
The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop - bozhidar
http://batsov.com/Linux/Windows/Rant/2011/06/11/linux-desktop-experience-killing-linux-on-the-desktop.html
======
jbk
Being one of the main VLC developers and the de-facto leader of the VideoLAN
project, I hate to say it, but I am a bit in the same state of mind, lately
(no, I haven't moved to Windows, though)... And yet, I am also a very strong
open source advocate, and have been working on FLOSS on most Desktop Operating
Systems (in my name and anonymously); and believing strongly in Computer
freedom. I've been Linux users and sysadmin since 8 years now.

However, lately I am shocked about the "advances" of the Linux Desktop: most
of them are crap... And that is not just me, but also the feedbacks of the
users that I see complaining... I know I will be downvoted with this post, but
I must share my experience.

\- PulseAudio was half-baked, pushed-down our throats by Ubuntu/Fedora, and
hated by many users; with a very strong NIH syndrom, bringing little new
features that could have been done better using the old architecture, with a
maintainer team refusing to do release for a long periods of time or favoring
some applications over other (which is totally unacceptable), not to mention
not-thread safe, CPU hungry in many reproducible situations...

\- PolicyKit is complex, using a very important number of processes, is almost
never correctly initialized (only gdm3 seems to be able to do it) and breaks
many setups, notably Network Manager... I now have to use command-line on KDE
to connect to a wifi... And you cannot install Gnome3 or NM without it
anymore...

\- KDE4.x was not usable before 4.3 (I am actually ok with this), but still on
4.6, I have to deactivate the semantic desktop and all strigi to stop sucking
a lot of my CPU power. Network Manager still does not work and I have weird
kwin crashes with the nVidia proprietary driver.

\- less important and less annoying, PackageKit is also a very complex thing,
requiring maintainers for most distro to patch a lot of code, that has very
little needs but quite some work has been pushed...

\- Unity and Gnome3 have huge usability regressions, so far, but I will not
emphasis on that until the next versions are out (KDE 4.0 and 4.1 were no
better). But they also are very broken. For both of them, the WM doesn't
support correctly application fullscreen, mixture of x11 and OpenGL, and of
course not correctly Xv. Accessibility has been forgotten from Unity. On top
of that, Unity crashes a lot or can trigger infinite loops; my family were
quite not happy when they were upgraded.

So yes, when people ask my opinion with systemd or Wayland, I am not
optimistic.

However, I have absolutely no problem with printing :)

~~~
lwhi
I remember the way PulseAudio was abruptly included in Ubuntu and the problems
that this initially caused a lot of the applications that made use of audio as
a result - but now, a few years on I can honestly say those problems are
history.

The true beauty of Linux is the way that the OS improves over time. Problems
are ironed out, and legacy hardware support is often ongoing. I think this is
unique to Linux.

Decisions about where to go next re. Desktop paradigms are tricky ... but I
think the main problem is lack of strong and decisive leadership; largely due
to the problems inherent to an open development hierarchy. A paradigm shift
often requires a leap of faith. Without that, any changes becomes a patchwork
or amalgamation of multiple people's ideas - which in my mind isn't optimal.

I reckon Mark Shuttleworth is trying to create a paradigm shift with Ubuntu ..
and I applaud him. There's so much life left in Linux as desktop platform. To
state otherwise is shortsighted, and ultimately damaging to an incredibly
vibrant and worthy platform.

~~~
selectnull
> The true beauty of Linux is the way that the OS improves over time. Problems
> are ironed out, and legacy hardware support is often ongoing. I think this
> is unique to Linux.

I'm sorry, but the statement that linux improves over time, and thay's
_unique_ to linux has really no basis in reality. Both Windows and MacOS do
improve over time, we could argue which of those three does the best job, but
I don't really think linux would be the winner in that comparison either.

I don't have any experience with other OSes than those 3 mentioned, so
somebody else can chip in.

~~~
lwhi
With Windows, I've found that driver support often halts once a manufacturer
has provided it's obligatory release. I think this is a limitation of the
commercial closed source model that Windows (and OS X) follow.

I think an open source model encourages iterative improvement which isn't tied
to commercial product releases.

This was the basis for my comment.

~~~
selectnull
I agree with you that _open source model_ should (and often does) solves
problems with hardware support, at least in theory. Then again, my bluetooth
on linux simply refuses to work, no matter what I do (while on the same
hardware windows never had any problems).

Your original comment was a little bit ambiguous: you were primarily thinking
of legacy hardware support as in "legacy hardware support is often ongoing". I
read the first part of the sentence "Problems are ironed out" as if that's
only valid for linux, which I don't think it is.

------
jakevoytko
I recently did the opposite.

As of December, I'm all Linux. I run Ubuntu at home. I use Linux at work,
except when I need to debug OS-specific browsers. I never want to go back;
Gnome hits my sweet spot. I want an OS that starts up and becomes invisible
until shutdown, and I never want to touch the mouse. Ubuntu's out-of-the-box
installation is probably still unusable for people without a tech background,
but I love it.

I spend most of my time in Docs, GMail, Google Calendar, lots of Chrome tabs
for testing + looking up reference material, Emacs, IntelliJ, and lots of
terminals. I almost never need other software, and when I do, it's an apt-get
away.

I've had challenges - I've never seen Ubuntu completely work on a fresh
install. My wireless failed on my newest desktop install. The sound on the two
before that. They never bundle my wireless driver, so I drag my desktop over
to my modem. My printer gives baffling error messages. My old webcam
arbitrarily rezoomed as it pleased. Gnome 3 overrode the "invert colors"
keyboard shortcut, which I use heavily. I needed to steal time on my
girlfriend's iMac to run Portal 2. My supercharged Toshiba laptop freezes when
running on battery power (may not be Linux's fault).

But these are most of the problems I've faced in the past two years. I lose a
few hours of productivity every few months in exchange for massive
productivity gains while working.

~~~
DanI-S
I switched to using Ubuntu on my personal machine about a year ago. I was
seriously excited.

My experiences:

\- Utter inability to consume streaming video, be it Netflix, Hulu or YouTube.

\- Complete madness wrestling with the built-in, broken version of Ruby.

\- Real difficulty finding any clear, accurate documentation.

\- Out-of-date crappy versions of libraries available through apt-get.

\- Printing? Ha.

\- I can't play Minecraft, which is a Java game.

\- GMail freezing on load 3 times out of 5.

Rather than liberating me from the bondage of win32, it has made me feel like
a third class citizen of the digital world. The consequence? I am buying a
Mac.

Edit: I wouldn't usually complain about a downvote, but this is a list of
difficulties I have experienced when using an operating system. What do you
object to?

~~~
shazow
Can you provide some specific errors that you're encountering?

\- Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, sounds like you don't have Flash installed, or no
3d acceleration (no video card drivers? What videocard are you using?)

\- What's broken about the built-in version of Ruby? (I don't use Ubuntu or
Ruby, so I'm sincerely curious.)

\- Documentation for what? What are you looking for, how can we help?

\- Apt-get, Ubuntu has a strict release cycle. To get the latest unstable
stuff, you'll probably need to upgrade to the latest beta or alpha.

\- Printing, I've had mixed experiences with this depending on the printer.
I've given up on paper, can't blame you.

\- If you can't play Minecraft, then you may have a weird version of Java
installed, or no 3d acceleration (no drivers?).

\- GMail freezing, what browser?

When posting complaints, avoid framing it in such a way that it's impossible
for anybody to help. If no one can say anything about your experience because
there's a lack of information, then people can't relate your experience to
their own or debate the applicability of it.

~~~
timtadh
> \- Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, sounds like you don't have Flash installed, or no
> 3d acceleration (no video card drivers? What videocard are you using?)

I am 100% certain you can't get netflix to work on linux. Also, flash sucks on
linux. I am tired of flash on linux. Asking what video card you are using is a
cop out.

~~~
pja
Yeah, but Youtube ought to work fine; it's wfm on every Linux box I've ever
been anywhere near. That suggests that something else is up.

NetFlix needs Silverlight's DRM, which Moonlight on Mono doesn't have. On the
one hand, it's not really fair to blame Linux for that but on the other the
end-user experience is that you can't have NetFlix on Linux. It sucks, but
that's the way it is.

------
extension
I've been there. I lasted two years with Linux and went through the same
progression - hacker bliss to "dammit, I just want to get something done
besides shaving yaks!" I would still take it over Windows, but not over OSX.

But in defense of Linux, it has come a _long_ way over the last decade, due to
a few earth-moving forces:

\- The rise of the web and end of the Windows native app lock-in

\- The mainstream acceptance of open source and platform independent software
engineering

\- Canonical's aggressive, financially backed push to make Linux a viable
mainstream desktop OS

It's easy to forget how many classic pain points _have_ been more or less
cured: building everything from source, recompiling the kernel, font
rendering, working with office documents, configuring _everything_ manually by
editing text files, complete absense of tasteful design, no cross-platform
apps or games whatsoever, and nobody having ever heard of your OS.

Linux is not there yet. It's still perfectly reasonable to throw your arms up
and switch. But at this point, the historical trend suggests that it _will_
get there eventually. It has never really stopped inching forward and we
haven't yet seen anything that could stop it.

The Linux ecosystem doesn't burn through capital, so it can't collapse
overnight like a commercial platform can. All it needs to sustain it is
_interest_. The interest could dry up, for example if everybody starts caring
only about data and not code. But if nobody's interested in it anymore, then
it probably doesn't matter if it goes away.

