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What Are The Biggest Problems With Linux?

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  • There are precisely THREE problems;
    1) Unusable UI's (i.e., gnome-shell).
    2) Commercial CRAP comes on all hardware sales.
    3) Proprietary software is not built with Linux in mind.

    (2) and (3) are obviously connected, as in (3) is a direct result of (2).
    To some extent, (2) is a result of (1) as well.

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    • Originally posted by kraftman View Post
      I always wonder why some people make same mistakes all the time. Linux is just a kernel and if you want compare something to Windows or OS X you have to compare Linux distributions. Ubuntu is not fragmented, it has a single DE, package format etc. Vendors just should focus on Ubuntu and problems solved. It seems they're even going to do so - Valve, EA. Most of the comments here are just bunch of bull, because they don't understand such simple thing.
      This post should end the thread.

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      • Some very subjective thoughts!

        I watched a video from the Stanford University, where the tutor explains what an argument is. He says, in the past people used to start programs from the command line with e.g. a text file as an argument, this is where the String array in the main method comes from
        From the past?!? I love using rsync, cp, mv and regular expressions, pipe output etc. I barely even touch a file manager. Hell, even in Windows 7 I prefer robocopy (finally made it into the OS as standard) over a filemanager. At the moment GUIs try to make every
        Am I from the past or is there a problem with education in schools, that everything operated with a mouse is better?

        Many of the documents need to be handed in as MS Office document, so the tutors can make their notes using the MS Office suite. Yes, LibreOffice und Co. can save documents as .docx etc. but there are some glitches and formatting might get lost.

        MS pushes its products in the schools, by offering Student Edititons and discounts etc. (not only MS btw. there are a hell lot of crap products in use, pushed through universities e.g. MathCad -.-).

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        • First sorry about my English. It's not my native language.

          I haven't read all the posts so I don't know exactly whats has been discussed.

          But as a long time user I have found annoying attitude from developers. Let me explain. The last 10 years, Linux had a lot of new desktop developers. It was the new trend in the market, Windows has passed into advanced NT era and it was free. So everyone wanted to participate. But that fame also attracted a lot of non-talented guys and a lot of selfish ones.

          When Linux started to rise up with kernel 2.6, Gnome 2.0 and KDE 3.xx everyone wanted it's share to success. We had distro spinoffs, we had application spinoffs and a whole mess just started. Instead of collaboration in true FOSS spirit we had a true proprietary mess.

          We had various audio servers, we had different desktop settings, we had different themes, we had this we had that. Instead of collaborating to give one desktop framework across desktops, everyone used theirs. When someone disagreed about something he made a fork. So great teams were dissolved and none had the resources to continue. And of course two projects stopped. and so, and so...

          So today we have 2 excellent OS. Windows 7 x64 and Max OS X. They are absolute perfect. When you switch to Linux you have to deal with different toolkits, 10 half music programs, 10 half image programs, 10 different installation programs, 10 this, 10 that, 10 the other....

          In personal, I installed Ubuntu 12.04 last week. I used a few modified sources and AMD graphics driver crashed my Xorg. WHY??? I still can't use Gnome because 3.0 is an ugly mess. Why they did not keep compatibility with gtk-2.0 themes? When I use KDE and open a gtk app WHY the fonts are so UGLY??? WHY, WHY, WHY??? I don't want to continue about various system stuff such as bash configuration etc.

          In conclusion I would like to see the following in KDE 5.0 and GNOME 4.0:

          1. Same configuration for desktop. Settings, themes, everything.
          2. No duplicate work. Why having phonon, gstreamer, pulseaudio etc. Only one "low level" app for desktpos
          3. Fewer but richer applications. We have Mediamonkey in Windows. Duplicate it. Not similar app. An exact copy.
          4. Common settings framework for system. A plugin based application like Webmin common to ALL distros.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by tiffany View Post
            First sorry about my English. It's not my native language.

            1. Same configuration for desktop. Settings, themes, everything.
            2. No duplicate work. Why having phonon, gstreamer, pulseaudio etc. Only one "low level" app for desktpos
            3. Fewer but richer applications. We have Mediamonkey in Windows. Duplicate it. Not similar app. An exact copy.
            4. Common settings framework for system. A plugin based application like Webmin common to ALL distros.
            1. Gnome and KDE share already desktop and some settings you cant share all settings and the themes.
            2. Phonon is a layer that lies over a backend so that application can use the backend that is installed on the system. Gstreamer is a backend like Quiktime for Mac OS X or DirectShow for Windows. Pulseaudio is a layer that lies over the system backend and manages the audio streams and makes you able to stream sound in network.
            So for me there no real duplicates.

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            • The two overall biggest issues with linux IMO:

              1. Drivers. Yes, its gotten far better than it used to be, but hardware support under linux is still far from the ideal.
              2. Fragmentation. Choice is one of the biggest strengths of linux, but also ends up being one of the biggest weaknesses. There seem to be too many pointless forks and/or duplication of work. (for a good example look at the video editor situation. New ones popping up constantly, no great ones).

