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Linux Needs More Haters
Corrupt brings us a ZDNet column by Jeremy Allison, who says Linux could benefit from more "tough love" in order to improve its functionality and popularity. Excerpting:
"As Elie Wiesel said, 'the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.' LinuxHater really doesn't hate Linux, despite the name. No one takes that much time to point out flaws in a product that they completely loathe and despise. The complaints are really cries of frustration with a system that just doesn't quite do what is desired (albeit well disguised). A friend pointed out to me that the best way to parse LinuxHaters blog is to treat it as a series of bug reports. A perl script could probably parse out the useful information from them and log them as technical bug reports to the projects LinuxHater is writing about. Deep down, I believe LinuxHater really loves Linux, and wants it to succeed."
Slashdotters must all be MS shareholders and Vista early adopters!
You can help a project without "fixing code." One way is by taking the support load off the hardcore devs. When you do that, for some amazing reason your bug reports also take on a greater weight. Just bitching doesn't do much.
Not every user is going to be a developer, that's why developers need to listen to the critics, because the critics don't have a developer's hat.
THAT is one of the things that makes OSS great.
They could take off the critic's hat and -fix- the things that they complain about.
I mean, isn't that one of the things that makes OSS great?
Yeah, and the other great thing about OSS is that it's as easy to fix kernel bugs as it is to point them out! Yay, you see, anyone can be a kernel developer!
You just got troll'd!
I "hate Linux", to the extent that I use it as little and as infrequently as possible. I certainly don't like it enough to want to spend time, that I could otherwise spend on real life, telling people why I don't like it!
I hate Linux ...OK, you got me, I'm just kidding.
Not everybody has the coding skills needed to fix problems with Linux, Gnome, KDE or whatever program is giving them trouble. Of those who do, most of them have jobs that take up most of their time, and such things as eating, sleeping, and other personal maintenance tasks take up most of their Copious Free Time. Even if they did try to fix a bug, it would take them a long time -- weeks at least, if not months -- to familiarize themselves sufficiently with the code to do any good. Complaining publicly about the bugs, preferably in a forum that the developers follow, is probably the most effective use of their time. YMMV, but if so, how many times have you dug into the source code of a FOSS program you're not involved in developing and patched a bug?
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They could spent 9 months learning the code, the build instructions, how it all fits together, creating their patch, testing their patch, submitting the patch, then hoping and praying that the project accepts the patch--
Or they could put in a bug report than the project maintainer can fix in 5 minutes, since he's already done all that work.
Which one sounds more efficient?
Of course, the real problem is that (most) open source projects don't read their bug trackers, even if the public is putting in bugs. I estimate around 75% of the time the bug never even gets assigned. This is after expressly asking users to submit bugs when they encounter them. I've given up, and I'm sure I'm not alone on this.
Comment of the year
For a person who spends his time getting first posts on Slashdot, they might as well be.
I hate printers.
LinuxHater's blog is aweseome, and I say this as someone who deeply loves Linux and GNU and all that is based on them. His criticisms are very well thought-out, not just stupid name calling, but clear, effective, technical, and explicit complaints about everything that is wrong with free software. He coats it with sardonic and bitter vitriol, yet beneath that tough exterior, there are the complaints of someone who has evidently spent a lot of time poking around the system, down to its gritty internals, and has found everything that could be improved about it.
Even Miguel de Icaza loves LinuxHater's blog. I recommend that any free software enthusiast spend some good time reading the blog. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder how you can make it all better.
The only thing wrong with linux is lack of availability of 3rd party shrink-wrap type applications and games. I would love to give up XP, but linux can't run the video editing software that I need and games that I want.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
One of the reasons I like Linux so much is that there's so little to complain about. Everything just works. Occasionally there's a driver hunt or compatibility issue, getting a scanner to work, but overall, once it's set up and working, smooth sailing.
That was the way Windows used to be. Everything would install and just work, while the Linux tinkerers spent hours chasing down compatibility issues and combing through HCL's. But Vista changed that perception and the very time Linux was making progress in big leaps.
Five years ago if you wanted a smooth install and minimal fuss you picked Windows 2000 or XP. Now you install Ubuntu or buy a Mac. The reality is probably a little more complex but the perception certainly has changed.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Use the app from this previous article to scan a few popular Linux-hating blogs' articles and comments and maybe you've got yourself a pro-active user feedback tool. Maybe.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
I think he's right about LinuxHater and right that we should be thankful for that kind of criticism. Pointing out flaws in a more public manner and in a way that makes it accessible to a larger audience can help shape opinion and get the flaws fixed.
Sure, LinuxHater could try to fix the bugs himself but I think that would be a lot less effective than what he's doing right now.
Even with all the warts, OS X is what Linux wants to be - and is stumbling miserably in many ways. As long as developers only work on what interests them, Linux will be hindered. Few coders really want to roll up their sleeves and do the dirty work of writing 4,000 printer drivers, GUI front ends to countless mundane command line functions or software ordinary people want to use in daily life. That's what Apple pays themselves to do.
You can know how to eat without knowing how to cook.
It's silly to expect people to take time to learn how to cook before complaining that the Linux stew lacks something.
But it's fair to ignore complainers who just say "it's bad" without giving anything useful.
I know lots of smart developers who have tried Linux and ported apps to it, just to expand their knowledge of the operating system and learn how to port stuff and to keep their skills up-to-date. But most of them fallback to Windows. The more pragmatic ones switch to OS X because it is just like a Unix OS, but with far greater usability.
At one point I kept a blog of all the troubles I had with using Linux. Most of the items were really simple things that made it very difficult to use. But often even constructive comments were met with disdain, so I gave up. No sense in complaining to a deaf audience.
This all comes back to the zealous Linux pragmatism where truly constructive criticism is turned into that with-us-or-against-us mentality.
OS X is the 'tough love' that Linux needs. I use Linux on the server (although I have a rack of Xserves too) and there's a reason I am happy with it there (unlike OS X).
On the desktop? Well I use a Mac. And I don't think I will ever go back (in the interests of fairness this is being posted from my 'Games and things' XP laptop).
