OS X Is No Longer On My Main System, But I Already Have Regrets

[russofris]

I'd say that a well-configured Linux desktop, which is not that difficult to do, is pretty close behind OS X for visual aesthetics and comfortably ahead of Microsoft.

This is hard to explain, and even if I do, a number of people won't understand.

Many of us don't want to 'configure' our desktop. We want to make videos of our kid's soccer games and send the highlights to their grandparents. We don't want to choose a distribution, we want to book reservations at a campsite. The people who want to tinker will always exist, and it's good that they do, because it fosters innovation and evolution. Unfortunately, tinkerers often do not understand that non-tinkerers exist and have their own non tinkering agenda.

With Android, Linux has become the dominant personal-device OS.

With SteamOS, Linux has the potential to become the dominant Gaming/Console OS. All it needs is the full support of AMD/Intel/Nvidia, and for Valve not to blow it like Canonical did.

Linux based operating systems have the potential to become the dominant Desktop/PC/Workstation OS, but every time someone puts money behind it, they blow it. All it would take is a beautiful pre-configured UI, and stringent UI guidelines for application developers. Every time it appears we're about to get this, we end up with a re-incarnation of the Office95 toolbar or a UI designed for a 4-8" personal-device forced onto our 27" screens.

Yeah, I'm jaded. Absofuckinglutely jaded.

[Michael_S]

Wow, what's going on here? I didn't know users here thought so poorly of Linux as a desktop. I switched to Linux exclusively along with the rest of my family over a year ago and didn't have a single problem anywhere -- still don't have any problems, user experience is just exponentially growing lately. I can't think of a single thing that Linux can't do better than any other OS, besides gaming.

Seconded.

I'd say that a well-configured Linux desktop, which is not that difficult to do, is pretty close behind OS X for visual aesthetics and comfortably ahead of Microsoft. That's pretty damn impressive for free software versus two multi-billion dollar companies with thousands of paid developers and designers.

I only have 1920x1200 displays, but it's a cinch to make KDE, GNOME, and Cinnamon look beautiful on them and I switch between them periodically just for the fun of it. I haven't toyed with Enlightenment, Ubuntu's Unity, or Xfce in a while, I'll give them another go sooner or later.

The only "usability" issues I encounter is with applications that just aren't Linux compatible. Citrix claims that their "Gotomeeting" client can work on Linux but is unsupported, but when I try to join a meeting from Linux the Citrix website gives an error and won't even let me download the client software. I recently had a colossal .xlsx file I had to modify for work. Google Sheets couldn't open it due to the size. LibreOffice, Calligra Sheets, and Gnumeric could open the file but each would lose some of the contents when I tried to save it. So I'm stuck booting into Windows to work on that file too.

But 98% of my work and 100% of my personal computing is just fine from Linux. Much Ado About Nothing.

[Artemis3]

It added an eth0, and that stupid named device. (which was my real lan chip.)
Only yast saw that "eth0", it did not really exist anywhere else.

It is a known bug since the beta versions, no one gives a flying damn. Neither will I, then.

Of course, you didn't try any other distro, which might, um, not have that issue?

[Artemis3]

Michael issue doesn't exist.

Maybe just try Enlightenment:http://www.enlightenment.org/?p=about/e17

This is correct.

What is Michael's issue? It really doesn't exist. See, he just wants to make all things in the desktop look bigger, that is the DE's job.

In the case of XFCE, yes, you just go into Config -> Appearance -> Fonts and rise that DPI setting (if its not auto-detected properly). Of course, that only affects fonts, not panels, for the panels you go to each one an increase their size. Thats it for XFCE.

I'm sure other Desktop Environments have this better integrated, but people are so free they often use a widget which is not the same and is not controlled by the DE at all. In the case of E, just by not using their libs you won't get the scaling benefits. Sadly, most apps are gtk and qt and last time i tried, E missed the integration with those (and its technically not their business to mess with "foreign" widgets).

Of course, when you force everyone to use "the one true way", things like these work flawlessly. Apple apps use apple's widgets, for example.

Freedom comes at the price that people may do things differently. Suppose everyone used Enlightenment libs, well in auto dpi mode the desktop would just scale properly no matter the screen resolution. I think KDE and other desktops are already doing this too.

It only takes one person to decide not to use the DEs tools, and the effort falls apart. In the case of free software, it is often that people uses their preferred library which doesn't happen to be controlled by the DE at all. Perhaps some effort could be launched to try standardize things, unless we end up with "yet another standard" to choose from (XKCD style)...

