

The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop, Part II - bozhidar
http://batsov.com/Linux/Windows/Rant/2011/06/14/linux-desktop-part-2.html

======
emilsedgh
Dislacimer: I've been involved in the KDE community in the past few years.
However, im not a core developer or a decision maker and I just make very side
contributions. What follows are my thoughts and obviously not KDE's.

Main issues behind Linux on desktop:

1) Motivation. Volunteers are doing an incredible job. Truly amazing.
Outstanding. No word describes it. However, how much can you expect from them?
Most linux-based companies care very little about linux on desktop.

On server linux, almost whole industry is based on FOSS stacks (linux, bsd,
etc). Why on earth you expect UI developers do a job as good as server-side
people? Most of them are pure volunteers. Until more companies are interested
on Desktop linux, the situation is more or less the same.

2)Complexity. The whole stack is very complicated and is not handled by a
single entity. Kernel, X, Qt/GTK, KDE/Gnome. Now, add to that distributions
with different release policies. Different mix of the whole stack, each one
producing a unique end-product. Thats much different from windows where they
even 'build' the whole stack.

3)Excitement on desktop has been decreased. Desktop in not sexy anymore.
Tablets are. Linux on desktop is in middle of some confusion at the moment.
Their job is to produce high quality user interfaces. Not just for desktop.
And they have lots of potential there. They are moving towards other form
factors as well. Which is a big change.

4)Community's attitude. You see, the FOSS community is very big now. However,
most people's attitude is teasing linux on desktop or criticizing it. As far
as I can remember, open source attitude was 'scratch your own itch', 'get
involved', etc. KDE and Gnome communities are both very very welcoming toward
new developers. For example, KDE has ~1 new contributor each day. Which is a
proof that it is actually pretty welcoming.

In my personal opinion, Linux on desktop is actually doing incredibly well.
Despite the above points, we have very high quality applications. We have very
high quality API's. Awesome technologies. Most of the work has been done. We
have great looking, stable, efficient workspace and applications. What remains
is a bit of polish. (Although I have to say, I personally cant stand windows
for more than 5 minutes)

So, dear FOSS community. If you think linux on desktop sucks, help making it
better. Thats how linux and open source works.

I would also like to ask KDE users to actually help KDE. You can of course
contribute to it or Join The Game[1] and give us a little bit of financial
help.

[1] <http://jointhegame.kde.org>

Edit: fixed formatting.

~~~
mkr-hn
My issue is that the Linux applications I use have good Windows ports, and
it's hard to find motivation to improve an OS I don't use. There are even some
Windows applications I use that don't have a Linux port. The usual response is
"run it in WINE," but then I ask "why?" It already works!

Linux is already a fine server OS and ecosystem. I think the "Linux desktop"
has become less relevant with the rise of smartphones and tablets. Maybe it's
time to start talking about which year will be the year of the Linux
workstation. :)

~~~
ajross
Linux is a fine desktop OS and ecosystem, you just don't use it so you don't
care. I'm in exactly the opposite situation. Find me a windows editor like X11
emacs. A windows terminal editor that even comes close to gnome-terminal or
konsole? These are my killer apps. And I won't use other platforms because
they don't have them.

~~~
Wickk
>gnome-terminal or konsole? These are my killer apps. And I won't use other
platforms because they don't have them.

So wait, is it your love of these specific terminal emulators or of the shell?

OSX has terminal.app

~~~
telemachos
> OSX has terminal.app

In fairness it took until Leopard (as I recall) to support tabs and still
doesn't support 256 colors. (It will in Lion apparently.[1]).

[1] <http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/features.html#unix>

~~~
m3koval
Terminal.app definitely still has problems in Snow Leopard; especially the
lack of 256 color support. I've switched to using iTerm2, a replacement
terminal emulator, and it's solved most of my complaints about Terminal.app.

Hopefully Lion rolls a lot of those fixes into Terminal.app.

[1] <http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.4010>

------
Spyro7
I feel like I've read over 20 of these articles lately.

I have used linux on the desktop in some form or another since 1998. It works,
trust me.

I find it strange that the author says they should have gone back to FreeBSD.
In terms of "desktop" experience, both of these operating systems are somewhat
similar.

I understand his complaints about the driver situation, but, really, this just
means that you need to do some additional due diligence on your hardware. If
you think that is troublesome, try installing OS X on non-Apple hardware. Now
_that_ can be a real adventure.

~~~
Stiffy
The problem isn't Linux. The problem is GNOME, and to a lesser extent, KDE.

