What Are The Biggest Problems With Linux?

[WorBlux]

Too many package formats
Too many differences in vital config files
Too much jargon in UI;s
No standard distro., every distro has a different combination of kernel, service, and library versions.

But really I think the biggest problem from a user perspective is that nobody really uses it. If dear old grannies has a question about the computer she bought with Ubuntu, her go-to nephew for computer issues probably has no idea how to start, much less actually solve the problem. A

[storma]

The stable Linux distro argument. Talking about Debian not Ubuntu.

A lot of work goes into keeping Debian stable, stable but it gets overlooked because it lacks the new features out there.

"A couple of years wait for a new release is just too long".

Then these same people go back to Windows wondering why they even bothered with Linux and resume again the few years wait between releases.

Some of the more popular applications can be kept more recent by the use of backports and deb-multimedia and the like if you don't want to get into mixing with testing and/or unstable.

[WorBlux]

If I had infinite money to throw at helping Linux become everything it could be, here's where I would start:

- Pay Adobe to port Creative Suite. There are vast armies of professionals who rely on these tools to do what they do. Some of them are AAPL converts for life, but many others would jump ship.
- Pay Unity Technologies to port Unity - not just the web player, but the development application. This engine is already a major force in game development and will only become moreso over the next decade. If we have Steam and Unity we will have Gamers.
- Send Valve a big pile of candy and flowers for doing what they are already doing

If Adobe or Unity have technical concerns about Linux as a platform for their software, work with them to fix those. (this will undoubtedly get into the issues with open source video drivers, etc, which in turn need to have resources and help poured onto them).

In a nutshell, work backwards from why we don't have the killer apps that keep people tied to the other 2 major operating systems. Swallow our pride and admit that Linux is already being used by people unlike us (programmers, nerds), and accept that the entire landscape will be better for this new blood, because choice (eg to use weird, power user configurations) will never go away as a core value of Linux.

The wasteland 2 project is going to use the Unity engine. From what I understand there was a bit of work done in this direction, and they plan to collaborate to get the port to be usable.

[yanestra]

Fragmentation

I think the main problem with Linux nowadays is fragmentation. Fedora (e.g.) obviously does its own business and does not care about what the rest of the world likes, they consider themselves as innovation leaders.

Some changes appear like innovations first, mostly not of big use anyway, but they make rather big problems when it comes to installing software.

A package has no chance finding out in which environment it is running. What does it need to do to install a save daemon process? Jailed or paravirtually encapsuled, or whatever? There are dozens of answers, depending on the constellation of installed packages and version numbers, and, depending on the machine, possibly all wrong since the user has decided differently.

[e8hffff]

Heroes of the Computer Industry tomorrow are going to be Linux figures. Make a name for yourself by making quality productions and projects now, if you're interested in being influential in the field. Be vocal and represent your works.

[vk512]

Smartphones are here to stay while OSes are bound to blur into the background

I would say the biggest issue is from a user's viewpoint. Among all the computers where I have been pushing a linux distro (Ubuntu/Mint/Slitaz), the biggest turn-off was syncing a smartphone.
And it's only the beginning. N00bs with iPhones can't stand anyway to have something more complicated to set up than iTunes. But Android smartphones... Since more and more of our digital lives are transferring from desk/laptops to smartphones, this will be a major battle.

I really feel than most people on Linux will find it difficult to imagine what the average user mostly needs. I have been able to push for Linux on some people's computers since it has made so many advances in the past 6 years to work with lots of hardware out of the box.

I'm waiting for the ubuntu phone, but that will be 2014. As of now I haven't found a simple interface that would help unify the linux/smartphone experience with a dashboard of checked syncs, sets of data available in the cloud/physically and working with Ubuntu One and various cloud services.

[LightBit]

1) https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/al...ew.php?id=1798

2) X.org

3) API changes too often

4) complex configuration files

5) too much bloat

[oliver]

So much fud and nonesense in this thread, let me atleast try to debunk some of it

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.

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

Please, unstable API/ABI of the kernel is a _feature_. It more or less forces vendors to either support their stuff, or GTFO. Seriously, this doesn't need to be sugarcoated either. What vendors WANT to do, write a driver once, and hope it works for the next 10 years or so after they claim it's to old anyway. Same happens on windows too. "Oh your old printer driver doesn't work anymore on Vista? To bad, buy a new printer." Seriously? Yes that is their response/stance on hardware that still works perfectly fine. Why doesn't it work anymore? ... Guess what. API/ABI breakage.

How does windows/applications fix that? Delivering older versions of libraries to go with the product (which obviously only works to some extent). Windows Vista/7/8 has a 'XP compatibility mode'. What do you think that does? And why do you think every game tries to install DirectX? Or why do many programs have DLL's in next to their exe's that are installed many times, including in C:\windos? Right, API/ABI breakage and compatibility.

As pointed out elsewhere, you can dump a current linux kernel into quite an old userspace. And really really old binaries still work to this day on modern systems. It is not as bad as you make it out to be, so stop trolling.

[oliver]

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.

Multimedia API equivalent would be a combination of packages. OpenGL for graphics (which pre-dates DX), OpenAL for sound (it is actually quite heavily used in games) and SDL for 'a lot else'. With these 3 components, I'm pretty certain you can get extremely far.

As for pulseaudio, yes it's not perfect, but it's not a replacement to alsa. I'm not a big fan of pulseaudio, but do think it is needed. If every sound card would have properly supported hardware mixing, then the need would be far less important. It would offer features, such as instantly move input streams to output systems.

Alsa replaced OSS because of many reasons. For one, OSS wasn't as opensource as you wanted it to be, rather nasty stuff even.
Again, pulse is not replacing alsa, alsa is the audio 'framework' so to speak, and pulse still does it's output through alsa.

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..

A huge single dev group would be nice in some respects, yes there's too much fragmentation now. On the other hand, it's healthy evolution at work. Weaker distro's/packages fade into obsolescence and the strong survive. In the great scheme of things, it's not bad.

[DeiF]

For me it has to be interactivity:


Run a process that needs more RAM than available, and as soon as the process starts using swap everything becomes unresponsive (not just the process). If you have patience you can kill the process by ssh'ing into the box, but it usually takes like half an hour to do so.

Have a CIFS mount, and as soon as the mounted device becomes slow or stops sending packets, your system will become unresponsive too (GUI, any terminal window), even if you aren't accessing any files from it. You can't even unmount the device.

Or just click or right-click anywhere. Open windows. Click on menus, etc. Everything reacts slowly. You can verify this filming the screen with a videocamera, then later measure delays by analyzing the video.
You can even see the repaint of every window, and how the painting isn't uniform (i.e. frames, part of the content, etc. everything painting at different times).

Or compare the time to launch an app like Kcalc with the time to launch the calculator from Windows XP.
Or compare the time to launch a native app in Linux vs the same app ported to Windows but launched from Linux through Wine.


Then go to benchmarking sites like this one and cry because interactivity isn't benchmarked and nobody seems to care.
Also benchmarking clusters of ARM computers, but no benchmarks of 6 year old PCs. WTF.