211–220 of 362 posts
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Don't forget Upstart, Juju, and Ubuntu Phone
Wait JuJu is dead?
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To be completely honest, if Canonical ever wants the theoretical "year of the Linux desktop" to happen, they need a way to get proper cloud accounts working. A big part of the value of Apple's ecosystem is iCloud. Microsoft has done the same thing with the syncing and cross platform capabilities of their Microsoft Accounts. Most Linux users today don't care much if they need to create separate email, cloud storage, b…
For my money, the year of the Linux Desktop was 2008. It's just that nobody noticed. Since 2008, Linux has had the best combination of performance and hardware support on older machines, and the advantage has only grown since then. Windows and MacOS keep falling further behind in usability on machines older than four years, and that's the only hardware I would purchase for personal use. Why throw your money away on p…
As long as Linux lacks native support for Autodesk, Adobe CC, Office 365, FL Studio, Pro Tools, etc. and dozens of other niche programs by ISVs it will never approach the mainstream with any sort of widespread appeal. Currently Linux on the desktop is suitable for people who are aware of these limitations and either circumvent (through technical means such as WINE, which are opaque to the typical end-user) or tolerate them, acknowledging the limitations and doing nothing to mitigate them while embracing Linux's strengths as a web and educational medium (think Chromebooks).
I legitimately have tried going Linux-only several times in my life and I've just come back to Windows every time. I know it's not ideal from a security perspective, a privacy perspective, etc. but there is just zero competition with Windows in terms of a software support perspective. Windows' backwards compatibility and range of software support is a masterclass in how to enable productivity. Even MacOS doesn't come close, with how frequently Apple breaks stuff that's expected to be supported (32-bit app support, Rosetta, etc) and how frequently they change architectures (68k > PowerPC > Intel > RISC, vs Microsoft with 32-bit Intel > 64/32-bit Intel)
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To be completely honest, if Canonical ever wants the theoretical "year of the Linux desktop" to happen, they need a way to get proper cloud accounts working. A big part of the value of Apple's ecosystem is iCloud. Microsoft has done the same thing with the syncing and cross platform capabilities of their Microsoft Accounts. Most Linux users today don't care much if they need to create separate email, cloud storage, b…
For my money, the year of the Linux Desktop was 2008. It's just that nobody noticed. Since 2008, Linux has had the best combination of performance and hardware support on older machines, and the advantage has only grown since then. Windows and MacOS keep falling further behind in usability on machines older than four years, and that's the only hardware I would purchase for personal use. Why throw your money away on p…
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Honestly I think it’s simpler than that. The Linux desktop experience is just terrible... I have never successfully installed a Linux distro without having to fiddle with some boot flag or some config file. Every major Linux desktop environment has been unreliable at best. Software support is fragmented across dozens of distros. I think WSL has been the biggest win for Linux on the desktop, but ironically it’s on win…
What year is this? Linux desktop experience is fantastic in 2020. It has been for several years. That's bordering FUD you're spreading.
Fantastic is a matter of opinion and I have a feeling that the majority wouldn't share that opinion.
People with your opinion are most likely used to buying hardware that is supported or at least not buying stuff that almost certainly wont work and installing and moving on. You think the parent poster is full of it.
People with the parents opinion are used to buying something that works well with windows trying to install Linux finding 3 things that don't work well fixing 2 out of 3 and quitting in frustration. He thinks you are full of it or willing to devote far more time to fixing broken shit.
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For my money, the year of the Linux Desktop was 2008. It's just that nobody noticed. Since 2008, Linux has had the best combination of performance and hardware support on older machines, and the advantage has only grown since then. Windows and MacOS keep falling further behind in usability on machines older than four years, and that's the only hardware I would purchase for personal use. Why throw your money away on p…
In terms of usability, yes, but the problem with Linux in recent years has rarely been usability, it's the lack of workstation-level applications that are readily available on Windows and MacOS. As long as Linux lacks native support for Autodesk, Adobe CC, Office 365, FL Studio, Pro Tools, etc. and dozens of other niche programs by ISVs it will never approach the mainstream with any sort of widespread appeal. Current…
First, it wasn't usable. Then, it didn't have drivers. Then, it crashed a lot. Now it doesn't have Autodesk stuff? For the record, my mom doesn't know what Autodesk is. A "desktop" for me is where you can play movies, edit documents, browse the net and check email.
