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Top 10 Things Wrong With Linux, Today
An anonymous coward sends in this link to a list of the top ten things wrong with Linux today. He's noting things that are "wrong" not with Linux per se, but with a user's experience with Linux; most of his points actually have to do with KDE/X. The KDE 3 bug he's talking about is a user-interface change in konqueror: form elements can be changed by mousing-over them and turning the scroll wheel, which is very bad. Hopefully the KDE guys will roll this change back to the previous behavior.
I suppose everything he says applies to freeBSD, except in one or two cases more so.
But who wants general adoption of linux anyway ? Look what happened to the internet when it got popular...
graspee
Most people get scared away with linux as soon as they get X running and discover there is very little they can actually do without someone right next to them holding thier hand. If they are able to get online, chances are the documentation is just too sketchy for a layman to understand, so you need a friend to help you with it. UNFORTUNATLY, and im not trying to flame or be a troll here, most new people to linux at this point are not complete computer nerds. They have decent windows experience, and know what hardware is, but they don't know anyone who is running linux, and if they go look for help on irc (this has happened to me) they are baraged by "WTF did you install *that* distro for? *This distro rules*" and whatnot. Its a very hard world for linux. I was thinking about it the other day, and the main reason why all the IT people are having a hard time getting a job is becuase M$ is making things easier and easier for joe shmoe to do, and doesn't need a tech anymore. You get linux to that level of simplicity and you might have more than 5% of americans using it at home.
I think that something needs to be done make the learning curve of linux easier. Having just started on linux myself in the past 6 months, I found the initial goings tricky, just doing things like:
I found that there existed a lot application like the poster mentions, that I couldn't find elsewhere. Sure I can by O'Reilly's latest Linux in a nut-case, but it would be great if it was easier to get the information you need right from your install. (I know there are the man pages, but the man pages can be very criptic sometimes, even for me a seasoned programmer). Even a built-in tutorial, taking you through the basic stuff on your first install would be fantastic. And the only thing that would happen is that people would use linux more.
I know my parents won't use anything but windows/mac because they are daunted by the linux learning curve and its reputation as 'geek-ware'. Its not that are against the open-source community or what linux has done, it is just that they don't think that they are 'geeky' enough to learn what they need in order to run it.
The RedHat and Mandrake crews are starting to make this less the case, but if we have a long way to go. If we are serious about putting linux on the desktop as a serious contender to the M$ offers we will need to shed the geek reputation of linux, by making it easy for everyone to use it.
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Weird HW detection...sometimes after a reboot i have to rmmod sb/sbawe/soundcore/etc by hand and restart them.
To watch divx5 movies, it is not enough to download a codec like with WMP, but you have to recompile your media player, upgrade your ALSA, upgrade your kernel... in fact, this is the reason i ditched linux and returned to 98. I prefer reboots to downloading endless MBs and recompiling for hours and not being sure it will work.
It is slower. End of story. No matter what you say, no matter what benchmarks or other stuff you come up with, qt/gtk widgets are STILL slower than win32 widgets, watching dvd with XINE takes 40% of my CPU while under windows it takes 5%(five), process spawning is slower (under windows if i run iexplore.exe repeatedly, it pops up new windows at a rate about 5 windows/second. Under linux, the best i could do is 0.5 new windows/sec. Dirty test, i agree, but...
What else?
Lack of Games. To those of you who say that linux is not a desktop os, why do i see all these projects spawning everywhere about SDLs and stuff?
And why instead of getting together and workin in teams, i see a sagan of different apps that are supposed to do one thing, but NONE of them is perfect? Sure, you might say "but windows isn't perfect either!" but don't you want your linux to be?
Lyx owns, blah blah blah, but under windows, to do word processing/type setting, it is 10 clicks away to write in my native, non-english, language. Under linux, i can't even find a faq for it. I don't even want to think what is necessary to actually print.
As i remember new ones i will add them.
IF YOU THINK I AM WRONG ABOUT ONE OF THESE, INSTEAD OF TELLING ME "YOU SUCK!! YOU GOT IT ALL WRONG!!" *PLEASE* tell me what to do to correct them! i am NOT bashing linux! i WANT to use linux! i WANT it to get better!
*sigh*
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
#2: Prompting for a FS scan I'm using Debian sid and ext3, and I've never seen this problem.
#5: Cleaner redraws GTK2 implements double-buffering, and I've yet to see any flicker in GTK2 programs.
#7: Easy way of sharing files. The Ximian Setup Tools have an easy NFS/Samba shares config tool. Not exactly what he wants, but quite good.