I love the fact Linux is dynamic, and open source. I really do. I don't like the fact that it doesn't seem to 'evolve'. The fragementation of WM's, distro's etc. never actually seems to weed things out. What we never end up with is a 'de facto' solution.
People argue that choice is good. I'm sure it is. But the reason that Windows and OS X still beat Linux on the desktop experience is because they are standardised - there just aren't alternatives. And OS X is a better 'desktop Unix', so as a person who wants that, where else am I meant to go? If nothing else KDE 4 would drive me away... yuck.
I did use Linux on the desktop. For several years. I only tried OS X on a whim.
I don't hate Linux, but I don't think I'm alone. Go to a confernce these days (I'm an academic) and I used to see people booting into myriad versions of Linux as they opened their laptops. These people are now in a minority, as the Apple logo is raised in unison at the beginning of any talk.
Fanboy? Maybe.
I don't read your sig, why do you read mine?
I read the article and I thought, "Well, that sounds like a good idea." Too often when anyone mentions ANY of GNU/Linux's shortcomings (which, to be fair, are far less in number than Windows's), they are labelled a troll and are either attacked or ignored.
So what happens? The comments for this story include gems like "Not that much to complain about" and "Linux + GPL what is there not to love."
Legitimately easy-to-use GNU/Linux distributions such as Ubuntu didn't happen because of the GNU/Linux Yes-Men out there. It happened because the people at Canonical listened to complaints from people like GNU/Linux haters and tried to address the issues.
Or for that matter, flip the situation around. It seems that many users on Slashdot love GNU/Linux and hate Windows. If someone wrote an article saying that Microsoft should listen to the issues of Windows haters to help improve their product, wouldn't you think it was a good idea?
it just chooses its friends wisely.
I mean there are always alternatives, you could even use MacOS. (not windows though)
I do have a bit of an issue with some developments. Some supposedly user friendly Linux installations /etc. To control the config file control process you have to edit certain configuration files in a hard to find location.
think they should also be fool proof. Like certain NAS solutions, or maybe even Ubuntu which I'm using right now. There really are machine generated and machine controlled config files in
People, this is counterintuitive! Call me old fashioned but if I change a config file in /etc I mean it. I don't need some clippy like demon thingy to tell me that I can only edit its own configuration. It should be able to read the darn /etc file if it is that smart. If /etc isn't expressive enough invent something else and don't leave old stuff around.
There you go, got your two minutes of hate now?
Je me souviens.
Most bug trackers are smart enough to send e-mail to a developer, or a list of developers.
I think 99% of all submitted bugs are read (or at least glanced at), however the bug trackers are often way behind and (gasp) sometimes those e-mails are just ignored or forgotten.
Sometimes its as simple as a language barrier, sometimes just very busy people .. or sometimes you happen upon a developer who is 300x more sick of the program than you are :)
There are far, far less unique drivers needed than there are printers. In many cases, several models from the same line will actually use the same driver, but you have to list all of them because the average user won't have any way of knowing they're all the same. For that matter, there may well be cases where one companies printers simply use the same control codes as another, better known brand. As an example, years ago I had a dot matrix printer from Star Micronix. Even though it was a minor brand, I never had driver issues because I knew (having taken the time to RTFM) that it was Epson compatible and that the standard Epson driver was all I needed.
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Linux lovers should be grateful that anyone bothers to provide free criticism. Commercial vendors spend big bucks on focus sessions to acquire the same information.
One troubling trait exhibited by some Linux devotees is their insistence on responding to any criticism of the software by touting it's free software/open source roots. Frankly, that's little consolation to someone who's pointing out why they're unhappy with the software. Why should the model used to develop and distribute software mollify users when they see inadequacies in that software?
Of course, linked to that is the really annoying challenge to "Just fix it yourself! You've got the source!" That's an absurd claim. It's either premised on a wish to rid the Linux community of anyone who is not a bona fide developer, or it is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to be a competent developer.
Linux is a great OS and the best desktop distributions have nothing to hide. But, nothing ever gets better when people deliberately turn a blind eye to complaints.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
that nobody (outside MS) has that kind of skill wrt windows, at all. And that complaining rarely helps, if ever.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
I'm not sure about the months, weeks or even days. Sometimes it can be hours, sometimes even minutes, it all depends on a bug.
My bug report work flow:
1 - Make sure I'm not the bug
2 - Grab the source
3 - Browse
4 - Figure out (approximately) what point in the code my bug is coming from
5 - Write a bug report like this:
Hi,
Your program foo just killed my cat. No shit, killer pokes aren't funny dammit and you said this would work on a commodore PET! My cat had a seizure and its dead claws are now embedded in my skull as I write this.
As far as I can tell, its fate was sealed somewhere around line 2113. Looking at your commit logs, it looks like someone got ahold of the user "hsimpson"'s password, please ask him to change it.
I would help diagnose this more, but I have to get this cat off my head.
See? Even if I know _nothing_ about the code, I do know _something_ about the bug .. and can usually provide a little bit of information beyond 'its fucked up, fix it' .. which is the gist of the common bug report. :)
If Jeremy is correct, then the author of Linux Haters has chosen what is possibly the least likely route to garnering interest from Linux developers. Which linux developer would consciously choose to read a blog that refers to them as a 'luser' incessantly from paragraph to paragraph.
The 'benchmark' OS he seems to use as the basis of the bulk of his criticisms is OSX, an OS I find really frustrating to use (and I use it fairly often these days). If I were to start an OSX Haters on this basis should I expect the Aqua and XCode authors to read it daily in the interests of improving all the braindead things about both those aspects of OSX? Didn't think so.. Maybe the guy just has a crippling case of Internet Rabies induced by deep boredom and Jeremy's simply being a little generous..
There are, afterall, blogs featuring meticulously prepared images of meals that people hated eating. Perhaps this blog is simply in the same vein; just another masochist whiling away the hours in public.
Must be a slow news day.
This is important to learn in life. When you reject someone that loves you, then they hate you. As long as they hate you, they still love you.
