What Are The Biggest Problems With Linux?

[Teho]

too slow to watch 1080p (or even 720p) videos on YouTube.

If you are not using NVIDIA's propietary drivers then it's your CPU that decodes Flash videos not GPU... and the hardware decoding doesn't even work properly unless you really happen to really like smurfs or crashes.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Link for people who not aware about birdie trolling: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...C-Vendor/page2

[e8hffff]

Just to be positive.

I completely dropped Microsoft products and moved to Kubuntu about 5 years ago. I must say, I haven't found much I can't do with Linux. Actually I've been more equipped using Linux then I ever was on Win32/64. Most games work on Wine. Most open source projects are fantastic. Yeah there may not be the high end commercial applications, but the reason behind that is money and those product only have a few bonus features.

User base = money. This is why it's so important to protect our space, and make it work. Stop going to other's pastures and greening their fields. It's only going to get better to more we stick with Linux.

[CorkyAgain]

Evernote for example has the same features and even more than OmniOutliner... OmniOutliner kind of creates it's own format, the lack of support for it is their fault, standardization is important. As you can see, a lot of people complain about that. To many formats...

No, sorry, at first glance Evernote is not comparable to OmniOutliner.

OO is a single-pane, multi-column outliner.

Evernote appears to be yet another multipane outliner that uses a "treeview" to represent the outline hierarchy and a separate pane to display/edit the contents of the current node. Editing an outline in an app like this is nothing like editing one in a single-pane app.

The closest thing to OO that I've found on Linux is VimOutliner, but even that is a distant second.

Evernote actually appears to be more like the DEVONThink app on OS X. They're both aimed at storing and organizing your "stuff."

[birdie]

I would say that the biggest problem is the common belief that Linux is "hard to learn". You know how to use a mouse to click on icons and menu items? You know how to type words with a keyboard? If the answer is yes to both then you will probably be fine.

It's not that Linux is hard to learn, the real problem is that once it breaks (and it does break often) you are helpless because you cannot even say what and why has broken.

Besides that, I also agree with what Michael said in the article. Huge lack of documentation to attract more developers into the platform. I tried developing an app from scratch for Gnome a few months ago but that adventure didn't last more than a few days until I realized that there was NO documentation for PyGI. The answer to that was that I could use the C documentation and just convert as necessary to Python... I have no C knowledge and even with the few tips on how to do the conversion I still stumbled in a few exceptions to the "rules" of conversion, so I gave up.

Nooooo, documentation has nothing to do with that. The lack of stable APIs/ABIs is what makes ISVs shun Linux like a plague. Can you imagine Microsoft intentionally breaking core libraries? Well, Linux developers break backwards compatibility with almost every glibc/gcc release. Linux is in a fucking permanting state of transition to something better, SysVInit to systemd, glibc-X -> glibc-X+1, just to name a few recent real life examples libPNG, X.org, gtk, libtiff, ffmpeg, etc.

Look here: http://release.debian.org/transitions/

    uw-imap
    libpng1.5
    mapnik
    sgml-base
    libcdio
    openjpeg
    libffi

Permanent trackers

    ocaml
    haskell
    libdb
    libjpeg

Ongoing transitions

    poppler0.18 (91%)
    octave (97%)
    biosig4c++ (100%)
    libtiff4-symbols (94%)
    liballegro (6%)
    rpm (100%)
    mysqlclient (45%)
    libguac (0%)
    openturns (0%)
    kde-workspace4.8 (0%)

(almost) Finished transitions

    boost1.49 (100%)
    gdal (100%)
    python2.7 (99%)

That's like a red flag for any ISV. "Transitions? WTF??? Are you saying we cannot even rely on any libraries in Linux?"

[blackiwid]

So who are you interested in Linux than?

I will not flame here or say all your points are stupid, but some of the posts sound like LInux would be a big mess, so if thats true why do you even consider using this crappy os?

I can tell you why:

1. its not so bad as you do whine about, yes some packages/Distries have differen problems, but often you can just choose an alternative for it or have a workaround at the hand and the support is better (you get support for free in several channels, show me that for windows, yes maybe its to a certain level also there, but if there is no knows fix, you look at microsoft and if they dont tell you what error 52134234 means you can shoot yourself.

2. because Windows in its hole package even if it would be free like in free beer, has big issues too. Many people because Windows was there first OS maybe after Dos or c64-os? or something supress the many big problems of windows, they take the package set as the reference and only compare against it and anything thats not the same is an issue, or at least when its better it gets booked as "ok here linux is not worse" but nobody or less people look aktive of where windows is worse than linux.

I can give a good example, over some very common stuff like updates suck because windows xp -> 7 update is way harder than ubuntu update between lts to next lts in windows, there are really big issues like I stubled over a few days ago. So there is a conzept in most windows versions thats called dynamic disks, its something like lvm (but not that good naturaly ^^) or maybe its more like mdadm aka software raid.

so you can make 2 disks there a softwareraid like thing. raid 1 as example, that works and is maybe better than nothing if you have some disks you know anyway not what to do with it
But there are 2 major issues with that. you have to script in a programming language or copy stuff from sites to enable the possiblity that you get a email when one disks fails. else windows just dont tells you that, dont tells you that the raid is corrupted. Thats worse than in linux there you have to edit maybe some config files in uncomenting 1-2 lines and maybe install mailx or something, but its standardised and well documented.

