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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

#161

Post by luser001 »

acabal wrote: post #150
luser001 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I want to update Firefox on Windows XP, I can do that without Windows forcing me to update to Windows 7 ... Updating Firefox on Ubuntu 11.04 after a certain (very soon in the future) point in time necessitates an update to Ubuntu XX.YY. I'm not 100% sure about it. As it happens I run both Ubuntu 10.10 (at work) and Ubuntu 11.10. I just saw an alert to upgrade my 10.10 Ubuntu to Firefox 11. I give them major prop…

Firefox is a special case. Ubuntu specifically updates that one package more frequently. Perhaps it was a bad example as that's one of the very few packages that is singled out for frequent updates by Canonical. PPAs still aren't the best solution even if distros make them easy-to-use. The reason is that now maintainers have to get their software into two places: the core repos and now an optional up-to-date PPA. Add…

You want stability and a slowly-changing core system, but won't use the LTS releases? Because your app provider doesn't make updated PPA's for the LTS release. At which point you blame the existence of the distro's non-LTS releases? I think the correct target of your ire should be the app developer who doesn't produce PPAs for the LTS release.

I carefully read what you wrote, and IMHO your requirements are not reasonable: in effect, you want the non-LTS releases of distros to vanish so that app providers don't have the temptation to not support previous releases.

Maybe I'm a what somebody called a "technologist" downthread.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#162

Post by flomo »

lubutu wrote: post #158
flomo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're conflating two different issues. Poor UX for installing 3rd party software has been solved with things like Steam or the Mac App Store, for example.

Steam and the App Store are nothing more than proprietary package management systems.

Again, that's not the issue. Package managers are great. The problem is how the base system is maintained/updated/versioned.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#163

Post by freshhawk »

Most of the complaints here don't even have any suggestions, just a complaint that can be easily translated to "dependencies in software are hard to manage". Well, no shit. How about some interesting ideas around this from the "hackers"?

The ideas that are proposed are mostly things that have already been tried but have failed because of social/manpower reasons (they would take enormous amounts of effort and time from all involved for little benefit) or technical (they don't work)

A large percentage complain that the distro in question updates too frequently, when there are clearly distros that cater to stability (they just aren't the "cool ones").

Some of the complaints are demanding some mythical OS that allows you to install it once, never have it update or change but still have access to all the newest software. That would be wonderful. No one has figured that out yet, not windows, not mac, not any *nix.

I know bitchy comments aren't helpful, or likely to be well received, but there must be some other people of my ilk still on HN. Now that it's Product Guy News, where should I be going? Where is this story posted with people actually talking about interesting ways to improve things who actually understand the problem and could be called hackers without the technically skilled people laughing?

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#164

Post by DrCatbox »

freshhawk wrote: post #159
DrCatbox wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ArchLinux suffers from the same problem. I left my cousin with ArchLinux, he liked it alot, so much that he still used it 6 months later. At that time he wanted to install a new program, well, from then on he stopped using arch. Because he had to call me to help him fix his system, issuing the pacman -S programname failed, so he did pacman -Sy followed by pacman -S programname again, and this time his entire system w…

You left your cousin with arch installed but didn't tell him that it's necessary to keep a rolling release distro up to date? Hell, I have to keep up with the mailing list and the news page on the website just to keep my OS working update to update. It's worth it for me because of my needs but Arch is very very specifically NOT for the average user. You basically set your cousin up to fail. And it's not like the bran…

Because what else can I pick? Ubuntu!? Ugh.

He tried Fedora earlier, we couldnt get it to work with his wireless-networking, SELinux always getting in the way as soon as he took his laptop with him somewhere, I got tired of pushing against a wall as I was becoming his support, and then he asked what Im using, how does it work for me. So Arch it was.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#165

Post by flomo »

maxerickson wrote: post #87
dvogel wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A small core set of libraries that change _very_ slowly and arent intentionally obsoleted every few months. Think of Windows like slow, stable and supported for a decade. Distribution of apps decoupled from the distribution of the base. Never make an app update trigger a lib update. This is the idea of the linux standard base. The concept was developed over a decade ago and it has failed to show real fruit. > You d…

I was always surprised that no one made something like "The Linux Binary Platform 2003" and then kept it up to date, maybe releasing another one later. At the very least, developers used to Windows would understand the dynamics of it (which is probably a good idea if attracting commercial development is a goal). I would say it is quite a bit less ambitious than something like the linux standard base.

