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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#271

Post by einhverfr »

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…

If that was the only problem though we would have expected FreeBSD to overtake the desktop. the larger issue, unfortunately is just that people are afraid to switch from Windows to anything other than Mac. Android is helping there, but it will take time.

Never underestimate the fear of the consumer that they will break stuff on a computer they are unfamiliar with. The fact that Windows is actually getting better may actually be a good thing regarding other possibilities of desktop software.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#272

Post by agentultra »

I'm writing this from my laptop which is running Ubuntu as its desktop.

I don't really see how the Linux desktop is dead. I've been running the same OS on this same laptop since 2007. The only upgrade I've added is an SSD and an extra gig of memory. It's still pretty speedy and I've never had any problems.

I use a Macbook Pro with OS X at work because that's just what I was issued by default. I hate it. I hate the over-reliance on the mouse, on gestures, the abundant and tedious animations; I hate the crappy ecosystem of package repositories and how most of the packages are broken or completely mess with the system; I hate never being able to find where any of the configuration files are or where something is installed; I hate the plethora of ways you can start and stop services; the confusing GUI; the masochistic meta-key layout; the awful full-screen support; and the complete lack of customization options.

I've had much better experiences with the Linux desktop for 95% of the things I do.

Now before some OS X fan-person decides to point out how woefully misguided and ignorant I am, my point is that there are different folks out there who want different things from their desktop experience. Apple gets to decide top-down what that experience is all the way down to the hardware. I prefer a little more flexibility. I like being able to swap out my own battery or adding a new memory module when I need one. I like being able to switch from a GUI desktop to a tiled window manager. Some folks don't -- there are Linux distros that hide as much of that as possible. Either way there are plenty of options and I think that's a good thing. Competition breeds innovation and even though I don't particularly like Unity I am glad to see people trying new things.

The Linux desktop isn't dead. It may just smell funny. You may switch to OS X and wonder why anyone could possibly want anything else. I just gave you a bunch of answers.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#273

Post by jlgreco »

ajross wrote: post #130
antihero wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you using for sound? I use Pulseaudio on my desktop (custom built with a M-Audio Delta 2496 Pro soundcard) and on my laptop (crappy Lenovo G575) and I don't have any problems at all. All I do is have this line in my .xinitrc: [[ -x /usr/bin/start-pulseaudio-x11 ]] && start-pulseaudio-x11 & And it works perfectly! If I want to change my volume or manage which device it outputs on, I just run pavucontrol

What distro are you using that you are having to start pulseaudio manually? I swear I thought it was default everywhere.

He might be using Arch or Gentoo, or another of the more "DIY" oriented distros. Last time I used Gentoo you still had to really go out of your way to install pulseaudio, though that was four years ago so I don't know if that has changed.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#274

Post by sirmarksalot »

mbell wrote: post #239
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…

Coming from the perspective of a developer: I used linux as my only OS sans VMs from roughly 2008 till 2011. I finally gave up because it handled monitor switching, multiple monitors so poorly (using Nvidia GPU). I begrudgingly switched to windows because I owned the hardware already, and it was the only option. Windows sucks, the lack of a usable shell kills it, full stop, nothing else windows does matters. And no,…

As for the "lack of a usable shell" part, have you looked at Powershell? It comes bundled with Windows, and has a lot of the features that are missing from the command prompt.

It does have some rough edges that may cause you to dismiss it as unusable, but it offers tab completion, colored text output, and a real scripting environment (not DOS batch scripting). Every serious Windows developer I've talked to nowadays uses it exclusively.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#275

Post by jebblue »

joe_the_user wrote: post #166
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…

Two years ago, when it was experiencing a considerable upswing in use, Canonical was in the position to at least partly dictate some standards. And an Ubuntu install also would "just work" (and still does in my experience). Unfortunately, I think they kind of snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by attempting to go to a "modern user interface". The big problem is that neither designers nor programmers really enjo…

Yes, yes that' is it right there, Unity and Gnome 3 both are terrible compared to Gnome 2. I wish the Gnome 2 team would re-materialize and come out with Gnome 4, just Gnome 2 with a higher version number.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#276

Post by agentultra »

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…

This mythical user must also be the bottom of the barrel. I don't think the Apple designers ever consulted me when they designed OS X. Who were they designing for? Everyone? How can they possibly conceive of what every user wants but me?