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              • Originally posted by Thaodan View Post
                1. Gnome and KDE share already desktop and some settings you cant share all settings and the themes.
                2. Phonon is a layer that lies over a backend so that application can use the backend that is installed on the system. Gstreamer is a backend like Quiktime for Mac OS X or DirectShow for Windows. Pulseaudio is a layer that lies over the system backend and manages the audio streams and makes you able to stream sound in network.
                So for me there no real duplicates.
                1. Why we can't share everything? When I use Gnome I want Gpicview to handle all image files and if I switch to KDE Gwenview will start. Why is that. The same with media player, text editor, web browser etc. Also the themes can change. The UI has the same elements: scrollbars, windows, buttons etc. A converter should handle all these.

                2. Why all this complex stuff? Only one audio thing with plugins. Common for all architectures and desktops.

                There are pieces of FOSS software that are so complex and excellent that make me embarrassed when I compare desktop Linux to Windows. For example GCC is amazing doing work for 30+ architectures and OS and from the other side we can't have a decent image viewer.

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                • Re

                  Originally posted by kraftman View Post
                  When something doesn't work on OS X or Windows people say they sicks and they're right. If you have nothing smart to say just don't say stupid things. Usually third party members drivers were causing trouble, but it's much better now, but not perfect yet.
                  In Windows you have a lot of crashes too, they just don't ask you to report them and they put it in a way that won't scare the user. In Windows XP they were asking you to send or not to send the problem, in Windows 7 they just do it automatically. When a crash happens in Windows 7 it says "Windows is checking for a solution to the problem...", not like in Linux "Segmentation Fault: Fatal error...".
                  That makes the overall experience of the user more pleasing, he doesn't think that the OS has crashes because it doesn't tell him.

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                  • Well the most important linux problems is intellectual property. This is the eternal fight between free and non-free software and we all know about that.
                    Commonly in consequence of this IP problem or due to economic reasons, hardware drivers quality is lower at least in the desktop front. The most common hardware driver problem is in open source graphic driver. Even for most sold hardware like nvidia and amd we don't have a tier 1 top quality open source driver. This is just an hardware manufacter choice in the end (mostly driver by software patents, one of the reason AMD can't open source fglrx, I guess for nvidia this is the same). Of course nvidia has a good closed source driver (for what I read on this site, I don't have one), but still is far from ideal for the end user. The common PC users hardly even known what linux is, how can he/she know the driver he/she get installed by default is not the "best one" in term of functionality. Switchable graphics? Just a dream even with nvidia closed source driver! The exception is intel here which provides a fair good free driver for linux for its IGP (and CPU and wireless devices). May be not really 100% on par with windows, but quite close to be a top quality driver. Wireless drivers are another problem for the same story. Same story for the SMAPI controller on lenovo notebooks, even if it is so simple to support given the device is not complicated at all, there is no driver for linux for newer models (I have one, trust me). What is the price of making a linux driver for lenovo? In term of developer salary I think it is very small, so there must be another reason for it, I ask myself, which one??

                    On windows drivers are not a problem just because they are installed by default, so you might think installing closed source drivers by default just solve the problem. In my opinion no. GNU/Linux is a free operating system. It is against its nature to do that, not to talk about technical problem (like AMD drop support for not-old-hardware, slow support for new kernel/Xorg and so on). Even with 100% on par with windows but closed drivers, GNU/Linux can't quite cut it. Drivers and software must be free/open source on GNU/Linux just because this is the way it works.

                    For sure if your hardware doesn't work near 100% due to driver issue/missing support I don't see why a normal PC user should use linux.

                    Once the hardware driver problem is solved, we might check some hole in desktop user software here and there, but this is not a very bug issue.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by tiffany View Post
                      1. Why we can't share everything? When I use Gnome I want Gpicview to handle all image files and if I switch to KDE Gwenview will start. Why is that. The same with media player, text editor, web browser etc. Also the themes can change. The UI has the same elements: scrollbars, windows, buttons etc. A converter should handle all these.

                      2. Why all this complex stuff? Only one audio thing with plugins. Common for all architectures and desktops.

                      There are pieces of FOSS software that are so complex and excellent that make me embarrassed when I compare desktop Linux to Windows. For example GCC is amazing doing work for 30+ architectures and OS and from the other side we can't have a decent image viewer.
                      Cause KDE and Gnome using different toolkits ad both use different stucktures. In background they use the same backend for many technichs that the application uses the standart or the backend so that applications can supports both DE without many extra work. Both have no standart components that are deep integrated like the Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer. Every application can be a standart component. Themes cant be shared between the DE cause both have different widgets and so on. I gues, the only thing than can shared from themes are icon themes.

                      2. Why so complex? Cause components are not bound to Linux the only component that is bound to linux is alsa Phonon, gstreamer and Pulseaudio are supporting other operating sytems.

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