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I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

theregister.com

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Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#51

Post by [deleted] »

twblalock wrote: post #18
encryptluks2 wrote: post #10

This article is sort of frustrating, because the issue they have isn't like something not working, just that there are multiple competing options and they want unity around all things.

Yeah but the fragmentation is the problem. One reason Windows and macOS are popular is that people know what they are going to get. If you've used one Windows 11 box, for example, you can get on another Windows 11 box and figure out how to use it. It will have the same user interface and window management as the other: the Start menu, the control panel, the desktop, etc. That's just not the case for Linux. There are…

[deleted]

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#52

Post by pjmlp »

cm2187 wrote: post #23

I get (and hate) the fact that Microsoft is pushing hard for the desktop to become a light client integrated in their cloud, but isn’t apple doing exactly the same? I don’t own a mac but my iphone nags me all the time to use apple’s cloud services for everything and I understand apple is making MacOS converge to iOS. The obstacle to switching to linux for me is not too many distributions, it is that I have to relearn…

So now Microsoft gets the hate for reviving the UNIX way of working.

How do you think companies were using X Windows?

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#53

Post by jotm »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #41

There seem to be two kinds of “Linux users”: those that constantly think about Windows, compare their operating system to Windows, and seem to think only “Linux” and “Windows” exists, and those that forget Windows exists and mostly compare different Unix flavors with one another. Theo de Raadt had some merit when he said that many “Linux users” seem to talk more about Windows than anything else and don't really like…

Why would I compare Linux distros? You can literally turn any one of them into another, all the packages are there (prebuilt or source). With some exceptions, of course.

I had ALL the Desktop Environments I could find installed at one point and was switching between them every other day. Compiz effects were the shizz! But I don't have the time/patience/motivation for that now :D

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#54

Post by wing-_-nuts »

demux wrote: post #29
shrimp_emoji wrote: post #27

KDE is the most fully featured Linux DE, and it's leaps and bounds above Windows's (WAY better file manager, better launcher, more features, and even less bugs somehow). The other day, my Windows 10's explorer.exe crashed when the file manager tried to load a directory, which is something that used to happen in Vista and hasn't happened in KDE for years IME.

Also shout out to KDE connect!

I've been trying to get kde connect working for about a month and I've yet to get to the point where my laptop and phone can actually 'see' each other even after whilelisting the ports in the firewall (or turning it completely off for that matter). FWIW I'm on Endevor OS (arch) with an xps 13 and a pixel 5a.

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#56

Post by 3a2d29 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #47

Much of the Linux desktop is balkanized and fragmentation is indeed a huge issue. People's obsession with choice is irritating given that doing more or less the same thing in 10 different ways half-right is worse than doing it once correctly. The entire distro-zoo built on top of the same distributions with different DE's on top of it is an example. The problem with Windows or Mac isn't that it looks, feels and works…

To add to this, I think Linus himself mentioned this issue at a talk at a Debian conference.

I think he even mentioned maybe gaming would save Linux from this, since games will not constantly update to fix compatibility issues so distros would be forced to behave.

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#57

Post by [deleted] »

pjmlp wrote: post #48
mrj wrote: post #30

Nonsense. There are billions of Android devices sold and customers don't seem too bothered by its fragmentation. They continue to buy Android devices en mass. So it seems fragmentation has many problems but that alone won't prevent people from using a device. I think the author believes that a critical mass of Linux desktop users will create enough interest in polish and solving problems for end users, so therefore b…

Because Android is the only viable alternative for those that either can't or won't buy an iPhone.

[deleted]

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#58

Post by pupppet »

mrj wrote: post #30

Nonsense. There are billions of Android devices sold and customers don't seem too bothered by its fragmentation. They continue to buy Android devices en mass. So it seems fragmentation has many problems but that alone won't prevent people from using a device. I think the author believes that a critical mass of Linux desktop users will create enough interest in polish and solving problems for end users, so therefore b…

Call me a snob, but I bet no small number of Android users would have picked an iPhone if it were cheaper.

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#59

Post by vladvasiliu »

Barrin92 wrote: post #47

Much of the Linux desktop is balkanized and fragmentation is indeed a huge issue. People's obsession with choice is irritating given that doing more or less the same thing in 10 different ways half-right is worse than doing it once correctly. The entire distro-zoo built on top of the same distributions with different DE's on top of it is an example. The problem with Windows or Mac isn't that it looks, feels and works…

Is that really an issue?

You want to use Gnome? Use Gnome. You want to use KDE? Use KDE. I3? ditto. Etc.

Oh, some random GTK app will look weird on KDE? Tough. Every Windows app looks different, and even MS's apps always felt out of place on their own OS. And with the proliferation of Electron apps, nothing ever looks "native" anymore.

> while I don't know if anything that has been built 2 Ubuntu LTS releases ago still works

Maybe, maybe not. But that's also an issue on MacOS. And while Windows prides itself on backwards compatibility (and mostly delivers), that doesn't come free.

There's also hardware backwards compatibility. Many devices that used to work with older versions of Windows or MacOS just don't work anymore. Even those that never required custom drivers from their manufacturer. On Linux, if it works once, it'll usually keep on working. I have such an issue: a PCIe USB 3 card, so it isn't even something that old. Used to work with MS Win 10 provided drivers, now (win 11) it's unusable.

Re: I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems

#60

Post by corrral »

mrj wrote: post #30

Nonsense. There are billions of Android devices sold and customers don't seem too bothered by its fragmentation. They continue to buy Android devices en mass. So it seems fragmentation has many problems but that alone won't prevent people from using a device. I think the author believes that a critical mass of Linux desktop users will create enough interest in polish and solving problems for end users, so therefore b…

Once Windows stopped having shit-tier stability, some time around late XP or early Win7, Desktop Linux replaced it as the least-stable and buggiest of the three GUI desktop operating systems I regularly use.

Even before that, it nearly matched it in instability, if you counted X-Window crashes as the same as a bluescreen or kernel panic (and if you're doing GUI work, they're close to equivalent)

The kernel might be OK. The GUI & multimedia stacks aren't.

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