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> I recoil at the possibility that some developer 5 years from now might ask me "Why bother installing your own linux distribution? You can just get Windows Go

> I recoil at the possibility that some developer 5 years from now might ask me "Why bother installing your own linux distribution? You can just get Windows Go 15 and run Arch/Ubuntu/SUSE from inside there. Don't forget to disable the ads and tracking that come standard". "I mean, the privacy is shit, but you can sort of deal with it. But at least you don't have to dance the Ritual Dance of PulseAudio if you need to do MIDI (or get as much as a hiss out of your speakers), suspending your computer doesn't garble your desktop background or desktop icon labels, you can update Windows Go 16 and it'll work after you reboot..." I don't like Microsoft any more than I like any company of its size, but they're making a compelling case, while the Linux "community" is busy supporting cloud, IVI, and IoT vaporware. Edit: ten years ago I was certain they were going to pry Debian and OpenBSD from my cold, dead hands. But Windows, for all its privacy compromises, is working better and better, whereas Linux desktops are getting worse (and less portable), with a never-fulfilling promise that it's going to get a lot better when they finally get stable, this massive rewrite that we started like six years ago is just about done... Edit edit: I know my comment looks overly negative and I seem grumpy but really, I'm not, I like Linux, I make a living out of writing Linux software and I've used it one way or another for almost twenty years. That being said: 1. Please stop recommending me that I use something more user friendly, like Mint or Ubuntu. "You can update to Windows Go 16 and it'll work after you reboot" was a joke about Ubuntu. 2. This "I got this new machine and it works flawlessly out of the box, Linux is great if you get good hardware" is the wrong mentality if you're not Apple. Every operating system, including TempleOS, runs flawlessly out of the box on some hardware. It's getting it to run flawlessly on hardware other than the developers' machines that's complicated. Go ahead, grab ten high-end laptops at random and see how well plugging and unplugging your monitor works, even on systems that are officially supported. How do you think I ended up knowing xrandr's command line options better than I know tar's? Not being able to care for my Linux box is not my problem, my problem is that I don't want to care for my Linux box. I babysit Linux at least eight hours a day at work. I don't want to have to do it at home, too.

hardwaresofton 9y ago
Could you expand on some ways that linux desktops are getting worse/less portable? I run Arch and I definitely run into a few things from time to time where I need to go on a google hunt to figure out what's wrong (if it's not already obvious), but the distro is pretty user friendly (despite the 'hard core' reputation it has which honestly drew me to it). Ubuntu just about works right out of the box 99% of the time these days. Also what is IVI? this: https://www.ni.com/ivi/what.htm https://www.ni.com/ivi/what.htm ?
- mih 9y ago
  A fellow Arch user here. Although I would not classify it as a portability problem, I have mixed feelings about Desktop on Linux. I use KDE Plasma myself and there is not shortage of messages and bug reports on the headaches GTK poses due to theming. Ever so often, you run into a GTK app that simply turns out to be unusable because the UI elements aren't visible. Same thing with GUI apps written in Java , which look ugly and exhibit strange quirks. Now KDE does provide compatible themes for GTK, but the fragmentation in GTK (2 vs 3) does not help. The solutions are at best a stopgap measure till the next major version breaks what you managed to get right. It's a never ending game of whack-a-mole. It does not help some of the most popular apps are written in GTK. As I speak due to reasons I haven't investigated yet, I am unable to paste text contents in GTK apps. Windows has other points I take issue with, but at least the UI just works as expected and doesn't seem to hang by a thread.
  - hardwaresofton 9y ago
    Hey there! -- I absolutely hear you on KDE Plasma... If you feel like putting a few hours (worst case a day or weekend into it) you could take a look at: - XFCE - BSPWM (very minimal, lots of set up, and not great documentation, but I manage windows for the most part without leaving my homerow now, so I love it. once you're past). If you're not one for keyboard shortcuts and muscle memory, it may not be interesting, but I run bspwm and love it. Point taken on the GTK pain, it was so painful that I stopped using it (I used to run linux mint, and cinnamon/mate, Gnome, were also thorns in my side), and wince every time something I want to install has dependencies on GTK (just because it pulls in 10098123 other packages every time).
  - lorenzhs 9y ago
    All the issues you named are KDE issues. I don't want to start a war here but Gnome 3 has really matured since its botched initial release and plays nice with KDE applications (but maybe that's due to Qt being great). I'm not trying to convince you to switch (KDE does have points in its favour, too!), but Gnome 3 is a sound recommendation for new users and causes very few issues.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Spoom 9y ago
Having used Linux desktop for roughly a decade, it's definitely gotten better. Almost every computer I install Linux on now has working drivers for everything, the vast majority working out of the box. Anecdata, of course, but that's been my experience. Ease of use also depends on the distro you choose. Ubuntu or Mint will probably be the easiest; if you install Arch, you should know what you're in for. (Before you jump on me, I posted this from a system running Arch.)
- notalaser 9y ago
  I've used Linux since back when there was no "Enterprise" in Red Hat Linux :-). The driver situation has massively improved, absolutely. The second time I installed Linux (on a brand new computer) was scariest -- S-ATA was super cool and new and my S-ATA controller wasn't supported, so I had to build a patched kernel on my old machine and boot with it... But higher-up, I don't think we've progressed significantly past where we were in 2010. Sound still breaks (and ironically enough, it had just started breaking, with Alsa finally getting proper soft mixing and hotplug support via udev), KDE and GTK applications can no longer get uniform themes, display managers still get laughable bugs...
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The kernel end of things have gotten better, yes. the DE end had crapified (it may by shiny crap, but still crap), and the crap is seeping towards the kernel year by year. The day Torvalds is no longer present to hold the kernel devs to the rule of not breaking userspace is the day Linux goes down the drain.

