I think I’m tired of Desktop Linux
movingparts.net
movingparts.net
So, an upgrade. Everything is shinier, and that one bug is finally fixed. Too bad a lot of the programs and libraries are obsolete now, and the software that did survive in the repos is rewritten to use the new interfaces. Along with their bugs. And after a couple weeks setting everything up just so, there is one tiny nagging bug...
I use a Debian machine exclusively. After I upgraded to testing, my video stopped crashing. That's great. But now bluetooth is broken. It's been replaced with a completely new HAL framework, and I still can't figure out how to pair a device.
For my desktops I'm used to Linux. It works perfectly and I'm so used to the way I do things there that doing them on any other operating system or in a different window manager is annoying.
I've had a great experience with the pangolin model from system76.com.
After some google-fu, I found a setting described in ubuntu forums which made it work, but the sound from my laptop speaker kept playing even after plugging in the headphone jack :(.
And I have no idea what you are complaining about regarding the libraries. I just merely say ok when update manager pops up. Have not had problems thus far.
I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for these changes. But they do make life a pain for us users. And the stuff that keeps breaking/changing is the interfaces and packaging. Which means configs have to be tweaked with every major upgrade.
All my recent troubles have been caused by the switch to HAL. First it was X.org (broke my keyboard layout). Now it's Bluetooth. I like the modular design of HAL, but I just can't help but think it's just going to be ripped out and replaced again in a year or two because someone decides they hate XML, or something like that :)
What is bewildering is why you decide to blame Linux for all of that. You decided to use some cutting edge not really finished utility that is not nearly necessary and you have some issues. Linux is not to blame for that, Linux has perfectly good hardware drivers, you do not need to use HAL.
I mean you may have a point if MS and/or OSX had something like HAL but to the best of my knowledge they don't.
And that's just the nature of Linux -- it gives you freedom. It provides a completely easy and safe route if you choose to take it, but it also allows you to live dangerously, to change everything and to use all kinds of unstable experimental software as part of the OS stack if you choose that. It is your choice and if you choose to live dangerously you should not blame linux but yourself.
I have been running linux for about 5 years now. When i furst started I was all gung ho and compiled my own programs dove headlong into obscure config files, etc. I quickly realized that is not for me and now I only install things with the pachage manager and have not touched a config file in two years. And I am completly happy with my computer.
Before the MBP, I've been using a $1000 amd64 notebook with 1.5GB RAM for 3 years without any issues, running Gentoo (! did need to google to fix multi-monitor support and ndiswrapper/wpa-supplicant for wifi) and it felt snappier than the mac with much faster processor running Leopard (up to 10.5.8).
Now I'm using a $600 laptop (with 4GB RAM and 320GB HD with higher display resolution than the MBP: 1680x945 vs 1440x900) and a 2.5lb $200 netbook running Ubuntu Jaunty. Everything worked out of the box including wifi, webcam and desktop effects. Feels much snappier than the Mac as well. All it took is a little googling _before_ buying the machines :)
It's much easier for Apple to QA limited configurations. Frankly, I'm quite pleased with the progress of Linux desktop.
Just another experience and perspective...
The Acer has an HDMI output. I connected it to my 24" 1920x1200 Samsung and point and clicked the monitor applet on the gnome panel and viola, dual monitor support at full resolution without having to fiddle xorg.conf! Point and clicked to configure the wifi on both machines without any problems. Man, I was ecstatic, probably due to the low expectation from my Gentoo experience -- I was expecting to vi a few things to make them work :)
To be honest, I did have to add a fixmtrr.sh to gdm PostLogin and a line (MigrationHeuristic greedy) to xorg.conf to fix the intel video performance regression in Jaunty on both machines, when I felt the desktop effect was a bit sluggish. Now the desktop animations are smooth as butter even on the netbook.
I did choose to install 32-bit Ubuntu with server kernel (to get PAE in Jaunty) to take advantage of the full 4GB RAM, instead of 64-bit because flash and a few other things don't work as well as in 32-bit.
It's an interesting issue and it's sad to see that desktop Linux has so much trouble providing a stable user experience.