It's been proposed at various times in various ways. It's largely a competitive issue - the for-profit mechanism boils down to selling "certified" enterprise configurations, so there's little intrest in making the platform even more commodified than it already is.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#166

Post by sirclueless »

wazoox wrote: post #55

There are "core" linux distros, like Slackware. There are many attempts at autonomous apps distribution like zero-install and openpkg that mostly work, and probably would work fine with a reasonable effort backing them. [1]: http://0install.net/ [2]: http://www.openpkg.org/ Of course the problem is that the big distros (redhat, debian) can't be bothered to care.

And in fact, with their sysadmin focus, they explicitly are opposed to this method. If your goal isn't a desktop experience but rather protection from every adversary at all times, then only vetting a small core and letting people run various and sundry packages from third parties is flat-out irresponsible. But of course this is what desktop users want -- to run any software they like with no hoops to jump through or update schedules to keep on top of, so they will always be at odds.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#167

Post by may »

Igor's point about distros trying to "own" 20K packages is well-taken; it's simply not possible.

In my own life the 'solution' I have found is to use FreeBSD; I get a stable, well-maintained core with a sharp distinction between core, userland and third-party (the ports system).

I have found the ports system to be a lightweight, agile alternative to GNU/Linux package managers:

When you install FreeBSD you are left with a kernel, standard UNIX command-line utilities and everything you need to hammer the system into a finely-honed tool.

Right now, I'm using it exclusively on my servers because I'm willing to accept the trade-offs of Ubuntu (beta 12.04 on my dev box, XUbuntu 11.10 on my netbook) on the desktop; a little instability and fully-automated updates is OK in exchange for not having to fiddle with graphics drivers, sound, Flash, etc.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#168

Post by antirez »

Ten years ago I was trying to persuade people that two things were very important for Linux to succeed in the desktop:

1) Distribution of software as a cross-distribution package that just has everything it needs inside a directory, libs and so forth. If you said this N years ago you were an asshole because "duplication of file blabla" and so forth. The typical example was "an user should simply go to some web site of some application, download a file, and click on it to execute the program".

2) Device drivers with a well specified interface between the OS and the hardware, so that different versions of the kernel could use the same driver without issues.

People complained a lot with technical arguments, about why a different approach is better than "1" or "2" from some kind of nerd metric. So the reality for me is that Linux does not succeed in the desktop because it is "run" by people with a square-shaped engineering mind. There is no fix for this.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#169

Post by freshhawk »

DrCatbox wrote: post #164
freshhawk wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left your cousin with arch installed but didn't tell him that it's necessary to keep a rolling release distro up to date? Hell, I have to keep up with the mailing list and the news page on the website just to keep my OS working update to update. It's worth it for me because of my needs but Arch is very very specifically NOT for the average user. You basically set your cousin up to fail. And it's not like the bran…

Because what else can I pick? Ubuntu!? Ugh. He tried Fedora earlier, we couldnt get it to work with his wireless-networking, SELinux always getting in the way as soon as he took his laptop with him somewhere, I got tired of pushing against a wall as I was becoming his support, and then he asked what Im using, how does it work for me. So Arch it was.

I suggest Linux Mint in that case. Ubuntu based, but no unity.

I totally understand where you are coming from, I love Arch and want to share how awesome it is from but all those problems were entirely based on a very poor suggestion for his use case. Arch doesn't "suffer" from this problem at all.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#170

Post by freshhawk »

ElliotH wrote: post #127
DrCatbox wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ArchLinux suffers from the same problem. I left my cousin with ArchLinux, he liked it alot, so much that he still used it 6 months later. At that time he wanted to install a new program, well, from then on he stopped using arch. Because he had to call me to help him fix his system, issuing the pacman -S programname failed, so he did pacman -Sy followed by pacman -S programname again, and this time his entire system w…

ArchLinux is a very poor distribution to leave with someone who doesn't have the knowledge to fix these problems. When you do pacman -Syu you should be looking on the front page for update news, you should be looking at the list of packages to be upgraded. It's not a distribution that will hold your hand, because there are some of us around who don't want our hands held.

The idea that there are interfaces for expert users (or that there should be) is anathema on HN these days.
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