12 ms·

Lots of questions around GUI apps. As someone pointed out, GUI apps have been "almost" working for years. Darling looks great but it hasn't gotten near as much

• freedomben 5y ago
  > Having Linux run iOS, macOS, Android, and Windows applications running would be nothing less than mind-boggling, and would finally get people to stop yelling that nothing runs on Linux Nothing will stop those people from yelling that, because it hasn't been true in a very long time and that doesn't stop them. These are the same people who say they don't want to run Linux because they don't want to compile their sound card drivers. They are already way outside of rational territory and deep into religious territory. In their minds Linux hasn't changed a bit since 1999, even though if you were to compare mac os from that time period against modern linux, they would become enraged at the unfairness and injustice.
  • Osiris 5y ago
    To get my bluetooth adapter to work I had to find a third-party driver, compile it, and manually setup DKMS so it'll update whenever a new kernel gets installed. That's a much more complicated process that either macOS or Windows.
    • jorvi 5y ago
      For macOS to use a USB <> Ethernet adapter I had to hunt down some obscure driver, and after a certain macOS update it kept putting it in a folder on the desktop after each update despite it working if I just reinstalled it. I absolutely used to love macOS and thought that they must have the cleanest nicest code in the world because they have such a well-developed UI+UX, but in the end, the core code below it has the same wrinkles as any software project. They’re just paved over. Plus, Apple loves to let stuff fail silently.
      • jandrese 5y ago
        On the flipside I have an older but functional scanner[1] that doesn't have a driver for modern Windows (Latest version is for Windows 7 32-bit) or Mac (Latest version 10.6), but still works perfectly fine in Linux. [1] https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/scanners/support-scanners-canoscan-series/canoscan-lide-35?tab=drivers_downloads https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/de...
        • happymellon 5y ago
          My Brother laser printer doesn't have a driver that works on MacOS anymore, it's old enough that it tries to install some 32bit software which is rejected. Similar situation for Windows as yourself, only unsigned XP drivers. Linux works without installing anything.
    • freedomben 5y ago
      I don't doubt that happened to you, but I've had almost a dozen bluetooth devices and I've only had one not work OOTB. I'm using OnePlus Buds Pro with my linux laptop right now and it paired flawlessly. Generally speaking, bluetooth is a complicated and proprietary mess though and many (especially cheaper vendors) don't bother testing at all. I'm actually amazed that bluetooth works as well as it does on linux. Taking a few minutes before a hardware purchase to check compatibility is a really good idea.
      • dkonofalski 5y ago
        >I've only had one not work OOTB That seems like a terrible success rate, though, doesn't it? 1 out 12 bluetooth devices failed to work whereas they work 100% on Windows? For the average user, that is definitely going to be a dealbreaker.
        • happymellon 5y ago
          I have several pieces of Bluetooth hardware that don't work on my Mac. I get told that I should have bought something that was Mac compatible, and no one says that Mac's have a terrible out of the box experience or that it makes it a deal-breaker.
          • dkonofalski 5y ago
            Any specific examples? I've been using Macs and PCs for over 25 years and Linux on and off for 10 or so and have never had issues with Bluetooth devices on Mac or PC. That even includes some hacky Bluetooth hardware and emulation hardware.
    • colordrops 5y ago
      How long ago was this and what was the make and model? I haven't had Bluetooth driver problems for a while.
    • pessimizer 5y ago
      > That's a much more complicated process that either macOS or Windows. Especially when the process on macOS or Windows is that they do not support that bluetooth adapter, they will never support it, and you should just buy a different one. I do my hardware compatibility checking before I buy. If I'm going to have to track down and compile drivers, it's my punishment for wanting a bleeding edge thing, and I always know what I'm getting into.
  • txdv 5y ago
    Been playing a lot of steam games with proton, it is mind bogling how valve expanded from support for linux for the source engine to support 70% of the games.
