14 ms·

Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox respond to Miguel De Icaza on Linux Desktop woes

162 points by emkemp 14y ago

chris_wot 14y ago
"We'll force Corba/.NET down your throats"... ??? Firstly, Corba was there from the start, and then it was removed. Secondly, there is no .NET dependency that must be satisified to create GNOME applications. While there are a few interesting points Tovalds made, the problem isn't really a technical one in the code, but rather a lack of focus on what really matters.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > there is no .NET dependency that must be satisified to create GNOME applications. No, but many apps that are part of the "official" Gnome desktop run on Mono.
  - danieldk 14y ago
    Like?
    - jahewson 14y ago
      Banshee, F-Spot, Tomboy.
mixmastamyk 14y ago
I've read several of these pieces now post-mortem re the linux desktop. Far from disagreement, I find myself agreeing with everyone's major points. I think the bottom line is despite how much people want one, there isn't just one reason for its unpopularity, there are dozens. It isn't good enough on multiple fronts--paper cuts abound next to deep slashes. All in the shadow of two compelling choices in modern Windows and OSX. They have their own annoyances as well, but you can expect drivers, audio to work, no major regressions--nothing you use to just disappear between releases without recourse. I'm thinking of the gnome service control manager workalike and sessions, thanks Ubuntu.
- mgkimsal 14y ago
  "nothing to just disappear between releases without recourse." Spaces, "Save As"... :(
  - batista 14y ago
    Those are annoyances one can work around. They are not APIs anyway (which is what the debate is all about), they are UI design decisions. Plus "Save As" kinda came back (hold Option while browsing the file menu), and Spaces are still here inside Mission Control. Changing APIs like Gnome/KDE did frequently is something else altogether, especially when you don't have the luxury of a huge user base to force commercial companies to rewrite their code. As for open source application developers, they often just flee and abandon their apps than rewrite them for the third time around some new API.
    - pcwalton 14y ago
      Carbon -> Cocoa was a massive change. So was PPC -> x86. There are also massive API compatibility issues even between those two enormous shifts -- witness the sudden breakage of all SDL games due to raw surface access in CoreGraphics moving to IOSurface, just to name one. The difference is, I think, that Apple has conditioned developers to expect massive breakage, and the OS X app industry has structural differences from the Linux desktop app community that make it more likely for apps to get fixed quickly.
      - yarrel 14y ago
        Yes the facts really aren't with Miguel on the API breakage claim.
      - batista 14y ago
        >Carbon -> Cocoa was a massive change. So was PPC -> x86. 1) Both were necessary. Carbon was a stop-gap port of the old Mac way and incompatible with the OS X design, and the x86 transition had to be made because the PPC mobile roadmap was late (and bad). It was not a "let's break API compatibility because we came with a cool new idea" or "because the old maintainer got bored and the new one has different ideas", which often happens in Gnome/Linux land. 2) Not to mention that the Carbon->Cocoa took like 7+ years to be made full (Carbon apps actually still run on modern OS X), and Apple went to the effort to provide a full bundled compatibility layer for PPC for many years (Rosetta), plus "fat binaries" to make the switch easier. I.e nothing like the "let's break stuff to make them better and let them deal with it" attitude in the Gnome world. 3) Also: Apple remade the old stuff ITSELF each time, with paid developers working on the OS X, bundled userland and Apple pro apps to port them, whereas Gnome changes made lots of developers walk away from the free, OS, Gnome apps. 4) Plus: Apple had a lot of market share (compared to Linux) to force companies like Adobe, Microsoft et al, to port their stuff along eventually. Gnome did not have that benefit. So, not at all the same, and no, it's far more than "Apple conditioning developers to expect change".
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- michaelhoffman 14y ago
  There's plenty of finger-pointing when commercial software enterprises miss their goals too; it just usually happens behind closed doors.
- mixmastamyk 14y ago
  Community democracy is not good at such things. I believe a well-funded tyrant with good taste could create a viable desktop though. You'd need a Jobs, a Wozniac or two and team, working for the good of humanity... there's probably not much money to be made at this stage of the game, and why it is so unlikely to happen.
  - jdub 14y ago
    "I believe a well-funded tyrant with good taste could create a viable desktop though." The counter-argument, of course, is Mark Shuttleworth and Unity. :-)
    - prunebeads 14y ago
      Is he behind all the UI decisions? Does he have the final word on everything there?
    - mixmastamyk 14y ago
      "With good taste" is an important part of the equation. Not trying to force a tablet interface onto dual screen workstations. No, they'll have to do a lot better. Experimentation is fine too, but do it in an unstable branch.
      - halvsjur 14y ago
        It seems to me that Ubuntu won't really be stable until Canonical seriously tries to monetize and market it in cooperation with one or more hardware vendors for wide availability. Until then, all Ubuntu users are essentially beta testers.
batgaijin 14y ago
Perhaps it has more to do with the Micrsoft tithe for all devices that distribute Linux: http://www.informationweek.com/windows/microsoft-news/microsofts-new-cash-cows-linux-and-andro/231601809 http://www.informationweek.com/windows/microsoft-news/micros... http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090619161307529 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090619161307529 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331462,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331462,00.asp
- ANTSANTS 14y ago
