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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

#11

Post by cs702 »

jamesu wrote: post #8

My impression is that the problem is more fundamental: a lot of open source and free software which finds its way onto linux is made by people who don't seem to care about the end-user experience. If it works for them, there is no need to improve it. Not all open software projects are receptive to changes, improvements or bug reports from strangers so nothing is really resolved without forking by which adds its own c…

I disagree. The main problem is that the Linux desktop doesn't (yet?) have a large, fast-growing installed base, so mass commercial developers don't target it!

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#12

Post by hypnotist »

cs702 wrote: post #2

Molnar's point about the political and procedural difficulties of adding new applications in the official repositories of most distributions is true (although this is changing -- witness Canonical's Ubuntu Software Center, PPAs, and "universe" repositories). But his reasoning breaks down when he says the relative dearth of commercial applications for the Linux Desktop is due to this issue. That's not true. The main r…

""" The main reason why OSX/iOS, Android, and Windows attract more commercial developers is because those platforms have a much greater installed base! """

... and therefore enables developers to make more money!

In my opinion it is one of the most important factors right here, combined together with a lot of marketing from companies which own the "platform".

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#13

Post by programminggeek »

The author is right mostly, the problem is friction and market dynamics. Adding software in a given linux distro is too nerdy. If you don't have an "app store" like gui, you've already lost most users. Command line = friction for most users, even a lot of developers who grew up with windows.

As a linux nerd, I'm fine with command line + synaptic, but look at how well people have used the iTunes store, Amazon store, Google Play, etc... All of those have much less friction to find and download the right software than most linux distro's have. Ubuntu's market is close but...

WHERE IS THE NON FREE SOFTWARE?!!

If linux wants to do well for humans, paid, proprietary software NEEDS to exist on the platform. Ubuntu Software Center comes close, but it still kind of sucks.

Also, as a dev, it wasn't until VERY recently that you could even sign up to publish an app that was commercial in nature. It is hard to build a real marketplace when you're asking developers to give away all their work for free so that you can sell more operating systems (or support contracts) without the software dev seeing a dime.

As a software developer I can't feed my kids with free downloads on an open source operating system used by people who don't like paying for software.

Make it easy for devs to build software that people will pay for, then get operating system users who will buy that software for real money and you'll have fixed the Linux Desktop problem.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#14

Post by Edootjuh »

I disagree. The author seems to forget the fact that packages are only a layer of added ease of installing new software. The act of installing new software from source or binaries distributed by the author is still as free as ever.

I admit that I do install about 90% of my programs as packages, but the problem of central authorities responsible for patching and distributing software and taking too long to do it isn't present in every distribution. I've used Arch Linux for years now, and it solves this problem by separating the packages into an 'official' channel of reliable maintainers testing and releasing new versions on the package system and a user repository where anyone can add packages.

To me, this seems like the optimal solution. Community-maintained packages can be promoted to official ones, from what I can see new versions are released from testing within days and if you're not satisfied with how others maintain the packages, building the packages from the newest versions yourself is almost as easy as installing binaries from the repository because anyone can use the build and packaging scripts used by the maintainers themselves.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#15

Post by moonchrome »

diminish wrote: post #9

I am running on linux desktop for already 5 years together with 50 friends, peers etc. It does not quite seem write to compare 90 cent mobile applications, which are 'mostly' few bunch of screens interfaced to a service otherwise given by a web site or simple 80s area arcade games, to packages in a linux distro. the author is totally making a terrible mistake here. mobile apps lack in size, complexity and who said th…

>they are mostly consumables which perish in few days or months (I exclude some utitities).

This is simply false, there are plenty of complex apps with varying degrees of usefulness but they certanly don't reduce to 80's game clones and few screen apps. And even if it was true it's not a result of anything intrinsic to the app model. Also "tight control a la Apple" indicates that you missed his point.

How many times did you do make and sudo installed shit on your system to get basic app that should for all intents and purposes be walled of in a sandbox ? Even without sudo why should install script have access to my personal files without explicit permissions ? Did you run in to a situation where you wanted to install the latest version of an app for your system but it wasn't in your distro repo so you decided to build it only to find out that your repo GTK+ library was out of date and your options were rebuild all GTK+ packages or update the OS to alpha ? Even I gave up at that point - imagine the average user wanting to get the latest feature advertised on his favorite app site.

I use Linux desktop daily but it can be a hell and you need to know how to wrestle with the system, it's certainly not idiot proof - and it needs to be for mass adoption. But then again "mass adoption" (IMO) shouldn't even be considered a realistic goal, being useful to techies/developers and available on servers is a good objective too.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#16

Post by icebraining »

So, how does the fact that any person or company can host their own packages or even full repositories that can be added with a single click¹ and are not dependent on hierarchical organizations fit in that?

GNU/Linux distros, at least APT based ones, are perfectly distributed if the person wants to.

¹ If you have apt-url installed, which Ubuntu has by default

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#17

Post by muuh-gnu »

The reason I stopped recommending Linux to "normal users" is _because_ of the concept of distributions.

