11 ms·

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 Li

• 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.
  • scott_s 14y ago
    it's only fair to note that Linux supports a much greater variety of hardware than OSX. Entirely true, but I also don't have to look up what is or is not supported by OSX. I just buy an Apple computer. Of course, there's obvious tradeoffs here about having the freedom to buy whatever hardware you want.
    • shardling 14y ago
      Ubuntu has initatives to let you just buy a computer with Linux preinstalled too! http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/ http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/
    • tsahyt 14y ago
      That hardly an achievement of OSX though. Supporting pretty much a single set of hardware and some variations isn't really hard and does not count as "great hardware support" in my book. That's just one of the advantages you get by selling the devices and the software.
      • scott_s 14y ago
        I don't disagree, but as a consumer, I just care that it's easy.
  • mbell 14y ago
    > 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. I'll take supporting a limited set of hardware very well over supporting tons of hardware often in a mediocre at best fashion. I'm not just talking about video cards either, over the years I've had "fun" with everything from SATA controllers to sound chips that were 'supported' under linux.
    • gst 14y ago
      If you're fine with limited hardware just use hardware that is supported by Linux. Every Thinkpad I've used so far worked perfectly out of the box. If you're not sure what to buy just look at the list of Ubuntu certified hardware: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/ http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/
• gamzer 14y ago
  Now you made me curious. How would I be able to switch between different sound cards on the fly without restarting applications if PulseAudio did not exist?
  • toyg 14y ago
    How many people ever had more than one sound card in their computer, let alone a need to switch between them ? http://xkcd.com/619/ http://xkcd.com/619/
    • JoshTriplett 14y ago
      Everyone with headphones or headsets using Bluetooth or USB.
      • shardling 14y ago
        I have some USB speakers I'm fond of, and PulseAudio was indeed the only way they ever worked right for me on Linux.
    • akldfgj 14y ago
      As CPU counts continue to rise and Flash support continues to get dropped from more pltforms, that comic will become more ironic.
    • zokier 14y ago
      I think I have four: Onboard audio, pcie sound card, usb microphone and hdmi audio on video card.
    • deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  • CamperBob2 14y ago
    Not sure if serious
  • dsr_ 14y ago
    Let's take a common case: I have a motherboard sound device which I use 95% of the time, and I have a USB camera that has a built-in microphone. When I go to settings in Google Hangout, it asks me which device I want to use. ALSA presents the interfaces. I choose whatever combination I want -- mic from the camera, headphone out through the mobo -- and it works.
• shmerl 14y ago
  The problem with Android is its diverging from the Linux desktop path (i.e. X11->Wayland). Being completely incompatible put Android apart and it arguably can't be called a Linux desktop at all. The split it caused in the mobile devices (with no drivers available except for Android) is a horror, and like Aaron Seigo called it - Android is the best friend and the worst enemy. The real future of the Linux desktop and mobile is Wayland, and Android it seems will stay apart forever, going its own path.
  • VMG 14y ago
    > The split it caused in the mobile devices (with no drivers available except for Android) is a horror, and like Aaron Seigo called it - Android is the best friend and the worst enemy. These mobile devices could grow some HDMI and USB ports in a few iterations and becoming stationary. Tada - there's your Linux desktop.
    • shmerl 14y ago
      That's not the point (many of the mobile devices already have a USB and HDMI). The point is - Android incompatible architecture put it apart from the rest of the Linux world. And it's a horror to squeeze X.org or Wayland drivers (as well as other Linux drivers) from the mobile manufacturers, when they say "we are too busy with Android".
    • zanny 14y ago
      I have a Transformer Infinity with the dock that I use as a netbook that I can plug into tvs and stream movies off of. The most recent iterations of the Nexus Q et al have mini usb and mini hdmi ports and can effectively do the same thing as well. Android devices have been at the point of being desktop replacements starting this year, and mainly due to the Transformer tablets, but any bluetooth keyboard + hdmi complient device can serve the same function given a beefy enough processor.
  • gst 14y ago
    "the real future"... The real future is what users like best, not what developers think that users might like. I personally don't like the Wayland approach and I think that competition is fine. Let the "market" decide what's best.
• chao- 14y ago
  I think Canonical had a chance to make a real impact here but they essentially blew it. Curious to hear you elaborate on what they blew, and how. I don't use Ubuntu myself (prefer straight Debian), but I've always respected what they're trying to do (and to some extent, what they have already accomplished).
• guard-of-terra 14y ago
  Linux is not a corporation. It's not fighting for turf. If Mac OS X is good enough for most of the desktop users, Linux doesn't have to throw resources and bullshit around (as corporations do) to counter that success. As long as Mac OS X does its job well Linux can focus on being linux-y, and succeed.
