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The True Challenges of Desktop Linux
olau writes "Hot on the heels on the opinion piece on how Mac OS X killed Linux on the desktop is a more levelheaded analysis by another GNOME old-timer Christian Schaller who doesn't think Mac OS X killed anything. In fact, in spite of the hype surrounding Mac OS X, it seems to barely have made a dent in the overall market, he argues. Instead he points to a much longer list of thorny issues that Linux historically has faced as a contender to Microsoft's double-monopoly on the OS and the Office suite."
If it's "all about the kernel", then why would you include OS X (which does not use a linux kernel) with the things we call "Linux", which do?
here's a thought: educate yourself on a topic before speaking about it.
-Lod
Linux is not BSD. BSD is not Linux.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux
There's absolutely zero excuses for why an app written three years ago shouldn't run fine today.
You sound like you're a paying customer or their boss. If said maintainers are volunteers and doing this in their spare time and juggling work and family and just having a life, I think they have an excuse.
If it were me and I heard horseshit like your post, I'd say, "Here's the code. Knock yourself out. I'm taking my kid to the movies like I promised him three releases ago."
OSX is not Linux. It is a UNIX (i.e. BSD-derived in this case), while Linux is UNIX-like, i.e. a clean (sort of) room re-implementation.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
As a single-booting but casual Linux user I don't really know if these libraries are what makes distributing software such a pain, but whatever the reason is something needs to change, and the point about software distribution was spot on.
Package management is nice, but if something isn't available through it I won't install it. Why not? Because:
* I have to compile it myself. This often results in errors which I can't handle.
* I have to edit config files. Might be xorg.conf, might be something else. All I know is someone failed to make it work out of the box properly. Things will break.
* I have to find the application. Yes, that's right: often applications leave no trace after installing, especially when using a manager. They're buried in the complex-just-cause Unixey filesystem. Typing the name into the CLI fails too of course.
Now all of these problems can be solved, some seemingly trivially. This doesn't matter - the fact that I can edit xorg.conf means I'm probably in the top 3-5% of all computer users as far as Linux goes, meaning it could just as well be impossible for a normal user.
Users are used to the Windows XP interface and Linux is frequently more like it than Windows 7 is, so the exterior isn't a problem. The ACTUAL usability problem is installing software - it needs to work universally so people can actually do things and therefore be interested in and dependent on the OS.
That is SO last month!
I am using Linux
I have been using Linux since the early 1990's
In other words, I am no fanbois of Windows nor Apple
But, reading TFA and the previous one (the one accusing Apple for killing Linux Desktop), I got that uneasy feeling that people behind the Linux Desktop are adapting the stance of blaming others for whatever they have failed
No, I am not saying that the Linux Desktop people haven't put in much work into making Linux Desktop a reality - they have - or else we wouldn't have so many choices like we have today, from KDE to GNOME to Enlightenment to many others
But what I am saying is, whatever failure there is, regarding Linux Desktop, should be examined within the Linux context
Blaming Microsoft or Apple or even the Almighty Himself won't make Linux Desktop a better choice
If we really want Linux Desktop to be used by more people, we must explore ways to make the UI truly intuitive, and that by itself, has been a constant challenge for the Linux Desktop people
In fact, we don't need to look further than "Unity / Gnome 3" to find what's WRONG with Linux Desktop
Maybe you will disagree with what I have said, but the truth is sometime not hard to swallow
We must admit that Linux Desktop is a failure, and we must find way to re-make Linux Desktop so that it doesn't sux so badly
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yes the binary should still run, and the SAME binary should run across several distros and several versions of those distros. Even in the current messed environment it is possible if you are very careful, use the oldest compiler you can find so that all of your users have newer versions of libc and libstdc++ and build and bundle all the rest of the libraries yourself including the GUI libraries, and be careful on the X11 options on configure since you can't count on xfixes. This is why commercial development has little patience for Linux. From: Linux user since 0.92 kernel and Principal developer of a commercial desktop Linux statistical visualization product. product is still sold, and thriving on Windows and Mac, even an iPad version, but now discontinued on Linux! Sadly, Without ABI stability and at least compatibility libraries, Linux will not be more than a niche on the desktop.
Perhaps Linux needs a minimalist leader. Throw everything out. Then step by step, bring back features and see what works, and what doesn't. In the process make sure that everything has a consistent look and feel.
Believe it or not, that used to be Ubuntu. Back 8 or 10 years ago, there were all these distributions that offered 'choice!' by loading the biggest Gnome or KDE desktop crammed to the gills with EVERY and I mean EVERY app that was available. Stable, beta, working or not. You opened a panel and there were 17 calculators to choose from, 23 IRC clients, about 15 web browsers, 7 different terminal apps... you get the idea. Most of it was half-broken shit.
The beauty of Ubuntu in the beginning (I thought) was that they cut out all of that. You got a nice, slick installer that installed Debian Unstable (which we'd all known for years was fine for everyday use) with a slick graphical installer. You booted up to a nicely themed Gnome desktop with only the best ONE of each type of application installed. They were smart about choosing what apps to include by default, and I felt that their choices resonated very closely with experienced linux users who generally all agreed on the best app for a particular usage. The whole Debian repository was mirrored and available, but you didn't have to dig through a bunch of crap to find the stuff that you most likely would have chosen to install yourself. Configs were all clicky-clicky, but all your fave debian cli tools like aptitude still worked as expected.
I really thought that Ubuntu was going to become the polished distro that brought Year Of The Linux Desktop(tm) from fantasy to reality. I still think that they had a real chance to pull that off. (At least up until about 8.0, then it started to get weird).
My $0.02 plus tax.
do() || do_not();
It's called a package manager and every major distribution has one.
Every major distribution has their own one that's incompatible with every other major distribution's. That's even though the package systems do the same job. Even distros that use the same package management system don't share compatible repositories.
So you just turned supporting "Linux" into supporting Ubuntu, RedHat, SuSE, etc.
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse