I wish the choice was simple, but it isn't.
It is a shame that people are forced to buy a computer and not reformat the disk to install their OS of choice. It is a shame that we can not take the money that we could be saving and investing in open alternatives...
But it is not a panacea and it is not for everybody. And it has two main issues:
- developers don't care about stability and/or polish (just see the discussions on the trackpad ITT) "Oh but if you change library X to Y and reroute libinput and etc it might maybe work and maybe it will not break anything else"
- because of the former reason, not all (important) applications are available to the platform. I'm really glad that a lot of things are online now, but that doesn't solve all problems
I've lost count of how many times wifi was supposed to work "out of the box" in Linux and it didn't. (And no, it wasn't an issue with drivers or wpa, it was the stupid Gnome NM widget - if I configured it manually it works). Or some other stuff. And sure, a there are stuff that works better even than MacOS.
- windows 10 - no privacy, hello telemetry, cortana, etc.
- mac os - no freedom to do anything not allowed by apple
- Linux - polish / ui issues?
At least with Linux once I configure it right it works without issue and does everything I want.
Currently that means kubuntu 20.04, AMD GPU (or intel integrated) and laptops that say they support it (Dell/Lenovo) or self built desktop. (I used gnome until I hit your NM issue too and it did not allow me to move top bar to the right... switched to KDE)
I no longer have a fear of upgrading distributions/packages causing problems, nvidia drivers causing black screen after upgrade...
Still, I do not have UI issues and the polish is fine on Linux, was explaining how to get there.
Problem is people expect a 300$ Linux laptop to work like a mac usually... when you would need a similar priced dell xps or lenovo carbon x1 plus manufacturer to support Linux, like dell developer edition.
I don't think the obstacles to adoption are based on the merits of Linux (or lack thereof). The obstacles are institutional. Businesses don't want to adopt Linux because that's a risk, and most people know Windows/Microsoft Office. Average people don't want to take a risk (installing Linux/buying a Linux box) with a device that is a decent-sized investment for most people.
Certainly I have issues with Apple, but it's a simple cost/benefit calculation. Right now the benefits of macOS vastly outweigh the downsides for me.
Unless Apple's problems increase to the point of being unbearable (very likely to happen at some point) or the quality of desktop Linux increases significantly (unlikely to ever happen), I just can't justify switching. And I expect many, many other people are in the same boat.
My computer is a tool. Idealistic notions about free software are nice, but they don't mean anything if that software is worse than a nonfree alternative. Free software needs to be _better_ to win, and I just don't see that ever happening in the consumer OS space.
Until an update breaks it because some asshole decided to break an ABI, or swap out a fundamental system component with a different one, etc.
So I guess what you're saying is true so long as you never update anything.
I have only 3 things I hit:
- NVIDIA driver updates (or kernel updates while using nvidia) - caused black screen... I dumped nvidia... these are due to crappy nvidia.
- Ubuntu deciding to remove old libraries/apps that are not maintained. That's fixed via docker or just keeping an old version.
- Major version upgrades (ubuntu 18 to 20) - here I just re-install and it's expected, I wouldn't upgrade windows 7 to 10 either...
Other then this I'm not sure what you are referring to?, systemd vs sysvinit? (you only get annoyed by those if you are a power user anyway)
Note: I set up automatic updates packages every day and have not hit issues.
Why not? I've upgraded a few Windows machines from 7 to 10, and the upgrade has gone just fine, assuming there's enough disk space for the OS to store the upgrade files before it starts the upgrade. Similarly, I've upgraded Linux boxes (both Ubuntu and Fedora) across major versions. MacOS as well.
I don't know where you're getting this notion that an OS upgrade is a scary thing to do. In my experience, it's been a routine, if somewhat long process.
Also, I'm old, maybe things have improved but I've had upgrades wipe my hard drive due to centos anaconda bug once (centos 5 to 6) other times it just did not boot (yay using encrypted boot partition but thats on me and updating grub fixes it)
Added benefit is it also forces me to check/update backups
Yes.
> NVIDIA driver updates (or kernel updates while using nvidia) - caused black screen... I dumped nvidia... these are due to crappy nvidia.
