“I get asked, by more junior Linux users, and people just looking to try it out, which distribution of Linux I use or recommend. It occurred to me that I never actually published an answer to this question, even though it is, by far, the question I am asked most often. I think my stock answer is maybe slightly unusual only because, unlike most of the rest of the Linux-using world, I hate every distro I’ve ever tried. That’s right: every distribution of Linux sucks in its own special way. Some just suck less”, says Brian Jones on Linux.com.
Linux.com: “Which Distro Do You Recommend?” — They All Suck!
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
…who noticed that all Linux distros suck. Even Linux-heads think so. Now if we can just get the Win-droids to admit that Windows sucks altogether, we might be getting somewhere.
I am in agreement with Brian.
There is no distro that can please me the way I expect from a modern desktop OS. That’s why I mostly use OSX or XP (yeah, laugh, it’s ugly and unsecure, but it’s well supported and extremely stable for me — it does the job easier).
However, for people who don’t want to pay for Windows, and with a bit of effort, some Linux distros CAN be used easily as desktops by everyone. Personally, I like Slackware’s stability and Arch Linux for almost everything else. The user must live with compromises though. For example, I don’t have good support for my PalmOS or PocketPC and Bluetooth configuration via GUI is none (well, everyone does have different needs).
However, I must admit, that $360 Dell PC with XP Home and a 15″ LCD monitor, do take away a lot of the glory of Linux have had so far by not purchasing an assembled PC with Windows or getting a $199 terrible Wal-mart PC (I know, I own two — I had the Linux kernel devs shouting at me when I submitted bugs, because these PCs are just buggy in the BIOS and hardware level, even if they are dubbed ‘fully inux-compatible’ by their sellers — You get what you pay for).
Everything in the whole wide universe, including the universe itself, sucks in at least one special way.
I just stick with my vic20 and don’t worry about distros.
The closest thing I’ve seen recently to a polished and professional desktop is SuSE. Even still, it’s definitely not there yet. I wish Linus would focus on the desktop more, or specifically delegate to people who will. GNOME and KDE are both pretty poor. They just aren’t snappy. I’ve been rooting for Linux for about ten years now, and I’m very sad that it hasn’t made more inroads on the desktop. I never knew it was this hard, but it certainly makes Microsoft and Apple look really good. Perhaps Open Source just isn’t the right thing for desktop development. There actually might be something to getting people in a room and having them hash things out, and a manager who will be able to offend some people by choosing certain things or not. That goes against the open source ethos, but without question all I can see in the modern desktop is a need for someone (like a manager) to get in there and make some heads roll.
I have spent the last 2 days installing SuSE, VidaLinux, Fedora Core 3 and Ubuntu Linuxes (having also tried the latest Mandrake and Linspire Developer distros recently). All I want is to have a distro that’ll run with 3D accelerated graphics on my Radeon 9800.
With most of these distros I’ve been reduced to following highly cryptic instructions on various obscure unofficial forums, and although I’m a reasonably technical user, in not one single case have I ended up with working 3D drivers after the ridiculous amount of effort I’ve had to put into it for each distro!
This is utterly depressing, ruining some otherwise really decent looking distributions (eg. Ubuntu) and I look forward to the day when some new distro maker comes along who *couldn’t give a shit* about pleasing the ‘must be Free’ GPL people, creates a decent desktop and *does a deal with both Nvidia and ATI to provide working 3D drivers*, either on install or from a simple click-to-install download.
However, I’ll keep vainly trying various distros over the next year or two until one finally, magically decides to work… :/
(I want to like Linux but it hates my guts.)
great reading and true. last time i wrote something similar at a swedish forum, I got hunted.
thanks for the article and I hope the comments to this article dont get nasty & hostile.
I agree. They all suck. But so do all operating systems. Really they do.
I recently installed Fedora Core 3 after giving up using Linux as a desktop OS in the RedHat 6.2 days.
I still can’t believe how LITTLE HAS IMPROVED. Sure KDE/Gnome are much better, but anything that interfaces with the core OS on a lower level and to the average open sores programmer wouldn’t be ‘fun’ to implement, sucks.
Eg,
– Font Rendering
– External Device Support
– etc…
Linux [distros] were and still are, nothing but hacked together pieces of open source apps, that rarely work together.
No consistency. Nill.
1) Terrible UIs
2) Awful UIs
3) Ugly UIs
Actually, it’s not the UIs that they are not consistent or well-put together. It’s the fact that the UI part is not tied to a particular distro or OS. That’s good and bad. There is a certain level of compatbility problem between different distros and so DEs try to not tie too much into a single distro, making them create usability problems to the user. For example, gnome doesn’t come with an internet connection wizard that works _everywhere_ or a Bluetooth GUI network setup or a partition GUI. I have to get a popular distro to get these features (e.g. mdk or fc or suse), from the distro maker itself. But if I like another distro for qualities not found in the above distros (I prefer Arch or Slackware) and these don’t have GUIs for system settings, I am dead in the water, because the DE doesn’t help me out there. That’s the difference between OSX/Windows/BeOS and Linux/BSD: support for the underlying system.
This is utterly depressing, ruining some otherwise really decent looking distributions (eg. Ubuntu) and I look forward to the day when some new distro maker comes along who *couldn’t give a shit* about pleasing the ‘must be Free’ GPL people, creates a decent desktop and *does a deal with both Nvidia and ATI to provide working 3D drivers*, either on install or from a simple click-to-install download.
However, I’ll keep vainly trying various distros over the next year or two until one finally, magically decides to work… :/
(I want to like Linux but it hates my guts.)
Um…mate….Linux doesn’t hate you. ATI does. They sell you a card and put out very poor drivers. No single Linux is going to magically work for you until ATI has better driver support for it.
