Comment by einpoklum | Hacker News Reader

Comment by einpoklum | Hacker News Reader

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> I am all in for AppImages or something like that

WTF? On the contrary!

> And Snaps and Flatpaks tried to solve some of these things,

Made things worse.

> I don't care if these images are 10x bigger.

... the size is just part of the problem. The duplication is another part. A system depending on a 100K different versions of libraries/utils instead of, oh, say, 5K. And there's the memory usage, as others mentioned.

Also, there really isn't more trouble locating shared libraries today than 10 years ago; if anything, the opposite is true. Not to mention how there is even more searchable "crowd support" resources today than back then, for when you actually do have such issues.

So...

> How come GNU/Linux is worse than it was 10 years ago?

I think it's actually better overall:

* Less gotchas during installation

* Better apps for users' basic needs (e.g. LibreOffice)

* Less chance of newer hardware not being supported on Linux (it still happens though)

but if you asked me what is worse, then:

1. systemd.

2. Further deterioration of the GNOME UI. Although TBH a lot of that sucked 10 years ago as well (e.g. the file picker)

3. Containerization instead of developers/distributors having their act together

but certainly not what the author is trying to push. (shrug)

> * Less chance of newer hardware not being supported on Linux (it still happens though)

This is one area I think Linux is really bad on compared to Windows. AMD makes a new graphics card, it pushes out a driver update for Windows and it's all golden.

On Linux? They have to spend months getting it into the kernel release cycle, then wait on distributions to test that update, trickle it down to users and if you're on some kind of LTS distribution you might as well not bother.

It's not like they only start developing the driver when the card is released. In either case, they work with the OS vendor for months or years prior to develop the driver. One often sees this in e.g. Intel drivers coming out in the Linux kernel well before the hardware is available to the consumer.

You're not entirely wrong, either, though; it's more of a concern with LTS support. Though this is reduced somewhat by most things not actually needing custom drivers by using existing standards, e.g. HID, and/or by userspace drivers.

And, of course, you don't have it at all if you only buy hardware with Linux pre-installed and supported by the vendor. You know, like you do with Windows and Mac.

LTS distros have "linux-image-newer" packages for where device drivers legitimately need access to a newer kernel.

For all other scenarios, which are most, DKMS has existed for 21 years now.

The Linux distros' approach is superior to Microsoft's in every way. There will always be some Windows-minded types out there who will struggle, maybe they should buy a Mac.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Kernel_Module_Support

> For all other scenarios, which are most, DKMS has existed for 21 years now.

DKMS is not a stable driver API/ABI.

Correct. DKMS is an automation tool/framework for preparing local Linux kernel modules. DKMS is stable. I write this as someone who has been responsible for commercial support for hardware products used with Linux systems at more than one organization.

I do know there are others out there, paid "professionals" staffed at some vendors, who struggle with DKMS. But not everyone paid to work with DKMS is necessarily competent by virtue of being paid to do a job.

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