#9: No common editor which supports "soft wrapping." I've never had a problem with the way wrapping is done in Linux editors. If you really want it "soft", you can use Abiword.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
1. No 'best' browser.
Galean for sure. He even admits this in his write-up, but doesn't like the fact that it has no AA. I've actually seen some screen shots with AA/Gecko somewhere, so I don't imagine this will take long to be fixed.
2. Prompting for a filesystem scan.
I'm not sure I get the point here. Distros are starting to ship with journaling filesystems, so this really should be rare. He mentions not being able to recover the journal, but I've never had this happen to me. It might be a problem, but surely it doesn't deserve to be in the top 10.
3. Printing needs to be easier to configure.
Mostly fixed, especially with distros that use CUPS. I think the configuration isn't so much the problem anymore, as the fact that there's no good interface for using the printer (at least under gnome). I'd like a quick way to itemize the configured printers and check the status of each and a standard 'print' dialog.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.
Good idea. You don't need any sort of special app. though. Just an additional menu labeled 'How do I' at the top level, nested as needed. Not a technology problem anyway, but a good configuration suggestion.
5. Cleaner redraws.
I haven't noticed this with Gnome 2. Fixed? Or maybe I just have Gnome 2 installed on better hardware - not sure.
6. Die stray processes, die!
Also pretty rare. The only process I ever had do this was Mozilla (and maybe the old Netscape - I can't remember) and the last time it happened was at least six months ago. Anyway, hardly seems worth it when you can just fix the particular offending applications.
7. Easy way of sharing files.
Sure. It wouldn't make my top 10 list, but why not.
8. Sound support.
Used to be a pain. Nowadays it 'just works' for me, so I've actually forgotten why it was so hard before. I think this is fixed for most people.
9. No common editor which supports "soft wrapping."
Just tried it in Gedit to make sure - no problems. Probably a config option in other editors.
10. No easy way to configure X - especially change resolution on the fly.
This one I agree with completely, although I've heard rumours that some of the 'easy-to-use' distributions have fixed this. Maybe close to being fixed generally?
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
An example is OutLook and OutLook Express. The slimming down of the offical manuals has reduced many functions to the realm of lore, especially if the user does not know the official jargon with which to ask a question in order to get an answer.
The online help is getting better, but is still infuriating.
The situation in Linux basically is that much of the system is Lore Based. It may be superior in all other regards, and some things may be inherently complex and difficult, requiring study, but the bottom line is that it is still Lore Oriented and Lore Based. It is in fact, to some degree a way of life.
Many consumers are not Lore oriented. Some never learn to set the time on the VCR. This forms a barrier to the introduction of Linux to the Broad masses, the "I just want it to work" crowd. Never mind that other systems often never really work right in the first place. Why would people accept the idea that "computers just crash" otherwise?
This is the problem the Lore Masters face: How to make something that is Lore oriented and Lore based accessible to people who aren't
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Let's say I want to connect my laptop to an LCD projector that supports only 800x600 display, but the laptop is normally configured for its native resolution, which is 1600x1200.
Yeah, I can crtl-alt-whichamafuckle until I get the right res, and hopefully the refresh rate is acceptable. But now, I have to be careful about banging the mouse against the side of the viewable area, to avoid shifting my presentation off-screen. I also have to manually, carefully, size and position windows to make them as large as possible on the projector display.
Pain in the ass. It's much better to just change the size of the desktop, and click "maximize."
Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean it's not a problem.
Keith Packard is even working on the problem, with his R&R extension.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
I work as the IT Manager of a small corporation. Throughout my day, I am asked a number of relatively simple questions, such as how do I find out when this file was last created or altered.
My users, which is synonomous with most users, have to be walked through that process practically every single time. Sure, a few of them know how to use the search feature to locate a document and a few even know how to do a few slightly more complicated tasks. However, for the most part they are quite limited in what they know regarding the use of the computer system.
It is far from their job to know how to do anything. From what I have seen. I could set them up with a fully configured KDE3 desktop with all their applications right in front of them and they would still have the same problems.
Making things easier on a computer does help, but there will always be new features and options that negate that ease of use. More options = more difficulty. Lowering that difficulty allows more features to be added.
A modern Operating System is really no more easy or difficult to use then an Operating System that was in use nearly ten years ago.
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Looks like you read the questions but not the rest.
He's saying that these things should be easy+intuitive.
Sure, YOU and I know the incantations, key combinations and so on to get things done, but if Linux is to enjoy widespread use among the not-interested-in-RTFM population this stuff needs to get easier. Like bleedin obvious.
