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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#141

Post by ChuckMcM »

This article hits so many sore spots right on a pustulent scar tissue.

I had run a Linux desktop (a Debian build mostly w/ KDE) for a while and kept getting hammered with random stuff breaking for random, and often poorly considered, reasons. I gave up and went back to running a Windows deskop with a X-server to pull up windows on my Linux box.

Then I went to work for Google and they did a really good job of running Ubuntu as an engineering desktop (calling their distro Gubuntu of course) and I thought "Wow, this has come quite a ways, perhaps Linux has matured to the point where there is at least one way to run it reliably. And so I installed Ubuntu on my desktop and tried that for a while.

For "using" it, it was for the most part ok if once every few days I did an apt-get update/upgrade cycle. For developing it was a real challenge. Pull in the latest gstreamer? Blam blam blam things fall over dead, update their packages (sometimes pulling git repos and rebuilding from source) to get back working, and now apt-get update/upgrade falls over the next time because you've got a package conflict. It is enough to drive you insane.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#142

Post by subhro »

wheels wrote: post #109
cletus wrote: post #97

This is the money quote: > The second dimension to the problem is that no two Linux distributions agreed on which core components the system should use. Linux on the desktop suffered from a lack of coherent, strategic vision, consistency and philosophy . Every engineer I know likes to do things a particular way. They also have a distorted view on the level of customization that people want and need. I like OSX. Out o…

> I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. [...] In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work. Just because it's never happened to you on OS X or Windows doesn't mean it doesn't happen. OS X 10.6.7 broke the output on my 13" Macbook for either of the two external displays I own. Both worked fine previously, when booted from the install CDs, or from Linux on the same…

See, according to me, you don't get the point. Things DO break in OSX as well. Just that its a bit less. Apple has the liberty to control both the (primary) hardware as well as the OS which runs on it. Therefore it has an edge over Linux in terms of compatibility.

Having said that, barring a few "recent" desktop distros, as they call it, like Ubuntu, Linux has always been a bottom up approach. You need to install the base, then the userland and so on. For someone who is looking for ultimate customization, Linux makes sense.

But when I am running a notebook, I seriously want everything to work, albeit at a lower performance/customizability.

I always run either FreeBSD or Gentoo on my servers. But my notebook/desktop continues to be OSX.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#143

Post by greedo »

OSX didn't kill the Linux desktop, Office and Photoshop did. Just as it killed the *BSD desktops. Lack of high-end applications that were compatible with what the business world was using doomed anything that didn't have at least a tacit blessing from Adobe and Microsoft.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#144

Post by thornofmight »

rufugee wrote: post #85
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

I'm sorry..I strongly disagree. You have me on the video support...OS X does a much better job there. You even have a point on audio drivers...they can be a pain at times. But design? Gnome 3 and Unity to me are FAR superior to OS X in terms of UI experience. YMMV of course. I bought a Macbook, gave it a fair shot, and it ended up being a dust collector simply because the desktop experience was painful compared to Ub…

"Perhaps I'm set in my ways" -- I think this pretty much says it all.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#145

Post by farinasa »

When the iPhone 3GS came out, battery life tanked on my 3G. They fixed that, after some period, only to break the reporting in the firmware. Now the device thinks it's dead after a few hours. Replace the battery, same life time. At this point, I'll never expect and apple device to last longer than a year and therefore will not buy one.

Additionally, OSX is no linux replacement. Bash is completely different except for cd, rm, and ls.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#146

Post by sjs »

rufugee wrote: post #85
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

I'm sorry..I strongly disagree. You have me on the video support...OS X does a much better job there. You even have a point on audio drivers...they can be a pain at times. But design? Gnome 3 and Unity to me are FAR superior to OS X in terms of UI experience. YMMV of course. I bought a Macbook, gave it a fair shot, and it ended up being a dust collector simply because the desktop experience was painful compared to Ub…

It sounds like you expected a clone of Windows and were predictably disappointed.

> I got maybe three hours of the supposed 7 hour battery

You should have taken it back. Seriously.

> Perhaps I'm set in my ways

You hit the nail on the head here. There's nothing wrong with that but most of your complaints amount to "this is not what I am used to".

> the absolute insanse window switching behavior

On Windows and Linux I cannot switch to an app bringing all windows to the front, I have to do it one at a time. Anyone used to one behaviour could claim the other is insane just because it is different.