  None of this recent discussion is about why the average computer user doesn't use Linux or won't try it -- that topic has long since been beaten to death. It's about why Linux has the inferior desktop experience, and how OSX was able to steal away so many of the developers and users that, in a perfect world, should have been happiest on Linux.
  - batgaijin 14y ago
    It has an inferior experience because you can't profit from making it better.
guelo 14y ago
A link to the actual discussion is probably better, it includes some back and forth between Cox and Icaza as well as other comments: https://plus.google.com/115250422803614415116/posts/hMT5kW8LKJk https://plus.google.com/115250422803614415116/posts/hMT5kW8L...
- PayUpPal 14y ago
  "probably"? Very definitely better than an article that goes like a story written by a 10yo: A said this and then B said that and then A responded ...
- mekoka 14y ago
  I agree, maybe OP should have just posted this thread instead. After reading this I'm wondering if Miguel de Icaza is not in fact equating Gnome to Linux Desktop. One may be dying, doesn't have to mean that the other will follow suit.
smartkids 14y ago
Just based on the Linus quotes, I think he's right. The kernel did what it was supposed to do back in 1991. What is the "desktop" supposed to do? There will never be unanimous agreement on that - every user will have different needs and preferences - and so desktop developers live in constant denial, believing they are the only ones whose preferences are relevant - i.e. they know what's best for users - and blaming others for their own failings. I'm not a Linux fan, but I give Torvalds' +1 for his response (and knowing the value of "not breaking stuff").
cletus 14y ago
The actual conversation is more interesting and revealing than the blogspam on top of it (toolbar I have to dismiss? really?). This quote is noteworthy (from Linus): > I personally think that one reason that the Linux kernel has been so successful was the fact that I didn't have a huge vision of where I wanted to force people to go I agree. Thing is, this just doesn't work when it comes to user interfaces. You end up with a morass of principalities and wanna-be-kings who all have their own different view of what Linux on the desktop should be. This is an area where consistency really matters (to users). What's more the primary contributors are engineers who are unrepresentative of any kind of mass user base (potential or actual). People who want to be able to customize everything when no one else cares. Ultimately I think the pseudo-anarchic development process doomed Linux on the desktop but some external factors didn't help, namely OSX. OSX really is "good enough" for anyone wanting a nix desktop/laptop. Sure it has problems but it means the gap between it and Linux is just that much smaller. And with Linux you give up great hardware (to varying degrees) and a snappy and consistent* UI/UX. The company that has had the most success putting Linux interfaces in people's hands is, of course, Google with Android (disclaimer: I work for Google). And even there the principality problem has created a fragmentation nightmare as different vendors seek to "differentiate" themselves. Phones and tablets of course don't have the same expectation and technical legacy that desktops do (from X11 on up). Hell, Apple did the same thing with iOS (essentially forking OSX). Audio is another problem. Peripherally I've had to deal with PulseAudio and it really is a solution looking for a problem. Graphics drivers are another issue. AMD/ATI and nVidia have of course not helped matters here. I think Canonical had a chance to make a real impact here but they essentially blew it.
- xaa 14y ago
  > with Linux you give up great hardware (to varying degrees) I assume you're talking about Linux driver issues. But since we're talking about OSX vs Linux here, it's only fair to note that Linux supports a much greater variety of hardware than OSX. Linux also tends to support the very newest hardware more consistently than OSX (perhaps excluding video cards). See eg the laughable specs of Mac Pros. Software also benchmarks faster on Linux vs OSX on the same hardware. So there is still an opening on Linux for people concerned with performance. But yes, the Linux desktop is still light-years behind in terms of design, for the reasons you mention.
emperorcezar 14y ago
Linux will never work on the desktop because it is made FOR neckbeards by neckbeards. It is a community driven effort, which means the community pushes its development and design. Who do you see using the linux desktop? The exact type of people who design and develop it. Power users and developers. They are a stubborn bunch. Even if Unity/Gnome 3/etc were more usable desktops, the majority of users would hate it. Because something like a newbie usable desktop just doesn't fit who's designing the desktop. Something else will have to shove it into the wider market where it can be judged by those standards, not by what set of power user keyboard short cuts it supports.
- fromhet 14y ago
  Oh don't tell people how they feel about things! There are hordes of non-programmers (or their likes) using Ubuntu, even if they could choose Windows or Mac. Neither my SO or brother can code and they have rarely if ever been in a terminal, but are both very happy with Ubuntu.
  - emperorcezar 14y ago
    I agree with you, my SO is fine with it also. I'm talking about the design process. I really like the direction that Ubuntu is going. It's being designed for the masses, but the pressure on ubuntu is from the power user crowd. I think it will go nowhere because the current linux user base will be holding it back. Gnome3 and Unity are fighting this tide also. I don't think the state of the linux desktop should be, "Copy XP and put a real shell behind it".
    - vacri 14y ago
      Ubuntu's mission statement from the start was linux for normal users. They always said that they were trying to provide a desktop for regular users, and their argument was that there are already heaps of distros out there for power users. It's not a new direction they've taken, it's just when they had the opportunity to simplify, a lot of users didn't understand what their core mission was. Besides, if you want a Power User version of Ubuntu, just use Debian.
shin_lao 14y ago
There might also be the fact that OS X and Windows are more than decent desktop OSes and competing with them is not easy.
- fromhet 14y ago