Provided that widespread use is the goal of your project (I think it's safe to say Gnome/KDE has that goal) it's wise to listen to complaints like these.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Mozilla-based browsers are the best. They render most pages correctly and enjoy the commercial support of being the basis for Netscape. However, Mozilla is not integrated with any desktop environment, making tasks such as printing, accessing the file open or save dialogs, and cut-n-paste unpleasant
:-)
/etc/printcap; I never could seem to get it to work quite right, especially for sharing printers on the network
I disagree. First, I take issue with the misuse of the word "integrated". "Integration" is not a good thing from an engineering standpoint -- it's a bad thing. Having compatibility between two pieces of software, or conforming to a standard interface, has nothing to do with integration. MSIE is "integrated" into the Windows operating system -- bits of each rely on each other, a break in one bit breaks other stuff, and updating or removing one messes up the other. Modularity -- not integration -- is a good thing. Of course, having modular software with standard interfaces and supporting standard IPC mechanisms is important.
Second, cutting and pasting has never been a problem in the X environment with *any piece of software* but KDE 1 and 2. There have been established standards for cut-and-paste interoperability for X some time (Athena era, at least). KDE broke those, and didn't enter compliance until KDE 3.0. If KDE doesn't work with a compliant piece of software, that's KDE's fault. Mozilla is not to blame here.
Prompting for a filesystem scan...Who in the _world_ wants their bootup process interrupted by this busy work? The interoduction of journalling filesystems has greatly helped this (it happens only 1 time in 20 on an unclean shutdown, rather than about 1 in 4), but it's still bad
Wow. Where to start?
First, AFAIK, in every distro that I've ever seen, there is *no* prompting for a filesystem scan. It happens automatically on unclean boots and periodically. If you don't like the periodical scan, you can disable it. As a matter of fact, in at least Red Hat (and all the others, for all I know) fsck is told to automatically repair filesystems by default. Now, if there is *serious damage* that might result in your filesystem going to the big Disk in the Sky, then yes, you will get asked to make some decisions about what happens. I *much* prefer to know if my filesystem might be totally trashed in a minute than to just have it happen because a system blindly started guessing what to do.
Scanning on an improperly unmounted filesystem is not busy work. If it isn't done, you could wipe out your filesystem, lose data, whatever. You can't possibly convince me that you're better off skipping fsck. If you have some specialized needs -- must boot in small amount of time and data integrity matters nothing, then you can modify your init system to not run fsck. Frankly, though, I think that for almost any user, power users included, the current convention is easily the best. Windows provides a mechanism for skipping scandisk, which is probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen done, as people who have no idea what they're doing consistently skip the check, compounding corruption problems.
I don't know what this 1 time in 20 on an unclean shutdown rather than 1 in 4 business is. A journalling filesystem does not need to run fsck. The entire point of journalling is so that you have a system founded on transactions in such a way that you *cannot* corrupt the filesystem. fsck should *always* run on a non-journalling fs in any distro I've used after a bad shutdown. Yes, it also periodically runs on filesystems, but that's pretty rare, and if you don't like it, it's pretty easy to shut off. I personally think the added data integrity makes it worthwhile, but that's just me.
I have written a total of three device drivers for the kernel...
That's funny...I can't find anything in my kernel source tree grepping for your name. What exactly was it that you wrote, again?
For years I struggled with
Perhaps *you* don't like it, but for some of us that have special needs, having a dumbed down printing system would be incredibly frusterating (I'll give you a pass on this if you just want a new front end). However, I salvaged a nice LaserWriter some time ago. The thing doesn't have enough RAM to print any modern PostScript files, but I *could* write a custom print filter that used the excellent psrender.sh script to render the thing to a bitmap, and then send it to the printer as a fax-compressed bitmap in a postscript document...I can reliably print my files on this aging (but well-made) machine. Try doing the same in the "easy to use" Windows environment...you'd be shelling out for a new printer.
Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things
I don't really care whether this is done or not, as long as it doesn't force a bunch of annoying wizards or assistants on people that don't want them.
When an app has no windows open (or the main window is not open), the WM should attempt to kill them (first normally, then with -9)
This is the most idiotic suggestion I've heard in some time. Not all apps have a window. What about xbindkeys? There's a damn good reason for this. What about programs (such as daemons on Windows) that just occasionally pop up a warning dialog? You going to kill them off as well?
Sorry, but if you really have truly stray processes, that's a bug in the program, and the program should be fixed. I see tons of idiots killing off "stray" processes on Windows. "Well, I don't know what this is, so it must not be important". Grr.
