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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#261

Post by rahoulb »

diminish wrote: post #112
wheels wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. [...] In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work. Just because it's never happened to you on OS X or Windows doesn't mean it doesn't happen. OS X 10.6.7 broke the output on my 13" Macbook for either of the two external displays I own. Both worked fine previously, when booted from the install CDs, or from Linux on the same…

To stress out again; OS/X has the poorest hardware support for 3rd parties; even compared to Linux. Just "think different" and buy some hardware and you ll see what I mean..

The real difference is that on OSX is if something doesn't work it doesn't work. Under Linux it may work, or work badly, or you can probably hack it to make it work well. I used to think I liked the latter but there's something appealing about the binary clarity of OSX.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#262

Post by kwijibob »

expaand wrote: post #124

I love Linux, and as a developer, use it as my main os (ubuntu). It is so easy to develop on, and it's package management is superb. I don't use the desktop per se, that much, and am usually command-line driven. I have a Mac, and use it for some things, at times. It's nice, for sure, but I love the openness of Linux, even though, of course, there can be many very painful hardware issues (video, sound, etc), all of wh…

Android desktop might be excellent. However alot of the Android stack is not open source or free software.

An Android desktop will be a proprietary desktop built on top of an open source kernel.

It might be terrific, but it won't fulfil the dream of a free software OS and desktop.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#263

Post by petitmiam »

mbell wrote: post #2

Arguing about the niceties of the UI is all well and good but the actually problem is far more fundamental. What killed the linux desktop? Drivers. Mostly graphics drivers but some others as well. Who cares if the UI isn't ideal if the damn thing can't sleep and wake up properly, or if it spazs out every time I plug in an external monitor.

I can sympathise with you about external monitor issues. In my office, we all have laptops with external monitors. When we have meetings, all the Windows/OSX users simply unplug the external monitor and take their laptops into the meeting room. The linux users normally just take a pad and pen, as it's too risky to attempt unplugging the external monitor while linux is running.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#264

Post by bpatrianakos »

diminish wrote: post #112
wheels wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. [...] In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work. Just because it's never happened to you on OS X or Windows doesn't mean it doesn't happen. OS X 10.6.7 broke the output on my 13" Macbook for either of the two external displays I own. Both worked fine previously, when booted from the install CDs, or from Linux on the same…

To stress out again; OS/X has the poorest hardware support for 3rd parties; even compared to Linux. Just "think different" and buy some hardware and you ll see what I mean..

Oh well now that you said it the argument is settled. You can't just say OS X has the poorest hardware support ever and not back it up with anything except "go buy some hardware and see what works and what doesn't". Is there maybe a table online that lists these incompatibilities you can link to? Please don't say "do some research" because the onus is on you to prove yourrself right, not on me to prove you right.

You also said "even compared to Linux". That's interesting. That statement there gives the impression that you're more interested in defending your own beliefs and/or choices rather than being truly interested in explaining to us what OS has objectively terrible hardware support. "even compared to Linux" sounds like something an apologist would say. Then when you added in the "think different" line you made it seem even more like your comment was based off some kind of blind loyalty to Linux rather than loyalty to facts.

Me? I've used Mac, a handful of Linux distros, and Windows for a long time. I don't know which has the best or worse hardware support but I do know when someone says something based on what camp they're in rather than what the facts are.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#265

Post by DrJokepu »

vetinari wrote: post #176
pswenson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's wrong with the terminal? hit cmd-q to close an app. no idea what you mean by insane window switching behavior. you gave no examples of how Ubuntu/Fedora is better to rebut on UX. care to share some?

What's wrong with the Terminal.app? Except for the fact, that it does not really work? Yeah, for simple stdout/stderr output it is fine, but for medium-sized ncurses apps it is a major PITA. Even Icaza's own Midnight Commander does not work there.

No, seriously, what’s wrong with mc in Terminal.app? I mean, OS X and Terminal.app take over function keys for other purposes like, I don't know, changing the volume, but these things can be disabled if you want to use function keys for something else, like mc commands.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#266

Post by tikhonj »

nirvana wrote: post #178
lttlrck wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like the Mac OS menu bar; drove me nuts stuck at the top of the screen like that, but a lot of people like it and I can understand that...

That's my point. It's not that a lot of people like it. In fact, whether people like it or not isn't really relevant. It's that this is the correct way to do it. When the menu bar is at the top of the screen, the user is much faster at getting the mouse over a menu item and clicking to open the menu. It works better. This isn't opinion, it's measurable scientifically. When the menu is on a window, you overshoot with…

It is not the correct way to do it. It has some very simple problems.

