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What killed the Linux desktop

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Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#381

Post by 4ad »

dchichkov wrote: post #295
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.

Actually OSX development environment is only horrible to cross-platform / open-source application developers. But if you are Apple pet developer then you'd just use XCode/XCode projects/etc for all your needs. And would be very happy with that.

As a cross platform open source developer that uses Mac OS X and Linux about the same (Mac OS X on desktop, Linux on laptop) I don't see what's so horrible about Mac OS X in this regard. At worse, it's the same. I don't prefer either for programming (I do prefer Mac OS X for other things, though).

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#382

Post by dchichkov »

4ad wrote: post #381
dchichkov wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually OSX development environment is only horrible to cross-platform / open-source application developers. But if you are Apple pet developer then you'd just use XCode/XCode projects/etc for all your needs. And would be very happy with that.

As a cross platform open source developer that uses Mac OS X and Linux about the same (Mac OS X on desktop, Linux on laptop) I don't see what's so horrible about Mac OS X in this regard. At worse, it's the same. I don't prefer either for programming (I do prefer Mac OS X for other things, though).

Well, developing using native toolchain is horrible. Because of legacy gcc 4.2 and unstable and often broken clang. At least about a year back it was the case. No. Scratch that. It is still the case. I just remembered helping a coworker hack some open source package to make it compile with clang. We lost an hour or so, completely unnecessarily. Would have taken him 30 seconds to apt-get it on linux.

And well, not using the native toolchain, and using something like mac ports feels like I'm under cygwin all other again. No, thank you. I love 13" Air, but as a development environment Macs are quite broken.

Plus that home key on the full desktop keyboard... If you are linux+mac user, you know what am I talking about :)

Curious, what package management system are you using to install libraries/packages? Ports? Fink? Homebrew?

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#383

Post by 4ad »

dchichkov wrote: post #382
4ad wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a cross platform open source developer that uses Mac OS X and Linux about the same (Mac OS X on desktop, Linux on laptop) I don't see what's so horrible about Mac OS X in this regard. At worse, it's the same. I don't prefer either for programming (I do prefer Mac OS X for other things, though).

Well, developing using native toolchain is horrible. Because of legacy gcc 4.2 and unstable and often broken clang. At least about a year back it was the case. No. Scratch that. It is still the case. I just remembered helping a coworker hack some open source package to make it compile with clang. We lost an hour or so, completely unnecessarily. Would have taken him 30 seconds to apt-get it on linux. And well, not usi…

Okay, our use cases are very, very different. I mostly do Go now and used to do lots operating system development and embedded work. For Go, your compiler complaint does not apply, and for embedded work you need to build or install a cross compiler anyway. There are some cross compilers which you can get with apt-get, but in practice for the work that I do, there are no distribution provided tools, and you need to maintain your own toolkit.

Same applies to libraries, you can get everything you want with apt-get, as long as you only want things for your architecture. If you need them for another architecture, you are out of luck.

For operating systems you use virtual machines. I use the host just for running my text editor and for my Unix environment needs. All operating systems I've worked on (Solaris, Windows, BSD, QNX, some other real time embedded stuff) have their own tools and compilers used to build the system.

MacPorts, Fink and even Homebrew are FUBAR, I'm glad I don't have to use them.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#384

Post by derleth »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #355
seabee wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad hardware/drivers are more likely to be the culprit...

Sorry to hear about that. Windows isn't a closed hardware platform like OS X, so driver support can be difficult (Windows update helps a lot on that). Also, are you overclocking? Using a 4-year-old motherboard? There has to be some reason for BSOD - it's not a normal condition. Not making excuses, hundreds of millions of machines run for years without doing it.

> Windows isn't a closed hardware platform like OS X

I use Linux.

Re: What killed the Linux desktop

#385

Post by teach »

thwarted wrote: post #314
teach wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an issue with Apple or Samsung, it's an Android decision. Support for the USB Mass Storage protocol has been deprecated in Android in favor of MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) starting with Ice Cream Sandwich. The experience in Windows and on Linux is just as poor with this phone. (I love the phone, though.)

Why can't Apple support MTP? Linux gets cited for lack of hardware or protocol support (MTP to an Android device works fine in Linux, btw), but it's not Apple's fault when they can't or don't provide drivers for common, standardized consumer electronics?

MTP does not work fine in Linux (specifically, Ubuntu 12.04). You can read the files but not write arbitrary files into arbitrary folders.
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