The even bigger problem I think with that feature is that it is only there on the more expensive windows-versions. So ok you can say thats fair for a closedsource company, but what is definetly a big usabilty hazard is that if you try to update from Windows XP Ultimate (or is it called like that?) to a Widnows 7 (home edition) you get no warning that you currently using such drives and you will not be able to get on your data if you do this.


Its ok to whine about linux problems anywhy maybe something happens here and there, but other than distros which maybe earn money with it, you cant except private persons to adress your issues when this issues are not the issues of this persons too ^^

And some stuff is unfair:

1. so as example why do you say that openoffice ( I just had to look at the time stamp but this critic was very new ) is not good or something, its a proprietary thing it that way its nearly only produced by one or 2 companys, so use as all distries does or will do (all that are worth mentioning) libreoffice.

2. somebody was pissed because of a python library that had no api doc only for c, thats ungrateful, yes if that happens to me it pisses me a bit off but I would not openly blame them. They develop a stuff for C and they are that nice so that they offer a python bindinging whats not their goal development environment is, so be thankful, and either use it or search a alternative mostly they are alternatives. I as exmaple programmed a hole game (canta) with python in linux I had no big issues.
Also the person dont compare that to widnows, windows is a developer hell, you cant use the stuff you use for every other operating system so you develop a software, it works in 100 oses but only on one not which one of course windows. you have no comparable console you cant even start to develop if you not install a development environement, in linux you just start at least you have some stuff you can instantly do from shell-scripts to basic python to c c++ and you easily install what you need other than in windows you have to install if you need 100 python packes download 100 exe files and go 100 times through the install routine. thats just horror.

so if you say linux has problems ok, but dont explizitly or implizitly do so as would that all be so much better in windows, the problems are other problems but the amout is at least the same.


AND TO THE GUY OVER ME ^^

its good that all gets bettter and better and there are no stopp shilds normaly that gets clear by version numbers. if you only make minor updates you should not get this problems. So if you only want to have the same software and bugfixing to that, what you claim isps would like to, they use even today enterpirse linuxes with very old stuff and they could even make a distrie that never makes major updates and seperatly make a few years later on a later stand a similar linux distri and if nobody wants to use the very old anymore and they are happy to make the api change they could let die the old one. Some people like the api changes because they get better quality software because of that, not like stuff like the old Netscape Browser or the old X server, make all modular and decouple anything as far as possible makes software more maintainable, and then you get less bugs and faster new features....

You cant have maximum speed in creating new features and stuff and hold back you 10 year old shitty api, that can not work.

[birdie]

Link for people who not aware about birdie trolling: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...C-Vendor/page2

I don't know who the **** you are, and why you are getting personal every time we're discussing your divine Operating System.

But for ****'s sake, can you please close all the bug reports this page links to? Can you make Optimus work on every distro without using voodoo magic? Can you guarantee stable APIs/ABIs? Can you make Linux kernel stable and not prone to hundreds of regressions every ****ing release? Oops, where are games for Linux? Or Corel Draw? Or Adobe Creative Suite? Should I repeat the entire list here?

The troll here is you. So, I hope you can shut the **** up and say what is that exactly you don't agree with, and also give us some hard evidence that what you are saying is true. Because all I hear is some rumblings and ravings.

[Setlec]

biggest linux problem? there is no standard btw the distos. on the programing point of vue, no multimedia API equivalente to DX blob. (this makes quite hard to make games for linux or port stuff from winblob) X.org is old just ditch it for crying out loud wayland could get more love and get to a faster development. PULSEAUDIO SHIT AS SOUND SERVER?!? wasn't ALSA working better? oh right b4 using alsa we used OSS that we ditched it too.

sometimes when i see a new nightly build of haiku, i always think that if GNU/linux had a single dev group the OS as a whole would be way better than what it currently is. (distros could modify it at their taste but come on the GNU/linux dev community is so fragmented that i'm currently spending more time on windows than on linux for daily routine due to stupid breakage with sound card driver or power consumption and etc..

[e8hffff]

I'm sure you will greatly enjoy this essay on to why Linux sucks .

Most of the points are far more horrifying then the actually user experience. Yeah you get a problem here and there but at most times my Kubuntu OS run well.

You can have it the other way, where your OS is more like a device then a personal computer. Like Windows where you are forced into options and choices. One of the main reasons why I left Windows was I'd set up how I wanted my files listed, and next session, it would force its own way to suit Microsoft Media Player. Then viruses, trojans, Microsoft's own backdoors, data-mining, etc, in Windows. Now Microsoft is forcing its users into Metro desperately to save their tablet position. Then consider that most Microsoft users can't afford to buy every software item. Most use pirated copies of both the OS and applications. It's also a shocking situation.

Since Linus started Linux, he should be the one to set the standards, if they aren't set by the Stars-Of-Linux, like Mark Shuttleworth, or the like.

[Jebril]

Stability not in terms of the kernel but in software, desktop environments and so on is very important and something that is very shaky with the Linux distributions. GRUB is also a pain in the ass, too many things can go wrong with it too easily, it needs to be more secure to editing in both Linux AND Windows.

Lack of support for drivers is another big thing as well as lack of support for general mainstream software. These arise for a self fulfilling cycle really, many people don't want to join in the Linux ranks because of these issues and thus developers and companies refuse to develop for Linux because they see it as a wasted investment.

So for me the two biggest things are stability and support.

The innovation is definitely there though and it's the thing that I love the most about Linux.