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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

#381

Post by neonsunset »

jpc0 wrote: post #359
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And because every Linux distro uses a different theme and one of a dozen UI libraries/DEs/etc. the downloaded GUI application will look bad because it won’t fit in. As opposed to, say, Windows, where there is only one GUI and one theme by one company so everything is perfectly match- wait, no, they have bits and pieces running every GUI they've every invented all the way back to the 90s ( https://www.dvhardware.net…

The reality is I can just target winforms on windows, or GDI if I need that. To open a window there is exactly one way if I want it. To open a window on Linux do I call into X11 or wayland? Do I need to also provide a DRM layer for incase it needs to be run directly ontop of DRM because BIG_USER_WITH_MONEY wants that. Should I use QT to get a decent UI library, or GTK, or one of the many other less popular ones. As a…

> C# is blessed on windows

Not as much anymore. Part of it due to the mess that is the first-party Microsoft's GUI frameworks situation, part of it due to .NET's own APIs and semantics not evolving together with Windows since long time ago.

Funny anecdata: someone* recently made a small app to indicate when (now broken) CTRL+C is actually triggered in Windows. It was initially written in WPF and was exhibiting a weird unmanaged memory leak. Only after porting it to Avalonia (which works everywhere) the issue went away: https://x.com/KooKiz/status/1873726346897330243

So your experience might actually be better with a cross-platform GUI framework!

Mind you, it's still in its "homeland" on Windows - things like access to Registry are part of the standard library, but you may find it performing better on Unix systems otherwise. The IO abstractions certainly do!

* well, not someone but one of the co-authors of Pro .NET Memory Management.

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

#382

Post by ghaff »

cloudsec9 wrote: post #256
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…

At one time I was a big advocate for Unix/Linux on the desktop, but I think that ship has mostly sailed. But, it seems that FUD about what it is capable of is still actively here, which is good to know. With frameworks and libraries, there is a 0% chance you don't have SOME update for your Windows app in a couple years, forget 5. Now, there are lots of headwinds against Linux -- Windows is a known quantity, everyone…

>everyone knows the MS Office suite

How many people are running a locally-installed office suite at this point? Mailing files around seems archaic for most purposes. At my prior (open source) employer, even we had mostly given up on running local office productivity apps.

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

#384

Post by ryao »

itvision wrote: post #346
talldayo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that will convince many people. Appealing to authority is one third of rhetoric, Aristotle would say that you need emotion or logic to convince me completely. Speaking for myself, I'm mostly surprised that someone with such an intimate knowledge of Linux has ignored it's developments to this extent. This entire thread is mostly at the consensus that you have tortured many of the talking points in this a…

> has ignored it's developments to this extent What have I ignored precisely? Bugs? Regressions? Missing features? Lack of funding? Xorg being deprecated, Wayland being all the rage while being usable only in Gnome and KDE? > Many in this thread have also identified that MacOS and Windows are deficient in several of the criteria you listed. Windows: 2 billion users with no technical background. Linux: 40 million user…

The X.Org project is not deprecated. It handles both the X.Org X11 server and Wayland.

That said, Linux has more users than Windows:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/

Android Linux is at 46%, while Windows is at 26%. Other Linux versions have 1%.

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

#385

Post by ghaff »

dasil003 wrote: post #360
gary_0 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t think this article is written very charitably It definitely isn't, but honestly Linux could use more of a drill-sergeant treatment. It's either that or we keep doting on our little pet OS and give up on the idea of desktop Linux being at all a viable competitor to the goliaths of Microsoft and Apple. Maybe we never stood a chance? Keep in mind, I'm pretty much committed to Linux myself, as I'm not willing t…

I tend to think it’s not really possible for volunteer open source to directly compete with tech corporations when it comes to polish and cohesion of a large end-user ecosystem—it’s just too much cat herding and uphill battle even to agree on a vision. That said, Linux has other advantages that corporations will never touch because it doesn’t make business sense. I’m really glad it’s still there as a bulwark against…

The vast majority of Linux is not volunteer open source. It's corporate developers. It's also focused on the server. Tech companies seem to use a lot of Macs these days although I assume Windows predominates overall.

