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Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

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Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#61

Post by extraisland »

I feel like I could have read this article back in 2004. The main benefit is that you get to choose. The other two big operating systems don't really allow much choice.

> Meanwhile, the Linux community spends enormous energy on debates that rarely affect mainstream adoption. Consider the “init wars,” where systemd sparked endless flame wars (and memes) about the proper way to boot a Linux system.

This is almost in anything. We had play ground arguments over whether SEGA or Nintendo were better. Then Playstation vs N64 vs Saturn. There was Amiga vs Atari. BSD vs Linux. Vim vs Emacs. Ford vs Chevy.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#62

Post by alt187 »

takluyver wrote: post #55
ZenoArrow wrote: post #23

This article is full of nonsense. The Linux desktop push isn't failing because it has experiences and apps that are similar to Windows and macOS. Being able to run Windows apps on Linux is a benefit, not a failure. As for religious wars over init systems, desktop environments and package managers, competition is making the options stronger, not weaker. Competition is a reason why package management on Linux is far be…

> As for religious wars over init systems, desktop environments and package managers, competition is making the options stronger, not weaker. Competition can definitely improve things, but it's not universally positive. In particular, endless competition in parts of the operating system makes it hard to build anything on top of them. E.g. if you want to distribute an application for Linux, do you build a Flatpak, or…

If you build an application, The Right Way™ has always, and probably always will be a tarball. Leave to distributions the hassle to distribute your software.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#63

Post by CommonGuy »

Developing GUI applications for Linux is also a huge pain. Developers not familiar with Linux need to learn so many things...

What is X11, Wayland, GNOME, KDE, d-bus, application ids, portals, etc.

Then once you have a working application, users request having it distributed as .tar.gz, snap, flatpak, you name it. Then dependencies are missing on some Linux distribution or there are random bugs with Nvidia graphics cards.

Compare that to developing for Windows, where most things "just work"

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#64

Post by bee_rider »

_fat_santa wrote: post #19

I HIGHLY agree with this article and IMHO all the comments bashing Gnome just don't really get it. For all of it's faults, I still roll with Ubuntu/Gnome every day because it just freaking works, gets out of my way, gets the job done, and doesn't require a weekend of tweaking software to get everything working just right. I don't care at all for the SystemD/whatever else flame wars. Sure if you work on these systems…

Most users who develop on Linux are not really Linux developers in the sense that we just write our own code and don’t contribute anything to the kernel, or to the userland programs that you were trying to use. The people who write the code you actually use are quite busy, so you usually just get random nobodies (myself included!) when you go online to chat about Linux. There’s some possibility that you might get help, because we happen to be using the same program, but that’s all there is to it.

If you want to know why VSCode is buggy, you will probably have to get into contact with Microsoft, I guess. I know this looks like some kind of smarmy sarcastic response, but it really is the truth; the rest of us really don’t know why they put bugs in there.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#65

Post by nine_k »

The year of Linux on desktop is not come=ing, because the year of anything on desktop is not coming, and hasn't been for maybe a decade. Every new mass-market thing runs either in the browser, or, more rarely, specifically on mobile phones. Or maybe it's a game, so it completely eclipses whatever platform experience. If not that, it's entrenched ancient desktop software, like Excel (turning 40 in a few weeks), which is also its own world.

The "desktop" itself, the underlying OS, is irrelevant to most users who are not hardcore pros, like, well, software developers.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#66

Post by blueflow »

cocoto wrote: post #57
donmcronald wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my complaints with Gnome is that I can’t hand it to a normal person and let them use it because it’s not obvious how to use it. The entry point to everything looks like a horizontal scroll bar in the top left corner and basic actions take more clicks than Windows. The biggest battle desktop Linux is losing is the one where a minority of devs are dictating their preferred compute paradigm to a majority of users…

Gnome is way simpler to use than Windows. If you let grandma or a kid with no prior Desktop experience, I’m pretty sure they will find Gnome more intuitive. The problem is that it is too different for a Windows user, so the switching cost is high.

Intuition is based on prior exposure. What exposure do i need to understand GNOME?

For example, how am i supposed to discover how to maximize a window?

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#67

Post by TiredOfLife »

takluyver wrote: post #55
ZenoArrow wrote: post #23

This article is full of nonsense. The Linux desktop push isn't failing because it has experiences and apps that are similar to Windows and macOS. Being able to run Windows apps on Linux is a benefit, not a failure. As for religious wars over init systems, desktop environments and package managers, competition is making the options stronger, not weaker. Competition is a reason why package management on Linux is far be…

> As for religious wars over init systems, desktop environments and package managers, competition is making the options stronger, not weaker. Competition can definitely improve things, but it's not universally positive. In particular, endless competition in parts of the operating system makes it hard to build anything on top of them. E.g. if you want to distribute an application for Linux, do you build a Flatpak, or…

> do you build a Flatpak, or a Snap?

.appimage

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#68

Post by bediger4000 »

donmcronald wrote: post #26
garciansmith wrote: post #6

> The problem is that these are "wins" because they bring Linux closer to Windows or macOS. I disagree that this is an issue. The main advantage of Linux for me is that I have choice (including using various desktop environments that the author is annoyed by; I used GNOME for years and eventually had too many problems with it so I switched to KDE), and those choices are not controlled by one entity which, in the case…

One of my complaints with Gnome is that I can’t hand it to a normal person and let them use it because it’s not obvious how to use it. The entry point to everything looks like a horizontal scroll bar in the top left corner and basic actions take more clicks than Windows. The biggest battle desktop Linux is losing is the one where a minority of devs are dictating their preferred compute paradigm to a majority of users…

> I can’t hand it to a normal person and let them use it because it’s not obvious how to use it.

I'm not sure that means anything. Every time I have to help my kids or wife with a Windows problem, I'm perpetually plagued by how weird it is.

The only people who find Windows easy or obvious are already Windows users. And yes, the same can be said of Linux environments.

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#69

Post by TiredOfLife »

nancyminusone wrote: post #15

Linux is already winning some important battles: -no ads -no tracking -no vendor lock in -no preinstalled or unremovable crapware That's enough for me. Yes, it's not perfect, but you're simply allowed to say no.

> no preinstalled .. crapware

Every distro except arch is full of preinstalled crapware. Some like OpenSuse even have preinstalled crapware bundles where stuff you uninstall comes back after update

Re: Desktop Linux Keeps Winning the Wrong Battles

#70

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

x0x0 wrote: post #56
discardedrefuse wrote: post #17

It's 2025. The "year of the linux desktop" has been a meme for years. No one says it in earnest. No one is having init or DE wars. And while there is plenty of healthy discussion about flatpak and other alt forms of software distribution, this is exactly the kind of innovation and experimentation that leads to the usability improvements the author wants to see. Linux is doing just fine, and I'm glad there are multipl…

Linux becoming better than Windows to run games is the sort of thing that should actually scare Microsoft because it can lead to non-engineers installing linux because game go fast. The people spending a grand on gpus will put up with real hassles to that end.

Why would Microsoft be scared? They still own and set the future direction for the Windows APIs that those games are designed for, meaning that they're still in the driver's seat. Proton has to play an eternal game of catch up.
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