Adam Wiggins has put together 10 reasons of what he believes it is wrong with Linux today. Our Take: Some of his points seem correct, but others are already fixed for most distributions. I really had a smile in my face reading his point No 5. It is exactly what I was talking about 2 weeks ago, and only the Amiga, OSX and BeOS-6/Dano people were able to follow of what it really means to have a smooth desktop! Read the discussion and explanation starting here and especially here.
Top 10 Things Wrong With Linux, Today
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
some comments from a kde pov:
1. ok, agreed, but people are working on improving konqui
2. agreed, but only distributions can change this
3. look at kde’s printing software, it comes quite close. part of the problem is that the kernel does not tell you the device’s hardware id, so you can not configure detect the device automatically. This will change with 2.6.
4. There is a KDE project working on task-centric menus
5. agreed (and yes, osx is backbuffered)
6. yes, theer is some need for it. Also for a similar problem: you click on close, but the app hangs (=does not react). But fixing most of these problems require changing the application or at least the toolkit.
7. KDE 3.1 has several mechanisms to share files (unfortunately too many right now)
8. ALSA does not solve the sound server problem. BUt sound is a problem, definitely.
9. like Emacs does?
10. Auto-conf is on the todo list for xfree 5. And changing the resolution is not easy as it sounds, because apps must be prepared for that. The window manager could move windows, but this does not help with apps that save either the screen resolution or window position and use it later. BTW, i dont think that changing the resolution on the fly is a worthwhile feature, it will be less important as fixed screen displays (LCD/TFT) are getting more important
1. No ‘best’ browser.
You talking about web browsers? Well what do you want? A browser with so many features that little script kiddies can execute system commands with javascript?
2. Prompting for a filesystem scan.<?I>
I didn’t read the explanation.
[i]3. Printing needs to be easier to configure.
printf(“your text here
“);
Oh you mean on paper. Yeah it would be nice especially for office workers.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.[i]
My philosophy is learn by doing. You said “for users to [i]find out how to do things.” That’s an indication that some users are just too lazy to spend the time to learn how to do things.
5. Cleaner redraws.
? I never had such a problem.
6. Die stray processes, die!
Too bad the kill command doesn’t have a wild card like *.*
7. Easy way of sharing files.
I had set up home directories for Win 2000 users at my office so they can store/retreive files from our Win 2000 server, but no one uses it and they’re too dumb to understand that using “H:” is just like using “C:”.
8. Sound support.
PC speaker not enough for you? Even when I don’t want my sound card to be installed, it somehow gets installed anyways and as soon as I finish installing the distro and boot to the desktop, there’s that starup chime.
9. No common editor which supports “soft wrapping.”
No comment.
10. No easy way to configure X – especially change resolution on the fly.
My gripe is that even when I change the config, after rebooting the changes don’t take affect.
>5. Cleaner redraws.
>? I never had such a problem.
You never had such a problem because you have never seen a smooth desktop. After you use it for an hour, you don’t want to go back.
The problem with the GNU/Linux OS is that the kernel folks don’t give a damn about userland issues. Audio is a perfect example of something on Linux which won’t be fixed until the kernel folks and the userland folks get together and come up with a useful API. The difference is between having a driver for a card and having an intrastructure for audio playback, mixing, etc. On BeOS, I can have as many audio sources as my CPU will support running at the same time and mixed together in real-time. On Linux, I can have _one_ which skips often and doesn’t start/stop when I tell it too.
Maybe Cosmoe or BlueEyed OS will fix the Linux userland problems??? For the indefinite future, I’m sticking with (Open)BeOS for all of my A/V work.
11 – Too many distributions and no uniform package managers amoung all of them.
His point on sharing files easily is _very_ valid, I still look for an _easy_ to setup distributed filesystem…
Soo.. there are some nice plugins to konqueror, but you still have to setup/start the daemons(smb/nfs).. And the http filesharer.. must be a joke.
And did I mention I also would want good security and possibly single signon feature..
Better wait for NFSv4 to come along, and some nice integration for it(as well as kerberos) in KDE.
>11 – Too many distributions and no uniform package managers amoung all of them.
Very _very_ true. Getting _users_ to install software is not an easy task. You might teach them how to install an RPM, then
they complain about dependenices, and you realize after 2 hours of asking and digging that they are trying to install a mdk rpm on their RH system..
I say thumbs up to UnitedLinux. It might resolve much of this,
but time will show. Shame on Mandrake for not joining…
Hey, it’s me, your local representative of the X Haters Union #23400.
And once again I’m here to be flamebait and stand up for whoever else it is that is currently ripping on X.
I don’t get why *IX users blindly stand by and support X when it’s obvious that XFree configuration is, shall we say, less than optimal?
What Joe user wants: the display server to determine, if by guessing or via a Plug ‘n’ Play monitor, a list of supported resolutions and frequencies. From this list they wish to select a resolution that they wish to use.
What Joe user doesn’t want: Manual configuration of supported resolutions, the use of esoteric key combinations to switch resolution, which leaves the display server operating with a virtual resolution.
My take: I agree with Joe user. I’d rather have a dialog that displays what resolutions are available so I can select what to use.
The redraw issue definately gets to me. XFree and OpenWindows at least does not do a good job. After seeing how beautiful OS X handles it, well, there’s really no turning back for me.
10. Auto-conf is on the todo list for xfree 5. And changing the resolution is not easy as it sounds, because apps must be prepared for that. The window manager could move windows, but this does not help with apps that save either the screen resolution or window position and use it later. BTW, i dont think that changing the resolution on the fly is a worthwhile feature, it will be less important as fixed screen displays (LCD/TFT) are getting more important
Every other mainstream display server handles changing resolution flawlessly. The inability to do so seems… well, an X specific deficiency.
You never had such a problem because you have never seen a smooth desktop. After you use it for an hour, you don’t want to go back.
