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Is The Linux Desktop In Trouble? (zdnet.com)
"I believe that, as Microsoft keeps moving Windows to a Desktop-as-a-Service model, Linux will be the last traditional PC desktop operating system standing," writes ZDNet contributing editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
"But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its problems." First, even Linus Torvalds is tired of the fragmentation in the Linux desktop. In a recent [December 2018] TFiR interview with Swapnil Bhartiya, Torvalds said, "Chromebooks and Android are the path toward the desktop." Why? Because we don't have a standardized Linux desktop. For example, better Linux desktops, such as Linux Mint, provide an easy way to install applications, but under the surface, there are half-a-dozen different ways to install programs. That makes life harder for developers. Torvalds wishes "we were better at having a standardized desktop that goes across the distributions."
Torvalds thinks there's been some progress. For software installation, he likes Flatpak. This software program, like its rival Snap, lets you install and maintain programs across different Linux distros. At the same time, this rivalry between Red Hat (which supports Flatpak) and Canonical (which backs Snap) bugs Torvalds. He's annoyed at how the "fragmentation of the different vendors have held the desktop back." None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE -- are really all that interested in supporting the Linux desktop. They all have them, but they're focused on servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). That's, after all, is where the money is.
Linux desktop distros "tend to last for five or six years and then real life gets in the way of what's almost always a volunteer effort..." the article argues. "It is not easy building and supporting a Linux desktop. It comes with a lot of wear and tear on its developers with far too little reward."
His solution? Having a foundation create a common desktop for all Linux distros, so the Linux world could finally reap the benefits of standardization. "This would mean that many more Linux desktop developers could make a living from their work. That would improve the Linux desktop overall quality.
"It's a virtuous cycle, which would help everyone."
"But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its problems." First, even Linus Torvalds is tired of the fragmentation in the Linux desktop. In a recent [December 2018] TFiR interview with Swapnil Bhartiya, Torvalds said, "Chromebooks and Android are the path toward the desktop." Why? Because we don't have a standardized Linux desktop. For example, better Linux desktops, such as Linux Mint, provide an easy way to install applications, but under the surface, there are half-a-dozen different ways to install programs. That makes life harder for developers. Torvalds wishes "we were better at having a standardized desktop that goes across the distributions."
Torvalds thinks there's been some progress. For software installation, he likes Flatpak. This software program, like its rival Snap, lets you install and maintain programs across different Linux distros. At the same time, this rivalry between Red Hat (which supports Flatpak) and Canonical (which backs Snap) bugs Torvalds. He's annoyed at how the "fragmentation of the different vendors have held the desktop back." None of the major Linux distributors -- Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE -- are really all that interested in supporting the Linux desktop. They all have them, but they're focused on servers, containers, the cloud, and the Internet of Things (IoT). That's, after all, is where the money is.
Linux desktop distros "tend to last for five or six years and then real life gets in the way of what's almost always a volunteer effort..." the article argues. "It is not easy building and supporting a Linux desktop. It comes with a lot of wear and tear on its developers with far too little reward."
His solution? Having a foundation create a common desktop for all Linux distros, so the Linux world could finally reap the benefits of standardization. "This would mean that many more Linux desktop developers could make a living from their work. That would improve the Linux desktop overall quality.
"It's a virtuous cycle, which would help everyone."
Standardizing the user interface is what makes a desktop useable.
... then says "Android are the path toward the desktop" because Linux desktop environments are fragmented? It's a derp. Android is just as fucking fragmented if not worse, and it's almost device locked-in.
Haiku is a completely separately developed desktop OS, that rose from the ashes of BeOS after MS killed it, it wouldn't take much to make it compete directly on the same level as Linux and Windows.... mainly graphics driver porting.
It has a Posix layer and supports QT pretty decently in addition to it's very nice BeAPI framework.
And one thing that is *very* clear there is that it is a standardized desktop OS with sane defaults.
I think the potential for doing some really cool stuff there will open up once they release R1 in a few years most likely.
Let computer people make great computer code again.
New CPU and GPU designs need the most advanced new code. Code that is tested.
Let the smartest people write code and more code.
Time on the politics and virtue signalling of a CoC is not time used for new code.
It adds noting to code and takes time away from ver smart people who could be doing actual code related work.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I think we should have a VM microkernel. Then a few drivers OSVM's under that. Then software OSVM's.
One VM is a dedicated desktop VM with realtime prioritization. It combines framebuffers from all other apps. Simplicity. That desktop VM does not need to be updated unless you actually want to. You can indeed run several desktop VM's. The video driver itself is in another VM.
I frankly am not sure about the actual answer. Kernel seems to be potentially more "difficult" and "open to catastrophe" one of the two, to me at the least. However Linux kernel performs incredibly well, it is the most reliable kernel I have worked with, maybe with the exception of BSD kernel. While Torvalds is just one person he manages a very big, distributed, diverse team of serious programmers. So they as a team can produce a software that can hadle lots of various setups, different outside factors and perform brilliantly. I wonder why a similar situation/environment cannot be established on the Desktop front.
In my personal history, using Linux since 1993 or more likely 94, having started with Slackware (yes I am old..) I gave up trying to use Linux in my desktops a long while ago. I can define my professional positions with several different aspects however each and every one of them requires three main features. Any Linux I know of, tried to use as desktop, lacks one or two of them. These are stability, high performance and controllability/configurability.
I am truly sorry to see that the OS running my servers and I rely on deeply, cannot run my desktops.
... again (the guy is just an computer nerd: he's views on the real life are, mostly, laughable)
Yes, because the average user wants their desktop to break when they update their OS because their nvidia driver didn't compile correctly because someone thought it was a good idea to rev the GCC version and they GCC folks thought it would be a good idea to enable some weird compiler check from 1997 that nobody in the C/C++ world knows about because this the first time it was implemented. Sigh, any little amount of customization on your desktop and you likely run into a bunch of weird problems that pop up because nobody tested this specific set of of hardware and software configurations. Standards help with those issues but nothing can fix everything and these are all just patched for the core problem. Most distros just don't have the (QA) resources to test and maintain a complex software stack in a modern OS. And when some dumb 25 yro kid decides the problem is in how packages are installed (clearly indicating that they know nothing about the core problems caused by complexity) all they do is increase the workload of the developers. The core problem is that there isn't enough developer time put into bug fixing and testing. Thus the solution only makes the problem worse.
Your comment illustrates the core problem here. You seem to think you have some sort of insight into the problem when there is no real reason for you to believe this. You so overestimate your understanding as to propose and implement "solutions" that do nothing to fix the problem (in this case even making it worse) but you got to put that you work on an opensource project on your CV so who cares. The fact that the world would be a better place without your efforts never enters your mind. Either help out (by learning about how hard it is to keep a distro working it the face of a shifting set software projects that are rarely working together) or fuck off. Linus has likely done more to help others in the last 24 hours than you will do in your entire life and your sad little attempt to tear him down says more about you than Linus.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
And your solution is? If you say Windows I have a bridge to sell you.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What is it with these cluess articles recently?
Everyone who got into Linux*, knows that it is how it is, because it's *supposed* to be that way! It's a workhorse of an OS! That expects and is designed for *competent* users! For computer users!
A large Hilti that *will* drill through you head if you put it on your ear! Not an iKEA $10 drill!
It and BSD are the last of their kind left for US! Not for consumers!
So if you are a consumer, and expect colorful clickables, a padded prison cell, and being told what you "want", then please go use one of the many other consumer/toy OS es out there!
Don't come here, ruining our OS too!
You already ruined the Internet, since that Eternal September!
_ _ _
* and I mean writing shell scripts, editing config files, configuring the kernel amd init system, setting up packages, etc.
