7 ms·

The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II

69 points by bozhidar 15y ago

rbanffy 15y ago
These posts are becoming tiresome (not to say a little bit inconsistent). If Linux doesn't work for you, use something else. It's fine for a lot of people. In fact, most people I know who tried it, like it.
KonradKlause 15y ago
Can we please stop this? When you don't like Linux on your desktop, don't use it. It's that easy.
- nagnatron 15y ago
  It's feedback. From someone who's been using Linux for a long time. It's hardly random whining.
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  Stop what? People saying why Linux doesn't work as a desktop OS for them, or people posting those articles to HN?
  - KonradKlause 15y ago
    The latter ;-)
- dexen 15y ago
  `Don't use Linux' is not `that easy'; pause for a moment and think about it. He can't go *BSD way, because drivers are scarcier, and that's a big no-no for him. And even more scarce on other less popular OSes, like Plan 9. He can't go MS Windows way, because it's less usable for him (duh). He can't go MacOS X because, uh, I dunno, personal preferences? Pricetag of the hardware+software? He whines and rehashes old arguments because he feels trapped in Linux, got nowhere else to go :-) Indeed, not a piece of News for Hackers.
  - KonradKlause 15y ago
    Hehe, fair point.
  - carmen 15y ago
    he could throw a maximized webkit and editor in ~/.xinitrc but he wouldnt have anything to complain about
    - twopoint718 15y ago
      Haha, take it just a bit farther. When you get hooked on a tiling window manager, all this twisting in the wind over what KDE/GNOME 3.0/Unity will do next really evaporates. The "surface area" of the GUI is so small there's very little to find issue with.
- ryan_brunner 15y ago
  The thing is, these complaints usually come from people who WANT linux to succeed on the desktop. I'm certainly one of those people - one of those poor unfortunate souls doing RoR development on a PC. Windows isn't a great option for me because the development ecosystem around Ruby on Windows is still fairly immature. Linux would be a perfect solution, if I could get more than a hour of battery life out of my laptop, my touchpad worked even remotely as well as it does in Windows, and selecting the wrong update didn't completely trash my system.
  - pandeiro 15y ago
    Give up or don't give up, but agonizing about it accomplishes nothing. 6 months ago I received a new laptop that "just didn't work on Linux." I did a lot of research, tried different distros, hacked on it a lot, and now it is a dream to use, gets excellent battery life, and even suspend/resume work beautifully. Hackers don't agonize over this kind of shit, they get to work. If you don't want to invest the time, your choice is investing your $$$ in a Mac. Personally I am so happy with my laptop now that if someone offered me a brand new Macbook Whatever, for free, I'd say "No, thanks." Seriously. Good luck.
    - wonnage 15y ago
      Well, you also have the bias of wasting several weeks of your life trying to set up a laptop. Yeah, I said waste. Most people will counter by saying "but I learned linux!" No, you didn't, you learned to futz around with a bunch of conf files. I remember trying to make Pulseaudio work with my USB soundcard. Several hours of dicking about with asoundrc later and I a. still had a nonfunctional sound card b. still don't know how pulseaudio works Not that it isn't an accomplishment. Just, while it may be a source of personal satisfaction, don't expect people with less time than you do to feel the same way!
      - teyc 15y ago
        +1 It is like solving sudoku. There's a rush when you solve it, but it is not like you have made a genuine progress.
- deleted 15y ago
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- KeithMajhor 15y ago
  It's a little bit hypocritical. But can we stop _this_. If you don't want to read articles about distaste of desktop linux. Don't click the link and/or downvote.
  - gnosis 15y ago
    HN doesn't let you downvote articles. However, they can be flagged, if you feel they are inappropriate for HN.
- reirob 15y ago
  I really do not think that it is that black and white. First it is not about people who do not like Linux on the desktop but about people who used Linux on the desktop for many years, promoted it at their schools, at their companies, to their friends. And then after many years struggling against the same problems all over again they discover that it is not worth their time. Then there is another question - does it make the Linux desktop better if people (like the author and me) stop using it?
Spyro7 15y ago
I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. I find it strange that the author says they should have gone back to FreeBSD. In terms of "desktop" experience, both of these operating systems are somewhat similar. I understand his complaints about the driver situation, but, really, this just means that you need to do some additional due diligence on your hardware. If you think that is troublesome, try installing OS X on non-Apple hardware. Now that can be a real adventure.
- Stiffy 15y ago
  The problem isn't Linux. The problem is GNOME, and to a lesser extent, KDE. GNOME is just not a good desktop environment, yet it has often been pushed as "the" Linux desktop by various distros and vendors. New Linux users end up using GNOME, finding that it's a pretty bad experience, and then they blame Linux and OSS as a whole. Had they used XFCE, for instance, they'd probably think otherwise. If recent experience is any indicator, it isn't getting any better. People are not happy with Ubuntu's use of Unity, for instance. Anything GTK+-based or GNOME-based ends up being a miserable experience for most people.
  - shareme 15y ago
    actually laptop users of Intel laptops like Unity and hence Ubuntu choosing unity to push the desktop exp.. Ubuntu Unity is the number 1 feature OEMs weer asking form Ubuntu..
    - Stiffy 15y ago
      Not all Ubuntu users are using a laptop. It is absurd to penalize desktop users with a UI that just isn't suited to desktop use. OEMs often don't truly understand the needs and wants of their customers, as well. The recent backlash, even among laptop users, shows this quite well.
    - Zak 15y ago
