Why Linux is not (yet) Ready for the Desktop, 2015 edition

[Elixer]

Good read, and pretty much on the mark on lots of things.
Though, some of those things mentioned are crap on windows / OS X...

Main article:
http://linuxfonts.*********/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

Linux Works for Me™, This Article is Bullocks!
http://linuxfonts.*********/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html#WorksForMe

Hmm, not sure why AT blocks the links from narod .ru ?
Mods, if this is against rules for some reason, lock this post.

http://linuxfonts. narod .ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html

 

[lxskllr]

My first issue. He talks about desktop "Linux", but then says Android isn't "Linux". What he really means, is GNU/Linux, and Android. One is just as much Linux as the other, but one is lacking GNU(the most important part imo)

From the comment section...

Some comments just astonish me: "This was terrible. I mean, it's full of half-truths and opinions. NVIDIA Optimus (Then don't use it, go with Intel or something else)." No shit, sir! I've bought my laptop to enjoy games in Wine/dualboot and you dare tell me I shouldn't have bought in the first place? I kindly suggest you not to impose your opinion on other people who can actually get pleasure from playing high quality games. Saying that SSHFS is a replacement for Windows File Sharing is the most ridiculous thing that I've heard in my entire life.

Hey guys! I just bought a toaster, and I can't watch high def video on it! Not sure why he bought a computer with the expectation of running foreign software. Anything that does work in that regard is pure gift, and he should donate money or patches to the people that made it happen.

and...

It's worth noting that the most vocal participants of the Open Source community are extremely bitchy and overly idealistic people peremptorily requiring everything to be open source and free or it has no right to exist at all in Linux. With an attitude like this, it's no surprise that a lot of companies completely disregard and shun the Linux desktop. Linus Torvalds once talked about this: There are "extremists" in the free software world, but that's one major reason why I don't call what I do "free software" any more. I don't want to be associated with the people for whom it's about exclusion and hatred.

"Extremists" are the only reason he has anything nice in the first place. Without free software and the GPL, there would be a handful of poorly supported systems, probably running some kind of *BSD, locked into individual proprietary wastelands.

As to the body... It is what it is. Freedom isn't free. It works for me, and millions of other people, and no one has to ask permission to use their GNU/Linux system as they wish. That's what makes it good, and you won't find it on any other system that has some level of support.

 

[Elixer]

I think the main problem is, every distro wants to do it their way, instead of pooling resources to fix things that they can all share and use, they rather go at it alone.

 

[postmortemIA]

I think the main problem is, every distro wants to do it their way, instead of pooling resources to fix things that they can all share and use, they rather go at it alone.

That is the problem, but Linux non-kernel developers prefer their freedom over the core functionality and unity. If you can do whatever you want, you would have it your way. You would not fix your bugs, rather you would work on new [broken] features.

The only way Linux would work is that some company gets seriously behind it, have complete control over it, pull in single direction; purely for profit.

Like Google and RedHat did. But neither care about Linux on the desktop.

Otherwise, Linux is just a nice kernel. And kernel is good because Linus pulls in one direction.

 

[lxskllr]

I think the main problem is, every distro wants to do it their way, instead of pooling resources to fix things that they can all share and use, they rather go at it alone.

That's a double edged sword. Diversity is strength, but it also fragments the ecosystem, and makes it (slightly)harder to develop for. There's good arguments both ways, but I lean towards keeping things as they are. Leave stuff close to the core more unified, and the stuff closer to the user chaotic.

There's different approaches to the same thing because people find it useful. If things were locked down to The One True Way®, there would be less advancement, and fewer users.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Remind me why we need Linux on the desktop in 2014? Desktop is dying in the consumer space, I would rather have a nice Ubuntu tablet.

I love Linux, I have six Linux computers (not counting my five Androids and my router) in my house running 24/7. It works awesome in compute appliances/servers. I quit trying to force it to be a desktop when OSX went Intel. Now that Yosemite ruined OSX I will probably move most of my compute to mobile devices.

 

[ninaholic37]

I added a Linux partition on my machine (that came with Windows) and have never once wanted or needed to boot into the Windows partition ever since. Since I have a 90GB hard drive keeping Windows around "just in case" doesn't really affect anything though. Maybe if I sell the computer someone else will prefer the familiarity of Windows or find it useful for something...

 

[gmaster456]

Linux is more of a viable option now more than ever due to the majority of most peoples computing occurring in web browsers. That being said, from a consumer, average joe/aunt thelma/<insert non tech savvy person here> perspective it still sucks. Everything is a damn acronym and that shit NEEDS to stop if they want it to be consumer friendly. It's getting there but it still needs a couple more versions of work.

For the kinds of people that roam tech forums linux is great, but I couldn't fathom explaining linux to my parents or why it won't work with MS Office or their tax software.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Linux will be ready for the desktop when we can have a "Is 
Linux Ready for Desktop?" thread without anybody using any 
code tags.