hardwaresofton 9y ago

Could you expand on some ways that linux desktops are getting worse/less portable? I run Arch and I definitely run into a few things from time to time where I need to go on a google hunt to figure out what's wrong (if it's not already obvious), but the distro is pretty user friendly (despite the 'hard core' reputation it has which honestly drew me to it). Ubuntu just about works right out of the box 99% of the time these days. Also what is IVI? this: https://www.ni.com/ivi/what.htm https://www.ni.com/ivi/what.htm ?

mih 9y ago
A fellow Arch user here. Although I would not classify it as a portability problem, I have mixed feelings about Desktop on Linux. I use KDE Plasma myself and there is not shortage of messages and bug reports on the headaches GTK poses due to theming. Ever so often, you run into a GTK app that simply turns out to be unusable because the UI elements aren't visible. Same thing with GUI apps written in Java , which look ugly and exhibit strange quirks. Now KDE does provide compatible themes for GTK, but the fragmentation in GTK (2 vs 3) does not help. The solutions are at best a stopgap measure till the next major version breaks what you managed to get right. It's a never ending game of whack-a-mole. It does not help some of the most popular apps are written in GTK. As I speak due to reasons I haven't investigated yet, I am unable to paste text contents in GTK apps. Windows has other points I take issue with, but at least the UI just works as expected and doesn't seem to hang by a thread.
- hardwaresofton 9y ago
  Hey there! -- I absolutely hear you on KDE Plasma... If you feel like putting a few hours (worst case a day or weekend into it) you could take a look at: - XFCE - BSPWM (very minimal, lots of set up, and not great documentation, but I manage windows for the most part without leaving my homerow now, so I love it. once you're past). If you're not one for keyboard shortcuts and muscle memory, it may not be interesting, but I run bspwm and love it. Point taken on the GTK pain, it was so painful that I stopped using it (I used to run linux mint, and cinnamon/mate, Gnome, were also thorns in my side), and wince every time something I want to install has dependencies on GTK (just because it pulls in 10098123 other packages every time).
- lorenzhs 9y ago
  All the issues you named are KDE issues. I don't want to start a war here but Gnome 3 has really matured since its botched initial release and plays nice with KDE applications (but maybe that's due to Qt being great). I'm not trying to convince you to switch (KDE does have points in its favour, too!), but Gnome 3 is a sound recommendation for new users and causes very few issues.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Spoom 9y ago

Having used Linux desktop for roughly a decade, it's definitely gotten better. Almost every computer I install Linux on now has working drivers for everything, the vast majority working out of the box. Anecdata, of course, but that's been my experience. Ease of use also depends on the distro you choose. Ubuntu or Mint will probably be the easiest; if you install Arch, you should know what you're in for. (Before you jump on me, I posted this from a system running Arch.)

notalaser 9y ago
I've used Linux since back when there was no "Enterprise" in Red Hat Linux :-). The driver situation has massively improved, absolutely. The second time I installed Linux (on a brand new computer) was scariest -- S-ATA was super cool and new and my S-ATA controller wasn't supported, so I had to build a patched kernel on my old machine and boot with it... But higher-up, I don't think we've progressed significantly past where we were in 2010. Sound still breaks (and ironically enough, it had just started breaking, with Alsa finally getting proper soft mixing and hotplug support via udev), KDE and GTK applications can no longer get uniform themes, display managers still get laughable bugs...
digi_owl 9y ago
The kernel end of things have gotten better, yes. the DE end had crapified (it may by shiny crap, but still crap), and the crap is seeping towards the kernel year by year. The day Torvalds is no longer present to hold the kernel devs to the rule of not breaking userspace is the day Linux goes down the drain.