      I briefly played with Unity as included with Ubuntu 11.04 and felt that it was interesting, but unfinished. I find Gnome 2 very usable now, though it had rough edges for years. Unity is less usable due to its rough edges. Distributions intended to bring new users to Linux might do well to focus more on testing than new features. I've been using Linux on various laptops for almost 10 years now and I don't want to deal with instability and broken things on my production machine. New users looking for an alternative to Windows will likely find the grass is not greener on the other side. I'm not talking about ugly UI or inconsistency. I'm talking about the fact that my Thinkpad won't suspend, that my sound sometimes stops working, that my notification icons for Skype and a couple other apps were 1px for over a month while the bug was well-known. tl;dr - less development, more testing.
revorad 15y ago
Unless something radically changes in the near future I don’t see how Linux can rise up to be a mainstream desktop OS. ... Desktop Linux has to be made somehow profitable for companies to start investing more heavily in it. This is the hard, but honest truth. As long as the primarily development is carried out with little (or no funding), mostly by volunteers the hour of the desktop Linux will never come. The radical change is tablets. Google is investing heavily in Android and will likely see big profits (indirectly). I'm writing this from a Windows laptop because my main Ubuntu laptop got screwed while upgrading. Everything that worked perfectly well for 3 years is now botched because of an "upgrade". The hour of the Linux desktop may eventually come but it will be irrelevant by then.
- WayneDB 15y ago
  Do you really think that desktop computers will become completely irrelevant? Are you talking about all sectors (devs, businesses + consumers) or just consumers?
nagnatron 15y ago
This my sound as an oxymoron, but Linux really shines as a desktop operation system for developers. If you're a regular desktop user, your basics are covered. But if you have a nicer camera an want to manage your photos, you're shit out of luck. Video editing software is abysmal. On the other hand you have 25 audio players of which maybe 3 work nicely.
httpitis 15y ago
To me, the article comes across as a request to the linux community for solving the linux desktop problem. In other words, when given a viable chioce, the author wants linux on his desktop. The author's complaints seems confirmed when looking at the trends [1] in market share for contemporary os's. >Desktop Linux has to be made somehow profitable for companies to start investing more heavily in it... I also believe that this is the major issue when trying to make linux successful on the desktop. So, what to do about it? [1] http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9 http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9
- IvarTJ 15y ago
  Android seems to be an example of a Linux-based operating system becoming successful partially because of its importance to hardware vendors. Could Linux distributions in general benefit from a hardware vendor becoming the goto vendor for Linux-running laptops and/or desktops?
  - rchowe 15y ago
    Android is a different story. Even though it's based on Linux and is supposedly "open source", Google's still the driving force behind its development. So the problems the article points out with the linux development process won't really apply to Android. Canonical partnered with Dell for a while to get Ubuntu on a few systems (Dell had been looking for an alternative to windows and had gone to Apple to try to license OS X; Apple refused). Turned out customers didn't really want Ubuntu, and mostly installed (pirate?) Windows and wiped out Ubuntu. You can't just wipe out iOS and install Android on your iPhone (well you can on an original iPhone, but it's not as easy as installing a desktop OS). System76 is an Ubuntu-only computer vendor, but for most linux geeks they just buy any PC that works with the Linux flavor they want and put linux on it. Most non-geek linux users had linux put there by a geek linux user and don't know any better.
    - twopoint718 15y ago
      I think companies (yes companies) like System76 are the only real way forward for Linux On The Desktop but I think that they tend to get ignored in this discussion. Linux already has prominent commercial backing (Red Hat, Canonical, IBM, etc.) for server-focused systems and applications. And indeed, in this arena Linux has been very successful. Where these sorts of complaints should fall are directly on system builders (the Dells of the world). When someone hears about Linux, it should be possible for them to go to a store and maybe check one out. Think about the last time you bought something. Did you go to a shop and kick the tires a bit? When I wanted an Android phone that was unconnected to any particular carrier, I was lucky enough that Best Buy was partnered up with Google. I could hold a Nexus S and see if I liked it before I bought one. This hands-on experience matters. Your local LUG is trying to get the word out, but they're volunteers. We need more businesses who have a vested interest in selling Linux to regular users. When they are, then the product will be a better fit for those users. This is the difference between 'The Spirit of St. Louis' and American Airlines. Full disclosure, I bought a System76 machine and I'm very happy with it. It's good hardware and it all worked (and not just "works for me", but really worked). Getting a product like this is a good fit for a certain type of computer user. I have owned and bought computers before. It's refreshing to get a new computer that doesn't have layer upon layer of crapware pre-installed and I wasn't in need of some fetishistic unboxing experience; it came in a box that, when opened, it worked out of.
piger 15y ago
People keep saying "it works for me, go away", as if other people who care about a DECENT desktop experience are just morons. "Ah! Another stupid windows/osx user!" I don't care about your fvwm desktop with 99 xterms and emacs everywhere, or your fully customized arch linux that "works for you"; I, like many other people, have different needs. And yet the general response from the community is "fuck off". First rule of desktop linux: you do not complain about desktop linux. Greetings from the year 2011.
- mbubb 15y ago
  No - not true. There are glitches but none of them a dealbreaker. I am not a masochist - if it caused me pain I would have stopped using Linux on my laptop years ago. Much of what I do is commandline. So a not atypical work setup is to have some kind of messenger, a browser, a terminal and thunderbird running. That is 95% of my day and it works great. I would switch if it didn't. I am not trying to play the Linux version of the longbearded UNIX grump (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/) . Really it works great and I would not willingly go back to Windows. And would grudgingly go back to MacOS. I don't understand the flipside - why people complain about Linux desktop. You should make it work or go back to your OS of choice. I get sucked into these articles because I think I might learn something or see something in a different way. THey almost always disapoint.
