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from the it's-already-perfect-is-not-the-right-answer dept.
We all know about Microsoft's latest OS, so I won't rehash. A lot of us intensely dislike it, to put it politely. Those of us who can, use other operating systems. This is Soylent, so let's focus on the one that is the most important to us: Linux.
I have been using Windows as my OS since right after Atari times. A few years ago I bought an ARM (ARMHF/ARMv7) netbook and put Lubuntu on it. I had problems with my first Linux experience, mainly in the area of installing software: missing packages in Synaptic, small dependency hells, installing a package at a time by hand, some broken stuff. I put it down mainly to the architecture I have been using, which can't be supported as well as x86-64.
Now, we all know that no software is perfect, and neither is Linux, even though it is now my main OS. We support it in spirit and financially, but there is always room for improvement.
So, the question is: What are your problems with Linux and how can we fix them? How do we better it? Maybe it's filesystems, maybe it's the famous/infamous systemd. Let's have at it.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by cloud.pt on Wednesday February 22 2017, @11:20AM
Now, before you go and bash me about distros being mostly non-commercial and can't spare cash for that, or also that marketing has no effect on usability, hear me out first.
My main gripe with Linux in general is the (repetition necessary) generalized bad support. Bad support from developers (both the Linux devs and the hardware manufacturers), ranging from essential hardware drivers being flawed (usually open-sourced drivers) or flat-out non-existing, to the awful dependency hell as OP noted. But the big things aside, which I have actually learned to live with (read: getting most stuff working - the "setup marathon"), what annoys me the most in Linux are things like: there is no centralized strategy or branding; no coherent app to do one specific things (even that there might be many, all have their own excluding quirk). All in all, it's the fact commercial-grade apps and support don't make it to the platform. This is a big flaw in any book but we all know it's here.
I keep going back to Macs and Nintendo to contrast this problem: Nintendo kinda seems to suck from a hardware and functionality standpoint. The Mac OS platform is similar in cost and closed environment. Yet both these companies have very interesting ways to go around their problems and make for some really interesting choices in their segments (read: gaming and productivity): Nintendo has that amazing 1st party software development which has been around since, you guessed it, the Atari era. There is nothing like it, they know this, they kept the strategy throughout 30-odd years of gaming industry, and everybody still loves them; Apple on the other hand, while keeping a very similar standard on hardware and reliability, simply engineer (or make use of) the most amazing business processes, development APIs, and their user-base numbers (and its professional-bias) to lure in 3rd party developers, and so they get to be top choice in the pro segments that matter to their profit margins (arts in general: design, audio, video).
So when you look at it from perspective, what distinguishes a successful platform is their marketing strategy. Not marketing targeting solely a product but also marketing for internal use of "savoir faire". In other words, you could say it's not marketing but focus, or a roadmap, but to me, the focus of a company translates directly to their marketing since perception by the public is what actually generates for APPEAL for any given platform/product, by both users and developers. Nintendo supports their own development as core, and they make that known to the public via heavy commercials and bundling of 1st party software (and even hardware). Apple has tight connections with the entire production line, from a big leash on hardware OEMs they actually rely on, to the 3rd-party software makers their user-base expects the best of.
Linux, what does it have? A fragmented community. The open nature, which should actually be its strength, ends up being its greatest weakness. Multiple distros wanting to support multiple hardware and multiple desktop environments, open source apps made with purpose and not form in mind because they must look and work average everywhere, the heavy reliance on system-agnostic platforms for productivity stuff (e.g. Java, that is closed by nature, and further induces in flawed open versions), and the best of all, competing package dependency/acquisition programs/shells that are the most confusing thing possible to a newcomer.