    • Legion 5y ago
      That's what's making the Steam Deck possible. And the release of the Steam Deck is only going to bring more attention to Proton and accelerate further development.
    • code_biologist 5y ago
      70% of games big asterisk The giant youtube channel Linus Tech Tips has done a recent series of videos on gaming on linux. On Jan 1 they published a 15 min summary video that covers that 70% claim in a much more nuanced way: https://youtu.be/Rlg4K16ujFw https://youtu.be/Rlg4K16ujFw Punchline: it's kinda true, but there's plenty of struggle for new and multiplayer games still.
      • hn8788 5y ago
        There are even bigger caveats to that number than what they mentioned in the video. Since all the ratings are based on user reports, there is no standard for what is considered a working game. You can look through pretty much any game and find positive reports that mention frequent crashes, performance issues, missing textures, requires a custom proton version, etc., but since it launches, they gave it a thumbs up. I've tried platinum rated games that are completely unplayable, ProtonDB ratings are a general guide at best. ProtonDB also considers a game as "working" if even a single person gave it a thumbs up, so the big "17,984 games work" on the home page is very misleading.
        • als0 5y ago
          I can already envisage some poor Valve employee who's going through each ProtonDB entry to make individual workarounds for the Steam Deck release.
      • smoldesu 5y ago
  • aspaceman 5y ago
    > They are already way outside of rational territory and deep into religious territory. In their minds Linux hasn't changed a bit since 1999, even though if you were to compare mac os from that time period against modern linux, they would become enraged at the unfairness and injustice. I agree that this is part of it. But I also just see plain antagonism against Linux because people recommend it. Just pure contrarianism. But a lot of the recommendations for Proton are also "memey". It's a bad fit if you need Anti-Cheat or proper injection protection. And that's just the nature of the beast. A proper Anti-Cheat _shouldn't_ approve of the injection necessary to get Proton working So I do have to keep a Windows installation myself. But Proton represents a really cool technical milestone. Weird the way people talk about tech in games.
  • dmitriid 5y ago
    While Linux has changed, the rest of the world changed, too. So yes, on the one hand people will want things like Sketch and Logic Pro, and on the other they will want good trackpads and reliable hibernation.
  • twblalock 5y ago
    > These are the same people who say they don't want to run Linux because they don't want to compile their sound card drivers. They are already way outside of rational territory and deep into religious territory. It's rational for me to want my sound card to work without having to compile code. No other operating system would make me compile code to fulfill such a rudimentary and basic expectation. That's not religion, that's usability. I can't imagine trying to walk my parents through compiling a kernel driver to get their hardware working, and that's why I've never tried to get them to use Linux. If you want normal people to use Linux you should never, ever, ever ask them to even use a terminal, much less a compiler. I've used Linux on the desktop, on and off, for over 20 years -- in fact, since the year 1999 as you mentioned. It still sucks. Every time I come back to it I have at least one driver problem. It's not ok, and it's not defensible. Instead of defending it and blaming critics for being "religious," admit that it has faults. Things only get better when we recognize the deficiencies and fix them, as Valve has been trying to do with Proton.
    • colordrops 5y ago
      You missed the point. You typically don't have to compile anything for your sound card, assuming you even have one anyone considering that motherboards have had integrated sound forever now.
      • twblalock 5y ago
        • coder543 5y ago
          Windows doesn't work for everybody either, and I do mean actual problems with Windows not working, even pre-installed from the factory. I don't even have to look outside the circle of people I know in person to have seen this. Googling for Windows not working with $X specific laptop instantly reveals quite a treasure trove beyond the people I know, where $X can be pretty much any Windows laptop. Everything from fingerprint readers no longer working to even simple things like the function key hotkeys no longer working. Issues with sound drivers not working are far from unheard of on Windows laptops. You definitely seem to have missed their point, and, in my opinion, you're being unnecessarily antagonistic.