Once they don't care any more then it's over.
It discovered this all on my own when going through a bad breakup so that part of the comment particularly leapt out from the page to me.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They could take off the critic's hat and -fix- the things that they complain about.
I mean, isn't that one of the things that makes OSS great?
And there is the fundamental problem with Linux -- the "geeks only" attitude of so many of its proponents. The lawyer who wants an office system, the granny who has just heard that they can video-conference with their grandchild halfway around the world, the schoolkid who wants to get their geography assignment done -- most potential Linux users will never have anything to contribute to Linux except advocacy, and as long as any requests for help are met with "fix it yourself" suggestions or a pile of technical gibberish (heck, I am a coder, and I struggle to understand most of the supposed support on offer) then they will stay with other systems whose developers do understand the needs of the non-technical user. That way they'll never be more than potential users, and Linux won't even get their advocacy.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Lately it's become popular for Linux users and devs to profess their love and devotion for the Linux Hater. But I don't think they really get it. The author just propagates the same old "grandma can't use it" and "too much choice" and "developers should focus instead on XYZ" crap that you found on usenet years ago.
The message is not simply, "Linux needs to improve," but rather "Linux will never be good enough."
Most experienced Linux users probably have it in them to respond to inane trolls with precision and objectivity, but when a troll with a sense of humor, good writing skills, and some domain experience comes along, everybody cowers and plays along. Hey, the popular guy is here, everybody play cool.
Too many Linux users are caught between their love for straightforwardness and cutting-edge technology on the one hand and their lust for popularity and respect on the other. Linux Hater is not here to make you laugh. He's not secretly using Linux and enjoying it. He's the guy who sold you out for cooler friends in tenth grade, idiots.
There are far, far less unique drivers needed than there are printers
Sure, a generic driver will run a lot of printers - but it's the options that kill you. PPD files are supposed to take care of that but there are still scads of unique printers (and scanners, and All In One devices) that make this a daunting task. You're right about users, though - they'll see buttons that say "double sided" or "staple" or "tabloid" or "tray 3" and wonder why all that irrelevant stuff shows up for their $49 inkjet. That's what Apple has taken care of. It just works. Linux could get there too if only SOMEONE would organize the efforts of contributors.
Unfortunately that's one thing a lot of Linux advocates fail to get: Not everyone has the ability to alter the code to "fix" things.
This is especially important for the types of Linux advocates that are pushing for "Linux on the Desktop" and other non-specialized applications. You are trying to push Linux onto people who can barely turn a computer on without electrocuting themselves - do not expect them to "scratch their own itch."
What we need are fewer self-righteous asshats who can actually put themselves in the position of a novice and try to understand their needs - or at least listen to them without condescending retorts. Windows, for all it's shortcomings, tailors specifically to novice users (ie the vast majority of computer users) and that's why it's so popular. Cry monopoly all you want but until you fix your usability issues you are not going to make much progress.
=Smidge=
What makes Windows and OSX more popular than Linux is the same reason why Java is more popular than Python or Ruby, it's corporate sponsorship.
Nope. Not even close. How are these for corporate sponsors: Redhat, Novell, Sun.
What makes Windows and OSX so popular are applications that are commercially supported. That's it. Look no further. Without applications, your OS, no matter how fancy, is useless. I rememeber when I got my first computer, I turned it on to see C:\>. It was useless to me without apps that I could use (I was also introduced to warez that day).
Now, I know that there are alot of apps for Linux, but the installation and use of them are not as seamless as those for Windows or OSX. What I would like to see, and perhaps this is already available, is a set of agreed upon application practices, written by distribution maintainers, that developers follow that standardize the interface, the population of the OS menus, the distribution of files, etc, so that it app installs are seamless. Yes, it would be a PITA to support each distribution of OS, but quite frankly, that could be automated. And then have app developers actually follow the guidelines.
That would go along way to streamlining apps in Linux.
All distros must REQUIRE a graphic sudo dialogue system (a-la osx) in order to distribute a file manager.
File managers are there to manage files, and not just on your own user space. There is nothing more annoying than having to drop to shell level and type furiously to do something which on mac can be done with a few drags and drops.
Most people don't even know how to do that, and all they see is "operation not permitted".
Think about that for a minute... Because there is no option to authenticate (out of the box), joe user is put through the same scenario with his files that you get put through when some company surprises you with a DRM scheme.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Linux is superior to Mac OS X?? *pop* I'm afraid you just blown my Mac fanboism fuse :-(
You just got troll'd!
I do agree that app support is the major problem with linux, but I'd actually argue that for the apps that are in package managers, it's a lot easier and more seamless to install them than a random Windows or OS X app. Of course, if the package manager doesn't have it or fails, then you might be worse off...
All your base are belong to Wii.
I count myself in the group of developers that used Linux for a few years, then switched back to Windows.
I had and have one PC at home. To run Linux, I set that machine up dual or triple boot. I was running Red Hat for a while until they changed it into Fedora. I worked with Fedora for a while, but they had a bug with dual booting that they would not only not fix, but called it a feature. I got as far as the version of Fedora that had SELinux in it. Someone told me "Debian is better." I had that as a partition for a while. But I like trying out new software development frameworks and that made for incompatible library versions and apt-get didn't help. I mostly kept with the Fedora, fought the SELinux configuration and got it under control. Then the one PC died.
At this point, I had spent huge amounts of time fiddling with Linux and faced more basic problems, like knowing how much money I had in my checking account.
So I went out and got another PC with Windows pre-installed. It came with Quicken, which I already knew how to use. Later, when I really got into digital photography and purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements. It not only seemed more intuitive then GIMP, it also allows you to organize your photos within the program. When I started shooting RAW mode with my DSLR, it handles that quite nicely too. I also got an iPod and started listening to more music than I had in years.
Since I was no longer trying to keep running Linux, it was not a problem.
