Comment by zzzcpan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zzzcpan | Hacker News Reader

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Don't be ridiculous, Linux [1] is not better at this. Maybe out of the box experience is a bit nicer, but it's not generally just usable after that. Want a properly working network? Guess what - network manager is the problem, you have to disable it and configure network interfaces manually with config files and everything. Or want vim as a default editor - good luck with config files, "update-alternatives" shell magic is the only way to change it. Want to disable avahi, mlocate and other annoying stuff? Dig deep into configs and .overrides and magic chmods (hud-service). Locales are of course incorrect by default too. And it's not even close to everything, far from it. That's why I have like a 500 line shell script to automate configuration after installation.

The only way to make it better is to recognize the problem and make a new distribution with a decent well thought out package and configuration manager.

[1] I'm talking about desktop Ubuntu of course.

I think you listed many things that require links to bugs or some specific descriptions. Otherwise the post just looks like FUD. Network manager works for usual configs. Update alternatives existed for years, but most apps respect setting $EDITOR. Most services can be simply disabled without overrides. Etc.

Sure, there may be issues. But both the list and mentioned solutions seem extraordinary.

You can google every single thing from my post and see for yourself how many people have these problems. Calling it FUD is just FUD.

No, that's the point, I can't without more information. "Network manager not working" is not exactly a good query.

That's what Linux on desktop is always about. First contact, and it all looks fine. But then, you want a certain application installed and use it or whatever and things start getting haywire (from user experience perspective). Within half an hour of fresh install you're on some obscure old and closed topics on forums or IRC begging for help, etc. Once it works it's great, but that's how it is.

I use MacOS on my laptop, Windows 8.1 on main workstation and Fedora 24 / XFCE on another workstation daily. Each and every OS has some things I wish the other OS would have and i can't decide which one is 'the best'. There's no such thing.

I'd say the closest thing to an ideal situation (for me) would be a Fedora OS with MacOS-like opaqueness to configurations and upgrade, Adobe, Games, and Office applications from Windows (they work better on Windows) and preview (spacebar and app) from MacOS in it. At that point I wouldn't even care if, at its core, it would be Linux or BSD or NT.

Chrome OS will get close to this once it gets Android app support.

Microsoft supports Office apps for Android as a first-class port.

Chrome OS is "opaque"...there are very few knobs to turn.

Games will be covered as long as you mean mobile games.

I am also using F22/XFCE setup from past 2 years - Stable !

I agree with Virapter if we're talking Ubuntu or Mint. The experience hasn't been nearly as bad as you describe despite me using several versions, several distro's of each (eg Lubuntu etc), and on 2 different machines. There was often at least one or two problems like you described that would be a no-go for layperson trying Linux. I Googled them, saw relevant steps, and problem went away. Shit works now. Sometimes not even one of those, esp on Mint.

My main gripe is whats broken varies distro to distro. It's rarely the same. So, I have to have guidelines or scripts on a per-distro basis to deal with their issues. You'd think in 2016 that there'd be reference sheets on properly integrating various components so this doesn't happen. And people would've used them. One or other apparently isn't true.

I had to deal even with the manual xorg in the past, because wacom tablet didn't work properly and was pretty much useless in the "default" mode, with wrong button bindings and wrong things enabled, that interfered with each other. But xorg is too hard and too fragile, so I eventually found a way to at least make it not interfere and gave up. Accepted the "default" mode, putting only couple of "xinput set-prop ..." lines into .xsessionrc.

It's always been a constant battle with ubuntu for me. I lost that battle, automated configuration to satisfy ubuntu and don't bother anymore, mostly by avoiding ubuntu ways as much as possible.

I've had a Dell Latitude notebook with Ubuntu 14.04 preinstalled and guess what? The wireless network card worked fine by default. I've also had no networking issues while running Fedora 24 on it.

You really should try a decent desktop Linux. For example, Arch. It just works out of the wiki. All those problems are because Ubuntu tries very hard to be smarter than user. Obviously it fails. You don't need to disable fancy configuration and autodetection tools if they are not present in the first place.

>>[1] I'm talking about desktop Ubuntu of course.

Sadly, following the (un)guidelines set by the redhat/gnome dictatorship (aka, systemd) and their grand quest to please the desktop users, Debian also seems to have become, more or less, the freaking Ubuntu.

I will be happy if I am wrong.

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