  • chana_masala 5y ago
    > because they don't want to compile their sound card drivers I literally had to do this to get my sound card working on a new laptop recently. I know it is partially my fault for choosing such a new laptop and expecting Linux to work on it, but still... it's not an unreasonable expectation to have in 2022.
    • pessimizer 5y ago
      Nothing's special about 2022. The reason Linux doesn't work out of the box with things that aren't in a lot of developers' hands yet hasn't changed. What's reasonable about thinking that the year matters?
  • 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    Google all the sound problems people had and the solutions for the 2020 Dell XPS 17. People have that attitude because it still happens from time to time. It’s much rarer. But it still happens.
  • KronisLV 5y ago
    > These are the same people who say they don't want to run Linux because they don't want to compile their sound card drivers. They are already way outside of rational territory and deep into religious territory. In their minds Linux hasn't changed a bit since 1999, even though if you were to compare mac os from that time period against modern linux, they would become enraged at the unfairness and injustice. In common hardware and software configurations things have gotten way better indeed! However, if you venture outside of what's commonly available, expect trouble, same as you'd get with FreeBSD and most other OSes out there. For example, i bought a netbook much like this one: https://techbite.eu/en/laptopy/laptop-zin-3-14-1 https://techbite.eu/en/laptopy/laptop-zin-3-14-1 because it fit within my price point (a university student at the time) and my other requirements for something lightweight and compact for note taking. Sadly, upon purging Windows from it (since 4 GB of RAM total made it unusable) and replacing it with Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora or Linux Mint (in approx. that order), i ran into quite a few issues: - on some distros (Fedora in particular, i think one or two more) the touchpad didn't work by default, some piece of configuration needed to be edited - on some distros (can't remember which), sound didn't appear to be working correctly - on none of the distros Wi-Fi seemed to work correctly out of the box That last bit was especially sad, since the netbook doesn't have an ethernet port by itself, so i had to do an air gapped install of some custom drivers that someone had patched together... but not before discovering that most distros out there don't have GCC out of the box (or some of the other dependencies, can't remember) and that putting it on a USB stick is curiously difficult, when the install will fail unless you also manage to download all of the dependencies that you need for the package and installing all of them at the same time (no CD/DVD drive either, by the way). Oh, and curiously compiling drivers and messing around with DKMS or whatever isn't as straightforward as one might always expect, something about headers and versions and whatnot... In the end, i got it working, sort of. After realizing that the fingerprint scanner which was working in Windows isn't detected at all as a device on Linux, i just gave up on that particular aspect and took Wi-Fi working as enough of a success for my needs at the time. Also, it seemed like the fingerprint scanning software on Linux had a very specific set of supported hardware, a la sound drivers in these older days. Now, you could argue that i'm using a configuration that isn't necessarily supported with some seemingly random piece of hardware and you'd probably be right in doing so, since the official drivers were only available for Windows on the manufacturer's site. But i'd argue that it doesn't really matter because the outcome is what's important and what will impact how people feel about the OS. The takeaway here is that no matter what you do, you probably should stick to the more common hardware configurations and devices out there. And not just in regards to Linux, but also things like your smartphones (my rugged model hasn't received any actual updates in a while because the manufacturers clearly don't care, as it turns out) and even SoC devices (e.g. Raspberry Pi over alternatives, unless you can get a really good deal). That said, Linux has come a long way and i hope that most of the distros out there will just keep getting better, since Mint + XFCE made the resources constrained hardware pretty usable, as would Debian + XFCE and others (DEs like LXDE or LXQt or whatever). That's pretty cool, in my eyes!
  • pjmlp 5y ago
    I use Linux in various forms since 1995's Summer, starting with Slackware 2.0, and yes GNU/Linux desktop experience is still far behind the alternatives. I am remembered of it every day I have to reboot Network Manager on Ubuntu LTS to reconnect to my wlan, on a EEE PC that was even sold with Linux on it. When this netbook dies, the only desktops I will keep using are on the form of Android, VMWare or some headless stuff, anything beyond POSIX APIs is always expecting too much.