If you have an Nvidia card, every distro you tried could have used the good Nvidia drivers easily.
As I side note, I have gotten my 9600 Pro working with the ATI drivers in Ubuntu (Hoary makes it a lot easier) and…
well…
3d still sucks. At least 2d acceleration is better (such as Zsnes). But if you are hoping to get that ATI card to play games or something, it will be tough to do.
But thats not Linux’s fault. Its ATI’s fault.
The real problem is the hardware vendors, especially ATI. ATI cards are horrible in Linux. ATI won’t release info that programmers need to write those drivers. Nvidia isnt much better, except that they provide pretty decent binaries that work. Show ATI what you want, go buy an Nvidia card. Hardware makers will only write drivers if they perceive that its demanded by their customers.
If you think that FC3 is no better than RH6, then you are completely blind.
This is one of the best articles I’ve ever read at osnews. That how to write Perl analogy nails it: basically, yes, it’s horses for courses, folks.
As long as most open source projects don’t overall suck more than Windows does, it’s all a wash.
fantastic article. my personal linux experience has been that either the distro is awsome, but requires a redicules amount of work to deal with certain tasks. im talking about stuff like slack, the distro thats damn near perfect other then the lack of an apt/portage-like package system. and what the author failed to mention is that one of the reasons for the dropping of gnome in slack is the existance of dropline, one of the best gnome builds ive used in any distro).
or, the distro is bloated to all hell and requires significant work to get toned down to a usable level, and even then all the tools that automate configuration tasks work good enough to not be justified in switching distros, but just enough to piss you off and waste a huge amount of time fixing it. (im talkin more along the lines of mandrake/fedora)
so far, ive been loving ubuntu. one of the big reasons is the pretty much seamless upgrading. spending a few hours getting something to work doesnt chafe so bad when you know you wont have to do it again. (this is true of any debian based system of course, i just use ubuntu because im a gnome fan) but im sure i will find something that annoys the crap out of me with ubuntu eventually, and then ill move on.
personally, i disagree with the author. dont arbitrarily pick one distro and learn it. if you are serious about learning linux, start with as “vanilla” a system as possible. i chose slack, but there are quite a few out there. points to look for are not complex, not alot of config tools, has a friendly and helpful community, and doesnt hold your hand. install it, and stick with it until you are fully comfortable at the command line, the filesystem structure, and the basic concepts behind the os. THEN you choose something easier to administer(if you still want to of course), and learn all its quirks until you are a guru. i have yet to use a distro that doesnt suck, and that the knowledge i gained from slack doesnt come in useful.
thats how i did it, and i went from a complete newb who had never seen a bash prompt in his life to the “linux guy” that all his friends come to for help (personally, i still consider myself a newb, but thats besides the point. ;-)). if you learn how to do something the standard way, then it will work on almost anything. and when it doesnt work, its usually easy to figure out how to get it to work. it wont be easy, and itll be real frustrating (i once spent almost a week without x. i had foobard something, and had sworn not to install anything else until i had learned linux. i came out of that mess with some skill with vi and links, and the ability to almost write a XF86Config file from scratch). personally, i would consider it worth it, and i can see becomming competant in any other way, other then spending years, or actually taking a course.
That was a great and informative read and frankly what is amazing me to disbelief is that no linux fanboy has bashed the author’s head in…or no windows fanboy has come out and said yeah MS rules!! Wow. I am an XP user cause of games. XP sucks until you make it do what you want. I believe it is the same for the Linux distros. So it is up to the user to upgrade his/her knowledge about the OS and then make the OS not suck anymore for them. IT is all about configuring the OS. No distro will ever be perfect. But…Linux GUIs truly suck big time. I dont know how Linux users do it. I mean it is horrible…slow and clunky. Yeesh! I think so far OS X has the GUI right but then again I am quiet used to XPs GUI as well.
linux is really only nice if you build it your self from code.
Yeah, something you’re definitely not doing with Gentoo since you call scripts that do all the dirty work for you…
I also had problems with installing 3D drivers in Suse 9.2.
What finally worked was to install them using Yast from the root account, ie NOT just using Yast from a user account and giving the root password.
X Windows which is an archaic dinosaur of a technology which ends up making all the desktops available for linux also look like archaic dinosaurs in comparison to windows and osx.
i am actually quite happy with Slackware, i have learned to tweak it to my personal taste nicely…
i would not touch windows with a ten-foot pole…
OS-X no, well maybe if i won the lottery_$$$
The really big problems that keep me from running Linux as a day to day OS are there in every distribution. I’m talking about problematic, complex to use drivers and the lack of a consistent GUI.
I shouldn’t have to compile software and edit config files to access all the features of my mainstream hardware. I should be able to consistently copy and paste between different applications, this is 2005 not 1985!
To me the issues with various individual distributions seem like very minor glitches compared with these.
Everything in the whole wide universe, including the universe itself, sucks in at least one special way.
I came in here to say pretty much the same thing. I’m kinda confused about all the praise this article has garnered, considering it doesn’t take much to throw up your hands and declare that all distros (OSes, Universities, music, etc.) suck in their own way. He’s right, though, when he suggests sticking with a particular distro until you can actually maintain it is the best way to get comfortable with Linux. Basically, I’d recommmend talking with the guru first for his/her recommendation. I use Debian because my roommate used Debian and helped me fix and understand things as I stumbled.
“but im sure i will find something that annoys the crap out of me with ubuntu eventually”
Already did: not updating stable repositories with newer stable versions of packages.
I have enough background in IT that going from Windows back when it was Win98. I have never used XP and hardly used 2000. I can not afford the outragous license cost. Let alone the application support and always wondering if the next virus will bring down the entire system. I have been using Linux now for 2 years straight. I have 17 years in IT. I have used many different distros. Right now ArchLinux is the easiest to use for me, which I have been using for the past year. It has a great package manager and great support.
linux is just pain in the ass for me(way more computer literate than the average person, linux newbie)
-fonts are so ugly and horribly big(some distros), seems to be running at 800*600 resolution.
