Linux Needs Critics

An anonymous reader writes "Keir Thomas berates the fact that the world of Linux almost entirely lacks critics. In fact, he says, Linux people tend to see genuine critical evaluation as a bad thing. FTA: 'The problem with this anti-criticism approach is that it's damning Linux to an eternity of navel gazing. Nothing can ever get any better. The best hope we have are the instances where a few bright sparks, with their heads screwed on the right way, get together and make something cool (as happened with, say, Firefox back in the day). But that's rare and can't be relied upon.'"

Comments

Want criticism?

[scubamage]

Most of these are from desktop linux, but because of them I've feared installing linux on any of our servers. First, there is no dependency control. Because everything is built using other libraries, software can be broken regularly by running the system update. If you run the official software update of a distrobution, it should NOT break your software. I don't have time to memorize every single library on my system, and then cross reference version numbers against a database of what software requires what, investigate whether or not there are updates to said software, etc. I run a system update, and suddenly a bunch of apps don't work. That is a problem. It makes it look unreliable, unmaintainable, and amateur. Change control!

Second, fix the damn graphics already. All three of the major graphics vendors have open sourced their drivers. All have linux releases of drivers. Why can I not get some modicom of 3d functionality out of the box? Even with the latest distros getting 3d acceleration to function correctly involves 2 nights of struggling, and half a case of red bull. Say what you want about "tailoring" but I don't need it to be tailored to me out of the box - I need it to work out of the box. This can be extended to all other drivers. I can't depend on hardware to work with it because the driver may require certain libraries. See complaint number 1. I can't have my fiber card suddenly not be able to access my SAN because someone decided to make a bug fix and change how a function gets used.

because that is how sound cards work

[SmallFurryCreature]

Try a x-fi. Why on earth does an advanced soundcard like that need to switch "enviroments" and killall sound using apps when you do it? under linux you say? no, vista AND xp.

So next time you mouth of on linux, do a little bit of research first.

There are solutions to this problem and they are the same as under windows, software.

MFST publishes anti-Linux material all the time

[peter303]

Either directly or via "independent testing companies" they finance. The important question is how much of this is valid compared to propaganda? And does anyone in the Linux world bother to pay attention?

Re:Let me be the first critic

[Daengbo]

That was exactly my thought. I've read too many critics who didn't know how to make suggestions. "It sucked. I couldn't get it to work" isn't criticism. "You need to make my wireless work or I'm going back to Windows" doesn't cut it, either. Even the much vaunted LinuxHater was mostly trolling most of the time, but most people didn't critically evaluate what he actually wrote so they never noticed.

Linux needs real critics -- the kind that have something helpful and constructive to say. It also need fewer jerks and trolls mindlessly bashing it. We've got too many of the latter and too few of the former, especially in the Ubuntu forums. Oh, yeah, and we need fewer raving lunatic advocates.