Its not just the Desktop, Apple controls pretty much the hardware. This is why things "just work", a company already tested them. With Linux their is no company holding your hand, you have to do the research yourself before purchase, but people are so lazy used to the big company making choices for you, they think with Linux should be the same, well ITS NOT. You just can't go to random store, purchase random hardware and expect it to work flawlessly.

If at some point someone makes such service (ie. testing hardware and "certify" it for Linux), then maybe, you could trust that vendor. In the meantime, you are on your own. This is not a "problem" with Free (open source) Software, it is what it is, you have to accept it and not expect it to do what is not.

This is also why direct comparison with company dictated software (ie not free to choose their libs or violate their rules) is unfair against the free software ecosystem.

But what if someone makes the choices for you, ie one DE with apps only using the libs from that DE? Well, that is why we have distros don't we? Michael should just try different distros with different Desktop Environments, i'm sure there is one out there that will closely match his expectations. But testing and trying is part of the experience, and/or reading what other reviewers have found. Perhaps Michael will rediscover why people come to visit his site in the first place, he is suddenly in our place...

[Artemis3]

10/10.

@Ruse: WHAT THE HELL?
You are supposed to KNOW something about computers. About different operating systems and whatnot.
And it turns out, you have absolutely NO idea of them whatsoever.
...
- System boots, of course my AMD GPU tries to launch my computer into the orbit with it's 100% spinning fans.

This is entirely your fault. AMD GPU = No Linux, period.
AMD/ATI doesn't support Linux, their drivers suck. Everyone knows this, but you went ahead anyway. Only a few selected models work. with the proper combination of software version (the last one AMD bothered trying their lame drivers with). Messing with AMD is something for experienced users only. You have to find out which version (Linux kernel, Xorg, etc) are currently working with your GPU, if at all.

That is not Suse's or Linux fault. They have no control of what AMD does. It is YOUR fault, for picking an unsupported product. Have you tried using an unsupported (no drivers) product in windows or macOS? same result. But it was YOU who made the choice to buy AMD, not SuSE and not Linux.

[gamerk2]

That's an universal truth, no OS does everything very well. However, for the average person with consumerish use cases, like watching netflix or playing the newest Battlefield, Windows is the obvious choice. To a software developer, Linux could be the obvious choice because of the good availability of tools.

MSVC. Enough said.

[GreatEmerald]

Maybe set-up a key based ssh login, so you can remote admin that? Waiting 6 months to apply a browser/flash security update looks like horribly long to me.

I was about to say the same thing.

[erendorn]

I did exactly this for my parents, and it almost worked. The only problem was when Kubuntu updated and broke. Since I don't live near them they ended up having to service it. The guy at the shop convinced them Windows was much better and installed it on their computer for them.

So beware. Next time I do something like this, I'll be sure to set the system to NEVER update. When I go visit, I'll update it myself, even if it's just once or twice a year.

Maybe set-up a key based ssh login, so you can remote admin that? Waiting 6 months to apply a browser/flash security update looks like horribly long to me.

[tmpdir]

If you believe what you say makes sense, then it goes for you too.
More likely you prefer to sit on Mikey's lap.

C'mon you must be doing this on purpose. So Hilarious your "everyone has a sit on [your favorite guy]'s lap" fetish and concurrently confirming my previous statement .

[doom_Oo7]

I did exactly this for my parents, and it almost worked. The only problem was when Kubuntu updated and broke. Since I don't live near them they ended up having to service it. The guy at the shop convinced them Windows was much better and installed it on their computer for them.

So beware. Next time I do something like this, I'll be sure to set the system to NEVER update. When I go visit, I'll update it myself, even if it's just once or twice a year.

Yes, that's already what I have planned, I had too much trouble with updates (even if it's once a year), using debian testing, so I guess it must be about the same for ubuntu...

A few weeks ago, I put it on my girlfriend's computer, and some days ago she told me she had the shutdown not working.
So I check and find that updates were not done for a while. So I fire up apt-get dist-upgrade, reboot and... TADAA gdm wouldn't even show up.
I had to dpkg-reconfigure xorg manually in order to get X back.

I plan to put Zorin OS for my parents, since they are quite leery of everything not windowsy, and perform an update manually for every major version change only, while checking before that some apps they use don't get broken.