• mekoka 14y ago
  > I think Canonical had a chance to make a real impact here but they essentially blew it. I keep seeing claims being made, and mostly by (former?) Linux superusers, that Canonical and Ubuntu are "doomed". Could someone point me to some numbers that show signs of this? I know when the Unity desktop came out, a lot of people were flaming. I didn't install it on my laptop (I'm still on 10.04 LTS), but I did on a colleague's desktop. From time to time, I have to assist him with code he's writing. During those sessions I have to interact with it and to be honest I'm not pleased, but each time I ask him if he wouldn't be interested in switching to Gnome or maybe installing Mint or something, he keeps saying it's not that bad. I'm sitting next to him and frustrated because I can't find where everything is and how to bring stuff up, but when I ask, he just presses a few keys and whatever we need shows up on screen. When Miguel de Icaza's post came out last week and I saw claims on the doom of Ubuntu, I started looking for evidence. I couldn't find anything that in fact confirmed this. I found a lot of people who complained about Unity last year when it first came out, but fast forward in 2012 and there are also more and more posts of people going I use to hate it with a passion, but I have to admit, it's now growing on me. Not everything is perfect, but with a bit of work I think they're on to something. Also interesting to me was that I had a sense that the most positive reviews came from people with no prior Linux experience. So much so that I'm getting more and more curious about it and I'm slowly mentally preparing to make a switch to it. Is it possible that Canonical is actually moving away from Gnome and taking things in-house to avoid exactly the problems that Miguel de Icaza is underlining?
  • jeremyjh 14y ago
    >Is it possible that Canonical is actually moving away from Gnome and taking things in-house to avoid exactly the problems that Miguel de Icaza is underlining? I do think this is part of it though they probably wouldn't say it way. They certainly do want a consistent user experience - and they want one that rivals OS X. I don't understand why people complain about using software they haven't learned how to use yet. It all takes some getting used to for a new user, including OS X. Now I can definitely understand the frustration though of someone who just upgraded their OS only to find they don't know how to use it anymore.
    • 14y ago
• rbanffy 14y ago
  > I think the pseudo-anarchic development process doomed Linux on the desktop I'll repeat myself here. Linux is the natural successor of the technical Unix workstation. It's, therefore, a niche product: built by a highly technical crowd for a highly technical crowd. Only recently efforts were made to make Linux more muggle-friendly and those efforts nearly coincide with the decline of the relevance of the desktop PC.
  • danieldk 14y ago
    You must have never seen Corel Linux, Caldera OpenLinux, Lindows/Linspire, etc. Many attempts were made to make Linux more user-friendly at the start of the century (and ever since).
    • rbanffy 14y ago
      I did see those, indeed. Caldera's was somewhat successful in making Linux easier to install - at least when compared to the Debian and Slackware installers of the time. At least, I managed to install it on my machine. I would also mention Conectiva's as an easy to install and use Linux. Unfortunately, at that time, the lack of desktop applications was a huge problem for the average user. Today, many people read e-mail, collaborate on documents and engage in a large part of their social lives through a browser. That was not the case in the early 2000s. Having an easy to use (or Windows-like) file manager, application launcher or even package manager was not enough. Perhaps it's unfair to give credit to Canonical for making Ubuntu grandma-friendly when a lot of its ease of use comes from applications like LibreOffice, Thunderbird and Firefox (and Gmail, Gdocs and Facebook).
• SlipperySlope 14y ago
  Google's Android users activate one million new devices each day. This Linux based mobile OS has absolutely crushed Microsoft's mobile software, and has surpassed Apple worldwide. I have begun to wonder that, given the evident superiority of Linux in mobile, given the lack of GNU within it, and given the central control of Linux mobile development by Google and Amazon, then to what degree has GNU and its development traditions held back Linux desktop adoption? Thoughts?
  • akldfgj 14y ago
    GNU is not really relevant, except may be to say that free software philosophy can't build something for the mass market, since it takes money to pay workers to slave away for the benefit of the plebes. The UI layers (GNOME/KDE/Canonical) may be relevant. Linux desktop doesn't have a giant company funding massive ad campaigns and retail outlets and spit-and-polish and OEM integration, and all that is needed to launch a successful product for the mass market. Linux desktop is very successful in the developer workstation and server markets, where the users are more tech savvy.
• macco 14y ago
  Actually I think Canonical is making a terrific job. IMO it has the best out of the box experience of all desktop OSes on the market.
• darklajid 14y ago
  Since it's customary to bash on PulseAudio: Here's one user that is very happy to have it, using its end-user features. I wouldn't want to have a machine again, where any of these things won't work: - Set volume per source/application (More flash video for the presentation, some mp3 still in the background) - Move applications between devices (Wife complains about the sound of my video call/video/game? Move that thing to the USB (!! No jack that directly does what you want anyway) headphones) - Normalize output so that nothing blows up my headphones when I switch between different audio sources Apart from that I did use the 'stream over the network' feature a couple of times in the past and while it wasn't something I'd need on a regular basis it worked fine for me. Long story short: Pulseaudio solves problems for me. It totally might not do that for you, but please don't project.
  • knewter 14y ago
    I <3 pulseaudio as well, glad to hear someone else loves it. All the reasons you mention :)