This is despite the fact that I have spent 25 years developing software and have many years of Unix experience. I might have thought all that time spent becoming familiar would help me at work. Maybe it did a little. My employer had one contract that I worked on which familiarity with Linux played a role. But otherwise, my employer has about 70 employees, no IT department, and as far as I know, no one else who knows Linux. If I were successful in introducing anything there that ran under Linux, guess who would be supporting it? They have me doing this other job that would not go away while the Linux training and support ramped up.
In my regular job, I select hardware to install as part of integrated systems. I may deal with 20 or 30 such devices while traveling to the customer job sites. All of them either have web configuration or require you to install a support program under Windows. If I were to adopt the stance that I would only run Linux on my work laptop and reject equipment that did not support Linux, we would not be able to complete our jobs and would have a hard time explaining to the customer why we could not complete the job. Actually, I would just get fired and they would hire someone who doesn't have a problem running Windows on their work laptop.
So I run a mix of closed and open source applications on Windows and am happier since I gave up depending on Linux. I have all that free time now to pursue other things. If I want to run Linux, I can boot a Knoppix CD. But I don't really do that very much anymore.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
Igor! Just the man I was looking. I have fallen badly from a /. comment and now I need some stitching on the left leg. Seem to be missing a patch of skin off my arm too.
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
1. Vision. You can't have a bunch of haphazard crap floating around in a bunch of different distros and expect it to be adopted by people who have to have accountability.
2. Marketing. Nobody is going to purchase anything when their is no value associated with it. Linux has no value on the desktop simply because their is nobody to blame when "shits all fucked up". You can't point to MS Tech Support and say "We are waiting on our trouble ticket to be resolved". As much as any C?O HATES to hear those words, they also know that they are the words that ensure they don't get "kicked off the team".
3. Drop the fanboishness. Nobody in an enterprise is going to choose a desktop flavor because some pimplefaced geek says it's better than MS. Lets see, who has an actual track record here? And (this is a biggie for enterprises, especially public ones) Let's see, do we place blame on a corporation who we can sue, or do we place blame on the pimple faced geek that talked me into Red Hat, and has now moved on to another job?
Yeah, that's a big one, the actual ability to place and lay blame. Don't give me the Red Hat crap. Yeah, they provide technical support. They also provide no guarantee that anything will work for anyone. You get that with MS, even if it doesn't mean much.
What Linux needs is marketing, vision and a leader.... And by a leader I mean someone who wasn't just out to say "I can do this, and you can't stop me".
Yeah, this will be an unpopular opinion here. Oh well, truth sometimes hurts.
--Toll_Free
The for-profit model has a built in advantage in that once the people controlling a project decide making a change is a priority they can FORCE the people on the team to do it. OSS is exactly the opposite; if nobody feels like fixing a bug it doesn't get done, or it takes more time. There are strengths and weaknesses to both systems.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
You forget that linux is just a kernel, it's not a whole system. No matter how good a kernel might be, if the rest of the system is buggy or incomplete, then people will choose something else. Every six months I try the new release of Ubuntu, and every six months I see serious bugs and limitations within 30 minutes of testing. It's certainly usable, but usable is not good enough. The result is, although I install linux server professionally, I use Windows almost exclusively for my personal needs.
true, I've found instaling apps in Linux to be easier than Windows once you have a binary distribution that is packaged.
I think perhaps the problem isn't the apps that are out there, but the development of them. Microsoft produces more development tools than there are days to figure out how to use them, and they produce documentation that is really good (assuming you want to be a WinCE or .NET developer nowadays). If I could develop my apps for Linux with the ease I could develop for Linux, there would be more apps and more uptake for Linux.
The mass of boring, specific-solution apps out there dwwarf everything you can get commercially. Windows is built on the premise that it is easy to create apps, and that supporting them is easy even if the original developer leave, you'll be able to find another who can take up their code because they will be familiar with the technology used to produce it.
This, I feel is one of the reasons for Java having so much uptake - it was well documented, and if you wrote a Swing app, you knew your investment in it would be safe.
Of course, momentum and installed base helps a lot, but Windows cannot ever compete with free.
Bitch and moan critics who don't contribute code (or money) are in bountiful supply for all software, not just OSS.
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
I'll give fair crits.
Let me say first and foremost, that I prefer booting into Ubuntu and using that as my daily driver. Sometimes I just can't though.
Here is a list of short reasons why:
Skype seems to be faster, and work better in w32. My video gets sent at higher resolution, and I can hear the other party better. Dunno why, this is just the case.
7zip is screwed up in Linux. I installed a wine version, AND a native version, only the wine version will start and it flickers and won't let me select a package to extract. Making it unusable.
Random crashes. I mean, probably as many or more as I get regularly in Windows, with the added inconvenience of ctrl+alt+bckspce not being near as good as ctrl+alt+delete, which brings up a handy task menu for me to clean up (usually).
No two sound things going at once. Sometimes I like to put on mp3s, and THEN go kill people in Urban Terror. This is easy and works perfect in W32, but not in Ubuntu, I just get the mp3s, and NO sound in a game whilst they are playing.
TVtime not recognizing my TV card. Dscaler turns on perfectly in Windows. So does TVtime in Ubuntu, but then the screen is blue and there is no menu for me to figure out what is wrong, either.
Joost. Works in windows, not in Ubuntu. I'm sure partially Joost's fault, but still sad.
Civilization 2. Best/funnest version of the game, will not play in wine even though it's like 10 years old.
I like how Windows arranges it's GUI, start button, quicklaunch, then task list, then systray and clock. Less real estate, all the same functionality, but without a top AND bottom bar.
Zsnes. Does not work in any way shape or form, or under wine.
What Linux gets RIGHT however is it's ability to find and install 99% of my hardware without me hunting for hours for drivers, inclusion of most of the software I prefer (firefox, gimp, pidgin, open office, cd burner), Compiz Fusion (blows every Windows attempt away!), and it's open source nature. There is something good knowing the code to my machine is inspected by lots of eyes, not just one corporation, and it's also good to know that if I was knowledgeable enough, some of those eyes could be mine.
