

Linux and Reliability - dman
http://deepankar.posterous.com/linux-and-reliability

======
hapless
Unlike the kernel, desktop development for Linux is done almost wholly by
volunteers in their spare time. There aren't many paid developer seats for
KDE, Gnome, et al.

Bold new interfaces, new APIs, and complete reinventions of the desktop
metaphor are really exciting hobby projects for these brave volunteers.

Perfecting backwards compatibility, re-implementing buggy behaviour from prior
versions, and ensuring ABI stability do not make exciting projects. These are
the torturously painful, labor-intensive foundations of Microsoft's success.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
As another issue, my mother-in-law's SuSE 9.1 machine has stopped playing
videos, and she can no longer provide feedback on eBay. The latter is
important, so I started the process up upgrading the installation of Flash.

Enter Dependency Hell.

It's still not working, and now several other things are broken. It looks like
I'll have to provide a complete re-install, but it's unclear that I can find a
version of Linux that still works on the hardware.

I hate system administration, and more and more I'm forced to tinker with
machines.

Rhetorical Question: Why can't they "Just Work" ?

I'm seriously considering moving to a Mac and trying to get everything I want
working there. Joy. Another month of tinkering instead of producing.

~~~
dman
Totally agree with you. I also believe that operating systems should embrace
the chrome way of just updating silently by default. Power users can disable
this.

~~~
roadnottaken
This is only OK when it comes from a wise and benevolent company (e.g.
Google). I would not want to encourage this sort of behavior in all software
(think Skype, Acrobat, etc... ugh!)

~~~
arianb
Wise and benevolent? I wouldn't encourage this behaviour from any company.
It's risky and has a high chance of completely alienating your users if you
don't get it exactly right, and and something breaks.

------
kijinbear
This guy has a point. Ubuntu's constant meddling with the Desktop and adoption
of immature software as default is why I left it for Linux Mint. LM 10 has
"just worked" for me so far, and LM Debian Edition also look spromising. By
contrast, Ubuntu breaks a few important things every time they release a new
version.

I don't plan to consider returning until Ubuntu Desktop Edition "stabilizes" a
bit. But that doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon, what with the
impending switch to Unity, and the rumored switch to Wayland, and ever tighter
integration with Canonical's proprietary offerings...

GNU/Linux is already rock solid at the base system level, but some distros
just ruin the Desktop experience.

~~~
cas
I have used Ubuntu Desktop (Lucid & Maverick) everyday for years now and
certainly don't have any stability issues, I don't see how changing to Mint
(based heavily on Ubuntu) would affect stability.

I also have to ask what is this immature software as default you talk about?

~~~
kijinbear
It's usually not the base system that causes issues. Most instabilities I've
come across have to do with distro-specific UI customizations and proprietary
add-ons such as Flash.

For example, Ubuntu Natty Desktop Edition will come with Unity as the default
UI, which is a relatively immature platform that Canonical is trying to push
hard. Linux Mint will probably stick with GNOME and KDE though.

Of course it's always possible to switch to something that is more stable, but
that's not exactly "It works out of the box."

------
SecurityMatters
There is very little reason to dread this move. I am not sure I like Unity
yet, but I applaud Ubuntu for thinking outside the box. If you install Ubuntu
11.04 and want the old user interface, you can pretty much get it. Just
install and then at the login screen, choose the classic desktop. Then, run
the command metacity --replace. On one Narwhal test machine, I created a
startup application to run this command on each boot. This gives you a desktop
almost exactly like the old desktop. So, you can have the old or the new.
Choice is nice and everyone is served.

------
jshen
This seems to be what the IPad and Chrome OS are doing.

Here's where linux fails on this front. Often it doesn't just work out of the
box. I have to figure out how to install proprietary drivers, then I had to
figure out how to configure it to get basic visual features like the drop
shadow around the top most window. There is still an obnoxious flicker when I
use desktop switching, the sound stops working after I do an update, etc. This
all happened to me on the last two versions of ubuntu on a dell optiplex. So I
went back to my mac.

~~~
dman
Looks like redhat/novell/ubuntu should invest in multimedia codecs, sound
architecture, wireless drivers and graphics driver support over all else.

~~~
arianb
A lot of it comes from hardware manufacturers and other providers. MP3 support
on Linux was terrible for a long time because of all the patent mess.

Talk to companies like Broadcom or AMD / NVIDIA about making their components
work much better with Linux, first. A lot of the issue is on their end, with
not providing interfaces and drivers for distros to include.

Canonical, Novell, and everyone else try their best to include what they can
for their distros but it's hard when the companies making these computers
don't help much.

~~~
arianb
AFAIK, Canonical tries to bundle Ubuntu with only free (read: open-source)
software, to promote the idea that a totally open-source system can be a
viable alternative to Windows / Mac. We all know that's a load of bollocks,
though, as inertia keeps us using Flash Player and MP3 instead of HTML5 and
OGG, for instance.

Boxee, Google TV, and such are able to license Netflix and use their
technology because it's much harder to hack them. Netflix has been fighting
movie companies for years now to get full Linux support because Silverlight is
the only player technology with the DRM to satisfy the studios that movies
can't be copied from the stream, and Microsoft obviously has no intention of
making it available on mainstream Linux distributions.

I believe that Boxee, Google TV, and 360/PS3 all use other technologies, but
that can be inherently less secure because it's harder to get inside of them.
Also, they can afford to pay the monstrous fees to work with Netflix and
develop a solution that will satisfy all of Netflix's backers.

Licensing technology, especially with all of the patent stuff that's been
going on lately, is an incredible undertaking and costs a lot of money, and
many companies are unwilling to license to companies like Canonical because
Linux is a huge administrative headache due to its openness and peoples'
desire to have open systems.

At least, that's how I understand all of this. I could be wrong.

~~~
dman
I agree, but Redhat is staring at a billion dollar annual revenue. Innovation
follows platforms that people want to use in their own spare time. Redhat
needs to make this happen in the long term or they risk ending up like Solaris
where no one wants to use them after 5pm.

~~~
SecurityMatters
There are a couple of different problems here. RedHat is actually pretty good
in that they only include open software in their distribution. I, and many
others, would not trust the OS nearly as much if they included things like
Flash or other binary only blobs. These binary blobs could be doing anything.
We know Flash works against the user's interest, and who knows what other
binary piece might do?

Secondly, how would they license? Most of the code they could license requires
a charge per copy. RedHat , Ubuntu and most Linux distros encourage the free
redistribution of their disks. You can download it for free(aside from
bandwidth charges which RedHat is not involved with. They don't even know how
many copies are really in use. So, either they would have to change their
whole distribution model or they would have to pay for something that is
fairly nebulous. Fluendo has published a version of the MP3 codec that can be
distributed for free. They purchased a license that has no per copy costs, but
that is unusual to even have that as an option.

Finally, the RedHat company produces the RedHat distro for commercial use and
the Fedora distro for home use. There is an active community of Fedora users
who happily use it after 5 PM and you can find how to get most codecs working
in Fedora, if you search a bit. The freedoms associated with Linux make it
much more pleasant to use that any proprietary solution available today. I
would also say Linux is more powerful and easy to use, but I can see how not
everyone would agree about those, since your experience and workflows can
drive those comparisons. OpenSolaris was making good progress. It is a shame
it was killed a little before it got to the point where it was usable for
everyday duty for the average person.

~~~
dman
I think a large majority in the world is in the "I dont mind paying 2 bucks
now and then but dont make me go searching for a solution on a technology
forum because I couldnt care less about how to get it to work".

