Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#201

Post by scarface_74 » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:36 AM UTC

desumeku wrote: post #199

scarface_74 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have to buy the computer so an OS being “free” is inconsequential and what does “using less resources” get me? Does your computer run for 16 hours+ on one charge? Does it run fast, quiet and cool like my MacBook Air? By the way you can buy a brand new M1 MacBook Air from Walmart for $699. These are still being manufactured by Apple and distributed via third parties. As far as “trusting it” because it has been…

$699, which can buy you approximately 7 used laptops that are worthwhile daily drivers when set up with Linux. You sound like a shill.

Exactly what are the specs of this $100 laptop? Am I then going to carry around 7 laptops so I can get 14 hours of battery life? Am I going to run a cluster of them when I need to do something worthwhile with them?

What exactly do you do “daily” with a $100 laptop?

From your past comments, I’m assuming you are developer, are you really using a $100 computer?

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#202

Post by kube-system » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:43 AM UTC

ChocolateGod wrote: post #114

kube-system wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to Linux being the basis of Android.

Outside of the Linux kernel, there is very little shared technology between Android and the Linux desktops. They didn't even use the same graphics drivers till late.

> Outside of the Linux kernel, there is very little shared technology between Android and the Linux desktops.

lol... so, all of it? Linux is a kernel.

Regardless, my point had absolutely nothing to do with technology. Android's popularity has absolutely nothing to do with Linux and/or what it shipped with or didn't ship with. Its popularity has everything to do with the fact that it shipped preinstalled on devices that people bought. Linux isn't going to become popular on desktops until it is shipped on desktops.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#203

Post by insane_dreamer » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:45 AM UTC

Points 4 (file sharing) and 6 (hw compat), and part of point 1 (package distribution), are valid critiques. The rest, not so much.

The main reason Linux hasn't proliferated on the desktop is that businesses don't use it on the desktop and that's because they prefer to pay for a license so they get support if something goes wrong, and because Windows has always dominated business software (much of which isn't even available on other platforms).

The second reason is because Mac blows most everything else away when it comes to laptops; it's almost rare these days to come across someone that doesn't have a Mac as their laptop (unless it's a work-issued laptop in which case it's a Dell or something like that, or they want a budget laptop).

Linux is not likely to be mainstream for the desktop because there's not really a business model that drives it like there is for Windows and Mac. And that's fine. I use Linux as my daily driver for work (by choice), though for my personal laptop I have a Mac.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#204

Post by sombragris » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:45 AM UTC

wazoox wrote: post #70

graemep wrote: post #18

Very trollish. The second such article I have seen recently on the HN front page. What does "not ready for the desktop" even mean? Its been ready for MY desktop for over 20 years. Points 1,2,3 and 4 are pretty much wrong. Point 5 is a problem for other OSes too (there are bugs in applications!), point 6 is only relevant if you have particular hardware you want to work with Linux, and point 7 is not my experience.

Hardware support is so much better in Linux it's not even funny. I mean you can't even install windows server on most PCs because there aren't any drivers ! This trolling is beyond ridiculous.

Seconded. Back in 2015 I got a Toshiba Satellite Radius convertible laptop. X11 ran there even with touchscreen support. Plus, USB3 ran smoothly.

Now I'm using a Dell, and again, full hardware support with zero issues using Wayland and Pipewire. And I use Slackware, not exactly a sophisticated distro, but one that just offers upstream software with no modification.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#205

Post by ritcgab » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:48 AM UTC

The security of desktop Linux is just not there. Flatpak is a thing, but most users won't bother and they run all their desktop apps using the same uid and zero auditing or sandboxing. There is just no easy-to-use solutions, and none of existing mechanisms are default out-of-the-box.

One may argue that running an application means you have to trust the developer/distributor/etc. But no, I don't trust a single binary because I don't and won't have a full knowledge of what it's doing.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#206

Post by foobiekr » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:48 AM UTC

edoceo wrote: post #175

foobiekr wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No coder should ever, ever be shocked that broken code mostly kind of seems to work, especially if you don't notice things like file corruption because you're not looking, or memory corruption that doesn't happen to matter at the moment. A lot of the failures and bad code are in the unexpected path.

When this box does have issue (rare), it's right after I've done some upgrades to packages that the distribution has told me aren't ready. I know I'm standing on the edge (of glory!). Also, I use ext4 since like forever, ext3 before that and have never had issues. To be clear, my point is that these open source devs (I'm one too) are very careful to not regress. I think the software quality is very high.