This is a legitimate dispute and I'm not really counting it because as much as I think Linux should have a stable driver ABI, NVidia are being needlessly obtuse.
> Ubuntu deciding to remove old libraries/apps that are not maintained. That's fixed via docker or just keeping an old version.
Which is not a simple task. Why can't keeping old software be simple? It is in sane operating systems. Hell, even Linux can do it right, as AppImage proves, but the Linux Desktop community is so hell bent on making everything as complicated as possible that they pretty much ignore AppImage.
> Major version upgrades (ubuntu 18 to 20) - here I just re-install and it's expected, I wouldn't upgrade windows 7 to 10 either...
Ubuntu LTS receives 5 years of support, but most new software will not be backported to the repository for anywhere close to that long in my experience and instead you're getting about 2 years. Windows 7 was supported for nearly 11 years and it was rare new software didn't support it for that entire time.
> you only get annoyed by those if you are a power user anyway
Precisely. Linux Desktop people seem to think that targeting people who only need a web kiosk is somehow going to make them popular, but if people who actually know about and need the features of an actual desktop computer don't like it why would they ever recommend it to anyone?
Care to share?, I'm curious :)
> Which is not a simple task. Why can't keeping old software be simple? It is in sane operating systems. Hell, even Linux can do it right, as AppImage proves, but the Linux Desktop community is so hell bent on making everything as complicated as possible that they pretty much ignore AppImage.
Resources make it complicated (time/money/...). I wouldn't maintain another person's library that he doesn't bother with.
> Windows 7 was supported for nearly 11 years and it was rare new software didn't support it for that entire time.
You are comparing a paid product with something free. For better or worse new software works on ubuntu older versions as well, but you need to compile it or work to get it there. Or just upgrade.
I assume you can also switch to Red Hat which have paid support.
> Precisely. Linux Desktop people seem to think that targeting people who only need a web kiosk is somehow going to make them popular, but if people who actually know about and need the features of an actual desktop computer don't like it why would they ever recommend it to anyone?
My point there was if you are a power user you should be able to get it working, it's a skill that's very good to have. Other less skilled people don't hit it by virtue of not playing around.
The 'Linux Desktop' people that you say are targeting things for better or worse put in time to build free products, if you don't like some switch to others or contribute.
I did. I used to run Linux on 4/5 of my desktops and now that is down to 1/5, and only because I haven't turned that one on in 6 months. My complaints are made no less invalid by that.
Contributing to Linux Desktop is, in my considered opinion, a waste of time. The community is so dead set on doing things in the most convoluted and complicated ways possible that there is no hope for reasonable ideas.
I for one am the reverse, tried recently using windows and it just got in the way, plus felt like I was being spied on like old times under communism...
Tried last year MacOS/macbook but I can't even move the titlebar to the right... Plus Apple restricting everything I can do... Plus Macbook couldn't install Linux on it, crappy keyboard, overheating, easiest return I ever did.
Otherwise Linux since forever.
I'm pretty much Windows-only at this point. It definitely has its flaws, and it is definitely getting worse as the new "lets make everything suck as bad as the web" culture takes hold, but I still find that it works with me much more often than against me which is more than I can say for the way Linux desktops work.
It is not a matter of recommending Linux or *BSD or anything else. It is just a matter of refusing to give in to closed software on the grounds of "convenience".
I don't go around telling people what type of software they should use, but I do expect technical people and the common developer to understand what a terrible trade-off they are making when they choose proprietary desktop. I feel hard to sympathize with those that complain about the abuse and developer hostility from Apple. They sold their souls to the devil for cheap and are now trying to bargain their way out of it?
I don't mind people that tell me they need, e.g, Photoshop to do their work. I do mind the fact that they don't contribute to any alternative. Just paying the subscription to Adobe and shrugging it off, instead of hedging and contributing to the alternatives? Shame on them.
Imagine 10% of every Adobe customer donating 10% annually of what they pay to Adobe to contribute to the development of an open alternative, we'd have hundreds of millions of dollars. How long would it take until Adobe would be no longer needed or at least playing against a more leveled field?