I usually don't find Linus to be a sage either, but I think he is right here. Too many applications fail in obvious ways that tech users overlook. Things like: does it install a shortcut for the user after installing? Too often basic things like this are missing. Of course, this comes up on Slashdot often, and there was excellent discussion quite recently on the limitations of desktop Linux.
There is not a single Linux "desktop". That is restricted, authoritarian Windows lore. For example, I use FVWM as "desktop" (properly called a "window manager") and that is not even tied to Linux, but available generally on UNIX and UNIX-like OSes. Hence the connection between a Linux "desktop" and a Linux distro the author is trying to make is pretty much meaningless.
In actual reality, Linux on servers and workstations will be around as long as there is hardware to run it. And that is not going away, especially as Linux is not limited to AMD64 in the first place and runs pretty well on slower hardware. And there will always be people that mistrust the cloud with good reason and that hence want their local, independent computing capabilities.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I disagree. I think your stance is pretty laughable. However you are doing it to yourself, and hence I have zero compassion for you. Incidentally, without "nerds", the human race would still be living in caves. I find the change kind of nice, it is just a pity that people like you benefit from it as well.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
AC many skilled people only have so many hours in the week to work on complex and advanced code for free.
They can work on code like they did in the past.
They can keep up with changes in a CoC and respond to virtue signalling comments about code.
The CPU and GPU work has to be done so an OS can work.
Time used on a political CoC takes hours away.
Over years and decades a project slips further behind rapid tech advancements.
For politics? To allow for better virtue signalling? Thats not going to support an advanced OS.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Despite being a regular user of Xubuntu, I agree with Linus about preferring Flatpak over Snap for this reason: Flatpak docs refer to repositories, plural. A publisher could run its own repository. Snap docs, by contrast, refer to "the Snap Store", singular, and it is considered --dangerous to install a snap from any source other than Canonical Ltd.
But surely 2019 is the year of the Linux Desktop!
"There are too many different and diverse desktops."
"What should we do to solve the problem?"
"Create another one!"
It’s called twm. Still works the same after 30 years.
But you understand that most distros' users use *precompiled* drivers, desktop environments, programs? Right?
No. You are wrong. It depends on the driver. Many drivers release source code that is compiled dynamically against the newly installed kernel headers. Nvidia among others does this. Also, often the binary only drivers you reference break quite often. Finding workarounds by writing kernel patches against changing kernel code which isn't moving in lockstep with you is time consuming and difficult. And the hardware vendors often do nothing to help and release shit docs that can easily be out of date with whatever hardware your users have. Its much harder than you seem to think. And I haven't even mentioned keeping all your Python code that ties together the desktop itself with all those applications which are rev'ing to yet another release cycle that has nothing to do with the kernel's or your release cycle. Oh, and there was another security flaw due to Intel that now means we have hurry the release. All of that adds up to a lot of developer (and QA) time. And the limited amount of dev and QA time is the problem in the first place. Being more economical with dev time will produce better results...not sure we are doing much towards that goal though.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Bullshit. Linus is using Chromebooks and Android as role-models here. They have very little, if any, GNU code.
And in the context of a desktop standards, GNU, more than Linux, is just "a part of the system they use". A very small part that the user never interacts with directly. It's just the mortar binding the kernel to the user interface. And it's not even required! "Busybox/Linux" anybody?
And I say this as a guy who does everything from the terminal and greatly respects the GNU code.
Are you just here to heckle?
It's been a good 10 years since you explored Linux, right? I've had none of these troubles with Debian, Ubuntu, or their many flavors.
And I disagree with Linus. The strength of linux is the different flavors. If you want an easy to use disro, there are many out there. If you want one where you have more control, there are some out there as well.
It's been a good 10 years since you explored Linux, right? I've had none of these troubles with Debian, Ubuntu, or their many flavors.
And I disagree with Linus. The strength of linux is the different flavors. If you want an easy to use disro, there are many out there. If you want one where you have more control, there are some out there as well.
All the examples I gave were from the last year on an older but still maintained Ubuntu distro.
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
Most people use Gnome / KDE, but I use XFCE / LXDE / Icewm. WHY STANDARDIZE? We already have several killer desktops. This "holy grail" of standardization of the desktop is not going to win converts. Why? Because people want Outlook and Quick(en|books). They buy the special app they need and the app (mostly) dictates the platform. The "killer app" is going to be .. the apps!
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
Just curious: What can you not do with a - say - ubuntu desktop? I see no problems with stability, performance or configurability.
no taxation without representation!
The OP was probably referring to the fact that Microsoft required any vendor who sold DOS/Windows to pay them for every PC sold no matter if it had Microsoft software on it or not. That makes it tough to enter the market.
IBM was able to get OS/2 pre-loaded on PCs in Germany without those restrictions and gained 25% marketshare in the few months the vendors were doing it. Even IBM had to give up trying to get an alternative OS on PC hardware and their OS also ran Windows applications...
I ran BeOS on a machine for a short period and was stunned at how well it handled tough tasks.Playing multiple videos on different side of a 3D cube for example and the system was still very responsive.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I just want OS/2 back.
Gnome is great I dunno what all these clueless fucksticks are whining about
I have been using Linux since I got a copy of TAMU Linux version 1.something in 1993 (mainly because it had X-windows). As I recall, despite much optimism, Linux on the desktop has always been in trouble.
Translation: I like tinkering, maybe you should like tinkering.
The actual fact is, only nerds like tinkering to squeeze some extra performance out of their system, or to make a system last longer than it should.
Linux and FreeBSD's biggest strengths are that they still work on 10 year old computers.
It will all be part of systemd soon.
After that the only thinking the user has to do is find the GUI they want and use the classic text editor they like.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It is only power users and people who think they are smarter than they are that have a problem with Linux desktops. Mint Mate or XFCE is the best choice for most users. Works out of the box for any hardware I have thrown at it. Recent versions of Gnome, cinnamon, or anything else I have tried have driver issues or only work with new hardware configurations. Stick with the basics and linux desktops are great and as good or better than any Windows version. The problem is that power users or gamers always on the cutting edge are going to have problems no matter the os or hardware. I am an old fart using linux as a desktop since mid 90s with very few problems. 90% of people just need email and web and have no issues with linux using out of the box distro configuration. For me personally gnome 3 is unusable but probably fine for average user.
Are people still fighting that battle for having a Linux Desktop? Jeez.
Mint is actually good. Stop all this half assed duplication of effort and stand behind a superior distro to standardize desktop on.
This thread perfectly illustrates the point by the OP. Everyone immediately turned on each other claiming that "THEIR WAY was the ONLY way" and "all other opinions were shit." Everyone immediately went to discussing the underlying technology of their preferences vs the point that THAT is the problem. Nobody gives a flying **** if you've been compiling your own desktop environment and workflow for the past 30 years. Nobody cares that YOU like x package manager over y. Its irrelevant. You aren't more or less linux than anyone else. The Linux community is virtually without equal in its ability to cannibalize itself with infighting and elitism. The major survivors, Ubuntu, RedHat among a few others quickly realized that trying to unify the rabid base into any cohesive strategy was pointless and worthless. Too much vitriol. I'm not the biggest fan of Linus at times but he is on point here. Of course the opposing point of view that Linux doesn't need a standard desktop is just as valid. There are plenty of "easy button" Linux desktop solutions in the marketplace and a little bit of research will show that basically everyone can get almost anything working on nearly any flavor. Rant over
The discussion isn't about what you see on the desktop but how programs interact with it. Windows can be customized quite a bit but all the programs still work because all default functionality they expect is there. I can easily download and install programs. Android can look radically different on different platforms but my parents can go to the playstore and add apps and they always work. I can't say the same about any linux desktops. They are all a pain. Canonical made some huge strides here but it's still fragmented.