I used Mac OS X. Looks like and smooth, but slow, and the look doens’t fit me. So, naturally, I went back. 😀
BeOS6/Dano also uses backbuffing and it is not slow. The slowness of OSX doesn’t have to do a lot with this feature in this case.
It was a good article and equally appropriate to most of the freenixes. I would say the bulk of these problems could be solved if developers worked together more instead of competing so much. Competition is good in the commercial world, I’m not sure how great it is in the open source world.
I mean really, how many different bloody web browsers do we need? Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, Galeon, Nautilus, etc — and all of them have such similiar goals that it’s silly they’re competing against one another.
Speed problems too. Above all things, I would like to see improvements on the speed of the desktop. In my experience, except for Gentoo, all the Major linux desktops tend to be on the sluggish side. OS X had the same problem when it first debutted, but I hear things are much better now.
i agree with eugenia with regards to mac os x. apple’s developers are working hard to have quartz (the rendering system) optimal. infact, the developer’s have incorporated something called quartz extreme which will offload the window drawing to the gpu on the graphics card (be it mordern nvidia or ati cards). its a wonderful feature that hopefully one day will make it to linux (perhaps once drivers are natively written for linux will such features show up…).
“What Joe user wants: the display server to determine, if by guessing or via a Plug ‘n’ Play monitor, a list of supported
resolutions and frequencies. From this list they wish to select a
resolution that they wish to use. ”
And you should be able to select this for each program.
Care to elaborate?
I meant backbuffering. It was a typo.
For explanation on the smooth desktop, read the last link on the article above.
“What Joe user wants: the display server to determine, if by guessing or via a Plug ‘n’ Play monitor, a list of supported
resolutions and frequencies. From this list they wish to select a
resolution that they wish to use. ”
And you should be able to select this for each program.
Are you saying you want to be able to select a different resolution and refresh rate for every program? Either you dont know what you are asking, or well, think that headaches would be fun. I also pitty your poor monitor.
“I mean really, how many different bloody web browsers do we need? Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, Galeon, Nautilus, etc”
Galeon and is nothing but a shell for Mozilla, Nautilus is not a browser and can only embed Gecko to view HTML files and Opera is proprietory so it has nothing to do with competition in free software. This leaves you with exactly two: Mozilla and Konqueror. Both are needed. You will most probably understand that Mozilla will not stop because of Konqueror. And the Konqueror guys will never adopt Gecko because they believe in what they are doing and they get a lot more KDE integrity out of this. Again, we have one thing working great with Gtk (especially Galeon) and one thing working great with Qt/KDE. Calling this too much choice or fragmentation is silly. I still remember the time where Netscape 4 was everything we got and the lack of a decent browser was our main problem. Now this (major!) problem is solved and people complain about too much choice. =) Completely silly.
I ran Xconfigurator, and checked quite a few resolutions.
Pressing Ctrl++ or Ctrl+- (+/- on the numeric pad) now flawlessy changes resolution.. And need for anything easier?
p wrote:
I say thumbs up to UnitedLinux. It might resolve much of this, but time will show. Shame on Mandrake for not joining…
Mandrake already belongs to “UnitedRedhat”. Their distribution is based on RedHat, which means they are compatible with the most popular target for applications, which addresses your complaint about conflicts. Why didn’t UnitedLinux swallow hard, adopt RedHat, and tweak? Yes, the answer is obvious. Then there would be even less reason to choose them over RedHat, and they would like to make a profit. But Joe User doesn’t care about that…
“9. No common editor which supports “soft wrapping.””
Vim, Gedit(2) and Moleskine all do this for me. Or did I misunderstood him? They wrap at lineend and rewrap when I change something or resize the window.
In my experience, except for Gentoo, all the Major linux desktops tend to be on the sluggish side.
So I’m guessing you weren’t using any sort of desktop environment. What window manager was provided? I’m failing to see how Gentoo is some sort of magical silver bullet that made X fast.
Slowness is just an X issue. The X server will get lagged while sending redraw events to applications, and so you’ll sit there and wait couple seconds for a window to redraw. It’s certainly less than ideal.
Let’s not forget that use of shared memory is provided through an application specific extension which few applications utilize. So all the redrawing commands have to be passed through a socket, a less than ideal IPC channel.
This is an issue I’ve seen in Windows as well, with individual applications. An application will start blocking and not process the redraw messages, at which point its entire surface just gibs. If I’ve gathered correctly from observation, any time you move another window over an application like Internet Explorer or Photoshop, Windows sends redraw messages to that application which in turn has to redraw the few pixels resulting from your displaced window. Repeat this about a thousand times for when you’re dragging a window and you get some visible display lag, another factor contributing to the choppiness seen from moving windows.
A poorly designed display server architecture can thus consequently lead to a lot of user confusion. When an unresponsive application ceases to process redraw events, all aspects of it simply vanish in Windows and X. Also, a user may click on a control and find it unresponsive, thus bringing about the whole “I clicked the OK button but nothing happened” bit. MacOS X did an excellent job solving this by using animated controls. When an application becomes unresponsive, the animated controls will also stop, an indication that something is wrong.
I ran Xconfigurator, and checked quite a few resolutions.
Pressing Ctrl++ or Ctrl+- (+/- on the numeric pad) now flawlessy changes resolution.. And need for anything easier?
Yes, we are all aware of this. It is often broached by X advocates when the subject of resolution handling is broached.
There are many, many problems with this. Here are just a few:
X does not provide any sane means of autodetecting what resolutions are available on the monitor which is currently connected. It assumes your hardware configuration is static and unchanging. The available resolutions are configured a single time and remain static thereafter, unless a user chooses to rerun the configuration utility, which must be done at the command line.
It does not automatically handle reselecting a driver for if the video hardware changes.
Ctrl + and ctrl – do not resize available desktop space, merely switch the mode the monitor is operating at. My personal preference is definately for the former. No other display server in existance does the latter, which is incredibly annoying and useless.
Ctrl + and ctrl – provide no way of selecting the frequency the monitor operates at. X tries to do this automatically and often fails.