  - wvenable 15y ago
    > You should make it work or go back to your OS of choice. I'm not sure that's even possible. If the complaint is a lack of drivers and poor support for hardware, how is the average developer supposed to deal with that?
- zppx 15y ago
  Well to be fair I saw a lot of people downvoted on HN because they got valid points criticizing OS X or even Rails, so your first rule applies in some other situations too, at least here, maybe it's a problem about discussions on the internet... I use a Mac so I understand their criticisms sometimes, sometimes I think they're just whining, as I think of this article. I think that an article about a switch for Windows would have been much better.
emilsedgh 15y ago
Dislacimer: I've been involved in the KDE community in the past few years. However, im not a core developer or a decision maker and I just make very side contributions. What follows are my thoughts and obviously not KDE's. Main issues behind Linux on desktop: 1) Motivation. Volunteers are doing an incredible job. Truly amazing. Outstanding. No word describes it. However, how much can you expect from them? Most linux-based companies care very little about linux on desktop. On server linux, almost whole industry is based on FOSS stacks (linux, bsd, etc). Why on earth you expect UI developers do a job as good as server-side people? Most of them are pure volunteers. Until more companies are interested on Desktop linux, the situation is more or less the same. 2)Complexity. The whole stack is very complicated and is not handled by a single entity. Kernel, X, Qt/GTK, KDE/Gnome. Now, add to that distributions with different release policies. Different mix of the whole stack, each one producing a unique end-product. Thats much different from windows where they even 'build' the whole stack. 3)Excitement on desktop has been decreased. Desktop in not sexy anymore. Tablets are. Linux on desktop is in middle of some confusion at the moment. Their job is to produce high quality user interfaces. Not just for desktop. And they have lots of potential there. They are moving towards other form factors as well. Which is a big change. 4)Community's attitude. You see, the FOSS community is very big now. However, most people's attitude is teasing linux on desktop or criticizing it. As far as I can remember, open source attitude was 'scratch your own itch', 'get involved', etc. KDE and Gnome communities are both very very welcoming toward new developers. For example, KDE has ~1 new contributor each day. Which is a proof that it is actually pretty welcoming. In my personal opinion, Linux on desktop is actually doing incredibly well. Despite the above points, we have very high quality applications. We have very high quality API's. Awesome technologies. Most of the work has been done. We have great looking, stable, efficient workspace and applications. What remains is a bit of polish. (Although I have to say, I personally cant stand windows for more than 5 minutes) So, dear FOSS community. If you think linux on desktop sucks, help making it better. Thats how linux and open source works. I would also like to ask KDE users to actually help KDE. You can of course contribute to it or Join The Game[1] and give us a little bit of financial help. [1] http://jointhegame.kde.org http://jointhegame.kde.org Edit: fixed formatting.
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  My issue is that the Linux applications I use have good Windows ports, and it's hard to find motivation to improve an OS I don't use. There are even some Windows applications I use that don't have a Linux port. The usual response is "run it in WINE," but then I ask "why?" It already works! Linux is already a fine server OS and ecosystem. I think the "Linux desktop" has become less relevant with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Maybe it's time to start talking about which year will be the year of the Linux workstation. :)
slowcpu 15y ago
May I respectfully suggest that those who do not fulfill the minimum wetware requirements to run Linux successfully should stick to an operating system that is consistent with their cranial capacity.
- rchowe 15y ago
  Ubuntu was supposed to be the linux distribution that was easy for the everyday user. Now they're suffering from GNOME politics and Canonical treating their users as beta testers (but Unity works great for (most) people with Intel laptops). Don't get me wrong - Ubuntu has made great strides in usability, but it's not that linux is harder, it's that people who are already used to Windows will find it much "easier" because the mental shortcuts are already there, compared to Linux where they need to think about something as simple as launching a program. Combine that with the fact that Linux does break on occasion (mostly with regards to distro upgrades) and probably requires the command line to fix it and you get frustration on the user's part compared to Windows.
- danparsonson 15y ago
  May I respectfully suggest that many of those who fulfil the minimum wetware requirements would rather put that cranial capacity to other uses instead of wrestling with driver problems and Skype crashes? For some, those things are a hobby, and much respect to you if so; that does not however make the rest of us stupid.
- mkr-hn 15y ago
  There's nothing respectful about calling people who don't want to fiddle with Linux idiots. You can't say "may I respectfully suggest" and go on to insult people. It doesn't work that way.
deleted 15y ago
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jarin 15y ago
I think this is why so many developers have switched to Macs. Development on Windows sucks (in my opinion, of course, unless you're making Windows applications), and with OS X you get the best of both worlds: the power and flexibility of BSD, along with great desktop applications and a nice day-to-day user experience that "just works". Do I really want to worry about what sound driver I'm using, when I have clients waiting? Not so much.
- hackoder 15y ago
  Why does development on windows suck? For the most part, development on any platform (windows, osx, linux) seems to be about the same. Its the other stuff that can get annoying; mostly driver issues I would guess. But again, that's something that isn't a challenge on windows anyway?
  - jarin 15y ago