Even more in the case of the stereotypical web developer that uses a Macbook when every other tool they used is FOSS. Puts $2k on a laptop that you will only cripple you and work against you and still think this is somehow good "User Experience"? To me this is like failing an IQ test.
I have seen what happens when people try to help. At best they are ignored. As I've said before, it is my considered opinion that the community is simply not interested in making things better. I would be totally ok with that if they weren't also evengelical.
And also, there's only so much time in the day, some of us have higher priorities than building replacement software for stuff that already exists.
> there's only so much time in the day
Then contribute some other way instead of just expecting the "community" to accommodate you and your opinions. I'm pretty sure that you won't be ignored if you find the developers responsible for the projects you care about and spare 10-20 bucks their way alongside a list of the issues and proposed improvements.
Same difference really if our opinions of what constitutes "better" are so drastically opposed.
> Then contribute some other way instead of just expecting the "community" to accommodate you and your opinions.
I have contributed both code and money to projects I think are doing good work. Sadly there are very few of them.
> I'm pretty sure that you won't be ignored if you find the developers responsible for the projects you care about and spare 10-20 bucks their way alongside a list of the issues and proposed improvements.
I can say with confidence that most the projects I've donated to have given me absolutely no special treatment just because I contribute money. I wouldn't have it any other way really, issues are issues regardless and they should be fixed with regard to severity, not who has deep pockets.
Hell, that's probably one of the reasons things in Linux land are so ungodly complicated right now: FAANGs are calling the shots because they have the deep pockets.
I am not sure I follow. You mentioned somewhere else that Lubuntu was the one that gave you the least problems and that you are now using windows. Coincidentally, Lubuntu is the flavor that looks like the most with older versions of Windows.
To me it looks like your assumption is that anything that does not look like Windows 2000/XP is "worse". If you are starting from this point, don't be surprised if others disagree and ignore you.
(Myself, I've been using Xubuntu for the past 8+ years, but I am really not liking the direction Canonical is taking with snap. Perhaps I will switch to Debian + XFCE when I get a slow weekend but this has nothing to do with desktop issues. It's not perfect but the worst problem I can remember was related to get a blank screen after resuming from sleep, which I solved by changing the screen lock program)
> FAANGs are calling the shots
What the big companies are doing are related to the infrastructure side of things and have nothing to do with the desktop - perhaps except Google and their ChromeOS, but Google's ChromeOS approach is looking each day more and more like turn of the century MS and their "embrace, extend, extinguish".
Anyway, perhaps the issue is that you are conflating "Linux" with "Open Source Desktop" and expecting a central place to solve all solutions?
> To me it looks like your assumption is that anything that does not look like Windows 2000/XP is "worse"
That's a very condescending conclusion to draw. I found LXDE less complicated and significantly snappier than alternatives that had their own Ubuntu derivative. I chose an Ubuntu derivative because Ubuntu has the widest range of supported software.
But hey, it all has to do with how it looks right? Thinking like that by the Linux Desktop community is why you guys still aren't taken seriously.
> What the big companies are doing are related to the infrastructure side of things and have nothing to do with the desktop
The desktop experience is not wholly separated from the infrastructure beneath it. The init system, the event subsystem, hardware management, network management, sound system, display server etc. are only abstracted in the leakiest of ways.
> Anyway, perhaps the issue is that you are conflating "Linux" with "Open Source Desktop" and expecting a central place to solve all solutions?
Unfortunately it pretty much is the only option that is even remotely viable. But mostly I focus on problems with Linux because it has by far the most evangelical community.
It's been at least since 2012 that I had installed Linux and couldn't connect a printer or scanner. Meanwhile my wife's laptop on windows asked to reinstall drivers every time she wanted to print something. Webcams? No problem. Wi-fi? No problem as long as I didn't try to use a chipset that was either too obscure or too new and unsupported.
The one thing that I gave up on having on my laptop is low-latency audio to connect a guitar and use software audio effect processors. But the way I solved this was by using a separate old laptop with a custom kernel dedicated to be my "guitar effect box". I still didn't have to give up my freedoms and I did not have to give up any functionality/comfort.