This is going to be a impossible. Look systemd
Fragmentation is the virtue that allows new developers to show up and scratch their own itch. Once upon a time, that was vaunted as the defining virtue of unpaid collaboration. When you start tilting the landscape towards "one size fits all" the surface area of viable itch-scratching decreases immensely.
These values live in fundamental tension.
Consolidation brings you economy of scale, diversity brings you new ideas, and satisfies the edge cases without loading every possible complication onto the consolidated effort. All the good times in open source happened when the community was large enough to support consolidation and diversity at the same time.
There are no easy solutions here.
Adapting it to YOUR needs is *the whole point*
For 99% of desktop users, their needs are for it to just work, and work consistently, and when they want to install something they just click on the installer.
And most importantly, when they want to use a piece of software, it's available and doesn't require a bunch of fucking around to make it work.
Well incidentally, Ubuntu is the last Linux desktop I use. I had two occasions during which X environment caused serious problems, costing time and money. In one of the events display got frozen to death with no TTY fallback, one of the libraries in the system got corrupted, I somehow could recover the environment, reinstall system over itself etc. Data partitions in that time was healthy, so that event consumed probably two or three work days only. Naturally reinstalling Ubuntu itself does not take that long, but I needed to install several other software to setup my work environment, I needed to check if everything that seems to be OK is really OK...
In another event, after a short freeze and following crash with some desktop related logs in the system, details of which I do not remember, system rebooted properly, but one of the data partitions got corrupted with 100+ GB data on it. Fortunately data was several public databases that I can get from Internet, but as they require local processing as well, not just downloading, it took several weeks, probably more than a month, to get the system synced back to networks again.
So in short, Ubuntu's issue with me is not ability to do something, my servers are all Ubuntu for the last (probably) five years. But the stability issues in the desktop environment. If I "must" to use Linux on desktop, I would choose Ubuntu probably, but preferably I would not use any Linux for a graphic environment after two events I described above.
Problems with SuSe and Mandriva in the past was either more dramatic than those in some cases like sudden reboot and losing several hours of work in Eclipse twice in a day, or just terrible system performance because of background desktop indexer that OS updates keep reinstalling despite all my efforts to remove it from the system in one case.
See, I am a system manager by profession, although I worked in several positions in the past including network management, commercial management of IT and even as a Scrum Master, a few days ago I have realised that my old coworkers still consult me related to system management issues. So while assuming I know one or two things about managemet I do not think a "desktop" should need a system manager's professional experience in order to be kept alive and kicking.
Linux is now everywhere. From people wanting to save money to corporations using it. It may never hit 70% desktop share, but it has hit a point where a Linux Desktop will always be a viable solution for those that want it and it fits their needs.
I finally spent the time to learn tiling window managers and get comments that my desktop (awesome) looks like something from the 90s, but it works for me. There are enough awesome-wm users that there's a FreeBSD port and it's available for every popular Linux. If I search google for how to add a widget there are enough online resources to figure out the solution. And I'm a very small fraction of a fraction of Linux users.
I recently switched to pop!OS. Which is pretty well put together by Systems76. It's built on Ubuntu and has a LTS (18.04) that will be supported for a good while. (So it's "binary compatible".
Most major companies release a .deb of their software, even if it's proprietary. Nvidia releases drivers for both FreeBSD AND Linux. (Although CUDA is Linux / Windows only).
Arguing over desktop share is pointless at this point.
It's almost to the point where the *BSD desktop is the same way. Project Trident (https://project-trident.org/) is about where Linux was ~15 years ago.
hehe "professional"
"Old man yells at systemd"
Well systemd slightly reminds me SMIT in AIX which I did not love but need to admit it was useful back when I managed AIX. I am old school, started in Ultrix 4 series, so my habits are a hybrid of serious BSD plus some System V. I like to use kill and use some obscure scripts to launch each and every daemon in its own way. However after my initial negative reaction I now must admit that systemd seems to have the potential to bring much needed standardisation to Linux and is successful so far.. Hopefully you turn out to be right and Desktop also got stabilised and standardised, probably with systemd support. Meanwhile I am not holding my breath.
It is rumored the animated film, The Point (1971), informed Microsoft's Linux strategy. Further, I have it on good authority Microsoft has secretly contributed to at least half the Linux desktops. "A point in every direction is the same as no point at all." -The Pointless Man, speaking to Oblio around 15:30 in the film. "The Pointless man did have a point...he had hundreds of them, all pointing in different directions." https://www.youtube.com/watch?... If you think this is incredible, may I suggest it's more credible than believing the Linux community did this to itself? The Linux desktop fiasco reminds me of the takeaway lesson from the animated classic The Point (1971):
Yes, because the average user wants their desktop to break when they update their OS because their nvidia driver didn't compile correctly...
Ubuntu (and therefore everything based on it) has the http://ppa.launchpad.net/graph... repositories with the latest precompiled Nvidia drivers. Compiling an Nvidia driver hasn't been necessary in years. And Nvidia has really gotten its Linux act together recently, as their newer drivers integrate into the desktop seamlessly. This obviates all of the GCC stuff. There are legitimate problems, but having to manually compile anything isn't one of them.
My KDE desktop settings have mostly carried over for the last few rolling Kubuntu distribution upgrades. The sole exceptions have all been in the KDEPIN suite, which has gotten so bad that I stopped using every single application in the suite. It went from being a very respectable collection of integrated software to being an unpredictable, data-destroying nightmare that I can't stand anymore.
I have a small list of issues that I think would hold back the average person from being completely self-sufficient with Kubuntu, but none of them are show-stoppers.
those are offshoots that are not GNU/Linux, Linus not a dumbass at all.
Ummm. MacOS is Unix. Certified Unix
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I dunno. The guy who is in charge of developing the kernel probably should have a voice on the direction of Linux. Just sayin’
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
MacOS is certified Unix.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
However I agree with you [sfcat] that the proposed solution of greater standardization of the user interface is misdirected.
I think it would be better to look at alternative financial models. For example, I think the main problems with Windows and OS X are both due to the focus on profit maximization and cost minimization, resulting in, among other flaws, an actual fear of innovations that might reduce profits. Ubuntu Linux is crippled by its big-donor financial model, making it too dependent on one donor's imperfect decisions.
My own favored solution approach would involve a different financial model focused on cost recovery and fair compensation for work performed. If a particular user interface attracts enough small-donor support to cover it's costs, then that's fine. If not, then the people who want to use that interface will have to look at alternatives, such as a different interface or trying to encourage more people to support the interface to cover the costs.
Mostly for time but also because I've said all of this before at excessive length, for now I'm just going to big you ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
and suse does not have GUI SUDO asks for root and by default needs root to use some wifi networks.
Diversity in the Linux desktop world is a good thing, not a bad thing. I really don't get what these two are blathering on about.
Kind of disgusting that some idiot modded you troll for pointing out that Linus is wrong. It would be far from the first time, the Bitkeeper fiasco iss a marquee example. You are 100% right, Linus has not got much useful to say about the Linux desktop. Vaughan-Nichols has got it wrong too with this troll article: the more Microsoft pushes its users to do what they don't want, that is, rent PCs from Microsoft, the more Linux converts we will get. I do agree that Linux is likely to be the last usable desktop standing.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
To sum up... simplifying makes things simpler. ok
Or complexity has a cost. So if you want a good desktop that works on lots of hardware with few bugs you make the entire stack simpler or provide more dev and QA resources. How hard is that? Adding yet another package manager, nope. Adding some weird gesture features nobody uses, nope. Making the desktop more configurable, nope. Testing and bug fixing yes. Refactoring yes. Removing unnecessarily complex libraries and abstractions yes.
