Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#121

Post by fatboy93 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:21 AM UTC

sgc wrote: post #78

jaimex2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. You cant walk away from Windows 10 without the chance of coming back to a bricked system because it auto-updated and broke.

This issue of Windows update and other lock in trends is 80% of the reason I just (in the last month) switched to a Linux desktop. The other 20% is that the ui on Linux has finally progressed enough that I could consider it the least worst option. That is a first since I tried many times and wound up reverting to Windows. So far the only thing that really bugs me is that I have to apply fixes in the terminal. Like in…

Did you try notepadqq, late or kwrite?

Notepadqq is notepad++!

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#122

Post by blibble » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:22 AM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #118

"Linux has a 255 bytes limitation for file names (this translates to just 63 four-byte characters in UTF-8) - not a great deal but copying or using files or directories with long names from your Windows PC can become a serious challenge." Not sure what he is speaking about.

I'd not come across this before, but it appears to be true:

    $ touch $(printf 'a%.0s' {1..255})
    $ touch $(printf 'a%.0s' {1..256})
    touch: cannot touch 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa': File name too long

(on ext4 and ZFS anyway)

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#123

Post by meditate » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:24 AM UTC

Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #90

I wish that there would be one unified API for creating desktop programs on Linux. Right now it's somewhat coalesced on GTK/GNOME and Qt/KDE, though there are a number of others out there. I use Linux in a VM for very hobbyist level embedded development (think Arduino and the like). Driver problems are non-existent, all of the technical problems are non-issues in this environment. The problems that I see are all to d…

>someone to make a decision about the one true way to do things.

Things don't really work this way in free and open source development. There is no one person to make decisions, consensus is reached when the quality of something raises "above the bar" and actually improves things for all involved parties. If someone wants there to be an über-library that serves everyone's use case then it's up to them to go and do the work to build that.

And it has been getting better in this regard. For example KDE and GNOME used to have their own IPC, multimedia & audio mixing backends, but now both have converged on DBus, GStreamer and PulseAudio, in part because these were intentionally built to be flexible low-level solutions. I'm sure there are more examples of this too but those are the first that come to mind.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#124

Post by hermitdev » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:26 AM UTC

cossovich wrote: post #32

I've been using Ubuntu LTS versions since 12.04 on Thinkpad T and X series laptops and I'm a very happy camper - out of the box Ubuntu doesn't suck for me, it "just works". I moved from OS X on latest Apple laptops to make my daily job (interaction design + web development) more productive (e.g. workstation running the same OS as servers, tooling etc) but now it's my preferred OS + hardware combo from a end-user pers…

Just an aside, at a previous job, I worked with devs that used Macs, where I had a Linux VM on a windows laptop (and we deployed to Linux). Numerous times, I found bugs in coworkers code because they ignored case sensitivity in filenames. Yes, OS-X is BSD and unix based, but by default, the file system is cases-insensitive, like Windows, amd apparently if you make it case sensitive, you can brake a lot of popular Mac software.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#125

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:27 AM UTC

blaze33 wrote: post #54

Linux as the open-sourced work of brilliant software developers wouldn't power most servers if it sucked. But could designing good desktops need more than just good code? Good kernels successfully run code. Good desktops successfully help users. I guess different goals require different designs? Edit: to clarify, I didn't mean desktops don't require well designed software. Just had in mind that a desktop also have to…

> Good desktops successfully help users.

I disagree with the phrasing. I'd say that good desktops enable users. One of my big peeves about Linux Desktop culture is that they see users as beneath them. They want to "help" users by wrapping them in straight jackets to keep them from hurting themselves and shining a laser pointer on the wall to entertain them. Have a problem with the Linux Desktop? Well, "normal users" don't do whatever it is you're trying to do, and you're not a C graybeard or you'd fix it yourself, so you don't exist according to their model of the universe.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#126

Post by brightball » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:37 AM UTC

baroffoos wrote: post #62

0xb100db1ade wrote: post #10

What I get out of this is that while each of these issues may be individually dismissed, they together make for a very "non-premium" experience. I use linux myself, but when people I know try it out, they immediately leave after encountering problems with audio, dpi scaling, etc

I have found its super dependent on what hardware you get, Especially on laptops. I always pick hardware that works perfectly with linux and I am left with a very premium experience but when using linux on bad hardware like macbooks and broadcom wifi everything just doesn't work right.

Yep, agreed. Whenever I tried installing on old hardware I had laying around it was always very quirky.