  I think it is more about people being exposed to Windows and Macintoshes. If my non-technical parents had Ubuntu at their jobs and their computer were shipped with it, do you think they would even dream about searching for a new OS to learn?
  - dedward 14y ago
    The same argument works for any of those systems.. not just linux. The reality is many people try many systems and settle on one they like.
sgt101 14y ago
The point of desktop linux is that it keeps MS and Apple honest. If they push things too far away from where the common good lies (ie. toward the short term interests of their stock holders) then expect to see a huge resurgence of desktop linux, supported by OEMs who will suddenly be pushing cheaper faster linux machines with tested specs as a way of winning back territory. Until then, don't, because it will be down to a volunteer community to do heroic work to other peoples schedules and basically that's always going to be hard. Server side stuff has a lot of support from big shops that need their iron to work well - so that can go along just fine as is. My point is that because it exists and is nearly viable it is a success and does what we need it to, even if using it can be nightmarish.
lifeguard 14y ago
The Linux desktop has been wildly successful! Hobbyists have been using it since the 1990s. Yahoo! was built using the linux desktop. Much of Facebook was, too. People in web dev and tech support use it as their workstation OS. The Linux desktop has failed to become a mainstream 'consumer' OS. Meritocracy has nothing to do with it. Microsoft's monopoly is just unbreakable here. OS X is less than 10% of the market. Linux less than 1%. I believe the Linux desktop is usable in the retail space, because I installed gOS on a guest computer and several novices (including my mom) used it for email, web, music and word processing. My linux desktop progression has been X11R6 -> KDE -> Mandrake -> Ubuntu gnome -> Mint -> latest Ubuntu HATED IT! -> Xfce crunchbang -> (plan to) Mint Xfce
- mbell 14y ago
  > The Linux desktop has been wildly successful! Hobbyists have been using it since the 1990s. Yahoo! was built using the linux desktop. Much of Facebook was, too. People in web dev and tech support use it as their workstation OS. While true, look around at younger companies, OS X has taken over a very large segment of the web dev crowd and I don't see any signs of that changing, especially with the almost mandatory nature of using OSX for iOS development.
  - zanny 14y ago
    This is entirely brand. I went through college where all the cool kids had overpriced shiny aluminum macs and that was the hip thing to own. Having used OSX on laptops in High School and IMacs in college the desktop is awful and I much prefer the diversity of Linux DEs, especially ones like Cinnamon and XFCE. OSX got its market share off spoiled 20 year old college kids getting their parents to buy them overpriced trendy hardware. I have a 15 year old and 13 year cousin who each have a macbook because its hip. But besides the hip factor, OSX succeeds because it is the default on Apple products, where Windows succeeds because it is the default on everything else. When average Joe buys a pc, they go to best buy, and every single device has Windows on it, so they use that. They don't know any better and would never fathom installing an OS, and if you show an alternative to them it breaks their minds because it is universe breaking that Windows isn't the computer.
teyc 14y ago
The discipline of being posix compliant forced Linux to innovate across the defined boundary. I recall Chris Click's talk about JVM and its definition of garbage collection APIs, class libraries etc each enabled innovation to be done independently of one another. There is no such story for kernel-mode drivers. The problem was so dire with network card drivers at one time that there was a project that enabled windows drivers to work on Linus. Think about it - if Linux standardized on a stable external API, then there'd be no arguments about how to implement it. Linus kept talking about userland vs kernel, and did not address the issue Miguel talked about. Kernels need performant external interfaces too. Drawing a line around what is being innovated and changed will only help Linux the way posix did. On another tangent, when Microsoft made IE6 the stable browser platform, it gave a clear goal for Mozilla. It became a reference implementation, allowing Mozilla to emulate all the layout behaviors and eventually carving out a nice marketshare for itself.
- voltagex_ 14y ago
  ndiswrapper is/was more a function of the hardware vendors not supporting Linux/supporting Linux very badly. Go look at some of the early Linux Realtek drivers for example.
zanny 14y ago
Why does this topic come up ever other day, and every time people go on tyraids about individual projects and developers being wrong or right, when the answer isn't complicated at all. Windows is the default. Microsoft got in bed with hardware producers and computer retailors and got Windows on every product on every shelf. For 2 decades you went to buy a PC and you were buying a PC with Windows pre-installed. The extreme majority of PC users and buyers have no comprehension of how to build your own PC, what an OS is, or that they can even use alternative operating systems. At this point, Windows is the computer to a tremendous majority of desktop OS consumers. OSX is prosperous because it is the Mac default in the same way Windows was prosperous because it was the everything default. The average consumer does not conceptualize or think about how the software is independent of the hardware, what they see and get is what they stick with 99% of the time. The other 1% is Linux / BSD / everything else. The day of the Linux Desktop is the day a laptop running any flavor of a linux distro sits in Best Buy next to a Windows laptop and costs $50 less because it doesn't have the Windows license fees attached. Everything else is just window dressing of that issue, which is in plainest terms that Apple and Microsoft have a profit motive in getting their OS on your machine, and go out of their ways to see hardware with the OS preinstalled so Joe Shmoe uses it, whereas Linux distributions have no financial incentive or warchest of influence to push Linux as the default. And the default is what matters.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  > The day of the Linux Desktop is the day a laptop running any flavor of a linux distro sits in Best Buy next to a Windows laptop and costs $50 less because it doesn't have the Windows license fees attached Well... It's not Best Buy, but, still, it's something: http://imgur.com/tzv74 http://imgur.com/tzv74