Windows is FAR buggier than any Linux distro I have ever used.
Agreed.
The type of driver issue you're making up is a joke.
And this is why it doesn't seem to matter because you blame the user first. Yes PEBKAC is a real thing. This issue is also a real thing and has been for a long time. Your tribalism is showing...
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
A desktop that's oriented toward people with a brain, rather than chasing after the swipe-and-wipe infotainment suckers.
Myself, I expect to keep living inside emacs using the icewm window manager for some time to come-- whenever I look at a newer window manager I find they've completely ignored keyboard commands--
(And the idea that we're going to simplify the package manager landscape by adding new ones is pretty funny...)
Not that I disagree with Linus, but this is not a job for him. Ensuring interoperability is basically what it means to call GNU an operating system, rather than a just a bunch of unaffiliated software. It's the FSF who should really be taking the lead here, or... maybe it's everyone else who should finally start listening to them.
How does Stallman feel about standardization anyway? I'd like his take on this.
A dead platform that has millions of sales of computers a year. Sure
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And we have that, in spades. Gnome, MATE, KDE.
True, that is technically standardizing but I think the real point is there should be one standard. Linux's desktop adoption is a small fraction of that of Windows and it is further fragmented by multiple desktop standards. This is further complicated by the fact that apps will follow one of the standards so even if you use Gnome the chances are you will still run some apps that were designed for KDE or vice versa.
Having a singular standard would fix a lot of this. You would still have the version issue like Windows does but this is far less of an issue because then an old app is still using a standard that you were used to using even if it is not well suited for the current version.
https://xkcd.com/927/
I've been hearing about containerized Apps, basically everything needed to run an app all standalone.
I have admittedly not toyed with this technology first hand, but from a purely theoretical standpoint, this feels like the direction to go. It sounds promising at least.
I think asking the core Linux community to standardize something that inherently rejects standardization beyond the very basic foundations of the kernel and system tools is a non-starter.
A solution like containers seems like a good way to have the best of both worlds. Linux can stay fragmented, which is just part of what Linux is, for better or for worse. But containerized Apps can rely on very basic core system functionality that should already be standardized.
Add a lot more systemd.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
If the price of choice is that a few shortcuts don't get installed, or that somebody in the house needs to learn how the computers work, to me that seems like a great deal.
One thing I love about Linux is that none of the people who disagree had to use it anyways. So they basically don't exist to me.
With Windows, a lot of people say that they feel like they "have to" use it, because of [some disputed reason]. So they expect things to work, but they don't expect to get a say in exactly how it works. So it is a very different user experience.
The strength of linux is the different flavors.
And its curse as well.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I assume SJW actually exist(?)
SJWs are people like Gandhi, AoC, Siddhartha, Mother Teresa, Moses, Rosa Parks, MLK.
One of the smaller issues is that a name such as "Sabnzbd" is allowed to exist for an application.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Personally, I hate most things SysV.
But that said, I do have some old init scripts.
If I'm doing something new, systemd is a huge improvement. You have to use CI anyways, so there is no possible benefit from not compiling in a modern workflow.
But I really like the way distros are implementing it. First all the new startup stuff runs, then the old scripts run. Perfect. I don't have to change anything that already exists.
It was always a huge weakness that you had to leave a process running to listen for every rare connection that you want to support. Now you can start things up when the first connection comes in, totally smooth. Some change at the core interface between the OS and userspace was needed, but hopefully now that portion will be stable for decades.
The "power" of Linux lies in that to me: forces some people (not all) to be a little tech-savy...
Ty for the high level and very well fundamented critic!
"That's, after all, is where the money is."
Does no one edit anymore? We used to see a little (sic) every now and then, or a ...[word]... here and there. Now, nothing.
*sigh*
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
I mean the classical WIMP scheme does everything people want and designs have been refined fairly well on essentially every GUI out there. It's just that recent developments from all GUI makers (from Gnome to Windows) derive from that, putting design over usability.
I don't think it's worth chasing the "mobile user" as they will have Android (or IOS) anyhow. Getting rid of useful features in order to chase people who won't look at your product anyhow isn't worth it.
https://xkcd.com/927/
John_Chalisque
This could be the year..
Windows is far and away the OS of choice for consumers and businesses. Why? Because anybody whose uses Windows at home knows how to use it at work. Repeat after me. The Linux user interface blows because itâ(TM)s not consistent.
Windows dominates because of technological lock-in. At one point it managed to grab by far the largest slice of the desktop market when it was young. The Linux desktop wasn't that much of a thing back then, it was too young and undeveloped to offer serious competition. Now everybody is used to Windows, and often has software that works only under Windows, hardware that works only under Windows, etc. It's a positive feedback loop, the fact that Linux desktops exist and actually work quite well on a variety of hardware (typing from a Linux distro right now) is a testament to the platform's resilience and capability.
The only OS seriously taking on Windows and thriving is one whose roots go further back than Windows, and which is made by a hardware manufacturer. Even that is a niche market and tied to only one hardware platform.
Meanwhile Linux has, via Android, become the Windows of the smartphone world. Due to the consistency of the user interface? Well, no, look at the differences between stock Android and the various manufacturer's flavours (Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei LG, etc.), as well as the differences between Android versions (my phone recently upgraded to a new Android version and I flipped after realizing they moved around really important stuff, like where some settings I check and change often are, etc.). It's because Android grabbed the market while it was young. Windows too has changed its interface, Office at one point changed everything, yet Microsoft still dominates these markets...due to lock-in.
Or just take away everything else. I'm sure they're working on it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Outside of high performance professional use and gaming (meaning less than 20% of total userbase), the desktop as a whole already died 2-3 years ago. To ask whether Linux desktop is âin troubleâ sounds humorous.
Every other "OS" will be a dumb terminal, an ad ridden portal to a walled garden.
Linux is going to win on the desktop. It's the stalwart, the last man standing. The remaining OS for power users.
And we don't need a 'standardized' desktop. The status quo is _great_. Everyone can have their ideal Linux desktop, and still run almost any program.
Even ice skating in hell is supported (GNOME without systemd, on Gentoo).
It doesn't matter if I'm using Debian with XFCE and systemd, or Gentoo with KDE and OpenRC, they both do it all.
I program 90s engine computers, use peripherals too old to have win 7 drivers, run 'cloud' apps like WhatsApp without a smartphone, cross compile for ARM, play Windows and native games on Steam, do my taxes, host my website...
Monocultures suck.
Windows is far and away the OS of choice for consumers and businesses. Why? Because anybody whose uses Windows at home knows how to use it at work. Repeat after me. The Linux user interface blows because itâ(TM)s not consistent.
Amen to that. In Windows CTRL-C and CTRL-P does Copy and Paste in everything. In Linux CTRL-C and CTRL-P does Copy and Paste in the desktop but switch to say CLI and you have to remember to use CTRL-SHIFT-C and CTRL-SHIFT-P and despite plenty of complaints about that over the years they still refuse to change it. Its little inconsistencies like that which get really annoying after a while.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
The point is to make the one fits-all distribution start out with a common desktop style, a common browser and common way to install and uninstall stuff. Or perhaps two ways to install stuff, an online package manager and one for offline installers, equivalent to Microsoft's .msi packages. Then everyone who is used to that distribution can install their preferred applications and at least do basic office work from the start.
Now all of the above already exist, it is a matter of choosing default software that most people will be comfortable with and distributors will agree upon. That is the difficult problem. But if you can solve it, I think acceptance of Linux on the desktop would greatly increase.
