

Desktop Linux: Free is too expensive  - yycom
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/03/desktop-linux/print

======
vy8vWJlco
Linux distributions (and GNU, and BSDs) don't have to "win" the desktop. They
already have, with one important qualification: you have to care.

Mind you, if you are looking for one-size-fits-all, Windows fits the bill
perfectly. All the choices have been made. But if you value customization,
Linux and BSDs are your only choices.

(I mean, for Pete's sake, you can boot a room full of machines from a KNOPPIX
terminal server, running out of a virtual machine, and then migrate that
running VM to a system you just booted FROM it... And shut down the original!
We're not in Kansas anymore!)

Linux is certainly less appealing as a dogfood, despite concerted efforts, in
part because people can't take the brands they paid money for, along with
them. That's why "free is not cheap enough" for many people and efforts to
make Linux "sexy" can only go so far without this.

Commercial games are the epitomy of this and Linux doesn't get big commercial
games. (Maybe that's because Linux users are mostly zealots who haven't bought
a game in over a decade, because they are against DRM, etc... But that's a
tangent.)

I'm not sure winning the dogfood market is even a worthwhile goal.

There is actually a LOT of duplication of effort happening right now with so
many distributions trying make the Linux desktop "sexier," simpler, and more
like Windows. Maybe it's just me, but that feels like the wrong solution. When
I need Windows for "legacy" reasons (to run that proprietary accounting
software, because that's what my accountant accepts), I just fire up KVM or
Wine.

I don't think the Linux (BSD, etc) camp needs to take competing with Windows
so seriously. They've already won. There is simply nothing better, if you care
about code. You don't have to know everything, but you have to -- ehem --
RTFM. Non-coders simply aren't the primary audience. I know there are some who
would disagree.

If you run a shop that doesn't allow the user the option of installing Windows
software, or can standardize on document formats, Linux distributions (etc)
are an easy choice today. That's how dogfood works. People eat what's in front
of them.

Trying to sell Linux on the desktop without also being a fascist in this way,
will only cause people to compare things to Windows. It's a recipe for
complaints, in which case you might as well just feed them what they're really
asking for.

That said, I agree with the author's point about rolling upgrades. If, for
example, I'm working within a single package management framework (like APT or
RPM, etc) exclusively, I should be able to upgrade, down-grade, side-grade,
and any other grade imaginable. Reinstalls could and should be rare.

Ubuntu is 70 to 80% Debian packages, so why can't I "upgrade" (or downgrade)
from Debian to Ubuntu, or from Mint to Debian (or any other package system to
any other)?

I very much wish distribution projects 1) held onto a stronger sense of
individuality while also 2) cooperating more to allow this level of
interoperability. Simultaneous specialization and integration are not mutually
exclusive: it's what modular software design is all about.

------
JoshTriplett
I found the comment from Jonathan Corbet of LWN
(<https://lwn.net/Articles/489689/>) particularly telling: 'The article is a
little muddled, complaining about the "we know best" attitude while saying
that Linux lacks the integration seen in iOS or Android, but it's worth a
look.'

That does seem like a common double standard that people hold Linux to: on the
one hand people complain when it lacks coherent vision and whole-system
thinking, and on the other hand people complain when it _has_ coherent vision
and whole-system thinking.

~~~
chc
I think "has a coherent vision and whole-system thinking" is not even close to
a fair description of what the author characterizes as a "'we know best'
attitude." Having a coherent design does not mean you can't accommodate a wide
range of needs, and similarly, lack of flexibility does not indicate a
coherent design.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Having a coherent design requires making decisions, and sometimes those
decisions require ignoring niche preferences. <http://islinuxaboutchoice.com/>

~~~
chc
Yes, a thoughtful design might ignore some use case or another — so too might
a slipshod design. The amount of care put into a design and the degree of
freedom it offers are largely orthogonal issues. The point is, a desire for a
coherent and intelligent system design is not irreconcilable with a desire for
flexibility.

------
timClicks
The style of this article is all wrong. It takes a tremendously long time for
the author to get to the point.

