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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#371

Post by nvarsj »

squidsoup wrote: post #199
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'm experiencing similar frustrations after having returned to using Linux (Ubuntu) at work recently. I've spent a fair bit of time having to customise a window manager (awesomewm), just to get a somewhat usable desktop environment. I work at a university with centralised mail handled by Exchange and struggle every day with flaky, buggy mail clients Evolution/DavMail+Thunderbird. Under linux my macbook air only sleep…

I had nothing but trouble w/ Ubuntu when trying to use anything non-Canonical tested. I suggest using something like Archlinux where you're not forced to stick with buggy software for a 6 month cycle.

And I've been really, really impressed with the latest Thunderbird/Lightning releases (14-15). Haven't had any problems at all, like I had with the older releases from several years ago. I used to be a Mail guy, but Thunderbird blows it out of the water these days.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#372

Post by nvarsj »

ps2000 wrote: post #338
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…

Linux on the desktop suffered from weak developer and industry support. It was until some years ago, Linux sound system latency was as powerful as Windows 3.1's. Using proprietary drivers for X or even worse for the Kernel is a mess. So obvious... Linus promised Linux on the desktop 2000 or so. The reality was different: influential groups just ignored the desktop. Now it's too late, web is becoming the predominant p…

> The irony is: it has never been less painful to switch to Linux.

This is so true. Linux has a bad rap. I gave up on it a couple of years ago due to the infamous "hidden cost of linux". I switched back a couple months ago and have been pleasantly surprised how smooth things are now. A lot has improved in the last couple years in Linux land.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#373

Post by hollerith »

nvarsj wrote: post #372
ps2000 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on the desktop suffered from weak developer and industry support. It was until some years ago, Linux sound system latency was as powerful as Windows 3.1's. Using proprietary drivers for X or even worse for the Kernel is a mess. So obvious... Linus promised Linux on the desktop 2000 or so. The reality was different: influential groups just ignored the desktop. Now it's too late, web is becoming the predominant p…

> The irony is: it has never been less painful to switch to Linux. This is so true. Linux has a bad rap. I gave up on it a couple of years ago due to the infamous "hidden cost of linux". I switched back a couple months ago and have been pleasantly surprised how smooth things are now. A lot has improved in the last couple years in Linux land.

>have been pleasantly surprised how smooth things are now

Which version of which distro?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#374

Post by hollerith »

Derbasti wrote: post #138
masklinn wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually prefer the graphical shell of Windows 7 to the one of OSX Lion. Explorer? Versus finder? That's a pretty low-hanging fruit, I can't remember ever preferring finder to explorer and I've been using OSX as my main dev machine (and Windows mostly for the game box) for 6 years now. I prefer OSX overall, but the finder still isn't a good shell.

I was going to leave a snarky comment with just a list of awful OSX applications here. But then I looked at a list of the applications I have installed and... Well, while many of them might be bad, their usual alternatives on Windows aren't exactly better. But Finder really is bad. Then again, I wish ANY other OS would implement the column view Finder has. As bad as Finder is, column view is awesome. But many of the…

>I wish ANY other OS would implement the column view Finder has. As bad as Finder is, column view is awesome.

Sometimes referred to as "Miller columns" BTW.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#375

Post by mbell »

kmm wrote: post #369
mbell wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a desktop OS, tried it again 3 weeks ago. Fairly standard setup, Asus motherboard, core i7 3770, 32GB of ram, one dell display@ 2560x1440 one at 1920x1200 in portrait, base AMD 7xxx series gpu, newest ubuntu with AMD binary drivers. First the graphics driver locked up on rotating a screen, that required reboot, even switching to a non graphical tty didn't work, then it took but z-sync was completely disabled on th…

If you don't care and aren't willing to listen, you cannot have a well-informed opinion and cannot pretend you do.

I think you've completely missed my point.

I spent 5 years using linux as my only OS, I am very well aware of the issues it has, specifically in the area of display management. The reason I stopped using it is that I don't care to mess with it any longer. I've spent hours mucking with the internals of Xorg and writing sleep/hibernate scripts in an attempt to duct tape something together that works. I've spent hours trying different combinations of kernel + Xorg + driver to figure out which one won t randomly peg a CPU core at 100%. I've spent hours researching parts to look for compatibility, I've wasted $ on parts just to work around issues with linux.

