Linux Problems on the Desktop (2018)

>The only reason user accounts exist at all in Desktop OSs is that all of them today were originally server OSs.

> "We managed to share home desktop computers in the 90s without significant problems, even though the OSs we used didn't support multiple user accounts at all."

That's not true. Window 9x series had user accounts (with no security between them.) This was beneficial to users because computers were expensive (and still are to most people..) so personal computers very often weren't personal. Having separate accounts, even without security, allowed individual users to configure the system to their personal preference and helped with file organization.

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People aren't in denial people are by and large aware of the issues an average person experiences when using Linux and the resources or lack thereof available to reverse engineer an entire universe of unfriendly hardware vendors work to enable joe blow to take his $399 walmart special and install linux on it.

If people want linux on the desktop to offer a more polished experience the only way about it is for everyone to put their money where their mouth is.

If "Linux" were a company we would be justified in demanding a fully finished product before buying but free software is a resource that already benefits billions even if they only interact with it via android, or web services.

"As the author points out, regression failures are a big problem. The sheer bloat of Linux has made it unmaintainable. And who wants that job? Big chunks of important code are abandonware."

This seems to be unsupported supposition that we are supposed to take as received wisdom.

As someone who also uses Linux since Mandrake, I am tired of people telling me there should be just one desktop, file manager etc. There needs to be competition in FLOSS also, nowdays I use both desktop environments, depending on the hardware and mix and match components. For example I prefer Okular even on GNOME.

If people so desire a 'unified experience', you have Windows/macOS. I came to Linux as a refugee from these and am tired of the attempts to pull it in the same direction. Not everything has to be the same, in fact that's a terrible world to live in.

I am also tired of people saying things on Linux are "broken", they aren't any more broken than on macOS/Windows. Granted, you may have to get compatible hardware, which is only fair considering that's what you're doing when purchasing a Win/macOS machine and yet on Linux there's somehow this grand expectation that any random cram HW should just work. You don't expect anything not designed with macOS in mind to work there, so why Linux?

I use macOS at work and experience not so rare kernel panics. There was also just a bug in Premiere blowing up speakers on the MBP, being allowed to log in without a password, APFS logging encryption password in plain text etc. Yet somehow no-one is as strict on that as insisting on Linux somehow 'not working' even as am sitting here being productive on it for over a decade.

> This is literally my only (big) complaint about Linux. Video drivers just SUCK.

Not really. The problem is NVIDIA doesn't give a crap about good user experience. The AMDGPU driver is pretty good and open-source to boot.

There are plenty of valid complains including many touched on in the article but there is also some unvarnished nonsense.

"Pulseaudio is unsuitable for multiuser mode - yes, many people share their PCs (an untested solution can be found here)."

This would lead one to believe that multiple graphical logins playing sound doesn't work in actuality Pulseaudio runs as a process per user and the observed behavior is the same as switching users on a windows machine. When you switch to a users graphical session that users sound comes out of your speakers. Further this allows it to be configured per user and for it to run without super user privileges. The only thing you can't do is say play music as one user and switch to another users desktop and listen to said tunes while hearing your users applications.

In most cases you actually don't want random apps you can't by design effect or shut up playing over your desktop. So this is the right decision in every possibly way.

"No reliable sound system, no reliable unified software audio mixing (implemented in all modern OSes except Linux), many old or/and proprietary applications still open audio output exclusively causing major user problems and headaches."

The last application that I recall that I had an issue with grabbing the sound device directly was a 15 year old version of Skype. Pulseaudio does all of the above and as it is and has been the standard desktop apps are expected to integrate with it and by and large that has been the case for about a decade now. The fact that somewhere out there old broken non compliant apps exist isn't a compelling argument. All popular platforms have a mixture of crappy and useful apps. People generally deal with this by using their favorite search engine to find good applications for their task.

"What if the user decides to switch from Windows to Linux when he/she already has some hardware? When people purchase a Windows PC do they research anything? No, they rightly assume everything will work out of the box right from the get-go."

They "rightly" expect hardware that the manufacturer doesn't want to support on Linux will be reverse engineered by volunteers because they already invested their money in a manufacturer that only supports windows. When the kind of person that could help you out makes 200k at Google it turns out that 50k of their time is not available to protect your $99 investment in your printer.

If you pay $15 a month for hulu + hbo, 10 a month for spotify, $14 a month for netlfix, $150 for cable in the next 5 years you will pay.

$900 for hulu $600 for spotify $840 for netflix $9000 for cable

If you paid for all 4 you bought a halfway OK used car. Perhaps a fraction of that might buy a more polished experience you don't need to piss and moan about.

Ultimately everyone will eventually upgrade their machine. Almost all hardware that a consumer would encounter or consider could also run windows. If you are considering switching to Linux and your current machine consider making Linux a part of your NEXT purchase. If you don't like it you can easily turn around and put Windows on it or hey put both.