GNOME is just not a good desktop environment, yet it has often been pushed as
"the" Linux desktop by various distros and vendors. New Linux users end up
using GNOME, finding that it's a pretty bad experience, and then they blame
Linux and OSS as a whole. Had they used XFCE, for instance, they'd probably
think otherwise.

If recent experience is any indicator, it isn't getting any better. People are
not happy with Ubuntu's use of Unity, for instance. Anything GTK+-based or
GNOME-based ends up being a miserable experience for most people.

~~~
shareme
actually laptop users of Intel laptops like Unity and hence Ubuntu choosing
unity to push the desktop exp..

Ubuntu Unity is the number 1 feature OEMs weer asking form Ubuntu..

~~~
Zak
I briefly played with Unity as included with Ubuntu 11.04 and felt that it was
interesting, but unfinished. I find Gnome 2 very usable now, though it had
rough edges for years. Unity is less usable due to its rough edges.

Distributions intended to bring new users to Linux might do well to focus more
on testing than new features. I've been using Linux on various laptops for
almost 10 years now and __I __don't want to deal with instability and broken
things on my production machine. New users looking for an alternative to
Windows will likely find the grass is _not_ greener on the other side. I'm not
talking about ugly UI or inconsistency. I'm talking about the fact that my
Thinkpad won't suspend, that my sound sometimes stops working, that my
notification icons for Skype and a couple other apps were 1px for over a month
while the bug was well-known.

tl;dr - less development, more testing.

------
httpitis
To me, the article comes across as a request to the linux community for
solving the linux desktop problem. In other words, when given a viable chioce,
the author wants linux on his desktop.

The author's complaints seems confirmed when looking at the trends [1] in
market share for contemporary os's.

>Desktop Linux has to be made somehow profitable for companies to start
investing more heavily in it...

I also believe that this is the major issue when trying to make linux
successful on the desktop. So, what to do about it?

[1] <http://www.netmarketshare.com/os-market-share.aspx?qprid=9>

~~~
IvarTJ
Android seems to be an example of a Linux-based operating system becoming
successful partially because of its importance to hardware vendors. Could
Linux distributions in general benefit from a hardware vendor becoming _the_
goto vendor for Linux-running laptops and/or desktops?

~~~
jarin
Android isn't successful _because_ of Linux, it's successful _in spite_ of
Linux. Google chose Linux as a base on which to build what is essentially a
new operating system (much like Apple chose BSD to build iOS on).

This is what a cellphone looks like when it's developed entirely by the open
source community: <http://www.openmoko.com/>

~~~
aristidb
Android certainly is successful _because_ of Linux (the kernel), because that
let Google concentrate on the upper layers, being able to use a mostly
finished kernel.

~~~
regularfry
In a discussion of Linux on the desktop, I don't think people are
concentrating on the kernel.

------
nagnatron
This my sound as an oxymoron, but Linux really shines as a desktop operation
system for developers.

If you're a regular desktop user, your basics are covered. But if you have a
nicer camera an want to manage your photos, you're shit out of luck. Video
editing software is abysmal. On the other hand you have 25 audio players of
which maybe 3 work nicely.

------
jarin
I think this is why so many developers have switched to Macs. Development on
Windows sucks (in my opinion, of course, unless you're making Windows
applications), and with OS X you get the best of both worlds: the power and
flexibility of BSD, along with great desktop applications and a nice day-to-
day user experience that "just works".

Do I really want to worry about what sound driver I'm using, when I have
clients waiting? Not so much.

~~~
hackoder
Why does development on windows suck? For the most part, development on any
platform (windows, osx, linux) seems to be about the same. Its the other stuff
that can get annoying; mostly driver issues I would guess. But again, that's
something that isn't a challenge on windows anyway?

~~~
jarin
For me it's mostly the ease (or lack of ease) of managing tools and
dependencies. Homebrew, RVM, Pow, zsh, MacVim (or TextMate if that's your
thing), et al. are amazing, not to mention all of the built-in packages.

I'm aware that some things are usable via cygwin, but in my experience it's a
huge pain and doesn't work with a ton of stuff I need anyway. I really don't
like spending time futzing around with things if I don't have to, I just want
to be able to "brew install redis" and be on my way.

~~~
hackoder
(To the other parent as well).

Arguably, tools and dependency management is better on a linux platform.

I've found (recently) that working in a VM is the right thing (tm) to do even
on a *nix platform. It helps keep your development environment completely
segregated and your "desktop" OS clean as well. Since nautilus has built in
support for mounting a drive over SSH, and it is very doable on os x using
something like MacFusion, the desktop OS just becomes a window into your
development environment and becomes mostly secondary.

------
piger
People keep saying "it works for me, go away", as if other people who care
about a DECENT desktop experience are just morons.

"Ah! Another stupid windows/osx user!"

I don't care about your fvwm desktop with 99 xterms and emacs everywhere, or
your fully customized arch linux that "works for you"; I, like many other
people, have different needs. And yet the general response from the community
is "fuck off".

First rule of desktop linux: you do not complain about desktop linux.

Greetings from the year 2011.

