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

itvision.altervista.org

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

#261

Post by IgorPartola »

ryao wrote: post #170
IgorPartola wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully understand that. And yet until you can convince Debian to include a copy of Adobe Photoshop in their repository you will cut off a significant amount of desktop users. How do you propose to solve that problem? (Yes of course the solution is to fund Gimp until it’s better than Photoshop by so much that the industry switches. It was the solution 20 years ago too. Adobe has run away with this market. Photoshop i…

Most computer users do not use photoshop. For those that do, there are options. One is to use Krita. Another would be to use Wine to run the Windows version of Photoshop: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=applicatio... It works for a number of versions, although not all of them. It is a shame that Adobe does not port Photoshop to Linux. It used to run on IRIX: http://nekofiles.irixnet.org/Documents/ph…

So I am friends with a bunch of photographers. Some are proponents of open source. Others don’t care. But universally they would rather have a thing that just works and feels right than mess with Wine. You can do almost anything. When your paycheck depends on your software working your patience is likely to be shorter.

I say this as a person who is a huge fan of Linux/Unix on the desktop. I wish I still was able to run it as my daily workhorse like I did for a decade and a half (and that was before the distros actually got good at this). You can make it work. But an average user isn’t interested because there are only downsides and little benefit.

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

#262

Post by itvision »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #166
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“it's a miracle of modern software engineering and a testament of the power of collaboration and the free software movement that the Linux ecosystem works as well as it does” It can be a miracle, and yet still not be good enough. Even as a business user, knowing that if I build an app and it probably won’t work in 5 years, is all I need to know about this hobbyist toy. Linux is fundamentally not ready for anyone who…

> knowing that if I build an app and it probably won’t work in 5 years Would you say MacOS, Android, and iPhone are also hobbyist toys then? And by the way, if you statically compile your app for Linux it will basically work forever. Linus's mantra: We Do Not Break Userspace. These are userland problems and can all be avoided with a linker flag if it's a priority for you.

You cannot statically compile a lot of stuff. Too many Linux libraries are GPLed, and that only works for open source applications.

And then one day the underlying libraries will have security problems. Your statically linked application has just become a gaping hole.

And finally, you don't want your statically compiled binary to be hundreds of megabytes and take forever to launch, do you? But seeing how many people here are advocating Snap/Flat/AppImage, I guess it's not a problem? But why would you need a Linux userspace or OS in the first place when all you are doing is running virtual containers? You can run them on Windows or MacOS as well.

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

#263

Post by pxoe »

kelnos wrote: post #118
rbanffy wrote: post #7

Again? I’ve been using Linux on my desktop since 2004 or so. And lack of games is always brought up as if gaming was one essential feature of a computer. That’s what consoles are for.

I've been using Linux on my desktop even longer, but I agree with at least the premise of the article (even though the arguments are poorly thought out and expressed most of the time). No Linux-based OS has gained mainstream acceptance. You can try to blame that on marketing or corporations or whatever, but I don't buy that. I think open source software is the best way to make technically-superior software, but I thi…

Gnome tries to focus on UX and does a pretty good job at it. But they're yet to make a regular user oriented distro, which I think could be a better bet at realizing that 'mainstream linux' idea, because at least they'd care enough to try and figure out the things that get in the way of users having linux running.

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

#264

Post by whatever1 »

None of these are deal breakers.

In my experience, users are spooked by 2 things:

1) Lackluster hardware support (not entirely Linux’s fault, but the distros could have a qualified vendor list, for example)

2) Incomplete UI for the OS. Not a single time in the past 20 years did I set up a Linux desktop without the need to spawn a terminal. This is completely unacceptable and user-hostile. None of the other platforms (even Android) require this.

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

#265

Post by itvision »

hysan wrote: post #47
talldayo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, despite millions of players, it's hard to call CS2 an AAA title because it's based on Direct3D 11 (which is now more than a decade old) and lacks modern lighting techniques like ray tracing. Some of the quotes from the OP's page border on parody. So, CS2 doesn't count as a AAA title because it's based on DX11 and doesn't have realtime ray tracing. But apparently this same person is oblivious to the fact that…

I got halfway through it before realizing that it’s just a clickbait article.

Yes, look up the author's name.

Look at their contributions to the Linux kernel, GCC, KDE, Wine, and many other projects.

A total clickbait for sure.

