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Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
131–140 of 200 posts
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#132The 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 bullsh…
For software updates without updating the distro, backports can be turned on.
The reason that everything is packaged together like that is so library updates and other things can be tested and vetted for compatibility. Part of the challenge of allowing such a variety of OS and system configurations is that library or software package maintainers are unlikely to have tested their updated code on every possible distribution out there, and so that makes it the responsibility of the distro maintainers.
Believe it or not in practice this doesn't create many issues. It might be an obstacle for casual users who are trying to transition into power users, and are trying to tweak their system. But most other users aren't encountering the same frustration.
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
The semi-standard commercial solution for widget toolkits, excluding old software tied to something legacy, is typically to use Qt, which has both LGPL and (reasonably priced) commercial license options. Audio isn't really a problem for statically linked apps not doing anything particularly strange; it works fine in anything I've tried. Even ancient audio APIs in ancient binaries are transparently emulated through so…
I use Linux every day; I haven't used desktop Linux much since a fairly unpleasant experience with the original Eee PC (701, in 2007). But package management (I live with Debian apt-get and friends) is a bane of my life. Generally, the binaries that come when I install a package are too old, or don't have the right compile-time options configured, or there is some dependency missing that I don't have installed and is…
You use debian and are complaining about old binaries? I think they consider it a feature.
I use Ubuntu desktop/server and etc and my experiences with the package managers have been flawless.
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#134The Linux desktop is dead. Face it. Accept it. How do I know this? Go to a developers' or tech conference, and what is the prevailing OS? 9/10 times these days, it's MacOS. As much as Apple may be control freaks, they did desktop UNIX right and developers have flocked to them. Meanwhile, the Linux desktop community is still having the same debates, the same difficulties it had back in the mid-90's. Dependency issues.…
The Linux desktop is dead
This is really premature because there are major flaws with the other options. Apple is a closed-down walled garden (and it's expensive), for example.
The Linux ecosystem is extremely diverse, so maybe somebody will come up with something that can compete well with these other flawed models.
For example, maybe Ingo Molnar's post will inspire people to take things in new directions.
The desktop paradigm will still be around for several years
That's a ridiculous understatement. You can't do serious work on smartphones and tablets and that's not going to change until we're going around plugging them into projectors and keyboards, at which point they're just serving as desktops anyway.
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been saying this same thing for years. Package managers are a nice concept in theory, but Linux on the desktop will never, ever succeed until upgrading (for example) Firefox doesn't result in an install of Unity. The entire concept of a milestone-based monolithic distro is so broken for desktop use that I can't believe a better alternative hasn't been developed yet. Even as a Linux nerd I'm constantly faced with…
I understand where you're coming from, but people have the exact same problem with Windows (and maybe Mac also; but I don't have much experience with Macs). Many people are staying on XP because they dislike Windows 7/Vista. I suspect the same is happening with Ubuntu. I personally LOVE LOVE LOVE that all my apps are updated by the same program. Instead of the Windows/Mac way of each app running it's own updater. How…
We're talking about different problems. Windows does not have the problem I'm describing. If I want to update Firefox on Windows XP, I can do that without Windows forcing me to update to Windows 7 as part of the deal. That's the problem. Updating Firefox on Ubuntu 11.04 after a certain (very soon in the future) point in time necessitates an update to Ubuntu XX.YY.
In fact you're precisely illustrating my point with your example. That people can choose to stick to XP because they don't like 7 is precisely analogous to wanting to stick with Gnome 2 because I dislike Unity. But the difference is that I can do that in Windows because I can still get app updates in XP for over a decade, but I can't in Linux because app updates are tied to the entire massive distro and everything else that goes with it... often every 6 months.
It certainly is possible to upgrade parts of the system using esoteric (to the average-Joe) solutions like PPAs or compiling from source or being forced to switch to a different desktop environment. (Most users don't even know what a DE is!) But the fact that you're forced to turn to such solutions is what I--and the OP and the linked article--argue is the biggest nail in the desktop Linux coffin.
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Without distros, the way to get software is unbearable for Windows converts, where it is just "click, click, done." Sorry, what? On Windows machines, due to the lack of package management, installing software is not a matter of "click, click, done." You have to google the program, navigate to the website's download area, find the right link, download it, execute it. It asks if you're sure it isn't a Trojan or somet…
And on Linux, you navigate to the website's download area and find out they don't offer a Linux version. There is an open source alternative which is not in your distro's repository, so you have to navigate to the website's download area, find the right link, download it, get accepted to university, take a year of 100-level CS courses, learn the command line on your own because you didn't get it at school, run config…
hehe , Harsh.
I think one of the main problems is that there is no single agreed way to distribute a program.
At least with Windows Installshield wizard kind of became the defacto.
Sometimes I go to a download page and they offer me a .deb file which is great but then I find it is targeted a specific version of ubuntu that I am not running. Sometimes they offer a .rpm, or sometimes they just offer a zip file with a random .bin or .sh inside it that I may or may not have to run as root and may or may not do weird things to my system.
Also you get stuff that asks you to do git clone and make etc.
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#137Why do linux distros keep trying to recreate the gaudy, confusing experiences of the proprietary systems? I want my drivers to work, and a window manager that wraps the file-system - allows interaction with the files. In an ideal world, someone would restructure the four bin directories so that system stuff was in one area, and user stuff was somewhere else so we could easily open what we want by navigating the tree.
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#138The author mostly talk about maintaining packages. Some people say that it is the missing games and other desktop applications. However, we all know that Linux is best OS for development. It has best set of libraries, languages and utilities. Yet, why there not many cool Desktop applications? I believe the answer is, Linux doesn't have an IDE for Desktop development. Look at windows, they have .net Platform and IDE,…
QT Creator for Cross-platform.
KDevelop for KDE focused stuff.
Not sure what for GNome.
What is wrong with the above?
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I said. That's a problem with the package management in most distributions. It has nothing to do with the fact that we have multiple distributions. I.e. source-based distributions (e.g. gentoo) don't have this particular problem.
Tell this to people who ended up with broken Arch installations after the sudden upgrade to Python 3.x.
That is a case of yet another pair of problems, though: Python is incompatible with itself across versions (understandable, I guess), yet it is hard to run multiple versions side by side (major flaw in Python 3 for reusing the unadorned name Python, instead of making the number part of the name or changing the name of the installed software)
Re: Ingo Molnar on what ails the Linux desktop
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And I don't see what's wrong with requiring users to have an up-to-date system. The problem are not the forced invisible security updates, the problem are forced user-visible upgrades. When you want to upgrade one app, you maybe dont want to simultaneously upgrade another app or even the whole desktop. With the distribution model, theres no way to avoid this forced interdependence.
Updates are not invisible by default because the organizations behind the distros can't provide the same level of assurance that Microsoft or Apple can that update X won't break something. Average users should have no say in keeping their apps from getting auto upgraded. Linux distros have to track upstream app releases because if they don't there will be breakage eventually. Some app will require a feature added in…
Perfect username. The problem is that Linux ecosystem doesn't have enough QA backing the amount of new and changing code. The is partly caused by inflated egos of the competing distro teams.
Ingo is wrong about freedom. Freedom is the cause if Linux's problem: dev teams are too free to make compatibility breaking changes and too many alternatives in core desktop infrastructure, so QA can't keep up.