- akldfgj 14y ago
  I bought a $400 Lindows desktop from WalMart last decade. Not many others did.
- ANTSANTS 14y ago
  You should read the "story" before commenting. Allow me to copy and paste the response I gave to a similar comment earlier: "None of this recent discussion is about why the average computer user doesn't use Linux or won't try it -- that topic has long since been beaten to death. It's about why Linux has the inferior desktop experience, and how OSX was able to steal away so many of the developers and users that, in a perfect world, should have been happiest on Linux."
yk 14y ago
Short rant ahead: Why should Linux be doomed (or killed as wired puts it) just because Windows & MacOS have more idiots using it? For a desktop there are certain design choices to be made. If one wants to target users, then one should use sensible defaults and try to hide complexity. If one wants to target hackers, then one should have a lot of easily accessible APIs, preferable accessible via a CLI. That means exposing complexity. For the two groups consistency in a UI does mean two different things, users want a "intuitive" UI, whatever that means. Hackers want a UI which is based on principles, such that one can deduce the proper operation, even if it is complicated and takes some time to learn in the beginning. The list could go on, but in short: I have different needs on my desktop than the average user. And if Linux would become a sensible desktop OS for the average user, then I would likely move to BSD (or Plan9 or whatever).
- mbq 14y ago
  Agree; moreover Linux is only a kernel, so you'll always find a distribution with aims compatible to what you want.
  - qznc 14y ago
    Unfortunately, there is no distribution which matches my "want" exactly. I know, I'll just make my own...
- gitarr 14y ago
  Linux on the desktop isn't doomed at all. People saying the opposite are either naive or have interests to lie about it. I am absolutely sure that Microsoft and Apple are fighting against desktop Linux any way they can as it takes away market share and any amount of market share is fought hard about these days. In my opinion Apple and Microsoft favoured (paid off) bloggers/(ex-)developers, and opinion writers do their best to spread FUD and anti Linux propaganda all the time and everywhere. I think that a large part of the Ubuntu Unity FUD for example comes from there. Look at any discussion remotely about Linux or Ubuntu and you will see random comments about how bad Unity is, even here in this thread. Even if the topic has nothing to do with Unity. It's not a coincidence. I am a developer using Unity and find it the greatest thing that ever happened to Linux, and the non-developer people I support on their Ubuntu Unity machines just love it, they wouldn't want to change anything. All I see is that the Linux desktop now is getting really competitive (yes I mean Ubuntu 12.04) and that's why we hear all this FUD now. With "competitive" I mean usability, security, ease of use and style. The market share is low, yes, but it's slowly growing and it will continue to do so. The Linux desktop being dead is just a laughable idea when looking at the facts.
antirez 14y ago
The problem with Linux is much simpler IMHO. No I don't mean the actual causes, but the root cause: Linus is a technical leader, so the kernel is a good product. He is not a "product leader" from the point of view of the final Desktop experience, so he took no responsibility for that (he actually blamed the UX of Linux many times in the past). No one emerged as the "Linux Desktop Guru", taking full responsibility of a distribution completely targeted at fixing the UX, selecting a set of defaults to actually create a development platform. Fixing the problem of users supporting in a perfect way at least a subset of computer systems (targeting macs makes sense for instance). So the Linux Desktop was the sum of a multitude of different tries, that alone sometimes were interesting, but not enough at all to define the whole OS experience from the point of view of the user.
- TheCondor 14y ago
  Is it possible for the community to allow a desktop guru? Early on in GNOME they had a number of popular graphics designer types making all sorts of really exotic looking UIs, a number of conflicts ended that. (enlightenment was the official window manager for a while there) Then the eazel guys showed up and made Nautilus, if anybody could have been the guru, it was Andy. I honestly don't know what appended there. Nautilus is still around, it's under gone some substantial changes along the way. Seems to me it's a very difficult community problem to solve. Look at replacing sysv init, it's a very technical issue, it doesn't matter to a lot of users, there are some technical goals you can bring up to keep the discussion rooted in fact over opinion and there is tremendous disagreement about it. The community hasn't arrived at any conclusion exactly. Why should something as esoteric as a ui be easier to arrive at consensus on? Everyone has an opinion on ui. There is another aspect to it, it's distribution fragmentation. How do you set an ip address in Ubuntu? How about Fedora? Do it via UI and command line. They are different and that's an easy one. The mechanics are so different, it's not a desktop problem, it's a distribution problem, which sort of makes KDE and GNOME toolkits rather than desktops themselves.
  - antirez 14y ago
    Well what I mean is, imagine if Ubuntu at some point started to be opinionated about what a Desktop Linux should look like more and more, with some people inside fully responsible to build the UX in every detail, how binary packages should be trivial to download and install, how drivers should be trivial to install (for a subset of the hardware that is fully supported at least), and so forth. A distribution that tried to provide a full experience, instead of being, indeed, a Software Distribution. In that case you can have people in charge of deciding all the details. Payed people to do the best work possible.