-ubuntu asked me to install samba when I wanted see files shared on a windows machine, installed it, still doesnt work.
-had to reinstall ubuntu cuz gnome crashed, and everytime i boot up, gnome panels won’t show up, tried to login as root to delete that user and make a new one, still didn’t work
-deleted mandrake 2 days after installation, better bulit in games compare to windows, but that’s it, nothing windows cannot do thats also useful for me
linux as desktop? the day when im in a wheelchair playing go fish online, maybe
I agree with the last paragraph, and that’s about it. Users should try to stick with a distro until they can figure out how to manipulate it to their needs. Once they learn that on one, moving to another distro may be possible; and they can do it saying “well I think I’ll like it better” instead of “well, I can’t stand what I got now, and right now I left it unusable when I broke xyz.conf.” Reinstalling one distro 16 times to fix mistakes gets easy, seriously. I can sleep through some installs because I’ve done them so many times. For a while, I could actually tell exactly what steps it took to break the netbsd installer (I’ve since long forgotten how); but that was because the installer never managed to get me a bootable system (but who can blame them, it was an au500).
First users should try a few live cd’s. Decide if they like gnome/kde/xfce4/experimentation (I’m assuming those who know they like windowmaker or enlightenment know a little bit more). Try Ubuntu live, Suse live, knoppix xfce4. Read a few manuals, try deleting some things to break their favorite livecd. You know, let it sync into their mind for a couple of weeks; spending about 5 hours actually doing something with it in those two weeks. Then, decide what distro you want based on what packages you need, and how confident you are in your tweaking abilities and how much you hate/love upgrades.
I hate upgrades and love new software. So I try to run distributions that gradually upgrade; it makes for rare small problems instead of 8 small to medium problems every 6 months. Some people may like not having their software change more than every few years (anything longer is unreasonable to ask) but get security updates (I like RHEL for this purpose). I like Arch for the gradual, but other distributions can do it (Fedora can with the right apt mirrors, but be careful because there is usually a lot of broken packages).
This guy just gets angry too easily though. Nothing is gonna be perfect; even OS X is obnoxious.
GNU/Linux as is awesome! as is BSD… You all are just crazy?
The beauty in these OS’s, is you can make them into anything you want them to be. All it takes is a little effort and the will to do so…
Personally I prefer NetBSD mainly because of its cleanlyness, size and configurability. It of course suffers from three faults, which are:
1) No fancy configuration abilits and a pretty steep learning curve
2) Pkgsrc has no where near the number of software packages as apt or freebsd ports, so nothing to esoteric.
3) I really dislike FFS. It feels so slow compared to linux’s journaled file systems. LFS works for me, but I would never put it on anything but a PC/Workstation, and only with regular backups. Although I havn’t had trouble yet. It is not stable.
If I was going to recomend an easy distro for people to use, I would go with Ubuntu for Gnome or one of the various Kde based distros such as Mepis. FreeBSD is a good choice for SMP boxes and has the option of running much a slimar WM/DE than most linux distros.
Of course it all comes down to how the OS feels to you. While a superficial reason, I mainly use NetBSD becuase I like the way it feels and handles.
Open source socalist hippies, that’s why. They hate binary drivers because companies are evil.
Um….companies like Redhat, IBM, and Novell do a VERY large share of the work in Linux, and pay a lot of the bills (such as lawsuits) that need to get paid. Many capitalist minded people are making money off Linux right now.
The driver support is not as good in Linux as it is in Windows simply because it does not have the marketshare. Over time this will slowely change, as customers stop supporting companies that won’t give them drivers on their prefered platform.
My next card will be an Nvidia.
That’s a good article, and true, all distro’s have their annoying little bugs. For example Ubuntu is nice, but some packages aren’t there.
What isn’t cool is the people here on this forum pushing the same old stories –
Bad ATI drivers are ATI’s fault, nvidia (binary closed source) drivers work fine.
X isn’t ugly – its the theme you’re using thats ugly.
I read a lot of articles like this, and then the responses are always:
“Why should I have to do this?”
“Why should I have to deal with that?”
But who are you guys writing this to? Are you writing to the linux users who read this site? Because we’ve seen your type (whether we classify you right or not, you know how you get classified); and we know you installed three distros on some NON-MAINSTREAM hardware (just because you bought it, doesn’t make it mainstream). You aren’t convincing anyone, you’re talking to two groups:
1.) The choir, everyone who agrees with you and thinks Windows pwnz.
2.) Linux users who think you’re a nut.
Now in my defense, as the person who does it on the other side. Random people reading this site, are 99% of the time running windows. And 1% of the time, they may be considering a move; so I feel the need to make sure and warn them that some of the idiots trolling on here are simply trolling. Now don’t get mad, when I say idiot I mean the guy who thinks RMS is an OSS guy (RMS would kill him for saying that, then scream “FREE!!!”).
I stick by Fedora and I’m 100% satisfied.
So if a newbie starts with LFS, they should stick with it?
Actually… X is ugly. But few people use X apps, like:
xfig
xdvi
Now those be ugly, but very handy nonetheless!
They meant that gtk/kde/motif is ugly. Oh yea, openmotif is ugly too!
I have never had a problem with Mepis or PCLinuxOS, both come with almost everything a newbie needs,even the video card drivers with synaptic and over 3000 packeges to choose from each, and their easy to install.
I’ve tried other distro’s and the author is right you have to look for the one that fits you best, its like trying on a pair of shoes, you have to find a style and size that fit you.