~~~
mbubb
No - not true. There are glitches but none of them a dealbreaker. I am not a
masochist - if it caused me pain I would have stopped using Linux on my laptop
years ago.

Much of what I do is commandline. So a not atypical work setup is to have some
kind of messenger, a browser, a terminal and thunderbird running.

That is 95% of my day and it works great. I would switch if it didn't. I am
not trying to play the Linux version of the longbearded UNIX grump
(<http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-06-24/>) .

Really it works great and I would not willingly go back to Windows. And would
grudgingly go back to MacOS.

I don't understand the flipside - why people complain about Linux desktop. You
should make it work or go back to your OS of choice.

I get sucked into these articles because I think I might learn something or
see something in a different way. THey almost always disapoint.

~~~
wvenable
> You should make it work or go back to your OS of choice.

I'm not sure that's even possible. If the complaint is a lack of drivers and
poor support for hardware, how is the average developer supposed to deal with
that?

------
revorad
_Unless something radically changes in the near future I don’t see how Linux
can rise up to be a mainstream desktop OS.

...

Desktop Linux has to be made somehow profitable for companies to start
investing more heavily in it. This is the hard, but honest truth. As long as
the primarily development is carried out with little (or no funding), mostly
by volunteers the hour of the desktop Linux will never come._

The radical change is tablets. Google is investing heavily in Android and will
likely see big profits (indirectly).

I'm writing this from a Windows laptop because my main Ubuntu laptop got
screwed while upgrading. Everything that worked perfectly well for 3 years is
now botched because of an "upgrade".

The hour of the Linux _desktop_ may eventually come but it will be irrelevant
by then.

~~~
WayneDB
Do you really think that desktop computers will become completely irrelevant?
Are you talking about all sectors (devs, businesses + consumers) or just
consumers?

------
m0nastic
As far as I can tell, the "problem" with Linux on the desktop is that there is
no consensus that there is a problem.

The category of people who use Linux, but complain about the desktop
experience, seems to be a vocal minority (of the already tiny minority of
computer users that use Linux).

The overwhelming majority of us have moved on. My Linux desktop use is now
limited to the once a year that I install a distro to force myself to use a
different OS for a couple months, mostly to see what I'm missing. Turns out,
I'm not missing anything, so after a couple months I go back to using a system
I enjoy.

But here's the thing, the people who use Linux as their main desktop
environment aren't crazy, or fooling themselves. They prefer it to the
alternatives. They evangelize about it (actually something I wish everyone
would stop doing, regardless of their OS allegiance). For them, it's the best
way to use their computer for the things that they want to use their computer
for.

So I'm not sure that there is a problem. With the exception of the small
number of people who fantasize about a world-wide exodus from Windows to Linux
on the desktop (who are certifiable, if they think there's a remote chance
that will happen), I get the impression that most Linux users are quite happy
with it (as well they should be).

I think maybe twelve years ago, if you were a full-time Linux desktop user,
you were probably compromising on technical quality for an ideological
preference; but I don't think that's been true for a long time.

------
qusiba
I tried to install ubuntu on my new laptop recently. Honestly, it feels as bad
as it did 10 years ago.

Weird installation trap. Can't find drivers for my wireless adaptor. Sleep
sometimes work, sometimes not. Tons of big or small problems like this.

Yeah, after long hours of research, I got resolved most of the issues. But I
doubt anyone who has less patience or less understanding of computer than I do
would simply say "damn it!"

Yeah, it could work, but it's crappy.

------
reirob
Very good article - both Part I and II. I completely understand the feelings
of the author and I appreciate his constructive advices after so much pain.

I am using/used Linux since '95. On my family's laptop Ubuntu 10.10 is still
running, but I have the feeling it is the last Ubuntu version that we will use
until the laptop dies - but I will not update to newer releases unless Ubuntu
brings a desktop that improves usability without requiring 3D to work or Linux
will get support for my graphics card, so at least I could try Unity. When we
have to buy a new laptop it will be with Windows or maybe ChromeOS. I just do
not want to go again through all the pains when choosing new hardware.

