C4 Engine Drops Linux Support, Calls It "Frankenstein OS"

[carewolf]

I want to install abiword as a user on my PC. I don't have root access, and the administrator decided to not install any dev tool because it's not a development machine.
Can you please help me to do so?

Installing some (of course, not all) softwares as a user has been possible for ages on other OSes. Why not Linux? Why don't we have a simple, graphical, distribution agnostic way to deliver softwares to our users? Why do they need to learn a new package installation tool each time they install a new distribution?

You should not close your eyes on Linux defects - it's a real disservice to the community. You can't make Linux better if you force yourself to believe it's already perfect.

If your windows administrator decides to not let you install anything, you are also out of luck... You are usually your own administrator, unless you want to make things complicated by requiring linux to be a multi-user machine but not windows, and if you need that uneven a comparison if think you should just give up.

[Shoost]

A few things:
- He could have asked for help in MANY ways (forums, IRC for fast response, mailing lists), could have paid for support, and/or could have tried any alternative: flavor/DE, kernel, distro, ... Too bad people are now telling him to use Arch instead of finding the cause of (and solving) his problems... He doesn't even mention details (hardware), or googling his problem.
- He says that he removed 2008 lines of code https://twitter.com/EricLengyel/stat...47098421657601 because of his problems... this looks like an irrational response.
- You should remember that yet another problem with linux distros is package/software LICENSES. Distros won't distribute software that either doesn't permit distribution, or that doesn't agree with the distro guidelines, or whatever, and this affects EVERYTHING.
- You guys should watch Linus talking about distros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mg5_gxNXTo . AFAIK, RMS also doesn't install his own systems, he asks someone else to do it for him. What does that say about Linux as a whole?
- People blaming him (probably stupid know-it-alls elitists) or not asking specific questions about his problem are unhelpful, and obviously don't have a lot of experience with linux...
- Some people learned about Linux "the hard way", being told to RTFM. Other people were more helpful and guided people to solve their problems. Who do you think is more helpful? I personally use a mixed approach: if someone needs help and also really wants to learn or to use Linux, I help them. If they don't care or don't have enough patience for me to help them, I think it's a waste of time and simply won't help them, so "RTFM" or "google it" is a good way for them to either leave OR learn and be patient.

// END rant

The mods here are terrible and have deleted most of my responses but I wanted to say that he is now getting help from experienced forum members and I am sure he'll wind up supporting linux again. At the worst he would have just supported steamOS anyway, which would just mean some delay. So this whole thing is overblown and unprofessional 'journalism' because he said something that seems insulting to holy linux. But he was only talking about a specific dist and tool combination anyway.

People forget not everyone knows linux/unix at all. When you don't use it regularly it can be quite a time waster to figure out even little things.

[dee.]

In case you didn't notice, we have had PulseAudio 1.0 since 2011.

Only problem is, if you ever want to do some audio work (live playing, mixing, composing etc.), PA becomes worse than useless...

[DanielG]

So this whole thing is overblown and unprofessional 'journalism' because he said something that seems insulting to holy linux. But he was only talking about a specific dist and tool combination anyway.

The "journalism" part was totally correct, repeating what he literally wrote.
The troll responses in this forum, on twitter and from the new-joiners in the C4 forum however.. are pretty bad and only make things worse.

He was not talking about a specific distribution/tool, he was talking about Linux on the desktop in general.
In fact, it took until today that he actually talked about specific problems instead of just ranting how horrible Linux and its components are.
And after everything he wrote I seriously doubt that he is qualified to judge that - sure there may be problems, but saying the whole ecosystem is broken and unfixable requires more knowledge about Linux than he seems to have.
He certainly isn't as incompetent as the trolls ("my 6year old can install Linux!!1") claim, but he doesn't seem to have deeper Linux skills either. Which is totally ok and normally shouldn't prevent him from installing and using Linux - I guess he mostly had bad luck.

Removing Linux support because of bad experience with Ubuntu was an overblown reaction.
And I think that is mostly what caused the negative reactions (not only from trolls) - not that he "insulted holy Linux", but that he actually dropped Linux support because of unknown problems.