> the piss poor excuse for a terminal

What on earth are you talking about? The Terminal app? Get iTerm2 or something else then. If you don't like gnome-terminal you don't whine about it, you just install urxvt or whatever.

> the fact that apps continue to run in the background after you close the last window

The fact that you have to have visible windows for an app to run on Windows and Linux could be perceived the same way. What if I wanted to switch back and use that app again?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#147

Post by ajross »

lazyjones wrote: post #111
freyrs3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Design is about usability and understanding the user Here's the point you're missing. The overwhelming majority Linux users don't give a flying hoot about the average user or mass adoption. They just want a system that gets out of their way and let's them do their technical tasks. Linux succeeds and excels at this because it is precisely designed for that niche and curated by its end-users. There are however people…

> They just want a system that gets out of their way and let's them do their technical tasks. That's precisely what Linux fails at. Most minor UI/desktop-related tasks that are hassle-free with Win7 or OSX take far too much time. Time that most people don't have and don't want to invest. Example: doubleclicking on a .ttf file in the Xfce file manager (plain Debian Xfce) does nothing. Right-clicking offers various unr…

Oh, for... Just drop the .ttf in your .fonts directory and be done with it. That you insist on mucking around in a GUI to do something as simple as placing a file in the spot where it belongs says everything you need to know about whether you belong in the "technical user who wants a system that gets out of the way" class or not.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#148

Post by pswenson »

rufugee wrote: post #85
nirvana wrote: post #25

I think he's right, but I think he's missing a key point. Design. Design is what killed the linux desktop. It never had it. OS X has it. Even windows, crappy as it may be, has it. Before I go on, let me say that Design is NOT "making it look pretty". In fact, thinking that this is what design is, is what leads many linux advocates to reject the needs of design. Apple's work looks pretty-- because it is designed to fu…

I'm sorry..I strongly disagree. You have me on the video support...OS X does a much better job there. You even have a point on audio drivers...they can be a pain at times. But design? Gnome 3 and Unity to me are FAR superior to OS X in terms of UI experience. YMMV of course. I bought a Macbook, gave it a fair shot, and it ended up being a dust collector simply because the desktop experience was painful compared to Ub…

what's wrong with the terminal?

hit cmd-q to close an app.

no idea what you mean by insane window switching behavior.

you gave no examples of how Ubuntu/Fedora is better to rebut on UX. care to share some?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#149

Post by graue »

learc83 wrote: post #80
wpietri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in that light, I think the idea that the Linux desktop got "killed" is sort of missing the point. It's no more moribund now than it was before. I strongly disagree. It is losing exactly the sort of person that the author is: developers who, all else equal, would rather use Linux. But who eventually get tired of the BS and just want something that works and you can actually get software for. I have a lot of sympath…

Many of the problems people have with Linux have nothing to do with Linux itself. When I first tried to use Linux about 7 years ago, wireless drivers were a huge problem. Manufacturers didn't provide assistance--not much Linux distros could do about it at the time. These problems are simply inherent to Linux being a minority platform.

OpenBSD actually made a huge contribution here by reverse-engineering binary blobs and writing open-source drivers that could be maintained and debugged, which eventually made their way into Linux. At one time, the wireless support on OpenBSD was vastly superior to Linux. (This is a bit of a tangent, but I think props are due.)

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#150

Post by untog »

Derbasti wrote: post #138
masklinn wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually prefer the graphical shell of Windows 7 to the one of OSX Lion. Explorer? Versus finder? That's a pretty low-hanging fruit, I can't remember ever preferring finder to explorer and I've been using OSX as my main dev machine (and Windows mostly for the game box) for 6 years now. I prefer OSX overall, but the finder still isn't a good shell.

I was going to leave a snarky comment with just a list of awful OSX applications here. But then I looked at a list of the applications I have installed and... Well, while many of them might be bad, their usual alternatives on Windows aren't exactly better. But Finder really is bad. Then again, I wish ANY other OS would implement the column view Finder has. As bad as Finder is, column view is awesome. But many of the…

Or the complete lack of uninstallers. I am continuously baffled by that. How can you have a "modern" operating system without uninstallers?

Well, the dream is that you don't need one. Drag the app from Applications to the Trash and... ta-da! Of course, that never happens with anything more complex than the most superficial of apps.

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