Honestly Linux feels "closer" than it ever did. It just needs to solve a few naggling issues before it can fully dominate the world by desktop. Another way it could do so is by being AHEAD of the curve. It would be nice if there was a superior FOSS Skype killer, since skype is actually deficient in numerous ways, including not being FOSS. Speex is a better speech compression algorithm, so it would seem like we have the tools in hand to beat the current corporate paradigm too, and yet it sadly isn't happening.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Wasn't there a story a few month back about a guy, a normal guy, some French medic IIRC, that wrote drivers for a few hundred, or thousand, who's counting, webcams? He just wanted to get his webcam to work but ended up writing a framework and churning out driver after after driver. Try doing this on OS X (all webcams come with Windows drivers, so no one has to write them of course).
Oh, what is K3B but a front end to a bunch of commad line tools?
Cheers
Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em. (Terry Pratchett)
(Explanation: many many internet cafe customers at least from my experience here in Athens Greece really want a videophone appliance, and access to some social networking sites - they don't care about the OS. Even more to the point they've learnt just enough by *rote* to talk to their kids - even resizing windows or copying files phases them. Anything other than a clone of the whatever windows messenger is a no no for them).
Observationally it breaks down like this:
Egyptians - mostly yahoo msgr, 6arab.com
Moroccans,Tunisians - mostly windows live
Filipino - yahoo messenger, friendster.
Bulgarians - skype, mIRC
oh , and even if you get past the messenger level, how about font/language support for my friends who speak amharic, sinhala etc?
Good luck with that
Incidentally, one of the driving factors in upgrading Vista to XP (at least in my experience) is that many new first time users are *already* using XP in an internet cafe. (A quick comment here to enlighten the more abstracted slashdotters - the change in Yahoo Messenger 9 moving the webcam button from the toolbar phases about 60-80% of users the first time).
Andy
My old junker 700MHz Linux box fell to the 'linux curse' where hardware started failing left & right, thus making the OS fail. It happens on every 2ndhand system I install Linux on. So I get a refurbished computer & reinstall linux. Spent over an hour getting the resolutioon BACK to 1024x768 on a Micron monitor. Nothing, NOTHING should ever take that long just to change the desktop resolution. Ubuntu's "desktop resolution" is like a showcase of resolutions you honestly dont want(640x480)
Tbe rest of my time was spent trying to get my account to authenticate in Samba. I have never been so frustrated with one app than Samba. It's just one authentication problem after another.
What I would like to see, and perhaps this is already available, is a set of agreed upon application practices, written by distribution maintainers, that developers follow that standardize the interface, the population of the OS menus, the distribution of files, etc, so that it app installs are seamless.
Mega dittos, Rush. I think OSX is gaining a lot of ground because the installation of apps is trivial: drag the thing from the disk-image file to your app folder. Of course its almost as easy in ubuntu, where you select from a pre-defined list. But linux definitely needs a common mechanism. RPMs, apt, and yum simply don't hack it. Though package management seems like a good idea, it quickly locks a user into specific versions that must be compatible with specific libraries. I think the difficulty of installing apps, the difficulty of patching the OS, the lack of standard distribution practices, and the inflexibility of package management systems can make otherwise embracing users a little hostile towards Linux. In fact, I'm starting to feel a little hostile myself and I'm one of those Linux evangelists.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Agreed.
ACPI support is not finished yet, in terms of completeness.
The Intel X3100 Open Source driver DRI module exhibits issues, which send interrupts to the CPU every time screen refreshes - i.e. 60 times per second, preventing the CPU from idling, and thus eating battery and power.
USB driver interrupts the CPU without any device plugged in to the bus.
yenta_sockets module - same story.
The above may only hold true to the Thinkpad machines, but the laptop (mobile) Linux is just not there yet, given that my Thinkpad has a standard Intel graphics, and standard Intel USB controller. I am sure other notebook machines have similiar issues.
In addition to that Linux starts to exhibit side-effects of "too much choice". There are at least two desktop interfaces (GTK, and QT) so, half of the people only get half of the applications, because their desktop user interface is not supported. Things like that.
It may well be that Ubuntu != all linux distros, but the majority of packages are shared between distributions, and so most of the quirks, bugs and status-quos make it everywhere.
I admire the programmers, who implement newest hardware support in software for Linux though. Like ACPI. But there is more that needs to be done, and I don't have time to learn ACPI right now, so all I can do is complain :-)
What makes Windows and OSX so popular are applications that are commercially supported. That's it. Look no further. Without applications, your OS, no matter how fancy, is useless. I rememeber when I got my first computer, I turned it on to see C:\>. It was useless to me without apps that I could use (I was also introduced to warez that day).
As soon as a post like this appears on /., it's almost guaranteed you'll have a dozen or more replies saying "But Linux has all the packages you could ever need! Just look at any package manager!!!oneoneone" so I'll chime in with what I perceive as being a bit of clarification.
As far as the end user is concerned, provided they're not a hardcore gamer this is quite correct.
But a lot of people own PCs for reasons other than just the sake of owning a computer - and these reasons are quite often business related. Be it "one PC in a business which employs 3 people", "30 PCs in a business which employs 30 people" or "1000 PCs in a business that employs 1000 people", the problem is the same.
Linux apps which do the boring stuff aren't there. The payroll, accounting and small business automation systems which may never sell more than 1000 copies don't exist. Or if they do, they're seldom well maintained examples of everything that can go right with F/OSS. Hell, virtually every single Exchange alternative out there (and today there are many) appears to either work out just as expensive as Exchange or to have completely missed the point regarding "100% full interoperability with Outlook or a client on a similar par".
Consider the business owner's perspective. They want a tool to help them do a job, not a religion. Therefore, reasons which are badly thought out at best (eg. "Anyone can support it!" - right, so who's this "anyone" and how come the Yellow Pages isn't full of such "anyones" offering their services because it sure is for Windows systems?) to downright ludicrous ("You can always pay someone to add the extra functionality!" - right, so my business which turns over just enough money to keep a couple of people employed and is much the same as 100 others in terms of IT requirements has to waste months agreeing requirements with an expensive software developer to get a single system which when all is said and done won't be any better than something off the shelf and will cost a small fortune in both time and cash for added functionality in the future, with the added bonus that if this individual developer disappears off the face of the Earth shortly before something goes wrong, I'm totally screwed?) are plain silly.