------
ori_b
Strange. For me, Linux has Just Worked for the last 3 or 4 years. No hardware
compatibility issues, no performance issues. I use it because it's easier.

~~~
araneae
I've also been using linux for only about three years. I have had some minor
hardware compatibility issues- namely the "sleep" problem- which went away
with subsequent updates.

I just can't see ever moving back to Windows because I couldn't stand to lose
the shell. I could see myself moving to MacOS, but I don't understand how a
sys admin could stomach doing so if I could not.

~~~
ori_b
I've been using Linux for about six years full time. It's been three or four
years since it's worked problem free out of the box on all my hardware
(including laptops) with no proprietary drivers.

------
mgkimsal
What's always amusing about these discussions is the number of people that say
either

"Try _distro_ - everything just works for me!"

and/or

" _research_ before you buy!"

The 'it all works for me crowd'. I don't believe most of you most of the time.
"Works" is in the eye of the beholder, and most of the time I've found that
people who make that claim don't have anywhere near the same work style that I
do.

Example: running audio from 4 different apps simultaneously all mixed together
is a no-brainer under OSX/Windows, but is something most Linux users don't
even dream of, because they've never even been able to try it (whoops, amarok
is running, so I can't get AIM sound alerts, etc.) If they've never done it,
the "works for me crowd" can't possibly know what 'works' means for them is
light years away from what 'works' means to me.

"Research before you buy". Where and how? Show me an up to date list which
shows even most of the compatibility aspects of stuff I can go buy in a store
against recent distros. Googling around and finding that I can get Ubuntu 5.04
running on hardware from 2004 does me absolutely _0_ good. Manufacturers don't
always show you the exact chipsets used (and may often change chipset
revisions and just ship new windows drivers in the box), and yet even if you
_do_ happen to know every single internal spec of hardware before you buy it,
no one else will have bought it to determine if it works. Someone's gotta be
first, unless the manufacturers would actually start certifying that "distro
X" runs on particular configurations (which ain't gonna happen).

The majority of us live in a world where when we want a computer we're going
to go to a local store and buy something. If Linux users want their stuff to
be more widely adopted, they need to adapt to that reality. I suspect most
Linux users don't really care, and are happy being 'cutting edge' and
compiling new drivers to test stuff out. Really, it's an exciting and
interesting way of life for some people, but one which I and many others
eventually outgrow.

~~~
jessor
_running audio from 4 different apps simultaneously all mixed together_

honestly, this just works out of the box for several years now (on ubuntu,
debian and arch linux at least).

~~~
mgkimsal
So, I guess I only gave it 7 years (2001-2008) - I just didn't wait long
enough? And for friends of mine that still have trouble with audio on their
laptops running Linux working flawlessly, I guess they just didn't research
enough?

~~~
initself
To be fair, those are the early years of the hacker acceptance of Linux. Audio
wasn't a priority then, for most.

------
CrLf
I started using Linux around 1998 at my university, and started using it on my
own desktop later that year (with Red Hat 5.0).

I used it almost exclusively until 2006, when I finally had enough. At the
time I moved to Windows and abandoned Linux on the desktop completely, but
I've since switched to OS X.

I can relate to the author. I spent years messing around with my systems,
which was fun for a while. Every 6 months I'd reinstall my desktop box with
the lastest version of Red Hat (and then Fedora) and spend the next week or
two filing bug reports in bugzilla, and patching some stuff.

But after a few years, what was a learning experience, becomes a permanent
wound in your sound engineering sense. It just isn't possible that something
that has an insane amount of bugs with every new release will ever be
something reliable and usable. Not with so many regressions, never fixed
problems, and unbelievably in-your-face issues.

I've tried to return, to see if any progress was made. About once a year I
install the latest Ubuntu or Fedora, but every time it seems the same, or
worse in some aspects.

My last test was Ubuntu 11.04 on an old Toshiba laptop from late 2005 that I
still have. It used to work apparently fine with just the LCD brightness
control not working, and later with the usual application quirks, bugs and
crashes.

However, the latest version has "new" drivers for the ATI Radeon X300 graphics
card, which non-working 3D acceleration that makes the default WM hang on
login, and not even "glxgears" works anymore. Any attempts to disable hardware
acceleration have failed (not only X doesn't have a configuration file by
default anymore, but it also segfaults when trying to generate one with "X
-configure" and ignores any option I set manually).

Aside from the X problems, stand-by no longer works. The machine just dies
never to wake up again.

The problems just go on and on.

It isn't a usable machine for anything other than simple web browsing, and
even there it has issues with flash, which stutters playing the simplest of
videos, even though it doesn't peg the CPU.

I've used the knowledge I accumulated from these years for my work (where I
have a bunch of Linux servers working just fine), but I say that Linux on the
desktop won't ever amount to nothing, no matter how much that turd is
polished.

It's even more sad if you think that while all this was going on in the Linux
desktop, Apple has successfully launched an unix desktop that has been stable
and usable for years. So it is possible and in a short timeframe, which means
that Linux on the desktop is a failed experience.

~~~
lwhi
" _It's even more sad if you think that while all this was going on in the
Linux desktop, Apple has successfully launched an unix desktop that has been
stable and usable for years. So it is possible and in a short timeframe, which
means that Linux on the desktop is a failed experience._ "

You're comparing apples with pears :)

Apple design an OS for a supremely limited range of hardware. Your comparison
isn't fair.

~~~
Joeri
OK, how about this: if the linux community can tell me which subset of
hardware it runs as well on as OS X, I'll buy that hardware and nothing else.

I want a linux laptop, with good battery life, stable suspend/resume, solid
CPU performance, 3d graphics sufficient for light gaming, and a high-quality
fit-and-finish. Which one do I buy?

~~~
jrockway
I don't know about the "light gaming" aspect. Is the default Sandy Bridge GPU
good enough? If so, how about the Thinkpad X220? I got one and it's wonderful.
The Wifi reception is stunning, WiMax works, it suspends/resumes instantly,
and it lasts for 10 hours on a charge. As for fit and finish, it has the
magnesium roll cage, so you can run it over with your car and it probably
won't break.

Edit: Installed neverputt on this machine. Works fine with the settings maxed
out and the resolution at full screen.

~~~
eropple
Good machines. I have an X201 and am looking at getting an X220. Linux is not
my primary OS on it, but I've installed it (SSD has Windows, HDD has Linux, I
swapped in the HDD experimentally) runs very well and seems to be fully
supported on all the hardware I care about. The X220 seems to share these
characteristics.

And yeah, it's a complete tank. The only downside I have is that both models
seem to have issues with Sandforce SSDs and resuming from sleep, but that's a
hardware issue instead of an OS one.

~~~
jrockway
I'm running mine with an Intel 320 SSD, and it's pretty good. (Only downside
is that I always encrypt my laptops and I accidentally got the 1 processor
variant that doesn't have the AES instructions. Doh!)

Also, the mobile broadband does not work under Linux, despite the fact that
the datasheet for the card says "Linux is fully supported". It will show up as
a serial port (well, four of them) after you edit the kernel source (sierra.c)
to contain this card's USB vendor/product ids. But without a firmware loader
and firmware, you can't actually use the broadband. I feel that this will be
fixed soon, though, as the Gobi 2000 is quite popular for Linux and this is
the Gobi 3000.

The GPS does work.

~~~
eropple
If I'd been buying a SSD new, I probably would have gone with an Intel one,
but I had a Corsair lying around. Whoops.

------
nl
I suspect this is a symptom of the author getting older, not desktop Linux
getting worse.

I used to enjoy tweaking config to get dual monitors to work etc, but now I'm
sick of it.

Lately Ubuntu has started screwing up the panel config everytime an update
comes. Grrrr!

But I think this is more about me getting old, slow and lazy rather than Linux
getting any worse. I mean now, with Ubuntu it really does pretty much work out
of the box, even on my laptop (and yes, suspend/resume works).

~~~
jrockway
_I used to enjoy tweaking config to get dual monitors to work etc, but now I'm
sick of it._

That's why there's a control panel for this. Or you can type "xrandr --output
VGA1 --auto --left-of LVDS1". As long as you don't buy AMD GPUs, it all Just
Works :)

~~~
dman
AMD drivers are much improved now. In fact these days I prefer them to Nvidia
since doing screen specific color correction is a breeze.

