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Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

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Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#271

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

darkpuma wrote: post #212
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…

> The only reason user accounts exist at all in Desktop OSs is that all of them today were originally server OSs. > "We managed to share home desktop computers in the 90s without significant problems, even though the OSs we used didn't support multiple user accounts at all." That's not true. Window 9x series had user accounts (with no security between them.) This was beneficial to users because computers were expensi…

Those aren't OS-level accounts, they have no (local) permissions system applied to them, they're just profiles. Regardless, I can assure you that basically nobody used them in the 90s.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#272

Post by Octoth0rpe »

jcelerier wrote: post #264
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #38

> Android is not Linux I really, _really_ hate this statement. Android meets the only definition of 'linux' that matters IMO: it runs on a linux kernel. That's linux, full stop. That said, I do find myself agreeing with most of the points listed there. I just not sure I'd call them 'linux on the desktop' issues per se. They're wayland/xorg issues, deb/rpm/flatpack/snap issues, pulseaudio/alsa issues, gtk/qt issues, e…

> Android meets the only definition of 'linux' that matters IMO: it runs on a linux kernel. That's linux, full stop. So what do you think of WSL ? It has all the things of an Ubuntu, but it does not run a Linux kernel.

I think it's misnamed. I'm not sure what I'd call it though. Gnu/Windows Subsystem? But yeah, linux to me is anything running a linux kernel.

I think the _real_ edge case that I'm not sure on are the l4 kernels that run linux kernels for drivers.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#273

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

frankling_ wrote: post #198
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same is true of the other walled gardens.

I fail to see how the package management in a Linux distribution could be considered a walled garden. Commonly it's cited as the exact opposite of that (see the table here: [1]). What type of freedom are you missing in something like Debian, where you can edit and recompile the core components of your system at a whim, the system even supporting you through source packages, and where anything outside the package mana…

The freedom to not have to jump through ridiculous hoops like compiling from source just to use an application the distro didn't deem worthy of inclusion in their repo.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#274

Post by sametmax »

rbanffy wrote: post #249
Animats wrote: post #162

He's right, of course. The Linux community has been in denial about this for years. At the kernel level and close to it, the areas that consistently give trouble are video/GPU support and audio support. GPUs are hard, but there's no excuse for the mess in audio persisting for a decade. Video/GPU support is tough, but the current situation, where you have a choice of five different NVidia drivers for the same board, a…

> The Linux community has been in denial about this for years. That's not right. We all know support for some hardware is spotty and we all have learned to avoid that. My laptops tend to use Intel GPUs, for instance, because I want to work on them, not fix them. I'm eyeing that new Lenovo thingie with an epaper keyboard, but I know it'll run Windows and probably never be upgraded because nobody will write the drivers…

> Nope. It's still moving forward and it's still quite reliable. All my workloads run on it (except my pets that run on FreeBSD and OpenIndiana because I get a kick out of managing different OSs).

That's the denial there.

I'm a Linux guy. I post this from a linux distrib.

But realistically, we do have a huge amount of technical debt, and less and less incentive to work on them.

Case in point: every time we touch something to improve it, we break things for one year or two. Pulse audio ? Took 4 years to be stable. Systemd ? 3 years at least. Network manager crashed for 6 good years, and still can't work decently with sleep mode.

We manage to provide features because the linux kernel devs are incredibly competent. They also limited the bloat to a manageable stack on their side. But around that it's the far west.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#275

Post by geezerjay »

pjmlp wrote: post #203
geezerjay wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Laptops and 2-1 devices are the future desktop, and Linux has hardly won there. That is more due to how OEMs lock out non-windows OSes from running on their hardware. If users were given a choice, the "windows tax" alone would be enough to convince people to give linux a try, particularly in the low-end segment.

iOS and Android are non-windows OSes.

I'm sure you are aware that:

* Android is technically linux, but typically smartphones are locked in.

* All apple products are notoriously locked in.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#277

Post by sametmax »

michaelmrose wrote: post #214
Animats wrote: post #162

He's right, of course. The Linux community has been in denial about this for years. At the kernel level and close to it, the areas that consistently give trouble are video/GPU support and audio support. GPUs are hard, but there's no excuse for the mess in audio persisting for a decade. Video/GPU support is tough, but the current situation, where you have a choice of five different NVidia drivers for the same board, a…

People aren't in denial people are by and large aware of the issues an average person experiences when using Linux and the resources or lack thereof available to reverse engineer an entire universe of unfriendly hardware vendors work to enable joe blow to take his $399 walmart special and install linux on it. If people want linux on the desktop to offer a more polished experience the only way about it is for everyone…

> unfriendly hardware vendors

You mean people with economical pressure to be profitable ?

As a Linux user, I know I represent a fraction of the market. I'm grateful when people invest in us, because I know it's a great move in principle, but it's not always one money-wise.

Building hardware is HARD. Selling is HARD.

Being dismissive to the people not being able to provide linux support is not going to win them to our cause.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#278

Post by sametmax »

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 and in the data center, which is where it counts.

Since phones are completly locked down, and Linux is the symbol of freedom by software, I'm not sure of that.

Besides, companies still needs desktops (or laptops) to work. Nobody is going to do accounting on Android or iOS. And I'm certainly not going to dev on something else than Ubuntu.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#279

Post by breakingcups »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #261
simonh wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be viable as a general desktop environment for non-technical users, that has to be true not just for some users like yourself, but for all but about a few in a thousand users across a very wide cross section of available hardware.

> across a very wide cross section of available hardware This is a sticking point I just cannot get behind. When you're purchasing a computer running Windows, it is optimized for Windows. When you're purchasing a Mac, it is optimized to run macOS. So it should logically follow that if you want hardware optimized to run Linux, you should purchase that specifically. Expecting Linux to work flawlessly on any random junk…

What? When I'm purchasing a computer, any computer, I know with (near) 100% certainty it will run Windows flawlessly. I definitely expect Windows to run on any random junk.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#280

Post by bluedino »

alxlaz wrote: post #247
nitrogen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Linux on the desktop since Mandrake was a thing; if there's one thing I'm tired of it's having the "choice" of five broken implementations of an app rather than just one that works (the reverse is also annoying, when one broken monolith crowds out five working predecessors).

I've been using Linux since about the same time, and while I find the five-broken-implementations thing rather exhausting at times, I am more than thankful for it. It's one of the reasons why Linux (and FOSS software) is so damn useful. Just look at Windows land, where they do have one implementation to rule them all, more or less (Windows 10). Everyone who dislikes its telemetry or almost touch-only interface is eit…

I really want to know how GNOME 3 even saw the light of day, and why distros like Fedora even went with it. Unusable.
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