My enthusiasm deteriorated very quickly upon discovering that the wireless did not work out of the box which immediately negated the main reason for my purchase.
I am someone who writes code for a living (and for fun) and I found the experience disappointing and frustrating. Imagine how your average non-technical consumer would feel.
I suggest one would have to willfully ignore massive amounts of evidence over the past many, many years if you really thought he was alone with this sentiment and were genuinely surprised to see someone feels this way.
But still I'll stay with my Ubuntu, I just don't like using Windows or OS X, every time I use my mac I miss Gnome Terminal, Banshee, X-Chat, F-Spot, even VIM (since the mac terminal doesn't support 256 colors :(), I miss my wobbly windows, the desktop cube (not that crap you get with OS X)... I would just use the mac if there is no other option.
And don't get me started with Windows and the un-resizable terminal ugh!
But things work. I don't have to worry about any hardware configuration, not even installing restricted drivers. It's a trade off I'm still evaluating.
OSX is far superior still ;)
Just yesterday I kicked off an MP3 playback using Rhythmbox on Ubuntu 9.04 and forgot to pause. When I came back a couple of hours later, two cores were pegged at 100% and the song was fast forwarding like crazy with no obvious UI control to slow it down.
And this is after wrestling with Adobe's 64-bit Flash plugin that doesn't play nice with USB audio (not sure if the 32-b version does; I'm not going to reinstall Ubuntu just for that).
Seems that Alan Kay is right again: "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware".
That explains Mac and iPhone's success I guess
Regarding rhythmbox there is plenty of software on windows and mac that has memory leaks and resource leaks. Of course on windows or mac nobody blames the operating system for faulty software. But on Linux, well Linux is to be blamed for everything.
Linux does cost nothing, so nobody is really responsible.
I think Windows 7 is lightyears ahead, if you compare the organized manpower and level of professionalism involved (I say this as a 90% Linux User).
If anybody talks about being on par with Windows soon, I think that's nothing but hubris.
I decided to see Desktop-Linux as some kind of stagecoach in the 21st century, and seen as a stagecoach it does a good job.
Lowering my expectations made it possible to get over my initial frustration and get back to work, concentrating on what works.
That was most definitely not the major issue 5 years ago. The issue 5 years ago was configuring hardware and god help you if you want to do some multimedia work on a stock linux distro.
Things are a ton better today. I don't remember the last time I had to manually edit an xorg.conf. But Linux has neither the standardized hardware of Apple nor the dominant market share of Windows to compel vendors to make their hardware work with linux.
Really the best you can do to get that level of compatibility is to get your Ubuntu laptop through Dell.
Yes. Having to know the magic words is definitely a problem.
Most of these conf options should be available as checkboxes in a UI, if manual config is essential.
If you're a hardware vendor making a new USB device, you're going to alter your device and your drivers (if you have them) so that the item works well under Windows and maybe OS X. You're probably not going to try to tweak it to make it work with the Linux USB drivers.
Linux is in this odd position of having to try to copy all the functionality and interface of the Windows systems because that's what all the hardware has been written for. It makes for a buggy and error prone process.
I don't agree that you get what you pay for though. At this point it's all about market penetration. If Linux was 90% of the PC market, don't you think those USB webcams would be likely to work the first time? Don't you think that if a company wanted to enable new functionality they'd submit a driver to the kernel? It wouldn't take any more effort from them (less if you consider programming for Linux easier than programming for Windows) and the Linux users would get the benefit.
Let's branch into another universe where everything is exactly the same as this one, except Linux (in the same state it's in now) is 90% of the PC market. But how can such a world exist except by ignoring the reasons that exist in our universe why Linux is not the OS for 90% of the PC market.
It's not a sensible "if". If Linux was forced onto 90% of computers early on, it would have been forced to be a lot more stable, backwards compatible and rigid than it is now. The webcams would work but the OS wouldn't be the Linux you know today.
I've long been an advocate of Linux, but a few years go I sort of gradually switched off Linux on the desktop back to Windows. It wasn't premeditated; I built a new box, made it Windows for gaming, and then one day realized I was using it exclusively for desktop stuff.
