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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: 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.