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

#386

Post by mardifoufs »

adriancr wrote: post #376
mardifoufs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, you are still much more likely to get broken hardware support when updating kernels on Linux, though I have no idea why. I almost never see or experienced stuff like my laptop camera not working at all after an update on Windows, but it does happen on Linux. The same goes for GPUs, which can break if you update your kernel often. It's not necessarily the kernel's fault but it's something that does h…

> I almost never see or experienced stuff like my laptop camera not working at all after an update on Windows, but it does happen on Linux. > But for regular, personal usage, I genuinely think that Linux does break more often. How do you feel about windows forcing ads and monitoring what you do? How do you feel when windows updates ignore your privacy choices to push the boundary even more? Do you even have a choice…

I don't disagree at all. I'm completely allergic to ads at this point, hence why I use Linux a lot more :). But let's be honest, for the average user, the choice is super obvious. Yes, windows shows you ads in the start menu, but it "works" and constantly so. They don't need to necessarily worry about a windows update borking their GPU drivers, or having to use grub to boot into an older kernel because some proprietary driver stopped working after an update.

I personally know enough to fix or even prevent those issues, but for the vast majority of desktop users, even less casual users like gamers, they really don't care about the stuff you listed. It's sad, because it absolutely ruins the experience of what would otherwise be a great OS (the core of windows is great imo, just not everything on top of it).

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

#387

Post by wazoox »

sombragris wrote: post #204
wazoox wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware support is so much better in Linux it's not even funny. I mean you can't even install windows server on most PCs because there aren't any drivers ! This trolling is beyond ridiculous.

Seconded. Back in 2015 I got a Toshiba Satellite Radius convertible laptop. X11 ran there even with touchscreen support. Plus, USB3 ran smoothly. Now I'm using a Dell, and again, full hardware support with zero issues using Wayland and Pipewire. And I use Slackware, not exactly a sophisticated distro, but one that just offers upstream software with no modification.

And don't forget all of the devices that become obsolete under windows and still "just work" with Linux, like old scanners, printers, cards and adapters of all kinds.

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

#388

Post by ghaff »

LeFantome wrote: post #281
IgorPartola wrote: post #57

The main criticism I see as valid here is first point: software distribution is tricky. For macOS and Windows you basically have a model where you can go to a website, download a binary, install it, and it runs. Most Linux distros won’t jive with that very well. And because every Linux distro uses a different theme and one of a dozen UI libraries/DEs/etc. the downloaded GUI application will look bad because it won’t…

What macOS provides is that each app is bundled with all the libraries it needs. That is basically what AppImage is on Linux and it works just as well. Most people find it too wasteful so Flatpak has become more popular. At least Flatpak allows apps to share many of the libraries that they both rely on.

Although Apple has also made a mistake IMO in not having a proper package manager in spite of hiring the writer of Homebrew at one point. probably less important than it used to be but not all roads lead to Apple apps or the apps of a few other companies.

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

#389

Post by ryao »

itvision wrote: post #343
t_mahmood wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just a hater. I have to use Windows to test my apps, and each and every time it just infuriates me with ads and cluster fuck UI, constant notifications of different products, ads in start menu. It's only consistent on delivering ads, not how the user interface is organized How you have to tweak registry to remove the ad, but still can't get rid of OneDrives reminder, and then comes the forced updates. Settings…

> You're just a hater. Yeah, with hundreds of contributions to multiple Linux projects including the Linux kernel, GCC, KDE, Wine, etc. A total hater. > How you have to tweak registry to remove the ad, but still can't get rid of OneDrives reminder, and then comes the forced updates. Takes roughly 2 minutes, ok. > Settings are spread in between millions of places, extremely confusing, and twisted. Not sure what you me…

How does one make hundreds of contributions to a number of important projects yet be so woefully ignorant about things as you are? In this discussion, you have claimed that Qt is under the GPL, said that running old software on Linux systems is impossible, claimed Windows runs near perfectly and said that Linux barely works. All of that is provably false. Here is one of many examples of Windows having profound issues where Linux systems do the right thing:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2020/02/15/micro...

That is far from near perfectly and there are many severe issues that have plagued Windows systems over the years if you take the time to look.

By the way, those auto-updaters you mention waste system resources. Linux systems use package managers that prevent you from having O(n) auto-updaters consuming resources all the time.

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

#390

Post by ghaff »

ryao wrote: post #279
IgorPartola wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 r…

They would probably be better served by MacOS.

It sounds like you're violently agreeing with the parent.

I worked for an open source company for over a decade. But, although things improved over time, within about a week of joining I went out and bought a MacBook to use (for the first time) because it was more politically acceptable than Windows but I didn't want to deal with either a locked-down corporate Linux distro or an unsupported free Linux.

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