Ctrl + and ctrl – do not display what resolution the monitor is operating at when you select a given resolution.
Ctrl + and ctrl – are also esoteric key combinations, which I mentioned earlier. Joe User will probably never find them. What Joe User needs is a display properties dialog which provides him a nice, sane list of resolutions and frequencies for him to choose from.
In conclusion, handling of hardware and selecting resolutions could be far more automated than what X provides. I don’t blame it, it’s legacy code which got its start on systems with framebuffers and fixed frequency monitors.
Today we live in a world of multiple display adapters and Plug ‘n’ Play monitors. There shouldn’t be a need for a configuration utility for the display server because everything can be automated.
BeOS supports up to 32 different desktops, and lets you select the resolution for each desktop, which is pretty impressive, but I don’t know *any* OS that will let you select independent resolutions for each program! If one did that, too, would be pretty darned impressive, if hard on the eyes.
“So I’m guessing you weren’t using any sort of desktop environment. What window manager was provided? I’m failing to see how Gentoo is some sort of magical silver bullet that made X fast.”
But I can definetly confirm that. I noticed it immidiatly after launching my Gentoo X environment (and I really didn’t expect it and nobody told me that it would speed up X so much before). Everything felt responsive and snappy and still does. I’m using Metacity and the Gnome2 environment (coupled with Gnome1 of course). I had not a single “unresponsiveness” so far. Sure, moving large and complex windows still “chokes” from time to time but it still feels so smooth that I can’t imagine that any user would ever be confused by that.
Of course this is on a decent CPU (P3-1000) but that’s almost low-end nowadays. While I still believe that most other application/window servers will outperform X, it’s perfectly usable and fun. And performance is really not the most important thing, as long as it’s “fast enough”.
This had to be one of my top favorite things about BeOS, being able to assign different resolutions and color bit depths to multiple workspaces. Perfect for testing out web pages and graphics in different views. Especially nice that there was no fuss or muss about it – you clicked in the workspace chooser or did the “alt-F(n)” keystroke and *wham* there you were in the new spot.
Especially neat was being able to drag a window to a new workspace by cliking onthe title tab and holding down the mouse while hitting the alt key combination.
“Especially neat was being able to drag a window to a new workspace by cliking onthe title tab and holding down the mouse while hitting the alt key combination.”
Shameless plug: This also works with Metacity/Gnome.
Yes, X is an old environment, and yes it has some issues. It’s not that it needs to be overhauled, but instead it needs to be finished. Remember the 90/10 adage, about the hardest 10 taking the longest 90? Think of that everytime you think of why X sucks.
OS X is no longer “slow” whatever you mean by that. It’s every bit as responsive, if not more so, than Windows on a comparable machine. The default installation includes a helluva lot more than a web browser and email client. If you’re willing to actually LOOK at the apps that get installed you’d know this.
Backbuffering isn’t the universal solution to smoother redraw, and in fact you really still can’t do it in a worth while fashion without GOOD video drivers, with very well docmented APIs. Linux has some good drivers, which is why desktop performance varies so strongly from card to card. Nvidia drivers suck, beyond just being closed source and thus making it harder for XFree and the kernel folks to support them.
Gentoo makes a huge different because it targets the platform you’re using, unlike the distro vendors. Gentoo, by default, also uses more aggressive optimization settings, since they recognize that you only compile once, so spending 20% more time to get 15% more performance each time you run it isn’t such a bad deal.
There are several points that the original author didn’t comprehend. One, you can tune the way fsck works on *nix boxes, especially linux boxes. It’s been ages since I’ve had to drop to single user to manually run fsck, even before journalling file systems. I had to deploy a large, >1TB, NFS server not too long ago, and did extensive boot timing, and found that properly configured that box could recover from a critical failure with massive file system corruption in only 25% or so more time than a normal boot would take. Two, NFS is not the be all and end all of file sharing, and in fact most users want to be using SMB(Samba) not NFS. With projects like LUFS it’s only going to be easier for users to share, since it’ll support a whole host of userland file systems. Finally, yes, sound support in linux is kinda lame, however it’s not entirely the kernels fault. A lot of people forget that many of these vendors either refuse to work with the open source community, or they are out of business. As for presenting a uniform API to userland, it already exists. It’s called ALSA, and it works. There’s also OSS, which provides decent competition, though they’re “merging” in 2.6.
Really what the author is bitching about is that he uses shit distros and needs to actually read the manual. This is a standard complaint, and needs to stop happenning. Everything he wants is available on a standard Redhat 7.3 install, if he’d simply go through the menus and docs. Useability is one thing, but this is getting ridiculous.
As I understad it, compiling Gentoo for your specific system is what causes the big speed up. Most other distros are precompiled and therefore not optimized and are slow.
“It does not automatically handle reselecting a driver for if the video hardware changes.”
Yes, when I used linux, I had a GeForceII MX. Everytime I changed screen resolutions, I had to re-edit a bunch of lines in the config file to get it to re-recognize the nvidia driver. Otherwise it would reload with the default driver used at install time. A real pain in the butt.
“but I don’t know *any* OS that will let you select independent resolutions for each program!”
This is impossible. There is no such thing as a monitor that can display multiple resolutions and frequencies at the same time, a misunderstanding I believe.
“As I understad it, compiling Gentoo for your specific system is what causes the big speed up. Most other distros are precompiled and therefore not optimized and are slow.”
I think it’s the combination of aggressive optimisation and applying every performance kernel patch they can find.
I believe that the low latency patch really helps with overall responsiveness and the preemtible patch helps for things like mp3 playing so they don’t start choking when you compile something in the background for example.
– Autodetection of display devices. A TiBook running OS X would be a good model for XFree86. Plug in an external monitor and hit command+F2 (or select “Detect Displays” from the Displays pull-down menu) and the external display gets recognized automatically and configured the way you had it when you last unplugged it (either mirrored or not, either the primary display or not, its color profile, etc.). Close the lid and hit command+F2 again and the LCD disappears, leaving you with your primary desktop on the external monitor. Open the LCD back up and unplug the monitor and hit command+F2 again, and voila, you’re portable again. It’s sad that it will be years before XFree gets to the point where the Mac OS was years ago in this regard.
