Why Desktop Linux Sucks and What We can Do About It

[energyman]

and that is why people like me love gentoo and hate the shitbrown debian derivate.

I wish phoronix would be less ubuntu/fedora centric. opensuse is huge. And slackware has the advantage of NOT PATCHING THE HELL OUT OF EVERYTHING.
I remember one guy in the gentoo forum - being ubuntu user. It was a kde/gnome flame war and he said that there was some certain topic in the gnome desktop menu.

It isn't there. Only in ubuntu.

Ubuntu patches software to death. Fedora is a crapfest of half stable patches, unreliable filesystems, unstable kernel options (4k stacks kills data), and poised to hurt kde.

Use Slackware for testing. They don't patch. They don't activate experimental crap.

[Kano]

Well gentoo has lots of patches too, i look at em if some drivers do not compile with new kernel versions like for the broadcom wl driver. But i see no reason to use gentoo

[Silver Knight]

You pretty much hit the nail on the head there...

Because he wants new versions of application software. But that doesn't also imply a need for changes in operating system infrastructure, which is what the rant is about.

EXACTLY! New versions of applications software plus the associated bugfixes and security fixes that go along with such new versions. (After all, a bugfix or security fix sort of implies that something WAS broken.) I'm always a fan of fixes. What I am NOT a fan of is replacing WORKING software with BROKEN software, especially when it is core software integral to proper operation of the system as a whole.

And, before anyone suggests that I "simply remove PulseAudio" or "why don't you simply disable it?" trust me, I've tried... Attempting to remove it on my current distro results in the package manager wanting to remove 99% of KDE along with it. NOT really an option there, considering that KDE is my primary desktop. While my distro DOES offer a configuration tool with the option to disable Pulse in favor of ALSA, it oddly does not work as expected, nor has it worked since Pulse was introduced. Pulse always manages to find a way to run again, no matter what I try. Frustrating, to say the least.

There are, however, distributions, that allow you to choose the low-level components yourself. He should choose one of them. I believe Arch Linux, and anything Gentoo-based qualifies. You don't like PulseAudio? Disable it system-wide. Don't even like ALSA and prefer OSS? Same. PAM? I scratched that too.

In short, the "for the masses" distros may suck in this, but there are alternatives. You don't always have to accept what you are given.

Good advice, and advice that I will be taking I think. While I have a bit of a nostalgic soft-spot for my current distro, I believe that it's time to bust out a few testing partitions / drives and start distro-hopping again. One of the things I've always loved about Linux is the level of control it gives me over my system. The current trend among the more popular distros seems to be leaning toward removing much of that control. While I understand that there is a segment of society that prefers that sort of system, I NEED my system to do what I tell it to, not what it THINKS is best for me.

I've heard good things about both Arch Linux and Slackware. Any other good suggestions here for a good choice of primary distro that will give me good control over my system without requiring me to compile EVERYTHING from source like Gentoo? (I like the IDEA of Gentoo. I just don't like the waiting that's involved. Compiling can be slow without a build cluster...)

In the past I have used Slackware and derivatives and enjoyed them. I've also used Gentoo and enjoyed it other than the compile times involved. Not yet tried Arch, but especially recently have been hearing from a lot of Arch users how great it is. I'm open to other suggestions for distros I should test out at this point, as long as they give me choice over which core components I want to include / exclude and having a fairly extensive selection of software available in their repositories would of course be a nice plus.

P.S.: Thank you, RealNC, for actually understanding what I was saying and offering helpful suggestions instead of a "snarky" response. I appreciate that a lot.

[energyman]

Well gentoo has lots of patches too, i look at em if some drivers do not compile with new kernel versions like for the broadcom wl driver. But i see no reason to use gentoo

gentoo does not add menu items or changes behaviour. All patches are built/installation or security related.

[energyman]

EXACTLY! New versions of applications software plus the associated bugfixes and security fixes that go along with such new versions. (After all, a bugfix or security fix sort of implies that something WAS broken.) I'm always a fan of fixes. What I am NOT a fan of is replacing WORKING software with BROKEN software, especially when it is core software integral to proper operation of the system as a whole.

And, before anyone suggests that I "simply remove PulseAudio" or "why don't you simply disable it?" trust me, I've tried... Attempting to remove it on my current distro results in the package manager wanting to remove 99% of KDE along with it. NOT really an option there, considering that KDE is my primary desktop. While my distro DOES offer a configuration tool with the option to disable Pulse in favor of ALSA, it oddly does not work as expected, nor has it worked since Pulse was introduced. Pulse always manages to find a way to run again, no matter what I try. Frustrating, to say the least.



Good advice, and advice that I will be taking I think. While I have a bit of a nostalgic soft-spot for my current distro, I believe that it's time to bust out a few testing partitions / drives and start distro-hopping again. One of the things I've always loved about Linux is the level of control it gives me over my system. The current trend among the more popular distros seems to be leaning toward removing much of that control. While I understand that there is a segment of society that prefers that sort of system, I NEED my system to do what I tell it to, not what it THINKS is best for me.

I've heard good things about both Arch Linux and Slackware. Any other good suggestions here for a good choice of primary distro that will give me good control over my system without requiring me to compile EVERYTHING from source like Gentoo? (I like the IDEA of Gentoo. I just don't like the waiting that's involved. Compiling can be slow without a build cluster...)

In the past I have used Slackware and derivatives and enjoyed them. I've also used Gentoo and enjoyed it other than the compile times involved. Not yet tried Arch, but especially recently have been hearing from a lot of Arch users how great it is. I'm open to other suggestions for distros I should test out at this point, as long as they give me choice over which core components I want to include / exclude and having a fairly extensive selection of software available in their repositories would of course be a nice plus.

P.S.: Thank you, RealNC, for actually understanding what I was saying and offering helpful suggestions instead of a "snarky" response. I appreciate that a lot.

'waiting' is not really a problem.

Yes, the first installation takes its time (that is why you do it in a chrrot from your old installation or with some live cd) but after that? updates happen in the background and do not hurt. Only installing new stuff - but seriously stuff like xine-lib takes 3 minutes....
genlop -i xine-lib
* media-libs/xine-lib


Total builds: 22
Global build time: 1 hour, 10 minutes and 44 seconds.
Average merge time: 3 minutes and 12 seconds.

[Kano]

It takes that long with a fast quad core. I do not think that everybody has got this kind of hardware.

[Craig73]

Because he wants new versions of application software. But that doesn't also imply a need for changes in operating system infrastructure, which is what the rant is about.

Well I certainly agree this is an issue, although I'd prefer a more standard or streamlined way of upgrading applications from the core system.

[energyman]

It takes that long with a fast quad core. I do not think that everybody has got this kind of hardware.

dream on:
at /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 67
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow rep_good pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy
bogomips : 2000.48
TLB size : 1024 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

processor : 1
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 67
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
stepping : 3
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow rep_good pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy
bogomips : 2000.48
TLB size : 1024 4K pages
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp tm stc

and the compiling done while running KDE desktop and doing stuff.

[RealNC]

The point here is not the specific distro. Sure Gentoo has many benefits, which the strongest being its package manager(s). I'm on Gentoo too. The real point is that *any* distro that makes it easy to choose your own OS base-components is the solution to the problem. As it happens, the least intimidating *is* Arch, *and* it's easier to try it (Gentoo needs time for a first install). That's the reason I recommended it, not because I think Arch is "better" than Gentoo (which, as I mentioned, is what I'm actually using myself.)