~~~
yesimahuman
In my experience this is not the case. I am using the new AMD drivers (I
belive) on Ubuntu 11.04 and the performance is terrible. Alt-tabbing to switch
between windows even incurs a second+ delay. I reverted back to the open
source one and it at least functions.

~~~
akdubya
I had this problem until I disabled vertical refresh. Based on posts in the
ubuntu forums this appears to solve most people's problems with the AMD
drivers.

------
Joeri
I started using linux as my main OS around '98, and stopped doing that in '05.
My reasons at the time were the same: consistently problematic driver/codec
support, glitches that kept cropping up requiring low-level maintenance to
resolve, and low-quality productivity software (office and image editing).

The irony is that I know it's no use to complain to people still "inside" the
linux community about this, because I used to be one of them and I know what I
answered to those people that complained: pick better hardware (so much
choice), pick better software (even more choice), learn how to use the
software (you luser), learn to build your own (with this easy 23 step guide),
and finally the conversation-ender "works fine for me" (so your experience is
irrelevant).

It was of course all a delusion on my part. As much as I claimed that it
worked fine for me, it didn't. Not really, not 100%. So it became a trade-off,
which deficiencies were worse? Those of windows, those of the mac, or those of
linux? I ended up on the mac, but it's also not 100%. It still sucks just a
little bit. All I've ever wanted is for there to be one OS that doesn't suck,
and I'll pay top dollar (or euro) to use it, but I've never found it. I always
have to pick the least sucky one, and that really sucks.

------
Jach
Shrug. Whatever. My home machine has been Gentoo since 2006/2007 or so, while
there have been problems not directly caused by me (like corrupting a
filesystem then recovering it, or unmasking packages when I shouldn't) most of
them are solved by config options in the kernel, USE flags, or elsewhere. I
don't remember needing to ever write a device driver. The only desktop
experience I lack is certain big-name games I can only get from Steam, in
which case I just boot into Windows 7, curse and mutter at the (in my view)
crappy UI that gets in my way, before I launch the game I want. I don't really
find a plethora of poor-quality apps either, at least in the sense that apps
are noticeably poorer quality than apps-in-general. With Firefox, my gentoo
version is significantly faster than Windows 7's. And more and more of my apps
are moving online... Ah well. _Goes back to programming, which he detests
doing in Windows even with cygwin_

------
rg3
I think the postscript is quite rude. Disregarding possible criticism because
he's a Linux sysadmin and has contributed to the kernel. To be fair, he's
doing something wrong even if he doesn't want to admit it: choosing the wrong
hardware. His most direct and important complaints come down to that.

I bought a new computer past summer and all its hardware worked properly from
day zero, ethernet, wifi, 3D acceleration, suspending, hibernating and dual-
monitors included. I chose the right hardware. Flash support? The 64-bit flash
plugin is not crashing here. I use flashblock to avoid possible security
problems, but I use it in Windows too, to avoid annoying ads with sound. The
quality of OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice is good enough for desktop users, in
my humble opinion.

And the rest of the post is debatable at least. Linux and its software
ecosystem are not to blame for poor Skype support, for example.

~~~
whazzmaster
I would support his position if only because, in this day and age, should a
Linux power user have to do hours and hours of research to avoid purchasing
the 'wrong' hardware? To me, his opinion boils down to: bad support for
cutting edge (or even just current day) tech. He mentioned at the beginning
that he was a cutting edge guy.

Desktop Linux is really for people that can/will line up all their ducks in a
row (and then sometimes debug those ducks) when upgrading hardware. Even as a
technical person I can understand if you don't wish to continue to pour time
into that sort of thing.

~~~
mgkimsal
How much research can one really do? Perhaps things are better, but I got
tired of looking at 'hardware compatibility' lists that were out of date
and/or only referenced hardware that was not available for purchase within a
hundred mile radius of my house.

I saw a reference in a list about a wireless card 'model644b' that worked, so
I bought it, then found out that, hell no, you got 'model644br4', and only r1
and r3 really work, as r4 was manufactured in a different facility and they
used a different process (BS like this). The box and listing doesn't show the
hardware revision number to the public - you have to open it up to find that
out. (I made up the model number, but had pretty much that same issue in
2005).

I took an ubuntu boot dvd to several stores wanting to test out compatibility
before purchasing a laptop, and was ejected from a couple. TigerDirect staff
basically ignored me, whether out of respect for my mad testing skillz or just
apathy - I couldn't tell, but I bought a laptop there in 2008 because I think
I verified the wireless worked out of the box.

When the answer to 'linux on the desktop' is 'go research loads of conflicting
or hard to find info, the order from an online store and piece it together
yourself or pay loads extra for a custom built laptop' to guarantee, no
thanks. That sort of 'freedom' isn't for me.

~~~
elehack
Maybe there is room then for a short HOWTO on finding hardware. Not an
extensive compatibility list, but some hardware that is known to work well to
make the purchasing process easier.

~~~
revscat
Or perhaps the necessity of HCLs at all is indicative of a larger problem.
This is not something end-users should be responsible for. Maybe 10+ years ago
when the options were fewer and easier to sift through, but now? It's tedious
to the point of maddening.

~~~
elehack
It is probably indicative of a larger problem, although one that is very hard
for the community to solve. A big issue with hardware support is the lack of
specifications and vendor participation. Vendors are getting better at that,
but it's still an issue and the major vendors are less-than-stellar. For
consumer components, Intel is about the only one that's all-in on Linux
support; nVidia insists on binary drivers that are hard to install and have a
checkered reliability history, and ATI provides specs but to my knowledge no
engineering effort (although AMD/ATI may be improving on that front). Not sure
how things are in the sound department w/ Creative, etc. these days.

If vendors provided and honestly advertised Linux support, that would be a
much better world. Then compatibility can be checked at the store. It'd be
bad, though, if they supported Linux like they do Windows - with a gig of
userspace junkware.

------
Newky
As a firm Linux user, who has got no windows influence in my household, entire
family gone Linux in some shape or form, I can't see as a power user how he is
prepared to make this switch.

I know that Linux so often makes you put up with compromises and so often it
is at the graphics card hurdle that it starts to annoy, but I think the 3
things he'll miss is the things which will eventually drive him back.

Firstly, the shell is one thing that seems irreplaceable, yes you could use
cygwin or equivalent but nothing will fill the void of a shell that is so
beautifully incorporated into the OS, more than OSX in my mind, despite them
being the same shell, Linux makes no excuses and is proud of its Shell.

Transparency, Yes this is important, but something I know I could live
without, as he mentions he doesnt do this as often as before and really its
main purpose was for fixes with drivers.

Package Management and I would stretch further to even open source and free
software will drive him back. I had a stint where I could only use Vista for
about 7 days, the reminder of the horrors of "shareware" software and 30 day
trials had me looking forward to getting back to "apt-get install"

~~~
sjs
I agree that a switch to Windows does not make sense. I fled to OS X because
I'm a Unix biggot and don't want a system that doesn't ship with zsh or bash.
Apparently darwin's posix API sucks and is different from Linux but I'm not
affected by that directly so don't really care.

Cinch, SizeUp, and Divvy provide all the tiling things I need for window
management and they unobtrusively just enhance my normal environment, it's
great. I don't miss xmonad at all anymore. I miss dpkg and apt but homebrew is
good enough and I regularly fire up Linux VMs if I just need to, vagrant is
awesome for this. (vagrantup.com)

------
lwhi
The latest Ubuntu version works so well with multiple monitors I almost can't
imagine going back to standard Gnome. The interface has actually helped me
become more productive.

I run NVIDIA graphics and have no problems .. I realise the latest and
greatest takes a while to become fully supported on my platform of choice, and
often solutions to problems require research and time - but I'd rather accept
this compromise than use Windows.

Windows feels like Fisher Price, Linux feels more like Mechano - in the sense
that it presents opportunities rather than fully packaged solutions

~~~
_grrr
I've been putting off the update to 11.04 from 10.10, is it relatively pain
free?

~~~
pearle
It's a buggy mess IMO. I'm running 11.04 on recently purchased Lenovo X220
(replaced my 3 year old MBP) and I've had frequent hard locks in X, windowing
glitches (windows doing weird things, scroll bars acting up), and issues with
cleanly shutting down and rebooting.

I blame the lockup/windowing issues completely on Unity and I've had more
success with the system since I've switched to the classic Ubuntu desktop. My
current Linux desktop is running 10.10 and it will stay that way for the
foreseeable future (perhaps until 11.10). I have a new sandy bridge desktop
coming in next week and I'm undecided as to what I will be installing on that
system.

~~~
ignifero
I had similarly bad experience with my x220. If you try to boot with external
screen connected, the screen blinks like a strobelight, you need to change
resolution to make it work. X hangs up sometimes. Ditched unity, running
xubuntu seems to be smoother and more sane.

------
petercooper
This is why I'm an OS X user. I'm not particularly bullish on OS X and find
some of its guts a bit disappointing, but it's the only UNIX with a good UI
that will run a significant share of the best apps out there. Yet you still
get all the POSIX joy and if you strip it down, an experience that's much how
Linux should be. What confuses me is why anyone would switch from Linux to
_Windows_ if they do anything where Linux had the upper hand?

~~~
Niten
> What confuses me is why anyone would switch from Linux to Windows if they do
> anything where Linux had the upper hand?

Makes as much sense as switching to OS X. The Mac OS is not Linux.

If you're developing for Linux, or using something like GHC where the OS X
version is a least-favorite stepchild, or if you need package management as
capable as APT or the FreeBSD Ports Collection – then if you aren't running
Linux as your desktop OS, you're most likely running it in a VM, regardless of
whether your host OS is OS X or Windows. In fact the author explicitly says
he's doing as much.

So "somewhat but not quite like Linux" isn't something the author would
strictly need to look for in his host OS. Intead he can take other factors
into account, such as reliability, performance, available applications, and
hardware choice, quality, and cost.

~~~
wmoxam
Macports is a decent enough package manager. My only real gripe is the lack of
binary packages.

~~~
zerd
Have you tried homebrew?

~~~
wmoxam
Yup, I have. Don't really see any distinct advantage, though writing new
formulas (and contributing) is comparatively easier.

------
reedlaw
I feel the opposite way. I recently bought a Thinkpad T410 with Windows 7. It
came with a lot of useless stuff and was impossible to run our Rails app on it
(RMagick does not play well with Windows). I first switched to OSX and the
driver situation was abysmal. The thing never went to sleep, even with the
laptop lid closed. Wifi never worked. All this can be expected when running on
non-Apple hardware. But what's worse and inherent to OSX is the terribly
inconsistent key bindings. Each application behaves differently with respect
to the Apple, option, and control keys. I could never configure the key
bindings to my liking, no matter how many 3rd party apps I tried.