Ways to solve this? You tell me. Some say figuring out the problem is the hardest part but I actually think this specific problem is like cancer: it has no foreseeable cure. But at least it's not as bad as one might think. I (and likely most here) actually like the hardships Linux provides me, they're kinda like a hobby, unfortunately one that also ends up in my professional line though.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:09PM
If you think choice is a weakness, perhaps you should stick with Macs and Nintendo. That works out great until they make a choice you don't like. I'm also not sure about this "setup marathon" you speak of. This is just one anecdote, but I did a fresh setup on a friend's machine where I re-installed Windows 7 for her, and then did a multi-boot with Ubuntu. I did it on a 2 years old Sony Viao laptop, which should theoretically be well supported by both. To install Windows and run the updates took about 2.5 hours. An extra 10 minutes was required to install networking, as neither the wired nor the wireless networking worked. I needed to download the drivers on my Linux machine them and install them via USB. The Linux install too just under 30 minutes and everything worked perfectly. Keep in mind that the Linux install also includes a full office suite, etc.
Like I said, just one anecdote, but I've had other Windows installs that were quite similar. The only real problems I've had in the last 5 years running Linux mostly revolve around RTLink wireless cards, although I've found screwing around with some o the machines that have both an NVidia card and a integrated Intel graphics card can be a minor pain as well.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by cloud.pt on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:33PM
I think choice is a weakness if and only if there's no better choice directly due to the fact there's too much choice. Take that aside and I think choice is the best thing in the world (literally THE best thing, as in free will), but my personal feelings towards "choice" don't really make it perfect.
Setting up Linux obviously varies. I've had problems with Atheros, Broadcom, Killer, Synaptics, Nvidia, ATI/AMD, ASUS... I've also had straight-forward installs in systems where hardware from that list is present. Sometimes the marathon is a sprint, and older and business segment PCs usually get luckier, from my own experience, but YMMV. But also from experience, I have come to feel more often than not you get problems, and unlike MS platforms, sometimes you do hit some stone walls where you simply have to drop specific hardware if you want to use Linux (some notable examples, LAN, WIFI, mouses, keyboards, BT adapters, IR receivers, capacitive keys, LEDs, media keys, usb ports, usb hubs, card readers, pcmcia readers, RAID controllers, ieee 1394 ports, list goes on and on and on. Hell I even got an old PCI landline RDIS modem fail on me way back in Debian Woody days. thankfully DSL came soon after).
Do note that driver support is part of the problem, but the problem is much larger. I think I went into fair detail. On a flame note: I never bought a mac myself nor have I used one consistently since the 2000's, and I only purchase Nintendo devices for my sister, because it's that much a better system and environment for sub-10yo than a PS4, an XBO or a PC. I'll probably get her a Mac when she grows up and dual-boot Linux so she gets a choice, but that's as far as steering her choice I'll go, it's not like she's my daughter.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nerdfest on Wednesday February 22 2017, @01:52PM
As a warning, macs no longer play very nicely with Linux. You're probably better running a hackintosh to do what you plan, plus you can save some money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 23 2017, @03:18AM
I think choice is a weakness if and only if there's no better choice directly due to the fact there's too much choice.
1) More choices is not a significant weakness if the _defaults_ are mostly good choices. Then most people can stick to the defaults and have a reasonably well working system.
2) More choices is good if most of the choices are good choices. Not if most of the choices are bad choices or pointless choices.
So the problem is when the system defaults are stupid and so by actual default everyone has to make new choices of their own.
Then if most of the choices are bad choices, it means by default most people are more likely to screw up and make the wrong choice.
Picking good defaults is hard and most Desktop Linux developers in charge of various areas don't appear to know what a bad default is even if it bit them and everyone else.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @12:54PM
You see that as a disadvantage? I certainly prefer a program that gets stuff done to a program that's shiny but sucks.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:04PM
A strength is almost always a weakness as well.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 22 2017, @03:46PM
The distros are the products. Linux, the kernel, or GNU, the base userland, or X11 (and omg Wayland run for the hills, not!, works fine for me and any day now Nvidia will play nice and I'll switch from X to Wayland and be done with it but no hardware accel won't fly for me), the display manager, or Gnome (fuck Mir)/KDE (Wayland?)/XFCE (yay Wayland!)/Mate (Wayland?)/IceWM/WindowMaker/Enlightenment (yay Wayland!)/RatPoison/XMonad/whathaveyou, the desktop environment, or whatever else are not "products" the way you're talking about a product.