Similarly, arguments like "We can't implement 100% interoperability with Exchange because it's proprietary" won't result in a small IT consultancy saying "Ah, poor you. Never mind, I'll just tell my clients that they can't have the functionality". They'll result in the small consultancy saying "I'd like to buy a copy of Windows Small Business Server please".
On the contrary:
1) I consider the vacation time I get at work insufficient, so I often take unpaid time off (management is cool with that). If I were using a Linux system at home and were to spend a significant amount of time trying to fix it rather than doing the things I intended to with my time off, this is indeed time I could otherwise have been paid for.
2) I maintain a few Linux boxes at work. If I spend time debugging problems on them that commercial software would have fixed, this is company money spent on getting OSS to work. Perhaps a commercial product would cost the company $100 out-of-pocket, where debugging and configuring the OSS product would cost $500 of employee time.
3) I consider my free time much more valuable than money earned. I value a non-working Saturday more highly than a working Saturday with double overtime pay. Personally, I consider time-spent-at-my-discretion-at-a-reasonable-standard-of-living my baseline goal, rather than bank balance, with the money I earn at work serving as an enabler of that. If I get a raise, I consider it an opportunity to take a few more days off rather than to get a few more bucks. So, everything that costs me discretionary time, where I feel I'm not getting much out of it, is very detrimental to my bottom line. If it means that I'll spend 50 fewer hours configuring and debugging my system, I'll gladly plonk $200 for Windows at the stupidly cheap rate of $4/hour of free time.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
MS has never brought out an OS that had as many haters as Vista. So according to this logic the next version will be great.
Actually from what I have heard, it might indeed be true.
You must be talking about this guy, and that's a pretty nice piece of software. And btw, it has been (kinda) ported to OS X, and the result is here.
.sig: No such file or directory
We've had that for ten goddamn years. It is called apt.
/etc or /usr/etc? Then there is the famous /lib//etc What about the apps? Do they go in /usr, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local, or what about /opt? Hey, what about logs? Under /var? Shared libraries? Under /lib, /lib/, /usr/lib, /usr/local/lib? Now for Gui apps, where do icons end up in the menu system? Not all apps show up in the right place. Where are docs saved? What about config options.
For Debian, but what about the rest of the world? Well, they use Yum or some other front end to RPM. Now, what does RPM do? package stuff up into directories. Gee, how is that defined? By the developers! Is there a common code of conduct (again, I don't know) for packaging apps? When do you put files into
Yeah, because application developers for Windows are sooo conscientious about coding to desktop standards.
A fine example of fallacious reasoning. Just because a group doesn't do something doesn't mean others shouldn't. Your response is also a prime example of why zealotry is worse for the cause. You bring up a tiny world view, Debian, as the way it should be, rather than acknowledging what is.
Do other OS's have similar problems, yes, but we aren't talking about other OS's. We are talking about Linux
It's easy to criticise. How about you try fixing it instead?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
OK. I've got karma to burn, but seriously, check out this website first before starting to flame or mod me down - at the very least it's got a funny picture on the page :)
http://www.linuxisforbitches.com/
Seems fairly appropriate given the topic at hand...
Gotta get me one of these!
I do agree that Synaptic suffers from "yellow pages syndrome," where it can be hard to find something if you don't already have an idea of where/what it is. Add/Remove Programs attempts to fill this hole, but it would be nice if there was a better selection of index applications for it, there's a lot of stuff that's not listed there.
But all that having been said, you pretty much lost me on "download a windows program." From where? How do you find it? How do you know it's safe? How do you upgrade it later? How do you ensure that it plays nicely with the rest of the system? With apt, all these things have been done for you. As noted above, I agree that there are issues yet to be addressed, but the free world is so far ahead of proprietary software in the area of installing and managing components of your system in a consistent and sensible manner that it's pretty ridiculous to even try to make the comparison.
And again (this is a drum that I love to beat), why is that? It is because of freedom. Freedom is the killer app, apt is just a interface for it.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Would the corollary of that be "Windows is only expensive if your time is worth something" ?
That goes along with the mantra of Linux, as LinuxHater pointed out: if something doesn't work in Linux, convince yourself you don't need it.
I agree. Much as some Linux distros try to aim at end users, the basic attitude is still an OS by programmers for programmers.
On second thought, I wonder if it's really that, or just the way the vocal Linux fans see it. They seem to do a good job at dissuading people from using Linux.
Just have some poor non-Linux-user read a thread like this, with the multitude of demands to fix bugs herself (or himself), and people saying that changes to make the OS more usable by laypeople are bad. Do you think that after reading this such a user would have any wish to try Linux?
It's obvious from posts here that a lot of Linux fans just don't want non-programmers to use the OS. They seem to be happiest when few people are using Linux, because:
1. The OS is geared for them, and nobody else
2. They can feel fulfilled by bitching about nobody using Linux
Unfortunately for them, it looks like there's a chance of Linux becoming more mainstream thanks to being bundled on devices like the Eee PC.
true, I've found instaling apps in Linux to be easier than Windows once you have a binary distribution that is packaged.
Windows application and/or driver installation requires the application/package and a double-click. You then choose a typical install which does literally everything for you or a customizable one. Done.
No Linux distro I have tried has EVER followed as simple an installation process. Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu, DSL- Each had its own quirks, almost all of which required shell commands. (In fact, I believe all required it.)
For the *average* user, the Linux process is far from desirable.
This doesn't mean *I* am not a user or fan of Linux; it just means I am not your average user much like most of the people here.
If Linux developers could all agree on an install process that was 100% GUI compliant, (but still retained the OPTION to do things from the shell) irritated Windows and Mac users would flock to Linux in droves.
