What Are The Biggest Problems With Linux?

[Jebril]

So basically, the lot of you are complaining that Linux isn't Windows or iEvil. That is, of course, pointless. And unfortunately it just shows how many brainless people moved from Windows to Linux without ever leaving the baby mindset behind. So my utmost wish for improvement in Linux: a way to make all the idiots _not_ use it.

Now in all seriousness. I'd wish for less efforts going into such pointless projects as WINE or Mono. There's no need to reproduce Windows because it's already there. People who use Wine are simply those who wants to live in a lie that they only use Linux and aren't dependent on Windows. If I wanted to use Windows stuff, I'd dualboot Windows. What's wrong with people? All you need is to be honest about yourselves -- you want something enough to give up on some of your principles. It's not bad, on the contrary, it's _good_. Now just be consequent about it. When I see how much time is wasted on WINE I really get a bad feeling.

You realize you're complaining about the philosophy of open source in general. That people can take code or distributions of Linux for example and use ONLY Windows programs on it, or people can develop whatever software they want to run Windows programs on it. Welcome to Open Source, if you don't like it then I suggest you be the one who take your leave.

:]

[scottishduck]

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.

So like Windows then.

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? Well, Linux developers break backwards compatibility with almost every glibc/gcc release. Linux is in a fucking permanting state of transition to something better, SysVInit to systemd, glibc-X -> glibc-X+1, just to name a few recent real life examples libPNG, X.org, gtk, libtiff, ffmpeg, etc.

Look here: http://release.debian.org/transitions/

    uw-imap
    libpng1.5
    mapnik
    sgml-base
    libcdio
    openjpeg
    libffi

Permanent trackers

    ocaml
    haskell
    libdb
    libjpeg

Ongoing transitions

    poppler0.18 (91%)
    octave (97%)
    biosig4c++ (100%)
    libtiff4-symbols (94%)
    liballegro (6%)
    rpm (100%)
    mysqlclient (45%)
    libguac (0%)
    openturns (0%)
    kde-workspace4.8 (0%)

(almost) Finished transitions

    boost1.49 (100%)
    gdal (100%)
    python2.7 (99%)

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

Linux constantly evolves because it is a free operating system. Most useful features are backported into enterprise distributions. Long-Term support versions of the kernel and applications exist.

Pretty worthless points.

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The main problems facing Linux right now is still drivers basically, it's improved a lot, but the fact is still that you cannot yet assume that everything in your commuter will work (and work well). This should merely take time, however, rather than any additional manpower.

[vertexSymphony]

There are two common issues that have been hanging around for a long time:

1. Nouveau doesn't sync to vblank when using a compositing window manager, causing tearing.

Disabled by default (man nouveau), add this option to you xorg.conf(.d):

Option "GLXVBlank" "true"

[danboid]

biggest probs

1 - Crap defaults

2 - Poor or even no docs in many areas

3 - No real foss equivalent to Active Directory for KDE or GNOME

There's many more but those are the worst ones that we can all realistically help fix.

As for #1 - the worst default that has done the most damage is that the big distros, under both KDE and GNOME, have all defaulted to using a network manager GUI / service instead of using wicd or wicd-kde as appropriate. wicd has been available for many years now and is much easier to configure and most importantly much more reliable with encrypted wifi connections. OK, so wicd currently lacks connection sharing but at least you know people have a good chance of getting their wifi to work and have it remember the password without having to learn kwallet and its myriad of config options etc etc. If people really depend upon connection sharing or whatever other advanced features NM may have that wicd does not then at least they are more likely to be able to swap their network manager via wifi if wicd was used by default - because it just works!

The primary use of a computer for most people these days is to access the internet and more often than not the connection these days is wifi- be it a laptop, desktop, phone or tablet. If a user tries a distro and cannot easily connect to the net - its game over! They are not going to read into the Linux networking stack, read up on the alternatives and get it installed - not in the least because they can't access to net to find out how!

I have been in touch with the author of the KDE NM plasmoid recently and unbelievably he says he cannot test wpa2 wifi connections so he was asking me to test a patch to prevent a password prompt popping up when it shouldn't! I offered to send him a router that could do wpa2 but I had no response.

...and of course - many, many users would migrate to Linux as soon as we convince Adobe that they would not implode if they released CS for Linux - easily the most requested suite of apps ever although PS CS 5 does run stunningly well under recent wine builds so congrats to the wine dev team on maybe the greatest feat of reverse engineering ever achieved!

