Comment by themulticaster | Hacker News Reader

Comment by themulticaster | Hacker News Reader

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Except there is a widely accepted standard for binary application distribution: AppImage (https://appimage.org/). It's a fire-and-forget solution: You download the AppImage and run it. No need to install anything.

AppImage was created for precisely this scenario: When you want to distribute a proprietary application without worrying about packaging it for different Linux distributions.

And for the driver issues: This is being brought up now and then, but comparing the amount of issues I've had with my AMD graphics card on Linux (essentially none) [1] with the amount of anecdotes of Windows driver issues I regularly see in certain forums, I'd say driver issues are a myth by now (to a certain extent of course, please don't bring up how you had to install a firmware package for your Broadcom wireless chipset...).

[1] I'm not saying there aren't ever any driver bugs now and then, but just a food for thought: My graphics card works perfectly out of the box, without any configuration or driver installation at all, on most recent (read: not ancient) Linux versions. On Windows I'd have to look for whatever piece of ad-laden "graphics management suite" I need and then install it as well as regularly update it.

> Except there is a widely accepted standard for binary application distribution: AppImage (https://appimage.org/)

Oh, if only AppImage was widely accepted. Very few developers distribute via AppImage and basically no DEs understand what they are. Not that AppImages need them to, but it'd be nice.

> AppImage was created for precisely this scenario: When you want to distribute a proprietary application without worrying about packaging it for different Linux distributions.

Yes, and it does about as well as could be expected. Which is to say, it kinda mostly works for most distributions that have some level of sanity.

> And for the driver issues: This is being brought up now and then, but comparing the amount of issues I've had with my AMD graphics card on Linux (essentially none) [1] with the amount of anecdotes of Windows driver issues I regularly see in certain forums, I'd say driver issues are a myth by now [...]

Consider that there are an order of magnitude more Windows Desktop users than Linux Desktop users. And I know plenty of people experiencing frequent driver regressions who'd disagree with you.

> On Windows I'd have to look for whatever piece of ad-laden "graphics management suite" I need and then install it as well as regularly update it.

Incorrect. Windows quite often has a driver available via Windows Update, sans overengineered bullshit control panel. It is usually a bit behind the latest-greatest though.

> Oh, if only AppImage was widely accepted. Very few developers distribute via AppImage and basically no DEs understand what they are. Not that AppImages need them to, but it'd be nice.

To clarify: Not many FOSS developers distribute via AppImage, or not many proprietary software developers distribute via AppImage? Since the former is to be expected, but I'm curious about your experiences with the latter. To be honest, I haven't seen that many AppImages in the wild either, but I'm also not using a lot of proprietary software on my system at the moment.

> Incorrect. Windows quite often has a driver available via Windows Update, sans overengineered bullshit control panel. It is usually a bit behind the latest-greatest though.

That's good to know. Do you happen to have a document or some other resource explaining the Windows Update graphics driver distribution system? IIUC Windows a) configures some sort of "Windows Basic Display Adapter" on first boot, before b) installing basic IHV-specific drivers via Windows Update. But I understand the IHV drivers installed by Windows Update support all graphics card features, only without the control panel? I always thought there is no alternative to the separately installed IHV graphics driver, especially if you need OpenGL/Vulkan/CUDA/etc. support. But if Windows manages to provide that functionality automatically through Windows Update, that sounds like a good alternative.

They're pushing very hard to have the actual standard manufacturer drivers available via Windows Update, and shipping the control panel as an optional download via the Windows Store.

I had to do a Windows 10 reinstall recently after I broke something severe in the networking stack (entirely on me, I was playing with something I knew I shouldn't have been playing with) and I had the NV 2060 drivers back on my machine pretty much immediately as part of the update installation chain. I just had to go back into the Windows Store to redownload the control panel since it's a hybrid video laptop and I wanted more control over settings.

I wrote up an edit for my comment but then barely missed the edit deadline, so I'll have to do it this way: I realized my comments on driver issues are a little snarky, sorry for that. Please ignore that part of my comment.

Using more neutral language, my main point is that Linux drivers nowadays are better than their historically bad reputation would suggest, and that they often offer a better or at least comparable out-of-the-box experience compared to Windows drivers. An important caveat is that free software-oriented distributions often make it somewhat more difficult to enable on-free firmware or drivers.

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