Well, I say desktop, but I think the real differentiator here is X Window... I use Linux command-line programs for much of my daily desktop productivity stuff -- email (sup+fetchmail), irc/aim (irssi, bitlbee), text editing (emacs), etc.
At work we recently rebuilt our boxes using Ubuntu. I was thrilled for about two weeks, and then all those little X annoyances started creeping back in. Frankly, I was kind of surprised; I had assumed that it would have come a lot farther in the few years since I had last used Linux for desktop.
Actually using X Window programs has become annoying. I can sort of feel that legion of disparate programmers all taking their own stab at desktop GUI programming and all arriving there somewhat differently.
Eventually a few of us broke down and hackintoshed our boxes, and I couldn't be happier.
Linux on the server? Absolutely.
But on the desktop? OS/X.
If I had to do a lot of work on the road, I think I would have to get a Windows or Mac laptop and set up a Linux VM for doing real work. Otherwise I'd go crazy and start carrying two laptops (and forget about ever getting another date.)
For myself, I am pleasantly surprised at the experience I've had with Ubuntu since I first installed 8.04 and deciding to give Linux desktop yet-another-go. The improvements between releases are apparent and usually make sense. Hardware device recognition and drivers are getting better. Overall it IS getting better, and seemingly faster, so have hope for it.
In the meantime it's going to be a bumpy ride not just because of stiff competition from existing "just works" platforms, but because it challenges some fundamental commercial assumptions about operating software and THAT is inevitably going to cause opposition through politics, support bias, etc.
Strong supporters are going to shed blood in the hope that future generations won't have to. Isn't that the way it always is?
But there are issues with Windows and OS X too. And that's where Linux's advantages kick in again. You'll always miss something from the other side of the fence. You'll have to weigh in, and some people weigh to Linux and some people don't.
I've never got too far with Windows. I ditched OS X after over two years of everyday use. Despite the uncertainty regarding hardware compatibility in Linux, I really like the way it, namely Debian and recently Ubuntu, gets rid of the _other_ problems so irritatingly present in other operating systems.
A Linux system is just too user friendly for users who aren't too system friendly.
I couldn't believe it when I booted into Snow Leopard and zsh was already installed and configured. I'm sure my jaw actually dropped.
That's just one example. So much stuff on OS X just freaking works. It just works. I literally had my whole machine configured and working within around 2 hours. Most of that time was spent simply installing software, not configuring it.
</rant>
From proprietary side: you could have either Office 2004 for PPC running in emulation and working macros and custom language dictionaries; or intel Office 2008 without these two things. Since switching to OSX, the Adobe suite got worse and has distinct second-class feel compared to windows version.
I had some favourite software, that was originaly developed for classic MacOS (both m68k and ppc) and it does not work on modern Macs. Even software that was updated for OSX does not work, because the installer is for classic and then the updater updates the program to carbon (or whatever) version. With every switch in OSX focus there is software that is getting lost (with switch to intel, we lost some. With switch to 64b, we will lose more due to no Carbon).
In short, in all those years I was using OSX I got fed up and made a full circle (dos/windows -> linux -> mac -> windows).
Played with a Dell recently? Thick, heavy clunkers of machines with flimsy plastic flaps all over the place. Even the vaunted Lenovos have mushy keyboards and bits that just should not flex like that when pushed.
I'd gladly pay for Mac hardware and run some other OS on it - just the keyboard alone on the unibody is worth some money.
It's not like you're driving your Dell PC to work everyday. It just sits on the desk.
"Just use modwifi 0.9.4.1 I don't see why it's a problem you can find it with Google in a few seconds"
"It's not just the wifi, it's all the software. The audio stack, the BSD underpinnings, the coherent feel over many apps. I'd gladly pay more for things to just work, but it's not even that, things just work /nicely/."
I push on a unibody Mac keyboard - nothing flexes. It's rock solid. I push on a T400's keyboard, or bezel, or any body component that isn't supposed to twist and bend - and it does.
I had this question in my head through the whole essay and the top commenter beat me to it.
