

I'm surprised to find that you have good luck with that; last time I looked, it was a nightmare for anything that didn't explicitly support portable mode because everything expects to save stuff into the registry.

There are several tools to help with that, like the PortableApps.com launcher, JauntePE, or even Cameyo. Programs that just use config files can usually be dealt with without those kinds of wrappers by changing an environment variable. But if you don't mind not bringing the config with you (and it often isn't an issue in my experience), you can usually just drop the folder on the drive and you're done.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#149

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #134
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the defense for "there are problems with Linux" always some appeal to the workflow of a strawman 'average user'? A class of people which, I might add, still show no interest in using Linux.

Because as a general rule the power users already have minimal problems and can fix them pretty easily. So the next concern is people who aren't familiar with the system, i.e. average users.

Have you considered that even many power users don't want to use Linux Desktop? It has by no means won over even that crowd.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#150

Post by diffeomorphism »

pnutjam wrote: post #71
0xb100db1ade wrote: post #10

What I get out of this is that while each of these issues may be individually dismissed, they together make for a very "non-premium" experience. I use linux myself, but when people I know try it out, they immediately leave after encountering problems with audio, dpi scaling, etc

Try OpenSuse, it has the best hardware support by far.

Why would it? Hardware support boils down to new kernels, mesa stacks etc and how many non-free drivers the distro wants to include. Opensuse (Leap) is not particularly cutting edge and is more restricted concerning non-free components than many other distros (e.g. why does it need pacman?).

So, no. It does not have "the best" hardware support and no distro has "by far" more hardware support than all other distros.

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