 

[bbhaag]

I have to agree with the article. Unless you are willing to invest a couple months at minimum to get your distro working how you want it Linux is not for you.
For gods sakes people can't even grasp the GUI of Win8 and we want them to some how understand the terminal, PPA's, program managers, ect....no way.

 

[riahc3]

Linux will never been ready for desktop.

And why should it be? It dominates basically every other aspect (small devices, networking, TVs, web servers, supercomputers, etc). It has enough ground already.

Microsoft dominates the desktop but in other eras it is midcard or basically nothing (Windows Phone for example).

I dont see this changing in the future either.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I have to agree with the article. Unless you are willing to invest a couple months at minimum to get your distro working how you want it Linux is not for you.
For gods sakes people can't even grasp the GUI of Win8 and we want them to some how understand the terminal, PPA's, program managers, ect....no fookin way.

It is entirely possible to get a basic desktop workload done without using Terminal, PPAs, etc.

But you have to use the system the way it was designed. Stock DE, Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice. Done.

If you're one of those people who can't leave well enough alone and HAS to customize your system somehow so it's "working how you want", well, yeah. You're boned. "man sudo," buttmonkey!

Meanwhile, on Windows, I'm two clicks away from an endless supply of themes, stripper screensavers, and funny anime icons, all with included malware! Wheee! Soooo eeeassssyyy!!! Install TOOLBARS?!?! Awesome!

 

[Ketchup]

Linux will never been ready for desktop.

And why should it be? It dominates basically every other aspect (small devices, networking, TVs, web servers, supercomputers, etc). It has enough ground already.

Microsoft dominates the desktop but in other eras it is midcard or basically nothing (Windows Phone for example).

I dont see this changing in the future either.

I agree with this. I suppose there are folks out there that are just frustrated as all get-out that Linux is not flooding the desktop/laptop PC market, but they shouldn't be. Look at what a mess Microsoft is making of an OS that is trying to span desktop and mobile markets (Windows 8, which I am referring what seems to be general opinion, not necessarily mine alone). More reason to stay with what they are good at, which coincidentally is doing very, very well.

 

[ninaholic37]

If you're one of those people who can't leave well enough alone and HAS to customize your system somehow so it's "working how you want", well, yeah. You're boned. "man sudo," buttmonkey!

Meanwhile, on Windows, I'm two clicks away from an endless supply of themes, stripper screensavers, and funny anime icons, all with included malware! Wheee! Soooo eeeassssyyy!!! Install TOOLBARS?!?! Awesome!

I found the complete opposite to be true. Linux gave me way more control to do things exactly the way I wanted, and there are tons of helpful forums and communities that show you how to accomplish pretty much anything.

 

[TheRyuu]

Look at what a mess Microsoft is making of an OS that is trying to span desktop and mobile markets (Windows 8, which I am referring what seems to be general opinion, not necessarily mine alone).

To be fair, they have backtracked from this.

 

[Zaap]

Obviously Linux works on the desktop for some.

Doesnt begin to work for me personally, but clearly it meets others needs, as millions swear by it.

I've never judged something being more popular as equating to actually being better- in fact the best stuff usually seems to be things only a more elite few know about and use.

I'm not saying that's the case with Linux, just that mass windows-like acceptance as a desktop OS isn't the real measure. I thought OSX (and previous Mac OS's) were better compared to other things back before the iAge and Apple catering more to professional creative types than mindless hipsters. So now even though OSX is more popular than it used to be, its not nessisarily better for it.

So anyway, my question is what exactly is anyone waiting for Linux to become ready for? For it to be dumbed down enough that Aunt Lucy can use it, and every teenage girl has it on her hello kitty laptop? Why would that be the measure for it actually being better?

 

[Ketchup]

To be fair, they have backtracked from this.

Somewhat. Interesting topic in the Windows 10 thread yesterday was how MS is still making the option to create a user account without a Live ID (email and so forth) a fairly well hidden option.

 

[Mushkins]

I found the complete opposite to be true. Linux gave me way more control to do things exactly the way I wanted, and there are tons of helpful forums and communities that show you how to accomplish pretty much anything.

Which is precisely the problem with Linux in the desktop space. You shouldn't need to go to enthusiast forums or communities to be shown how to do even basic things. They should be simple and easily worked through. It's 2015, an end user should not NEED to know CLI syntax to accomplish anything but complex systems troubleshooting.

You start talking about program managers, packages, repositories, aptget, etc to anyone who's not tech savvy or not a Linux enthusiast and you're not going to get a step further. While it's come a long way over the years, that stuff is pretty much the antithesis of user friendly, and what good is a computing environment where you're struggling to install simple software?

 

[JAG87]

I found the complete opposite to be true. Linux gave me way more control to do things exactly the way I wanted, and there are tons of helpful forums and communities that show you how to accomplish pretty much anything.

Normal people who have lives outside of their computers screens don't have time for this.

