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The Linux Desktop is like building a house by asking random craftspeople to each design, build, and install a single piece of the house. One craftsperson prepar

The Linux Desktop is like building a house by asking random craftspeople to each design, build, and install a single piece of the house. One craftsperson preparing one plank of wood; a second craftsperson preparing a second plank of wood, etc. Later, one craftsperson turning those planks of wood into a door frame. Then another craftsperson to add a handle & lock. And another adding the hinges. Yet another hanging it on the wall. On and on, for every single component in the house. This does not lead to a well-functioning house. It will be creaky, leaky, drafty, and ugly, and more difficult/costly to maintain. Yes, you can live in it. It may even be lighter, or cheaper, or in some other way technically superior to other houses. But most people will get really annoyed by it, and just want a house built by a single contractor that "just works". This is even ignoring the gigantic elephant in the room, which is hardware support. Getting hardware to work with a Linux desktop has only two options: buy from an OEM that ships a supported Linux OS, or play a combination of russian roulette & home auto mechanic. (Linux desktop user for 20 years)

aliswe 5y ago
why the downvotes, this is spot on.
pizza234 5y ago
I think this is overly pessimistic, although fundamentally correct. The silliest yet most iconic (no pun intended) problem I can think of is the necessity to create bookmarks multiple times for each of the graphic libraries of the system, depending on the program run. Yikes. On the other hand, I think it's crucial evaluate the audience and their expectations. Even with the small flaws, Linux has reached the point where it can be used by the vast majority of users, the ones without too many expectations. They will complain about bluetooth with any operating system anyway ;) Hardcore users will fix the system at any cost (I do), so they don't really matter, and I think they're a few (in proportion). I think linux is paradoxically not fit for middle ground - the power user, who expects a certain consistency when digging deeper than just regular user. How much of the whole audience those three segments represents... it's hard to say. All in all though, I'm certainly disappointed that even on laptops that officially support Linux, there are still minor issues.
throwanem 5y ago
If this isn't written with reference to the classic UNIX-HATERS Handbook [1], it certainly could have been - the metaphor of living in a building site is common to both, and no less accurate now than then regardless of whether this is reference or rediscovery. [1] https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
You can add to this that some major carpenters (I point my finger at you, Gnome team) will one day come to your house and suddenly remove a few planks here and there that you've been happily using for several years and turn a deaf ear at all protests.
dTal 5y ago
But that's exactly how houses are built. I wouldn't want to live in a house where the lumberjack who cut down the trees also designed the toilet.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
... What, as opposed to Windows, which is so consistent? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754
- temac 5y ago
  And it's not even just the UI. But yeah, that's basically for both systems, would be really hard to say "this one is overall more consistent than this one."
smoldesu 5y ago
In my experience, Linux hardware support is significantly better than MacOS and Windows (particularly 11, but even trumps 10 and 7 in most regards), and I'd like to see proof otherwise.
- wmf 5y ago
  Historically Windows has had better "day one" hardware support while Linux has better support for old or obscure hardware.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  How much time do you have? I could write an entire book on shitty Linux hardware support. My current laptop: - Every time I connect any Bluetooth headset it usually (but not always) defaults to HSP/HFP rather than A2DP. I have googled lots, and apparently it's some sort of known bug, though nobody knows why it happens. None of the publicly-known fixes (yes I tried all of them) fix it. Sometimes A2DP just disappears as an option entirely, and I have to unpair and repair multiple times until it comes back. - My video sucks. This laptop has hybrid graphics, which is sort of supported, depending on the kernel, the userland, the graphics cards & drivers. There is no official documentation of how to set it up (edit there is of course one or two distros with a Wiki page on setting up one or two graphics cards on one or two laptops, but if you don't have that particular hardware, "good luck" because it works differently for different hardware), and of course the distro doesn't figure it out automatically, leading to a wonderful scavenger hunt across the internet, that I have never needed to do with Windows. A magical combination of kernel arguments, environment variables, and driver configuration, lead to at least the graphics no longer having random tearing artifacts. There's no apparent way to turn off the card, either, so the GPU just soaks up power & generates heat, which makes the CPU fan churn all the time. - Speaking of CPU: In a previous, really old distro, after fucking around with CPU frequency scaling a bunch, I accidentally got the CPU fan stuck on full-speed for 6 months. Later I installed some userland program which magically reset the CPU fan. I was able to tweak /sys/ files to silence the fan or make it explode, based on CPU scaling. But on modern kernels? The fan churns no matter how much I turn down CPU freq. None of the userland tools for CPU or GPU freq scaling make any difference, presumably because Linux simply exposes different controls for different hardware, and of course it changes from kernel to kernel, and the userland apps either don't keep up, or the drivers' functionality just doesn't work due to regressions. It actually worked in the older distro, though. (That's another thing Linux literally does not have: regression testing for hardware support, much less software, or a single database of officially supported/tested hardware) - I can finally use power saving with WiFi without causing either a kernel panic or packet loss. This was a very old driver defect in very popular wifi cards, and this laptop is 5 years old. The suggested fix was "get a different wifi card". And of course, Windows did not have this bug. But better late than never? That's just this distro + laptop. I have tried previous laptops with different distros where hard drives couldn't be detected or used during the OS install, where hardware was simply not detected, buggy drivers with missing hardware support, not to mention trying to figure out UEFI's bullshit. I've had sound cards not work, keyboard buttons not work, trackpads' functionality not fully supported, touch screens not be detected/work, and most every built-in SD card reader I've tried to use doesn't work or is a pain. Then there's the often not-working USB/HDMI hardware (cameras, audio, video, docking stations, etc) and keyboard feature keys like on/off wifi, display switching, brightness, volume, microphone, camera. Some will reply with "yeah you need to spend a week researching fixes, what did you expect?" And some will reply "something like one of those things happened to me on Windows!" But in almost every case, any PC hardware will be designed and tested by the manufacturer to work on Windows, before they even ship their product, and is officially supported on (usually only) Windows. They will test their hardware on a given Windows version, release drivers, provide documentation, and accept bug reports. There is no such thing like that for Linux; either it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, tough luck. You can try to track down a kernel driver developer to report a bug. All of that's way over any average user's head, and it's really annoying even for me, a veritable expert. Some hardware may work better on Linux because of poor drivers on Windows. But the hardware was designed for Windows, and is supported by the manufacturer for Windows. There is no logical argument that can claim Linux support is better if it's nonexistent.
michaelmrose 5y ago
You would be hard put to find a house that wasn't built exactly like the Linux Desktop is. Your general contractor (distribution) hires a variety of contractors to install a massive pile of different components very few designed particularly for your house. Your analogy only works on the surface because of the odd notion of putting the component boundary at the board somehow. The difference isn't the unconnected nature of the work which is virtuous its the resources available. No general contractor does the work needed to integrate all the many any varied components into a pleasing design for free and none of the components themselves are free. This flow of resources is what funds both the creation of said components and their proper integration. Because software has zero marginal cost an acceptable Linux Desktop experience can be cobbled together from what efforts people are willing to donate and what can be gleaned from resources invested in more valuable endeavors like servers. The elephant in the room isn't figuring out how to get people to donate enough labor to make a third party OS work on every computer in the world, an impossible Sisyphean labor, its either convincing enough users to buy Linux computers for Linux support or finding some other way of getting sufficient investment for a more polished experience. In any case nobody wonders out loud how we can possibly get Mac OS to have better hardware support people just buy a mac. I submit that there is also a third option. Google "name of my prospective computer" and the word Linux.
leshokunin 5y ago
Just need to say it’s impressive how so many replies to you are literal and pointing out flaws in the analogy. Rather than thinking about why product development on Linux can’t seem to ever catch a break. Kind of ironic, but I suspect you knew it’d happen.