    For me it's mostly the ease (or lack of ease) of managing tools and dependencies. Homebrew, RVM, Pow, zsh, MacVim (or TextMate if that's your thing), et al. are amazing, not to mention all of the built-in packages. I'm aware that some things are usable via cygwin, but in my experience it's a huge pain and doesn't work with a ton of stuff I need anyway. I really don't like spending time futzing around with things if I don't have to, I just want to be able to "brew install redis" and be on my way.
    - hackoder 15y ago
      (To the other parent as well). Arguably, tools and dependency management is better on a linux platform. I've found (recently) that working in a VM is the right thing (tm) to do even on a *nix platform. It helps keep your development environment completely segregated and your "desktop" OS clean as well. Since nautilus has built in support for mounting a drive over SSH, and it is very doable on os x using something like MacFusion, the desktop OS just becomes a window into your development environment and becomes mostly secondary.
  - WayneDB 15y ago
qusiba 15y ago
I tried to install ubuntu on my new laptop recently. Honestly, it feels as bad as it did 10 years ago. Weird installation trap. Can't find drivers for my wireless adaptor. Sleep sometimes work, sometimes not. Tons of big or small problems like this. Yeah, after long hours of research, I got resolved most of the issues. But I doubt anyone who has less patience or less understanding of computer than I do would simply say "damn it!" Yeah, it could work, but it's crappy.
halo 15y ago
The root causes of Linux's problems are very hard to fix. It needs to aim to attract commercial developers by adding cohesive APIs and stable ABIs. That's going to be a real struggle. Linux is too fragmented, there's too much opposition to proprietary software, and the kernel developers don't believe in stable ABIs. Perhaps some sort of VM, à la Android's Dalvik or .NET, is the best solution for working around most of these problems in one fell swoop. Being OS independent also opens up approaches to solving driver problems in the long-term. I thought Haiku had a decent shot of avoiding these problems, but my optimism has waned. Its ageing rapidly, development is slow, and rather than trying to attract commercial developers they seem happy to repeat Linux's packaging mistakes.
yaix 15y ago
Couldn't agree more. I am using Ubuntu for many years and would never ever switch back to Windows or OSX. Despite the many flaws, Ubuntu (on Gnome and now Unity) is still better. But I would really really love if Canonical would just do one bug-patch-only release. Half a year of just fixing and cleaning up things would really help. Unfortunately, I doubt that it will ever happen.
reirob 15y ago
Very good article - both Part I and II. I completely understand the feelings of the author and I appreciate his constructive advices after so much pain. I am using/used Linux since '95. On my family's laptop Ubuntu 10.10 is still running, but I have the feeling it is the last Ubuntu version that we will use until the laptop dies - but I will not update to newer releases unless Ubuntu brings a desktop that improves usability without requiring 3D to work or Linux will get support for my graphics card, so at least I could try Unity. When we have to buy a new laptop it will be with Windows or maybe ChromeOS. I just do not want to go again through all the pains when choosing new hardware. For my personal/professional laptops I switched to Windows 5 years ago. Sometimes I need Linux to test some development then I install a VM. No hassle any more. As I missed bash as well, I installed Cygwin. I feel that additionally there are other world changes that drain the Linux desktop users: 1.) Desktops (no matter if it is Unix/Win/MacOS) do NOT matter as much as they used too. Since the time when I bought a modern phone, I realized that I actually use the laptops only when I need to write longer texts or print out something. Browsing/mailing/chatting/playing/skyping is a better experience on the phone than on the desktop (on the phone however typing is really bad). 2.) Windows became much better (if you skip Vista) since XP.
mbubb 15y ago
This article is better than most on the subject. I thought the analogy to communism weak but some of other points good. This was very true: What have you done? Sure, very few users are software engineers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help. Bug reports are just as important as patches. Ideas and suggestions for improvements are highly valued as well. Don’t sit in the shadows doing nothing - step into the light and do something to help your favorite project get a little bit better. Step by step. Fix by fix. Improvement by improvement. This is how good software gets created. For me I have been on the sidelines my whole career - and he is right. Should try to rectify this.
m0nastic 15y ago
As far as I can tell, the "problem" with Linux on the desktop is that there is no consensus that there is a problem. The category of people who use Linux, but complain about the desktop experience, seems to be a vocal minority (of the already tiny minority of computer users that use Linux). The overwhelming majority of us have moved on. My Linux desktop use is now limited to the once a year that I install a distro to force myself to use a different OS for a couple months, mostly to see what I'm missing. Turns out, I'm not missing anything, so after a couple months I go back to using a system I enjoy. But here's the thing, the people who use Linux as their main desktop environment aren't crazy, or fooling themselves. They prefer it to the alternatives. They evangelize about it (actually something I wish everyone would stop doing, regardless of their OS allegiance). For them, it's the best way to use their computer for the things that they want to use their computer for. So I'm not sure that there is a problem. With the exception of the small number of people who fantasize about a world-wide exodus from Windows to Linux on the desktop (who are certifiable, if they think there's a remote chance that will happen), I get the impression that most Linux users are quite happy with it (as well they should be). I think maybe twelve years ago, if you were a full-time Linux desktop user, you were probably compromising on technical quality for an ideological preference; but I don't think that's been true for a long time.
teyc 15y ago
There was this post by a professional driver developer who wrote Linux drivers for the hardware company he works for. The problem he said, (I'm now paraphrasing) is that the kernel APIs kept changing and he had to keep reworking his drivers. Even though the driver code may be in the source tree, in the end it is still his job to keep it working. Linux may have POSIX outside, but its cause would be further advanced if they committed to stabler interfaces for driver developers.

