Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

Linux users often take the idea of 'self-examination' way too far and it turns into 'self-disparagement'.

The fact is, if you vet your hardware and use a major distro (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora) you'll wind up with a perfectly functioning Linux desktop or laptop.

You think about it, OSX only runs on a few laptops. Linux runs perfectly on more laptops than exist for OSX. Windows run on many laptops, more often than not quite well, not always perfect though, despite being bundled together.

I've been using Ubuntu on a ThinkPad T530 for several years, it just works. Couldn't be happier. Everything works BTW, function keys, fingerprint scanner, everything.

As for the Linux eco-system - major browsers work, Steam works, there's a phenomenal ecosystem around Linux if you do any sort of programming, data science, etc... I really have nothing to complain about these days.

View on HN

Exactly. A non negligible part of his rant was about proprietary graphic drivers. Free software developers can't do anything about that, and anyway what is the point? Today, if you want to game just use Windows, if you want a fine Linux laptop get one with something like an Haswell with integrated graphics (or maybe Broadwell, still wait a little for Skylakes)

And anyway if you look at what the "competition" sells while being this much critical, you can probably write something at least as long. Even last MS flagship devices running last Windows 10 versions are full of bugs now -- and likewise for major PC vendors like Dell -- so GNU/Linux distributions might as well become attractive just because Windows devices are of terrible quality today :p

> A non negligible part of his rant was about proprietary graphic drivers. Free software developers can't do anything about that, and anyway what is the point?

Whether or not it is fixable by the community is unimportant to an end-user that just wants something that works.

I'm really waiting for the day an open source gpu with decent capabilities and clean design for simple drivers hit the market. The reverse engineering headaches are getting absurd these days.

I thought a similar thing when I was reading it, but regardless of who is responsible for a problem, it's still a problem that should be acknowledged in such a list. Graphics on linux is a hard problem to solve cleanly. It's not anyone in particular's fault, and it's entirely reasonable when you understand the context, but it's still a problem. In context, linux does very well given the restrictions, but it's still not as buttery as the proprietary offerings.

> It's not anyone in particular's fault

If the company producing and selling the hardware is not giving the specs to their users, then it's their fault. Perhaps that's a bit too RMS for some people, but in this case I basically agree with him. It's mine, I bought it, I want to run whatever I want to on it.

> If the company producing and selling the hardware is not giving the specs to their users, then it's their fault.

AMD started releasing the low-level documentation for their GPUs in 2008, and although the FOSS drivers have benefitted stability-wise they're still lagging in API features and often offer less than half the performance of the proprietary counterparts. As far as I know we don't have a complete FOSS OpenCL 1.0 (ca. 2009) implementation for any ISA, nevermind newer versions or competitive performance.

Unfortunately GPUs are so complex that specs alone don't guarantee good drivers.

I don't think this is about self-disparagement, but about holding ourselves to a high standard. I love Linux, and have been using it without major problems for some time now (mainly Ubuntu-based distros). Especially if you are into programming, I'd say it beats MS hands down.

However, I do acknowledge that there are still many problems that bar Linux from being an operating system "for the masses" (i.e. all those people who are not computer nerds). Many small problems can be fixed with a few commands in terminal - but which grandmother/stressed office worker/gamer kid is willing to learn how to use a UNIX shell or configure fstab just to do their stuff? And there are other problems that aren't solved as easily. I help out at the Ubuntu Forums, and I see plenty of posters with problems that the combined wisdom of a few thousand experienced Linux users can't solve. (Just have a look at the "Unanswered Posts" section.)

So yes, Linux is a fantastic OS with great software available, and by all means let's keep advertising it. But let's not pretend that "it just works, right out of the box!"(TM) every time.

> But let's not pretend that "it just works, right out of the box!"

It does though. Get an Ubuntu laptop from Dell, it works. Get a Chromebook from Google and friends, it works.

Yes, install Linux on a random 5 year old laptop, and you may have problems. Ever built a 'hackintosh'? Same deal. Ever install Windows? It's a pain.

As for shell commands, Windows has that. So does OSX. Linux also has GUIs that can install packages, that can change settings. The shell is quick, but it's not the only way.

You have to compare apples to apples. And the fact is, if you install a popular distro on popular, well supported hardware, it does work. If you buy a laptop/desktop/server that comes with Linux, it works.

>Yes, install Linux on a random 5 year old laptop, and you may have problems

This is in fact the opposite of reality. Old hardware works relatively well. New hardware can take quite a while to get support because it's not a priority for vendors, especially GPUs which the article harpes on, is a very risky gamble - even if it works "works well" is misleading - it's always behind Windows performance wise and very often power management is inferior too.

Please don't misquote me. What I actually said was:

> But let's not pretend that "it just works, right out of the box!"(TM) every time. [Emphasis added]

Of course Linux often works. Perhaps even most times. A couple of weeks ago I reinstalled my laptop, switching from Ubuntu to elementaryOS. Took me about two hours (not counting most of the backups). On Windows, I would have needed two days. I have done an OS install dozens of times, with various versions of Windows and various Linux distros. And I find that Linux is often easier than Windows, because you can install all the software from one official repository instead of hunting through the download pages of a dozen vendors. BUT, and here comes the big but - that still doesn't meant that it always works smoothly. (Not that Windows always works smoothly, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Linux' problems right now.) To claim that there are never problems is simply not true.

About shell commands: of course Windows has those. But when do you ever really have to use them? (If you are a sysadmin, perhaps, but again, that's not what we're talking about. We are just considering "normal" users.) Everything that needs to be done can be done graphically. The various Linux DEs have made a lot of progress in that area in the past few years, but don't kid yourself. There's still a lot you can't do with a GUI.

And on a final (not quite serious) note:

> You have to compare apples to apples.

If I did that, I would never get away from Mac OS X, would I? :D

its nice to hold oneself to a high standard, but this is not what the article is about. most issues cited are non-issues/have been fixed over the past year. seems just like a random rant.

I spent a whole afternoon+evening reading before recommending my brother a laptop that is a) available where he happened to be and b) would probably just work fine with Linux.

The article discusses several points that would substantially improve Linux. And it addresses your concerns several times, like here:

"There's a great chance that you, as a user, won't ever encounter any of them (if you have the right hardware, never mess with your system and use quite a limited set of software from your distro exclusively)."

Ignoring criticism and possibilities of how to improve Linux ("cause it works for me already") doesn't do any good. IMHO the article is a great write-up that could help to improve these issues in the long run.

Exactly, I've always used whatever hardware I wanted, and Linux mostly just worked.

The occasional hiccups are proprietary Nvidia drivers, and some wifi chips being too recent and needing an open source driver readily available.

I use Ubuntu on a dual boot, I hardly ever boot Windows. And I'm a gamer! Steam + wine is enough for me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com