Finally I installed Ubuntu and I've never looked back. Nearly everything just
worked, with the exception of plugging in an external monitor. The experience
was much smoother than on Windows or Mac. I'm very happy with the Unity
desktop.

One thing that has me fed up with proprietary software was that although I had
purchased Photoshop CS5 for Mac, it was nearly impossible to activate. I had
to call Adobe because I was upgrading from a Windows CS2 to a Mac CS5. Once I
had to reinstall everything and the installer asked me to go through the whole
process again. With Ubuntu I can download and install software almost
effortlessly. It's not worth the hassle to spend lots of money and not even be
able to use a piece of software. I'd rather use Gimp, despite some UI
weaknesses. The only thing that made me want Photoshop in the first place was
better compatibility with other Photoshop users' files. For myself, Gimp is
more than adequate.

~~~
rsheridan6
I had the same experience on this cheap Acer laptop. A few native Windows apps
are the only thing that keep me from wiping it and going Ubuntu single boot.

~~~
cookiecaper
You may want to check and see if those apps work on WINE. WINE will work on
most apps for most uses. :)

------
danking00
I'm kind of curious who has the selection bias here, me and my social group or
the people responding to this thread. I've been using Ubuntu since 2008 and
before that some hodgepodge of Gentoo and Fedora since '06.

Since going to Ubuntu, I seem to never have trouble with applications working,
Internet connectivity, or graphics. I have two computers a desktop circa 2006
with an old ATI card (x1900, I think) and a dell mini 9 both running the
Ubuntu 11.04.

I certainly have troubles with Flash, but they are infrequent and usually only
necessitate killing Flash from Chrome's task manager.

On the Dell Mini, I occasionally have wifi issues, but since the 10.XX series,
the frequency of these problems has dropped significantly.

As far as changing to Unity, I honestly don't care. I've been using Gnome-Do
since around '09, so ditching the menus hasn't bothered me at all.

I have friends using Ubuntu as well and they don't seem to have insurmountable
problems either, although they _have_ been migrating to OS X in search of a
more beautiful user experience.

But going to Windows? I couldn't imagine getting any development done on that
OS.

------
drats
I've not had a single major problem with Linux since adopting the following
strategy: a) check whether your hardware is compatible before buying b) don't
install a distro hot off the press.

It should be obvious to anyone who's been using Linux for a while that a new
dual intel/nvidia gpu mobile card is not going to be sorted out until quite a
while after release. If he was a newbie I'd feel some sympathy but he's not.
The rest of his rant is about the past.

------
moondowner
OK, I'm a Linux Desktop user on a daily basis, I use Linux Mint KDE at the
moment, before that I was using Fedora KDE Spin, before that Kubuntu, ...

I've been using Linux for 6 years, the first year I was dual-booting with
Windows because I had a project in asp.net, but when It was finished I
formatted that partition and use it as a backup storage now.

I have a HP laptop with everything Intel on it, from WiFi card to Graphics
card, and everything is supproted out-of-the-box. With plain Ubuntu Live CD I
can have 3D desktops and connect to WiFi networks without a problem. For
multimedia Linux is strong, Flash works without problem, although if you're on
64bit it may use your CPU more than it should.

The only problem which I have and the blog post author has is Skype and Office
Suites. Skype works OK but it's not up-to-date as in Windows or OS X, and
LibreOffice (or it's older dying daddy, OpenOffice.org) is OK but not perfect.

As for "Poor quality of desktop apps" point, I don't use Nautilus but Dolphin,
and not Firefox but Opera, and I'm happy with it.

The point in the Linux Desktop is that you don't have to stay on the default
Linux distributions choice, but you can customize/change/mix everything.

And for hardware, before buying a new machine, check if everything will work
out of the box on the distribution you desire to install on it later.

bye bye past 'hardcore Linux user'

P.S. There are numerous posts where the author recalls on past problems, so,
they aren't really problems now.

------
dkarl
I'm pretty happy with Linux on the desktop these days, but I am ecstatic to
see someone complaining about desktop Linux and asking for stuff to WORK
instead of just yammering on about redesigning the user experience to appeal
to less and less sophisticated users. It's like the good old days of Linux on
the desktop, when I still felt like I was a target user instead of the enemy.
These days with the Linux desktop I feel like a loving wife who is a perfect
match for my husband but is doomed to be abandoned because I mirror everything
he wishes he could change about himself: nerdy, niche, not someone the alpha
males (the Steves) pay any attention to. And here is this guy asserting that
even the opinion of an admitted "professional sys admin" and "former kernel
hacker" deserves respect! I love it!

------
w1ntermute
> I’ve spent a lot of time with Fedora, Gentoo and Arch Linux.

So this guy has tried two advanced distros (Gentoo and Arch), plus one
"beginner" distro which (from my experience) has provided nothing but
frustration, and he's giving up on Linux because it's "too hard"?

How can you claim Linux to be "too hard" when you haven't even tried Ubuntu?

------
anthony_barker
The issues are not technical they have been business issues that caused Linux
never to "Cross the Chasm".

Blame falls on Intel and AMD who use Linux really just as leverage against
MSFT and never have given 100% commitment to it (e.g. Intel GMA500) except on
severs.

The world has moved to laptops - Microsoft still gets money for every Linux
machine sold and almost none are bundled with a Linux OS that works(I once
bought a MSI Wind with Suse that hand an incompatible wifi card!!). Even Dell
has back-peddled.

The main failure I believe has been Taiwanese hardware companies in their fear
of Microsoft or their greed almost never advertise "Works with Linux".

I agree with the other poster - you would never buy Apple equipment without
looking at compatibility beforehand - why not Linux.

I watch kids using Linux desktop and it is all about using browsers. Chrome
and opera work very well under Linux. Tablets - are they the future of the
linux desktop?

The poster neglects to mention that that the Linux desktop has moved to the
hand held - android, meego maemo etc. Where the user experience was actually
very good. Driver support is better than windows.

------
jwr
Couldn't agree more. The reasons he listed are very similar to my reasons for
switching to Mac OS X about 3 years ago, after 10 years of using Linux.

I found I simply have better things to do than debug and write drivers (yes, I
did write drivers as well). I'd much rather expend my energy elsewhere.

Since the switch I never looked back.

------
mongol
I made the same decision just some months ago. I don't blame it on the
"desktop experience" as much as on the driver experience. My Dell M4500 laptop
has poor touchpad support, non-working hibernate / suspend and with the latest
OpenSuse also non-stable graphics, not so good wireless drivers, non working
SD-card support, non-working microphone, etc etc. I am a Linux user since
Slackware 3.0 and will continue to run Linux, but now virtualized on Windows,
for those tools on Linux that I love. But I will probably spend more time in
Windows. I can run accelerated graphics on VirtualBox so I think it will work
good enough for me. But on cheaper hardware it might not be as easy.

My experience over the years brings me to the conclusion that the driver
experience will always be lacking. While many experiences on Linux have
improved, the driver experience has reached some kind of steady-state. Every
time I upgrade my distribution, something improves and something else breaks.

------
Wickk
I the follow comment sums up my opinion on the matter:

>8 years of experience and you didn't know that you should look for
compatibility issues BEFORE buying? Seriously?

I for one gave up hope of "The Year of Desktop Linux", a very long time ago
and can agree with the majority of your points. But really now? :| That's
something you should well be used to dealing with by now

~~~
ra
Yeah, anyone who uses desktop linux should avoid current generation Nvidia
like the plague.

------
jrockway
All I can say is that I can watch tear-free video under Linux with Intel and
nvidia drivers. I've had many machines with Intel GPUs, and they all Just
Work. I have an Atom machine that I use to watch 720p H.264: it works because
the video decoding can be offloaded to the Ion GPU. And it all works
beautifully under Linux.

As for Skype and Flash, what is the Linux community expected to do? They are
both proprietary: there is nothing "Linux" can do to make them work better.

~~~
Symmetry
Recently, there've been periods of time stretching up to a couple of months
after a new Intel chip with integrated graphics comes out where the don't have
the drivers ready yet, or they're still pushing them into the kernel, or the
distros haven't updated to new kernels yet. Trying to use brand new Intel
chips during those periods is frustrating, but the problem just goes away by
itself after a little while.

------
rbanffy
Ubuntu 10.10 (I am postponing the update because I want a clean install this
time) works for me on my two laptops. Printing works, hibernate and suspend
work, 3D works. The secret? Pick notebooks that have some Linux support. It's
also cheaper, usually. I had no problem finding an Acer netbook and a Dell
Latitude in that category.

Then you have Fedora. It has always been the "experimental" branch. Much like
Debian Sid, you don't expect it to work 100% of the time. I am surprised
someone experienced with Linux falls in this trap.

I hope he enjoys the life without really knowing what the machine is doing,
the life without a decent shell, without a decent development environment and
managing software like it was in the dark ages. I wonder how long it will take
until we see a rant about how useless Windows is and why he's moving to BSD or
OSX.

------
fmx
"I just want to get some work done, I don’t want to waste my time debugging
all kind of crap."