162 points by emkemp 14y ago

"We'll force Corba/.NET down your throats"... ??? Firstly, Corba was there from the start, and then it was removed. Secondly, there is no .NET dependency that must be satisified to create GNOME applications. While there are a few interesting points Tovalds made, the problem isn't really a technical one in the code, but rather a lack of focus on what really matters.

rbanffy 14y ago
> there is no .NET dependency that must be satisified to create GNOME applications. No, but many apps that are part of the "official" Gnome desktop run on Mono.
- danieldk 14y ago
  Like?
  - jahewson 14y ago
    Banshee, F-Spot, Tomboy.

mixmastamyk 14y ago

I've read several of these pieces now post-mortem re the linux desktop. Far from disagreement, I find myself agreeing with everyone's major points. I think the bottom line is despite how much people want one, there isn't just one reason for its unpopularity, there are dozens. It isn't good enough on multiple fronts--paper cuts abound next to deep slashes. All in the shadow of two compelling choices in modern Windows and OSX. They have their own annoyances as well, but you can expect drivers, audio to work, no major regressions--nothing you use to just disappear between releases without recourse. I'm thinking of the gnome service control manager workalike and sessions, thanks Ubuntu.

mgkimsal 14y ago
"nothing to just disappear between releases without recourse." Spaces, "Save As"... :(
- batista 14y ago
  Those are annoyances one can work around. They are not APIs anyway (which is what the debate is all about), they are UI design decisions. Plus "Save As" kinda came back (hold Option while browsing the file menu), and Spaces are still here inside Mission Control. Changing APIs like Gnome/KDE did frequently is something else altogether, especially when you don't have the luxury of a huge user base to force commercial companies to rewrite their code. As for open source application developers, they often just flee and abandon their apps than rewrite them for the third time around some new API.
  - pcwalton 14y ago
    Carbon -> Cocoa was a massive change. So was PPC -> x86. There are also massive API compatibility issues even between those two enormous shifts -- witness the sudden breakage of all SDL games due to raw surface access in CoreGraphics moving to IOSurface, just to name one. The difference is, I think, that Apple has conditioned developers to expect massive breakage, and the OS X app industry has structural differences from the Linux desktop app community that make it more likely for apps to get fixed quickly.
    - yarrel 14y ago
      Yes the facts really aren't with Miguel on the API breakage claim.
    - batista 14y ago
      >Carbon -> Cocoa was a massive change. So was PPC -> x86. 1) Both were necessary. Carbon was a stop-gap port of the old Mac way and incompatible with the OS X design, and the x86 transition had to be made because the PPC mobile roadmap was late (and bad). It was not a "let's break API compatibility because we came with a cool new idea" or "because the old maintainer got bored and the new one has different ideas", which often happens in Gnome/Linux land. 2) Not to mention that the Carbon->Cocoa took like 7+ years to be made full (Carbon apps actually still run on modern OS X), and Apple went to the effort to provide a full bundled compatibility layer for PPC for many years (Rosetta), plus "fat binaries" to make the switch easier. I.e nothing like the "let's break stuff to make them better and let them deal with it" attitude in the Gnome world. 3) Also: Apple remade the old stuff ITSELF each time, with paid developers working on the OS X, bundled userland and Apple pro apps to port them, whereas Gnome changes made lots of developers walk away from the free, OS, Gnome apps. 4) Plus: Apple had a lot of market share (compared to Linux) to force companies like Adobe, Microsoft et al, to port their stuff along eventually. Gnome did not have that benefit. So, not at all the same, and no, it's far more than "Apple conditioning developers to expect change".

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

michaelhoffman 14y ago
There's plenty of finger-pointing when commercial software enterprises miss their goals too; it just usually happens behind closed doors.
mixmastamyk 14y ago
Community democracy is not good at such things. I believe a well-funded tyrant with good taste could create a viable desktop though. You'd need a Jobs, a Wozniac or two and team, working for the good of humanity... there's probably not much money to be made at this stage of the game, and why it is so unlikely to happen.
- jdub 14y ago
  "I believe a well-funded tyrant with good taste could create a viable desktop though." The counter-argument, of course, is Mark Shuttleworth and Unity. :-)
  - prunebeads 14y ago
    Is he behind all the UI decisions? Does he have the final word on everything there?
  - mixmastamyk 14y ago
    "With good taste" is an important part of the equation. Not trying to force a tablet interface onto dual screen workstations. No, they'll have to do a lot better. Experimentation is fine too, but do it in an unstable branch.
    - halvsjur 14y ago
      It seems to me that Ubuntu won't really be stable until Canonical seriously tries to monetize and market it in cooperation with one or more hardware vendors for wide availability. Until then, all Ubuntu users are essentially beta testers.

batgaijin 14y ago

Perhaps it has more to do with the Micrsoft tithe for all devices that distribute Linux: http://www.informationweek.com/windows/microsoft-news/microsofts-new-cash-cows-linux-and-andro/231601809 http://www.informationweek.com/windows/microsoft-news/micros... http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090619161307529 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090619161307529 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331462,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331462,00.asp

ANTSANTS 14y ago
None of this recent discussion is about why the average computer user doesn't use Linux or won't try it -- that topic has long since been beaten to death. It's about why Linux has the inferior desktop experience, and how OSX was able to steal away so many of the developers and users that, in a perfect world, should have been happiest on Linux.
- batgaijin 14y ago
  It has an inferior experience because you can't profit from making it better.

guelo 14y ago

A link to the actual discussion is probably better, it includes some back and forth between Cox and Icaza as well as other comments: https://plus.google.com/115250422803614415116/posts/hMT5kW8LKJk https://plus.google.com/115250422803614415116/posts/hMT5kW8L...

