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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

#321

Post by lbj »

zahlman wrote: post #177
lbj wrote: post #24

I wonder who he keeps running into. Not only do I use Linux on a daily basis, I run about 20 virtual *nixs from that Linux desktop and everything runs really great, but when I run into problems, the Arch community (ie. colleagues, forums, mailing lists) have been nothing but extremely helpful and friendly. Without exception. Is Arch the exception?

Some people really hate when they ask a question that's answered in TFM and are answered by a link to an entire TFM page. There's a huge demand for "please help me understand exactly how this applies in my exact situation", especially for less technically-minded people. The Mint forums are helpful enough, but they tend to demand tons of ultimately irrelevant system info up front, commonly misdiagnose problems, and gi…

Well, you triggered my memory. I have in fact seen a huge amount of "read the manual". But that said, the manual is really, really good :)

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

#322

Post by [deleted] »

layer8 wrote: post #161
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/

…and, ironically, that’s because they are based on stable Windows APIs.

[deleted]

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

#323

Post by ryao »

ThatPlayer wrote: post #317
ryao wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proton does such a good job that it is difficult to justify the cost of porting games when they already run on Linux in Proton. That said, Feral Interactive is still porting games to Linux and they have not gone bankrupt: https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/?platform=linux Proton often runs games better than the native ports, so there is not much of a loss if there are fewer native ports. Furthermore, in a numbe…

Another fun one is AMD's Linux drivers support emulated ray tracing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT6qbcKT7YY . This game won't even start on a newer/faster GTX 1080Ti Though speaking of a 1080Ti, that's a GPU you don't want to run on Linux because it lacks some Vulkan features for good DX12 translation: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/465

Are you sure that the game will not run on a 1080 Ti? I recall Nvidia implemented Ray tracing in a compute shader for a number of 10/16 series cards:

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ray-tracing-gtx-gpu-driver,news...

I ran Quake II RTX on Linux on a GTX 1080 Ti with RTX on back when I still had one. Of course, the performance was bad, but it ran. Some sites have benchmarks:

https://www.thefpsreview.com/2019/06/08/quake-ii-rtx-perform...

The RADV driver apparently did the same for ray tracing on Vega.

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

#324

Post by pshirshov »

layer8 wrote: post #187
pshirshov wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of options which would do for that average user.

This subthread started with “When you start installing software and drivers, the OS gets totalled, sooner or later.” Then came the objection that one wouldn’t do that with Nix. Then that yeah, but Nix is too difficult to use. Then that no, it isn’t that difficult after you spend a weekend or two learning it. Which isn’t for the average user. Now you say there are plenty of other options, presumably non-Nix. I feel we…

There was no "average user" constraint specified. Works on my desktop.

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

#325

Post by ryao »

the__alchemist wrote: post #6

I've been patiently trying a distro of Linux every other year for the past 20... Someday. The general trend: Things work well from a native install. When you start installing software and drivers, the OS gets totalled , sooner or later. > What's worse is that software compiled for the current version of Linux X will not necessarily work for the current version of Linux Y. Linux distros insist that all the software mu…

Don’t install things outside the package manager. If you must install software yourself, install it to /usr/local.

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

#326

Post by imtringued »

the__alchemist wrote: post #6

I've been patiently trying a distro of Linux every other year for the past 20... Someday. The general trend: Things work well from a native install. When you start installing software and drivers, the OS gets totalled , sooner or later. > What's worse is that software compiled for the current version of Linux X will not necessarily work for the current version of Linux Y. Linux distros insist that all the software mu…

I used to run Ubuntu in a VM years before switching to installing a Linux distribution on my PC and the constant distro upgrades got on my nerves.

The way I started was by installing Arch Linux on a 32GB flash drive. No I did not write the ISO onto the flash drive. I used Virtualbox to load the arch Linux iso and mounted the flash drive into Virtualbox and installed onto the flash drive as if it was a regular HDD/SSD. The only annoyance was figuring out the bootloader for this particularly exotic way of installing Arch Linux.

