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Linux is a usability nightmare the second you get out of the fake easy-to-use illusion layer they added with the new GUIs. Unless you’re a coder, don’t even thi

Linux is a usability nightmare the second you get out of the fake easy-to-use illusion layer they added with the new GUIs. Unless you’re a coder, don’t even think about it. Do you think he really believes this? Maybe I'm too far in a bubble or something, but that sounds completely dishonest.

norswap 13y ago
You would say the "unless you're a coder" part is wrong, but otherwise it has the ring of truth based on my experience. Configuration when not using UIs is hell because each application has its own format, settings file location (if it uses settings file at all -- you might be required to run a curses console program) and generally its own idiosyncracies. For a single logical concept (e.g. sound, ditto for display), a plethora of layers are involved and they all clash heavily, both in term of settings and abstractions.
copx 13y ago
I do not just believe it, I know it. When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. I can do that easily, I grew up with DOS. We had to tweak the parameters of the memory manager and make custom boot disks with just the right set of drivers to get games working as kids. It is just that I am not willing to do that stuff anymore. This is the 21st century and my time has value. Recent examples of my Linux "user experience": - (Fedora) Internet went down while the package manager (OMG I hate those!) was busy updating the system. This left the package manager in a corrupted state. I could no longer use the GUI to install/update anything, only gave me a "please fix me somehow" type error message. I could easily google the solution. Four cryptic terminal commands later it was good to go again. But as I said: unacceptable for a modern desktop OS. - (Ubuntu) Getting my wifi to work. Do I even have to start? I ended up having to download a kernel module .tarball from somewhere, had to integrate that into the kernel, and edit some config files by hand. Again, no problem, Google is magic. However it wasted one hour of my life: unacceptable. On Windows getting the wifi to work required.. clicking on setup.exe.
- mikegioia 13y ago
  I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? You hate package managers? I don't have experience with Fedora's and I don't know why it entered an inconsistent state, but OSX/iOS use a package manager. Android uses a package manager. What problem could you possibly have with package managers? Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? The answer in "Linuxland" may still be to open the terminal and enter commands but the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. I have the majority of our (albeit small) office running Ubuntu 13.10 and I've yet to encounter anything like what you've described.
  - speeder 13y ago
    I think he is not angry at the package manager, he is angry that the package manager failed, and he had to use the terminal to fix it. And it IS not acceptable, I use Fedora myself, and every time this happened I got REALLY, REALLY upset, if I am using a GUI package manager, why the hell I should need to use console to fix it when it breaks? Why there is no option on the GUI to do that? Also I had a machine that I had to install a kernel module to put sound on it... Linux still have some serious issues with some hardware (mostly audio and radio-based communications, I've heard printers are problematic too, but it is years that I don't own a printer)
  - copx 13y ago
    >I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. No surprise there. Some wifi hardware is supported out of the box and will just work. That is not the problem. The pain starts when something does not just work. >What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? Given that I am a major nerd I have multiple ones and admin even more ones. I think that particular episode happened with an Asus Eee Box B202 and an older version of Ubuntu. > but OSX/iOS use a package manager. I do not use anything Apple but if I recall correctly OS X uses self-contained .app bundles i.e. the apps usually include all their dependencies except those present on a particular OS X version by default. It is the "dependency management" done by Linux package managers which I hate. Namely that every app becomes a tangled web of dependencies with unlimited potential for pain. Apps should be self-contained, the OS should be a stable, well-defined platform to run them. I.e. "requires Window XP or newer" or "requires Mac OS X 10.6 or newer" is okay, "requires [long list of packages]" is not. That model will cause problems sooner or later. "I updated X and suddenly Y no longer works" etc. As a programmer I find the concept of simply automatically updating libfoo 2.1.x to libfoo 2.1.y because "the developers say it does not break compatibility" scary. Software is written by people, developers accidentally break compatibility all the time, or write software which depends on buggy behavior, behavior which later gets fixed by other developers, thus breaking said software. Thus all common Linux package managers are themselves broken by design. They are only acceptable if you accept that occasionally some things will just stop working after a system update. >Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? I do not often have to update any software and when I do it I can usually try the new version without uninstalling the old one easily and I know that its installation will not affect any other apps on my system. Yes, I enjoy that. >the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. No disagreement there, but as I said, personally I am not willing to put up with an OS where this happens, no matter how rarely it happens - unless I have to.
GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
I've been using linux for literally 20 years now. The first ten I did all my own sysadminning, the next ten I used it exclusively in organizations with professional administrators to complain to, and now in my current job I'm back to having to do things myself, and I can assure you it's just as much of a pain to do things in 2014 as it was back in 2002. They gave me a new monitor at work and it took me literally six hours to figure out the right magic to get the resolution in a mode that wouldn't cause instant headaches, and I still can't run KDE applications without the X server segfaulting.
- dman 13y ago
  What graphics card are you using?
- n1ghtmare_ 13y ago
  Yep that's pretty much mu experience with Linux. By the way I really like Linux (I used to use Ubuntu before they added Unity), however the constant fiddling with drivers and all kinds of stuff is just annoying.
- Zardoz84 13y ago
  What distribution are you using ? And what graphics card? I remember some issues with the first version of KDE 4, but since then I run it on Intel, AMD and NVIDIA cards, with open and proprietary drivers without big problems (AMD sometimes have glitches..)
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
    Ubuntu (13.04 and 13.10) and a recent nvidia, don't have the model number here. My best guess is that it's some kind of font issue, plotting in R also segfaults the server but I can see the non-text part of the plot come up. I try to leave well enough alone because (a) I get paid to do work not to troubleshoot linux and (b) there's no guarantee that anything I do will result in a usable system.
HeroesGrave 13y ago
I can understand him saying that if he used, say, Arch. But distros like Mint are arguably easier to use than Windows. And then they have the advantage that they don't have to be 'fixed' like Windows 8, which destroys the point of the post.
Zigurd 13y ago
I'm sure someone still hates Unity, but I use it every day. It's a conservative design that evolves slowly. I wish the Ubuntu Touch UI had already been integrated with mainstream desktop Ubuntu so I could get a PC tablet as my day to day coding machine. It is very difficult to evolve a non-touch UI into a back-compatible touch UI. But the conservative approach Ubuntu Touch is taking might turn out to work better than what Microsoft did to Windows.
- Joeri 13y ago
  I have a windows 8 tablet / laptop hybrid as my hobby coding machine (asus t100), and i have to say that the bad rep windows 8 got does not match my experience. I've found the touch ui easy to use, and i even configured it to launch my ide in full screen mode, so i can go back and forwards between that and my browser without seeing a desktop in between. I've also noticed that i'm touching the screen quite often even while coding, and that's with an ide completely not optimized for touch (webstorm). The whole thing has convinced me that touch is an added value for any use case, even for programming.
  - scholia 13y ago
    As far as I can tell, the "bad rap" is mostly from people who haven't used it at all, or haven't used it for very long. (Typically XP users who are extremely averse to change.) The Windows 8 users I know personally like it a lot, though that doesn't stop them from complaining about the parts they don't like....