What I realized and why I have no interest in linux as a usable desktop anymore is that while this time spent may scratch a nerd itch, it is actually a complete waste of my time and detracts from actually doing something productive, like using the computer to produce, the very reason I own it.

So I don't give a shit at all why it doesn't work anymore. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, I don't need to do massive research to say "it doesn't work". I don't need to be "well-informed" to say it doesn't work, not working is pretty obvious. In fact doing research goes completely against my goal, which is to spend the least possible amount of time thinking about my computer and the most possible time producing.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#376

Post by koide »

ekianjo wrote: post #320
RegEx wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then when you added in the "think different" line you made it seem even more like your comment was based off some kind of blind loyalty to Linux rather than loyalty to facts. Don't read too far into things, and "...loyalty to facts" eye roll . Anyway, It's pretty common knowledge to Linux users that hardware/driver support on Linux can be a challenge. Sometimes things work right out of the box, other times you have…

On windows, a fairly high success rate? This must be a joke. Try installing a graphics card without driver, you will see how well it is supported under windows. I consider that basic functionality. Same for wifi dongles, they usually need drivers to be installed in windows, while this is all taken care of at the kernel level in Linux. In Linux you very rarely have to install any driver. True, some hardware remains un…

The fact that you have to install some driver is irrelevant. I'd rather install drivers for Linux than be unable to use the hardware at all.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#377

Post by koide »

derleth wrote: post #119
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maturity is the driving factor. Linux has a lot of immature attempts at a desktop. OS X has one but not a lot of time or manpower spent perfecting it (XCode sucks, Core APIs are weak/incomplete, OS support lacking for fundamentals). Windows is nothing but mature. Billions of hours running, automated bug reporting, millions of developers, nth generation tools.

> Windows is nothing but mature. Billions of hours running, automated bug reporting, millions of developers, nth generation tools. And yet it still BSODs on me too often to be actually usable.

In the early days, say, Windows 95, it did BSOD a lot for seemingly random reasons.

Nowadays, with the experience of handling dozens of Windows machines both server and client, I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that BSODs happen only when hardware is dying or a driver is buggy. The flavors I can confirm this for go from XP SP3 to Server 2008, passing through Server 2003, Vista and 7.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#378

Post by RegEx »

ekianjo wrote: post #320
RegEx wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then when you added in the "think different" line you made it seem even more like your comment was based off some kind of blind loyalty to Linux rather than loyalty to facts. Don't read too far into things, and "...loyalty to facts" eye roll . Anyway, It's pretty common knowledge to Linux users that hardware/driver support on Linux can be a challenge. Sometimes things work right out of the box, other times you have…

On windows, a fairly high success rate? This must be a joke. Try installing a graphics card without driver, you will see how well it is supported under windows. I consider that basic functionality. Same for wifi dongles, they usually need drivers to be installed in windows, while this is all taken care of at the kernel level in Linux. In Linux you very rarely have to install any driver. True, some hardware remains un…

I've installed both GTX 580s and 570s with absolutely no problems.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#379

Post by 4ad »

thronemonkey wrote: post #255
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..

I have no idea where this sentiment is coming from. I'm typing this from an MBP with a das keyboard, navigating with a razer mouse and viewing with a samsung monitor, everything works fine.

All keyboards are the same, all mice are the same, spectral analyzers are not the same, software-defined radios are not the same, USB-Serial adapters are not the same, FPGA interfaces are not the same, sensor boards are not the same, laser cutters are not the same, need I go on?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#380

Post by 4ad »

cooldeal wrote: post #230
justincormack wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows is horrible to use, everything is poorly designed. Linux (Ubuntu in my case) and OSX just work sanely mostly, but OSX is a horrible dev environment, so I moved back to Linux.

>Windows is horrible to use, everything is poorly designed Without qualifiers, that statement is meaningless. Perhaps you mean it's horrible for some devs? (Millions of others are doing just fine with Visual Studio). For regular users, dropping them to Linux will be like replacing your mom's car's controls with the controls found in an airplane cockpit(command line) or playing "who moved my cheese ?" with the Linux d…

Lots of programmers were doing just fine with punched cards and teletypes. That doesn't mean that punched cards and teletypes were not horrible. People just learn to be comfortable with their tools.
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