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Linux still not ready as a desktop operating system, news at eleven.

by bzb6 6y ago

shrimp_emoji 6y ago
Well, more like the Cinnamon DE isn't. And, yeah, if you stray from the two superpower DEs with the most dev polish (KDE and GNOME), you're asking for jank and bugs.
- eqvinox 6y ago
  Did you even read the article? "Hold enter, unlock Gnome-screensaver." https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1308572 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1308572 If you go back to an older GNOME version you can probably also find the current Cinnamon bug in there, it is in libcaribou after all.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  I switched from XFCE to Cinnamon after I couldn't get on with Gnome, Cinnamon is (for my use case) way less "janky" than Gnome since the only way to get close to what I consider a pleasant productive desktop on Gnome is to install a bunch of very buggy plugins. Cinnamon at least makes operating like a classic DE a first order priority and it works nice across multiple screens. KDE does the same but aesthetically KDE drives me crazy for some reason starting with the complete lack of standardisation on padding and going down hill from there.
- yongjik 6y ago
  Well, as someone who recently switched from Cinnamon to Gnome: - There's no hibernate button. You can hibernate... by running "sudo pm-hinernate" on terminal. - There's no session save, like, really. - pm-hibernate sometimes fails without a single error message. Turns out it would refuse to run when the kernel was updated, OK fine that makes sense, except that the error message is redirected to /var/log/something and hidden beneath hundreds of lines of noise. The only nice thing about it is that fractional scaling mostly works, which is nice, because I happen to have one 1080 and one 4K monitor. I'm sorely tempted to move to KDE but then I couldn't figure out how to make fractional scaling work there. It's a total mess.
- aruggirello 6y ago
  Since the author mentions Cinnamon and Gnome, I'd expect GTK land to be more susceptible (so I'd expect to perhaps run into similar issues with other GTK-based DE's). Note how starting from Plasma 5, KDE doesn't officially come with a screen saver installed anymore, and only has a screen locking mechanism (kscreenlocker, which isn't exempt from its own share of bugs BTW).
mixedCase 6y ago
Yup, you're right. One hopes that Windows and macOS become ready at one point given their enormous corporate backing, so at least we can have one desktop OS that is actually usable and semi-secure. Alas, one just had a filesystem corruption bug caused by a slightly weird input and the other shits all over a different subsection of their userbase with every new major release between breaking their workflow and bugs like this one, where you can "hold enter to root".
- tinus_hn 6y ago
  MacOS doesn’t have a secure desktop either.
rvz 6y ago
There you go. The same old reasons are still applied and unsolved.
type0 6y ago
Still, I'd use even the crappiest linux desktop OS any day over MS Windblows and the rotten apples OS
the_af 6y ago
Sigh. Not this again. Linux has been ready for the desktop, for me and many others, since more than a decade. This doesn't mean there aren't genuine annoyances, much like with any desktop OS, but it has already "arrived" and it can be used successfully for gaming, editing, browsing, printing, listening to music, watching movies, coding, etc.
aruggirello 6y ago
On another thread today, BitLocker Lockscreen Bypass: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25810250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25810250

Linux still not ready as a desktop operating system, news at eleven.

by bzb6 6y ago

Linux still not ready as a desktop operating system, news at eleven.

Well, more like the Cinnamon DE isn't. And, yeah, if you stray from the two superpower DEs with the most dev polish (KDE and GNOME), you're asking for jank and bugs.

eqvinox 6y ago
Did you even read the article? "Hold enter, unlock Gnome-screensaver." https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1308572 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/1308572 If you go back to an older GNOME version you can probably also find the current Cinnamon bug in there, it is in libcaribou after all.
noir_lord 6y ago
I switched from XFCE to Cinnamon after I couldn't get on with Gnome, Cinnamon is (for my use case) way less "janky" than Gnome since the only way to get close to what I consider a pleasant productive desktop on Gnome is to install a bunch of very buggy plugins. Cinnamon at least makes operating like a classic DE a first order priority and it works nice across multiple screens. KDE does the same but aesthetically KDE drives me crazy for some reason starting with the complete lack of standardisation on padding and going down hill from there.
yongjik 6y ago
Well, as someone who recently switched from Cinnamon to Gnome: - There's no hibernate button. You can hibernate... by running "sudo pm-hinernate" on terminal. - There's no session save, like, really. - pm-hibernate sometimes fails without a single error message. Turns out it would refuse to run when the kernel was updated, OK fine that makes sense, except that the error message is redirected to /var/log/something and hidden beneath hundreds of lines of noise. The only nice thing about it is that fractional scaling mostly works, which is nice, because I happen to have one 1080 and one 4K monitor. I'm sorely tempted to move to KDE but then I couldn't figure out how to make fractional scaling work there. It's a total mess.
aruggirello 6y ago
Since the author mentions Cinnamon and Gnome, I'd expect GTK land to be more susceptible (so I'd expect to perhaps run into similar issues with other GTK-based DE's). Note how starting from Plasma 5, KDE doesn't officially come with a screen saver installed anymore, and only has a screen locking mechanism (kscreenlocker, which isn't exempt from its own share of bugs BTW).

mixedCase 6y ago

Yup, you're right. One hopes that Windows and macOS become ready at one point given their enormous corporate backing, so at least we can have one desktop OS that is actually usable and semi-secure. Alas, one just had a filesystem corruption bug caused by a slightly weird input and the other shits all over a different subsection of their userbase with every new major release between breaking their workflow and bugs like this one, where you can "hold enter to root".

tinus_hn 6y ago
MacOS doesn’t have a secure desktop either.

rvz 6y ago

There you go. The same old reasons are still applied and unsolved.

type0 6y ago

Still, I'd use even the crappiest linux desktop OS any day over MS Windblows and the rotten apples OS

the_af 6y ago

Sigh. Not this again. Linux has been ready for the desktop, for me and many others, since more than a decade. This doesn't mean there aren't genuine annoyances, much like with any desktop OS, but it has already "arrived" and it can be used successfully for gaming, editing, browsing, printing, listening to music, watching movies, coding, etc.

aruggirello 6y ago

On another thread today, BitLocker Lockscreen Bypass: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25810250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25810250