That's basically it. It's not the drivers, it's not the bugs - it's the
culture. The culture of Linux seems to be that every user _should_ be a
programmer and _should_ help debug the OS. If you are one, and want to help -
great, go ahead! As for me, I have other things to do and I expect the OS,
shell and file manager to Just Work.

~~~
curious_man
I'm a happy Linux user for years now (GNU/Linux for the most difficult ones),
but I went through the same process:

1\. Excitement. Compiling the kernel? Cool! Configure an SMTP server just for
fun? Cool! Having "fun" for hours fiddling with configuration files to make
something work? Cool! Making a sound card, a video card or a modem work after
hours of compilations and configurations feels just like "beating the system".
2\. Well, there is more to IT besides editing udev rules and iptables
profiles. But now my system works quite well, so I can go on with my life. 3\.
Update time. Or perhaps I need a new computer: maybe it's that I'm becoming
old and impatient, but now I have stuff to do and other interests to nurture.
I don't have time and patience to waste on making this damn piece of hardware
work.

You want to make Linux a viable desktop operating system "for the masses"?
Well, then don't tell me "it's free software, if you don't like it then write
some code and change it!". Or "works for me". Thanks George.

Don't get me wrong: I like and support hacking, experimenting, FLOSS, open
culture, open hardware, open whatever. I use FLOSS and Linux every single day
and (for now) it works fine for me. But let's pretend for a minute that not
everyone is a programmer. The truth is: even if I'm actually a professional
programmer, I want an OS that "Just Works"(c).

PS: It's the same for... Linus Torvalds. He uses (as far as I know) Fedora.
Not certainly Slackware, Gentoo or Arch (3 very good and interesting
distributions BTW, I've used them all). His motivations? Paraphrasing:
"because I'm familiar with it and I want to get things done".

------
rsheridan6
I expect Linux to sneak onto the desktop in the form of Android. The Motorola
Atrix, an upscale Android phone, already comes with an optional netbook
attachment - you can dock the phone into the back of it and it lets you
interface with the phone with a netbook's keyboard, mousepad and screen. It's
not rumored to be an especially good netbook, but the time will come, probably
within a few years, when something like it will be.

There will be no reason for most people to maintain a separate computer when
their phone is powerful enough to do everything they need, except that its
form factor is inappropriate. It will be cheaper and simpler just to dock it
in a shell that gives a more appropriate form factor.

tldr; Android will disrupt the laptop/desktop market.

------
16s
I've been a Gnome Linux desktop user since 1999. I'm still happy with it.
Works great for me. No complaints.

------
code_duck
I agree with some of these points, but they're not big issues for me.

I used Linux for 10 years. Bought a MacBook to that, coexisted, and then
switched to it full time a few months ago.

I'm actually starting to miss Linux a great deal, though. I'll probably miss
some conveniences about the Mac when I go back, but I can't seen anything
major. I _like_ KDE and Gnome, and the Linux versions of Firefox, Opera and
Chromium are just fine. I don't care in the slightest about Flash or Dolby
sound (I listen to music on $15 'Altec Lansings' from WalMart). I don't play
games. I don't care about office software. Skype works well enough for me, and
will be dead soon anyway.

The ethernet driver complaint is bizarre. I never had a problem finding them
in 2004, and why mention it now?

I've had problems with suspend/resume on Windows as well as Linux. You need to
get everything set up right video-wise, etc. and I agree it is a pain. Power
management, too - it needs to be improved.

A Linux user switching to a Mac makes sense. Using Windows is a bizarre idea -
it's simply too unfamiliar and limited of an OS for me. It makes me feel like
I'm locked in a padded room with a start button - powerless and declawed, and
a lot of my favorite software is not available for Windows. No, I'm not
installing cygwin or learning PowerShell. Mac's Unixness is comfortable for
me, though I am grizzled by how some of the flags for the common command line
utils must come before other arguments here in non-GNU land.

------
sedev
Welcome to grown-up computing (c.f. marco Arment
<http://articles.marco.org/145> )

~~~
pnathan
That's not a very good comment, but it is a good article.

------
etfb
I tried and gave up on Linux half a dozen times over the years, and would have
agreed with everything this article says. Then I tried Ubuntu, and never
looked back. My house has been Microsoft-free since before Vista was released.
Ubuntu does, indeed, Just Work. Despite the author's PS, I have to say: he's
doing it wrong, and he should try Ubuntu.

------
jasoncwarner
I'm the Ubuntu Desktop manager, also known as the guy generally responsible
for making sure Ubuntu works and works well. I wish I could address each and
every issue listed here individually, but I can't. Suffice it to say, if you
are having any issues, file a bug on Launchpad for Ubuntu, Unity or any other
package and we'll make sure the right person is looking at the issue.

Some links to remember:

<https://launchpad.net/ubuntu> <https://launchpad.net/unity> and
<https://launchpad.net/unity-2d>

On each page there is a 'report a bug' link on the upper right.

Or, if you experience a crash, you can report the bug at the command line by
typing 'ubuntu-bug' and a series of prompts will walk you through the data
collection.

<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs>

------
loxs
I wonder how long will it take before you come back to Linux screaming :)

~~~
viraptor
Thought the same thing. I have an additional windows machine at work now and
over many years, I honestly forgot how annoying that system is in day-to-day
work. Top of the annoyances:

\- Unresponsive (in general... win7 on a serious "desktop replacement" class
laptop with loads of resources)

\- Rebooting almost every day (application updates)

\- Microsoft applications constantly crashing (mostly outlook)

\- Randomly failing to hibernate

\- Third-party support/driver applications which I should never hear about
spamming me with questions (you scheduled a backup, do you really want to make
a backup now? you scheduled disk maintenance, do you really want to run it?
hey, I'd like to update, can I? oh, actually there are no updates available,
kthnxbye. look at me, I'm updating the virus database!)

Unfortunately these are exactly the same reasons why I stopped using windows
over a decade ago...

~~~
pyre
Or stupid pieces of software installed with drivers that look like they were
designed by a 12 year old (Let's make the interface surrounded by animated
flames... then Evel Knievel can burst through the flames when the program
loads... and then _burst into flames_! Yeah! Oh, yeah. We'll also throw in
some hardware controls to turn on/off the bluetooth adapter that this is
packaged with... ATI Catalyst, I'm looking at you...)

------
sunstone
Who is this guy trying to fool? It's always the case that linux on the desktop
takes a little longer to catch up with the latest technology. While the latest
windows always works on the new stuff -- but older windows probably doesn't.

Three years ago I bought the latest asus laptop (M50sv) and lot's of stuff
didn't work (sound, hibernate, bluetooth etc ) but within about 12 months with
new installs of ubuntu things started to work to the point where now
everything wor .

I would _much_ rather use a working version of Ubuntu than Win7 ( I used both
at work and Win7 really sucks in comparison ) . But, as I said, the latest
hardware always takes awhile and any seasoned Linux user knows that, even this
guy.

------
danbmil99
Hmm -- I dunno, as a longtime programmer but OS agnostic, it's only with
Ubuntu 8 and later that I've felt like things are approaching parity. Sure
some things suck, but OSX and Windows suck at least as much in myriad ways.

It seems like what's really going on here is 'nix fanboys are upset at the
level of vertical integration necessary in a distro like Ubuntu, to achieve a
basic level of operational success at the cost of flexibility and horizontal
modularity.

So go spend hundreds of hours per year hand-crafting your favorite versions of
everything, and updating drivers manually every week or so, while bitching
about how you want your money back from Canonical -- I'll just get on with
doing some real work.