That's a good question. The answer is "kinda, but it does (as you noted) have some slight variations by distro)." But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, because modern systems are smart enough to look for those files in multiple places. For instance, I can run /bin, /usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin commands by simply typing the name of the command, without having to give a path, because bash is smart enough to know that that's where the executables live.
/bin, /usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin (not to mention 64-bit duplicates), it's all fine and good until I have a different version of the same program in each and don't remember which of them I want to use.
It gets even more fun on 64-bit Linux. Any eccentricities with the system (perhaps I installed something with make instead of an RPM, or perhaps it had a Python installer, or perhaps I didn't properly remove a library I wasn't using) and all of a sudden, new apps I'm installing will occasionally try to call the wrong version of the same library. Perhaps it's calling the 32-bit version instead of the 64-bit. Perhaps it's pointed to the wrong one of three different versions of the same library. Perhaps I have two different versions of the 64-bit library because I have two different programs that each want a different one (because I wanted a version of something that's newer than what my yum repository offers), but one isn't particularly vigilant about putting things in the right place.
Pretty soon, half of the things I install require me to rejigger who is pointing to what for libraries.
Yeah, it may well be that I did something improperly a while back (RTFM, and all that), but I don't think it's too much to ask for a freshly-installed app to bring with it the libraries (or at least the capability to find the libraries) that it needs to work properly without my intervention. I don't think it should matter whether or not I installed everything consistently with the same package manager.
As for
It still boggles whenever I'm on OSX, how I can just drag lots of apps over and they work... no installer, registry entries, library dependencies. Or at least none that I'm aware of.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
If an app isn't supported, don't use it. Big hint here: Use Ubuntu Linux. It provides automatic updates.
That's one of the other issues any user coming from Windows or Mac always runs into with Linux: Application X isn't supported or Driver Y hasn't been written yet.
For people such as those here on /. the prospect of making that app work or building a driver from scratch is often an enjoyable challenge. For the rest of the 99% of the world's computer users, it's an instant deal breaker.
For the rest of the 99% of the world's computer users, it's an instant deal breaker.
Exactly. That's why more software companies need to publish software for Linux. Just a couple of days ago, I purchased a commercial software package for Linux. I think the time of Linux is just beginning. :-)
This reminds me of the Unix Hater's Handbook from the 90's. It's available for download.
What can I say about that suit that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan? It looks bombed out and depleted. (Playa Hater's Ball)
Not when you are a customer. Yes, Linux is F/OSS. But if you want users, then treat them as customers. If you ignore people, lose bug reports, call them stupid, tell them to RTFM, or tell them to fix it themselves, don't be surprised when you lose them.
This does not run contrary to my statement. Strictly commercial concerns can and often do ignore "[X] sucks because it isn't exactly like [Y]", "I did such-and-such with [X] and it didn't work; therefore, [X] is the most worthless piece of garbage ever", and so on because they aren't useful criticisms, they're just cranky bitching. The people who stand the chance of changing products and/or policy are the ones who make a reasonable, informative complaint rather than throwing a tantrum when they don't get their way immediately.
Don't mistake this for excusing people in the F/OSS community who act like dicks, because they are indeed out there. But if you go in expecting to be greeted with hostility, it's going to be apparent in your tone, and at best you'll get *polite* hostility in return.
The reason you're seeing those packages with both kde and gnome vesions is probably because they're available (from upstream) with both qt and gtk frontends, and as such binaries of both are included in the distribution. Admittedly, this can be somewhat cumbersome, especially if you don't know which toolkit you prefer, but you are, regardless, able to use the less ideal version. Unfortunately, this is pretty hard to fix in a binary based distribution, so long as the users have a choice of using both gtk and qt software. One possible solution would be to have a preselected preference of toolkit, having the package manager automagically make the right choice of which version to install, hiding the other. Source based distributions, like gentoo, rather effortlessly solves this issue (much in the same way) by only compiling packages with a preset number of flags.
;) from enlightenment, which that entire wm/de hybrid (dr17, that is) is based around. Oh and that gnustep thing. But I digress. The point I was trying to make, is that you can use whatever mishmash of tk's together, and it won't break anything but the hearts of Digital Media Design majors.
You won't see packages for the more minimalistic WM's like fluxbox, as they really are just that, window managers with minimal fluff. Occasionally they'll include a graphical settings utility, but these will be written with some other readily available toolkit. Even xfce, which is really a full-fledged DE, uses gtk, so for a xfce-based desktop, the gnome packages would be the "correct" choice. Also, qt and gtk aren't really the only popular toolkits; many people prefer wxwidgets or fltk, or for that matter plain old tk, as such you'll see programs with even more toolkits. Even weirder is perhaps evas (honestly I'm not sure if that's the name of the toolkit. It is of part of it as a whole, I believe, but I'm on shaky ground here. It's something starting with an e, anyway
Your point about abstracting DE details is, imo, right on spot though, but I'm not really sure a new API is the answer. Some kind of daemon figuring out what best theme/color/font to use for all tk's, or for that matter a unified config tool, seems easier, and if it worked, would work wonders with the whole "desktop experience". I'm running a fairly mixed setup myself (fluxbox, thunar, firefox, qgo, amarok, amule, etc), and the time spent getting amarok to have just the correct hue of gray is rather annoying. Not to mention the fact that I have to install the kde configuration program, which I don't want and which I don't have a need for, apart from to make amarok look like my gtk apps.
You can also double-click a package in some distros, or pick from the list of available packages in a graphical repository browser like Adept. Installing Linux software ia not hard. It actually takes less knowledge than the drag & drop operation which is typical on OS X, when the devs forget to include a directory link to drop the app on.
I understand that self-contained apps are superior from an end-user situation. I'm just not sure how they cater for dependencies that are required for other apps as well... does it mean apps don't share any dependencies other than the system API's? Each app contains it's dependencies in itself?
As for the sitting in /Applications, linux could move to this I'm sure if it is actually a superior method. I can't see where except for removing an app, but I'm still learning. Otherwise, it could just be a link if that is needed.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
I think it's fine to ignore the people who bitch and moan about the problems with open source software, as long as the open source people don't mind getting ignored when they bitch and moan about everybody using Windows, Microsoft Office, Flash, and Internet Explorer.
