Comment by baxuz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by baxuz | Hacker News Reader

Don't really agree with the claims in the article. I myself and dozen of my friends and colleagues have been trying to get linux as a desktop OS all the way back when the Tango / Gnome aesthetics emerged as a counter to the glossy 3d aesthetics of XP and OSX.

The thing is... It just didn't work. There wasn't any available software for it. The open-source alternatives such as OpenOffice, Inkscape and Gimp were lacking to put it mildly. Games were out of the question. But that isn't the worst part.

The desktop itself, and by extension the OS as a desktop OS didn't work. Getting hardware video acceleration to work was almost impossible. Time to edit xorg.conf again and run the glsl demo. Maybe it won't crash the xserver this time. You want your microphone to work? Time to download and compile some obscure ALSA forks. UTF-8? Here, have some EN-US whether you like it or not. God help you if you have a USB device which isn't a mouse or a keyboard. And then there were the crashes. I still remember typing `startx` regularly as the GUI would crash all the time.

I really want linux to succeed as a desktop OS, but I don't see that happening ever.

I think it's a matter of expectations and needs. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop OS off and on since 2005ish (first Gentoo, now Arch); it's been fine for me, but I suspect my experience is largely different for a variety of reasons--mostly due to needs.

However, therein lies the rub: If you use Linux as a desktop environment with the expectation that everything is going to magically Just Work™, there's a greater chance you're going to be unpleasantly surprised. Then again, you might not (again, depending on needs), but if you're using predominantly Windows software and expect to be able to carry that over, it might not happen. I play some Windows games under Wine, and they generally work well, but there's a few that don't (like Guild Wars 2, but it's probably because the game is CPU bound). It happens. Use whatever works for you.

As to your specific complaints, it seems to me that most of them are largely outdated by now. OpenOffice/LibreOffice are good enough for the most part (certainly not as polished as MS Office), and the same applies to Inkscape and Gimp (both of which I use under Windows, so there's that). My GeForce GTX 1060 works fine with the NVIDIA kernel drivers; I've not had to edit my xorg.conf file in years (with dual monitors!); audio works fine, yes even using PulseAudio; and UTF-8 is a non-issue (installing the correct fonts does wonders, but make sure to change them in your browser profile!). My webcam works great as well, but I selected it specifically for its Linux compatibility. Same for an ancient HP LaserJet printer.

So, I think things have certainly improved--they have since I started using Gentoo. That's not to say you should expect smooth sailing, of course. For my part, I like tinkering with my OS and generally don't mind it when I break something. If that's out of the question and you need something that's going to work out of the box, Linux probably isn't something you should be using in the first place, especially if you have esoteric needs. I won't wax philosophical about "oh, you just need to do X" when certain software is going to work better on Windows, for instance, but having used Linux for my desktop OS as long as I have, I can't complain. I actually grumble more when I have to boot to Windows. ;)

However, I have a friend who has a particular penchant for breaking literally everything he touches (coincidentally, he works in QC now). Every time he speculates out loud about trying some random Linux distro, I politely change the subject!

And your point is? Having average user, without any esoteric needs, jump over these hoops, is not "probably", but definitely unfeasible. Complaints, such as about Office, aren't and probably won't ever get outdated, all diehard Excel users I know rejected LibreOffice Calc due to incompatibilities and missing features.

I know enough C to mess with the kernel, but even I must choose my battles - sometime around kernel 4.0 ACPI support for my otherwise perfectly functional and performant 8y old mainboard broke, freezing on boot. I had to disable ACPI, it means shutting it down manually by power switch. It reminds me every time not to lie to myself "I can't complain" :) Fortunately it's desktop, not laptop.

>And your point is? Having average user, without any esoteric needs, jump over these hoops, is not "probably", but definitely unfeasible.

Did you read my post or the OP?

1) The OP made claims about specific features not working in Linux. Generally, those complaints aren't true anymore and haven't been for a long time (audio, UTF-8, among other things). I can't remember the last time I had xorg crash or the last time I had to use startx and not my login manager.

2) I acknowledge on a number of points that it's most certainly not something the average user should use. I honestly have no idea how else to express this in a way that is suitable enough to satisfy everyone. I think you're misunderstanding the tone of my original post?

>my otherwise perfectly functional and performant 8y old mainboard broke, freezing on boot. I had to disable ACPI, it means shutting it down manually by power switch. It reminds me every time not to lie to myself "I can't complain" :)

If it's a hardware problem due to a fault, I'm not sure what you expect...

I guess you have your anecdotal evidence that "Generally, those complaints aren't true anymore..", me and parent poster have ours and different. I can agree audio is now OK, but everything else is as sketchy as ever was.

It was _the software ACPI support that broke,_ not hardware. With old kernels it all works. That at least I'd like to expect not broken.

> I can agree audio is now OK, but everything else is as sketchy as ever was.

I politely disagree. It has its warts, but most of the OP's complaints were true--10-12 years ago. Now, not so much, and it's not anecdotal either. Let's go back over it by point:

- Hardware video acceleration? Works on most hardware ("most" in this instance refers primarily to vendor). NVIDIA cards are almost always guaranteed to work well, provided there's driver support. This is usually the case except for brand new cards. - xorg.conf edits required? Nope. Maybe for exceedingly special cases. It's rare now unless you're using a card that's not well supported (see above). - xserver crashes? Almost unheard of outside hardware problems or driver-related issues. Usually a PEBKAC-instigated fault. - UTF-8? No point talking about this... - Random USB devices? Depends on the device. Same for Windows, really. - Manual invocation of `startx` required? Uncommon. Most distributions ship with login managers that work quite well. If you're using a rolling release, you'll probably have to do this infrequently if an update broke something (but then, you should be expecting that with a rolling release anyway; if not, then you shouldn't be using rolling releases).

> It was _the software ACPI support that broke,_ not hardware

I apologize. I misread your original comment due to misleading verb ordering, and the fact that I'm a horrible, horrible person who has an awful habit of skimming comments.

Generally this shouldn't be the case and is certainly the fault of the kernel. However, 4.0 was released on April 12, 2015 and there have been a number of improvements since, including with ACPI. I would encourage you to try a newer kernel. Preferably something around the 4.7-4.8 vintage. (Or lack thereof.)

It's also plausible your issue was cased by module renaming/removal. My memory is hazy on this part, but I recall support for some hardware being rolled up into a single module, requiring some manual intervention. Unfortunately, the actual working solution can be hit or miss with some hardware (what motherboard are you using?). I've had ACPI work fine on ancient boards from circa 2000ish or earlier (tested recently for my own amusement) but fail completely on recent laptops (2014-2015) out of the box. I'd suggest starting here [1], although this guide may or may not be useful as it's for Arch. It'll at least give you a good start.

ACPI is one of Linux's primary warts, but it depends on your hardware selection. Is it a problem? Absolutely. But I'd also point out that Microsoft used to publish hardware compatibility guides for NT and its various successors. :)

Common hardware will go a long way to improving your experience with Linux, but it's no replacement for researching one's selection. Linux may be condemned to a hobbyist's operating system (on the desktop, at least), but some of us do use it everyday with no ill effects!

[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ACPI_modules

These are some pretty dated critiques to base your "don't see that happening ever" prediction on.

A lot has changed in the past 6 years.

Agreed. I started ~2005 with Gentoo as my desktop (currently using Arch). Most of these complaints are no longer valid. Others (OpenOffice, Gimp) are a matter of taste/needs.

XP was released sixteen years ago.

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