> But hey, it all has to do with how it looks right?
I believe you when you say that LXDE was snappier than the other Ubuntu alternatives, but were the alternatives slower than whatever version of Windows you have now? That will be very hard to believe.
So forgive me for sounding condescending, but you went with probably the most obscure and least popular Ubuntu flavor - the one that has probably almost to no funding from Canonical and maybe a handful of developers interested on it. What were you expecting, exactly?
If Ubuntu was bad for you, maybe try Fedora? If you wanted a more knowledgeable community, maybe try Arch? Why instead of sticking with your preconceptions of how things should work, you ask what are the others doing that let them be productive on a FOSS Desktop? Why is it that upon hitting difficulties your reaction is to go back to the comfort zone of a proprietary and familiar system?
> only option that is even remotely viable
We must have very different thresholds for defining "remotely viable". From http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2020-05-22-my-new-FreeBSD-la... :
"Is FreeBSD ready for the desktop? Yes and no. Yes, in that I have a very nice FreeBSD laptop where everything works the way I want. But no, in that it took me two months worth of fiddling with this in my spare time to fix some of the "glitches" which arose; while there wasn't anything particularly challenging, I expect that most people would give up long before they fixed all of the issues I ran into. On the other hand, can FreeBSD be ready for the desktop? Absolutely. I've fixed the issues I ran into — and once we have FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE with packages built for that release the process of bringing up a GUI will be much easier, as well. The biggest thing FreeBSD needs is to have developers acquiring laptops and carefully working their way through the issues which arise; the FreeBSD Foundation has already started doing this, and I hope in the months to come they — and other FreeBSD users — will publish reports telling us which laptops work and what configuration they need."
Ugh. Thing is, it isn't about luck. It's about use cases and yours must just match how Linux works better. I'm going to take a wild guess that most of what you use a computer for is browsing the internet and either web or unix development.
> So forgive me for sounding condescending, but you went with probably the most obscure and least popular Ubuntu flavor - the one that has probably almost to no funding from Canonical and maybe a handful of developers interested on it. What were you expecting, exactly? If Ubuntu was bad for you, maybe try Fedora? If you wanted a more knowledgeable community, maybe try Arch?
If you had been paying attention instead of being a typically dismissive Linux evangelist, you'd have noted that the vast majority of my problems had to do with the Ubuntu part of Lubuntu. You know, the part that's common to all Ubuntu derivatives? Not to mention, as I said, I've tried many distros, popular distros, unpopular distros, wildly divergent distros, etc, they all have pretty much the same problems because the problems are inherent to how Linux userspace is constructed!
But whatever, you are just like the rest of the Linux Destkop community. You have made using Linux a part of your identity and cannot stand criticism, so you just become insulting, condescending, and generally dismissive of any issues anyone is experiencing.
> Why instead of sticking with your preconceptions of how things should work, you ask what are the others doing that let them be productive on a FOSS Desktop?
Because they are doing different things than I do! And when you want to do something different than what the Linux Desktop community does, their only advice is to not want to do that.
> We must have very different thresholds for defining "remotely viable".
Clearly. Which is pretty much exactly my point: Linux works for you because it fits your needs well, and it doesn't work for a lot of others, like myself, because it doesn't fit those needs well. If you're going to run around telling everyone how great your desktop is and that they should all use it, but refuse to recognize where it falls short, then you shouldn't be surprised when people don't want anything to do with your community.
Frankly, you are some of the most frustrating assholes I've ever had to deal with in computing.
I don't know which part I am telling you to use what I am using it. The point I tried to make the whole time is (a) there are so many different alternatives that are free and open source that it is increasingly hard to believe that going to a proprietary OS is the only viable solution and (b) those people that are still not being fulfilled by free alternatives should contribute to the development of a free alternative, or they will be SOL when the company screws them over or denies them freedoms.
> it doesn't work for a lot of others, like myself, because it doesn't fit those needs well.
