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I sometimes see Linux users sneering at Windows and Mac design mistakes or lack of “freedom”… but then there’s stuff like this. Of course, Linux is then conven

I sometimes see Linux users sneering at Windows and Mac design mistakes or lack of “freedom”… but then there’s stuff like this. Of course, Linux is then conveniently redefined in a way that nobody can be responsible, with finger pointing on every issue, rather than admit design flaws like this plague Linux as a whole.

frollogaston 1y ago
I wish there were such thing as just "installing Linux" on a computer, and it shows the penguin when you boot up.
- andrewmcwatters 1y ago
  There sort of is, but you can't do anything with it, because you essentially have no user space utilities? For all of the crap that people gave the term "GNU/Linux" it's even more true today considering there are Linux-based operating systems that don't use GNU utilities. gjsman-1000 talks about "design flaws" in Linux above, but Linux is just the kernel. There is no "Linux" operating system, despite everyone, and even Linus probably? using that term. If you call booting init and getting a black screen "an operating system," well... that's cool I guess. I doubt Linus ever talks to the GTK people in any meaningful way, or any other desktop environment authors. So, what design flaws? Do you call a ladder a badly designed scaffold because it doesn't have a horizontal platform? No, it's just something entirely different all together.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    "GNU/Linux" can still mean too many different things. Even ChromeOS qualifies as that. You want GNU/Linux help, you need to specify what DE and everything. Or as the other comment said, what Bluetooth stack. You can say you're using Manjaro Cinnamon and either that's not specific enough, or someone says it's your fault for not using KDE. I'm comparing to Windows or Mac. There's only one Bluetooth audio stack in Windows. If you want help with it, whatever you find online will apply to you, unless of course you've gone out of your way to swap it for another. Unlike Windows, Linux is open and people can build their own flavors, but those can have their own names. Don't even get me started with how Ubuntu changed its entire GUI like 3 times so that it's unrecognizable each time. Feel bad for whatever IT departments had to keep taking new screenshots of how to do stuff.
    - nativeit 1y ago
      …it’s just too bad that Bluetooth stack is one of the worst ever conceived, you have zero options for an alternative, and you still have to get all your help from a volunteer support team.
      - frollogaston 1y ago
        Bluetooth is hard. But it'd at least be easier if the Linux community weren't maxing out on complexity before even reaching the hardware. Even Windows struggled with drivers for a while.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    If you don't like the above there are several BSD systems that give you a useable OS. You probably want a deskto though which none give.
    - frollogaston 1y ago
      FreeBSD has a desktop, doesn't it?
      - bastardoperator 1y ago
        Several: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/desktop/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/desktop/
      - spauldo 1y ago
        Yep, and there are (were? It's been a while since I checked) even "distros" of FreeBSD that are specialized for desktop use. The main downside of FreeBSD is that it doesn't dumb itself down to appeal to the masses, so while it's great for experienced users it's a bit painful for newbies.
        frollogaston 1y ago
        Last time I used FreeBSD, I found it more inherently user-friendly than Linux distros, mainly because it has a very nice handbook (linked in a sibling comment) with realistic examples. Also seems to have more things built in. What made FreeBSD harder in the end was just that fewer people use it, so tons of third-party software supports Linux better, and it's easier to find online answers.
        spauldo 1y ago
        Documentation-wise it's miles ahead of Linux, mostly because it's developed as a single project rather than a bunch of pieces. Whenever I need to look up anything POSIX in a man page, I always read through FreeBSD's man page first.
      - 1y ago
  - eggsome 1y ago
    > I doubt Linus ever talks to the GTK people in any meaningful way Interestingly he has had arguments with them over the years, most fervently related to the development of https://subsurface-divelog.org/ https://subsurface-divelog.org/
    - andrewmcwatters 1y ago
      Hah! I stand corrected. Thank you for that. I always forget about his diving software.
bee_rider 1y ago
I get that you already preempted this, but: Flatpack is a weird extra layer on top of Linux. Most distros have package managers that work just fine. These package managers predate Flatpack and basically are the main thing that the distro provides (other than the community, of course).
- frollogaston 1y ago
  Many Ubuntu or Debian users still use Flatpak, don't they? Even though there's already apt-get.
  - binkHN 1y ago
    You, kind of, don't have much of a choice. There's thousands of packages and it's a ton of work. In addition, as Linux continues to get more popular, more vendors are releasing software that doesn't care to work with newer libraries, so Flatpack handles this nicely.
    - frollogaston 1y ago
      I only use Linux on servers, so the kind of stuff I need is always traditional apt-get, but yeah I always assumed using it on a PC would involve tons of snap or flatpak apps where they don't want to deal with the complexities of dependencies. Ok, I do have one spare Linux laptop in my garage that I barely use, and I'm pretty sure how ever I installed Chromium used snap.
      - pjerem 1y ago
        In my experience, most of the apps, even the desktop ones, are still packaged by the distribution. Flatpack is useful for the few ones that aren’t or for actively developed apps that get new useful features frequently.
      - bee_rider 1y ago
        I mostly use Linux on my laptop. I thought you server folks needed this kind of functionality—you guys have to, like, serve stuff, be visible on the network, install weird software for business needs, right? As an individual, I can crank up the firewall, trust all of the people who use my laptop (it is just me) and not install sketchy software.
rendaw 1y ago
How would you do this on Windows?