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

#266

Post by lumost »

itvision wrote: post #212
imiric wrote: post #81

> Regressions are introduced all the time because Linux developers spend very little to no time checking that their code changes don't cause regressions or breakages outside of the problems they're trying to fix or features they're implementing. Wow. Such sweeping generalizations make me not want to pay attention to anything this article has to say. But let's entertain the possibility that parts of that statement are…

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues Just check this bug tracker. Just this one. Bug report on top of bug report caused by a fix which was caused by another fix. Sadly it's not just one bug tracker, I keep an eye on many of them. Of course in the magical Linux land if "It works for me", then the author is lying. Never mind that the author of this "click-bait" article is a ... Linux kernel bugzilla maintain…

I suspect that the unspoken bit here is that hardware qualification is extremely important.

On the desktop, Linux is an afterthought for the vast majority of consumer hardware vendors. Many Linux desktop users run configurations which could generously be called “alpha”.

With MS windows, this burden is shouldered by every hardware manufacturer. It’s nonsensical to release a peripheral which doesn’t work on windows. Laptop/desktop makers then qualify common applications to make sure everything works as expected.

If any of the above doesn’t work out, then MS will get a call, or the hardware vendor.

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

#267

Post by ranger207 »

itvision wrote: post #214
actuallyalys wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s truth in broad strokes (e.g., the lack of a stable ABI is a genuine problem) that I wish people would acknowledge. I think your attitude is a healthy one! However, I don’t think this article is written very charitably. It seems unfair to Linux developers to suggest that they spend “very little to no time” testing their changes for regressions, for example. And while AppImage, snaps, and flatpacks are imperfec…

> I don’t think this article is written very charitably Why would it be? It's about Linux on the _desktop_ where it sucks a$$. Open Reddit, open any distro related forum, open unix stackexchange - hundreds of support messages daily from a tiny Linux community. That should speak volumes about how ready it is and I didn't even touch on individual issues. The article is called "Final", I will not be actively updating it…

Well, yeah, and open answers.microsoft.com and it's hundreds of support messages daily from the Windows community. Where else are people going to for Linux problems other than the Linux problem support sites?

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

#268

Post by unsungNovelty »

I think Linux is not ready for desktop the way Windows is. That's for sure. But I have been daily driving it for 10+ years and recently casual gaming as well. And I can tell you that it can handle a lot of things these days. Especially for general casual users and certain specific niches.

If people are still asking "Which distro should I use?", I wrote a Linux distro recommendation framework article for beginners based on my experience.

The idea is that if you don't like my recommendations, I hope you can find a distro that meets your needs with the knownledge in the article. Something that I wished I had when I started with Linux.

https://www.unsungnovelty.org/posts/01/2024/a-linux-distro-r...

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

#269

Post by devops99 »

wrasee wrote: post #146

I'm a big linux fan. Use it every day. I even use linux on the desktop to develop Windows software that isn't even distributed on linux. But am I really that alone in recognizing a lot of truth in this article? It's sad to see so much hostility within some of the other comments, even here on HN, quickly coming to linux's defence rather than having at lest some degree of reflection and acceptance towards what are almo…

> towards what are almost undeniably the very common experiences of many linux users.

While I empathize with these novice Linux users (who may not be self-aware they are as novice as they are), I do so to consider what a distro that avoids all of their problems would look like.

And, a big part of that is a huge colorful chart about what hardware is supportable and is not supportable during the install, along with the user typing out something like:

  "I understand this hardware is not supportable and this is the fault of the vendor of the hardware. I understand that if I want a supported system I can buy one at https://ProductionLinuxInc ; furthermore, I understand and agree that by typing this acknowledgement and clicking "Accept" that I am legally bound to this agreement and legal penalties apply if I bitch about this operating system and my bitching either by its contents or what my bitching alludes to are factually wrong".

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

#270

Post by devops99 »

itvision wrote: post #214
actuallyalys wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s truth in broad strokes (e.g., the lack of a stable ABI is a genuine problem) that I wish people would acknowledge. I think your attitude is a healthy one! However, I don’t think this article is written very charitably. It seems unfair to Linux developers to suggest that they spend “very little to no time” testing their changes for regressions, for example. And while AppImage, snaps, and flatpacks are imperfec…

> I don’t think this article is written very charitably Why would it be? It's about Linux on the _desktop_ where it sucks a$$. Open Reddit, open any distro related forum, open unix stackexchange - hundreds of support messages daily from a tiny Linux community. That should speak volumes about how ready it is and I didn't even touch on individual issues. The article is called "Final", I will not be actively updating it…

Linux on the desktop sucks ass, for the stupid people. Smart people running Linux on the desktop are having a fantastic time with zero problems.
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