 

[lxskllr]

Which is precisely the problem with Linux in the desktop space. You shouldn't need to go to enthusiast forums or communities to be shown how to do even basic things. They should be simple and easily worked through. It's 2015, an end user should not NEED to know CLI syntax to accomplish anything but complex systems troubleshooting.

You start talking about program managers, packages, repositories, aptget, etc to anyone who's not tech savvy or not a Linux enthusiast and you're not going to get a step further. While it's come a long way over the years, that stuff is pretty much the antithesis of user friendly, and what good is a computing environment where you're struggling to install simple software?

You shouldn't have to do any of that. Someone who takes it upon themselves to install a new o/s should have the skills it takes to troubleshoot issues. The rest will have the machine setup for them, and it'll be easier than Windows. The terminal isn't necessary for a modern distro. Everything, including update and program install is done through a graphical manager.

The power of GNU/Linux is it doesn't limit you to diddling buttons. It'll go as far as you want it to, and you can change internal bits via source code if you choose. You aren't forced to ask for a patch, and hoping for the best.

My mother can't competently navigate facebook, but she can use Ubuntu, and keep it updated. To translate, she can't use a service that's made for the dumbest person in the world, but she can maintain her o/s. That's more than you say for low level Windows users. They get a popup to "update" Flash, and end up with their machines pwned.

 

[R0H1T]

My mother can't competently navigate facebook, but she can use Ubuntu, and keep it updated. To translate, she can't use a service that's made for the dumbest person in the world, but she can maintain her o/s. That's more than you say for low level Windows users. They get a popup to "update" Flash, and end up with their machines pwned.

Tbh that's MS' fault & not the avg Joe's, even win8 has been known to botch systems up with some of these critical updates & more regularly than I remember as in case of win7

 

[skipsneeky2]

Haven't tried Ubuntu in quite some time,i remember the latest version at the time of my e6750+8800gts 512mb build not working.Chipset compatibility issues.Beryl and all that eye candy was fun to toy around.

Been a while,may try it out some time again.I am guessing you still need all these packages and updates to get the most basic of stuff working don't you?I remember what a pain in the ass that was.

 

[poofyhairguy]

what good is a computing environment where you're struggling to install simple software?

Google has gotten pretty far with Chrome OS lacking that feature.

 

[Mem]

Haven't tried Ubuntu in quite some time,i remember the latest version at the time of my e6750+8800gts 512mb build not working.Chipset compatibility issues.Beryl and all that eye candy was fun to toy around.

Been a while,may try it out some time again.I am guessing you still need all these packages and updates to get the most basic of stuff working don't you?I remember what a pain in the ass that was.

Using Ubuntu 14.04 LTS at the moment,in fact typing this post,Ubuntu has improved over the years and I had no driver issues,Ubuntu did all the work,in many ways was a more complete installation then Windows,setting up my wireless Canon MG6250 printer was easy since it detected it so was a case of network security key,same for cheap USB wireless dongle from ebay.

Hardware wise its nforce 4 ultra board with Athlon 3800+ X2 cpu,4870 amd card,one of my older backup PCs to my main Win8.1 gaming PC,basically it does it all for me,only main weakness Linux wise is gaming,only main reason I use Windows.

End of the day Linux is fine for today today stuff,especially if you go with the easier distros to use like Ubuntu,Mint,Zorin.

I think having too many distros hurts Linux,double edge sword so to speak,when they say not ready guess it really depends what you mean,office wise probably not,any user that is not stupid and only needs,browsing,banking etc it's more then adequate.

My mum would have no problem with Ubuntu and see is nearly 80(she uses Win7,Android tablet etc).

 

[bbhaag]

You shouldn't have to do any of that. Someone who takes it upon themselves to install a new o/s should have the skills it takes to troubleshoot issues. The rest will have the machine setup for them, and it'll be easier than Windows. The terminal isn't necessary for a modern distro. Everything, including update and program install is done through a graphical manager.

The power of GNU/Linux is it doesn't limit you to diddling buttons. It'll go as far as you want it to, and you can change internal bits via source code if you choose. You aren't forced to ask for a patch, and hoping for the best.

My mother can't competently navigate facebook, but she can use Ubuntu, and keep it updated. To translate, she can't use a service that's made for the dumbest person in the world, but she can maintain her o/s. That's more than you say for low level Windows users. They get a popup to "update" Flash, and end up with their machines pwned.

I've heard this argument made before and it maybe true. The issue I have with this stance is what happens when you do a search for a problem you are having with your distro or you want to learn how to do something?
9 times out of 10 you don't get responses that say "Oh just use the gui and type this in and that should work.". No, you get responses like "Just use the terminal and copy and paste this in.".

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/extra
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install qisoburn

And most of the time the guy posting it doesn't even say what it does so you're just blindly hoping that it works. You are correct that updates and software install is now gui based but don't me started on how out of date most of the programs are in the Software Manager.