frollogaston 1y ago

I wish there were such thing as just "installing Linux" on a computer, and it shows the penguin when you boot up.

andrewmcwatters 1y ago
There sort of is, but you can't do anything with it, because you essentially have no user space utilities? For all of the crap that people gave the term "GNU/Linux" it's even more true today considering there are Linux-based operating systems that don't use GNU utilities. gjsman-1000 talks about "design flaws" in Linux above, but Linux is just the kernel. There is no "Linux" operating system, despite everyone, and even Linus probably? using that term. If you call booting init and getting a black screen "an operating system," well... that's cool I guess. I doubt Linus ever talks to the GTK people in any meaningful way, or any other desktop environment authors. So, what design flaws? Do you call a ladder a badly designed scaffold because it doesn't have a horizontal platform? No, it's just something entirely different all together.
- frollogaston 1y ago
  "GNU/Linux" can still mean too many different things. Even ChromeOS qualifies as that. You want GNU/Linux help, you need to specify what DE and everything. Or as the other comment said, what Bluetooth stack. You can say you're using Manjaro Cinnamon and either that's not specific enough, or someone says it's your fault for not using KDE. I'm comparing to Windows or Mac. There's only one Bluetooth audio stack in Windows. If you want help with it, whatever you find online will apply to you, unless of course you've gone out of your way to swap it for another. Unlike Windows, Linux is open and people can build their own flavors, but those can have their own names. Don't even get me started with how Ubuntu changed its entire GUI like 3 times so that it's unrecognizable each time. Feel bad for whatever IT departments had to keep taking new screenshots of how to do stuff.
  - nativeit 1y ago
    …it’s just too bad that Bluetooth stack is one of the worst ever conceived, you have zero options for an alternative, and you still have to get all your help from a volunteer support team.
    - frollogaston 1y ago
      Bluetooth is hard. But it'd at least be easier if the Linux community weren't maxing out on complexity before even reaching the hardware. Even Windows struggled with drivers for a while.
- bluGill 1y ago
  If you don't like the above there are several BSD systems that give you a useable OS. You probably want a deskto though which none give.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    FreeBSD has a desktop, doesn't it?
    - bastardoperator 1y ago
      Several: https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/desktop/ https://docs.freebsd.org/en/books/handbook/desktop/
    - spauldo 1y ago
      Yep, and there are (were? It's been a while since I checked) even "distros" of FreeBSD that are specialized for desktop use. The main downside of FreeBSD is that it doesn't dumb itself down to appeal to the masses, so while it's great for experienced users it's a bit painful for newbies.
      - frollogaston 1y ago
        Last time I used FreeBSD, I found it more inherently user-friendly than Linux distros, mainly because it has a very nice handbook (linked in a sibling comment) with realistic examples. Also seems to have more things built in. What made FreeBSD harder in the end was just that fewer people use it, so tons of third-party software supports Linux better, and it's easier to find online answers.
        spauldo 1y ago
        Documentation-wise it's miles ahead of Linux, mostly because it's developed as a single project rather than a bunch of pieces. Whenever I need to look up anything POSIX in a man page, I always read through FreeBSD's man page first.
    - 1y ago
- eggsome 1y ago
  > I doubt Linus ever talks to the GTK people in any meaningful way Interestingly he has had arguments with them over the years, most fervently related to the development of https://subsurface-divelog.org/ https://subsurface-divelog.org/
  - andrewmcwatters 1y ago
    Hah! I stand corrected. Thank you for that. I always forget about his diving software.

bee_rider 1y ago

I get that you already preempted this, but: Flatpack is a weird extra layer on top of Linux. Most distros have package managers that work just fine. These package managers predate Flatpack and basically are the main thing that the distro provides (other than the community, of course).

frollogaston 1y ago
Many Ubuntu or Debian users still use Flatpak, don't they? Even though there's already apt-get.
- binkHN 1y ago
  You, kind of, don't have much of a choice. There's thousands of packages and it's a ton of work. In addition, as Linux continues to get more popular, more vendors are releasing software that doesn't care to work with newer libraries, so Flatpack handles this nicely.
  - frollogaston 1y ago
    I only use Linux on servers, so the kind of stuff I need is always traditional apt-get, but yeah I always assumed using it on a PC would involve tons of snap or flatpak apps where they don't want to deal with the complexities of dependencies. Ok, I do have one spare Linux laptop in my garage that I barely use, and I'm pretty sure how ever I installed Chromium used snap.
    - pjerem 1y ago
      In my experience, most of the apps, even the desktop ones, are still packaged by the distribution. Flatpack is useful for the few ones that aren’t or for actively developed apps that get new useful features frequently.
    - bee_rider 1y ago
      I mostly use Linux on my laptop. I thought you server folks needed this kind of functionality—you guys have to, like, serve stuff, be visible on the network, install weird software for business needs, right? As an individual, I can crank up the firewall, trust all of the people who use my laptop (it is just me) and not install sketchy software.

rendaw 1y ago

How would you do this on Windows?