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The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

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Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#61

Post by mbubb »

piger wrote: post #25

People keep saying "it works for me, go away", as if other people who care about a DECENT desktop experience are just morons. "Ah! Another stupid windows/osx user!" I don't care about your fvwm desktop with 99 xterms and emacs everywhere, or your fully customized arch linux that "works for you"; I, like many other people, have different needs. And yet the general response from the community is "fuck off". First rule…

No - not true. There are glitches but none of them a dealbreaker. I am not a masochist - if it caused me pain I would have stopped using Linux on my laptop years ago.

Much of what I do is commandline. So a not atypical work setup is to have some kind of messenger, a browser, a terminal and thunderbird running.

That is 95% of my day and it works great. I would switch if it didn't. I am not trying to play the Linux version of the longbearded UNIX grump (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/) .

Really it works great and I would not willingly go back to Windows. And would grudgingly go back to MacOS.

I don't understand the flipside - why people complain about Linux desktop. You should make it work or go back to your OS of choice.

I get sucked into these articles because I think I might learn something or see something in a different way. THey almost always disapoint.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#62

Post by jpr »

ajross wrote: post #45
mkr-hn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My issue is that the Linux applications I use have good Windows ports, and it's hard to find motivation to improve an OS I don't use. There are even some Windows applications I use that don't have a Linux port. The usual response is "run it in WINE," but then I ask "why?" It already works! Linux is already a fine server OS and ecosystem. I think the "Linux desktop" has become less relevant with the rise of smartphone…

Linux is a fine desktop OS and ecosystem, you just don't use it so you don't care. I'm in exactly the opposite situation. Find me a windows editor like X11 emacs. A windows terminal editor that even comes close to gnome-terminal or konsole? These are my killer apps. And I won't use other platforms because they don't have them.

What exactly is different between X11 emacs and win32 emacs? I haven't noticed anything significant.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#63

Post by mbubb »

Nitramp wrote: post #35
Spyro7 wrote: post #3

I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. I find it strange that the author says they should have gone back to FreeBSD. In terms of "desktop" experience, both of these operating systems are somewhat similar. I understand his complaints about the driver situation, but, really, this just means that you need to do some…

For different values of "works". I've recently started using a Linux desktop again, in a very well supported corporate environment. Even with very professional people supporting my exact configuration (so hardware support is not much of an issue), it's still barely usable for me. Many major applications have significant usability problems, sound support is extremely spotty, window management on the desktop has absurd…

   I've recently started using a Linux desktop again ...  I'm currently back to using a Mac laptop
So which is it? It sounds like you switched under some compulsion (corporate policy etc). I have seen this attitude. It is not so much that "things don't work" as "things have to be configured". It took me a solid week to get used to Unity (on Ubuntu 11.04) and the jury is still out on how I feel about it.

One thing to consider when you are going over to the Linux desktop is that the end user has to be a lot more participatory in the overall setup. It takes a little time to get everything as you want it.

A Mac laptop out of the box is a lot more ready. After a few weeks my hp laptop with Ubuntu is irreplaceable. (and I would imagine the same with Arch or Fedora, etc)

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#64

Post by mbubb »

w1ntermute wrote: post #20
Spyro7 wrote: post #3

I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. I find it strange that the author says they should have gone back to FreeBSD. In terms of "desktop" experience, both of these operating systems are somewhat similar. I understand his complaints about the driver situation, but, really, this just means that you need to do some…

> I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. > I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. Same here. My solution: just stop reading the articles. Linux has and continues to work for me. Let them bitch about Linux, it's their loss.

Funny - I get drawn in too, especially on HN. I think I might learn something or figure out a new way of doing things. But usually turns out to be 'whining about wine...' and other such topics that are not really that useful.

Think I will try to avoid the temptation as well.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#65

Post by mbubb »

w1ntermute wrote: post #20
Spyro7 wrote: post #3

I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. I find it strange that the author says they should have gone back to FreeBSD. In terms of "desktop" experience, both of these operating systems are somewhat similar. I understand his complaints about the driver situation, but, really, this just means that you need to do some…

> I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. > I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. Same here. My solution: just stop reading the articles. Linux has and continues to work for me. Let them bitch about Linux, it's their loss.