From the moment I bought a Dell Developer Edition that was built specifically for compatibility, the experience had been fantastic.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#127

Post by philliphaydon » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:38 AM UTC

ilovecaching wrote: post #107

baroffoos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found its super dependent on what hardware you get, Especially on laptops. I always pick hardware that works perfectly with linux and I am left with a very premium experience but when using linux on bad hardware like macbooks and broadcom wifi everything just doesn't work right.

Yep. Exactly this. If you get a laptop that a GNOME developer uses, chances are you’ll run into maybe two issues a year. But try to get GNOME to run on two 4K displays and an RTX. But here’s the thing. Linux has won. Desktop is a dying market. Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone and in the data center, which is where it counts. The DE has gotten much better transitively from all the work that’s…

> If you really want to see Linux on the DE, boycott NVIDIA, or write them a letter.

I was watching a video on youtube (can't find it now) about gaming on Linux, and it suggested to update the PPA and install the latest drivers. (this was after I refreshed my desktop to be Ubuntu Budgie)

So I did that, installed latest NVidia Drivers. Tried out some steam games, and went to bed. Next day I couldn't boot into the desktop, got stuck in a loop, couldn't remove the drivers and get into desktop at all. It completely bunged my computer. Apparently alot of people had similar issues.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#128

Post by mr_toad » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:47 AM UTC

hartator wrote: post #68

gerdesj wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have never used Linux in any form. There are multiple package managers, granted. However, one strength they all share is: "you usually don't get .exe or .dmg"! Absolutely! Apps are integrated and not simply add-ons as they are in Windows or Apple land. When I want to install say libreoffice or wireshark I simply ask the system to install them. I absolutely do not browse the internet and download something…

If you need the last version of Wireshark, it’s getting complicated. And when you have a setup with Wireshark that works why update it? I am dubious that Wireshark can be an attack vector so security updates won’t be useful. Installing last versions is very straight forward when you are on Osx or Windows. You just go to the website and download it. Plus you get the original binaries not a doctored version to fit what…

Going to dozens or even hundreds of different websites to download the latest versions of software and then manually installing them all isn’t fast at all.

c.f. apt-get upgrade or similar, which takes a few seconds.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#129

Post by pnutjam » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #92

pnutjam wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try OpenSuse, it has the best hardware support by far.

Did you read the comment you were replying to, or TFA? The issue isn't even remotely just poor hardware support.

Your wrong, a good 70% is hardware in the article.

Re: Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

#130

Post by darkpuma » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:51 AM UTC

ilovecaching wrote: post #107

baroffoos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have found its super dependent on what hardware you get, Especially on laptops. I always pick hardware that works perfectly with linux and I am left with a very premium experience but when using linux on bad hardware like macbooks and broadcom wifi everything just doesn't work right.

Yep. Exactly this. If you get a laptop that a GNOME developer uses, chances are you’ll run into maybe two issues a year. But try to get GNOME to run on two 4K displays and an RTX. But here’s the thing. Linux has won. Desktop is a dying market. Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone and in the data center, which is where it counts. The DE has gotten much better transitively from all the work that’s…

> Linux is literally the most used operating system on phone

What makes this such a victory? The fact that Android uses a Linux kernel is totally meaningless to the overwhelming majority of Android users. The bootloaders on their phones are almost always locked down and even if that weren't the case, if their kernels were swapped out with something BSD derived how many people would actually notice?

What is the objective with promoting Linux? Adoption for the sake of adoption? Getting the Linux kernel onto the largest number of CPUs, just to make that number go higher and higher? Is pursuit of some number the real goal, or is the goal actually something to do with user empowerment and liberation/freedom? A billion tivoized smartphones with linux kernels certainly optimizes for that number of CPUs, but from a user liberation/freedom standpoint Linux/Android is virtually moot.

That Android gives the user more freedom than iOS is completely incidental to what kernel it uses. Android could be a platform open to third party app stores and sideloading that ran on a BSD kernel or even something completely different. To the average Android user, their Android phone is actually less open than Microsoft Windows, which also allows third party 'app stores' (e.g. Steam) and 'sideloading' (so normalized on Windows that it doesn't even use a special term like that.) Whether a system will be open to third party developers without any gatekeeper is a matter of company politics, not something that's emergent from what kernel is chosen.

So yeah, pop open the champagne. Linux won and I'm going to need a lot of champagne to enjoy this hollow victory.