aliswe 5y ago

why the downvotes, this is spot on.

pizza234 5y ago

I think this is overly pessimistic, although fundamentally correct. The silliest yet most iconic (no pun intended) problem I can think of is the necessity to create bookmarks multiple times for each of the graphic libraries of the system, depending on the program run. Yikes. On the other hand, I think it's crucial evaluate the audience and their expectations. Even with the small flaws, Linux has reached the point where it can be used by the vast majority of users, the ones without too many expectations. They will complain about bluetooth with any operating system anyway ;) Hardcore users will fix the system at any cost (I do), so they don't really matter, and I think they're a few (in proportion). I think linux is paradoxically not fit for middle ground - the power user, who expects a certain consistency when digging deeper than just regular user. How much of the whole audience those three segments represents... it's hard to say. All in all though, I'm certainly disappointed that even on laptops that officially support Linux, there are still minor issues.

throwanem 5y ago

If this isn't written with reference to the classic UNIX-HATERS Handbook [1], it certainly could have been - the metaphor of living in a building site is common to both, and no less accurate now than then regardless of whether this is reference or rediscovery. [1] https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago

You can add to this that some major carpenters (I point my finger at you, Gnome team) will one day come to your house and suddenly remove a few planks here and there that you've been happily using for several years and turn a deaf ear at all protests.

dTal 5y ago

But that's exactly how houses are built. I wouldn't want to live in a house where the lumberjack who cut down the trees also designed the toilet.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago

... What, as opposed to Windows, which is so consistent? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27556754

temac 5y ago
And it's not even just the UI. But yeah, that's basically for both systems, would be really hard to say "this one is overall more consistent than this one."

smoldesu 5y ago

In my experience, Linux hardware support is significantly better than MacOS and Windows (particularly 11, but even trumps 10 and 7 in most regards), and I'd like to see proof otherwise.