There is an irrelevant history lesson of an experience jumping through distros
to start with. Then the main argument of the piece is unclear. It begins with
(probably justified) moaning about device drivers, but is followed up with a
declaration that Linux's problems are caused by recent UI changes. The author
then laments that the update cycle is too fast.

Why hasn't someone told this person to stick to long term stable distros, such
as RHEL or Ubuntu LTS?

------
readme
> Linux Mint requires users to do a complete re-installation, rather than a
> rolling incremental update

Um, and the author's solution to this is installing Windows?

I'm sorry, but at least when Linux Mint needs updates I am free to update when
I want. Windows will pop up a nag screen and interrupt your work, even
threatening to perform the update if you don't delay it. Anyone who has ever
done work on a Windows machine has met this inconvenience. On the other hand,
Linux Mint doesn't have it.

Also, his complaint is that it's not rolling release? Uh, neither is windows.
Lets see, Windows xp, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, yeah, it's rolling
release alright. At least with Linux you don't also need to buy new hardware
each time you update the OS.

~~~
eropple
I'm sorry, but your post is a little disingenuous. No, Windows doesn't do a
rolling release--but, three things that mitigate this:

1) Windows releases are much slower. Most Linux distros have a new-shiny
problem: I can't trivially (by which I mean, click a button and emphatically
_not_ muck with the command line or PPAs or equivalent user-hatefulness) get
the newest OpenOffice or Firefox or Chrome or whatever on an older version of
Mint (or Ubuntu--and dist-upgrading Ubuntu is a dicey proposition if you like
having a working computer).

2) For the most part (there was some wackiness with architecture changes),
Windows will do something much, much closer to the Right Thing on a
reinstallation. Your data's where you left it. Your applications are still
installed and work. It is not, on Windows, taken for granted that you must
pave your machine (yes, I know you can put /home on another partition, that's
only part of the problem) in order to upgrade.

3) The idea that you "need to buy new hardware each time you update" Windows
is just silly. I have a laptop sitting here. 1GHz Pentium III, 512MB of RAM. I
use it for playing old DOS games. It runs Windows 7 a lot more pleasantly than
it did XP (which surprised me, but there you go). It may be _way more
pleasant_ to use on new hardware, sure--but so is Mint.

And by the way--you can set Windows Update to automatically do it when you
shut down, and never nag you. (That this isn't the default is probably, on
balance, a bad idea, but the capability is trivially there.)

Put your hackles down, dude. The mud-slinging helps no one.

~~~
readme
> 2) For the most part (there was some wackiness with architecture changes),
> Windows will do something much, much closer to the Right Thing on a
> reinstallation. Your data's where you left it. Your applications are still
> installed and work. It is not, on Windows, taken for granted that you must
> pave your machine (yes, I know you can put /home on another partition,
> that's only part of the problem) in order to upgrade.

You must not have installed Linux Mint or Ubuntu lately, because they both do
this.

> 1) Windows releases are much slower. Most Linux distros have a new-shiny
> problem: I can't trivially (by which I mean, click a button and emphatically
> not muck with the command line or PPAs or equivalent user-hatefulness) get
> the newest OpenOffice or Firefox or Chrome or whatever on an older version
> of Mint (or Ubuntu--and dist-upgrading Ubuntu is a dicey proposition if you
> like having a working computer).

Not sure why this is an issue, because "shiny-new" Linux distributions come
out of the box with a quality web browser and LibreOffice, and the versions
are always recent enough and updateable. That's more than I can say for
Windows, which comes with Internet Explorer and no office software by default,
unless you count wordpad, which is clearly not what we are talking about.

