What Are The Biggest Problems With Linux?

[movieman]

Bloat is not a problem. Having a few hundred megabytes of libraries on a large HDD or SSD is really not so bad if it means you can run old and new programs.

LOL.

You do realise that 90+% of Linux systems are not hulking desktops with terabytes of disk space? In fact, 90% of that 90% probably have less than 'a few hundred megabytes' of storage in total.

Stable APIs are one of the the reasons why Windows is such a nightmare. I can only presume that Microsoft are pushing people to cripple Linux by imposing the same nonsense on it.

[sloggerKhan]

Also, too many papercut-type things like this:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ClipboardPersistence

[plonoma]

Linux does support some types of userpace drivers with a stable API. If you are doing anything with and IRQ you need the privileged space to do it, but there are ways to put a lot of the driver functionality into user-space.

For instance the FUSE system, some of the HID and bluetooth are done in userspace. Also it's not uncommon for embedded systems to make use of the user-pace driver API, like broad-com with the graphics driver for the rasberry pi. .

Linux breaks internal API's and ABI's all of the time. In fact so do those other OS's. They keep thier drivers working by having a set of defined interfaces that they take great pains to maintain. The additional abraction makes the job of the kernel developers that much more complex. Instead of just being able to change the kernel, they have to change the kernel and then chage the shim, and so on.

API's/ABI's are the set of defined interfaces!!
A good programming practice is to separate interfaces and internal workings of components.

[plonoma]

Names are very important.
The open source world seems to have a lot of problems coming up with good names without unintended negative effects.

Gimp: gimping, google it or rather don't (has other more common meaning)
OpenRISC: seriously? if you design an instruction set even if it's a RISC instead of CISC you do not give it a name with the word RISC in it!!

Here something I discovered:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-popularity-psychological-science.html

[Alliancemd]

Re

Printer drivers are not in the kernel. Somehow my trust for this Bachelor of Science's abilities just dropped

I mean, if the support is not available in CUPS. I have an old printer at home and I had to recompile the kernel with the printer drivers as a module.
The same thing happened with my web camera, I had to recompile the kernel with the drivers downloaded from the site as a module...

And btw, I said that my Bachelor of Science is related to Printer drivers or something like that?
I am sure even Linus Torvalds can get wrong in something he never was interested in studying and that's not a big deal.
I am not a cyborg.

[vertexSymphony]

It wasn't clear how should they be called:

http://www.systhread.net/texts/200510kdiff.php

You're pretty much expressing the same thing, but in another different host ... I would expect some significant functionality of the kernel to be offloaded to userland and not the hybrid kernels reduced to only loadable-modules which is stated to alter the kernel image on the fly, but it doesn't change for example that practically all core drivers are still provided in ring 0 except for some cute piece of software (like FUSE, anyone using it for the entire FS? lol ).

But the fact is, that "Linux" (the OS, not the kernel) as it is is flexible enough to provide a edge-case scenario of a somewhat hybrid system ...

[WorBlux]

Linux is a monolithic kernel and every time they update it it can break many things. That's why micro-kernels are better and device drivers should be in user space not kernel space.

Linux does support some types of userpace drivers with a stable API. If you are doing anything with and IRQ you need the privileged space to do it, but there are ways to put a lot of the driver functionality into user-space.

For instance the FUSE system, some of the HID and bluetooth are done in userspace. Also it's not uncommon for embedded systems to make use of the user-pace driver API, like broad-com with the graphics driver for the rasberry pi. .

Linux breaks internal API's and ABI's all of the time. In fact so do those other OS's. They keep thier drivers working by having a set of defined interfaces that they take great pains to maintain. The additional abraction makes the job of the kernel developers that much more complex. Instead of just being able to change the kernel, they have to change the kernel and then chage the shim, and so on.

[curaga]

Printer drivers are not in the kernel. Somehow my trust for this Bachelor of Science's abilities just dropped

[Alliancemd]

Linux, like NT and Darwin, is a hybrid kernel. That's why you have the option to modularise a lot of Linux when you build it from source.

Linux is a monolithic kernel and that's it!
Guess why when you need a printer driver that the Kernel doesn't have support for you have to compile the entire kernel?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

What's even funnier as a proof of your own veracity you link to your own posts which are superficial at best

What's even funnier as a proof of your own veracity you link to your own page (four times per thread) which are full of bullshit.

birdie as usually nothing to asnwer.