Except for that, have as many customization options as you like. Not like Apple with its "walled garden". Even removing the desktop and replacing it with your own. Non-standard varieties of the distribution would be OK, as long as they are relegated to a "special" sections of the download options at the provider. Where the average user who is not interested in experimenting won't pick them by accident.
And just for the record, my own ideas of what I would pick and which alternatives I consider suitable as well.
-Desktop style: Similar to old style Windows, up to Windows 7.
-Package manager/ format online: RPM or dpkg, no real preference. Just the front end for the end user has to be easy to use.
-Package format offline: Flatpack or Snap, no real preference either.
-Browser: Firefox. But I guess something Chromium-based would be OK as long as we can get rid of its tendencies to be spyware.
C - the footgun of programming languages
linux is about choice, something MS and Apple do not allow
besides, a "standard desktop" would be something like gnome 3 which is an unusable ui disaster to me or kde5, which was so unstable after a year that i switched to xfce - do not want either as a standard
Look at Fedora, the distro.
They produce upgrades too often while neglecting support on the existing version.
Their choices are poor: a few KBs in scripts are too hard too maintain versus megabytes in coded in C and thus packages are without support.
Also 'supported' packages do not have support: it can take a long time, even until bugzilla closes your bug due your Fedora version being too old, before something happens.
Yes, I know it is al volunteer effort, etc, but still...
Most people I encounter want to use their applications. Among them, the majority just needs a browser. They only start to care when the small business software they bought isn't running, and this usually happens with prople that switched to Mac because they look cooler. Nobody of that type of user switches to Linux
Actually CTRL-P on Windows brings up the Print Menu, to paste you use CTRL-V. But to address the comments, one of the reasons Windows is the predominate OS in corporations is because Windows can be totally centrally managed, security policies can be forced onto the machines that prevent everything from changing the screen saver to ignoring USB drives. Where I work it is mix of Macs and Windows and the help desk has a harder time locking down the Macs but they keep trying. Locking down Linux desktops is not something they're wanting to have to figure out.
Truth is truth and the issue isn't the UI, hell Linux has had nice easy to use UIs for ages...the problem is what a clusterfuck Linux is when something goes wrong.
Lets say your laptop boots up and the Wifi doesn't work. In Windows a good 90% of the time you just go "clicky clicky" on system restore and tada! Its all fixed, user didn't need to know shit about the hardware or software, just clicky clicky. Now how do you do the same in Linux? Fuck if I know as apparently every distro has a different procedure, most of which requires CLI and a knowledge of the hardware in question. What about printers? MSFT keeps a billion printer drivers so the user has to do precisely jack squat as the OS calls home and does all the work, Linux? Yeah GLWT as if it isn't a corp laser printer your ass had better know enough to find the website, download the LPD file, know how to install said file, and get that shit up and running. Which BTW can be finicky as hell, couldn't get Linux lite to see a Brother wireless printer even after following the instructions for setting up the LDP file, didn't matter in the end as the next update shat on the wireless so I ended up going back to Windows....and THAT is the problem.
You see Linux users just because YOU can do something or enjoy futzing with CLI or spending lord knows how long Googling fixes when shit goes wrong? Does NOT mean Joe and Jane average will do it, or even have the capability. If you want to gain all those desktop users (which just FYI there has NEVER been a better time as win 10 is a buggy POS) here is what you need to do....
1.- Make something as butt simple as system restore/rollback drivers so that the OS can instantly be rolled back to a previous snapshot if shit breaks, 2.- Make a central driver repo which ALL DISTROS USE which will contain ALL THE DRIVERS THERE IS, period the end. I don't care if its a 10 year old printer or a brand new sound card, if there is a Linux driver? That shit needs to be in there with some sort of standard ABI so there is none of this "requires kernel X, GCC Y" nonsense, just a simple automatic driver install for any and all hardware the user has. 3.- Work with hardware vendors to put a penguin on the box. A user shouldn't have to be Columbo to try to figure out when they go shopping what works and what don't, after all the Apple users just look for an Apple on the box, Windows users the Winflag, you need to have just as many mainstream devices with penguins on boxes (and again it needs to be standard, none of this "requires distro X" BS) so that its just as easy to buy everything from a USB Wifi dongle to a AIO printer as it is with Windows and Apple.
Do these things? Linux could easily grab share as Windows 10 is about as loved as anal cancer, but as long as Linux is a CLI heavy royal PITA when anything goes wrong? Ordinary users just aren't gonna bother, its not worth the hassle.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So you don’t really have any facts on your side and this you have to go to “Apple is gay”
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And how would that counter or support his point that the “concept” of Linux and Unix is flawed.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And the elitism and derision aimed towards "idiot end users" betrays a lack of understanding that, while they may not have amazing computer skills, they still have needs to be met and their money is just as good as ours. And there are a LOT more of them than us computer geeks. You can't expect an overwhelming acceptance of your efforts by the general public when you constantly make it clear you have nothing but contempt for them and actively resist efforts to accommodate them because they're "too stupid to use computers". Computers are tools and a means to an end, not an end unto themselves, and far too many in the tech community obviously do not have a handle on that concept.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
And your post illustrates the point that someone not knowing basic facts will double down when confronted with facts rather than admit they were wrong. What does Unix certification mean? It means that the OS meets minimum requirements to be called Unix. In this case Unix 03 which is the same certification as IBM’s AIX, Oracle’s Solaris, and HP-UX.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Your problem is that you're switching to CLI and expecting the same interface. I'm more of a Ctrl-Insert to copy and Shift-Insert kind of guy, and that works most of the time in both Windows and Linux.
Also it's trivial to configure XTerm or whatever terminal you like to use whatever key combination you want for cut and paste. Not that the end user should have to have to do this themselves.
Standardized interfaces are overrated. As a lefty even everyday tools like scissors and chainsaws made bad design choices for user experience.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There are already standard bodies for the linux desktop, that's freedesktop.org
From their website:
"We also host discussion and development of specifications for interoperability. A full list is available at our specifications page.
These specifications mostly cover low-level desktop issues, such as identifying file types, launching applications, and exchanging data between applications and desktops. They are often called 'XDG' specifications, as an acronym for the Cross-Desktop Group."
the big DE's all follow these specifications.
I found this from the summary rather funny;
"Linus Torvalds is tired of the fragmentation in the Linux desktop. In a recent [December 2018] TFiR interview with Swapnil Bhartiya, Torvalds said, "Chromebooks and Android are the path toward the desktop.""
Chromebooks & Android are possibly even more fragmented then KDE vs Gnome!
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
https://xkcd.com/927/
Why do people always say this bollocks. Just because you've been lucky (or glossed over the tinkering you had to do) doesn't mean others have. The Linux end user experience is criticised because it's still not good enough.
Two choices: keep up the arrogant elitist crap like "only idiots and losers refuse to ..." and leave Linux on the outside looking in
or
take a lesson from MS and Apple, and build a flavour of Linux for "idiots and losers", the same 80 to 90 percent of computer owners
who just want a simple reliable appliance. That's your goal.
Needs: software: simple one-stop shopping, and a very easy reliable way to install and remove. Desktop icon option is a must.
Same for peripherals - one-stop driver shopping, one way to install and remove.
I strongly agree with the suggestion to add an easy roll back to a previous healthy OS.
One desktop. A newbie does not need 8 or 10 desktop options. Give them one, but, make it easy to change
desktops if/when they want.
Leave the fragmentation to the purists. Having dozens of flavors, each with their own militant cohort of enthusiasts is great,
but, it confuses the newcomer and turns people off.
The Linux community would be much better served if everyone committed to promoting a purpose designed
LinuxNewbie OS instead of their personal favorite.
Make it easier to move to a new version of Linux. Be great if software and data were saved to the new OS.