------
va_coder
I have a four year old Dell Inspiron and the latest Ubuntu. No problems. It
just works.

~~~
shareme
Yes, but most distros do not re-do the desktop experience to make that work
like the Ubuntu distro and there is the aspect of Gnome resisting
changes/suggestions from Ubuntu.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Yes, but most distros do not re-do the desktop experience to make that work
> like the Ubuntu distro

So? Use Ubuntu. Problem solved. Who cares what "most distros" are doing?

------
cowmixtoo
I don't want to pile on here but as Linux desktop / server user since '92 I'll
add my two cents:

My main Linux workstations are a three year old QUAD core Shuttle XPC and a
Dell business workstation. I religiously upgrade to each Ubuntu distro release
every six months. Some things have gotten a lot better (like sound), then
other stuff breaks. In particular, the Intel graphics drivers (like mentioned
in this article) still are not quite right.

It's a little depressing how the fundamentals still are still not solid.

ZOMG, I forgot about my ASUS 1000 netbook.. The wireless get WORSE and WORSE
every release. The wireless driver with 9.10 were awesome and now I can barely
connect anywhere.

DE-PRESS-ING..

------
cletus
As far as I'm concerned, Linux on the desktop is a great example of how not to
do things.

I started using Linux in the 0.9x days, back when I downloaded a SLS
distribution on a 2400 baud modem and put it onto 20-30 5.25" disks. I then
switched to Slackware (14.4kbps modem now!) and then Red Hat (in the v2/v3
days up until v6 or so).

Back then I typically just used multiple text consoles (alt-F2, etc to
switch). This actually worked really well.

At the time you could run X... if you had the right hardware... if you
configured all the right settings... if you had enough CPU/RAM... if (ad
nauseum). But you could get it to work.

Thing is, there wasn't actually a lot of reason to use X. Programming was done
in vi or emacs. You _might_ want to use Netscape but the Web was embronic at
best (we're talking 1995 here) and Netscape was a resource hog. I preferred to
use lynx when I could.

Thing is, at that time I remember people saying "sure it's not _great_ but
it's getting better... give it a year or two and it'll be awesome".

15 years on I still hear the same thing and honestly I don't think it's much
better. Sure the problems are different but Gnome still feels slow (not that
Gnome existed back then, but you get my point). You still have to dick around
with things just to get them to work.

From a combination of age and experience I both no longer value my time so low
as to bother with this whenever I can avoid it and I no longer believe the lie
about it getting better.

Take PulseAudio. I just don't get it. All i want to do is change my system
volume and have it react relatively quickly (PA, in my experience, can have
latency on volume changes of 100+ ms; yes this is a problem).

PulaseAudio, for me, exemplifies all that's wrong with desktop Linux. As
someone described it, it's a solution in search of a problem, overengineering
at its finest. It simply aims to solve problems I don't have or care about and
fail at solving the problems I do have (unrelated side note: if you happen to
be on the CSS Working Group, go back and read this paragraph 400-500 times
until you get it).

Lots of apologists on this thread say OSX isn't a valid comparison because it
only supports limited hardware. Nonsense. OSX is the way it is because the
focus is on user experience and working well, not on, say, remembering per-
application volume settings or being able to position particular audio streams
(because, hey, it's a cool engineering exercise).

I'll use OSX whenever I can. I just wish Apple didn't make it so hard, like
your desktop options are the Mac Mini ( _still_ Core 2 Duo, no thanks, my
laptop had one of those in 2007), the Mac Pro (no thanks, proprietary hardware
that is no longer supported 2-3 years later) or the iMac (can you make it any
harder to install an SSD?).

I'll happily use Windows 7 too. It's stolen most of the best bits of OSX,
enough that it's "good enough" anyway. Sure it's a nightmare of complexity too
(policy settings anyone?) but at least using it on the desktop, unlike Linux,
doesn't leave me wanting to stab out my eyes with a spoon.

I just wish there was a Mac Mini equivalent that used a Sandy Bridge i5/i7
(the 13" MBP has this, I don't see why the Mini can't) and a second hard drive
instead of an optical drive (SSD + 2.5" HD for storage or even RAID1 SSDs for
reliability). Integrated GPUs are fine.

Come on Mac Mini refresh, you're long overdue.

Anyway, the story of Linux on the desktop is the ultimate answer to the
question of why shoot yourself in the foot when you can shoot yourself in the
head.

------
frou_dh
I appreciate Linux in every regard except for actually using it. OS X and the
general focus on good design of its third party applications just provide a
more pleasant place to spend time.

------
aristidb
If you can even imagine living without a real shell, you are not a Linux power
user.

But there's nothing wrong with that.

------
omouse
For people who like free software, Linux is a win no matter what. Sure it can
be improved and it's nice that someone points out flaws now it's time to
actually improve it instead of continuing to ignore those flaws and hope for
the best. If some of the major companies funded development for those items,
I'm sure we'd see some improvement rather than the current situation where
they're rewriting X as Unity or whatever? Kinda dumb to do that when video
card drivers are still a bit shitty.

------
happywolf
I have similar experience as the author: ten years of hardcore Linux
experience, during my college days I used slackware for 3 years; recompiling
kernel whenever an update appeared at kernel.org was my geeky hobby during
those days. But alas, as age and commitment catch up with me, I can no longer
spend days to make a driver work, or recompile the kernel just to shave a few
kilobytes away. I need a machine and an OS that 'just work'. Yes I know if I
do some research and google around I can find the 'right machine' where distro
X will work just fine. I also know by doing trick X and trick Y will resolve
some issue Z. But I am no longer 20+ with a lot of time on my hands. If I got
an hour of spare time, I would prefer to read some books, or just sleep,
instead of reading the source code or the dmesg outputs.

I am not blaming Linux. It is free anyway and done by a lot of smart and
dedicated volunteers. My mindset now is I don't mind to pay some money so that
my computing needs can be met without too much effort from my end. I am using
OS X, and frankly I find Windows 7 is _very_ useable and quite pleasant to
play with. Linux has its place in computing, and my desktop always has a
partition for the latest version of Ubuntu. But for daily use, count me out.
Thank you very much.

------
Goladus
This is why I have two machines, one is windows the other is Ubuntu. Most work
and browsing gets done on the linux box, and I have very few complaints. My
biggest complaint was a bug in the firefox search box that seems to have been
resolved; and I haven't been able to figure out how to disable touch-click on
the trackpad (without disabling the trackpad entirely, which I admit is much
easier to do in Linux than windows).

I'm very comfortable with cygwin, emacs, and putty on windows, and can move
more or less effortlessly between windows and linux when working. The biggest
annoyance is probably the slightly different copy-paste rules between putty
and gnome/gnome-terminal. So I generally use Linux and Windows concurrently
enough that whenever I encounter something that windows does better, I can
just use that.

Because those four positives the original author lists are enormous:

    
    
        * shell
        * transparency, control
        * package management
        * lack of viruses, malware
    

Cygwin is good but limited. On Linux, back up your data and script your
installation. Configuring a new box should take a few hours at most. On
windows it will probably be days of tracking down all the software you need
and getting all the right license keys and other crap.

------
naner
In summary:

\- Poor modern hardware support. "Linux on the Desktop" is dead in the water
without a devoted hardware supplier that writes all drivers and sells
computers running Linux. The kernel itself is perfectly modern but we just
often don't have proper driver support.

\- Some desktop subsystems still suck. Is Audio bulletproof yet? PulseAudio
seems too complex, OSSv4 is out of kernel and is not suspend/hibernate aware,
Alsa is outdated.

\- Desktop software is terrible. No office suite that feels solid, apps
written with a mismash of backends, languages, and toolkits, everything feels
designed by committee. No stationary canonical APIs to build proprietary
software on. No commercial software suites (CAD, Office, Adobe, Steam, etc) or
free software equivalents.

\- GTK and Qt do not cut it. They are not attractive, they are not modern,
interface design doesn't appear to be a priority, most devs don't want to
write desktop software in C or C++.

The only way for Linux on the desktop to thrive is under the power of a
commercial hardware company that designs systems with Linux in mind, gets the
support of commercial 3rd party software companies, and completely eschews
Gnome and KDE. That is a massive amount of work/money so I don't expect it to
ever happen.

I have used Linux on the desktop since 2002 (and will continue to use it) but
I'm not delusional. Funnily enough, I've tried going back to Windows 7 (I am
dual booting now) but I inexplicably have more driver problems on Win7 than I
do on Linux (Thinkpad).

I'm not a typical computer user, though. I could survive with only Emacs and
Chrome.

~~~
Maro
> most devs don't want to write desktop software in C or C++.

What do they want to write desktop software in?

------
r3570r3
The real problem with Linux is that it is torn between two ideologies. One
says that Linux is a Developers OS while other says that it needs to reach the
mainstream market and compete with Windows.

Linux can be seen as being a developers OS and if you are serious about
development, the first thing you do is move to Linux. The amount of diagnosis
and control it offers on the network and the OS through simple commands and
DIY scripts is just unmatched. Though, the number of people involved in
development is extremely small as compared to the number of regular home PC
users.

The second kind, are the people who want to use Linux for web surfing,
watching videos, playing some songs and do some office stuff. Here is the
problem. Linux just does not fit this user portfolio. At least, it does not
fit this as good as Windows does. OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice are light
years behind MS Office. VLC is the only video player that brings some decency
into video playback, and people are torn between music players.

Why did Ubuntu Linux and Linux Mint take off so well? In a world ruled by
Windows, Linux has to understand its users and their Windows world view.

Wayland can be the savior for Linux and Unity is already turning some heads.

------
bootload
_"... Hardware support is a big part of the Linux desktop problem, but it’s
not the only problem. Half-baked DE like KDE 4.0, Ubuntu’s Unity and GNOME 3.0
are just as dangerous. ..."_

All my problems with @nix/@bsd and desktops start with "X".

The big wakeup for me is that the bug known, marked severe and has existed
since 2005 without resolution. [0],[1],[2] It doesn't matter what distro or OS
I choose. The core of the desktop has problems. I don't blame Linux, X or
gnome devs for this, nor do I contemplate switching back to Windows or
deserting to Apple. The culprit here is crappy software (eg: try reading
through the various GDM shell wrappers) and closed binary drivers (nVidia) and
the solution is writing better low level software.

[0] <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=182517>

[1] <https://bugs.launchpad.net/xorg-server/+bug/63905>

[2] <http://www.xfree86.org/current/chips7.html>

------
mixmastamyk
Hmm,

I've had many of the same issues over the years, but it has progressively
gotten better. Now have Ubuntu Maverick on my Dell Studio XPS and it runs like
a dream. Video, camera, networking, sound, hotkeys, suspend/resume ran since
first boot, and I didn't have to do anything. Printing surprised me too. When
I went in to work one day I was printing after two or three clicks in the
control panel. It was never that easy in Windows XP, tho maybe 7 is better.
And keeping up to date is 10x easier than windows of course.

I did have a problem with Video crashing occasionally on first install but a
subsequent kernel update fixed all that.

My tip for Ubuntu users (at least) is, don't upgrade to the newest release,
stay back one. And if you do upgrade, wait a full month for the most egregious
bugs to get fixed. I'll start looking at Natty when finished with my current
project.

------
Pewpewarrows
The author made mention of Mac OSX. I thought I would quickly mention that the
sole reason OSX is such a smooth *nix desktop experience is that they've only
developed it for an EXTREMELY limited selection of hardware. That's the key to
getting a good Linux desktop experience: very heavy pre-purchase research.
There are machines and configurations with near-seamless out of the box
experiences for your favorite Linux distro.