PayUpPal 14y ago
"probably"? Very definitely better than an article that goes like a story written by a 10yo: A said this and then B said that and then A responded ...
mekoka 14y ago
I agree, maybe OP should have just posted this thread instead. After reading this I'm wondering if Miguel de Icaza is not in fact equating Gnome to Linux Desktop. One may be dying, doesn't have to mean that the other will follow suit.

smartkids 14y ago

Just based on the Linus quotes, I think he's right. The kernel did what it was supposed to do back in 1991. What is the "desktop" supposed to do? There will never be unanimous agreement on that - every user will have different needs and preferences - and so desktop developers live in constant denial, believing they are the only ones whose preferences are relevant - i.e. they know what's best for users - and blaming others for their own failings. I'm not a Linux fan, but I give Torvalds' +1 for his response (and knowing the value of "not breaking stuff").

cletus 14y ago

The actual conversation is more interesting and revealing than the blogspam on top of it (toolbar I have to dismiss? really?). This quote is noteworthy (from Linus): > I personally think that one reason that the Linux kernel has been so successful was the fact that I didn't have a huge vision of where I wanted to force people to go I agree. Thing is, this just doesn't work when it comes to user interfaces. You end up with a morass of principalities and wanna-be-kings who all have their own different view of what Linux on the desktop should be. This is an area where consistency really matters (to users). What's more the primary contributors are engineers who are unrepresentative of any kind of mass user base (potential or actual). People who want to be able to customize everything when no one else cares. Ultimately I think the pseudo-anarchic development process doomed Linux on the desktop but some external factors didn't help, namely OSX. OSX really is "good enough" for anyone wanting a nix desktop/laptop. Sure it has problems but it means the gap between it and Linux is just that much smaller. And with Linux you give up great hardware (to varying degrees) and a snappy and consistent* UI/UX. The company that has had the most success putting Linux interfaces in people's hands is, of course, Google with Android (disclaimer: I work for Google). And even there the principality problem has created a fragmentation nightmare as different vendors seek to "differentiate" themselves. Phones and tablets of course don't have the same expectation and technical legacy that desktops do (from X11 on up). Hell, Apple did the same thing with iOS (essentially forking OSX). Audio is another problem. Peripherally I've had to deal with PulseAudio and it really is a solution looking for a problem. Graphics drivers are another issue. AMD/ATI and nVidia have of course not helped matters here. I think Canonical had a chance to make a real impact here but they essentially blew it.

xaa 14y ago
> with Linux you give up great hardware (to varying degrees) I assume you're talking about Linux driver issues. But since we're talking about OSX vs Linux here, it's only fair to note that Linux supports a much greater variety of hardware than OSX. Linux also tends to support the very newest hardware more consistently than OSX (perhaps excluding video cards). See eg the laughable specs of Mac Pros. Software also benchmarks faster on Linux vs OSX on the same hardware. So there is still an opening on Linux for people concerned with performance. But yes, the Linux desktop is still light-years behind in terms of design, for the reasons you mention.

emperorcezar 14y ago

Linux will never work on the desktop because it is made FOR neckbeards by neckbeards. It is a community driven effort, which means the community pushes its development and design. Who do you see using the linux desktop? The exact type of people who design and develop it. Power users and developers. They are a stubborn bunch. Even if Unity/Gnome 3/etc were more usable desktops, the majority of users would hate it. Because something like a newbie usable desktop just doesn't fit who's designing the desktop. Something else will have to shove it into the wider market where it can be judged by those standards, not by what set of power user keyboard short cuts it supports.

fromhet 14y ago
Oh don't tell people how they feel about things! There are hordes of non-programmers (or their likes) using Ubuntu, even if they could choose Windows or Mac. Neither my SO or brother can code and they have rarely if ever been in a terminal, but are both very happy with Ubuntu.
- emperorcezar 14y ago
  I agree with you, my SO is fine with it also. I'm talking about the design process. I really like the direction that Ubuntu is going. It's being designed for the masses, but the pressure on ubuntu is from the power user crowd. I think it will go nowhere because the current linux user base will be holding it back. Gnome3 and Unity are fighting this tide also. I don't think the state of the linux desktop should be, "Copy XP and put a real shell behind it".
  - vacri 14y ago
    Ubuntu's mission statement from the start was linux for normal users. They always said that they were trying to provide a desktop for regular users, and their argument was that there are already heaps of distros out there for power users. It's not a new direction they've taken, it's just when they had the opportunity to simplify, a lot of users didn't understand what their core mission was. Besides, if you want a Power User version of Ubuntu, just use Debian.

shin_lao 14y ago

There might also be the fact that OS X and Windows are more than decent desktop OSes and competing with them is not easy.