If your looking into Linux try Distrowatch.com
Every once in a while, perhaps every three months or so you have to update your kernel. It’s easy to do with Fedora. I’m glad that I don’t have all the problems that these other people have. Linux has been the best platform I’ve ever used.
I am not really sure what you guys are talking about. Sure Linux is not perfect (what is) but at least it gives me a feature rich desktop that is unified and tied together well (KDE) and it IMHO looks great. People complain about the fonts on the Linux desktop and I don’t know what they are talking about. My fonts are AA (as has been the norm for the last couple of years) unlike on the fonts on XP which has seriously ugly font handling.
I miss other little features when ever I have contact with Windows as well eg. I don’t have a clue how anyone can bear a desktop without a pager or another little feature I like is I love it how Konq spell checks forms in websites for me so that I don’t come off as more of an idiot than I would anyway. As for the distribution specific stuff, I have been using Slack for the last couple of years and don’t have much to compare it too, but it supports my hardwear (including more esoteric things such as my Clie and my digital camera). As for people who claim that there is a lack of unity, I say choose a de and use its apps and all of a sudden you will have as unified a desktop as any.
In short, Linux can make a pretty good desktop, it is flexible and can be configred for a first time user or a power hungry geek and it does both things well. What it doesn’t do well is it doesn’t transfer easily from geek mode to user mode without a bit of tinkering. I don’t have much to compare it with these days but whenever I use a Windows box I find myself missing something, be it an app or a feature and I can’t remember the last time that I missed a Windows feature on Linux (except perhaps commercial game support but my hardware is old enough to make that a moot point).
The fact of the matter is that if a person decides that he does not like computers, he won’t like computers. If you find computers fun, Linux can provide a lot of fun but don’t cripple it just because you want a computer that a retarded monkey could use. I like my text configs dammit.
The not updating of the Ubuntu repositories is done because of the way that Ubuntu is developed. Every thing that is in the Ubuntu repositories is guranteed that it will not break you system, but if you do want a more up-to-date pacakage of some thing, you can always add the Debian repository, or the Ubuntu Backports project.
~Alan
… for, say, Fedora to get really good. Just needs a few good apps like OS X’s LaunchBar to get around quickly and find stuff. But I suppose Beagle is meant to help there.
ALL the Linux UI’s blow (and suck) none getting anywhere near even the twee cartoony sophistication of Mac OS 9 or Be. Gnome is just large and coarse (with a morbidly dull hue to it – like moss) and KDE is just a grab-bag of shiney sparkly thingummy’s. You’re depressed looking for long at either of them.
Still, I suppose it beats the slow death of Windows.
But give it another year or so and Linux will look and feel lovely.
we know you installed three distros on some NON-MAINSTREAM hardware (just because you bought it, doesn’t make it mainstream
Just because Linux doesn’t support it well, doesn’t make it non-mainstream.
I stuck to redhat to Redhat (3 yrs) then moved to Arch.
There was only one, past tense, elegant operating system – BeOS. But those days are long over after the historic “focus” shi#f#t. That is, unless, Haiku can pull an operating system out of its hat.
Currently, I use two distributions: Slackware v.10.1 and Vector. I like the stability and usability of both. I prefer KDE over GNOME. Just my preference.
Now let’s talk about reality v. ideal.
The ideal would be a singular world where everyone was the same, had the same, and used the same.
The reality is that not everyone is the ‘mono’ in their computing needs, wants, and desires. ‘Mono’soft is not the answer to all computing needs.
The ideal would be a stable BeOS-styled Windows workstation and server platform. A platform that is virus and crapware free. Rock-solid stability at a reasonable price.
In reality, the ‘Redmond’ flavored operating systems are a pain to work with and ‘fugly’ looking at best. It’s buggy and loaded with trash and vermin.
Be fair in your appraisals. One size or distribution does not fit all.
Wow… this conversation has really gotten away from the point.
There is no distro that can please me the way I expect from a modern desktop OS. That’s why I mostly use OSX or XP (yeah, laugh, it’s ugly and unsecure, but it’s well supported and extremely stable for me — it does the job easier).
zoooooooom…
Eugenia, that was the point of the article going by… i think you missed it
I agree that its a good article, but its point is not that Linux sucks, and hence you should go use XP or OSX: those each have their own caveats, though they may in fact be right for you today (Personal Experience: after having used Linux[Gentoo/KDE] for about a year and a half, I find going on Windows or OSX a painful experience… very clunky to me).
The point of the article is that distro-swapping because your current distro has some problem is a self-defeating strategy based on a fallacy. The fallacy is that there is a perfect distro; the result of the strategy is that you become familiar with the problems in half a dozen distros, yet able to solve problems in none of them. It is much better to stick to a distro, learn its ins and outs and find the workarounds to its warts. Perhaps the title “Distro-swapping not a good strategy for problem solving” would have been a better title, but it hardly screams out for as much discussion and reading as “All Linux Distros SUCK!”
In my opinion, the author is correct in his assesment of swapping distos. As a Linux newb, I switched from Mandrake to Gentoo after about 2 weeks because of some stupid problem. Having been in Gentoo for about a year and a half now, I think I’m pretty aware of how the system works and how to do what I want to do. Did I make the right choice in switching from Mandrake to Gentoo? Probably not… had I taken the time to learn about Mandrake and its packaging tools, I think I could have become equally proficient in Mandrake as I now am in Gentoo, but I’m definitely not swapping distros now.
As for people who claim that there is a lack of unity, I say choose a de and use its apps and all of a sudden you will have as unified a desktop as any.
That’s fine if the very limited selection of software available for a specific DE fulfills all your needs. But it means no GIMP on your KDE desktop and no office suite on your GNOME desktop. I certainly can’t do half of the things I need to do without mixing together KDE and GNOME apps. As soon as I do I hit annoying inconsistencies and problems with copy and paste. That’s when I start craving the relative consistency and elegance of Windows and it’s apps.