Funding: need to be able to pay people for critical OS work. Having volunteers brings enthusiasm, drive and vision,
but, people need to eat.
Ah yes blame the user. That'll bring people flocking to Linux.
And how does his direction of the kernel diminish whether his voice should be heard?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This reminds me of the SYSV/BSD crap. Most of us realized how broken and behind bsd is and moved onto linux. We keep splitting. Ubuntu using debian was another disaster. There is no reason to use debian any more. There are not problems with RPM. Getting rid of things like gnome would help a lot.
I keep trying the other distros, like Ubuntu. They last for about 10 minutes and I want something more mature. A real desktop. Linux could take over the desktop if we'd just unify on something.
Just like SYSV/BSD. Don't care which one - pick one and everyone unite. That's why Windows is so popular. There is one GUI for windows. Don't like it - TOUGH.
Apart from all the things that don't obviously.
It used to be worse - you'd have some Motif application - could only copy and paste to other Motif applications. Same with any UI toolkit.
These are simply problems the Mac and Windows have never had :(.
Typically if you stick to only stock distro repositories you have none of these issues, because its tested by the developers. You only have nvidia/kernel issues if you install new kernel versions that don't have or have changed something major in the headers. That being said, you can end up with old drivers and kernels if you stay on an OS too long, I just went through this with debian 9. I ended up installing the testing version SID/Buster. Which works great, and has all the new driver versions I wanted. I even installed my custom kernel with 0 issues because the Nvidia package maintainers had correct kernel modules built.
Using new hardware? Where you had to use drivers not supported on said older but still supported distro? Because they support them so your older hardware doesn't become useless or run like shit with the new versions. If you get new hardware(like when I built my Ryzen desktop) I had to use a newer version of $favOS to get drivers and kernel that were supported by the OS version, as to not have to work for 15 hours on configuring the old system to run on new hardware. A lot can change when you install a new kernel. And a lot of packages may have needed to be changed to work properly. So say you do this on an old OS version. It is going to break a lot of things and cause the kernel to panic and stop running. Hopefully this helps.
Seems like you're being the prick.
I used to drive Kubuntu. Debian with KDE is way better. You should try it. They have installers/live cd's for download with KDE exclusively on it. no need to play around changing DE's like it used to be. You would probably abandon ubuntu. And if you're using ubuntu 18.04 I suggest using SID/Buster, providing your /home partition is seperate or you can copy it over your settings will all work as the KDE/framework versions are very close to eachother.
He blamed the never-gonna-be-happy users. The ones that complain about Windows daily, and will fight you to wits end if you suggest they even give linux a try.
My wife is almost offended when she sees me using XFCE rather than Win 10 on my laptop. But but but the speeeeeed!
in the market (by adoption numbers) is Android.
If wide adoption is what you want, you need a SINGLE, UNIFORM thing with a strong "design opinion", user experience simplicity, aimed at mass market user, yet evolving, but with principled change management, as lessons are learned etc. etc.
Mass-market user interfaces are about mass-market users. Their purpose is not to serve the tinkering needs of geeks. The geeks can keep playing to their heart's content on alt-UIs, but there needs to be a benevelent-dictator-controlled single-themed mass-market UI, if mass-market desktop UI is one of the goals.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Yeah I'm the one calling users stupid. What an amazing marketing strategy that is.
Me too ...
I have been using XFCE for a some years, having dumped KDE, the desktop I used for over a decade, for it.
I like its minimalist approach, its low overhead and that it stays out of the way.
KDE had more features but one release went against what KDE stood for: customizability. I was no longer able to control for how long a notification is visible. Then, it was missing certain crucial features (e.g. a weather widget, was it the 14.04 or 16.04? Can't remember).
So, I decided to move to XFCE, and has been on it ever since.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Interesting idea. Keep going with your prototyping.
But it's addressed at quite a different problem than "desktop" user interface. A mass-adoption user interface has to be a solution to how a lot of people can understand what things they can do and how to find those things and how to get them to work.
You can offer a lot of functions, but it has to be possible for people to have a mental model of what's possible and how to do it.
For that, often uniformity and simplicity (and lack of choice) are the keys to success. Or choice as an option (hidden away somewhere for the curious to discover), but not required to for the average user to succeed.
Things like - common language, common visual language, common process-design language, and other UX principles are determinants of success.
You can offer a lot of things, but offer them through a narrow, one-size-fits-all pipe. And make the things just work, with very little specialized knowledge needed.
If you have lots of microservices, what is the common ontology of process concepts and entities that allow their APIs to "just work" together, to form a coherent whole? You can't rely on there being smart programmers in the middle to glue A to B to Z.
If you're offering complicated stuff, then in today's world, you probably need a very good AI to "explain it like I'm 5" to every new user, and to remove unnecessary choices (that each require knowledge) from the end users.
End users want something they already understand, and they want it to just work.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Having a foundation would be a great idea. But, on the other side, there has been no better time than the present to be a Linux desktop user.
$ sudo apt install kde-standard
$ sudo apt install lxqt
Seems to me that GP hasn't used linux in a very long time if ever. He's talking about things that haven't been an issue with a linux desktop os in a long long time. Sure 10 years ago he would make a point. But the fact that everything comes as precompiled binary packages, sure nvidia does build a DKMS module, but guess what. If you don't fuck with the system trying to install bleeding edge shit that other packages wont work with. You are bound to have problems. Same goes for windows though. And if he did know what he was doing he wouldn't have had that issue because he would have either updated all necessary packages or upgraded to the latest version of the OS which would in all likeliness solved the issue he is complaining about. So I guess now that I think about it.. The AC was 100% correct and you were for sure being the prick.
Free as in speech is a nice idea that can lead to better, safer. more reliable software...if it's done in a way that doesn't block profit.
It's the free as in beer mindset that will prevent linux from ever being successful with the average user. It limits you to mostly volunteer developers who will only do what they feel like. That's why you end up with poorly supported hardware, no documentation, bugs and incompatibilities that linger for decades, and burnout that leaves projects to wither and die leaving users in the lurch.
The linux community has always been very harsh on its users expecting them to be knowledgable enough to resolve all those issues on their own. If my NVidia card doesn't work after an upgrade I'm supposed to know how to modify the driver. It's a ridiculous expectation and eliminates linux as an option for most users.
No volunteer is going to do hundreds of hours of tedious grunt work for nothing. But the average user will pay $5, $10, or even $50 for a well supported linux desktop that they have some assurance will just work with good support and updates for 5-10 years down the road and not require a computer engineering degree to use and maintain. But that whole concept is the very antithesis of Linux and so linux will always be a minor niche for young tech people until they grow up and get tired of the BS.
I have a CS degree from a top tier school, and I ran a Linux desktop for about 5 years (1997-2002). Switching to Windows.XP was a huge relief. It was like getting out of prison and finally being able to enjoy life. Everything just worked so easily, it looked better, had decent fonts, my network card worked without hours of frustration. I'm well aware a lot has changed in 17 years, but the core philosophy of free volunteers delivering half-baked products that nobody can be bothered polishing with the attitude the user is getting it for free they can do the work to make it into what they need is still the prime principle of the linux desktop. I will never install a linux desktop again, I would pay $500 for windows to avoid free linux.
... that idea?
The Linux desktop is alive and well and its target audience is totally fine and dandy with it. I switched to Manjaro i3 a year ago and it's really good. And really really fast. Kde looks amazing and gnome send to be doing really well. Unity is dead, but it's not that we have a lack of desktops.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
...Said the righteous neckbeard.
Exactly. Other GUIs keep trying to reinvent themselves every time they discover a 'better' way of doing things, but there is no best way. There are many different ways that suit different workflows and different tasks and different mindsets.
