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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

#181

Post by sandGorgon »

nona wrote: post #111
sandGorgon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

maybe if someone would build a tool that pulls from Ubuntu repository and recreates an equivalent nix package.

come to think of it, there is nothing in aptitude that prevents this kind of an approach (including the unique hash paths). It will get you to 75% of Nix functionality, which IMHO is good enough.

I dont think Redhat.or Ubuntu will want to do that though. Their business model revolves around the walles garden.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#183

Post by joe_the_user »

bergie wrote: post #47
DrCatbox wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would still need to maintain and manage the core distro. The packages in their would update and break the systme, you'd have lvm issues and what not. Any way, care to give links to more on maeom/meegos architecture?

You still package and build an application separately for each distro version. And then the community tests it before it goes to the stable apps repo. So broken packages (either by packaging, or by app not functioning properly) are unlikely to pass QA. So if your package conflicts with something, either fix that issue or don't release for that distro versio.

Off-topic: Is active Meego Development still happening? I'm a QT developer and might be interested in contributing a little...

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#184

Post by danbmil99 »

Just for another POV -- I love the fact that I can apt-get a version of practically any FOSS project of note, and within a minute or two, I have something that works with the rest of my system. If I need bleeding-edge, I go to the project page and download a later binary or source, but 90% of the time that's not necessary.

For me, it's a perfect combination of a vetted ecosystem (ok, somewhat closed but closed in the way I like -- no crapware, all legit source distros and mostly mature projects) with the ability to go outside that system at any time, at my own risk.

Anyone can set up a repository to add to/compete with Canonical's, and of course they do. So with my willow garage repo's, I can keep up with their concept of what's stable, etc. It works nearly perfectly, IMSHO.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#185

Post by danbmil99 »

acabal wrote: post #135
luser001 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. How…

We're talking about different problems. Windows does not have the problem I'm describing. If I want to update Firefox on Windows XP, I can do that without Windows forcing me to update to Windows 7 as part of the deal. That's the problem. Updating Firefox on Ubuntu 11.04 after a certain (very soon in the future) point in time necessitates an update to Ubuntu XX.YY. In fact you're precisely illustrating my point with y…

The fact that Windows tries valiantly to offer backwards compatibility (actually is forced to by their own business model) I have to assume is at least partially responsible for the overall huge suckage that is working on Windows.

OSX/iOS are much more like Ubuntu -- practically any cutting-edge app requires something near to the latest OS release.

Android is suffering precisely because there is low OS upgrade adoption, as I've heard recently right here on HN.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#186

Post by PakG1 »

javert wrote: post #128
kfcm wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's just one problem with your post: you're thinking like a technologist, and not like an end-user. Well, a lot of people who use and hack on Linux distros aren't targeting the "end-user," they're targeting the technologist. So that mindset is not necessarily a problem.

If we're going in that direction, then everyone's participating in a different conversation. The original conversation was not whether or not this is a non-problem because end-users have issues. The original conversation was why hasn't Linux been adopted by end-users at the same rate as other OS's, if it's superior in so many ways.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#187

Post by nitrogen »

georgemcbay wrote: post #180
angersock wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you've brought up another important point in the Linux/packagemanager ecosystem: "Some app will require a feature added in lib X version Y, and they're still on Y-2." Windows has had this solved for something like a decade. Sure, there's the much lampooned "dll hell", but honestly, Linux's solution was "lol lets upgrade things and break user apps". There is zero excuse for apps in Linux to have library dependency…

Windows has even solved virtually all of "dll hell" via SxS. Linux distros would do well to implement something similar. Disk space and RAM are cheap, having a few different versions of the same DLLs is no big deal. I don't remember the last time I had a .dll problem in Windows post Vista, whereas I still run into .so issues nearly constantly in Linux distros.

Linux has versioned libraries, but distros often ship only the latest versions. Libraries usually have filenames like "liblibrary.so.x.y.z", and an application will link to "liblibrary.so.x.y" or "liblibrary.so.x". Library maintainers also get lazy with making sure that the library stays compatible within major versions, or don't update the .so version properly.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#188

Post by bergie »

joe_the_user wrote: post #183
bergie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still package and build an application separately for each distro version. And then the community tests it before it goes to the stable apps repo. So broken packages (either by packaging, or by app not functioning properly) are unlikely to pass QA. So if your package conflicts with something, either fix that issue or don't release for that distro versio.

Off-topic: Is active Meego Development still happening? I'm a QT developer and might be interested in contributing a little...

The MeeGo community effort continues at http://merproject.org

Used already as the base distro in the Spark tablet

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#189

Post by saurik »

acabal wrote: post #175
luser001 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reason…

I want what Windows does: Stable core, independent apps. The entire concept of "LTS" is a red herring. It's a byproduct of the distro mindset. To put it another way: There is no Windows LTS. You buy one version of Windows and it works for a decade--a DECADE --and your apps are kept updated for as long as the developer cares to do so, often automatically in-app. (There's no Windows "app store", but as Apple demonstrat…

Please do not blame "package managers": Windows Installer is a package manager in many ways comparable in scope to dpkg, which given your premise immediately disproves that they are the cause of the problem you are talking about; the issue is not package managers, it isn't even centralized package distribution systems like APT: it is that the ecosystem of libraries and protocols that make up the Linux desktop have horrible binary compatibility issues that distributions seem to make even worse through the usage of "rebuild the world and update all the dependency relationships while we are at it" policies.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#190

Post by jiggy2011 »

Isn't the real issue simply that the desktop distributors simply lack the manpower required to out together a stable desktop release, party due to the massive fragmentation?

I assume MS and Apple have huge teams dedicated simply to making sure that all of this software works together nicely.

If there was a desktop distro that cost $100 a throw and that money was re-invested in testing the desktop platform more thoroughly and making it past and future proof that this would solve many problems?

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