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>This is where you start going off the rails. People did buy hardware that was compatible with the operating system they do use. It is super presumptuous and we

>This is where you start going off the rails. People did buy hardware that was compatible with the operating system they do use. It is super presumptuous and weird to try this sleight-of-hand in your argument. Make new purchases more intelligently. >You are now off the rails and airborne. Excel is still largely unsupported and breaks nontrivial spreadsheets. The UI is also, IMO, a huge step backwards from Office and now that the Ribbon "but but it's different" is far enough in the past that pretty much everybody has switched, another UI switch is probably not worth it. Which is why I mentioned MS Office in Wine. >Still sailing through the air with the mountain approaching. Your potential gaming library is huge--and either indie or largely broken. Suggesting WINE to somebody who doesn't already know what they're in for is dirty; even gold-flagged games in WINE don't work particularly well a whole lot. I suggested it to the HN crowd, who I expect to have a higher bar of troubleshooting capability. >People will stop using them when open-source ones are good at the things they want. Right now, they're still not, and exhorting people to use an inferior good (for the things they care about) is kinda just doing people dirty. You and people like you are the reason that it's not as good as it could be. I use Linux as my daily driver and it works extremely well. But if you continue to let it languish with a small market share because you can't be bothered to troubleshoot it for 10 minutes or maybe live without that piece of software you need so much, then it won't even go anywhere. Yours is a self defeating attitude.

eropple 9y ago
I've been using Linux as a daily driver for fifteen years. I have shot my share of trouble and the next two guys' too. It's not a good experience. It's bad. Even when things aren't breaking left, right, and sideways (which, to be clear, definitely happens less often today than five years ago, with the corollary that that breakage is usually something a mere mortal can't do too much about), it feels kinda...well, shitty. I've done my time with a bunch of different DEs and each and every one is a fit-and-finish mess. (KDE comes closest. It is still leagues shy of the Mac that's also on my desk.) If you--the general community, not you specifically--can't make something that feels good to use, your foot is already deep in that bucket. Then you add on hardware and software incompatibilities and your answer is "halfway patches or just do without", and you are so deep in Zealotville that me shouting sure isn't going to reach you (but might dissuade a few people from burning themselves along the way). If you don't have a positive argument for using your thing instead of framing its competition negatively, few people will ever use it. The Linux desktop as a whole doesn't have that positive argument. Because, for most people and including most developers, it is a strictly inferior good. Not to Windows--but to the Mac. You're stomping your feet about people not being bothered to troubleshoot--it ain't their fault that that's still a tire fire! I use a Linux desktop because I know what I'm getting into and I know enough, from the aforementioned fifteen years of dealing with its crap, to make it mostly tolerable for work (not at all for fun, which is why I still use Windows, too!). I sure wouldn't start today, not on either the handwavy "but but telemetry!" grounds nor the usefulness of it.
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  It's not really my thing, but Plasma seems like a really solid desktop. What are your complaints with it? And I'll raise this point again: >You and people like you are the reason that it's not as good as it could be. I use Linux as my daily driver and it works extremely well. But if you continue to let it languish with a small market share because you can't be bothered to troubleshoot it for 10 minutes or maybe live without that piece of software you need so much, then it won't even go anywhere. Yours is a self defeating attitude. Using proprietary operating systems because Linux isn't there yet is a great way to keep Linux from getting there. It's a chicken and egg problem. What would you prefer: getting your privacy thourougly invaded by a proprietary operating system, or being there to help Linux gain market share and tip the scales? Even if it's not perfect, it's more than enough, and supporting it is the best choice.
  - Bakary 9y ago
    From my perspective as a normal user the trade-off isn't worth it. The pain of using Linux is very real, and the benefits you describe are nebulous and uncertain, considering the amount of time people spend on their computers. I tried really hard to make it work. If it only took 10 minutes of troubleshooting, then it would have been fine, but it was instead hours of crawling through forums. Ultimately, this is a theory of mind issue, since proficient users and developers can't quite seem to grasp how regular joes use the software. Or if they do grasp it, they react with contempt instead of trying to fix the issue. Without making it REALLY convenient there is simply no way it will gain more than a small market share. Whether the contempt is justified is irrelevant if the goal is to have the Year of the Linux Desktop.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    > Using proprietary operating systems because Linux isn't there yet is a great way to keep Linux from getting there. It's a chicken and egg problem. What would you prefer: getting your privacy thourougly invaded by a proprietary operating system, or being there to help Linux gain market share and tip the scales? Even if it's not perfect, it's more than enough, and supporting it is the best choice. The vast majority of people out there see computers (and other devices) as things that get stuff done, right now. They couldn't care less about proprietary vs open source, and the philosophy and the politics of the latter. So there will never be a critical mass that will tip the scales, ever. You'll get the geeks going there because they care, trying to live with the inconveniences for a while, and then mostly going back to OS X (or even Windows), because they find other things to care about, and stop feeling like struggling with xorg.conf or NetworkManager or whatever is meaningfully "fighting against the system".
eropple 9y ago
(I don't know why you were flagged, FWIW, but I vouched you out. I think you're wrong, but I don't think this should be flagged.)

