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Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

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Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#111

Post by nona »

sandGorgon wrote: post #63
DrCatbox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is the alternative to a non-distributions based gnu linux operating system? How do you manage the 1000 packages and their libraries and dependencies? Many of them have separate runtimes which may or may not depend on the other packages runtime. How would you design an application sandbox to cover them all? What you're saying basically is that linux is failed. At least for me, since I cant see another way to…

0-install ( http://0install.net/ ) or even better - Nix packaging system ( http://nixos.org/nix/ - they claim to be a purely functional package manager)

Damn straight! I don't understand why so few people know about Nix.

I'm hoping Nix(OS) will take off eventually. I try to play with it from time to time, but I haven't made the investment yet to really contribute.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#112

Post by durin42 »

basman wrote: post #92
muuh-gnu wrote: post #17

The reason I stopped recommending Linux to "normal users" is _because_ of the concept of distributions. Coupling the updates of single apps with the updates of the whole desktop or framework and libs, is just plain wrong. Having to upgrade the whole distro (including all the other installed apps you dont want to upgrade) just to install a new version of one single app you _want_ to update is a nightmare. Total bullsh…

> He basically wanted to upgrade just one (obscure) app, and the process triggered the automatic removal of Gnome2 and installation of Unity. Just _IMAGINE_ how nightmarish this must look for normal users. You simply dont remove somebodys installed desktop sneakily from under their feet. You simply dont. That feels like the total loss of control over your computer. Hmm, that's not exactly what happened, according to…

Let's say they use instant messenger services, so they have Pidgin installed. I'm pretty sure there have been critical bugfixes in Pidgin, and the old Hardy version of Pidgin was so flaky for me 2 years ago (back before my workplace had moved to Lucid) that I installed my own from source.

Ubuntu's answer to that? Well, those aren't security fixes, so you can upgrade to $LATEST_RELEASE if you want the non-critical fixes. Ubuntu is trying to force a 2+ year bugfix cycle on software maintainers, and that's just not realistic for many small teams (both proprietary and open source).

This is a particular example, but I can think of other cases where this might be a problem. OpenOffice updates after a new MS Office release come to mind offhand.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#113

Post by harshreality »

muuh-gnu wrote: post #94
morsch wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. First of all, you're not limited to the packages your distribution supplies. Lots and lots of software is distributed in Launchpad PPAs. Other stuff can be installed without the package manager, some games are statically compiled, etc. And I don't see what's wrong with requiring users to have an up-to-date system. Security fixes alone make regular updates almost mandatory on all operating systems. Windows install…

> And I don't see what's wrong with requiring users to have an up-to-date system. The problem are not the forced invisible security updates, the problem are forced user-visible upgrades. When you want to upgrade one app, you maybe dont want to simultaneously upgrade another app or even the whole desktop. With the distribution model, theres no way to avoid this forced interdependence.

Updates are not invisible by default because the organizations behind the distros can't provide the same level of assurance that Microsoft or Apple can that update X won't break something.

Average users should have no say in keeping their apps from getting auto upgraded. Linux distros have to track upstream app releases because if they don't there will be breakage eventually. Some app will require a feature added in lib X version Y, and they're still on Y-2. If the packages aren't upgraded, users will complain when they can't install newer packages.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#114

Post by jzawodn »

kfcm wrote: post #96

The Linux desktop is dead. Face it. Accept it. How do I know this? Go to a developers' or tech conference, and what is the prevailing OS? 9/10 times these days, it's MacOS. As much as Apple may be control freaks, they did desktop UNIX right and developers have flocked to them. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop community is still having the same debates, the same difficulties it had back in the mid-90's. Dependency issues.…

Yes. 1000 times Yes.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#115

Post by adambyrtek »

moe wrote: post #86
muuh-gnu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how it is related to the concept of distributions. Distributions freeze the set of available app versions to a specific version of the base system. You cant get a new app without upgrading everything else too, including all other apps. I cant simply get a new Emacs on my Ubuntu, because to do that, Ubuntu also wants to remove my Gnome2 and replace it with Unity. Windows decouples the base from the apps.…

As I said. That's a problem with the package management in most distributions. It has nothing to do with the fact that we have multiple distributions. I.e. source-based distributions (e.g. gentoo) don't have this particular problem.

