OSNews

"Almost every day for the past several months I have asked myself why I'm even bothering with Linux on the Desktop any more. I love it as a server, but as a Desktop - I don't think it's improving in the areas that matter most. KDE and Gnome get a little better with each new release, but they are still dog slow compared to Windows. (I can hear it now. "You're crazy. *My* system runs circles around Windows! You Microsoft troll") uhh... yeah, sure it does. Just keep telling yourself that sparky."

That's a gross and vast generalization that is not true for everyone. I run Gnome and it's not "dog slow compared to Windows." I wouldn't claim that it "runs circles around Windows" either, but as far as I am concerned, your statement does not apply to me. And it does not apply to most Linux users that I know either...so it might be a problem on your end.

"It's definitely true that Linux is virtually free of viruses and spyware. (Largely due to the fact that it's install base is too insignificant for bad guys to bother with.) But that really isn't a compelling reason to keep me away from Windows. I've got a router/firewall to protect me from worms, I know better than to open e-mail attachments, I know to check for security updates, etc..."

Right. And does your router/firewall protect you from trojans, rogue Active X controls, etc.? Or do you not surf the web? Windows 2K/XP Pro can be made mostly secure, but you'll need to apply the NSA security recommendations which are in the 100's of pages long. How many people can do that? Certainly not a sign of "user-friendly" computing. As for XP Home/9X/ME? Dump it and upgrade. It can't be done by mere mortals. LOL.

"In my own experience, *Desktop* Linux (servers are a totally different issue), but *Desktop* Linux isn't any more stable than Windows XP. In fact, I think it's pathetically unstable. X hangs regularly. If I'm lucky I can ssh into my machine, kill X, and restart it. If I'm not lucky, I have to reset my computer."

Again, probably a problem at your end. I experience none of this.

"The UI feels like it has been doused with mollasis. Everything is laggy/slow. (This is the part where people blame KDE/Gnome bloat. Well - I switched to OpenBox for over a month. Window movement, resizing, redrawing is still painfully slow."

Maybe you need to upgrade to a modern Nvidia card? Because I have a bargain Nvidia FX 5200 and I don't experience any of the above either.

"Face it ... X is a joke. Linux needs a new windowing engine.)"

X is not a joke. It runs fine on my machine. It does not render as fast as Direct X w/o extensions, but hey it wasn't designed for that.

"(Oh - I'm running Gentoo by the way. Stage 1 install. And I've spent HOURS tweaking everything for performance. So there goes the argument about running an unoptimized distro.)"

Just because you run Gentoo doesn't mean you're running an optimized distro. Using the wrong USE and CFLAGS can actually SLOW DOWN your system. And just because you spent "HOURS" doing it doesn't mean you've exhausted all of the options or have done it correctly.

"Every time I boot my computer, I wait and watch, and then breathe a sigh of relief when X actually comes up. At least 20% of the time, I just get a black screen. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE does nothing. CTRL+ALT+F1 does nothing."

Nothing like that here either. Problem at your end?

"Likewise, every time I come to my computer in the morning, the screens are black because the power management has kicked on. That's good. But I tap my mouse and wait to see if I get X back or not. Linux likes to "hard lock" while sitting here doing absolutely nothing over night. When that happens, I can't even ssh into my machine to shut it down gracefully."

Sorry to hear that. Nothing like that ever happens here either. Problem at your end?

"Totem/gxine/other mpg players ... laughable. When they work, they are sorta OK. But just as often as not, they don't work. (Windows Media Player blows, but it always works.)"

Complain to the authors, make bug reports, or make it better yourself. That's the spirit of OSS. Just because you use Linux on the desktop doesn't automatically make you an idiot incapable of independent thought. As for Windows Media Player, it doesn't blow and it doesn't always work here. Sometimes it will crash for apparently no reason. I personally prefer mplayer on Linux. Never had a problem with mpg, DivX, etc. Only had problems with RT, WMA, and QT...but those are proprietory so it's understandable.

"ALSA, OSS, OSS emulation, gstreamer, etc... it's hard enough understanding what that junk even is, let alone how to properly manage it."

So don't. Don't use Gentoo then. Use a distro. where you don't have to care about it. It's like buying a complicated book and then complaining that it's too complicated.

"So where was I? Oh yeah. Linux rules. w00t. In your face Bill Gates. boo-ya, boo-ya to the all mighty penguin. Hail Linus! (sarcasm)"

Sorry, but this doesn't help you in your claim that you're not a troll. I can see where some people would mistaken you for a troll. It's probably just the frustration talking so I'll give you the benefit of a doubt. But since I have none of the problems you describe, maybe it's because your hardware configuration is incompatible with Linux or you're not setting up Gentoo correctly. I've experienced some hardware configurations that have made Win XP unstable also so it's not too much of a far-fetched idea.

The last time I had any major problems with X crashing the whole system or even crashing at all was probably greater than 5 years ago. This is true despite of the fact that I run Debian unstable on the desktop so I can't even begin to relate to your experiences. Linux is rock solid on the desktop as far as I am concerned.