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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#311

Post by rgbrgb »

wheels wrote: post #164
sjs wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's silly to pretend that Mac is somehow perfect in these matters. Straw man. Nobody said OS X was perfect. > In my experience it's only been marginally better than Linux, if at all. I used Linux on my desktop for several years and have now used Macs as well for several years. I won't say this is bullshit because I don't think you are lying about your experience, but I think you are extrapolating way too far. > An…

I don't see any material difference between "hardware compatibility just works" and "hardware compatibility is perfect". As for fixing the issue, both of my issues were kernel issues, as are most hardware compatibility issues. On OS X reverting to a previously working kernel would have meant backing up all of my data, reinstalling the OS from the DVDs, installing the combo update to the last working version of the co…

I really don't want to have to think about the kernel when I'm plugging in a new monitor.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#312

Post by graue »

wpietri wrote: post #309
graue wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like where they're going with Unity Fair enough, but why not wait to use it until they get there? Daily reliability problems seem like a lot to put up with just for some cool ideas. Also, I'm not sure how your interviewing experience supports the conclusion "Linux is dead/dying". What it does seem to suggest is "Linux is unpopular", but that has never not been true (on the desktop).

I'm using it because that's part of the default install. At one point I had the time and inclination to spend futzing with stuff to get it to work, but that's not where I'm at. If something isn't ready to use on a desktop OS, they shouldn't ship it. My previous interviewing experience wasn't like that say, five years ago.

Then you haven't heard of Xubuntu? It's an alternate flavor of Ubuntu that has Xfce as the default install. Here's an iso that will get you basically the exact setup I have, no futzing required: http://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/

Already installed stock Ubuntu? Install the xubuntu-desktop metapackage (in Synaptic or 'sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop'), log out and select "Xubuntu Session" from the login screen. That's it. I did this on my laptop after realizing I didn't want to switch to Unity. (For bonus points you can remove the Unity desktop apps, but that's hardly necessary unless space is at a premium.)

I don't think I'd put up with Linux myself if it was as much of a pain as you seem to think. For me, Xubuntu has been no trouble at all.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#313

Post by aaronmhamilton »

jsnell wrote: post #249
aaronmhamilton wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PulseAudio doesn't depend on GDM, you just need to create a config for it; What I do (on fedora) is move the default.pa from /var/lib/gdm/.pulse/default.pa to ~/.pulse... You can't expect everything to work when you tear out components then fail to configure things properly...

I wasn't tearing out components. I was doing everything exactly the way I'd been doing forever, and it no longer worked. Which is bad in itself, but maybe it's understandable that niche usecases break every now and then. It's just that it's happened so often and for so many parts of the system that it's hard for at least me to think it's isolated incidents rather than a cultural issue. The truly toxic part is that ev…

Well, GDM tends to handle a lot of initialization that it shouldn't be the one doing, using a distribution that doesn't assume you're using GNOME may help with this.

About the transitions supposedly adding complexity; I don't know about you, but systemd, for example, has greatly simplified configuration and management of services, mountpoints, timers, and all sorts of things.

I use awesome in Fedora 17 on some early-2010 entry-level consumer intel hardware, everything is zippy, easy to configure, and doesn't break on me all the time; I feel bad for you man.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#314

Post by thwarted »

teach wrote: post #235
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 not an issue with Apple or Samsung, it's an Android decision. Support for the USB Mass Storage protocol has been deprecated in Android in favor of MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) starting with Ice Cream Sandwich. The experience in Windows and on Linux is just as poor with this phone. (I love the phone, though.)

Why can't Apple support MTP? Linux gets cited for lack of hardware or protocol support (MTP to an Android device works fine in Linux, btw), but it's not Apple's fault when they can't or don't provide drivers for common, standardized consumer electronics?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#315

Post by vidarh »

rgbrgb wrote: post #311
wheels wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any material difference between "hardware compatibility just works" and "hardware compatibility is perfect". As for fixing the issue, both of my issues were kernel issues, as are most hardware compatibility issues. On OS X reverting to a previously working kernel would have meant backing up all of my data, reinstalling the OS from the DVDs, installing the combo update to the last working version of the co…

I really don't want to have to think about the kernel when I'm plugging in a new monitor.

Neither does anyone else, but when faced with a kernel issue that's what you're stuck with regardless which OS you use.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#316

Post by vidarh »

colmvp wrote: post #187
diminish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

Wait what? Every scanner, printer, tablet, mouse, and even color correction device I've bought has worked on my Mac.

Then you've been selective about what you've bought. It's trivial to find devices that are Windows specific and/or have only gotten Linux and/or OS X support after extensive rounds of reverse engineering.

Low end printers and scanners in particular are notorious for skimping on the logic in the device itself and depending on a large blob of Windows driver code, with manufacturers that couldn't care less about supporting anything other than Windows.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#318

Post by cageface »

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!

Wrong. It's Google's decision to abandon direct mounting Android drives in ICS in favor of the MTP standard.

Which is the right move in the long term, although it's certainly causing some pain in the short term.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#319

Post by hollerith »

DeepDuh wrote: post #299
rahoulb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thank you, that's exactly how I think, it's even this way with Windows. On other systems I would waste days after days of my life to set things up 'just the way I want' only to find that it's never gonna be quite that way. Macs just let me accept the things as they are and get back to work. Very often, I'd get to see after a while, why things work the way they work (say, Window management). Anyway, this has been almo…

>On other systems I would waste days after days of my life to set things up 'just the way I want' only to find that it's never gonna be quite that way. Macs just let me accept the things as they are and get back to work.

This. It's almost as if Linux is a collection of parts and tools from which a sufficiently good designer can build a usable desktop whereas OS X is a usable desktop. That's an exaggeration, but for me there is some truth to it.

Note that Linux was my only desktop from 1997 through 2009.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#320

Post by ekianjo »

RegEx wrote: post #294
bpatrianakos wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Don't read too far into things, and "...loyalty to facts" eye roll . Anyway, It's pretty common knowledge to Linux users that hardware/driver support on Linux can be a challenge. Sometimes things work right out of the box, other times you have…

On windows, a fairly high success rate? This must be a joke. Try installing a graphics card without driver, you will see how well it is supported under windows. I consider that basic functionality. Same for wifi dongles, they usually need drivers to be installed in windows, while this is all taken care of at the kernel level in Linux.

In Linux you very rarely have to install any driver. True, some hardware remains unsupported, but the list of compatible hardware without any installation required is pretty long. On windows, you'll need to install stuff for most of new hardware you try to plug in, no matter what.

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