Tell this to people who ended up with broken Arch installations after the sudden upgrade to Python 3.x.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#116

Post by pge »

kfcm wrote: post #96

The Linux desktop is dead. Face it. Accept it. How do I know this? Go to a developers' or tech conference, and what is the prevailing OS? 9/10 times these days, it's MacOS. As much as Apple may be control freaks, they did desktop UNIX right and developers have flocked to them. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop community is still having the same debates, the same difficulties it had back in the mid-90's. Dependency issues.…

I agree with you, and a natural extrapolation of the point is that android is the "desktop linux" of the future. Maybe android is the linux distro (of sorts) that has actually solved the desktop problem.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#117

Post by ktizo »

kfcm wrote: post #103
bryanlarsen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you say used to be true, but does not appear to be any longer. When was the last time we had useful improvements to the OS X user interface? 10.4 (2005) or 10.5 (2007), in my opinion. They've certainly improved under the hood, but the improvements to the UI have been mostly gimmicks like Expose. When was the last time we had useful improvements to the Windows UI? That would be Windows Vista, 2006/2007. (W7 was b…

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user. End-users don't want to have to learn an entirely new UI (read, a different way of doing things; or, "Where's my Start button? Everything I know how to do is under that.") every couple of years. Not because they're (all) dumb, stupid, or lazy. It's because end-users view a computer as a tool to do what they need/wa…

Is funny, cos in the games industry the concept is that the average end users are completely willing to learn a completely new UI for each and every game, as long as it is fun.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#118

Post by luser001 »

acabal wrote: post #104
muuh-gnu wrote: post #17

The reason I stopped recommending Linux to "normal users" is _because_ of the concept of distributions. Coupling the updates of single apps with the updates of the whole desktop or framework and libs, is just plain wrong. Having to upgrade the whole distro (including all the other installed apps you dont want to upgrade) just to install a new version of one single app you _want_ to update is a nightmare. Total bullsh…

I've been saying this same thing for years. Package managers are a nice concept in theory, but Linux on the desktop will never, ever succeed until upgrading (for example) Firefox doesn't result in an install of Unity. The entire concept of a milestone-based monolithic distro is so broken for desktop use that I can't believe a better alternative hasn't been developed yet. Even as a Linux nerd I'm constantly faced with…

I understand where you're coming from, but people have the exact same problem with Windows (and maybe Mac also; but I don't have much experience with Macs). Many people are staying on XP because they dislike Windows 7/Vista. I suspect the same is happening with Ubuntu.

I personally LOVE LOVE LOVE that all my apps are updated by the same program. Instead of the Windows/Mac way of each app running it's own updater.

However, I do agree that the UI for upgrading a single app should be made better.

Just this week, I finally moved out of Unity while staying with Ubuntu 11.10. My workaround is to move to XFCE (Xubuntu). So far, no problems. Btw, I have Compiz enabled with the proprietary nvidia drivers. You might want to try Xubuntu.

It's amazing how easy it was to take out Unity and replace it with xubuntu: sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop.

The xubuntu people have taken the trouble to interface with all the Ubuntu plumbing (networking, sound, updates etc) via XFCE. Overall I'm impressed with the Ubuntu ecosystem.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#119

Post by cageface »

muuh-gnu wrote: post #17

The reason I stopped recommending Linux to "normal users" is _because_ of the concept of distributions. Coupling the updates of single apps with the updates of the whole desktop or framework and libs, is just plain wrong. Having to upgrade the whole distro (including all the other installed apps you dont want to upgrade) just to install a new version of one single app you _want_ to update is a nightmare. Total bullsh…

These kinds of package distribution schemes work well for clusters of homogenous servers but I agree that they just get in the way for a typical desktop user.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#120

Post by cgoddard »

kfcm wrote: post #96

The Linux desktop is dead. Face it. Accept it. How do I know this? Go to a developers' or tech conference, and what is the prevailing OS? 9/10 times these days, it's MacOS. As much as Apple may be control freaks, they did desktop UNIX right and developers have flocked to them. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop community is still having the same debates, the same difficulties it had back in the mid-90's. Dependency issues.…

Just because people who are trying to sell you something aren't using it doesn't mean it's dead.

I've been using Ubuntu for 4 years now, and the latest releases are more streamlined and usable than ever. The mainstream distros have come an extremely long way in being more user friendly to non-tech users.

Also I have mobile devices, but still end up using my desktop a whole bunch for two simple reasons: 1. when you actually need to type something of any length a full-size keyboard is wonderful 2. its nice not to have to squint at a smaller screen to see what's going on.

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