Easy way of sharing files
Sounds like a KDE flaw. There are plenty of front ends people have made for this sort of thing. This has nothing to do with Linux. Also, I really dislike the idea of adding a small daemon running as root tied to Konqueror. This is starting to sound more and more like the hideously insecure Windows environment.
Sound support
So you have no complaint?
I'd like to see a decent sound system (maybe via a sound server if there's a way to do so with very low latency, though I think there might actually be an argument for doing this in alsa) where sound goes out hardware channels (and is mixed in hardware) until the channels run out, and then the streams for any other sounds playing automatically fall back to being mixed in software. It's an embarrassment to Linux, especially since Windows does this so well in DirectX. On Linux, you have to have all software mixing (currently high latency and with a nasty tendancy to skip, since existing sound systems don't run out of box with elevated priority) or all hardware mixing (requires a fancy sound card, limited in the number of channels).
No common editor which supports "soft wrapping"
Okay, here I'll agree. There needs to be a set of code written that can do this quickly and flexibly (with an arbitrary set of word separation characters), and then have the thing used throughout various programs. It's kind of sad that Emacs doesn't have a mode to do this (there are modes to add hard returns automatically, but no good native mode that simply displays text that internally has no linefeeds onscreen in multiple lines). This may suck for coding, but for some text this makes sense. The days of the 24x80 terminal are long gone -- even terminal fans are using all sorts of wacky sizes (For example, I use a higher resolution vga display), and handing out text files that are hard-wrapped to 80 characters is just silly.
No easy way to configure X -- especially change resolution on the fly
You're full of it. There are tons of front ends to configure X. It's terribly easy to change resolution on the fly in X -- ctrl alt kp+ and ctrl alt kp-. Changing the desktop resolution during runtime isn't supported (though if you had to you could hack it up via DGA modes)...but why would you want to do this? The only reason people did this in Windows was because they wanted to run games or software that needed a lower resolution. They were *forced* to change their desktop size to change their resolution. X simply doesn't force this upon you. I *always* want my desktop using the maximum possible resolution that my video card/monitor can support. If I want larger fonts, I increase the font size (as one should do...trying to read lower res, pixelated fonts is just stupid). If I want bigger borders or titlebars, I enlarge those. If I want to play a game, I just run the thing and it switches res automatically via DGA calls. XFree 4.x does this nicely and cleanly.
May we never see th
1. No 'best' browser.
Gosh, how about the nice thing we call choice?
If they were all very good at doing what they do - that's fine. Sadly, they're not. Whenever I'm in Linux I *always* yearn for IE when I'm browsing, no matter what browser I use. The author's point is that all the current options aren't that amazing, and all have pretty big faults.
2. Prompting for a filesystem scan.
Damn, if only this was adjustable, oh yeah...
Not the most obvious thing in the world to change though - and something IMO the default should be automatically done in the background.
3. Printing needs to be easier to configure.
It can't get much easier that printconf (for Red Hat users).
Ok, in Mandrake it was pretty easy to get my printer working, granted.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.
Yeah, reading a book or taking a class (or searching online) is so hard. When will people realize that a computer it a techinical thing? You have to be willing to do a little homework, even with a mac (if you've never used one).
Yeah, good viewpoint. Why make things easier and more intuitive when the users could just get off their lazy asses and go study to use the machine!
Please. Most people will pretty quickly pick up Windows, and most things are pretty easy to work out how to do. There are stable, easy to use, tried and tested configuration screens that work. Complexity and a steep learning curve does not bring superiority.
You don't have to lose power and control by making things easier to use.
5. Cleaner redraws.
Ok, sure.
6. Die stray processes, die!
Ever tried ctrl-alt-escape in KDE?
Obvious and transparent, no?
7. Easy way of sharing files.
You like in windows, where I find places like Doctors offices "sharing" all their patient records on the internet? Check out programs like share sniffer if you want to find them too.
So, because some people stupid, things should be made much more complicated than they need to be for everyone else? Cars should be made harder to drive - keep all those damn idiots off the roads.
Yeah, right.
8. Sound support.
Ok, if you want professional audio production cards, you got me, but for most other sound cards there just isn't a problem.
I can't say I've had much of a problem with my cards, but they've been pretty standard items.
9. No common editor which supports "soft wrapping."
Well... pico does this (ctrl-j)
You'd have thought more of the more popular editors would have it (at least as an option). It's a pretty basic thing to have.