This "design," argument is a floppy, magical, hand-waving fish. I know what design is. I design software all the damn time. I am sensitive to interface and expectation. I want as little friction between my tool and the thing I am creating.

In that regard, as a software developer, OS X is a piss-poor experience. Using emacs on the thing is ripping years out of the cartilage in my fingers due to the masochistic meta-key layout that I've had to accustom myself to. It's terrible.

The eco-system of package management systems on OS X is infuriatingly shoddy. Between macports, homebrew, and fink -- none of them can seem to get it quite right. They have to compete with the user-land eco-system that Apple ships. Half the packages are broken. And I can never bloody well find any configuration files anywhere once it has installed something. It's ludicrous how much time I've wasted trying to figure out how in the seven hells you're supposed to get MySQL or Postgres to run on the damn thing (there are half a dozen ways at least by my reckoning and google's).

Their /design/ isn't the best design there is. They are designing for someone, but it surely isn't me. If you happen to fall into their mold then I'm sure you're as happy as a clam but don't think the entire world of people are just like you.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#277

Post by msbarnett »

mratzloff wrote: post #238
scrumper wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Rails is a web framework. It's not an end user desktop environment like Gnome, KDE, NeXTStep, Windows or what have you. Collaborative development does rather well with developer tools.

Sure... so why the culture difference?

Because developers understand what they want and need from their own tools.

Now, they might have different wants, and disagree on how to meet their needs, and march off in 800 different directions, but ultimately with enough effort any one group is capable of meeting their own needs.

UI/UX that works well for "normal people" is something that most developers don't understand; they know the UI/UX that meets their needs, but developer needs are quite rarified and abnormal compared to the typical user.

Thus, when they respond to disagreement with a UI/UX engineer by marching off in 800 different directions to scratch their own itches, they end up with no solution that meets the "normal user"'s needs. There's no culture of shutting up and following orders for the greater good of the project.

tl;dr you can't solve the problems of someone different from yourself if the only thing you do is scratch your own itches.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#278

Post by tesseractive »

farinasa wrote: post #131
sjs wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's silly to pretend that Mac is somehow perfect in these matters. Straw man. Nobody said OS X was perfect. > In my experience it's only been marginally better than Linux, if at all. I used Linux on my desktop for several years and have now used Macs as well for several years. I won't say this is bullshit because I don't think you are lying about your experience, but I think you are extrapolating way too far. > An…

Genius bar solution: Wipe device. Every time.

Really? That reminds me of Microsoft technical support circa 1993:

Step 1: have you tried rebooting the machine?

Step 2: have you tried reinstalling Windows?

I thought those days were over.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#279

Post by jeremyjh »

rahoulb wrote: post #261
diminish wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To stress out again; OS/X has the poorest hardware support for 3rd parties; even compared to Linux. Just "think different" and buy some hardware and you ll see what I mean..

The real difference is that on OSX is if something doesn't work it doesn't work. Under Linux it may work, or work badly, or you can probably hack it to make it work well. I used to think I liked the latter but there's something appealing about the binary clarity of OSX.

Part of it is you won't spend as much time thinking about it. Say you have a wireless keyboard that is a little dodgy on Linux, but works most of the time. But every now it fucks up and really pisses you off. If it never worked on OS X you wouldn't even remember it because you would have sent it back or resold it.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#280

Post by espeed »

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. Or I guess I should say it moved to the center of the two screens so is unusable. I have no idea why.

Is this in Chrome on sites like YouTube? If so, I believe it started with Chrome 20 when Chrome switched to its native Flash driver (see http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/Mi-YgjN...). This happened to me too, and I still haven't resolved it.

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