Your experience is selection bias. And if you never had issues with ext3fs, I assure you it's because you never checked.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#207

Post by foobiekr » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:52 AM UTC

imiric wrote: post #184

foobiekr wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for a vendor that ships Linux code, we find regressions all the time. Because we actually test things. We do try to be good citizens, and Linux is the right answer, but it isn't a false assertion on the part of the author at all. In a previous job, 20 years ago, we found that the Linux USB stack was so bad that it was full of deadlocks and unprotected shared memory on 2.6. Just atrocious. And subsequent relea…

> [...] it isn't a false assertion on the part of the author at all. I wasn't arguing that it was entirely false, but that the generalizations of "regressions are introduced all the time" and "Linux developers spend little to no time" can't be applied to the entire Linux ecosystem. I wouldn't discredit your experience, but speaking of Linux kernel development specifically, my understanding as a user is that it's held…

Yes, they are very careful about not breaking userspace. That has nothing to do with holding the _user_ in high regard, though.

The sweeping changes in Linux are amazing, but they also break a lot, frequently, and the testing approach leaves a lot to be desired. I am old and a former embedded coder, I understand how the 90s developers feel about unit testing, and I am sympathetic to the idea that test-driven-development and heavy UT in modern teams is often completely out of control, but Linux is distinctly lacking in real testing of independent units in isolation. I am aware of kunit, kselftest, etc.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#208

Post by ryao » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:54 AM UTC

foobiekr wrote: post #145

edoceo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the assertion was true, I'd be feeling those regressions at least monthly on my leading edge, unstable (~amd64), Gentoo box, that is my daily driver desktop I use at $DayJob. This box has been stable enough to make money. But not as stable as my backup (also Gentoo) which runs stable and updates weekly. Edit: my biggest source of stability issues are Nvidia drivers mis-matched from kernel. Takes a whole reboot…

No coder should ever, ever be shocked that broken code mostly kind of seems to work, especially if you don't notice things like file corruption because you're not looking, or memory corruption that doesn't happen to matter at the moment. A lot of the failures and bad code are in the unexpected path.

I use ZFS to protect against file corruption and ECC RAM to protect against memory corruption. The combination works well.

The combination is not perfect unfortunately. The other day, I had a CPU cache parity check failure hang vim when I was trying to close it. I had to reboot to get rid of the hung kernel thread. It would be really nice if all CPU cache levels had full ECC protection, but only some of them do.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#209

Post by wodderam » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:54 AM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #57

The main criticism I see as valid here is first point: software distribution is tricky. For macOS and Windows you basically have a model where you can go to a website, download a binary, install it, and it runs. Most Linux distros won’t jive with that very well. And because every Linux distro uses a different theme and one of a dozen UI libraries/DEs/etc. the downloaded GUI application will look bad because it won’t…

I use KDE Neon because Windows seems almost childish in comparison.

I use KDE Neon because I haven't bought a Mac yet but I don't know if that would be an upgrade. Neon is just superb.

I just can't imagine how anyone could get use to Neon and then use Windows without thinking it is a joke. Especially if you turn off the bells and whistles, everything is instant and instantly responsive.

I barely know any linux commands but installing software has been trivial in various software managers and apt get.

Beyond that everything just works. I think this experience is predicated on not playing games though. I have no idea what the state of games are for Linux, Windows or Mac.

As long as Neon has a critical mass to exist I could absolutely care less if more people use it or not.

Re: Why Linux is not ready for the desktop, the final edition

#210

Post by itvision » Tue, Dec 31, 2024, 2:55 AM UTC

perihelions wrote: post #4

- "The vast majority of applications exist only for Windows, and speaking of games, Linux hasn't seen any AAA titles for many years now," The vast majority of AAA titles run seamlessly on Linux. Per protondb[0], ≥80% of the top 10, top 100, and top 1000 are rated "platinum" or "gold" for Linux functioning (by users). [0] https://www.protondb.com/

DirectX and Win32 are Windows APIs.

Are you saying Linux has "games" because it excels at ... emulating them?

What's the point of using/running Linux then when you have a much higher chance of running games successfully natively? What about dozens if not hundreds of games that use a kernel level anticheat? Pretty much none of them work in Linux.

What's the point of native Linux APIs then?

That's weird.

Wine + DXVK are so good, Linux is GREAT.

No, it shows how horrible Linux is when not a single vendor outside of Valve wants to touch it. And everyone who tried to port games to Linux went bankrupt.