69 points by bozhidar 15y ago

These posts are becoming tiresome (not to say a little bit inconsistent). If Linux doesn't work for you, use something else. It's fine for a lot of people. In fact, most people I know who tried it, like it.

KonradKlause 15y ago

Can we please stop this? When you don't like Linux on your desktop, don't use it. It's that easy.

nagnatron 15y ago
It's feedback. From someone who's been using Linux for a long time. It's hardly random whining.
mkr-hn 15y ago
Stop what? People saying why Linux doesn't work as a desktop OS for them, or people posting those articles to HN?
- KonradKlause 15y ago
  The latter ;-)
dexen 15y ago
`Don't use Linux' is not `that easy'; pause for a moment and think about it. He can't go *BSD way, because drivers are scarcier, and that's a big no-no for him. And even more scarce on other less popular OSes, like Plan 9. He can't go MS Windows way, because it's less usable for him (duh). He can't go MacOS X because, uh, I dunno, personal preferences? Pricetag of the hardware+software? He whines and rehashes old arguments because he feels trapped in Linux, got nowhere else to go :-) Indeed, not a piece of News for Hackers.
- KonradKlause 15y ago
  Hehe, fair point.
- carmen 15y ago
  he could throw a maximized webkit and editor in ~/.xinitrc but he wouldnt have anything to complain about
  - twopoint718 15y ago
    Haha, take it just a bit farther. When you get hooked on a tiling window manager, all this twisting in the wind over what KDE/GNOME 3.0/Unity will do next really evaporates. The "surface area" of the GUI is so small there's very little to find issue with.
ryan_brunner 15y ago
The thing is, these complaints usually come from people who WANT linux to succeed on the desktop. I'm certainly one of those people - one of those poor unfortunate souls doing RoR development on a PC. Windows isn't a great option for me because the development ecosystem around Ruby on Windows is still fairly immature. Linux would be a perfect solution, if I could get more than a hour of battery life out of my laptop, my touchpad worked even remotely as well as it does in Windows, and selecting the wrong update didn't completely trash my system.
- pandeiro 15y ago
  Give up or don't give up, but agonizing about it accomplishes nothing. 6 months ago I received a new laptop that "just didn't work on Linux." I did a lot of research, tried different distros, hacked on it a lot, and now it is a dream to use, gets excellent battery life, and even suspend/resume work beautifully. Hackers don't agonize over this kind of shit, they get to work. If you don't want to invest the time, your choice is investing your $$$ in a Mac. Personally I am so happy with my laptop now that if someone offered me a brand new Macbook Whatever, for free, I'd say "No, thanks." Seriously. Good luck.
  - wonnage 15y ago
    Well, you also have the bias of wasting several weeks of your life trying to set up a laptop. Yeah, I said waste. Most people will counter by saying "but I learned linux!" No, you didn't, you learned to futz around with a bunch of conf files. I remember trying to make Pulseaudio work with my USB soundcard. Several hours of dicking about with asoundrc later and I a. still had a nonfunctional sound card b. still don't know how pulseaudio works Not that it isn't an accomplishment. Just, while it may be a source of personal satisfaction, don't expect people with less time than you do to feel the same way!
    - teyc 15y ago
      +1 It is like solving sudoku. There's a rush when you solve it, but it is not like you have made a genuine progress.
deleted 15y ago
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KeithMajhor 15y ago
It's a little bit hypocritical. But can we stop _this_. If you don't want to read articles about distaste of desktop linux. Don't click the link and/or downvote.
- gnosis 15y ago
  HN doesn't let you downvote articles. However, they can be flagged, if you feel they are inappropriate for HN.
reirob 15y ago
I really do not think that it is that black and white. First it is not about people who do not like Linux on the desktop but about people who used Linux on the desktop for many years, promoted it at their schools, at their companies, to their friends. And then after many years struggling against the same problems all over again they discover that it is not worth their time. Then there is another question - does it make the Linux desktop better if people (like the author and me) stop using it?

Spyro7 15y ago

I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately. I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works, trust me. I find it strange that the author says they should have gone back to FreeBSD. In terms of "desktop" experience, both of these operating systems are somewhat similar. I understand his complaints about the driver situation, but, really, this just means that you need to do some additional due diligence on your hardware. If you think that is troublesome, try installing OS X on non-Apple hardware. Now that can be a real adventure.

Stiffy 15y ago
The problem isn't Linux. The problem is GNOME, and to a lesser extent, KDE. GNOME is just not a good desktop environment, yet it has often been pushed as "the" Linux desktop by various distros and vendors. New Linux users end up using GNOME, finding that it's a pretty bad experience, and then they blame Linux and OSS as a whole. Had they used XFCE, for instance, they'd probably think otherwise. If recent experience is any indicator, it isn't getting any better. People are not happy with Ubuntu's use of Unity, for instance. Anything GTK+-based or GNOME-based ends up being a miserable experience for most people.
- shareme 15y ago
  actually laptop users of Intel laptops like Unity and hence Ubuntu choosing unity to push the desktop exp.. Ubuntu Unity is the number 1 feature OEMs weer asking form Ubuntu..
  - Stiffy 15y ago
    Not all Ubuntu users are using a laptop. It is absurd to penalize desktop users with a UI that just isn't suited to desktop use. OEMs often don't truly understand the needs and wants of their customers, as well. The recent backlash, even among laptop users, shows this quite well.
  - Zak 15y ago
    I briefly played with Unity as included with Ubuntu 11.04 and felt that it was interesting, but unfinished. I find Gnome 2 very usable now, though it had rough edges for years. Unity is less usable due to its rough edges. Distributions intended to bring new users to Linux might do well to focus more on testing than new features. I've been using Linux on various laptops for almost 10 years now and I don't want to deal with instability and broken things on my production machine. New users looking for an alternative to Windows will likely find the grass is not greener on the other side. I'm not talking about ugly UI or inconsistency. I'm talking about the fact that my Thinkpad won't suspend, that my sound sometimes stops working, that my notification icons for Skype and a couple other apps were 1px for over a month while the bug was well-known. tl;dr - less development, more testing.