10. No easy way to configure X - especially change resolution on the fly.
Actually, it couldn't be easier to change resolutions on the fly. Hold ctrl and alt, then hit - or + on the numberic key pad. This cycles you through all your selected resolutions, on the fly. Just make sure you selected all the ones you want when you setup x (Red Hat users use Xconfigurator to select resolutions).
Couldn't be easier? I beg to differ. Once you *know* that you press that combination, and you've already gone through the process of having all your resolutions and refresh rates configured, yeah, it's easy. What really *is* easy is this:
Right click on desktop -> properties -> settings
[or Start -> Control Panel -> Display settings]
Drag the slider to the resolution you want. Select colour depth. Press OK.
No text config file that you need to setup with all the options your system can support.
Yes, Linux should be more powerful and dynamic than Windows - that's part of the whole point of it. However, things can be easier without the expense of control.
You can have multiple monitors defined in your XFree86Config file, and since X v4 detects hardware at startup time, changing monitors should not be difficult (disclaimer: I've never done this so I may be completely wrong).
This "solution" isn't very good. Why should I have to restart all of my apps to change displays?
"You have changed monitors. Please restart for these changes to take effect." This is what we've been making fun of Windows for for years.
People like 0x0d0a seem to think that's acceptable, apparently simply because it's X and Unix. The attitude is, "if you don't know how to handle every obscure option required to do what should be simple things, then you're a moron -- go back to Windows."
I can do all the things that have been suggested. I've used, administered and programmed Linux and other forms of Unix for more than a decade.
The point is, it's stupid to think that a hard-to-use system is somehow a good thing. It's unproductive, elistist, and boneheaded.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
So why don't they make one of these front ends accessible by right-clicking on the desktop? That's where 99% of new users look (often in vain) to find the screen settings.
amen. I mean, really, all a user needs to do is kill X, run vi, edit /etc/X11/fubarity/XF86Config, scroll down, add a
/dev/tty/Fubaritybuffer = 800^$%^600 @ 76q
Screen
fb=/dev/null.
Then boot X and get ready to pull the plug fast if your monitor starts making sizzling sounds as it is driven out of spec.
Of course, unless you have an Nvidia card, in which case you must rot-13 the entire XF86Config file. I can't believe people say X is hard to use, or that anyone is stupid enough to "misuse the program." There is obviously no problem here.
A good accountant, knows the tax laws and all standard accounting procedures. It can take a tremendous amount of time just to gain that knowledge let alone to keep up with the latest in accounting practices. Like many professions, there is a continuing education requirement, which puts Certified Public Accounts in schools at least every other year. They simply don't have the time, and many don't have the inclination to learn all the whiz-bang features of their computer, the applications they DON'T use and the esoteric features of their Operating System. An excellent accountant practices only accounting. An Average accountant attempts to be something else at the same time.
A very good engineer spends his/her time practicing their engineering discipline. While some may have a hobbie with computers, it doens't make them a better mechanical engineer because they know how to configure a Linux machine for desktop use. What makes them a good engineer is that they know how to use the standard symbols, which have been altered a few times in the past ten years. They also need to know how to operate the application that they primarily use for their engineering discipline. An average engineer will spend time in other pursuits, while a great engineer will spend his/her time living and breating their chosen field. Most of the time that doesn't include how to configure Sendmail.
As for a marketer... True, they are mostly evil. However, to be a good marketer one needs to know the human mind, psychology and how to handle the media. They may need to know how to create a Powerpoint Presentation, generate a few documents. They have no need to know how to configure the Apache web server. That is what the guys in IT are for. They have need to learn how to program PHP, CGI or any other language that is used in Web-page design. They might come up with a layout, but that is for some IT guy to put together.
Tell me why the above professions need to have knowledge that is similar to what most IT people have? How will that make them better in their fields? How will they find the extra time to keep up with all of the endless data that comes out of IT, when they have to do the same thing for their field?
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
- Access became much cheaper and more ubiquitous. Checking your mail at a net cafe wouldn't have been possible without a popular net. neither would purchasing broadband at current rates.
- Suddenly there was a vast quantity of information and application avaliable through other media that was now avaliable through the net. Your Lord of the Rings trailer wouldn't be visible on the net so easily nobody was watching.
- Monetary incentive meant new and better sites / apps. Google wouldn't exist without their adwards, which in turn wouldn't exist without an audience
- It became possible to meet people outside the geek world on line, and share your mutual interests (cars, ham radio, dessert recipes, whatever)
Imagine an engineer who worked for a motor company in the early days complaining that horseless carriages were ubiquitous and that the roadways were filled with idiots who didn't know how to rebuild an engine.You do know how to rebuild an engine, don't you?