fromhet 14y ago
I think it is more about people being exposed to Windows and Macintoshes. If my non-technical parents had Ubuntu at their jobs and their computer were shipped with it, do you think they would even dream about searching for a new OS to learn?
- dedward 14y ago
  The same argument works for any of those systems.. not just linux. The reality is many people try many systems and settle on one they like.

sgt101 14y ago

The point of desktop linux is that it keeps MS and Apple honest. If they push things too far away from where the common good lies (ie. toward the short term interests of their stock holders) then expect to see a huge resurgence of desktop linux, supported by OEMs who will suddenly be pushing cheaper faster linux machines with tested specs as a way of winning back territory. Until then, don't, because it will be down to a volunteer community to do heroic work to other peoples schedules and basically that's always going to be hard. Server side stuff has a lot of support from big shops that need their iron to work well - so that can go along just fine as is. My point is that because it exists and is nearly viable it is a success and does what we need it to, even if using it can be nightmarish.

lifeguard 14y ago

The Linux desktop has been wildly successful! Hobbyists have been using it since the 1990s. Yahoo! was built using the linux desktop. Much of Facebook was, too. People in web dev and tech support use it as their workstation OS. The Linux desktop has failed to become a mainstream 'consumer' OS. Meritocracy has nothing to do with it. Microsoft's monopoly is just unbreakable here. OS X is less than 10% of the market. Linux less than 1%. I believe the Linux desktop is usable in the retail space, because I installed gOS on a guest computer and several novices (including my mom) used it for email, web, music and word processing. My linux desktop progression has been X11R6 -> KDE -> Mandrake -> Ubuntu gnome -> Mint -> latest Ubuntu HATED IT! -> Xfce crunchbang -> (plan to) Mint Xfce

mbell 14y ago
> The Linux desktop has been wildly successful! Hobbyists have been using it since the 1990s. Yahoo! was built using the linux desktop. Much of Facebook was, too. People in web dev and tech support use it as their workstation OS. While true, look around at younger companies, OS X has taken over a very large segment of the web dev crowd and I don't see any signs of that changing, especially with the almost mandatory nature of using OSX for iOS development.
- zanny 14y ago
  This is entirely brand. I went through college where all the cool kids had overpriced shiny aluminum macs and that was the hip thing to own. Having used OSX on laptops in High School and IMacs in college the desktop is awful and I much prefer the diversity of Linux DEs, especially ones like Cinnamon and XFCE. OSX got its market share off spoiled 20 year old college kids getting their parents to buy them overpriced trendy hardware. I have a 15 year old and 13 year cousin who each have a macbook because its hip. But besides the hip factor, OSX succeeds because it is the default on Apple products, where Windows succeeds because it is the default on everything else. When average Joe buys a pc, they go to best buy, and every single device has Windows on it, so they use that. They don't know any better and would never fathom installing an OS, and if you show an alternative to them it breaks their minds because it is universe breaking that Windows isn't the computer.

teyc 14y ago

The discipline of being posix compliant forced Linux to innovate across the defined boundary. I recall Chris Click's talk about JVM and its definition of garbage collection APIs, class libraries etc each enabled innovation to be done independently of one another. There is no such story for kernel-mode drivers. The problem was so dire with network card drivers at one time that there was a project that enabled windows drivers to work on Linus. Think about it - if Linux standardized on a stable external API, then there'd be no arguments about how to implement it. Linus kept talking about userland vs kernel, and did not address the issue Miguel talked about. Kernels need performant external interfaces too. Drawing a line around what is being innovated and changed will only help Linux the way posix did. On another tangent, when Microsoft made IE6 the stable browser platform, it gave a clear goal for Mozilla. It became a reference implementation, allowing Mozilla to emulate all the layout behaviors and eventually carving out a nice marketshare for itself.

voltagex_ 14y ago
ndiswrapper is/was more a function of the hardware vendors not supporting Linux/supporting Linux very badly. Go look at some of the early Linux Realtek drivers for example.

zanny 14y ago

Why does this topic come up ever other day, and every time people go on tyraids about individual projects and developers being wrong or right, when the answer isn't complicated at all. Windows is the default. Microsoft got in bed with hardware producers and computer retailors and got Windows on every product on every shelf. For 2 decades you went to buy a PC and you were buying a PC with Windows pre-installed. The extreme majority of PC users and buyers have no comprehension of how to build your own PC, what an OS is, or that they can even use alternative operating systems. At this point, Windows is the computer to a tremendous majority of desktop OS consumers. OSX is prosperous because it is the Mac default in the same way Windows was prosperous because it was the everything default. The average consumer does not conceptualize or think about how the software is independent of the hardware, what they see and get is what they stick with 99% of the time. The other 1% is Linux / BSD / everything else. The day of the Linux Desktop is the day a laptop running any flavor of a linux distro sits in Best Buy next to a Windows laptop and costs $50 less because it doesn't have the Windows license fees attached. Everything else is just window dressing of that issue, which is in plainest terms that Apple and Microsoft have a profit motive in getting their OS on your machine, and go out of their ways to see hardware with the OS preinstalled so Joe Shmoe uses it, whereas Linux distributions have no financial incentive or warchest of influence to push Linux as the default. And the default is what matters.