The fact of the matter is that if a person decides that he does not like computers, he won’t like computers. If you find computers fun, Linux can provide a lot of fun but don’t cripple it just because you want a computer that a retarded monkey could use. I like my text configs dammit.
I like computers and have fun using them. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy to waste my time messing with config files, when I could be doing something productive. I like my car too, but I wouldn’t want to constantly have to tinker under the hood to make it roadworthy. I don’t think anyone wants to take away your precious config files, but dealing with them shouldn’t be a necessary part of using the operating system.
Suse 9.2 includes GUI tools for bluetooth and is otherwise a very good distribution as is Mandrake 10.1. And I think my PDA a few times a daily with Kpilot and have been doing so for eighteen months.
I have no idea what your issues, but both of these distributions are full-featured and easy to use. In the case of Mandrake, you have lots and lots of packages available to you via main, contrib and plf.
I know you have had some kind of beef for a while with Mandrake. What it is, I don’t know. But recommending Slackware or Archlinux to most linux newbies is downright irresponsible.
To claim that you get with XP, the wealth of software that you get with a Linux distribution is simply inaccurate.
People will use that they want and find a way to rationalize it afterwards.
Liunx is usefull if you want a small ssh terminal session on your Windows XP desktop.
Other than that, it’s a relative pain in the ass. I know it sound harsh, but it’s true – admit it!
In my office full of IT people, every windows box has vim, firefox, perl and the full suite of cygwin tools installed (not by default, by each employee individually). And everyone who can has a spare box running linux; all so that they can overcome the productivity limits of standard windows.
Mepis, Fedora, Debian…take your pick; if you know what you’re doing they all work fine, on old hardware or new.
Binary drivers are one of the big reasons why Windows has horrible stability. The Windows kernel contains hundreds of hacks to keep older binary drivers working. In situations where the specs are open (and even some where they are not) I haven’t seen a binary driver come close to stability and features of a open source module in the kernel.
Breaking the ABI keeps some potential companies from writing binary drivers instead of releasing specs, and is one the of Linux’s greatest strengths.
Binary drivers are one of the big reasons why Windows has horrible stability.
Horrible stability? In my experience that isn’t true for any Windows NT/2K/XP system that doesn’t have a serious problem (viruses, faulty hardware, etc.).
I’m still waiting for my current Windows XP system to suffer it’s first crash. It’s been running 24/7 for about a year now, with just a few restarts for essential updates. So obviously I don’t find this argument against binary drivers to be very convincing.
I had a Cyrix MediaGX 180Mhz ( PowerSpec 1410 , I think )
I could not install linux ( kernel 2.4 ) on it.
When I tried Linux kernel 2.2, the X11 resolution
was 320×200. Just great…
But I can install NetBSD and OpenBSD on the
system without any problems…
Howdy all
I normally have alot of fun with a friend of mine who is a Windows zealot, we argue about which is better and he consistantly bags linux for being unfriendly and hard to use.
But you know what it really can be those things and we have really got to address that somewhere.
Where Linux falls down to the average user is the lack of wizards to do everythign under the sun and more, yes hand holding is a very important thing these days.
The other battle we face is people learn the “windows way” of doing things either by friends showing them how to do something on their Windows machine or via being taught how to do something in a class etc.
There are really no right and wrong ways just different paths to the same goal and we really need to educate users about this instead of saying “ok Windows does it like this we need to copy them”.
And on a personal note, anyone who says that they are some sort of guru that knows all and spells because as “cuz” should really see their 5th grade teacher for extra classes.
If you script kiddies don`t have an informed opinion then just please don`t add noise to this or any other topic.
Thank you all for your time.
“Binary drivers are one of the big reasons why Windows has horrible stability. The Windows kernel contains hundreds of hacks to keep older binary drivers working. In situations where the specs are open (and even some where they are not) I haven’t seen a binary driver come close to stability and features of a open source module in the kernel.”
The only time i’ve had a blue screen of death on xp was because of a dscaler driver for my tv card and dscaler (best tv app ever) is open source! Also, there aren’t “hundreds of hacks to keep older binary drivers working” on the windows kernel (nt) because the HAL takes care of that, only on cases where they brake the HAL (nt 4 -> win2k) drivers become incompatible and that’s just life, at least they dont break it every few months.
I’m surprised at all of you who thought this article was anything other than pure crap. As any thinking person knows, the real truth lies between both extremes. And THIS article was just as extreme in the opposite direction as all those Microsoft=sponsored comparisons. True, from a performance standpoint, Windows is a steaming pile. But there are more than a few things to crow about its UI. I have no productivity problems in Windows with the interface; it’s when I get yet another lockup or BSOD that I lose my cool. The same goes for Linux. First, there’s nothing seriously wrong with X. It may not be all the way there, but someone else pointed out that if you think it’s ugly, change your GUI…period. I love KDE; it’s gorgeous, easy to get around, and has lots of cool and easy to use programs. I use Gentoo, after trying and failing with SuSE. And every last problem I’ve encountered is not from the distro’s sucky factor. It’s from an admittedly high learning curve. And I chose it expressly for that reason. If I wanted it simple, I’d have chosen Linspire or Ark or some other newbie-friendly distro.
So it’s not how bad they suck. Nothing’s perfect in this high tech world we all love. But you have to be willing to live with the quirks. If there’s enough good about a distro, the bad won’t seem so bad.
Shame on the author for swining so far in the other direction. What we need is balanced reviews of an OS. Let’s all work toward that.
That’s right: every distribution of Linux sucks in its own special way
Sounds like SuSE9.2.