[Shoost]

The "journalism" part was totally correct, repeating what he literally wrote.
The troll responses in this forum, on twitter and from the new-joiners in the C4 forum however.. are pretty bad and only make things worse.

At least there is some dialog now, I think the discussion on the C4 forum at least was pretty productive. My intent is not to troll here I just wanted to clarify that Linux will no doubt make it back onto the support list and some of what people have said here is overblown.

He was not talking about a specific distribution/tool, he was talking about Linux on the desktop in general.

Well, is there any doubt that the desktop is a big mess? That is one of the big reasons I left. At the time I quit linux there was no decent desktop environment that didn't cater to cell phones. Just one more "why on earth" thing about linux. The main value linux has aside from servers is for power users like devs for whom desktop that works well is very important, and even back at its peak it was not nearly as good as unix desktops like CDE and Irix that came out almost 20 years earlier.

That's not the same as attacking linux as a whole, and while I am sure he expected a few people to be upset by the announcement I doubt he expected it to be picked up on a news site.

In fact, it took until today that he actually talked about specific problems instead of just ranting how horrible Linux and its components are.
And after everything he wrote I seriously doubt that he is qualified to judge that - sure there may be problems, but saying the whole ecosystem is broken and unfixable requires more knowledge about Linux than he seems to have.
He certainly isn't as incompetent as the trolls ("my 6year old can install Linux!!1") claim, but he doesn't seem to have deeper Linux skills either. Which is totally ok and normally shouldn't prevent him from installing and using Linux - I guess he mostly had bad luck.

I agree it's clear he is no expert on it. At the same time, people forget when you are NOT an expert and have not spent a long time with it, but just need to use it for one thing you are burning money quickly. I wish he had broached the subject on the C4 forums instead, there's plenty of people who have expertise on almost every IT and dev subject imaginable and it could probably have been sorted out before he wasted any time on it.

Removing Linux support because of bad experience with Ubuntu was an overblown reaction.

I don't think it necessarily has to go for good or will go for good as I mentioned here a few times already. The problem here is not what he did, but how he did it. If it really takes too much time for him to support it's a simple choice. However I feel it's not his area of expertise and the problem is not that serious and could have probably been avoided by bending his neck a bit and being more humble and ask around for help. That is the real problem in my opinion, but everyone is entitled to some occasional outburst in my opinion. For a big corporation it happens too, you just don't see it in the PR statements. I am pretty sure there will be a "happy ending" in that linux on C4 will just move to a new distribution.

And I think that is mostly what caused the negative reactions (not only from trolls) - not that he "insulted holy Linux", but that he actually dropped Linux support because of unknown problems.

I was talking more about all my deleted/unapproved posts. A couple were a bit ranty but I am really surpsised I have had so much trouble getting any responses through. Anyway like I said my intent is not to troll here, just to explain a bit and to point out I think it's a great engine and I hope that this won't color people's opinions of it too much.

[Emmanuel Deloget]

If your windows administrator decides to not let you install anything, you are also out of luck... You are usually your own administrator, unless you want to make things complicated by requiring linux to be a multi-user machine but not windows, and if you need that uneven a comparison if think you should just give up.

You're right. I should never say that Linux has some weird issues in many areas and is not on par with the other modern OSes out there. This is obviously false.

It really helps.

[emblemparade]

I'm a game developer working on my crossplatform engine, and I support desktop Linux, Windows, OS X, Android, and iOS. I use OpenGL (and OpenGL ES) and OpenCL mostly.

Linux is my main development platform. I'm very familiar with it and everything works great for me. I love APT and how easy it is to create development and deployment environments. It's also very easy for me to cross develop on Linux: I build my Windows and Android binaries right in Linux.

OS X is my least favorite platform: the only development option is Xcode, which is quirky and weird and painful. Deploying DLLs on OS X is an exercise in frustration (I finally solved it after using several poorly documented OSX-specific tools). And of course it's tremendously expensive for me because I need to buy a Mac just for OS X development (cannot crossbuild from Linux).