norswap 13y ago

You would say the "unless you're a coder" part is wrong, but otherwise it has the ring of truth based on my experience. Configuration when not using UIs is hell because each application has its own format, settings file location (if it uses settings file at all -- you might be required to run a curses console program) and generally its own idiosyncracies. For a single logical concept (e.g. sound, ditto for display), a plethora of layers are involved and they all clash heavily, both in term of settings and abstractions.

copx 13y ago

I do not just believe it, I know it. When something does not work in Linuxland the answer is still "open the terminal, enter a bunch of cryptic commands" and/or manually edit text-based config files. I can do that easily, I grew up with DOS. We had to tweak the parameters of the memory manager and make custom boot disks with just the right set of drivers to get games working as kids. It is just that I am not willing to do that stuff anymore. This is the 21st century and my time has value. Recent examples of my Linux "user experience": - (Fedora) Internet went down while the package manager (OMG I hate those!) was busy updating the system. This left the package manager in a corrupted state. I could no longer use the GUI to install/update anything, only gave me a "please fix me somehow" type error message. I could easily google the solution. Four cryptic terminal commands later it was good to go again. But as I said: unacceptable for a modern desktop OS. - (Ubuntu) Getting my wifi to work. Do I even have to start? I ended up having to download a kernel module .tarball from somewhere, had to integrate that into the kernel, and edit some config files by hand. Again, no problem, Google is magic. However it wasted one hour of my life: unacceptable. On Windows getting the wifi to work required.. clicking on setup.exe.