This problem of the grizzled old expert using a fresh new Linux distro is a considerable one.
Some of us aren't fully aware of how far away from the CLI the newer distributions
have gotten... even when we are using them ourselves. We're used to old habits
learned a long time ago from before a lot of the current bells & whistles were
created.
We don't bother with a lot of the "shiny and new" stuff because we don't need to.
This can lead us to giving other people a false impression.
If you aren't completely comfortable building from source then it's probably not
a good idea to bother. If something isn't packaged by your distro yet then it's
probably a good sign that it's still a little too raw. It's still a little "too beta".
Free software means that you can see how a project progresses from the very
beginning. You get to see stuff in Linux before you would in other Operating
systems. Not everyone can handle dealing with a project before their is a
proper build. Package managers exist for a reason.
OTOH, anyone can choose to overcomplicate things. Some people excel at this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> Businesses need specific software, not free hobbyist knockoffs.
Perhaps.
OTOH, you could rephrase it like so...
"Business needs specific brands of software, not some commercial knockoff"
This has nothing to do with achieving actual requirements. People are just
fixated on brandnames. Thus you can't actually come up with any reason that
the "free hobbyist knockoff" isn't suitable. You just come up with some lame
insult that doesn't really tell anyone anything.
"fix it now" commercial software is nothing trivial and for software that
really has that sort of support available for it you will pay a kings
randsom for it. For most of the sorts of software that gets bandied about
here it's a total fabrication.
It's just something else that people that have no real genuine grievances
bring up to try to torpedo something they don't like. It's much like the
famous "no one to blame" or "no one to sue" criticism with Free Software.
Serious support means that you and your boss will be at the disposal of
your software vendor until a fix is created. Nothing that you didn't pay
6 or 8 figures for will even have this as a support option.
So don't try to kid us about "toys".
Those things that run Windows. Those are the real toys. Always have been.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Except, of course, this is not how Debian packages work, and therefore you are posting bullshit.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Sure there is. Download a windows program and run it. It just works.
Right, it just works. That is, if it's a standalone .exe and has no serious dependencies like .Net or Java or VB(3-6). Or if it isn't a standalone .exe (requires installation) and it can install into a user directory. Or it installs to a global directory and you're an admin.
Just as in Linux with particular libraries, Windows users also sometimes have to scour the 'net for those special dll's that stopped shipping with various releases of Windows.
Honestly, installing software was one of my biggest beefs with OS X. You have to mount a file as a drive?
These days Safari opens the image file and everything pops up like magic for the user. If the people who designed the program are worth a damn, they have a link to the apps folder in the image and the user basically doesn't have to think about it. Its about as complicated as you describe for synaptic but the search interface is google and not a cryptically hidden program somewhere in the system submenu of the start bar. I think the last time you used OS X was 10.1.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Windows application and/or driver installation requires the application/package and a double-click. You then choose a typical install which does literally everything for you or a customizable one. Done.
Here's a better simplification of the process:
1. Open web browser
2. Search (modern browsers, the search bar, older browsers, navigate to google.com) for "calendar program"
3. Find program web site.
4. Find download link and download.
5. Double click EXE
6. Click Next, Next, Next, I Agree, Next
7. Choose "Simple" or "Advanced" install. Assume Simple install for the rest:
8. Click Next, Next, Next, Next, Reboot prompt.
9. Wait for reboot.
10. Configure program.
No Linux distro I have tried has EVER followed as simple an installation process. Fedora, Mandriva, Ubuntu, DSL- Each had its own quirks, almost all of which required shell commands. (In fact, I believe all required it.)
Obviously you've never used any of the distributions you listed. Here's an Ubuntu example:
1. Click System, Administration, Synaptic Package Manager
2. Type password
3. Search for "calendar"
4. Install sunbird (or other desired program)
5. Open program in the Applications menu and use.
If Linux developers could all agree on an install process that was 100% GUI compliant
You mean like this? Most average people would probably see AT MOST two different UI styles, if they happen to install both KDE/Qt and GNOME/Gtk programs, and they're not even dramatically different paradigms by default. If you even look more closely, the linked screenshot consists only of Microsoft applications; way to go, demonstrating there's no such thing as consistency in Windows (ironically, the most "standard" Win32 UI in that screenshot happens to be Notepad).
If we had an open-source build system that could target .app, you could have more control. Pass whatever ./configure options you like, and then install the resulting .app easy as pie!
I've really never understood why Linux sticks with the old /bin, /etc, /lib, /usr/{bin,etc,lib,share} conventions instead of switching to a .app-like system. It's just technologically better to support both .apps and an equivalent system for shared libraries, and I can only see one reason to hold back from such basic usability: backwards-compatibility.
Ridiculous?
Linux: Click add/remove programs. Tick the app you want. Click apply. Enter password. Done.
vs
Windows: Load web browser. Google for program. Hunt around website for download link. Download program. Open file browser. Navigate to download directory. Double click install file. Click next. Click next. Click next. Click next. Click next. Done.
That's best case for both. If the Linux app isn't in the repositories then you end up with a similar process to the Windows one. If the Windows one isn't free, you get to add going to the shop and paying for it to the above steps.
Of course, if you're happy to use the command line, the Linux one gets even simpler...
Open terminal. apt-get install . Done.
There are other things you can do as well. Lots of projects need icons and such. Almost all of them need improvement to documentation (the INCLUDED docs, NOT the online stuff. Online-only documentation is a trick pulled on idiots by assholes.) For instance I've packaged qgtkstyle and micropolis for Ubuntu and uploaded them to a PPA (https://launchpad.net/~martin-espinoza/+archive) which effectively fixes two bugs in Ubuntu (the packaging licensing is Ubuntu-compatible, so "they" can pull my packages right into Intrepid if they wish.) There's a ton of jobs which can be done by non-programmers. (To be fair, correcting documentation is a job which requires extensive access to the developers. If they are uncooperative this job is impossible.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"