I understand in an enterprise setting those arguments might not make sense,
but in a home-desktop setting, they certainly do.

~~~
eropple
> You must not have installed Linux Mint or Ubuntu lately, because they both
> do this.

I've installed both recently, thanks. Neither save your system state on a
reinstall--or if they do, it's certainly not the default and isn't made clear
when you're doing the install.

The only acceptable thing is to reinstall and _properly_ reconfigure any user-
installed packages when they do a pave-and-reinstall, and while that's
nontrivial, it's the only way to deal with the "oh, lol, reinstall everything
every six months" clusterfuck in which Linux is currently enmeshed.

It seems more likely that nobody will do anything about it and instead we can
have even more self-absorbed gnashing about Linux being primed to take over
the desktop.

Windows, on the other hand, does this by virtue of _not_ screwing with
installed software. Loose coupling, believe it or not, has its advantages.

> Not sure why this is an issue

I think you misunderstand me. In order to _get_ the new and shiny
applications, I have to dist-upgrade. Which hilariously and regularly _breaks
like fucking mad_. This means that, no, I can't really stay on an LTS release
(and most people won't want to), because to keep up to date, I have to either
play Russian roulette with dist-upgrade or... _pave the entire thing_. Not the
case for Windows, which is what I was saying.

------
mchatfie
I think it's very much a matter of resources. Windows will always win because
it has the greater market share. Regardless, they still manage to produce a
dud every second release; think Windows ME, Vista, Windows 8 (pre-emptive).

My work uses a linux inspired toolchain, complete with emacs setup, however,
we use the Microsoft compiler and target the Windows platform specifically
because our users demand it.

My home PC is an ArchLinux machine, however, I'm still plagued by the
inability to play my videos without tearing on my dual screen monitor setup
with hardware acceleration; something that works perfectly well on Windows.
I'm sure NVIDIA could provide a suitable solution but there's no money involed
so they don't.

Linux will always have it's place in the server world, but as far as end user
PC's go; I feel it's days are numbered.

------
Yxven
The real reason Linux lags windows is application support. Windows 8 seems to
have every intention of being a train wreck, but Linux will benefit little
because users will not upgrade from Windows 7. Linux is not an alternative as
long as users cannot run what they want on Linux.

I only see 4 ways for linux to actually gain on the desktop for the average
user. 1) Truly painless cross-platform support for most languages. 2) A huge
shift to web-based applications. 3) Microsoft seppukus. 4) Wine magically
becomes painless and transparent.

Two is the only alternative that has a reasonable chance of happening.

~~~
chc
That would make sense if there weren't another non-Windows operating system
with about 10 times Linux's marketshare on the desktop. But somehow Apple has
managed to get 10% of the market without any of that stuff happening, so I
don't see how that can really be the reason.

------
sudobear
These rants seem to follow a similar pattern. First the author qualifies his
experience with Linux by claiming he started in the nineties with some ancient
distro. Then he'll lay on the praise of how great Linux was or could of been
or whatever. And then they all seem to end with the same nonsense about how
Linux can't "win" or "suceed" until it is adopted by the corporate market. As
if going corporate is what FOSS were somehow all about. Fine, whatever, go
back to Windows then. You probably never left.

------
stephengillie
The window for Desktop Linux has closed. The age of the desktop is ending;
smartphones and tablets satisfy the computing needs of many people, and more
app markets and low-cost devices will only increase this.

~~~
warmwaffles
The same was said about paper when computers were invading the office space.
The desktop will not die, nor will it go away any time soon.

------
Intermediate
>a proprietary iPad-like interface called Unity Unity is proprietary? Really?

~~~
DanBC
"proprietary - Of or relating to an owner or ownership."

Unity is developed by Canonical. Canonical "owns" Unity. It is a frustrating
choice of word, considering "proprietary" has a generally more specific
meaning within computing. (more closed, trademarked, protected, etc.)

------
orthecreedence
"Popular linux distros are frustrating." Ok, don't use one of the "user-
friendly" distros. Get deb/slack. Problem solved. Also, heaven forbid you
compile your own desktop system with the settings you want. Do you have to
have the latest? Why not pick the version you liked best and install it? Isn't
that the point of linux?

I personally don't care for Ubuntu or any distro that tries really hard to
copy apple (or worse, come up with their own "better" way of doing things), so
I can't relate. I've always used Slack w/ XFCE and never ever once (save the
first two weeks I spent learning it) had a problem.

Linux is a complicated system, and you have to expect to spend some time
learning it. If your distro's defaults are not to your liking you can either
a) change them or b) install another distro. I understand the desire to bring
the Window/OS experience to the casual linux desktop user, but this article
seems to pick some distros which the auther has trouble with, and apply them
to linux (to be honest though, the article was a bit long-winded and I skimmed
some).

~~~
orthecreedence
I hate everyone on HN