mikegioia 13y ago
I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? You hate package managers? I don't have experience with Fedora's and I don't know why it entered an inconsistent state, but OSX/iOS use a package manager. Android uses a package manager. What problem could you possibly have with package managers? Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? The answer in "Linuxland" may still be to open the terminal and enter commands but the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. I have the majority of our (albeit small) office running Ubuntu 13.10 and I've yet to encounter anything like what you've described.
- speeder 13y ago
  I think he is not angry at the package manager, he is angry that the package manager failed, and he had to use the terminal to fix it. And it IS not acceptable, I use Fedora myself, and every time this happened I got REALLY, REALLY upset, if I am using a GUI package manager, why the hell I should need to use console to fix it when it breaks? Why there is no option on the GUI to do that? Also I had a machine that I had to install a kernel module to put sound on it... Linux still have some serious issues with some hardware (mostly audio and radio-based communications, I've heard printers are problematic too, but it is years that I don't own a printer)
- copx 13y ago
  >I haven't had wifi issues with Ubuntu for over 5 years. No surprise there. Some wifi hardware is supported out of the box and will just work. That is not the problem. The pain starts when something does not just work. >What computer did you have these problems with, where you needed to install a new kernel module? Given that I am a major nerd I have multiple ones and admin even more ones. I think that particular episode happened with an Asus Eee Box B202 and an older version of Ubuntu. > but OSX/iOS use a package manager. I do not use anything Apple but if I recall correctly OS X uses self-contained .app bundles i.e. the apps usually include all their dependencies except those present on a particular OS X version by default. It is the "dependency management" done by Linux package managers which I hate. Namely that every app becomes a tangled web of dependencies with unlimited potential for pain. Apps should be self-contained, the OS should be a stable, well-defined platform to run them. I.e. "requires Window XP or newer" or "requires Mac OS X 10.6 or newer" is okay, "requires [long list of packages]" is not. That model will cause problems sooner or later. "I updated X and suddenly Y no longer works" etc. As a programmer I find the concept of simply automatically updating libfoo 2.1.x to libfoo 2.1.y because "the developers say it does not break compatibility" scary. Software is written by people, developers accidentally break compatibility all the time, or write software which depends on buggy behavior, behavior which later gets fixed by other developers, thus breaking said software. Thus all common Linux package managers are themselves broken by design. They are only acceptable if you accept that occasionally some things will just stop working after a system update. >Do you enjoy manually updating software one app at a time? I do not often have to update any software and when I do it I can usually try the new version without uninstalling the old one easily and I know that its installation will not affect any other apps on my system. Yes, I enjoy that. >the times a regular user needs to do that are becoming few and very far between. No disagreement there, but as I said, personally I am not willing to put up with an OS where this happens, no matter how rarely it happens - unless I have to.

GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago

I've been using linux for literally 20 years now. The first ten I did all my own sysadminning, the next ten I used it exclusively in organizations with professional administrators to complain to, and now in my current job I'm back to having to do things myself, and I can assure you it's just as much of a pain to do things in 2014 as it was back in 2002. They gave me a new monitor at work and it took me literally six hours to figure out the right magic to get the resolution in a mode that wouldn't cause instant headaches, and I still can't run KDE applications without the X server segfaulting.

dman 13y ago
What graphics card are you using?
n1ghtmare_ 13y ago
Yep that's pretty much mu experience with Linux. By the way I really like Linux (I used to use Ubuntu before they added Unity), however the constant fiddling with drivers and all kinds of stuff is just annoying.
Zardoz84 13y ago
What distribution are you using ? And what graphics card? I remember some issues with the first version of KDE 4, but since then I run it on Intel, AMD and NVIDIA cards, with open and proprietary drivers without big problems (AMD sometimes have glitches..)
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
  Ubuntu (13.04 and 13.10) and a recent nvidia, don't have the model number here. My best guess is that it's some kind of font issue, plotting in R also segfaults the server but I can see the non-text part of the plot come up. I try to leave well enough alone because (a) I get paid to do work not to troubleshoot linux and (b) there's no guarantee that anything I do will result in a usable system.

HeroesGrave 13y ago

I can understand him saying that if he used, say, Arch. But distros like Mint are arguably easier to use than Windows. And then they have the advantage that they don't have to be 'fixed' like Windows 8, which destroys the point of the post.

Zigurd 13y ago

I'm sure someone still hates Unity, but I use it every day. It's a conservative design that evolves slowly. I wish the Ubuntu Touch UI had already been integrated with mainstream desktop Ubuntu so I could get a PC tablet as my day to day coding machine. It is very difficult to evolve a non-touch UI into a back-compatible touch UI. But the conservative approach Ubuntu Touch is taking might turn out to work better than what Microsoft did to Windows.

Joeri 13y ago
I have a windows 8 tablet / laptop hybrid as my hobby coding machine (asus t100), and i have to say that the bad rep windows 8 got does not match my experience. I've found the touch ui easy to use, and i even configured it to launch my ide in full screen mode, so i can go back and forwards between that and my browser without seeing a desktop in between. I've also noticed that i'm touching the screen quite often even while coding, and that's with an ide completely not optimized for touch (webstorm). The whole thing has convinced me that touch is an added value for any use case, even for programming.
- scholia 13y ago
  As far as I can tell, the "bad rap" is mostly from people who haven't used it at all, or haven't used it for very long. (Typically XP users who are extremely averse to change.) The Windows 8 users I know personally like it a lot, though that doesn't stop them from complaining about the parts they don't like....