– Oh yes, XFree needs color management support too. It has no chance at being a viable graphic design platform until it gets it.
– In OS X, Resolution and color depth changes are two clicks away if you put the Monitors control panel in the menu bar, and don’t require any restarts of either the window server or any apps. It’s stupid you can’t even change resolution on the fly in X. (ctrl+alt+(+/-) doesn’t count, as it is only a change in resolution of the viewport)
– An easy way to change the refresh rate on the fly. BeOS was great at this – you could specify the vertical refresh rate you wanted to use within a fraction of a Hz.
– Complete and total reliable and easy GUI configuration, no command line necessary.
– A font system that doesn’t suck and is standard across all apps. What’s up with that retarded font filename system? It’s not the 1980s anymore – you don’t still need to do it that way. On a similar note, X needs some good looking subpixel antialiased fonts that work and look good in all X apps. Enough of this 75dpi Type 1 crap. Enough of only apps specially written to support some obscure and weird hack taking advantage of antialiased fonts.
– An alpha channel. If only to satisfy the transparent terminal crazies.
I should specify now that I am not a big fan of XFree86 / X11. It is a dinosaur, one of whose only merits is network transparency. I don’t advocate killing X, however, I do advocate the development and use of some more suitable desktop windowing system with perhaps an X compabibility layer running on top of it a la XDarwin or eXceed. XFree86 is behind on the desktop now and the difference will become even more pronounced with the appearances of Quartz Extreme and Longhorn.
Alex
After reading the article and most of the posts, I’m beginning to think the biggest thing wrong with Linux are all the wannabe users who can’t figure it out.
If it doesn’t do what you like, don’t use it. It’s as easy as that. If you want something Windows or OSX like, use Windows or OSX! If you liked BeOS, then piss and moan to Palm since they own it and killed it. I’m quite frankly sick of hearing about it.
For the most part, I like OSNews, but I’m getting tired of all the ignorant, negative “what’s wrong with Linux” crap articles being posted here lately.
I will never understand why people want to throw away working working code, like XFree, just because they want a few extra features. Did you notice that you have the source and your wishes are pretty small compared to the complexity of a whole window server? The real problem is that there are not enough developers to add all this stuff. And quite obviously there are not even enough devs for a single usable window system, and you want a second…
The only ones who are worse are those who talk about X11’s network transparency. Most of them obviously have never written a client/server program or never thought about the way a window system works. Otherwise they should have noticed that the difference between a purely local window system and a remote one is less than %1 of the code. (Unless you put the code into the kernel, but beside stability issues I dont want to hear all the *BSD/Unix user whine when suddenly they dont have an up-to-date window system anymore)
Could I pass your post along to Mandrake for use as an advertising blurb?
I’m honestly not a big linux advocate at all. I do prefer OS X, but I think one of the reasons these articles appear is simply because linux, being open, should be able to take into consideration the wants/needs of it’s growing user base. Since it’s all open,a nyone can add whatever they want.
First of all, the biggest problem Linux has are the insolent, reactionaryand elitistic Linux supporters. Not all Linux supporters are like that, ut the great majority. You know, those people that will say “There must be something wrong with your hardware” or “It’s done in his/her free time, what do you expect?” or “you must have done something wrong, you’re ingorant” or “RTFM”. You know the kind.
(The second thing that it’s wrong, in my view, is Linus himself, that proved to be intolerant and ignorant. A person who calls “idiots” those that contribute patches to the Linux kernel, and says “you’re full of shit” to his kernel dev colleagues, is not a role model for most people.
Did I tell you my story about my attempts at configuring a SB 128PCI under Linux? MIDI? No, of course not. Do you know how many posts on a newsgroup it takes before you get a straight answer saying that you just can’t do that in Linux? 15.
Are there any alternatives to the X server? That would be an interesting project to work on… if not a mind numbing one :]
Richard
“Are you saying you want to be able to select a different resolution and refresh rate for every program? Either you dont know what you are asking, or well, think that headaches would be fun. I also pitty your poor monitor.”
I think Don does know what he is asking. He is used to Amigas (as am I). The Amiga could run multiple programs on multiple screens on multiple resolutions simultaneously. No muss, no fuss. It just worked.
I’m so tired of seeing people called “stupid” and “lazy” when they comment on Linux’s unnecessary complexity. like this statement:
“4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.
My philosophy is learn by doing. You said “for users to find out how to do things.” That’s an indication that some users are just too lazy to spend the time to learn how to do things.”
and this one:
“7. Easy way of sharing files.
I had set up home directories for Win 2000 users… but no one uses it and they’re too dumb to understand that using “H:” is just like using “C:”.”
and this one:
“After reading the article and most of the posts, I’m beginning to think the biggest thing wrong with Linux are all the wannabe users who can’t figure it out.”
I’d like to turn this back around on *you*, and suggest that *you* are too stupid and lazy to make an OS that people can actually use without years of study and making Linux their new religion.
Let me ask you annoying penguinfarts something. When your car needs an oil change, does the mechanic say that you’re just too stupid to do it yourself? When your sink is leaking does the plumber tell you you’re just lazy, or else you would RTFM and learn how to do it yourself?
The next time your air conditioner breaks I want you to notice that the repairman doesn’t attack you for being displeased with your system. In fact he might be the first one to suggest that you switch to a brand that had a little more thought put into it’s useability.
I say thumbs up to UnitedLinux. It might resolve much of this, but time will show. Shame on Mandrake for not joining…
UnitedLinux –> Enterprise
Mandrake –> Mostly desktops
I don’t see a match, do you?
BeOS6/Dano also uses backbuffing and it is not slow. The slowness of OSX doesn’t have to do a lot with this feature in this case.