rbanffy 14y ago
> The day of the Linux Desktop is the day a laptop running any flavor of a linux distro sits in Best Buy next to a Windows laptop and costs $50 less because it doesn't have the Windows license fees attached Well... It's not Best Buy, but, still, it's something: http://imgur.com/tzv74 http://imgur.com/tzv74
akldfgj 14y ago
I bought a $400 Lindows desktop from WalMart last decade. Not many others did.
ANTSANTS 14y ago
You should read the "story" before commenting. Allow me to copy and paste the response I gave to a similar comment earlier: "None of this recent discussion is about why the average computer user doesn't use Linux or won't try it -- that topic has long since been beaten to death. It's about why Linux has the inferior desktop experience, and how OSX was able to steal away so many of the developers and users that, in a perfect world, should have been happiest on Linux."

yk 14y ago

Short rant ahead: Why should Linux be doomed (or killed as wired puts it) just because Windows & MacOS have more idiots using it? For a desktop there are certain design choices to be made. If one wants to target users, then one should use sensible defaults and try to hide complexity. If one wants to target hackers, then one should have a lot of easily accessible APIs, preferable accessible via a CLI. That means exposing complexity. For the two groups consistency in a UI does mean two different things, users want a "intuitive" UI, whatever that means. Hackers want a UI which is based on principles, such that one can deduce the proper operation, even if it is complicated and takes some time to learn in the beginning. The list could go on, but in short: I have different needs on my desktop than the average user. And if Linux would become a sensible desktop OS for the average user, then I would likely move to BSD (or Plan9 or whatever).

mbq 14y ago
Agree; moreover Linux is only a kernel, so you'll always find a distribution with aims compatible to what you want.
- qznc 14y ago
  Unfortunately, there is no distribution which matches my "want" exactly. I know, I'll just make my own...
gitarr 14y ago
Linux on the desktop isn't doomed at all. People saying the opposite are either naive or have interests to lie about it. I am absolutely sure that Microsoft and Apple are fighting against desktop Linux any way they can as it takes away market share and any amount of market share is fought hard about these days. In my opinion Apple and Microsoft favoured (paid off) bloggers/(ex-)developers, and opinion writers do their best to spread FUD and anti Linux propaganda all the time and everywhere. I think that a large part of the Ubuntu Unity FUD for example comes from there. Look at any discussion remotely about Linux or Ubuntu and you will see random comments about how bad Unity is, even here in this thread. Even if the topic has nothing to do with Unity. It's not a coincidence. I am a developer using Unity and find it the greatest thing that ever happened to Linux, and the non-developer people I support on their Ubuntu Unity machines just love it, they wouldn't want to change anything. All I see is that the Linux desktop now is getting really competitive (yes I mean Ubuntu 12.04) and that's why we hear all this FUD now. With "competitive" I mean usability, security, ease of use and style. The market share is low, yes, but it's slowly growing and it will continue to do so. The Linux desktop being dead is just a laughable idea when looking at the facts.

antirez 14y ago

The problem with Linux is much simpler IMHO. No I don't mean the actual causes, but the root cause: Linus is a technical leader, so the kernel is a good product. He is not a "product leader" from the point of view of the final Desktop experience, so he took no responsibility for that (he actually blamed the UX of Linux many times in the past). No one emerged as the "Linux Desktop Guru", taking full responsibility of a distribution completely targeted at fixing the UX, selecting a set of defaults to actually create a development platform. Fixing the problem of users supporting in a perfect way at least a subset of computer systems (targeting macs makes sense for instance). So the Linux Desktop was the sum of a multitude of different tries, that alone sometimes were interesting, but not enough at all to define the whole OS experience from the point of view of the user.

TheCondor 14y ago
Is it possible for the community to allow a desktop guru? Early on in GNOME they had a number of popular graphics designer types making all sorts of really exotic looking UIs, a number of conflicts ended that. (enlightenment was the official window manager for a while there) Then the eazel guys showed up and made Nautilus, if anybody could have been the guru, it was Andy. I honestly don't know what appended there. Nautilus is still around, it's under gone some substantial changes along the way. Seems to me it's a very difficult community problem to solve. Look at replacing sysv init, it's a very technical issue, it doesn't matter to a lot of users, there are some technical goals you can bring up to keep the discussion rooted in fact over opinion and there is tremendous disagreement about it. The community hasn't arrived at any conclusion exactly. Why should something as esoteric as a ui be easier to arrive at consensus on? Everyone has an opinion on ui. There is another aspect to it, it's distribution fragmentation. How do you set an ip address in Ubuntu? How about Fedora? Do it via UI and command line. They are different and that's an easy one. The mechanics are so different, it's not a desktop problem, it's a distribution problem, which sort of makes KDE and GNOME toolkits rather than desktops themselves.
- antirez 14y ago
  Well what I mean is, imagine if Ubuntu at some point started to be opinionated about what a Desktop Linux should look like more and more, with some people inside fully responsible to build the UX in every detail, how binary packages should be trivial to download and install, how drivers should be trivial to install (for a subset of the hardware that is fully supported at least), and so forth. A distribution that tried to provide a full experience, instead of being, indeed, a Software Distribution. In that case you can have people in charge of deciding all the details. Payed people to do the best work possible.