They realy fucked up this time.Normally distributions obviously don’t include libdvdcss.It’s not hard to live with that.SuSE thought let’s go a little step further and make xine completely useless by stopping all dvd capabillities,as if it’s a crime to watch your *own* dvd’s with a app that came with your bought for 90 euro’s sh.t box.Another example: kradio ,only SuSE strips the record capabillity ,so you can’t record cable audio anymore.Well,i only do some serious programming one might say,nothing wrong with that.Try to compile mozilla-firefox from source on SuSE 9.2 and you will be suprised to spend more time with solving errors as maintaining and closing windows holes (no offence).Do you need to setup a samba network in order to pull the vob’s from another PC in order to watch your legally *bought* dvd’s,(they forgot to block that option)?Doe a newbe have to rip out all sabotaged snooze
and substitue it with equivalent working ones?
Other than pleasing the share holders,the fusion with Novell hasn’t bring anything usefull for the customer sofar.Some companies are so obcessed by irrational potential law-suits that they start to forget everything they know and bluntly harrass their customers who made what they are today (financially !).
Many old Macs are full of shit:
I wouldn’t know.What i do know is SuSE Linux is full of shit as of version 9.2,I have been using it from 7.0,time to run away from it.
If Linux had a GUI which was Windows server 2003, I’d be in heaven.
GNOME and KDE are both pretty poor. They just aren’t snappy.
I disagree. Both are fine desktops, and both are quite snappy on my near-obsolete Athlon 900 PC.
That goes against the open source ethos, but without question all I can see in the modern desktop is a need for someone (like a manager) to get in there and make some heads roll.
Why? With the staggering progress in quality the Linux desktop has achieved over such a short period of time, I’d say that it’s proof the open-source development works! Gnome, KDE, XFce are all maturing very nicely, having for all practical purposes become as usable as Windows and Mac OS.
I’ve been rooting for Linux for about ten years now, and I’m very sad that it hasn’t made more inroads on the desktop.
It is making inroads, just very slowly. Be patient – just see how much has happened over the last ten years!
In any case, the problem is not management, it’s marketing (which includes ads, of course, but also pre-installed computers offered in an cheap and attractive package).
More like another way to rant. If the author finds that all Linux distros sucks, why didn’t he build his own?
X Windows which is an archaic dinosaur of a technology which ends up making all the desktops available for linux also look like archaic dinosaurs in comparison to windows and osx.
I guess you haven’t seen the latest enlightment demo movies. It’s quite possible to have awesome desktops with X (and my current desktop has nothing to envy from Windows or Mac).
X was longue plagued by slow development, but that’s changed now. The future looks bright indeed.
But it means no GIMP on your KDE desktop and no office suite on your GNOME desktop.
You can theme both so that they look nearly identical. That said, Windows apps are also inconsistent in their UI. You know what? People manage just fine. The “desktop inconsistency” problem is a false one, users don’t really care.
I certainly can’t do half of the things I need to do without mixing together KDE and GNOME apps.
They’re both Linux apps, so mix them up all you want.
But being clueless dose not help in utilizing Linux. He claim that all distros sucks, and give us an example of.. two? Yeah, Slackware will have no Gnome in packages. So? Ubuntu? Yeah, maybe KDE in Fedora is broken. What about tons of KDE based distros? 2.6 is broken? It works fine (and it’s stable-fine) since 2.6.0.
Packages? Man, yeah, apt-get, portage and slapt-get/swaret sucks.. not. I’m using them on daily bassis.
This guy is just a person that should sit on his bottom and do some RTFM about things he don’t like. For him, everything Sucks, so I guess, he could do better, so maybe he could show me his achivements in a Linux field? Or the only thing is Everything Sucks article?
Buy only hardware supported by Linux. Why do you must have the newest hardware around? I admit, my computer is not a speed demon (As somebody said before, it is nearly obsolete) a Duron 1300 on a KT266 MB, a 60GB HDD, 256MB of RAM, an LG DVD-writer, a KWorld TV-tuner, and an archaic 16MB TNT2, a Genius USB gamepad. I have got all my hardware running with Gentoo. I agree, SuSE sucks in many things, last version I used was 8.2 but I have no problems with Slack or Gentoo, not even Ubuntu.
“I guess you haven’t seen the latest enlightment demo movies. It’s quite possible to have awesome desktops with X (and my current desktop has nothing to envy from Windows or Mac).”
Give me a break! Those Enlightenment videos were ridiculous. If I wanted to see crappy effects like … christmas trees all over the desktop … or flames.. or “falling snow” (yawn) I would turn on my Commodore 64 and watch a demo that was made in 1986.
As far as the “usable” parts of enlightenment, it’s just straight up ugly. There’s no elegance. The icons and click effects look like they were made by a 14 year old with a pirate version of Photoshop.
Every time something new comes out, I’m always hopeful but desktop linux still seems so far away.
Got gentoo running as well on AMD64 ,i just choose for packages and took the amd-xp (32-bit) stage,advantage max amount of packages and not even a minor drawback in performance.However someone tried to please me and gave me a SuSE 9.2 professional box as a present.Great dissapointment!
I will reinstall gentoo and never look back at anything i guess.
Linux users go distro shopping for the simple reason that there are many distros available to try out, while there is only one version of Win XP or OSX available. So with the latter you have to take it or leave it. There just aren’t many Win XP or OSX “distros” to try out.
In the Linux world the very fact that there are so many distros around provides users the temptation to try out several of them. If there were just one version of Linux, users would just use it as it is without complaining about how “they all suck”.
In other words, users go from one distro to another simpy because they can.
Admittedly, I do not use it, but I hear this repeated so often, and there is nary a word on what is wrong with it. As I understand it, They barely touch it nowadays, and yes, I supported them removing the about KDE dialogs from the menus of KDE apps.
Personally I feel that a lot of “articles” on osnews suck.