It was never released. :-p
i agree with eugenia with regards to mac os x. apple’s blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda…
Okay, whatever.
I mean really, how many different bloody web browsers do we need? Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, Galeon, Nautilus, etc — and all of them have such similiar goals that it’s silly they’re competing against one another.
Nautilus dreams of being a shell like Konqueror, doing things like serving web pages and file browsing. It used Mozilla, but now uses GtkHtml. Galeon’s main goal is to put a GTK+ interface on Mozilla. Mozilla’s main goal is to create a cross platform all-in-one app for Netscape. Opera’s main goal is to make money. Konqueror guys want to create something like Windows Explorer/ Internet Explorer, and want to use their own libraries instead of Gecko. Similar goals?
I will never understand why people want to throw away working working code, like XFree, just because they want a few extra features.
That’s funny, I don’t understand how people are willing to put up with an unresponsive, archaic display server that lacks proper font handling when there are such better alternatives available.
Did you notice that you have the source and your wishes are pretty small compared to the complexity of a whole window server?
Did you ever think the difficulty of writing a new display server is why we’re stuck with X?
The only ones who are worse are those who talk about X11’s network transparency.
Oh look, that’s me, I think, although I’d phrase it a little differently. I’d say the IPC model employed by X is less-than-ideal for the purposes of a display server.
Most of them obviously have never written a client/server program or never thought about the way a window system works. Otherwise they should have noticed that the difference between a purely local window system and a remote one is less than %1 of the code.
Umm, no. There are definately higher performance IPC channels that can be utilized on a local system than sockets (SVR4 message queues, shared memory, or on platforms that support it Mach messaging). However, your point is moot. IPC is the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s wrong with X.
I’ve already detailed most of my concerns with X, as have others. Perhaps you should respond to our actual concerns instead of blindly retaliating.
I really don’t see what the problem is with X. I’m running a geforce2 MX dualhead(pci) with X on slack 8.1 on an 850 AMD T-bird. I’ve got a shell script that runs before X starts up that enables me to choose to run on a single monitor, dual head, tv, or single monitor + tv. this works flawlessly, and is very responsive in all settings. I can easily take 10 or more movies, launch them all, and drag them all over my desktop without my mouse or any of the movies skipping. I don’t see why anyone needs to be able to switch there resoluttion all around on the fly either, I’ve never wanted to do that once. As for the linux desktop not be reading for joe user, my girlfriend was running win2k and having all kinds of problems with bios, but anyway,something needed to be done, so as a test I put linux on her computer, set up her hardware, and set up her enlightenment menus, and she’s doing fine. she can get on the internet, check her mail, chat with her friends, and do all the stuff she could do on windows fine. She’s been running that way for about 6 months now, and the only problem she’s had is when her modem burnt out. Well anyway, my girlfriend’s not a computer wizard…far from it actually, but i think that if my girlfriend can use it, and joe user can’t that says something about joe user…he needs to grow a few more brain cells and shouldn’t be aloud to use a calculator, let alone a computer. It’s always nice to know that if something did go wrong with my girlfriends computer, though, i can always remotely connect to her X server
Both BeOS and AmigaOS allow the program to set the screen resolution.
Most Amiga programs run on their own screens. A screen is logically a
level above a workspace – a screen can contain several workspaces.
When a program starts up, it opens a new screen display, with whatever
resolution is set in the Preferences for that program. A program can
share a screen with another – in particular, smaller programs can run
on the screen of the “desktop” (actually Workbench) program.
There is no limit to the number of screens as they are stored in a
linked list.
In practice, you tend to set almost all programs to the same
resolution, but it can be very useful to be able to change it for
something like testing a web page, or if you are using a different
monitor for some reason. (A projector perhaps.)
You can’t drag a window to another screen but it can jump to a
different screen. However, this needs special programming.
I select screens from a menu at the top right of the screen, like the
Mac’s programs menu.
Advantage – there is nothing else on the display except the program
you are using (no task bars and other clutter), all the programs you
are using stay up with all their windows in place ready for immediate
use. Each program can use a different set of fonts to suit its GUI.
It’s a different way of working, and those whose programs all run on a
single screen (desktop or finder) find it hard to imagine. I find it
very practical and productive.
Screens currently open here:
1. Workbench (=”desktop”) with a dock, partition icons, and a Shell
2. Word processor
3. Web browser
4. Audio recording and mixing program
5. TCP stack control shared with FTP server control panel
6. 8-bit paint program (on an 8 bit screen) – for making GIFs.
8. Mailer
1 is 16-bit, 2 4 5 6 and 8 are 8-bit, and 3 is a 24-bit screen.
That’s funny, I don’t understand how people are willing to put up with an unresponsive, archaic display server that lacks proper font handling when there are such better alternatives available.
Font handling is just a minor issue that could be solved using extensions if the current font handling (Xft/XRender) is not enough for you. But AFAIK the current quality problems are due to sub-optimal rendering algorithms in the freetype library and the general lack of free fonts.
Did you ever think the difficulty of writing a new display server is why we’re stuck with X?
And this difficulty is the reason why you can not just make another server.
Umm, no. There are definately higher performance IPC channels that can be utilized on a local system than sockets (SVR4 message queues, shared memory, or on platforms that support it Mach messaging).
SVR4 message queues are not faster than unix domains sockets, at least not on Linux. Shared mem is already used for images, and does not make sense for most other purposes.
Adam Wiggins is an asshole. I’d bet he’s never seen linux. He doesn’t know what he is talking about, and maybe, the correct part of the things he got there were told by someone else. Get real.
“if my girlfriend can use it, and joe user can’t that says something about joe user…he needs to grow a few more brain cells and shouldn’t be aloud to use a calculator, let alone a computer.”
This, my friend, says something about your girlfriend’s brain cells, or the esteem you have for her brain;-)
More seriously, your example doesn’t make your point at all. Anybody can use Linux to do some limited tasks. But the fact that you can easily use a configured system doesn’t mean it’s user-friendly. You have configured a Linux box for her, you have configured the menus. And she’s happy. I bet she has never tried to install or upgrade anything on that box, or even tried to do something new on it.