wmf 5y ago
Historically Windows has had better "day one" hardware support while Linux has better support for old or obscure hardware.
throwaway984393 5y ago
How much time do you have? I could write an entire book on shitty Linux hardware support. My current laptop: - Every time I connect any Bluetooth headset it usually (but not always) defaults to HSP/HFP rather than A2DP. I have googled lots, and apparently it's some sort of known bug, though nobody knows why it happens. None of the publicly-known fixes (yes I tried all of them) fix it. Sometimes A2DP just disappears as an option entirely, and I have to unpair and repair multiple times until it comes back. - My video sucks. This laptop has hybrid graphics, which is sort of supported, depending on the kernel, the userland, the graphics cards & drivers. There is no official documentation of how to set it up (edit there is of course one or two distros with a Wiki page on setting up one or two graphics cards on one or two laptops, but if you don't have that particular hardware, "good luck" because it works differently for different hardware), and of course the distro doesn't figure it out automatically, leading to a wonderful scavenger hunt across the internet, that I have never needed to do with Windows. A magical combination of kernel arguments, environment variables, and driver configuration, lead to at least the graphics no longer having random tearing artifacts. There's no apparent way to turn off the card, either, so the GPU just soaks up power & generates heat, which makes the CPU fan churn all the time. - Speaking of CPU: In a previous, really old distro, after fucking around with CPU frequency scaling a bunch, I accidentally got the CPU fan stuck on full-speed for 6 months. Later I installed some userland program which magically reset the CPU fan. I was able to tweak /sys/ files to silence the fan or make it explode, based on CPU scaling. But on modern kernels? The fan churns no matter how much I turn down CPU freq. None of the userland tools for CPU or GPU freq scaling make any difference, presumably because Linux simply exposes different controls for different hardware, and of course it changes from kernel to kernel, and the userland apps either don't keep up, or the drivers' functionality just doesn't work due to regressions. It actually worked in the older distro, though. (That's another thing Linux literally does not have: regression testing for hardware support, much less software, or a single database of officially supported/tested hardware) - I can finally use power saving with WiFi without causing either a kernel panic or packet loss. This was a very old driver defect in very popular wifi cards, and this laptop is 5 years old. The suggested fix was "get a different wifi card". And of course, Windows did not have this bug. But better late than never? That's just this distro + laptop. I have tried previous laptops with different distros where hard drives couldn't be detected or used during the OS install, where hardware was simply not detected, buggy drivers with missing hardware support, not to mention trying to figure out UEFI's bullshit. I've had sound cards not work, keyboard buttons not work, trackpads' functionality not fully supported, touch screens not be detected/work, and most every built-in SD card reader I've tried to use doesn't work or is a pain. Then there's the often not-working USB/HDMI hardware (cameras, audio, video, docking stations, etc) and keyboard feature keys like on/off wifi, display switching, brightness, volume, microphone, camera. Some will reply with "yeah you need to spend a week researching fixes, what did you expect?" And some will reply "something like one of those things happened to me on Windows!" But in almost every case, any PC hardware will be designed and tested by the manufacturer to work on Windows, before they even ship their product, and is officially supported on (usually only) Windows. They will test their hardware on a given Windows version, release drivers, provide documentation, and accept bug reports. There is no such thing like that for Linux; either it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, tough luck. You can try to track down a kernel driver developer to report a bug. All of that's way over any average user's head, and it's really annoying even for me, a veritable expert. Some hardware may work better on Linux because of poor drivers on Windows. But the hardware was designed for Windows, and is supported by the manufacturer for Windows. There is no logical argument that can claim Linux support is better if it's nonexistent.

michaelmrose 5y ago

You would be hard put to find a house that wasn't built exactly like the Linux Desktop is. Your general contractor (distribution) hires a variety of contractors to install a massive pile of different components very few designed particularly for your house. Your analogy only works on the surface because of the odd notion of putting the component boundary at the board somehow. The difference isn't the unconnected nature of the work which is virtuous its the resources available. No general contractor does the work needed to integrate all the many any varied components into a pleasing design for free and none of the components themselves are free. This flow of resources is what funds both the creation of said components and their proper integration. Because software has zero marginal cost an acceptable Linux Desktop experience can be cobbled together from what efforts people are willing to donate and what can be gleaned from resources invested in more valuable endeavors like servers. The elephant in the room isn't figuring out how to get people to donate enough labor to make a third party OS work on every computer in the world, an impossible Sisyphean labor, its either convincing enough users to buy Linux computers for Linux support or finding some other way of getting sufficient investment for a more polished experience. In any case nobody wonders out loud how we can possibly get Mac OS to have better hardware support people just buy a mac. I submit that there is also a third option. Google "name of my prospective computer" and the word Linux.

leshokunin 5y ago

Just need to say it’s impressive how so many replies to you are literal and pointing out flaws in the analogy. Rather than thinking about why product development on Linux can’t seem to ever catch a break. Kind of ironic, but I suspect you knew it’d happen.