For my personal/professional laptops I switched to Windows 5 years ago.
Sometimes I need Linux to test some development then I install a VM. No hassle
any more. As I missed bash as well, I installed Cygwin.

I feel that additionally there are other world changes that drain the Linux
desktop users:

1.) Desktops (no matter if it is Unix/Win/MacOS) do NOT matter as much as they
used too. Since the time when I bought a modern phone, I realized that I
actually use the laptops only when I need to write longer texts or print out
something. Browsing/mailing/chatting/playing/skyping is a better experience on
the phone than on the desktop (on the phone however typing is really bad).

2.) Windows became much better (if you skip Vista) since XP.

------
KonradKlause
Can we please stop this? When you don't like Linux on your desktop, don't use
it. It's that easy.

~~~
dexen
`Don't use Linux' is not `that easy'; pause for a moment and think about it.

He can't go *BSD way, because drivers are scarcier, and that's a big no-no for
him. And even more scarce on other less popular OSes, like Plan 9.

He can't go MS Windows way, because it's less usable for him (duh).

He can't go MacOS X because, uh, I dunno, personal preferences? Pricetag of
the hardware+software?

He whines and rehashes old arguments because he feels trapped in Linux, got
nowhere else to go :-)

Indeed, not a piece of News for Hackers.

~~~
carmen
he could throw a maximized webkit and editor in ~/.xinitrc but he wouldnt have
anything to complain about

~~~
twopoint718
Haha, take it just a bit farther. When you get hooked on a tiling window
manager, all this twisting in the wind over what KDE/GNOME 3.0/Unity will do
next really evaporates. The "surface area" of the GUI is so small there's very
little to find issue with.

------
mbubb
This article is better than most on the subject. I thought the analogy to
communism weak but some of other points good.

This was very true:

    
    
       What have you done? Sure, very few users are software engineers, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help. Bug reports are just as important as patches. Ideas and suggestions for improvements are highly valued as well. Don’t sit in the shadows doing nothing - step into the light and do something to help your favorite project get a little bit better.
    
       Step by step. Fix by fix. Improvement by improvement. This is how good software gets created.
    
    

For me I have been on the sidelines my whole career - and he is right. Should
try to rectify this.

------
teyc
There was this post by a professional driver developer who wrote Linux drivers
for the hardware company he works for. The problem he said, (I'm now
paraphrasing) is that the kernel APIs kept changing and he had to keep
reworking his drivers. Even though the driver code may be in the source tree,
in the end it is still his job to keep it working.

Linux may have POSIX outside, but its cause would be further advanced if they
committed to stabler interfaces for driver developers.

------
yaix
Couldn't agree more. I am using Ubuntu for many years and would never ever
switch back to Windows or OSX. Despite the many flaws, Ubuntu (on Gnome and
now Unity) is still better.

But I would really really love if Canonical would just do one bug-patch-only
release. Half a year of just fixing and cleaning up things would really help.

Unfortunately, I doubt that it will ever happen.

------
halo
The root causes of Linux's problems are very hard to fix.

It needs to aim to attract commercial developers by adding cohesive APIs and
stable ABIs.

That's going to be a real struggle. Linux is too fragmented, there's too much
opposition to proprietary software, and the kernel developers don't believe in
stable ABIs.

Perhaps some sort of VM, à la Android's Dalvik or .NET, is the best solution
for working around most of these problems in one fell swoop. Being OS
independent also opens up approaches to solving driver problems in the long-
term.

I thought Haiku had a decent shot of avoiding these problems, but my optimism
has waned. Its ageing rapidly, development is slow, and rather than trying to
attract commercial developers they seem happy to repeat Linux's packaging
mistakes.

------
rbanffy
These posts are becoming tiresome (not to say a little bit inconsistent). If
Linux doesn't work for you, use something else. It's fine for a lot of people.
In fact, most people I know who tried it, like it.

------
slowcpu
May I respectfully suggest that those who do not fulfill the minimum wetware
requirements to run Linux successfully should stick to an operating system
that is consistent with their cranial capacity.

~~~
rchowe
Ubuntu was supposed to be the linux distribution that was easy for the
everyday user. Now they're suffering from GNOME politics and Canonical
treating their users as beta testers (but Unity works great for (most) people
with Intel laptops).

Don't get me wrong - Ubuntu has made great strides in usability, but it's not
that linux is harder, it's that people who are already used to Windows will
find it much "easier" because the mental shortcuts are already there, compared
to Linux where they need to think about something as simple as launching a
program. Combine that with the fact that Linux does break on occasion (mostly
with regards to distro upgrades) and probably requires the command line to fix
it and you get frustration on the user's part compared to Windows.