Funny - I get drawn in too, especially on HN. I think I might learn something or figure out a new way of doing things. But usually turns out to be 'whining about wine...' and other such topics that are not really that useful.

Think I will try to avoid the temptation as well.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#66

Post by mbubb »

This article is better than most on the subject. I thought the analogy to communism weak but some of other points good.

This was very true:

   What have you done? Sure, very few users are software engineers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help. Bug reports are just as important as patches. Ideas and suggestions for improvements are highly valued as well. Don’t sit in the shadows doing nothing - step into the light and do something to help your favorite project get a little bit better.

   Step by step. Fix by fix. Improvement by improvement. This is how good software gets created.
For me I have been on the sidelines my whole career - and he is right. Should try to rectify this.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#67

Post by BCM43 »

jpr wrote: post #62
ajross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux is a fine desktop OS and ecosystem, you just don't use it so you don't care. I'm in exactly the opposite situation. Find me a windows editor like X11 emacs. A windows terminal editor that even comes close to gnome-terminal or konsole? These are my killer apps. And I won't use other platforms because they don't have them.

What exactly is different between X11 emacs and win32 emacs? I haven't noticed anything significant.

There are a number of functions that I have come across that only work on the linux version of emacs. I can't remember any off the top of my head though.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#68

Post by hackoder »

jarin wrote: post #55
hackoder wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does development on windows suck? For the most part, development on any platform (windows, osx, linux) seems to be about the same. Its the other stuff that can get annoying; mostly driver issues I would guess. But again, that's something that isn't a challenge on windows anyway?

For me it's mostly the ease (or lack of ease) of managing tools and dependencies. Homebrew, RVM, Pow, zsh, MacVim (or TextMate if that's your thing), et al. are amazing, not to mention all of the built-in packages. I'm aware that some things are usable via cygwin, but in my experience it's a huge pain and doesn't work with a ton of stuff I need anyway. I really don't like spending time futzing around with things if I…

(To the other parent as well).

Arguably, tools and dependency management is better on a linux platform.

I've found (recently) that working in a VM is the right thing (tm) to do even on a *nix platform. It helps keep your development environment completely segregated and your "desktop" OS clean as well. Since nautilus has built in support for mounting a drive over SSH, and it is very doable on os x using something like MacFusion, the desktop OS just becomes a window into your development environment and becomes mostly secondary.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#69

Post by Nitramp »

mbubb wrote: post #63
Nitramp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For different values of "works". I've recently started using a Linux desktop again, in a very well supported corporate environment. Even with very professional people supporting my exact configuration (so hardware support is not much of an issue), it's still barely usable for me. Many major applications have significant usability problems, sound support is extremely spotty, window management on the desktop has absurd…

I've recently started using a Linux desktop again ... I'm currently back to using a Mac laptop So which is it? It sounds like you switched under some compulsion (corporate policy etc). I have seen this attitude. It is not so much that "things don't work" as "things have to be configured". It took me a solid week to get used to Unity (on Ubuntu 11.04) and the jury is still out on how I feel about it. One thing to cons…

I have used a Linux desktop in the past, without being forced, so I'm not totally opposing it for religious reasons. Quite the contrary: I couldn't stand working on Windows, without a proper shell and all its extremely annoying notifications.

Some things have to be configured, but the things I find most enraging are all the usability issues in Gnome (on Ubuntu).

Which kind of makes sense - there is no single authority ensuring quality and consistency, and most applications just got the 20% effort to fulfill their job, but not the 80% polish to be really good at it.

Re: The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

#70

Post by gnosis »

KeithMajhor wrote: post #40
KonradKlause wrote: post #2

Can we please stop this? When you don't like Linux on your desktop, don't use it. It's that easy.

It's a little bit hypocritical. But can we stop _this_. If you don't want to read articles about distaste of desktop linux. Don't click the link and/or downvote.

HN doesn't let you downvote articles.

However, they can be flagged, if you feel they are inappropriate for HN.

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