You try to justify your avoidance of Linux by complaining of extremely low-level stuff (init stuff, networking, event notification systems, etc) and now you are talking about higher level "user needs". I link to an article about how people using FreeBSD are also successfully using it as a daily desktop and how the shortcomings are known-yet-solvable. Your answer then is that "you do things that others don't do" (yet, people using Windows do it?)
So what is it? What is your use case that requires you to be nit-picky about the low-level and at the same frustrates you at the high-level? What are the "different things that you do" that can only work on a proprietary OS? In a world with so many different-yet-imperfect ecosystem of different desktop systems, what is it with Windows (aside from convenience and familiarity) that "works with you, instead of against you"?
> most frustrating assholes I've ever had to deal with in computing.
All of my frustrating asshole preaching boils down to convenience and familiarity should never be an excuse to accept giving away your freedoms.
I put the FreeBSD link as way of saying "Ok, if you really don't like the Linux userland and if you still want to support Free alternatives go take a look at FreeBSD". Your reaction is to double down on the idea that I am here to defend "the Linux community" or that this is "my identity".
If me saying convenience and familiarity should never be an excuse to accept giving away your freedoms while refusing to accept your justifications and rationalizations to keep using a proprietary OS makes me a frustrating asshole, then tough luck.
However, if I were you I'd also consider the possibility this frustration you are feeling is due to the sad realization that you are trading away your freedoms for convenience and familiarity and that some dude on the internet is making you face that.
...? What is so difficult to understand about this? Try to pay attention: the way the computer works is fundamental to how user interaction works. That you can't seem to grasp this is mind boggling.
> I link to an article about how people using FreeBSD are also successfully using it as a daily desktop and how the shortcomings are known-yet-solvable. Your answer then is that "you do things that others don't do" (yet, people using Windows do it?)
Yes. Every day. All the time. Why do you think the vast majority of the desktop market is dominated by Windows? There are thousands of workflows, often with specialty applications, that are best served by Windows and largely ignored by everyone else. Hell, even something as simple as file sharing is a pain in the ass outside of Windows. Linux gave up and just implements SMB and pretends to be Windows for that task.
> So what is it? What is your use case that requires you to be nit-picky about the low-level and at the same frustrates you at the high-level? What are the "different things that you do" that can only work on a proprietary OS? In a world with so many different-yet-imperfect ecosystem of different desktop systems, what is it with Windows (aside from convenience and familiarity) that "works with you, instead of against you"?
So many ways, lets pick an easy one: It allows me to run multiple versions of the same software, on the same system, often at the same time, without any VM or container nonsense and without having to compile anything myself. It lets me put applications wherever I want, including removable media and network shares, without trick-fucking the filesystem to make it work. It lets me use software delivered directly from the developer without having to wait for middle men to package it, which includes alpha and hotfixed versions.
What is all this useful for? A bunch of shit, but lets go with the easy stuff: I can test software very very easily and ditch it very very easily if it doesn't work for me. I can get specialized builds from the developer or even just some hobbiest who happened to have the same needs as me without having to reconstruct a build environment. I can similarly run really old software that suits my needs and who's only modern equivalents don't work as well.
> All of my frustrating asshole preaching boils down to convenience and familiarity should never be an excuse to accept giving away your freedoms.
And mine stems from believing that I am the best one to decide what tradeoffs I want to make, not some holier-than-thou computer nerd on the internet.
> However, if I were you I'd also consider the possibility this frustration you are feeling is due to the sad realization that you are trading away your freedoms for convenience and familiarity and that some dude on the internet is making you face that.
Laughable. The fact is that a lot of my frustration is from having watched the open source community continue to make things more complicated and fragile while continuing to alienate themselves from everyone else and being evangelistic, condescending assholes for about 20 motherfucking years now.
Did you know that at one time I was president of a LUG? That I've contributed to open source projects? Built my own distribution from scratch? Used Linux on many different computers over the course of the past 20 years?
Yet you assume that because I don't like your waifu-OS that I must be some kind of scared newb, comforted by the existence of the start menu and double-click installers (note: I don't even like packages of any kind, including executable installers).