After that I spent most of my time really just doing everything in a web browser for several months. I did this, because I wanted to have a less distracting computing environment where almost nothing was installed. The fact that games didn't run on Linux was supposed to be a feature, until I realized that they mostly run on Linux anyway. Then I bought a 512GB SSD and installed Arch Linux on it in 2018 and never even thought or cared about what Linux distribution I am using ever since.

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

#327

Post by Klonoar »

LooseMarmoset wrote: post #220
Klonoar wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Steam Deck is not the desktop and it’s really amazing that this line gets trotted out in defense of desktop Linux every time a criticism gets posted. It’s like saying that FreeBSD is on the desktop just because Sony used it as the base for the PS5. These are specific scenarios with specific hardware optimized for each use case. Desktop Linux encompasses the sheer amount of available PCs and laptops that one might…

The Steam Deck literally has a desktop mode, and you can connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to it, and play games that way. Both my son and I play games using this method. The Steam dock was designed to allow users to take advantage of this mode, among other things. You can install regular Linux applications in Desktop mode, including Libreoffice and Firefox. It's probably fair to say the majority of users don't…

Even if we grant that point - which I'm not willing to do, since:

> It's probably fair to say the majority of users don't do this

You still missed the part where I noted:

> These are specific scenarios with specific hardware optimized for each use case. Desktop Linux encompasses the sheer amount of available PCs and laptops that one might install it on, and there is a miles long list of “just about everything works except $x thing” articles.

This is and has been the thorn in Desktop Linux's side for the last ~20 years.

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

#328

Post by imtringued »

itvision wrote: post #224
jmclnx wrote: post #32

When I see the articles I believe the title should be "Linux is not Windows so I do not like it". I have used Linux for just shy of 30 years. It is different than Windows and far more powerful. It is just that people do not want to learn different things. Plus Linux has no spyware. These days, you can do anything on Linux that you do on Windows, except for some 3d Gaming. And that is because hardware vendors refuse t…

> When I see the articles I believe the title should be "Linux is not Windows so I do not like it". I've used Linux for as much only I'm a tad more humble. Mentioned more than a dozen times in the kernel git log. Not a big achievement but kinda shows I'm not just a bystander. You've never said how much time you've wasted fixing Linux or making software work. Must be a non-issue I guess.

I've wasted several weeks of my life on broken Windows Updates. Windows Update is a horrible shit show. Meanwhile updates on Linux are so benign I don't have qualms about updating. The worst thing that can happen is that you're thrown into a major version update of whatever software you've gotten used to.

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

#329

Post by ThatPlayer »

ryao wrote: post #323
ThatPlayer wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun one is AMD's Linux drivers support emulated ray tracing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT6qbcKT7YY . This game won't even start on a newer/faster GTX 1080Ti Though speaking of a 1080Ti, that's a GPU you don't want to run on Linux because it lacks some Vulkan features for good DX12 translation: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/465

Are you sure that the game will not run on a 1080 Ti? I recall Nvidia implemented Ray tracing in a compute shader for a number of 10/16 series cards: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ray-tracing-gtx-gpu-driver,news... I ran Quake II RTX on Linux on a GTX 1080 Ti with RTX on back when I still had one. Of course, the performance was bad, but it ran. Some sites have benchmarks: https://www.thefpsreview.com/2019/06/08/quake-…

I also no longer have one to try. It's pretty easy to find a video on YouTube of someone trying to start the game and failing with a GTX GPU. The specific Vulkan extension it's asking for is VK_KHR_ray_query.

Looks like it was added to Vulkan spec in 2020, so after the Quake 2 RTX. It was implemented for GTX for about 2 versions and removed? https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?extension=VK_KHR_...

From this comment that mentions downgrading to that driver version removes another required Vulkan extension for the game: https://www.reddit.com/r/vulkan/comments/kdzitt/comment/m114...

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