Slackware is an eminently useable Linux, I have no problems with it on my desktop. It is no longer my only O/S as I bought OS X to go with a secondhand Powermac and I love OS X. However using Linux, Slackware and KDE is as productive as any O/S.
Windows? Who needs that.
“More like another way to rant. If the author finds that all Linux distros sucks, why didn’t he build his own?”
thats right. if your too dumb to build your own OS you shouldnt complain about the OSes that are put together by someone else when they dont conform to your standards. i built my own gentoo box. and yes i use ebuild scripts, but i make them do what i want not what is standard for the distro
Hello,
I was Linux User about 10 years ago. Because i don’t want to spend my time in configuration, i decided to develop on BeOS (BeBox and PowerMac) and now on OS X (on PowerBook).
I recently bought an IBM ThinkPad (X31) and looked for a Linux distribution… I was really suprised – and disappointed – that is still not easy in 2005 to install Linux (on my laptop) : each distribution requires additional manual configuration (i.e. add lines in esoteric text files) and i hate that.
This is not modern !
Well… Linux in not for me. May be Solaris.
This is one shrewd article. I actually can’t find anything wrong with it. Like they say in psychology: Admitting your problem is the first step to the solution.
I hope that the vendors/devs take heed of what was said in the article and by the posters here. Some valid points were given.
BTW. It still sucks less than the Redmond-black hole. 🙂
Well I’m running Suse 9.1, and the encrypted DVD was a simple FTP mirror, and a Mplayer download. Just like people have to do with Mandrake and PLF.
I used to always try to support Linux but would always end up going back to XP after it’d break or not do what I wanted (I’ve had installations not use networking at all and just stop booting and I’ve never found any ways of fixing these other than reinstalling). It wasn’t until OS X that I found a REAL alternative to Windows (and boy is it some alternative!). It’s a pity that people get so embroiled in the windows vs linux war that no one notices what a fantastic job Apple is doing. OS X is pretty close to the perfect OS, imho.
Well I’m running Suse 9.1, and the encrypted DVD was a simple FTP mirror, and a Mplayer download. Just like people have to do with Mandrake and PLF.
Nothing wrong with that.However with 9.2 SuSE thought to be wise to render all dvd capable apps completely useless.Eeven if you install or compile from source libdvdcss you still get this For legal reasons yadda yadda…message,end effect for example xine refuses to play your legally bought dvd’s.I was only able to play them once ripped on HD from another PC on my lan.I guess this is influenced by Novell last boy-scout ware.
Microsoft sucks, because thier products are low to medium quality. The computer industry does not have quality standards that the public can judge competitors, it’s all about who does the best advertising and hype.
Installing Mplayer isn’t a big issue,at least not for me.But what concerns me is the fact that there’re a lot more users (newbies,non-engaged)who allso bought the 9.2 box and are now facing a completely non-multimedia box with a lot build-in harrassment.SuSSE isn’t by far user friendly and complete as all the articles claim it to be.
Admitting your problem is the first step to the solution.
So, author of this pice of text should start from admitting, he has no clue, and that he’s not able to find his way with a Linux, so, in frustration, he writes ,,Sucks” article. Ranting is very easy. I could write a Windows Sucks article, wow! ,,Windows installation won’t allow me to set partition! I can’t play DVD out-of-the-box! My WiFi card is not detected!” but instead of that I just get a OS that fits me. I work with it, I play with it. My friend, a desk away from me, uses Windows XP. So what? Nothing. Do he like it? Yes. He thinks that Linux is OK? Sure he do. He’s not using it, because it just not fits him. I guess he should write an article: most of people in my comapny are morons using OS I can’t use!
Well, whatever. Such article is pure flamebait for me.
A big reason why Linux shuns binary drivers is compatibility. Binary drivers work on only one platform, usually x86 while Linux runs on pretty much every architecture out there. Even if nVidia releases x86 drivers, there are many machines that don’t get supported (i.e. PPC, Alpha, SPARC, etc).
It’s a pain to get them to support so many architectures, and it’s going to cost the company loads. A better idea would be to just release the specs and allow the OSS developers to do their thing. Having the stock Xorg/XFree driver providing full functionality is both a) easier for the end user since they no longer need to mess with downloading drivers and b) cheaper for the companies since they don’t actively develop the drivers anymore.
Face it. Linux is not the best OS out there. It might be better than some, but that does not make it the best.
For too long have we, the techno-savvy people of this world, been saying that Linux is the best, there’s nothing wrong with Linux. That has to stop. Even me, as a rather proficient Linux user, has to admit that it’s not the solution to all my problems.
There is still some glaring short-comings in Linux as a whole. As soon as they are sorted out, then maybe Linux will be the solution.
Currently it’s just a remedy.
See, now you made me mad. 😉
Yeah, and it’s that difficulty that makes software stronger. It’s the challenge to find solutions that make the future better, makes it grow, and advance. Without these problems to solve, we would not have much to look forward to in the future.
Well, whatever. Such article is pure flamebait for me.
Yes,but not intended.
So i can’t drive an 911 because it’s potentially atracting crime?To put it in psychologically terms: know your limitations,get around it,just face it,or improve your skills.Nevertheless can’t hurd to pinpoint the ugly sides of some OS’s.
[i]I can’t play DVD out-of-the-box!{/i]
True,but that’s not really the issue.Claiming it can while installing a distro but once installed it can’t is false accusation.During install all those screenshots and promises coming bye:This release is so modern and good,Watch and create your dvd’s! (than when you try to do so,you get an “Can’t play your dvd because of legal issues ..”.Even the unencrypted ones!My 2cents,(Well it was 90 Euro)
To put it in psychologically terms: know your limitations,get used to it,get around it,or improve your skills.