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Canonical doesn't seem to understand that if I wanted a gate-kept system, there are plenty of better, non-Linux options in this world. Canonical seems to have forgotten why Linux exists to begin with.
Canonical is betting on there being people who want to run some Linux exclusive software but don't care about idealism. Edit: In hindsight I think this comment was too cynical. I like canonical mostly.
Like what? I run Linux because I want control of my computer. The minute a distro starts gatekeeping, the moment I switch to a different distro.
Increasingly, you can run Linux software on non-Linux OSes, if a piece of software is all you care about.
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In terms of usability, yes, but the problem with Linux in recent years has rarely been usability, it's the lack of workstation-level applications that are readily available on Windows and MacOS. As long as Linux lacks native support for Autodesk, Adobe CC, Office 365, FL Studio, Pro Tools, etc. and dozens of other niche programs by ISVs it will never approach the mainstream with any sort of widespread appeal. Current…
That seems like a moving goalpost to me. First, it wasn't usable. Then, it didn't have drivers. Then, it crashed a lot. Now it doesn't have Autodesk stuff? For the record, my mom doesn't know what Autodesk is. A "desktop" for me is where you can play movies, edit documents, browse the net and check email.
Say your mom decides she likes photography one day and decides to buy a camera and take some lessons. Say her teacher says "we use lightroom and photoshop so you'll need to have these because they're industry standard" and she has no idea what to do and why the Adobe CC launcher won't load on Linux. Then she'll call you up and ask why it won't work, you'll respond with "there's no photoshop, you can use GIMP though" and your mom being a regular computer user won't be familiar with the eccentricities of GIMP as editing software and will be lost and unable to follow through on her new hobby.
This has literally happened to people in my life I've recommended Ubuntu to. Too many times to count.
Debian user here, who has apparently missed the memo: What do snaps do that apt doesn't?
Pollute your mount list and make your software start way slower and take up more space. Also sometimes break or require intervention for basic operation due to security restrictions on it. The benefits are supposed to be that they're more secure, more portable, and don't junk up your system with files strewn everywhere. Personally I'm waiting for a better solution than anything we've seen so far for the first of thos…
You can have very secure deb packages by having default-deny apparmor rules. This is basically how Android works, it just asks you to grant the permissions in real time (and uses a frankenmix of custom Google fu Android Java API and selinux).
You can also use cgroups to control kernel feature access like devices, networking, peripherals, etc.
It comes from both angles though. Having more software provide an apparmor profile (transpilable to selinux policies, etc) and having GUI-integrated permissions and cgroups control functionality in both software stores (via appstream? it seems to be the common thread) for both at-install and at-runtime permission grants.
The problem of course is inertia. Flatpak isn't even compelled to sandbox and its sandbox is not nearly as comprehensive as one would want when running untrusted software, not just potentially exploitable buggy trusted code.
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That seems like a moving goalpost to me. First, it wasn't usable. Then, it didn't have drivers. Then, it crashed a lot. Now it doesn't have Autodesk stuff? For the record, my mom doesn't know what Autodesk is. A "desktop" for me is where you can play movies, edit documents, browse the net and check email.
And Linux is fantastic for that, until you come across a use case that is outside those typical bounds. Say your mom decides she likes photography one day and decides to buy a camera and take some lessons. Say her teacher says "we use lightroom and photoshop so you'll need to have these because they're industry standard" and she has no idea what to do and why the Adobe CC launcher won't load on Linux. Then she'll cal…
It's not a technical problem because people like my mom can learn to use GIMP (note: people who use photo editing software are "pros" of a kind, anyway; "regular" users don't know how to edit photos, either) or Krita or whatever. But even if you fix GIMP's UX issues, it's still not Photoshop or Lightroom, so the problem remains: there's no Adobe software for Linux.
But that's not what being ready for the desktop is about. That's not what a desktop is for most people, either. All in my opinion, of course.
PS: if Lightroom magically makes it to Linux (hypothetical thought experiment), but then it's Overwatch or some other high profile AAA game that doesn't run natively, is it still a problem of the Linux desktop?
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My experience aligns far more with parent's than yours. The Linux Desktop experience is still pretty garbage.
Here is an example : take an Intel nuc : Ubuntu, everything works out of box. Win10 ? Let's download a WiFi driver on Intel site ! Let's hope you have Ethernet or a windows 10 supported wifi device. And no, the wifi dongle lying around is too old, windows 7 only... What is your example ?