I've heard thousands of issues with the new Ubuntu release (never bothered trying it myself). I doubt I'll recommend Ubuntu to anyone I know who's interested in Linux for quite a while. I've had great experiences with several of non-Ubuntu distros and will probably recommend them instead.
But I guess this is the problem, right? New problems always arise in different distros and different versions. I can't say I've found one distro to commonly recommend because it seems like all of them have had problems at some point, even in newer releases.
For me, I don't care as much about switching distros. I have my .emacs setup and my files, it's easy to move. But for a lot of people, I think they want something that is almost always stable so they don't have to switch distros or put up with bugs.
-- jwz, 2002
Can't say for sure, but it also seems like Firefox behaves differently between distros, as if the code in the repositories differs drastically enough to offer a dramatic performance boost. Granted these are not scientific observations and I'd defer to someone who ran *buntu vs another distro on two boxes with identical specs.
There are such things as sexy suits and sexy dresses. They're inanimate, but there are ugly dresses and sexy dresses. Similarly, computers exist that have blinking lights and bulges and edges where they don't need them, and they are perceived to be ugly; when you have a computer that doesn't have a line it doesn't need to have, then it's sexy.
But that's not what you're saying, Matt. We know what you're saying; you've been saying it for years, occasionally with an attempt at subtlety, as now. What you're saying is that you don't like the Mac or Mac users. You and I have had this argument before, only instead of sexy you didn't understand people who were willing to pay two thousand dollars for a computer, or who couldn't tinker with certain settings. But your arguments are shallow every time and it's tiring talking to somebody who won't say what he's actually thinking.
Suits and dresses aren't sexy, the person wearing them is. Suits or dresses may make them more or less sexy, but hanging on a rack they're devoid of such ability.
Can a laptop someone is holding do the same? Perhaps that's what I'm missing. If I see a beautiful woman holding a laptop I'm 0% likely to notice what brand it is, or likely that it even exists. My guess is that my wife wouldn't notice whether George Clooney was holding a Macbook Pro or a Lenovo x60 either.
I say exactly what I'm thinking. You read into it and assume I did not say what I meant, I cannot help that. I wasn't commenting on Macs at all, and I came to that thought before the word was ever mentioned in the article, though to be honest, I probably wouldn't have had trouble guessing where it was going. Nobody ever says "Lenovos are great, but they aren't sexy, so I got a Dell."
But regardless there's a much broader point there, as this probably applies to a range of things from clothing, to cars to laptops.
We work hard for it, thanks, and at the end of the day we'll spend it how we choose.
Plus, if you say some hardware or device is aesthetically pleasing, you might have to explain what you mean whereas few men will question what you mean if you say something is sexy.
Don't know about Apple, but in general hardware support tends to be better if the vendor communicates the necessary specs to the open source community. Somehow I doubt that Apple is very supportive to the "Linux on a MacBook" cause.
But isn't that an issue with Skype? It's a massive nuisance that Linux still doesn't have the hardware and application support of MasOS/OSX and Windows, but there's not much that can be done about that without the cooperation of proprietary vendors, many of whom still treat Linux as a second class citizen.
No. OS-X, Windows, iPhone and Android are sufficiently different that we can tell the Skype developers are putting a decent amount of effort into cross-platform compatibility.
That there is a Linux client shows they are also trying to do that with Linux.
Could they put more effort in and get a polished shiny Linux client? Maybe. Is it Skype's fault that Linux is bad enough to need this while at the same time not good enough to get a large enough userbase to make this worthwhile? Again, no.
Hey I have an idea. Why don't you buy a desktop and laptop with linux preinstalled (they are available online) and then try to install OSX on top of it and dual boot. Then you are really in for a nightmare. You will have to do a lot of hacking and in the end you are still pretty much guaranteed to fail. And then you can write a blog post about how you really love OSX but you are so tired of it.
edit: feel free to mod me down, but it's the truth.
But then again when people do not use the OS that comes with the hardware there may be some issues. And then bizarrely people inevitably blame Linux. I am pretty sure that installing OSX on a PC is just as hard or probably harder than installing Linux on a Mac. But people always complain about Linux.