Yeah, you are. But let's not forget the original topic and why the conversation started in the first place: Apple is charging developers $99/year to be able to have software running on their platform and making it increasingly harder for those that do not. Then someone posts something along the lines of but the alternative is also privacy invading and provided by hypercapitalistic (sic) companies. There is nothing we can do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is what I was calling out for BS. This is a trade-off on moral principles that I am saying people should not accept.
Your complaints about Linux are technical trade-offs, and it just happens that you don't want to deal with the choices made by the most common systems. Totally fine. The point that I am arguing with you is that you are giving in the moral principle based on the refusal to (or being tired of to) work on technical things.
This is the part that I don't get: there are tons of other systems there work only with statically linked files. There are two OSes (NixOS and Guix) that basically allow you to run anything you want, however you want. There are Linux systems that make a point of not using systemd.
You certainly know all that. But you prefer to say "screw it, people are not doing things the way I want and I am tired of dealing with this shit. I am going to go use Windows".
Again, fine. But at least accept that you are giving in on a moral principle. No amount of technical discussion or accusations on my "identity" or trying to put this on "people from this community" is going to change that. You can call me all the cute names you want, but in the end of day you are trading your freedoms for convenience and familiarity.
> Yet you assume that because I don't like your waifu-OS that I must be some kind of scared newb.
No. The opposite. I assume that you are a very smart person! I just think you are just willing to compromise on a moral principle that I would not expect from smart and capable people and I think "others do not want the same thing that I do" is a feeble attempt at rationalization.
I just want to point out that these are able to cover only a small fraction of the things I listed, and you are required to learn a completely new language (each!) in order to use them.
> You can call me all the cute names you want, but in the end of day you are trading your freedoms for convenience and familiarity.
I don't deny it, that's the world we live in. At the end of the day I have to get things done. My frustration is because I wish OSS was better at supporting me in that, but 20 years of waiting for that to happen, and watching good ideas manifest only to die out practically unnoticed, have lead me to conclude it never will be.
Who doesn't? Now you are the one being condescending to assume that those that stick with the principle have nothing to do.
> Which is not a simple task. Why can't keeping old software be simple? It is in sane operating systems. Hell, even Linux can do it right,
I've wondered about these things, and I think the true reason is that Linux is a source-compatible operating system.
Other OS's solve this by the boring and painstaking task of assuring binary interfaces are stable and remain working. They usually do this by hiring and paying people to do it.
Linux does all compatibility at the source level, and binary compatibility is a little hit or miss. The common way to fix it is to recompile a lot of stuff.
As one example, I installed ubuntu 18.04 and it should be Long Term Stability.... but I did an
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
I use Linux Mint and love it.
MS Teams, Skype and a surprisingly good list of software runs on it natively.
A Hackintosh inside VirtualBox IS a pain to setup, but pretty cool when it works. Windoz inside VirtualBox works better than ever, thanks to MS new attitude on embracing Linux.. which is still hard to wrap my head around.
My point is that if you are willing to sacrifice your freedom for the convenience provided by the hypercapitalistic (sic, and lol at how pathetic this term is) companies, then don't complain about the lack of choices available.
> developers don't care about stability and/or polish
Try paying them just a fraction of whatever premium you paid for your iDevice. That might help.
There are alternatives out there. So it becomes really hard to claim anti-trust.
Apple already owns the customer because they’ve invested in the platform, but they’re not providing equitable access to software that other platforms are. This isn’t revealed to the customer though, so it’s not clear as a user that choice is being restricted in this way.
A lot of Apple’s practices have been legal up until now due to their minority market share in all markets they operate in - but what we see those markets as is changing. The App Store is a massive multi-billion dollar industry in itself that Apple holds and exploits 100% control over.
Whether or not a violation has or is occurring is for lawmakers to decide based on whether or not the App Store (or Google Play for that matter) constitute markets within the definitions provided by local laws.
I suppose if you're a socialist you probably don't understand how it all works without a government edict giving you instructions and making sure you and your neighbor have the same marginal product.
However, even without this edict, rest assured that you can make the change without the government allowing you to... Fell free to switch.