This is where the "do one thing and do it right" approach helps too. We have many different applications and tools, and people can tie them together in whatever way they want to suit them.
Different distros help package things together to suit particular tastes, and you can pick whatever starting point is best for you.
That's the strength of the Linux desktop.
Twinstiq, game news
Imagine being unhappy when your software doesn't work the way you want it to. The nerve!
I wish denialists like you would stop pretending all is well. It's really tedious.
Right. But to bring this back to the original line of thought, would you expect Joe User to be able to do this? Do you want Joe User poking around with kernel compiling?
The problem is that the people who are developing the code don't understand how stupid Jow User can be. But here's the thing, Joe User is right.
Do you drive a car? Could you change the oil? Change a tire? Change a headlight? Change the brake pads?
Should you have to know how in order to drive a car?
Then why the fuck do we keep expecting Joe User to understand how to update the kernel and rebuild the necessary drivers?
The article is not wrong. I have a simple test: would I be willing to give this to my parents to use? Linux is most definitely a no. They are currently on Macs. When I moved them from Windows my support calls dropped from multiple a week to quarterly. Windows is a convoluted and confusing mess, and that's before we get into the malware situation. Linux is an order of magnitude more convoluted.
Linux needs a standardized desktop. More importantly, it needs a *boring* standardized desktop.
* It needs to be at least roughly similar to existing systems
* It needs to have a predictable, consistent interface
* Minimal customization options. The average person doesn't need or care about changing their window styles for example.
* Anything that is vaguely important for a user to do, must be doable from the gui.
* Full and proper accessibility support, including support for assistive input devices.
I've been using KDE but its complicated and buggy. I can deal with it fine, but there's no way I'd give it to my parents. Its way too easy to do the wrong thing and make your computer unusable.
Gnome is a god forsaken POS. It's stabler than KDE. It's simpler. In fact, it's too simple, and in the worst ways. Gnome devs are arrogant asshats who think its reasonable to remove the min/max buttons because 'there is already another way to do it'. If you have to retrain people to use the single most fundamental functionality of your DE, then YOU are wrong, not the user. Even "Courageous" Apple wasn't stupid enough to do that, so what does that say? Have these people never even heard of UAT testing?
Gnome is just full of that kind of brain damaged decision-making, to the point where I cannot fathom why it's the default DE on so many distros. Probably because a stupid DE is better than a buggy complex one.
XFCE would be a possible option if it got a little more polish. Out of all the DEs around, IMO OSX is the best. Yes it has some issues and inconsistencies (and don't get me started on the hardware...) , but taken as a whole package it has the most polish and stability. Mostly cause Apple doesn't screw around with it every release, and they made sure that the more common the operation was, the easier it was to perform.
Ahh so you're just like AC as you addressed nothing I said, you just wanted to complain some more.
Have you tried linux recently? Or have you ever? Because this is the second comment where you address nothing I say, and just jabberjaw on how its bad. You're as bad as an Apple shill.
This is why I always suggest "Joe User" use latest ubuntu.04 or latest mint, or latest ARCH(for advanced Joes).
Yes I do drive, I have been helping family work on their vehicles for the last two days. I also wish more people would learn how shit works and operates(maybe for selfish reasons).
I never said Joe user should know how to play with kernels, they should aspire to learn but that is on them. I'm saying that if you want latest hardware use latest software, and don't complain when old software doesn't work with old hardware. If you're "Joe User" and you follow that advice on latest Ubuntu and know how to do a little googling to make installation of software quick and strait forward(need this on windows also) You should have no problems, because you're not going to be trying to install custom serial drivers and the such. And you wont know enough to begin with to need to make a custom kernel as there are few reasons to need to do so.
"Standardized interfaces are overrated." I have to disagree. Unfortunately, that doesn't make Windows any better, because it's going in the direction of non-standardized. Take the scroll wheel on a mouse; for some applications, if the mouse cursor is over the window, it will scroll regardless of whether the window is in focus. For other applications, it will only scroll if the window has focus. And for others (I'm looking at you, Windows Explorer), the scroll wheel doesn't seem to work no matter what. Or take the Ribbon. Please, take it! All the applications I use every day have menus; Office is the only application that doesn't (which is why I only use it when forced to, i.e. at the office). Of course, some applications have real menus (jEdit, my favorite editor), others have cheesy "hamburger" menus, which you can't get to without standing on your head. (Some, like Firefox, at least give you a choice. That's one reason I prefer Firefox to Chrome: Chrome is all about taking away your choices.) Some applications have a title bar, some have a title bar + status bar, and some have neither. Some applications change the color of the title bar when their window has focus (that's the way all Windows applications used to be), others force you to guess whether they have focus: if there's a visual distinction, I can't see it (Office is the worst offender).
I think the last time Windows and Windows applications were more or less consistent among themselves was around 2007. Since then it's been every application for itself, and it's becoming a mess to figure out how things work in each application (I have nine open on my desktop at the moment). I don't use Linux desktops (I do a lot of command line stuff in Linux), so I don't know how that compares with the situation in Windows. (Or the MacOS.)
Wait, that wasn't the headline this time???
"Standardized interfaces are overrated." I have to disagree.
Go ahead and disagree all you want. I didn't say they have no value. I said they value is stressed more than I think can be justified.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There are no windows only applications that do anything useful.
Tell you what sport, why not go down to your local hospital and ask them to remove any machine that either runs or requires a Windows-only application.
I eagerly await your link to an open source MRI machine.
Ken
That was at least 3 cents :)
I totally understand why there are so many Linux distros: because we can. It's a way to homestead in the tech frontier. It worked for making America great and it works for making Linux great. The weak distros fade out and those with a real contribution to make are able to attract a community and prosper. They all feed improvements, ideas and bug fixes to each other. What's not to like about having lots of distros? Oh right, if you work for Microsoft or are otherwise emotionally invested, lots of distros is something to attack because it's something you can't have.
Re "why we choose this interface": you really meant "why we made this interface the default", because on just about any Linux distro you can install any desktop you want and reasonably expect it to work. You can even use multiple different ones at the same time, how many geek points do you get for doing that?
I guess, the majority of Linux users as of today don't even know there is a console or why you would want one. It's certainly not something the typical Android user needs or knows about.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I've had at least one Linux-based system at all times since 1996, and I'm typing this on a Mint system. In my opinion, fragmentation isn't the issue - it's applications. Gaming is a lot better lately, with Steam pushing pretty hard, but it's not even close to the state on Windows. Office and creativity applications exist, but are lacking compared to Windows and MacOS. The lack of strong entities pushing excellent applications hurts usability.
I'd love to be able to put Linux or FreeBSD on my main system and just leave it at that, but unless you're working on the web or within Linux, it's hard to make the jump away from Windows or MacOS. If applications start becoming purely web-based, it may render the base operating systems less relevant.
Complaints are how the provider of the software knows that it isn't working. People like you pretending that everything is fine is one of the reasons why the Linux desktop is still irrelevant.
I've used Linux on and off since 1998 when I decided to install RH 5.2 to see what the buzz was all about. I've currently got Mint 19 installed and the last time I applied updates GRUB disappeared and I had to go into the BIOS to get my Mint partition to boot and then more buggering about to put GRUB back on. So I've had 21 years of smug zealot wankers like you telling me everything's fine when it isn't. Now kindly fuck off and stop stalking me.
Not trying to sound like a dick, but you had to have changed something, they don't just break their self... Trust me i'm good at fucking with things I shouldn't. I have broken my system plenty of times. It doesn't happen unless you fuck with things you shouldn't. Especially grub of all things. Were you trying to install custom kernels? Trying to mess with boot params? There is a reason it happened. I put my brother on mint 2 or 3 years ago, and I told him to play with it and make sure it stays updated.. He is still on his original install. But I told him not to fuck with grub and try to stay out of /etc/defaults. So, You may not realize you broke it because once you're root it doesn't try to warn you not to do stupid shit... But you can't blame linux for that.