First, if I have a bunch of little windows on a big screen--something very common on Apple computers--I have to drag my mouse all the way to the top of the screen and then drag it back. For me, this was an serious problem. Partly this was because I was also using one of the horrible Apple mice (the "mighty mouse" or something of that nature). This was particularly annoying because I would often lose focus by clicking on something else by accident and have to go all the way back to my original window and then all the way back to the top... Incredibly annoying.

Second, not all programs have--or need--options on top. I essentially live out of Emacs and Chrome these days; neither uses a menu. That would make the Apple bar just a waste of screen space--completely absurd. Moreover, I've found that bar to be superfluous on other software I use as well. Having more minimalistic interfaces is a breath of fresh air--and completely impossible on OS X.

It also fails to generalize well to multiple screens.

Oh, and there are going to be problems if you want to make the available options context-dependent. This is a reasonable design decision if you have a complex program with a bunch of small, discrete windows for different tasks--something else that isn't uncommon on OS X. This sort of behavior is far clearer if there is a menu per window than if there is a single menu for whatever is currently active.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#267

Post by bpatrianakos »

lttlrck wrote: post #165
justincormack wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is horrible to use, everything is poorly designed. Linux (Ubuntu in my case) and OSX just work sanely mostly, but OSX is a horrible dev environment, so I moved back to Linux.

I thought Windows was a joy to develop on until I moved to Linux... then I realised MS had to develop all these wonderful dev tools to disguise the fact that the API's are disastrous and the command line is useless...

Amen. That's the thing. You don't realize how many hoops you've been jumping through to do the same things that devs on Linus or OS X do effortlessly until you make the switch. But people don't make the switch because they have this blind loyalty to whatever theyre using. So whenever they see someone else loving a different OS they dole out ad nominee attacks, call the products over priced, or too complicated for normal users, or elitist. It's all to do with justifying one's decision to use X despite evidence that Y may be better or just as good and possibly some jealousy in some cases.

In any case it's all dumb blind loyalty the vast majority of the time. And that applies to Linux, Mac, and Windows. You can't have a discussion about operating systems with 90%+ of people because everyone just defends their favorite and facts are distorted to suit those preferences. It really is just about useless to have a discussion about operating systems as "substantive" or "meaningful" discussions about the subject are about as rare as unicorns.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#268

Post by msbarnett »

learc83 wrote: post #80
wpietri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in that light, I think the idea that the Linux desktop got "killed" is sort of missing the point. It's no more moribund now than it was before. I strongly disagree. It is losing exactly the sort of person that the author is: developers who, all else equal, would rather use Linux. But who eventually get tired of the BS and just want something that works and you can actually get software for. I have a lot of sympath…

Many of the problems people have with Linux have nothing to do with Linux itself. When I first tried to use Linux about 7 years ago, wireless drivers were a huge problem. Manufacturers didn't provide assistance--not much Linux distros could do about it at the time. These problems are simply inherent to Linux being a minority platform.

> Many of the problems people have with Linux have nothing to do with Linux itself.

I disagree.

What the OP is complaining about is the same thing Miguel was complaining about, and it's the exact same thing JWZ called out 9 years in his CADT rant[1]. It has nothing whatsoever to do with manufacturers failing to provide drivers and everything to do with attention-deficit devs never wanting to knuckle down and do the hard, unglamorous work of long-term maintenance and bug fixing.

Working systems (with known bugs) are thrown out and re-written as new, incompatible systems with even more bugs. Everything breaks every time some idiot decides that they'll rewrite the audio/desktop inter-op/init/logging/whatever subsystem because This Time It'll Be Done Right™. This perpetual treadmill of half-working betas never ends.

It gets old.

[1]: http://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#269

Post by TheGateKeeper »

pswenson wrote: post #227
vetinari wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with the Terminal.app? Except for the fact, that it does not really work? Yeah, for simple stdout/stderr output it is fine, but for medium-sized ncurses apps it is a major PITA. Even Icaza's own Midnight Commander does not work there.

no idea what you are getting at.

Neither do I. Ncurses and mc work just fine in OS X Terminal.app. Even under 10.8.1

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#270

Post by jlgreco »

nirvana wrote: post #202
snitko wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought Samsung Galaxy S3 recently, plugged it in via USB and was not able to browse it because, as far as I understood, MacOSX has no support for "media devices" whatever that is. I had to download some obscure Samsung "Kies" software through which I was able to get to the filesystem and upload some files. Wasted hours.

This is samsung not following USB standards. OS X has perfectly find support for media devices, and has worked fine with every digital camera, SD Card or other card reader, etc, that I've attached via USB in the past decade!

Everything under the sun supports UMS, that OSX does is nothing special. That is not what his device was using though.
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