If Joe User or your girlfriend needs Joe Guru or you behind, that proves that Linux is not ready for anybody’desktop.
In response to mario:
While some Linux developers (both kernel and applications) may be reactionary and elitist, I doubt it is the major part (or even a large percentage. It certainly isn’t my impression from reading various Linux-related mailing lists.
About your problems about configuring your soundcard: I assume you have put together some good documentation about the issue? And I assume that you are active on the relevant mailing lists and news groups informing people about the problems you have run into and possible solutions. Right?
In response to obese penguin:
Nice analogy about the oil change on your car. There is something you forgot, though. Usually you pay your mechanic money to change the oil. You are a customer and you pay someone to do what you want. Same thing with the plumber that changes your sink (which incidentally is perfectly easy to do yourself :-). You pay the plumber money depending on how long time it takes to accomplish the task.
When you download a Linux distribution (or buy a CD set) you get thousands and thousands of hours of development for free (the price of CD sets don’t go to the developers, apart for the select few that happen to work and get paid by a Linux distribution company).
This is something most people seem to forget. When comparing Linux to something, do bear in mind that it is indeed developed mostly in people’s spare time. You simply can’t expect the developers to spend 50-70 hours per week on some pet project (although some of them do). Developers need to pay their rent as well.
As for MacOS and Windows, these are commercial OS’s with enormous resources behind them. If you want commercial quality (both in application maturity and support) you need to go to a commercial company and put up some money. Unless a free copy happens to land on your desk in some mysterious way.
To put all this bluntly: Put your money and/or time where your mouth is. Complaining about deficiencies on various webboards doesn’t help anything (except maybe to get rid of frustrations).
So if you want feature Z and you want it right now, implement it yourself, or pay someone to do it. Otherwise you will have to wait for someone else to do exactly that.
Either you want Linux to be something ordinary users use, or you don’t. If you do want non-techy people using Linux, you have to provide real usability, usability at least as good as Windows, but ideally as good or better than Macintosh. Redefining usability to mean “things can be done with only a modicum of command-line skill” will not get you closer to your goal, and neither will insulting potential users. As for the “It’s free, so stop whining” excuse, that is simply an admission that commercial software is the best solution for ordinary users.
I’d like to turn this back around on *you*, and suggest that *you* are too stupid and lazy to make an OS that people can actually use without years of study and making Linux their new religion.
Oh, I see, Microsoft and Apple wrote operating systems that through some miracle of osmosis transported the necessary knowledge to use the system directly into the user’s brain. Well, I guess your right then. Linux doesn’t have any of that. Sheesh!
Every negative reply and article I have seen here recently have not been, “Linux has a serious flaw that causes data corruption, instability and will write viruses out to remote machines connecting to a web server running on Linux”, but rather, “Linux doesn’t have a little clicky interface that helps me do ____________.”
The people who have contributed to Linux HAVE created a system that people can actually use. I’m a person and am currently writing this post from Linux. In fact, I don’t use anything but Linux and BSD because they are MORE usable than Windows, which is what I used to use.
The problem is that joe user doesn’t want to learn a damn thing. He wants Linux and other open source developers to write software that operates within his current realm of knowledge. Well, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon, so I suggest if you want to use Linux, learn how to use it.
As I said before, it’s the wannabe Linux users who don’t know how to use it (and apparently have something against asking questions or reading a book) that have all the complaints.
clap clap clap clap clap clap clap clap
First of all, the biggest problem Linux has are the insolent, reactionaryand elitistic Linux supporters. Not all Linux supporters are like that, ut the great majority.
I beg to differ. I belong to many Linux mailing lists, and people are quite helpful. The only time they become insolent is when somebody either posts ignorant troll statements instead of asking questions, or posts to the wrong group.
As for Linux developers being elitists, that is true of every developer. If you want to see pure arrogance (even though it is often unjustified) work at Microsoft.
You know, those people that will say “There must be something wrong with your hardware”
This is often the case. There have been many times where a lock up or crash is either the IDE controller or memory. Or perhaps you have the video card and ethernet card sharing the same IRQ. The problem is that many joe user’s go into a state of denial instead of actually checking their hardware and then blame everyone else for their problems. I wonder what they do when their car breaks down? Mechanic: “Well, it looks like you let all the oil leak out of your car and the engine has ceased.” Owner: “No it hasn’t!”
“It’s done in his/her free time, what do you expect?”
Not that I agree with you or anything, but you ARE using a free operating system. Problems are understandable and you have to work around them, just like you do with defects in retail software. If you don’t like the problems (real or percieved) don’t use the product.
or “you must have done something wrong, you’re ingorant” or “RTFM”. You know the kind.
Why not read the documentation? Do you think that people don’t have anything better to do but regurgitate information that is already documented? I have never seen somebody ask a question, who has read the documentation, get flamed. By reading the documentation, they can ask educated questions. If I go buy a bike, or shelves, or anything that needs assembly, I read the documentation. Why would it be any different for Linux?
I hate long posts on OSNews, but I just have to ask this. If Linux isn’t to your liking, why on Earth don’t you just stop using it and quit complaining? What is it that makes people think Linux should change to suit them?
and still I dont want to read the documentation. Why you ask ? Well maybe because I dont have the time . Because I’m used to have tools that work by themselves, and I dont want to re-learn how to do things I do without effort. Because the f***g man has been written by a geek for another geek, and I dont understand their cryptic language.
I am a wannabe Linux for one reason mostly: I think software is too expensive right now, and it just can get worse with Palladium schemes and WPA stuff. I want to “switch”, but I dont have the budget for a Mac. So ? I should use Linux, of course!