revorad 15y ago

Unless something radically changes in the near future I don’t see how Linux can rise up to be a mainstream desktop OS. ... Desktop Linux has to be made somehow profitable for companies to start investing more heavily in it. This is the hard, but honest truth. As long as the primarily development is carried out with little (or no funding), mostly by volunteers the hour of the desktop Linux will never come. The radical change is tablets. Google is investing heavily in Android and will likely see big profits (indirectly). I'm writing this from a Windows laptop because my main Ubuntu laptop got screwed while upgrading. Everything that worked perfectly well for 3 years is now botched because of an "upgrade". The hour of the Linux desktop may eventually come but it will be irrelevant by then.

WayneDB 15y ago
Do you really think that desktop computers will become completely irrelevant? Are you talking about all sectors (devs, businesses + consumers) or just consumers?

nagnatron 15y ago

This my sound as an oxymoron, but Linux really shines as a desktop operation system for developers. If you're a regular desktop user, your basics are covered. But if you have a nicer camera an want to manage your photos, you're shit out of luck. Video editing software is abysmal. On the other hand you have 25 audio players of which maybe 3 work nicely.

httpitis 15y ago

To me, the article comes across as a request to the linux community for solving the linux desktop problem. In other words, when given a viable chioce, the author wants linux on his desktop. The author's complaints seems confirmed when looking at the trends [1] in market share for contemporary os's. >Desktop Linux has to be made somehow profitable for companies to start investing more heavily in it... I also believe that this is the major issue when trying to make linux successful on the desktop. So, what to do about it? [1] http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9 http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9

IvarTJ 15y ago
Android seems to be an example of a Linux-based operating system becoming successful partially because of its importance to hardware vendors. Could Linux distributions in general benefit from a hardware vendor becoming the goto vendor for Linux-running laptops and/or desktops?
- rchowe 15y ago
  Android is a different story. Even though it's based on Linux and is supposedly "open source", Google's still the driving force behind its development. So the problems the article points out with the linux development process won't really apply to Android. Canonical partnered with Dell for a while to get Ubuntu on a few systems (Dell had been looking for an alternative to windows and had gone to Apple to try to license OS X; Apple refused). Turned out customers didn't really want Ubuntu, and mostly installed (pirate?) Windows and wiped out Ubuntu. You can't just wipe out iOS and install Android on your iPhone (well you can on an original iPhone, but it's not as easy as installing a desktop OS). System76 is an Ubuntu-only computer vendor, but for most linux geeks they just buy any PC that works with the Linux flavor they want and put linux on it. Most non-geek linux users had linux put there by a geek linux user and don't know any better.
  - twopoint718 15y ago
    I think companies (yes companies) like System76 are the only real way forward for Linux On The Desktop but I think that they tend to get ignored in this discussion. Linux already has prominent commercial backing (Red Hat, Canonical, IBM, etc.) for server-focused systems and applications. And indeed, in this arena Linux has been very successful. Where these sorts of complaints should fall are directly on system builders (the Dells of the world). When someone hears about Linux, it should be possible for them to go to a store and maybe check one out. Think about the last time you bought something. Did you go to a shop and kick the tires a bit? When I wanted an Android phone that was unconnected to any particular carrier, I was lucky enough that Best Buy was partnered up with Google. I could hold a Nexus S and see if I liked it before I bought one. This hands-on experience matters. Your local LUG is trying to get the word out, but they're volunteers. We need more businesses who have a vested interest in selling Linux to regular users. When they are, then the product will be a better fit for those users. This is the difference between 'The Spirit of St. Louis' and American Airlines. Full disclosure, I bought a System76 machine and I'm very happy with it. It's good hardware and it all worked (and not just "works for me", but really worked). Getting a product like this is a good fit for a certain type of computer user. I have owned and bought computers before. It's refreshing to get a new computer that doesn't have layer upon layer of crapware pre-installed and I wasn't in need of some fetishistic unboxing experience; it came in a box that, when opened, it worked out of.

piger 15y ago

People keep saying "it works for me, go away", as if other people who care about a DECENT desktop experience are just morons. "Ah! Another stupid windows/osx user!" I don't care about your fvwm desktop with 99 xterms and emacs everywhere, or your fully customized arch linux that "works for you"; I, like many other people, have different needs. And yet the general response from the community is "fuck off". First rule of desktop linux: you do not complain about desktop linux. Greetings from the year 2011.

