Comment by michaelmrose | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelmrose | Hacker News Reader

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Point by point.

- If he has a recent model Macbook its KNOWN to be problematic. Searching "2016 macbook linux" most of the top results are about how it doesn't work well. He specifically says he assumed because redhat offered it that it worked with linux. When you can't spend 30 seconds researching your development machine it might be your fault.

- Server guis are known to be limited, hard to automate and just generally inefficient desiring a gui for your server is normally a sign that you just aren't very good.

- Users don't have to use ANY command line package managers there is in fact a gui for that if they prefer. If they choose wholly of their own accord to use a command line package manager they probably ought to read the relevant help document https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_management_system which makes the usage of the relevant tools pretty clear.

I don't think its untoward that red hat employees that wish to set up Fedora servers be expected to read documentation.

> a sign that you just aren't very good.

Another attack on users, this time pretty direct. I won't discuss the other points as it's again just shifting blame. The reality is that with Desktop Linux there's nobody taking responsibility that things actually work.

You mean you wont address them because you cannot I presume? The critique is aimed at desktop Linux as a whole but is 99% is about how fedora works on his particular known to be problematic hardware.

Fedora is first of all an unstable test bed for a commercial product running on hardware known to be problematic and the user is a red hat developer.

I realized I had more useful things to do than beta test rhel in 2011 and I started buying hardware that works well with linux in 2003.

Not knowing to how do this is certainly a forgivable thing in joe random business user but it becomes ridiculous when we are talking about a red hat dev. If a device doesn't work with its target platform be it windows, Linux, or mac you blame the oem.

In this case whose job do you imagine is it to donate free labor to a multi billion dollar juggernaut to ensure their machines work well with Linux?

Given the benefit Apple has derived from open source software it would be nice if they would help but they certainly have no real obligation nor do open source devs whose time is inherently a limited resource.

In the end Linux has plenty of room for improvement but supporting everyone's hardware for free with finite dev resources just isn't a rational or achievable goal and lampooning linux as a whole because fedora doesn't work on your mac isn't even useful dialogue.

Rational actors will react to this by reasonably picking hardware that is known to be well supported. Irrational actors will continue to complain on the Internet.

I can, but I don't think it's worth my time, you will just counter those and pass the blame further. The first machine he had problems with was a 2009 mac mini. The second machine was actually given to him by red hat, which is the biggest linux company. But all this driver stuff and everything breaking all the time is hardly a distribution issue, it's shared throughout all distributions.

Why should OEMs work on supporting Linux when they sell their machines with other operating systems? That's just passing the blame.

The problem is that Linux is touted all the time as an alternative that is supposed to be even better, when the reality is that lots of things are broken and don't work out of the box. Not even on the most sold laptop models, which are macbooks.

> Rational actors will react to this by reasonably picking hardware that is known to be well supported. Irrational actors will continue to complain on the Internet.

People that want to actually get work done and do not want to or can not fiddle around will not use Linux.

> when the reality is that lots of things are broken and don't work out of the box.

And finding a fix can be elusive, when often times the answer is "your distro sucks, use $OTHER_DISTRO" or "use Google."

> Rational actors will react to this by reasonably picking hardware that is known to be well supported.

But what about when you pick hardware that is supposedly well supported and you still have problems? Run into that more times than I care to remember.

Then your complaint is much more legitimate but instead of making a linux sucks post report the relevant problem to people who might be able to fix it, consider funding development to improve the relevant software, or roll up your sleeves and lend a hand.

Nobody said linux or open source software was perfect.

> but instead of making a linux sucks post report the relevant problem to people who might be able to fix it.

Yes, do not inform potential users that they might be taken for a ride, don't mention that 7-years old hardware is not supported, or that Gnome3 doesn't even know how to switch back to the default display. I mean, we wouldn't want to have informed users am I right?

You are pretty much making legulere's point: hush hush no criticism in public, and even if it is valid please report it quietly.

So I assume you would agree if Apple or Microsoft had a similar attitude? (And no need to mention "yeah but with MS/Apple you paid, therefore...", paying entitles you to tech support, and we're only talking about informing users here.)

You ought to feel like you can speak freely and critique if applicable but beware lest you also be judged and found wanting.

There are three known potentially problematic areas and they are well documented. apple stuff, wifi cards, laptops and their custom sleep code.

aside from apple stuff (who have made it quite clear they believe their users want a totally walled garden and are not interested in compatabilty with the rest of the world), the other two are now rare afaik.

so if it happens to you regularily, then yeah, very likely it is nothing more than your distro sucks.

I didn't say oems were obliged to support linux they could be a little more open so that it would be easier for open source software developers though. Regarding the blame you seem so eager to assign correctly.

- The oem is not obligated to support linux they aren't to blame

- The open source developers aren't obligated to provide free labor to make your hardware work they aren't to blame

- The user isn't obligated to use linux in the first place but absent a support contract or a promise from oem that the machine runs linux they aren't owed anything either.

Its like the open source software developers collectively held out to the community at large here take for free all this awesome software we have invested man decades in. It works on many but not all machines out there and a legion of users is waiting to help you for free make it work with your particular configuration and hardware and somehow a bunch of entitled individuals heard something on the order of

Here's all this awesome software we wrote for you for free it will replace all this software you are currently pay for on your existing hardware no matter what hardware you have and unicorns will fart rainbows in time with your keystrokes.

Then reacting to this promise that nobody made they get mad and make a linux sucks post on their blog.

That this rant comes from a red hat employee is quite frankly embarrassing.

Human users cannot be rational actors. You can only blame yourself for not understanding the nature of your users well enough to avoid bad PR.

Car ownership often doesn't go well for you if your stupid and incompetent. Making linux work on all possible machines with very very finite resources is an impossible task.

In that context keeping people from buying machines that don't work with linux and complaining on the internet is equally impossible.

I don't understand how you believe people are obligated to do better work for free for you.

*Please note I'm not implying you or the author are stupid just users in general. This is why most people ought to buy complete hardware/software packages with support and experts should be able to use google and read docs.

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