What Are The Biggest Problems With Linux?

[gaunilo]

Linux scares people. They feel helpless.

What do I do if I get no internet connection/ my printer does not print/ I don't hear any sound? Uninstalling and installing again usually does not resolve issues as on other OS. If something goes wrong you sometimes have to read man pages and edit config files. Maybe even in shell mode. Being in such a situation must be a horror to somebody who only wants to surf the net and read emails. Standard components like sound, internet, printing and graphics should behave themselves much better with much more testing. Danger spots should be cushioned by safe modes.

Why not have senior citizens install Linux and see how they fare in comparison to other OS? I bet much could be learned from that. I believe Linux still has to become a little less rough around the edges to attract a wider audience.

[Alliancemd]

Sorry but you don't promote the opposition. Use your own Cloud solutions if any.

I'm against cloud computer btw, unless it's personal cloud run from your own home or business. I have no interest in storing personal files with Microsoft, or Amazon. I don't want to buy an mp3 and have MS store it. It's easier to have a storage device, like USB memory dongle or Secure Digital card. If we continue to not use cloud, Buyers promote personal technologies.

Cloud is great. A USB memory dongle or a Secure Digital card may break or get lost while in the cloud your data has a lot of copies on different servers, if one brakes you don't loose your data. May be that is not be important for you but there are a lot of people that need to secure some data(me inclusively).
And Cloud is not only for data backup. Cloud means doing all the operations you do on your computer on a remote structure(I say structure because you don't know on which server it is, it is just there, sometimes shared between a few servers, secured, with backup solutions in case of 1 system failure).
I explained why would someone prefer a cloud instead of personal physical resources here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/10963.../110528#110528

[e8hffff]

Cloud is great. A USB memory dongle or a Secure Digital card may break or get lost while in the cloud your data has a lot of copies on different servers, if one brakes you don't loose your data. May be that is not be important for you but there are a lot of people that need to secure some data(me inclusively).
And Cloud is not only for data backup. Cloud means doing all the operations you do on your computer on a remote structure(I say structure because you don't know on which server it is, it is just there, sometimes shared between a few servers, secured, with backup solutions in case of 1 system failure).
I explained why would someone prefer a cloud instead of personal physical resources here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/10963.../110528#110528

The cloud will mainly be for many, hosting warez, and those stupid enough to trust the likes of Microsoft to their purchased items, or hosting of business content. Do you think Steve Jobs would host Apple's business on Microsoft servers? If not, then why should any one else trust Microsoft stealing their concepts and projects.

Cloud-computing is simply a manoeuvre from companies to lock users into a paid service. There's simply no need for the Clouds from corporations. Technology is supposed to progress giving the power to the Users, not handlers of users.

[Poliander]

The Linux ecosystem is far too shattered to build something that is able to compete with MacOS or Windows in terms of "general usability". Look at all those different desktop environments, window managers, package formats, audio and input subsystems, distributions with different look-and-feels, license and copyright implications and restrictions, unstable programming interfaces... I'm convinced that Linux would get far more support from end-users, software donators and hardware vendors if the whole thing wouldn't be so directionless, volatile and hostile.

(Of course, this diversity is also a kind of a strength. Most Linux users are well aware of those strenghts and know how to benfit from the freedom-of-choice. But these are the two sides of the same coin...)

[e8hffff]

Linux scares people. They feel helpless.

Have to agree.

One example is I install a Laserjet printer driver, and as soon as there is an update patch to CUPS or some other printer infrastructure, my printer stops working, usually. How on hell can a business depend on that. btw, I'm not running a business.

There needs to be pressure to keep to standards and backward compatibility, else branch into new projects.

Canonical has been a major mover into standardising and placing systems to allow upgrading a ease of changes. More need to adopt those systems or make their own. Example the PPA system is excellent. LaunchPad.net another good move.

[fireboot]

Right now I have 2 big problems under Linux.

1) Lack of Optimus support. Optimus is becoming very common in recent laptops (including my own) and is not (officially) supported under Linux.
Under Linux I can't use my Nvidia card. Moreover, it is always powered on, leading to a very high temperature and power consumption. There are ways and workaround (acpi_call, bumblebee, ...) to use (or disable) the Nvidia card but it's still a big mess.



2) Regressions. Way too often, updating a component leads to a regression. Last example I faced: My wifi connection is broken (random loss of connectivity) under Linux 3.3 while it had always worked fine before. KDE is also a world-class champion when it comes to breaking stuff (or deleting features, which is at least equally bad) after each update.

[ryao]

Reduced complexity of the various distributions and software stacks.

...

And the last thing I won't to mention is that it doesn't make sense that every linux distribution uses their own thousands of scripts. F.e. in the case of the start-up scripts the distributions could use systemd and write good scripts only once and use the same ones in ubuntu/lfs/gentoo/arch...? In the end they all do exactly the same job and this would reduce a lot of work.

systemd and its dependencies are roughly 2 million lines of code. Gentoo's OpenRC is 20,000 lines of code. If you want to reduce the complexity of the software stack, it would make more sense for you to adopt OpenRC than systemd.

With that said, OpenRC works with both Linux and *BSD, which systemd depends on Linux. Until systemd is portable, I doubt that it would be suitable for distributions that are not Linux-exclusive, such as Debian and Gentoo.

[e8hffff]

And Cloud is not only for data backup. Cloud means doing all the operations you do on your computer on a remote structure(I say structure because you don't know on which server it is, it is just there, sometimes shared between a few servers, secured, with backup solutions in case of 1 system failure).

Why would I need to use a cloud based spreadsheet, when I can edit one on a mobile phone linked to a VPN back to an office network. The move in technology means people have massive amounts of computing power in their hands. They don't need dumb terminal devices back to a cloud on a mainframe. Then to ask for people to pay for cloud, is ridiculous.

For cloud-computer to be successful would mean companies would force people to have less technology in their own control, or disrupt the stability of software so much so that people would want cloud manage therefore reducing maintenance. Both points are devious conduct toward Users.

[CorkyAgain]

Better interop with OS X?

This probably isn't one of Linux's "biggest problems", but as someone who also uses a Mac, there are a couple of things where I'd like to see more interoperability between OS X and Linux:

* Support for Apple's RTFD document format. An RTFD is mostly just a directory containing an RTF file, along with some image files if the document includes pictures. Many OS X apps save documents in this format, and it would be nice if LibreOffice (for example) could work with them as is. Yes, you can open the RTF and import the image files, but the result is something very unlike the way the document appears on OS X.

* Outliners! This is an application niche which has been explored on Macs more than any other platform. OmniOutliner is awesome, but there's nothing like it on Linux. I'd like to have a program in the LibreOffice suite that could read & write OmniOutliner files in their native format (it's just XML), and edit them as outlines.

[chmmr]

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.