When MS prices will be so high that I will be willing to exchange ‘time’ in order to learn against ‘money’, I’ll make the switch. It’s not the case yet, so if Linux advocates want me to switch now, they have to lower the time for me to learn, which is by doing “menus for dummies” and “share your drive click here”. And help the migration too: I’d like to keep my adress book, mail files, extra stuff in the process. (I am already able to do that, but most users are not: help them).
The top ten things wrong with Linux, Today:
1. kde
2. kde
3. kde
4. kde
5. kde
6. kde
7. kde
8. kde
9. kde
10. kde
Did I miss one?
I agree, one must be willing to do whatever it takes to learn to use Linux or any other operating system. Right now, Joe User is, in some ways, getting conflicting information. They hear that Linux is easier to install and use than ever. But then, someone like that reviewer who chose Redhat to do a “desktop Linux” review comes out and says it isn’t easy after all. We are beginning to have distros that are aimed at Joe User, like Lycoris. But, the fact is, even something like Lycoris needs a lot more development before it can *truly* be a complete solution for Joe User. So, the average computer user hears about Linux constantly and is, of course, interested, as a result. LOL, the first time I installed Linux was a few years ago – Linux PPC. They were raving about ho easy it was it install now (then), so I dove in. ROFL, it took me hours to figure out how to install it, even with what seemed to be pretty good instructions (it turned out there were gaping holes in them). Anyway, there is a big gray area right now – people are interested, but a solution for them is not quite here yet.
In response to liberte:
I think I’ve been very clear on this list. I don’t care what you use.
If Windows and Microsoft is getting you down, and you don’t like it, use Linux, or FreeBSD (which are both documented well – look at FreeBSD’s handbook on their website). If you don’t like to read, then stick with Windows. If it is not important enough to you to read a little bit to learn Linux, then why should it be important enough for me to write pointy click fun for you so you don’t have to learn anything?
Referring back to the line when i compared joe user to my girlfriend, the idea is, that my girlfriend is no techy. She does not like computers, she does not care about them, she just doesn’t want her computer to be difficult for her to use or have bad performance. Also, it’s extremely unfair to say that Joe Guru is behind my girlfriends pc. I set it up, that’s all, just like when you get a compaq; windows is already installed, the devices are set up, and they have added icons to the desktop, same with macs, and most other computers you can buy. As for her trying to install, upgrade, or try anything new….as for basic desktop stuff, the first time I went over there after installing, she had themed enlightenment, themed gtk, moved her desktop pager, changed all her backgrounds, themed xmms, it was a new desktop. Although, she did not originally no how to install anything, so on a piece of paper, i wrote down for .rpm’s “rpm -ivh –nodeps name.rpm”, for tars, “do this” fo binarys…so on an so forth..she hasn’t told me about a single install problem yet, and she has installed audiogalaxy on her own accord. So I did have to show her how to extract and install, but what if you’re in windows, and you want to get a zipped file, it’s still just as difficult if you’ve never done it, it’s just difficult in a diffrent way. *shrugs* I think that’s just the way linux is, not any harder than any other operating system, it’s way of aproaching hard tasks is just diffrent.
I’d like to post a great big “And How!” to number 4 on the list, as well as to #11 added in a post.
I am suprised the file structure/naming didn’t rank as a top ten. That was one of my first negative reactions, and I have seen many other discussions about this.
Replying to various posts:
I too would like to see a discussion of Linux’s good points. “What’s wrong with Linux” is getting stale.
The “stupid and lazy” reaction to anyone with a complaint has become automatic. Every time…
The “stupid and lazy” reaction to anyone with a complaint has become automatic. Every time…
Well, isn’t it evident that laziness is a large working part of why people complain about Linux? I mean look at this statement a few posts above, “Camel I’d like to learn Linux and still I dont want to read the documentation.” That’s like saying, “I’d like to be a great pianist, but my time is valuable and I don’t want to waste it with lessons or practice.” Then, these people wonder why they can never accomplish their desires. It is sheer laziness and it deserves to be pointed out. Every time.
I don’t mean to be insulting to you or anyone on this list, but if new user’s really want to use Linux, then I suggest they allow their computing paradigms to be changed and humble themselves enough to admit they need help; and then ask for it. Whining that Linux isn’t Windows is a waste of everyone’s time. I don’t know a single person on Earth who has ever become proficient at anything through whining (well, except whining itself. Practice makes perfect).
“This is often the case. There have been many times where a lock up or crash is either the IDE controller or memory. Or
perhaps you have the video card and ethernet card sharing the same IRQ. The problem is that many joe user’s go into a
state of denial instead of actually checking their hardware and then blame everyone else for their problems. I wonder what
they do when their car breaks down? Mechanic: “Well, it looks like you let all the oil leak out of your car and the engine has
ceased.” Owner: “No it hasn’t!” ”
Any kind of IRQ conflict is a design fault, not a user fault. There
should _never_ be a possibility of an IRQ conflict on a system using
PCI.
I hate to keep banging the Amiga drum, but the Amigas with slots
(using the Zorro bus) have never ever had IRQ conflicts. Why? Because
good interrupt handling was the top priority in the design of the
computer from the beginning, as it should be for any desktop computer
or games computer.
My impression is that the PC was designed with a mind set that sees
interrupts as the exception rather than the norm, and I think this
attitude is still there in Linux.
1. On current server systems it’s better to use some kind of journaling filesystems (like ext3 or reiserfs). Fsck’ing on such kind of system doesn’t take longer than few seconds no matter how big jour filesystem is (it only scans filesystem log and compares it with filesystem content). So use journaling filesystem instead of turning off on-boot fsck’ing.
2. It’s easy to turn off fsck manually especially when system prompts for it (like Mandrake). But how one can do that when server is not easily accessible (eg. standing 50 miles away)?
What if it won’t boot up after crash ?