mbubb 15y ago
No - not true. There are glitches but none of them a dealbreaker. I am not a masochist - if it caused me pain I would have stopped using Linux on my laptop years ago. Much of what I do is commandline. So a not atypical work setup is to have some kind of messenger, a browser, a terminal and thunderbird running. That is 95% of my day and it works great. I would switch if it didn't. I am not trying to play the Linux version of the longbearded UNIX grump (http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/) . Really it works great and I would not willingly go back to Windows. And would grudgingly go back to MacOS. I don't understand the flipside - why people complain about Linux desktop. You should make it work or go back to your OS of choice. I get sucked into these articles because I think I might learn something or see something in a different way. THey almost always disapoint.
- wvenable 15y ago
  > You should make it work or go back to your OS of choice. I'm not sure that's even possible. If the complaint is a lack of drivers and poor support for hardware, how is the average developer supposed to deal with that?
zppx 15y ago
Well to be fair I saw a lot of people downvoted on HN because they got valid points criticizing OS X or even Rails, so your first rule applies in some other situations too, at least here, maybe it's a problem about discussions on the internet... I use a Mac so I understand their criticisms sometimes, sometimes I think they're just whining, as I think of this article. I think that an article about a switch for Windows would have been much better.

emilsedgh 15y ago

Dislacimer: I've been involved in the KDE community in the past few years. However, im not a core developer or a decision maker and I just make very side contributions. What follows are my thoughts and obviously not KDE's. Main issues behind Linux on desktop: 1) Motivation. Volunteers are doing an incredible job. Truly amazing. Outstanding. No word describes it. However, how much can you expect from them? Most linux-based companies care very little about linux on desktop. On server linux, almost whole industry is based on FOSS stacks (linux, bsd, etc). Why on earth you expect UI developers do a job as good as server-side people? Most of them are pure volunteers. Until more companies are interested on Desktop linux, the situation is more or less the same. 2)Complexity. The whole stack is very complicated and is not handled by a single entity. Kernel, X, Qt/GTK, KDE/Gnome. Now, add to that distributions with different release policies. Different mix of the whole stack, each one producing a unique end-product. Thats much different from windows where they even 'build' the whole stack. 3)Excitement on desktop has been decreased. Desktop in not sexy anymore. Tablets are. Linux on desktop is in middle of some confusion at the moment. Their job is to produce high quality user interfaces. Not just for desktop. And they have lots of potential there. They are moving towards other form factors as well. Which is a big change. 4)Community's attitude. You see, the FOSS community is very big now. However, most people's attitude is teasing linux on desktop or criticizing it. As far as I can remember, open source attitude was 'scratch your own itch', 'get involved', etc. KDE and Gnome communities are both very very welcoming toward new developers. For example, KDE has ~1 new contributor each day. Which is a proof that it is actually pretty welcoming. In my personal opinion, Linux on desktop is actually doing incredibly well. Despite the above points, we have very high quality applications. We have very high quality API's. Awesome technologies. Most of the work has been done. We have great looking, stable, efficient workspace and applications. What remains is a bit of polish. (Although I have to say, I personally cant stand windows for more than 5 minutes) So, dear FOSS community. If you think linux on desktop sucks, help making it better. Thats how linux and open source works. I would also like to ask KDE users to actually help KDE. You can of course contribute to it or Join The Game[1] and give us a little bit of financial help. [1] http://jointhegame.kde.org http://jointhegame.kde.org Edit: fixed formatting.

mkr-hn 15y ago
My issue is that the Linux applications I use have good Windows ports, and it's hard to find motivation to improve an OS I don't use. There are even some Windows applications I use that don't have a Linux port. The usual response is "run it in WINE," but then I ask "why?" It already works! Linux is already a fine server OS and ecosystem. I think the "Linux desktop" has become less relevant with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Maybe it's time to start talking about which year will be the year of the Linux workstation. :)

slowcpu 15y ago

May I respectfully suggest that those who do not fulfill the minimum wetware requirements to run Linux successfully should stick to an operating system that is consistent with their cranial capacity.

rchowe 15y ago
Ubuntu was supposed to be the linux distribution that was easy for the everyday user. Now they're suffering from GNOME politics and Canonical treating their users as beta testers (but Unity works great for (most) people with Intel laptops). Don't get me wrong - Ubuntu has made great strides in usability, but it's not that linux is harder, it's that people who are already used to Windows will find it much "easier" because the mental shortcuts are already there, compared to Linux where they need to think about something as simple as launching a program. Combine that with the fact that Linux does break on occasion (mostly with regards to distro upgrades) and probably requires the command line to fix it and you get frustration on the user's part compared to Windows.
danparsonson 15y ago
May I respectfully suggest that many of those who fulfil the minimum wetware requirements would rather put that cranial capacity to other uses instead of wrestling with driver problems and Skype crashes? For some, those things are a hobby, and much respect to you if so; that does not however make the rest of us stupid.
mkr-hn 15y ago
There's nothing respectful about calling people who don't want to fiddle with Linux idiots. You can't say "may I respectfully suggest" and go on to insult people. It doesn't work that way.

deleted 15y ago

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jarin 15y ago

I think this is why so many developers have switched to Macs. Development on Windows sucks (in my opinion, of course, unless you're making Windows applications), and with OS X you get the best of both worlds: the power and flexibility of BSD, along with great desktop applications and a nice day-to-day user experience that "just works". Do I really want to worry about what sound driver I'm using, when I have clients waiting? Not so much.