  • anaganisk 5y ago
    I had to compile a driver for my USB gaming keyboard, from a third party source, btw that keyboard worked seamlessly on my windows machine. Whats your point? I use linux exclusively for work, and windows exclusively for Personal use because many top games don’t even run on linux, yes I tried proton. And Adobe doesn’t even want to bless Linux, no Gimp is no where near to Photoshop.
    • happymellon 5y ago
      What keyboard required a driver to be compiled? Also, software that doesn't run in wine these days is usually due to anti-piracy/anti-cheat as they try to dig into your operating system. Since these are anti-ethical to how Linux works, if you are fine running these sorts of things then why would you try and switch to Linux?
      • anaganisk 5y ago
        Redragon keyboard. And where I tried to imply im trying to switch to linux I don’t know, I balance my usage with linux and windows. If running major softwares used by lots of people is anti-ethical to linux, people must stop suggesting it as a daily driver for them. Speak to any gamer about if he wants anti-cheat or privacy, without hesitation they will say anti-cheat, so stop suggest proton as a magical replacement. If linux wants to be a daily driver, it needs to be as seamless as windows. I don’t want to spend dozens of hours on what config, or driver i have to tinker with to get some basic software or hardware support. Linux is not there yet. btw Nvidia graphics are proprietary and not exactly opensource, since its anti ethical to linux philosophy, shall we stop using graphic cards?
        • happymellon 5y ago
          Nvidia isn't the only game in town, my AMD GPU works great. But also I didn't say that running closed source is against Linux. Trying to run software rootkits for other OS' is anti-ethical to Linux. And whenever anyone asks if they should switch to Linux,if all they want it to be is a Windows emulator then I would recommend against it.
  • coldtea 5y ago
    >These are the same people who say they don't want to run Linux because they don't want to compile their sound card drivers. They are already way outside of rational territory Not wanting to "compile their sound card drivers" sounds like a very rational argument to me... >In their minds Linux hasn't changed a bit since 1999 It did, but other OSes are also a moving target. Seen Linux (the vlogger) try to get a basic system running? (And I'm an old UNIX+Linux hat with 25 years of experience).
• lelanthran 5y ago
  > I'm sure people used to say "it'll be years before it'll be a viable solution" when Wine was in its infancy. I don't think so. Wine was viable for me, playing Starcraft Brood Wars in 2000. Other than games, in 2000 it was running a significant number of minor applications for me.
  • bww 5y ago
    Wine was originally released in 1993. You're talking about a period 7 years into it's development. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)
    • lelanthran 5y ago
      > Wine was originally released in 1993. You're talking about a period 7 years into it's development. So? Darling is 9 years into its[1] development and hasn't really reached the maturity that Wine had after 7 years of development. If memory serves me correctly[2], I'm quite sure that I played one or two Directx games on Linux using Wine in Dec-1998 - that's 5 years of development. Fair enough, most of the games/apps did not run (Dune 2k was listed as "working" so I ran out and bought a copy only to find that it got no further than the game menu screen) but it ran more Windowed programs and full-screen games back then than Darling does now, so I don't think that I am performing an unfair comparison in that regard. It might be that there is just not enough contributors to Darling to proceed at the pace that Wine did. [1] I don't believe an apostrophe goes between the 't' and the 's'. [2] At this stage of my life I treat my memory as a rough guide to past events, not as a record of what happened, so I could be wrong about the dates towards the end of the 90s.
      • samtheDamned 5y ago
        > So? Darling is 9 years into its[1] development and hasn't really reached the maturity that Wine had after 7 years of development. In 1993 wine had a much smaller target though, windows was in its infancy. Darling started in 2012, over a decade after mac-OSX, which even at that point was an established OS brand.