Linux is not supposed to be user friendly. It is supposed to have many different UI’s, file systems, patches and distros each with their own installation routines. It is supposed to be about anarchic choice for people who can handle that. Not “Joe User.” Does that mean linux sucks? No, there is a place for an OS that offers 100 different ways of doing the same thing. Linux is the experimental breeding ground for all kinds of ideas and it would be a shame if we lost this for the sake of “world domination”
That’s what I have done, along with some friends of mine. We use BeOS and FreeBSD now The first one for the desktop, the other one for servers.
Though FreeBSD does have some of the problems found in Linux, it is much less anarchic, and doesn’t pretend to replace Windows on the desktop. Well, I used it on the desktop for 3 years, and I was very happy with it. Then, because of a hardware problem I had to use BeOS. I may go back to FreeBSD on the desktop today but I know I would miss BeOS friendliness a lot.
Well OpenBeOS will be the clean slate easy to use alternative. But you know what? Some features in the linux UI chaos may be useful to OpenBeOS. For example there is one window manager that automatically moves the tabs when you move another window over it. So there are some linux users that benefit from a UI that looks like BeOS and OpenBeOS benefits from all the ideas that are out there in the linux world while maintaining a standard UI for maximum consistency. No need to fight
I dont want to become a “great” pianist. I just want to have a usable system. I dont want to go through 2 years of learning on how to do things, I want my OS to work for my needs. I’m not slave of my machine, it is my machine which is my slave. Get it ?
When you have learnt to play on one piano, you can play on any piano. Why isn’t it the same ? You gonna tell me that changing OS is like changing music instrument, but what music is known to musicians. With little efforts they can play another instrument. For sure to become masters it will take forever. But just to use another instrument is pretty simple. That’s what I’m asking for: a standard behaviour between OSes. Copy paste should just *work*. Installing an application should be clicking on “install.sh” or “install.exe”. MS Windows got it right with the desktop. The MS Desktop environnement is very very good. The behaviour of applications under win32 is consistent. etc etc
If Linux crowds want Linux to rule the desktop, or at least, to become a plausable alternative, they will have to copy a lot of MS Windows, just like Lycoris or Lindows do. You cant change the users anyway!
Linux elitists like you should stop complaining about “dumb & lazy” users instead of shouting “linux is desktop ready!”. Either you go full steam with the “Linux for desktop” and face the obvious consequences, that are: people want to use a PC, not to waste time learning how to, or just say: “I dont care of you Joe User go away this is my sweet penguin get yours in Antartica” (metaphor: not everyone wants to get there).
You wrote: “If it is not important enough to you to read a little bit to learn Linux, then why should it be important enough for me to write pointy click fun for you so you don’t have to learn anything?”. Fine: that’s not what most Linux advocates say today, they actually say “have a try” and then flee when users point to flaws. Linux coders, please get your acts and speech together.
the Windows world is a mess of viruses, security holes, apps that try to own your files, crazy licensing schemes that make it hard to use the OS if you change your hardware, etc. This nonsense just has to stop
I didnt say MS Windows is perfect, I said the desktop environnement is very very good. Still, there are many many things that need to be adressed. For instance, how do you explain someone who never used a PC when you should dble click and when you should single click ? Tough one, huh ?
I myself complain about “iruses, security holes, apps that try to own your files, crazy licensing schemes that make it hard to use the OS if you change your hardware”, and that’s why I want to switch to Linux. But I dont have the necessary time to learn. So either Linux becomes easier to use, either I’ll stick to Windows until it becomes so annoying that I’ll switch whatever the cost (cost is NOT necessary money, but rather TIME).
Linux’s advocates: go to the user, dont wait for the user!!!!
1. No best browser
I’m using galeon, with AA text.
2. Prompting for a filesystem scan
The example given (a power cord that gets “kicked out”) clearly shows that a filesystem scan is a _rare_ and _unexpected_ event. As such, it should not be treated with the slightest consideration.
In a _real_ server environment, the admin should know how to handle this.If one just want to have a web server running on his desktop machine, why should a scan be worse ? Who would run a critical service on his desktop machine ?
3. Printing should be easier
I don’t print, so I can’t comment.
5. Cleaner redraw
I don’t think that it’s a necessary feature (as if every other successfull OS has it) , but I concede that it’s appealing.
6. Die stray processes, die!
The X system should _at best_ detect whenever a program doesn’t respond, and ask the user what to do with it, but not kill everything around. BTW, I think you can kill process with the gnome and KDE Procman clones (without exiting X or even open a terminal).
7. Easy way of sharing files. (-1 Redundant)
Err, right-click ? What if I have a single button mouse ?
Ok, just read my response to point 4 below.
8. Sound support.
no point here, you respond to your own question.
9. No common editor which supports “soft wrapping.”
someone spoke about Gedit(2) fixing this issue, IIRC.
10. No easy way to configure X – especially change resolution on the fly.
Someone told about auto-conf feature in next major revision of Xfree, fixing this issue.
4. Make it easy for the user to find out how to do things.
This question is the only one worth considering, IMO. That’s why I kept it for the end of my rant
It comes down to :
– make program interface intuitive.
There no such Interface. Why ? Because interface is like a language, and languages are not intuitive. One can guess grammar rules or vocable to a certain point (like always have a “File menu” in an application), but not semantics (like what’s the purpose of “Cut & Paste” ?).
– make it easy to learn.
That’s providing documentation, and wizards. I think there are big efforts made in this direction.
But user don’t read documentation anyway.
After all the arguing and fussing is over (and boy does that take a while!), it seems clear that Linux is fragmenting. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although it could be. The real question is, are we seeing chaos, or are we seeing stratification? It *makes sense* to have different Linux distros with different goals.
The primary branches are obviously Linux server distros, Linux office desktop distros, and Linux home-user distros. And then there could be more specific niche-distros, like Linux graphic artist distros and Linux musician distros.
The main concern is this: are there enough Linux users to support stratification? Not yet, but the numbers are increasing. You guys are wasting a lot of time and energy arguing about all this crap, time and energy that could be used towards specific Linux goals.
As for me, I think it’s time to admit my deficiencies and try out Lycoris, not Gentoo… 😉