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Comment by AnIdiotOnTheNet | Hacker News Reader

> I find it amusing that so people who are quite capable feel compelled to hold onto the hand-rails for so long and won't just dive in to Linux.

Well it doesn't help that Linux desktop is backed by one of the most condescending cultures that ever stalked the internet.

Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, the way Linux works just doesn't jive with a lot of people? Like, everything has a middleman involved. Drivers for your hardware? Have to be merged into the kernel. Applications? Should go through (all of) the distro package repo(s) unless you want it to be a pain in the ass.

We get it, you find value in the way these things work, some of us don't.

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> Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, the way Linux works just doesn't jive with a lot of people? Like, everything has a middleman involved. Drivers for your hardware? Have to be merged into the kernel. Applications? Should go through (all of) the distro package repo(s) unless you want it to be a pain

…? This is a really strange perspective, since I've found Linux to remove middlemen. No more searching a manufacterer's website for some garbage closed-source driver that has a dozen vulnerabilities and no support. No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.

> No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.

And now you have to, forever, since you're no longer using a package manager to get updates to your custom buggy horror show.

> No more searching a manufacterer's website for some garbage closed-source driver

Please point me to the source for the drivers for my rtx2080. That would be super helpful!

>Please point me to the source for the drivers for my rtx2080. That would be super helpful!

There are cases where good hardware has no drivers for latest windows, like I had a Wacoom tablet that the vendfor would not result drivers for newer Windows version but continued to work out of the box on Linux. The fact that NVIDIA are jerks and not providing at least documentation for the community to make drivers is not the fault of the Linux community or the fault of us the NVIDIA customers,

The proprietary driver work well enough for my 970 but my next card will be an AMD one

Getting the driver from the manufacturer directly is somehow involving a middleman in your world, but having that vendor have to submit kernel patches and hope they're blessed by the community, merged, and eventually distributed by the distros isn't?

> No more waiting for Microsoft to roll out fixes; you can apply your own changes yourself.

You don't have to wait, since vendors can roll out new drivers. And what's the equivalent on Linux? Pollute your system with an unnecessary kernel dev environment and compile from source. Personally, I think having to resort to that for such a simple operation when it is almost 2020 is a gigantic failure.

I mean that is essentially how all science is done. It has to go through peer review for it to be worth anything. So that is a strong point. You second point is also an exaggeration. You typically wouldn't compile anything (unless you want to). All supported distros will provide binary updates.

> I mean that is essentially how all science is done.

Installing software shouldn't have to be a formal scientific discipline. It isn't rocket science unless you make it rocket science so you have an excuse to invent package managers.

> All supported distros will provide binary updates.

Eventually. On their own schedule. If you want (or need) the latest driver as soon as the vendor says it is ready, you'll be compiling. Otherwise you have to wait for the kernel maintainers, then the distributors.

Huh? Binaries downloaded off the Internet work just as fine on Linux as they do on Windows! Package managers just give you very convenient updating and a chain of trust to greatly reduce the risk of installing malware; and these are things people definitely want - see the App Store, the Play Store, Homebrew, Chocolatey, etc.

> Binaries downloaded off the Internet work just as fine on Linux as they do on Windows!

If that is true, then why do developers keep telling Linux people that distribution to Linux Desktop is a problem? What issue do AppImage and Snap and FlatPak exist to try and solve?

> and these are things people definitely want - see the App Store, the Play Store, Homebrew, Chocolatey, etc.

Chocolatey has a paltry install base, Homebrew is only used by developers, and you don't really get a choice about the mobile stores.

Linux is a headache for two reasons: (1) because it's basically packaging your app for half a dozen different app stores, so you need tools that make that easier for you, and (2) lots of frameworks have no, buggy or unwieldy Linux support, because Linux had such a small userbase. So you're right, it is more of a headache for the developer, but the end user has a much nicer experience (it can't be overstated how nice it is to be able to install almost anything with one command, and update everything with another). Of course, binaries can be downloaded off the Internet just like on Windows, and some apps, like Chrome, will even keep themselves up-to-date without a package manager, again like on Windows, but each app having its own messy, non-standardized updating scheme is something of an antipattern on Linux, even if it's par for the course on Windows.

> it is more of a headache for the developer, but the end user has a much nicer experience (it can't be overstated how nice it is to be able to install almost anything with one command, and update everything with another)

It's a trade off. For that you're giving up control as a user about what can and cannot be installed on your system, you're giving up portable applications, being able to have applications on different media, having different versions of the same applications, etc.

I'm an end user too, and I don't want to make that trade off. I imagine there are many others who agree.

I still don't understand - you can still have a standalone executable if you want, nothing's stopping you! Package managers just streamline the common case of "I just want to install some software on this computer and have it update automatically". Linux has all the freedom of Windows and more.

> I still don't understand - you can still have a standalone executable if you want, nothing's stopping you!

Try it some time. See how much of your Linux Desktop software you can actually acquire that way without a whole lot of work.

>Well it doesn't help that Linux desktop is backed by one of the most condescending cultures that ever stalked the internet.

Oh, Rust community would like a chance to defend their title! ;)

> Well it doesn't help that Linux desktop is backed by one of the most condescending cultures that ever stalked the internet.

Ouch.

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