That said, OSX still has better application experience. I've used it for the
first time as my primary machine at work for the past few months, and coming
from a traditional Linux background, I'm sold. Strongly considering a MBP as
my next hardware purchase. Idealistically I'd prefer to go the OSS route,
throwing Arch or Ubuntu on a Lenovo, but it's really just not there yet.

~~~
BenSS
"developed it for an EXTREMELY limited selection of hardware"

I'm happy in OSX, but I'd love to see any linux distro partner/associate with
a particular hardware maker. Create an install & tested machine list that
'just works' on one line of hardware. Grow it from there.

~~~
beej71
Even though a variety of hardware makers already do this with Linux, it's a
different situation than with OSX. Apple can really dictate what goes where in
the hardware, but Dell etc. are all buying the latest, greatest, and most cost
effective hardware out there.

And since makers of that hardware, and makers of software for that hardware,
are so keen to have their stuff work with Windows, they do most of the heavy
lifting, leaving Dell etc to package stuff up and ship it out the door.

So while Dell etc might bust its ass getting a few Linux-based SKUs out there,
they're going to have to keep up the hard work making sure it runs on the
newest hardware, when the hardware manufacturers rarely care if Linux runs on
their stuff at all. And as anyone who has installed Linux on brand new
hardware knows, hiccups are not uncommon.

The balance of power difference is that with Windows, everyone else works hard
to make sure their stuff works with Windows. With Linux, Linux devs work hard
to make sure their stuff works with everyone else. And Apple just has to work
well with Apple and their few suppliers.

Linux does hit a lot closer to the Windows model with Android, however.

------
EGreg
Seriously what got me at the end was these comments about "well it's YOUR
fault! You should have XYZ123 and you have 8 years of experience? PLEASE"

Unless that kind of attitude and culture of blaming the user changes I am
afraid Linux won't be winning many desktop users from the mainstream.

------
trotsky
Linux unquestionably has problems - many of them revolving around hardware
vendors not being too worried about linux driver support quality and the
distros just not being able to QA enough platforms before release.

However, it sounds to me like this guy had just had enough with the platform
for whatever reason - and then proceeded to make a bunch of decisions that put
him on a collision course with failure. Not saying he didn't run into valid
issues, but someone with that much linux experience should have well known
about some of the issues he was about to run into.

Running Fedora 15: This got released a bit more than two weeks ago. Fedora
always seems to have a bunch of issues for me in the first month or two until
they get a bunch of user submitted problems ironed out. I know this well with
F15 right now - I'm running it and have run into power management problems,
nfs blocking hibernation, occasional extreme gui lag, an incompatibility with
gnome shell and fglrx etc. There are tickets open on these and I'm confident
many of them will get resolved. F14 has none of these issues now - if you want
a super stable and reliable desktop experience you generally shouldn't run a
brand new Fedora release.

Running gnome 3 / gnome shell: This is also brand new and it should be
somewhat of a nobrainer that there are going to be some issues. Early KDE 4
had similar issues. But then again so did Aero when Windows Vista was brand
new. Want a stable, polished experience? Run something that's been worked on
for a while - this is more or less true in any OS.

Driver issues with new hardware. Maybe it shouldn't be this way, but it's a
reality. If you don't want to fuss with drivers consider buying stuff that's
been out for a little longer. My ironlake gpu is supported 100% perfectly in
fedora 14. Then again I've seen F15 running on a sandy bridge gpu working just
great so I'm not sure what issue he's running into. It seems quite possible
that the dual gpus are confusing the issue. My laptop with dual gpus (ironlake
and radeon) has some issues until I ban the radeon driver from loading at boot
(it can still be loaded before switching to the amd gpu before X loads).

A lot of his rants about GPU drivers honestly don't sound very accurate to me.
Intel drivers are garbage? Not in my experience - it seems to me that the
Intel maintained open source drivers are some of the best of the open source
solutions and generally work out of the box on everything I use them on. Maybe
he's running into a problem because Sandybridge has really only been
practically in use for 4-5 months. AMD drivers are garbage? There is an
element of truth here but it's quite overstated.

If linux doesn't agree with him any longer that's perfectly understandable.
Hopefully he'll be happier under Windows. But to me it sounds like this guy
has some rage issues and has either warped his own perspective of the
situation due to them or is intentionally looking to make the situation look
worse to the reader.

/shrug

~~~
dkarl
There's an inherent problem with releases and the range of bug-tolerance in
the Linux community. It's hard to know when something is "ready," unless you
are a bleeding edge nightly builds kind of person.

For example, KDE4 caught a lot of flak for shoddiness and flakiness before its
first release. That happens to a lot of software, and it's completely unfair.
I criticized people for expecting KDE4 to be polished enough for a general
audience before the point-0 release. However, when it actually _was_ released,
it was still in terrible shape. I first installed 4.1 and gave up on it pretty
quickly. Not only was it woefully incomplete, but the aspects where 4.1 caused
me the most grief (cosmetic glitches, unpolished UI elements, non-intuitive
and non-discoverable customization) were supposed to be major focuses of the
KDE4 effort.

Then it was my turn to be criticized: KDE 4.0 and 4.1 were intended for early
adopters, and it wasn't until KDE 4.2 that KDE4 was deemed a good replacement
for KDE3. Well, I admit I didn't read the release announcements, but what the
hell is a major release supposed to mean, then? What does it mean to go from
beta or RC to point-zero if the point-zero release isn't ready for most users?
There's a rule of thumb that conservative users who absolutely need stability
are wise to sit out an x.0 release, but there sure as hell isn't any
convention that most users should wait for an x.2 release. And why did my
distro suggest 4.1 as the default KDE to install?

Clearly the open-source world needs a more explicit and widely-followed
convention for labeling releases. Projects are willing to cheat and release
x.0 versions that aren't ready for general consumption, just so they can make
an artificial deadline, keep up with their competition, or even just to ensure
plenty of users for testing a new version. And they have no shame about it. If
a project as high-profile as KDE does it, anyone can defend it based on their
example. There needs to be an explicit convention for labeling releases so
each user knows which release they should wait for.

~~~
cookiecaper
x.0 releases often occur because it's the only way to get a sufficient number
of testers. I remember reading this as the rationale for pushing KDE 4.0 when
they did, and it's generally true in all software no matter how well funded
the QA department is. You may experience a shoddier x.0 with OSS since most QA
budgets are around $0, but even products released by big companies (OS X and
Windows are two comparable products ;) ) have some serious problems when a new
major version is released.

------
kilroy123
As a developer and full time ubuntu user, (at work and at home), I feel I have
no room to complain about anything.

I don't give anything back to the community which works hard to provide, all
of us, with _free_ and pretty stable software.

I don't submit bugs.

I don't support a project and volunteer my own time to help support it.

I don't pay a dime for the many applications that ship with ubuntu.

Yes, it's frustrating at times when something doesn't work. But the reality
is, I can't really complain for something I don't work on, support, or pay
for.

If we all really want this amazing experiment, of running a free - and - open
desktop OS to succeed and flourish. We should probably find more ways to
support it. I know I should.

Major thanks to all of you who do though!

------
silverlake
I've used Linux since '93. It was easier in the early days because the
hardware was simpler. I lived in Emacs, so the desktop was irrelevant. The
turning point was laptops. It was a nightmare to get any distribution going
without hours of research and random driver tweaking. I ended up using Windows
98 on my laptop and rsh into desktop Linux. VMware was a godsend. I could
finally use Linux for development and Windows for everything else. Nowadays
Win7 (or OSX) + VMware's Unity makes the Linux desktop superfluous.

------
walrusty
I've avoided dealing with hardware issues by buying hardware from [Los Alamos
Computers][1], and avoided most sysadmin issues by using Ubuntu (an LTS
release).

[1]: <http://laclinux.com/gnu/Start>

As for desktop environments (Gnome, KDE), I wish they'd progress towards
simplicity, speed, and smaller size, rather than becoming larger, more
complex, and monolithic. They both should come to their senses and stop trying
to copy the most recent OS X and Windows desktops.

------
yoyar
I can understand switching to Mac if you are fed up with Linux, but I can't
imagine switching to Windows. I use Ubuntu happily everyday without any of the
problems that the author cited and when I'm forced to use Windows it is highly
annoying. The Macs look great but I am happy in my Ubuntu world. Windows is so
irritating to use I just don't understand the reasoning.

~~~
raganwald
I don't speak for the author, but I'd wager that his existing fleet of
hardware is the reason, especially the new machine he was complaining about.
He can install Windows on that machine and it will probably Just Work.

If he were setting out to buy a new machine and was choosing between one with
Windows and one with OX X, he might make a different decision.

------
mrjd
Agree. I'm on OSX. I've used many different Linux distros but they don't have
that 'just working' touch yet. I must admit, Ubuntu is pretty damn good
though. It sucks trying to make stuff work that just should on Linux. I'm sure
that one day though things will change.

It also needs better cohesion between design and code...

~~~
curious_man
If by "cohesion between design and code" you mean "more attention to the
design and usability aspects" then I agree.

What Linux still lacks in my opinion is a coherent and usable design. KDE4 and
Unity/Gnome3 are trying, but I think they are not there yet.

------
usaar333
I'm surprised so many people have such issues with linux. Running Kubuntu on
multiple machines, I've had no more issues than I had in the past with
Windows.