Coupling the updates of single apps with the updates of the whole desktop or framework and libs, is just plain wrong. Having to upgrade the whole distro (including all the other installed apps you dont want to upgrade) just to install a new version of one single app you _want_ to update is a nightmare. Total bullshit. Users. Dont. Want. That. Users dont want one update to trigger another update, or even to trigger the upgrade of the whole desktop.

The blog post by ESR is one prominent example: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3822

He basically wanted to upgrade just one (obscure) app, and the process triggered the automatic removal of Gnome2 and installation of Unity. Just _IMAGINE_ how nightmarish this must look for normal users. You simply dont remove somebodys installed desktop sneakily from under their feet. You simply dont. That feels like the total loss of control over your computer.

I personally had, during the last 10 years, people go from Linux (which I talked them into trying) back to windows, _precisely_ of this reason, of having to upgrade the whole distribution every few months just to be able to get new app versions. They dont have to put up with this insane bullshit on Windows, why should they put up with it on Linux?

This "distribution" bullshit is not what is killing desktop Linux, it is what _already_ killed desktop Linux.

The other reasons why desktop Linux never made it (no games, no preinstallations on hardware) are imho just consequences of the distribution concept and the 6-month planned-obsolescence cycle. Nobody wants to bother with something which will be obsolete half a year down the road. Nobody wants to develop for a target that moves _that_ fast.

Windows installations, once installed or preinstalled, run for a decade. Develop something, and it will run on a 10 yr old Windows your grandparents use. Most people encounter new Windows installations only when they buy a new computer. PC manufacturers know that customers will hate it when their new computer OS is obsolete within half a year and that they wont be able to install new apps, so they dont preinstall Linux, it's as simple as that.

If anybody _ever_ really wants to see Linux succeed on the desktop (before the desktop concept itself is gone), he will have to give up on the distribution concept first.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#18

Post by Aqueous »

drdaeman wrote: post #5

I'm just an ordinary user, but I'd put my 2¢. Nowadays, any developer can create a packages for his application (and any of its dependencies) and publish it in self-hosted repositories. Users can easily add such repository to their system's sources list and bureaucracy problem's over. Well, some developers are doing this already - the only thing that keeps the rest of them is either ignorance or complexity of the pac…

What you think is easy is actually not easy. Any time you've added one, two, three more steps to a problem after clicking the link in the browser you've already lost. Adding repositories? Already too late. Touching the command line? Sorry, as much as we love it, for most users it's already too late. Going into Aptitude or Synaptic and pasting in the repository URL? Yep. Too late.

This is all compounded by the fact that there is no app bundle. Mac OS X has the bundle and a terrific way to install it: Drag and drop it into the Applications folder, just like we did in the days of the Mac Classic and MacPaint. It hasn't changed. (Well, it did for a while, but thankfully they went back.)

If you say, "Well, that means you end up installing 5 different versions of the same library on the same system" - Who cares? Disk space isn't a priority any more, and from a developer standpoint it makes a lot more sense to target a dependency whose version number I know, instead of a dependency whose version only the package maintainers know for sure. I don't want to be forced to target v1.3 of a library if it's only been tested (by me) on v1.2. It makes for much better application stability for the developer to be in control of dependencies and not these package maintainers.

I want to ship a self-contained bundle of awesomeness, not a dysfunctional shard among ten thousand other shards.

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#19

Post by icebraining »

moonchrome wrote: post #15
diminish wrote: post #9

I am running on linux desktop for already 5 years together with 50 friends, peers etc. It does not quite seem write to compare 90 cent mobile applications, which are 'mostly' few bunch of screens interfaced to a service otherwise given by a web site or simple 80s area arcade games, to packages in a linux distro. the author is totally making a terrible mistake here. mobile apps lack in size, complexity and who said th…

>they are mostly consumables which perish in few days or months (I exclude some utitities). This is simply false, there are plenty of complex apps with varying degrees of usefulness but they certanly don't reduce to 80's game clones and few screen apps. And even if it was true it's not a result of anything intrinsic to the app model. Also "tight control a la Apple" indicates that you missed his point. How many times…

I agree that having to make and sudo install is essentially impossible for a common PC user, but how does the sandboxing have any impact in user adoption?

Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop

#20

Post by barrkel »

cs702 wrote: post #2

Molnar's point about the political and procedural difficulties of adding new applications in the official repositories of most distributions is true (although this is changing -- witness Canonical's Ubuntu Software Center, PPAs, and "universe" repositories). But his reasoning breaks down when he says the relative dearth of commercial applications for the Linux Desktop is due to this issue. That's not true. The main r…

Another reason is commitment to binary compatibility of a set of components over a time scale of 10 years or more. Linux has historically been relatively unstable, with an ideological focus on source rather than binary compatibility; and fragmented into different distros, which may have different ideas about which versions, configurations etc. of components are pieced together.

That's a perfectly understandable focus - even laudable, if you take the GNU line - but it makes it hard to release reliable, tested binary software. The landscape has too many variables.

I think this is a significantly bigger problem than install base. And I think it would be addressed with an appropriate focus on exactly the problem Ingo is pointing out: the lack of a defined, high quality core that can be relied upon.

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