No everything is not fine, Game support is kindof lacking, Steam is helping fix that. The rest will fall in line eventually. And it can't be too irrelevant as its getting more and more ear time or we wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be whining about how bad you are at using it.
The 'dumbass' comment was for the poster, not Linus. Those offshoots use modified versions of the Linux kernel.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Exactly! When Microsoft got rid of the Start menu in Windows 8/RT, there was a user revolt that was swift and vicious. So much so, that they quickly put out an update (8.1) to bring back the Start menu, and pushed up the release of Windows 10 which returned the Start menu desktop to the default state and made the tablet-style RT menu just a bad memory. A big corporation hasn't reversed course that fast since New Coke. The lesson here is that for typical users, a consistent user interface is one of the most important things an OS provides.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Yes yes it's always the user's fault. I applied the updates from the software manager and rebooted. Nothing else. I wouldn't blame Linux for my fuck ups.
Try literally something like 90% of software made for engineering.
Particularly CAD/CAM. Let me know when Linux gets Solidworks or Creo.
No year is going to be "the year of the Linux desktop" precisely because of the nature of how Linux is used.
This speaks nothing about the quality of the operating system as a whole- Linux is still the gold standard for server applications, for moderately computer-savvy people who have junk computers and no desire to buy a license of Windows it's a perfectly fine desktop.
The bevvy of options you have to decide on for Linux is just not worth the effort for most normal people. Even people who just need a web-browser and email, going beyond "yeah just install ubuntu" will have their eyes gloss over the instant you try to explain the concept of other distros/window managers/etc. And the first time their hardware/software doesn't work for whatever reason, they're fucked because the community on the whole isn't welcoming and the solutions to their problems (while almost certainly being well documented by someone else and having bullet-proof instructions) will confuse/spook people into not even trying recommended fixes. The instant a normal human trying Linux has to break into the commandline and learn Linux they're out- that's not what they signed up for and I don't blame them.
You're responding to a copypasta...
I read :
" Even starting with one of the Big Distros like Debian, you never know when/what Ubuntu (and therefore Mint, etc) will grab..."
me, I abandoned Ubuntu, Mint & al, and just got back (or up) to pure Debian.
OK, that was not in a quest for Desktop purity : rather to evade big monopolies, Ubuntu, IBM/redhat.
But then I get this extra benefit...
Herve S.
Linus should do what he does best: crank out some good software and then wait for the world to adopt it. He did it with Linux, he did it with Git. He should make (or at least officially endorse) an official Linux desktop and watch as nerds treat it as such.
I'm blaming you, as you seem to not be telling the whole truth. The system doesn't just brick its self. ITS NOT WINDOWS! That's the shit were talking about. Because if that was the case the same thing would have happened to thousands of other people, but its fine to lie on slashdot. you're the one defending a horrible OS. I don't have to use it so I don't really give a shit. I'm just trying to combat the anti-linux FUD being spread here. Boy how times have changed.
Why would I lie? It happened on a stock install of Mint. As for pushing a horrible OS, which one would that be? I haven't mentioned any others. Linux used to be rock-solid as a desktop but it's lost its way. Your blind fanaticism does you and Linux no favours.
In Windows CLI, you also don't have CTRL+C/V
Linux used to be rock-solid as a desktop but it's lost its way.
Sir You have that completely backwards, It used to be garbage for desktop and you were lucky to be able to get your wireless gpu and sound all working correctly. and about 10 years ago that all started changing. NOW it is a solid OS that needs more "mainstream" software written for it to help adoption. I don't know where you got the idea it USED to be a good desktop OS... I think you're thinking headless server OS, which is was and still is good and stable for.
21 years of using it dickhead. I had fewer problems with Mandriva in 2002 than I do with Mint in 2019. It's not solid anymore.
Maybe you should move to a distro you wont accidentally break and blame the os? Seriously I'm having a real hard time with what you're saying as I currently have a computer noob on it, with 0 issues. Only thing I've been asked is how to stop screen tearing on nvidia cards(full pipeline composition). And if you could drive mandrake back then but can't figure out mint... Is dementia setting in?
Maybe you should bothering me with your pointless zealotry. I know how to use Mint (or any other distro) but applying updates should not hose GRUB. 21 years and the Linux community is still full of rabid fanatics who think their OS choice somehow validates them. What's especially ironic is that you think that you know better than Linus Torvalds about the flaws in the desktop. Is he too stupid to use Mint too?
Maybe, he did fall for that coc crap.. and you can call me all the names and such you like it doesn't change the fact that what you're saying is very unplausable this decade.
Implausible. This is an article where the creator of Linux is saying that the desktop could be a lot better. Are you calling him stupid too?
No, Just you. I'm not saying it couldn't be better. Almost everything can be made better. I'm saying its not the horrid mess you're claiming it is. I'm only calling you stupid. Well and that AC but we already covered that.
I'm only agreeing with Linus so you're calling us both stupid because you can't bear to have your religion questioned.
Every single person I knew who owned a land rover is nowadays a mechanic (even some who switched from software). That to me is enough of a reason to not even consider buying a land rover should I need a new vehicle. I don't want to be a mechanic, I would much rather spend my time on things that interest me. Now I know my way around a computer, I work as a programmer in fact. But if I don't want to be a mechanic, it's not hard for me to understand why my mom doesn't want to become a pc tech. "You have to be a mechanic to drive me. Piss off, I don't need to be a mechanic to drive other cars" "you just need to get a little bit tech savvy to use me. Piss off, I don't need to get a little bit tech savvy to use windows or mac" This is how the average Joe thinks when it comes to this thing. We are not "average joes" given that we feel strongly enough about the subject to be commenting about it here. But if linux on the desktop wants to ever "win" it's the hearts and minds of the average joes that it needs to win. And unfortunately the average joe is not even considered.
Good point. This is why, I think, distros like Debian, for instance, will never ready for the masses... Android did it, by hiding all the "strange" stuff from the owner (and that's why, I think, something like lineageos.org, make so much success in between "tech-savy" people: shows back some of this hidden stuff...)
Yes, I agree. There used to be bugs, but what that dude is describing is something that would have effected thousands of pc's and would have been found in testing before making main repo. Linux has come a long way in the last decade. Vastly more secure and stable than windows. Also more control over your actual hardware. People are normally just afraid of having to learn a new OS so they will defend windows to the death even when they know its garbage. All we need is for a few high profile to convince adobe, and autodesk and the like that they want a linux port, and that would be that. We are sitting in the chicken and egg conundrum. Steam has done so much for linux gaming in the last 5 years its insanity. And they're pushing devs to develop native for linux, and it seems to be working honestly. And as stated previously, Ubuntu is the windows 10 of linux, Very little learning curve and bleeding edge support for software and hardware. I haven't had a linux system break that I didn't fuck up on my own in years. I just happen to like to tinker, and keep all important shit off my main drive so if If I have to kill my root and start over its no issue. And with /home on a separate partition or disk all together your desktop settings persist. And normally across distros providing you're using the same DE.
A play on Clinton's famous phrase of course, not actually calling you stupid, but the only problem with Linux Desktop has been the only problem with Linux Desktop for decades: programs. People don't care about operating systems, they care about programs.
So how do you get developers to develop for Linux? That's the million dollar question. The Linux community has always assumed that the mountain has to come to Mohammed, as it were, when really the opposite is true. Focusing more work on Linux compatibility with Windows has always been the answer.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.