I consider that a feature. I would never want to use a "product." "Products" fit somebody else's needs and solve somebody else's problems. That's fine for most people since as far as I can tell the masses are just being simulated by the Matrix--and not a very detailed simulation at that!--so they have everyman's problems and everyman's needs and want everyman's product.
You're possibly looking for Ubuntu, tho as we've seen Ubuntu exists to address Canonical's concerns first and foremost ($$$$$$$$$). I haven't tried Mint but I see it recommended regularly. Those are products. Those have marketing. Those are aimed at being complete without being bloated (lol not bloated and Ubuntu in the same paragraph!) While those offer alternative apps, if you install Ubuntu at least, what does it give you? Totem? You'll use Totem to play DVDs and you'll like it. Want to browse the web? If they chose Chromium for you, you'll use Chromium and like it. You won't have the consternation of deciding whether Firefox, Vivaldi, Palemoon, Midori, eLinks, Konqueror (is that still around as a web browser?), etc fit your needs better than Chromium.
And yeah, I've seen systemd boot blazing fast tho it'll never be install on my box. But Ubuntu's decided you want systemd and it makes their product work, so whatever. I've read the horror stories but that's their product. You'll have Mir and you'll like it. You won't even need to worry about Totem having support for X11 or Wayland "just in case", because Mir is part of the product.
(I have no idea how Ubuntu is put together these days so Im not trying to be 100% technical accurate about what ldd /usr/bin/totem is going to spit out.)
One coherent whole.
That does what somebody else wants it to do.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday February 22 2017, @05:24PM
""Products" fit somebody else's needs and solve somebody else's problems." "That does what somebody else wants it to do."
Interesting point of view. One I've never really considered. Sure, I've danced all around that point of view. And, yes, that's a very large part of why I don't like Windows. But, I've never thought it through to those terms. Modding up for visibility.
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Wednesday February 22 2017, @07:57PM
Sure, some people would prefer to roll their own. And some people build cars from parts. For most people it's ok to pick one from a major manufacturer.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday February 22 2017, @04:16PM
Apple on the other hand, while keeping a very similar standard on hardware and reliability, simply engineer (or make use of) the most amazing business processes, development APIs
It's less true of modern Apple than it was shortly after the NeXT takeover, but one of NeXT's key advantages was realising that APIs are user interfaces and should be subject to the same level of care. This is really rare in open source projects (it's also rare in commercial projects, but open source tends to favour code reuse more, so it's more noticeable). Clear and consistent abstractions, naming conventions, and so on, are very important.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday February 23 2017, @05:00PM
The problem is you're looking at Linux as a single software package like Windows or a friggin' Wii OS. It isn't. It's an ecosystem, like "console gaming". Is the fact that the Playstation won't play XBox games really a community fragmentation problem? Or are they just different platforms with different goals? The great thing about Linux is it's like a Playstation that *does* let you play Xbox games, or at least attempt to. But they don't always work, and there's no real reason to expect that they would! You can try a lot of things, you can try anything you want, but that also has to mean that it's up to you to make sure it'll work. The best thing about Linux is it doesn't try to figure out what you're doing, it doesn't change what you typed on the fly into what it thinks you really meant, it just does what you tell it.
And the biggest problem with Linux today is too many people trying to "fix" the fragmentation "problem", resulting in a less powerful, less flexible system that's more prone to bugs and viruses and hacking. I *want* to see stuff like "Pick which of the following packages you'd like to install to meet the 'Java' dependency" when I'm installing something. Yes, it means more fragmentation. Yes, it means the program might fail if I make a different choice than what the devs have tested on. It also means if there's a bug in one, I can try another. It also means that a security flaw in one can't do as much damage because there aren't as many users, and those users can easily switch if a flaw is found. And it also means I can, for example, more easily avoid Oracle if I just don't like Oracle.
If you want someone else to make the choices for you and to keep the third parties in line, you already have numerous options, the most well known (but certainly not only) choices being Mac or Windows. But PLEASE keep that attitude out of Linux, it really doesn't belong there. For many of us, fragmentation is not a bug but a feature, and that feature is the very reason we use Linux in the first place.