Still, I do think some of his complaints have merit, especially for someone who is not familiar with the Linux platform. It really is a Frankenstein's monster [People! Get this right! "Frankenstein" is the name of the doctor who made the monster, not the name of the monster itself). But, terrific efforts of distro makers and upstream projects have resulted in these disparate pieces working quite well together. Things have improved tremendously over the years. Say what you will about specific usability issues in Ubuntu, it provides a very complete and working experience (on supported hardware!), with easy to maintain and upgrade systems. Having had too much experience helping friends with their Mac problems, I can honestly say, with no bias, that Ubuntu 14.04 is easier to use and maintain than OS X Yosemite. (Of course there might be specific software packages you need that don't exist on Linux, but that's not a problem with the OS itself.)

The complaint he makes about installing Linux, though, is very unfair: you should develop for supported hardware and platforms. Of course you would have similar problems if you tried to install Windows on poorly supported hardware. (Try to install OS X on unsupported hardware--"Hackintosh"--and you will know true pain.) In any case, this would be a problem only for the developer, and one that once he solves is solved: he does not have to work to solve OS installations issues for his users. This just seems like such an odd complaint for a developer to make, it's just not his business at all to install OSes!

But my real problem is his attitude: the Linux OS isn't in good shape, which is why he doesn't want to support it. Dude, the only way for the OS to improve is by supporting it. The point of Linux is not that it's "better," it's that it's free software, with the potential to be as good or even better than other options. The point is that it frees consumers from the control of corporations. If we want it to catch up in terms of quality with the big corporate OSes, we all need to work together. As a great example, Valve's work on Linux has done a lot of good across the board for Linux. He's in a position to do the same.

I would respect his opinion more if he were ditching Linux and instead focusing on a different free OS (a BSD?). But instead he's dropping all support for free platforms, and even phrasing it in "moral" terms.

And, you know, it's OK if he doesn't want to support Linux due to it not being worth the effort. That's totally valid. But he's also implying that nobody should support Linux, even if they did have the time to do so, because it's fundamentally broken.

He may be a good programmer, but he's really bad at understanding the stakes of software freedom, and his responsibility to support it. I'm sure he uses a lot of free software in his development work. What about giving back to the community?

[DanielG]

At least there is some dialog now, I think the discussion on the C4 forum at least was pretty productive.

Yeah, sad that no discussion seemed to happen in the C4 forum before phoronix reported and the trolls came..

My intent is not to troll here I just wanted to clarify that Linux will no doubt make it back onto the support list and some of what people have said here is overblown.

I didn't mean you with "trolls", but all those idiots who claimed Eric must be stupid because it's soo easy to install Ubuntu and you cannot possibly run into hardware-incompatibilities etc

And "will no doubt make it back" - I'm not so sure about that right now.. but it seems more probable than it seemed initially after the announcement.


Not sure about deleted/unapproved posts - most seem to just be accepted automatically, I had one post that wasn't (it contained the word "b*llsh!t" but uncensored), it turned up later, so maybe posts with some words need to be approved manually by a moderator which takes some time.


Is desktop Linux a big mess?
Well, it certainly could be better. I don't like pulseaudio, systemd, gtk3, unity and gnome3.. but I've been happy with XFCE on debian for years and currently I'm trying Mint with KDE4 which also seems usable (even though KDE4 seemed to suck when it was new).

[johnc]

The mods here are terrible and have deleted most of my responses

That's hard to believe.

If you had any links in your posts they went into a moderation queue first since you're a new registrant. It sucks but it's just one of those necessary anti-spam measures.

[yakman2020]

Total and utter horseshit. It exploded because Google put their weight behind it. They bet the farm and now they are reaping the rewards.

Don't really agree with that one.
I like android, develop for android, use android etc.

But I think that the reason Android has taken off is that people were very unhappy with the iOS walled garden and a constant stream of weird decisions about things like privacy, etc and for quite a while rather expensive hardware. They probably would have gone to windows phone if it had been viable, in terms of cost, function, and availability, but it certainly wasn't.

This is potentially good news for linux. Assuming that there is a good distro (I'm using mint with cinnamon, have for the last year, and been very happy with it), and the distro manager doesn't develop an overweening fascination with servers and fortune 500 customers to the exclusion of all else, there is no reason for linux not to be popular. IMO.

BTW, folks talking about backward compatibility, android, iOS and MacOS X approach is to replace the hardware quite often. And, in fact, windows is tending in that direction also.