eropple 9y ago

I've been using Linux as a daily driver for fifteen years. I have shot my share of trouble and the next two guys' too. It's not a good experience. It's bad. Even when things aren't breaking left, right, and sideways (which, to be clear, definitely happens less often today than five years ago, with the corollary that that breakage is usually something a mere mortal can't do too much about), it feels kinda...well, shitty. I've done my time with a bunch of different DEs and each and every one is a fit-and-finish mess. (KDE comes closest. It is still leagues shy of the Mac that's also on my desk.) If you--the general community, not you specifically--can't make something that feels good to use, your foot is already deep in that bucket. Then you add on hardware and software incompatibilities and your answer is "halfway patches or just do without", and you are so deep in Zealotville that me shouting sure isn't going to reach you (but might dissuade a few people from burning themselves along the way). If you don't have a positive argument for using your thing instead of framing its competition negatively, few people will ever use it. The Linux desktop as a whole doesn't have that positive argument. Because, for most people and including most developers, it is a strictly inferior good. Not to Windows--but to the Mac. You're stomping your feet about people not being bothered to troubleshoot--it ain't their fault that that's still a tire fire! I use a Linux desktop because I know what I'm getting into and I know enough, from the aforementioned fifteen years of dealing with its crap, to make it mostly tolerable for work (not at all for fun, which is why I still use Windows, too!). I sure wouldn't start today, not on either the handwavy "but but telemetry!" grounds nor the usefulness of it.

Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
It's not really my thing, but Plasma seems like a really solid desktop. What are your complaints with it? And I'll raise this point again: >You and people like you are the reason that it's not as good as it could be. I use Linux as my daily driver and it works extremely well. But if you continue to let it languish with a small market share because you can't be bothered to troubleshoot it for 10 minutes or maybe live without that piece of software you need so much, then it won't even go anywhere. Yours is a self defeating attitude. Using proprietary operating systems because Linux isn't there yet is a great way to keep Linux from getting there. It's a chicken and egg problem. What would you prefer: getting your privacy thourougly invaded by a proprietary operating system, or being there to help Linux gain market share and tip the scales? Even if it's not perfect, it's more than enough, and supporting it is the best choice.
- Bakary 9y ago
  From my perspective as a normal user the trade-off isn't worth it. The pain of using Linux is very real, and the benefits you describe are nebulous and uncertain, considering the amount of time people spend on their computers. I tried really hard to make it work. If it only took 10 minutes of troubleshooting, then it would have been fine, but it was instead hours of crawling through forums. Ultimately, this is a theory of mind issue, since proficient users and developers can't quite seem to grasp how regular joes use the software. Or if they do grasp it, they react with contempt instead of trying to fix the issue. Without making it REALLY convenient there is simply no way it will gain more than a small market share. Whether the contempt is justified is irrelevant if the goal is to have the Year of the Linux Desktop.
- int_19h 9y ago
  > Using proprietary operating systems because Linux isn't there yet is a great way to keep Linux from getting there. It's a chicken and egg problem. What would you prefer: getting your privacy thourougly invaded by a proprietary operating system, or being there to help Linux gain market share and tip the scales? Even if it's not perfect, it's more than enough, and supporting it is the best choice. The vast majority of people out there see computers (and other devices) as things that get stuff done, right now. They couldn't care less about proprietary vs open source, and the philosophy and the politics of the latter. So there will never be a critical mass that will tip the scales, ever. You'll get the geeks going there because they care, trying to live with the inconveniences for a while, and then mostly going back to OS X (or even Windows), because they find other things to care about, and stop feeling like struggling with xorg.conf or NetworkManager or whatever is meaningfully "fighting against the system".

eropple 9y ago

(I don't know why you were flagged, FWIW, but I vouched you out. I think you're wrong, but I don't think this should be flagged.)