A lot of these complaints are hardware related. A quick guide based on my
experience with my new coworkers installing linux:

Lenovo Thinkpads: Work seamlessly

Dell Latitudes: Only minor issues

Macs: Hell setting up

~~~
gaius
If you buy a Mac and put Linux on it, wellm, ur doing it wrong. Why pay a
premium for OS/hardware integration and not use it? It's a silly as putting
Linux on an SGI and yes it runs but you lose all that fancy hardware.

~~~
usaar333
Dual-booting. Sometimes you need linux to develop in. And when you don't, you
can use OS/X.

~~~
gaius
VirtualBox is a much better way to get the same effect.

~~~
usaar333
What are the advantages?

We avoided it due to the many bugs we've seen reported with it and 3D
acceleration.

------
theclay
If it wasn't for Mint Linux standing on top of Ubuntu standing on top of
Debian with Debian's apt-get repository, I probably would have switched to
Mac.

Interestingly, most of my favorite desktop apps are written in C++ (Chrome,
Firefox, OpenOffice, Lyx, Kivio, CodeBlocks, Inkscape, etc...).

Anyone, else notice a similar pattern?

------
davidw
I've been using Linux as my desktop since 1997. Works for me, could be better,
but it does what I need.

------
wiz21b
I use linux because it's much closer to the the Free Software ideals. The
price to pay is the occasional quirk. But that put aside, it's a very pleasant
way to stay close to one's ideal (well, I hould remove those NVIDIA driver to
live up to them :-), I'm no RMS :-)

------
andrewcooke
it sounds like the final straw was the intel drivers - the list later in the
document seems to be from problems going back over the years.

and while i would like to say that opensuse these days does "just work", i too
have had problems with the current intel driver (open bug report, no response;
there is an older version in the X repo that works much better). this same
problem was mentioned in the thread here on the new driver contributions from
intel.

so what's happening with the intel driver? why is something so unstable being
released as part of standard distros?

------
goombastic
Is there a website that certifies laptops for linux compatibility?

~~~
elehack
LinuxCertified.com sells laptops preinstalled and tested with Linux. In former
days, they were rebrands of generally-cheap machines (e.g. rebranded
eMachines), but now they're selling a variety of unbranded machine as well as
certified Lenovo laptops.

~~~
Maro
That site looks like it's from 1997. (It looks like shit.) There's no way I'd
enter my CC#.

------
toadi
Switched over 2 years ago. Got tired to get everything working so I could just
work.

printing, sound, skype, ...

updates that break stuff, etc. Still like it on servers but not on my laptop
;)

------
lhnz
> I just want to get some work done, I don’t want to waste my time debugging
> all kind of crap.

This basically sums up how I feel about using Linux on my home machine. I've
used it for a couple of years now; I've reached the point in my life in which
I want to use my time to work or entertain myself. And I don't have that much
free time. It's a bad use of my time to constantly have to debug my OS; I
could be using Windows 7 with VM(s) running Linux. I would have all of its
benefits and I would be a lot more productive.

------
sofuture
Sure sounds like all the complaints are with Gnome or KDE. Who are all you
people not running tiling window managers?!

~~~
yesimahuman
I agree. I use Linux religiously for development and server setups. The only
part I don't like about it is using the desktop as I would Windows 7 or OS X.
And really the two things that bother me are just Unity and AMD drivers and
hardware. Without those the experience is just fine.

------
nekomata
This guy is a joke, I don't care if he was next to linus codding the kernel,
Linux is not only about usability, and I'm not quoting rms here, you have
problems of course, but you have a price to live free of DRM, spyware and
lock-in, KDE trinity is a example that no matter what the main devs of a
project does, it can be undone by motivated community.

~~~
bonch
If you think living free of DRM and lock-in are major concerns in the minds of
most desktop users, you spend too much time on Slashdot and other Linux
forums. What good is no DRM if your sound card doesn't work?

------
dimmuborgir
In most Linux forums, user stories like this appear time and again. In most
cases it turns out that the problems are unique for that particular person.

Have been a happy Ubuntu user (desktop + netbook) for the last 5 years without
a single glitch.

------
hmartz
This guy hasn't heard about Ubuntu?

------
Tichy
Um, check if your hardware is supported by Linux before you buy it?

~~~
dodecaphonic
Regressions abound. I've been bitten more than once by X server upgrades,
driver changes and kernel fix-ups that made my otherwise linux-friendly laptop
go hayware. For a year now I've had to run my system with KMS polling turned
of -- otherwise, I can't move my trackpad without getting 100% cpu usage by
kworker processes.

~~~
Tichy
That's unfortunately true :-(

------
johnny22
hmm. My plan was to get the t420s and run fedora 15 on it, but if
suspend/resume still doesn't work properly there I will be quite upset.

~~~
jrockway
I find this assertion very suspect, as the X220 I have has nearly identical
hardware, and suspend/resume works perfectly. But I use Debian with a 2.3.39
kernel; not sure what version F15 is at.

~~~
mattyb
2.6.38:

[http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-
US/Fedora/15/html/Release_N...](http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-
US/Fedora/15/html/Release_Notes/sect-Release_Notes-Changes_for_SysAdmin.html)

~~~
jrockway
That makes sense. Basically, when you buy new hardware, you have to be pretty
diligent about kernel releases for a few months after the hardware is
released.

If you want maximum compatibility with everything, go for hardware that's a
generation old. (Pre-Sandy-Bridge processors are pretty good and they are
still sold new. So it's not a _huge_ compromise if you value your time more
than you value having the absolute newest stuff.)

------
leon_
For me Linux offers the ultimate desktop experience: Tiling WMs.

Floating desktop environments like Gnome and KDE on the other hand feel like
bad OS X copies and definitely are not on of Linux' strengths.

On hardware: You have to watch out what you buy. If you just want to run the
most bleeding edge hardware then there will probably be some sort of driver
fuckup with linux. Though you might not be able to avoid the mentioned Optimus
technology in a months :(

On suspend/resume: I'm running Linux on an 2009 Macbook Pro and the
suspend/resume works like a charm. It needs a few seconds more than OS X to
wake up completely but it works. So I guess this is hardware dependent too and
not a general problem with lx.

Desktop software: If you want to run typical desktop software like Office,
Video Editing, etc. Then yeah - Linux is probably the wrong OS for you. I'm in
the lucky position to be able to do most of my work in terminals and VIM and
for that there's nothing better than a Linux box with a tiling WM.

I'd say Linux is not a general purpose desktop OS in its current state. But
there are use cases where linux rocks. (Even on the desktop.)

~~~
Wickk
In regards to the Tiling WM's:

<http://www.winsplit-revolution.com/> <https://github.com/ZaneA/HashTWM>
<http://windawesome.codeplex.com/>

OSX:

<http://mizage.com/divvy/> <http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/sizeup/>

~~~
daleharvey
as a now mac user who previously used xmonad + ubuntu, the tiling windows
experience on osx is amazingly poor with divvy / sizeup compared to a a proper
tiling wm like xmonad

~~~
Wickk
I would imagine so based on what I know about it, and I personally would need
someone to rip my WM from my cold dead hands but the option _is_ there

------
chrisjsmith
I tend not to use the desktop that much other than as a terminal multiplexer
and convenient container for firefox. I think for the highly technical and
remote users which seems to make up a fair proportion of the userbase, it's
good. The remainder of users just have no motivation to use anything other
than what they already do (i.e. MacOS/Windows).

TBH the only reason I NEED Linux is valgrind.

------
ignifero
What is more annoying is that instead of fixing things that are really useful
(e.g. printing, graphics drivers, hibernation, power management) they keep
adding lame eyecandy to all desktop enviroments, have you seen KDE lately, or
ubuntu unity? And they keep hiding the terminal! Who needs this crap that make
it look like a chinese mac-knockoff? I am sticking to xfce4 and ubuntu which
works adequately on thinkpads (but not without annoying problems) because i
need to use linux and i cannot go with mac's limitations. It's a shame that an
otherwise quite solid system gets so bad in the frontend.

~~~
FooBarWidget
The teams that work on the GUI are not the teams that work on printing and
graphics drivers.

------
bonch
Linux is a server operating system. The attempts to shoehorn it onto the
desktop have always felt hacky and cumbersome compared to commercial products.
After a few years, I just accepted this reality.

------
redtwo
Great post, I'll just add that besides the "technical" hassle, the linux
desktop experience has been poor at providing a nice, beautiful and clean
workspace. I just switched to OS X from years of using Linux as my primary
desktop environment. So please if you have any time you can spend on open
source software, don't create a new Linux distro, try to build a new clean
Desktop, come on, you geeks, don't tell me you can't do it. And I'll be more
than happy to switch back, and of course contribute, eventually. We don't need
new Linux distros as much as we need a new Desktop environment. I guess Ubuntu
got that, but they're still stuck with GTK..argh

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
"but they're still stuck with GTK..argh"

I don't think so. Unity is not GTK. They mainly use OpenGL code, that they
could show using a little GTK or Qt code.

~~~
redtwo
Unity is not GTK, Unity uses GTK.

------
ra
So, the straw that broke the camels back was woeful Nvidia Optimus.

To look at things another way, hardware vendors (Lenovo included) build and
test their systems for Windows because 95%+ of their customers will only ever
run Windows.

If you plan to run a Linux desktop you simply must research the hardware
before you buy, because your vendor certainly has not. Nvidia Optimus is just
one big, sad, ugly example of this.

------
nsomaru
I upped this before even reading the article.