hackoder 15y ago
Why does development on windows suck? For the most part, development on any platform (windows, osx, linux) seems to be about the same. Its the other stuff that can get annoying; mostly driver issues I would guess. But again, that's something that isn't a challenge on windows anyway?
- jarin 15y ago
  For me it's mostly the ease (or lack of ease) of managing tools and dependencies. Homebrew, RVM, Pow, zsh, MacVim (or TextMate if that's your thing), et al. are amazing, not to mention all of the built-in packages. I'm aware that some things are usable via cygwin, but in my experience it's a huge pain and doesn't work with a ton of stuff I need anyway. I really don't like spending time futzing around with things if I don't have to, I just want to be able to "brew install redis" and be on my way.
  - hackoder 15y ago
    (To the other parent as well). Arguably, tools and dependency management is better on a linux platform. I've found (recently) that working in a VM is the right thing (tm) to do even on a *nix platform. It helps keep your development environment completely segregated and your "desktop" OS clean as well. Since nautilus has built in support for mounting a drive over SSH, and it is very doable on os x using something like MacFusion, the desktop OS just becomes a window into your development environment and becomes mostly secondary.
- WayneDB 15y ago

qusiba 15y ago

I tried to install ubuntu on my new laptop recently. Honestly, it feels as bad as it did 10 years ago. Weird installation trap. Can't find drivers for my wireless adaptor. Sleep sometimes work, sometimes not. Tons of big or small problems like this. Yeah, after long hours of research, I got resolved most of the issues. But I doubt anyone who has less patience or less understanding of computer than I do would simply say "damn it!" Yeah, it could work, but it's crappy.

halo 15y ago

The root causes of Linux's problems are very hard to fix. It needs to aim to attract commercial developers by adding cohesive APIs and stable ABIs. That's going to be a real struggle. Linux is too fragmented, there's too much opposition to proprietary software, and the kernel developers don't believe in stable ABIs. Perhaps some sort of VM, à la Android's Dalvik or .NET, is the best solution for working around most of these problems in one fell swoop. Being OS independent also opens up approaches to solving driver problems in the long-term. I thought Haiku had a decent shot of avoiding these problems, but my optimism has waned. Its ageing rapidly, development is slow, and rather than trying to attract commercial developers they seem happy to repeat Linux's packaging mistakes.

yaix 15y ago

Couldn't agree more. I am using Ubuntu for many years and would never ever switch back to Windows or OSX. Despite the many flaws, Ubuntu (on Gnome and now Unity) is still better. But I would really really love if Canonical would just do one bug-patch-only release. Half a year of just fixing and cleaning up things would really help. Unfortunately, I doubt that it will ever happen.

reirob 15y ago

Very good article - both Part I and II. I completely understand the feelings of the author and I appreciate his constructive advices after so much pain. I am using/used Linux since '95. On my family's laptop Ubuntu 10.10 is still running, but I have the feeling it is the last Ubuntu version that we will use until the laptop dies - but I will not update to newer releases unless Ubuntu brings a desktop that improves usability without requiring 3D to work or Linux will get support for my graphics card, so at least I could try Unity. When we have to buy a new laptop it will be with Windows or maybe ChromeOS. I just do not want to go again through all the pains when choosing new hardware. For my personal/professional laptops I switched to Windows 5 years ago. Sometimes I need Linux to test some development then I install a VM. No hassle any more. As I missed bash as well, I installed Cygwin. I feel that additionally there are other world changes that drain the Linux desktop users: 1.) Desktops (no matter if it is Unix/Win/MacOS) do NOT matter as much as they used too. Since the time when I bought a modern phone, I realized that I actually use the laptops only when I need to write longer texts or print out something. Browsing/mailing/chatting/playing/skyping is a better experience on the phone than on the desktop (on the phone however typing is really bad). 2.) Windows became much better (if you skip Vista) since XP.

mbubb 15y ago

This article is better than most on the subject. I thought the analogy to communism weak but some of other points good. This was very true: What have you done? Sure, very few users are software engineers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help. Bug reports are just as important as patches. Ideas and suggestions for improvements are highly valued as well. Don’t sit in the shadows doing nothing - step into the light and do something to help your favorite project get a little bit better. Step by step. Fix by fix. Improvement by improvement. This is how good software gets created. For me I have been on the sidelines my whole career - and he is right. Should try to rectify this.

m0nastic 15y ago

As far as I can tell, the "problem" with Linux on the desktop is that there is no consensus that there is a problem. The category of people who use Linux, but complain about the desktop experience, seems to be a vocal minority (of the already tiny minority of computer users that use Linux). The overwhelming majority of us have moved on. My Linux desktop use is now limited to the once a year that I install a distro to force myself to use a different OS for a couple months, mostly to see what I'm missing. Turns out, I'm not missing anything, so after a couple months I go back to using a system I enjoy. But here's the thing, the people who use Linux as their main desktop environment aren't crazy, or fooling themselves. They prefer it to the alternatives. They evangelize about it (actually something I wish everyone would stop doing, regardless of their OS allegiance). For them, it's the best way to use their computer for the things that they want to use their computer for. So I'm not sure that there is a problem. With the exception of the small number of people who fantasize about a world-wide exodus from Windows to Linux on the desktop (who are certifiable, if they think there's a remote chance that will happen), I get the impression that most Linux users are quite happy with it (as well they should be). I think maybe twelve years ago, if you were a full-time Linux desktop user, you were probably compromising on technical quality for an ideological preference; but I don't think that's been true for a long time.

teyc 15y ago

There was this post by a professional driver developer who wrote Linux drivers for the hardware company he works for. The problem he said, (I'm now paraphrasing) is that the kernel APIs kept changing and he had to keep reworking his drivers. Even though the driver code may be in the source tree, in the end it is still his job to keep it working. Linux may have POSIX outside, but its cause would be further advanced if they committed to stabler interfaces for driver developers.