[birdie]

So like Windows then. Linux constantly evolves because it is a free operating system. Most useful features are backported into enterprise distributions. Long-Term support versions of the kernel and applications exist.

Pretty worthless points.

The main problems facing Linux right now is still drivers basically, it's improved a lot, but the fact is still that you cannot yet assume that everything in your commuter will work (and work well). This should merely take time, however, rather than any additional manpower.

Linux constantly evolves? OMG. You even boast about that.

Windows evolves, but APIs and ABIs are rock solid. On Windows 8 I can run software written for ... Windows 3.1 which was released over 25 years ago. Try this feat with Linux software.

Worthless points? Great, go and convince a single company to port its applications from Windows to Linux. Whereas you are theorizing, I deal with big ISVs and I know what they want from Linux. But you are free not to agree with me, just forget about Linux having more than 3% on the desktop.

[Teho]

If I wanted to use Windows stuff, I'd dualboot Windows. What's wrong with people? All you need is to be honest about yourselves -- you want something enough to give up on some of your principles. It's not bad, on the contrary, it's _good_.

You are confusing your own principless with principles of others. I personally don't run Wine anymore but when I did I did for purely pragmatic reasons: it's simply so much more confortable to run all the applications in one environment that you have customized to absolute perfection. I didn't need Windows thanks to Wine and that let me free of the burden of maintaing two different operating systems and rebooting constantly. I used to multitask when I played WoW but all the other apps I wanted to use only worked on Linux and so on. I don't see Windows as good platform but the apps that run on top of it can be useful. I doubt that any Wine developers feel that their time is wasted on developing it so it's not wasted. If you enjoy doing what you do it's never waste of time.

Windows evolves, but APIs and ABIs are rock solid. On Windows 8 I can run software written for ... Windows 3.1 which was released over 25 years ago. Try this feat with Linux software.

Correct if I'm wrong but doesn't Windows have countless versions of the same libaries because they are not backwards compatible or something? I rember installing .Net runtime environmet multiple times with different applications and applications built on Qt have as bad backwards compatibility in Windows as they do on Linux.

[e8hffff]

Now in all seriousness. I'd wish for less efforts going into such pointless projects as WINE or Mono. There's no need to reproduce Windows because it's already there. People who use Wine are simply those who wants to live in a lie that they only use Linux and aren't dependent on Windows

I partly agree with what you're saying but for me I use Wine to play a game, is not some lost beaconing to Windows. It's simply to experience entertainment made by someone. It's like saying you should never watch wmv movie files, or asf, or some mp4's. I never use Wine to run applications. It's only games from time to time.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

But for ****'s sake, can you please close all the bug reports this page links to? Can you make Optimus work on every distro without using voodoo magic? Can you guarantee stable APIs/ABIs? Can you make Linux kernel stable and not prone to hundreds of regressions every ****ing release? Oops, where are games for Linux? Or Corel Draw? Or Adobe Creative Suite? Should I repeat the entire list here?

I already highlight lie in your list, Artem. Until this lie will be fixed there is nothing to discuss.

I don't know who the **** you are, and why you are getting personal every time we're discussing your divine Operating System.
The troll here is you. So, I hope you can shut the **** up and say what is that exactly you don't agree with, and also give us some hard evidence that what you are saying is true. Because all I hear is some rumblings and ravings.

Looks like you are very angry. Just because I give link to you previous trolling? Just because of that? Oh, my...
People, if you intresting why birdie soo angry, read this thread: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthrea...C-Vendor/page2

[birdie]

Correct if I'm wrong but doesn't Windows have countless versions of the same libaries because they are not backwards compatible or something? I rember installing .Net runtime environmet multiple times with different applications and applications built on Qt have as bad backwards compatibility in Windows as they do on Linux.

Yep, that's the case. But given today's storage sizes, it's not a problem at all.

In Windows 7 64 under winsxs:

Total DLLs: 6828
Unique DLLs: 3604

[ua=42]

Disabled by default (man nouveau), add this option to you xorg.conf(.d):

Option "GLXVBlank" "true"

Ah that reminds me...
No method of graphically changing the options for the graphics cards. Having to ask on forums what options there are, and how to enable them are BS.