And even more like OPENSTEP. Have a try: http://livecd.gnustep.org
You’ll find the same menus (with Services), development tools (InterfaceBuilder, Gorm, Xcode), command line tools (defaults, open). And even the same keyboard shortcuts.
If we forced everyone to use Microsoft and did not try to improve the industry, than software quality would deteriorate as we sat back and were spoon fed our diet. Without any competition or problems to solve, than no advancement would be made.
If anything, we should take on the greatest challenges that we can dream of and through an open platform, find ways to solve those problems and a finished product, the product that we actually want.
If you wanted Linux to become great, than the focus should be upon advertising. That’s because the customer does not judge software quality objectively, this more of a favorite ice cream flavor, there is not objective measure of quality. So advertise Linux into success, and you will find a lot of converts. That’s the sad truth.
Face it. Linux is not the best OS out there. It might be better than some, but that does not make it the best.
Where did I said it is? There’s no such thing as best car out there nor there is a thing like best OS out there. Some people drive VWBug, some needs a truck. Would I look stupid after a article that would claim: I hate my VWBug color, plus, I can’t carry a 3 tons of coal in it! This is just a joke. Teh sucks!
Lastly, advertising in and of itself is a field of study. It’s very possible to do poor advertising, so Linux groups must acquire professional advertisers, and not advertise themselves, leave it to professionals in that specialized field. Otherwise the advertising will not be effective.
Emil,
With an automobile a customer can at least test drive the product and visualize it before purchasing, while on the other hand, in the computer industry try showing the customer three million lines of C code and they will not be able to make heads or tails of it. The computer industry is a dictators paradise and an advertisers dream. Sales are almost completely based on advertising. Microsoft instead of opening their code will actually advertise their code by telling a story about how it is designed and works whether it is true or not, there is no way to find out, it’s all closed. On the other hand, Linux code is open but it’s so complex that it is useless, so they would be better of telling a story about how the code is designed and how it works rather than letting people judge for themselves. People are not capable of judging three million lines of jibberish. So there is a major problem with quality, and instead of quality the industry is based on mythology.
I hate my VWBug color, plus, I can’t carry a 3 tons of coal in it! This is just a joke
True.
But when they advertise:Try our new VW Beetle with new suspension!New: you can carry even more cole now,upto 4000 kg.
Now when you try to load 1000 kg and the supension says: do it yourself.Is this lack of user research,user ignorance?
Equivalent to some distros who “slime” every canar advantage down your throat while installing,in the sence: New…,You can do this… ,that…,improved…,and in the end not much holds when last but not least *tested*.
Advertisement is an necessity and can be fun and educational,however most of the times self fullfilling prophecies are gunned in the open.
Sorry about that. Got carried away.
Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that we both are saying the same thing.
E
With an automobile a customer can at least test drive the product and visualize it before purchasing
With Linux there’s a LiveCD. :->
Microsoft has expert advertisers, and they put on a professional “all business” appearance, but the actual quality of their products are medium at best.
Those enlightenment-movies are not a showcase for how your desktop should look like, they are just demos of what the software will allow. Big difference, but I guess you were too keen on flaming linux and X to think that far.
The main problem in Linux distros is lack of testing, AFAICS. Every distro I’ve used (currently on FC3) has had at least a couple of major, showstopper bugs. The problem is really with the OSS projects supplying the software, but the major distros really ought to test those things before they ship them.
If I were some sort of benevolent OSS community dictator, I would shift some development hours away from new features and new distros to developing a comprehensive automated testing suite for Linux distros. Even if it only caught the simpler bugs, it would free up testing and bug reporting time so that more complex bugs would be caught.
Of course, I’m not a dictator and nobody can be, but it would be nice.
Live CD is a good idea because it makes it easy for some people to preivew Linux, but Linux does not have a unifed professional advertising strategy, nor does it have the proper people for that type of job.
I think that these type of articles hurt Microsoft Windows cause, because this is an example of poor quality advertising, and it only stirs up a religious war, and on those grounds Microsoft is at a disadvantage.
I recently bought an IBM ThinkPad (X31) and looked for a Linux distribution… I was really suprised – and disappointed – that is still not easy in 2005 to install Linux (on my laptop) : each distribution requires additional manual configuration (i.e. add lines in esoteric text files) and i hate that.
This is not modern !
I completely agree. Why should I touch a single configuration file ? Windows XP maybe isn’t perfect, but does things well, because you don’t have to learn config file syntax for each distro or when they change config syntax.
I don’t want to spend all day to configure OS. I prefer Mandrake. I just install it, and it works for me. OK, I admit, I added powernow-k7 and asus-acpi to /etc/modules, but that’s all.
I’m still waiting for SiS to write drivers for SiS740 chipset :[ Maybe someone should reverse engineer drivers and show SiS the finger.
I also don’t know why they don’t release the info how to code drivers, e.g. what to write to video card ports to render triangle ? I don’t think that driver developers need the schematics or video bios source code.
First of all, maybe I’m wrong, but I think the main point of this article is that if you’re using Linux, and something sucks, you should pitch in and help. I mean, at the very least you can file a bug report and move on to Windows XP or whatever happens to float your boat.
But then, I’d also say that the author isn’t quite as familiar with Linux as he should be before writing an article on the subject. There are Linux distros the likes of which I defy you to find elsewhere for free, or even find elsewhere for that matter.
Linux does everything. If you want a distro that’s specificly put together to act as a router, you have it. If you want a distro that makes it simple to put together a little high performance cluster you have it. If you want something to use as a proxy, rescue cd, firewall, thin client, database, mail server, web server, general purpose server, workstation, or what have you, chances are there’s a Linux distro that’s entirely suited or even specialized for your needs.
…and that Microsoft image of “all business” is not real. The truth is that business is just a game; an illusion.
You have to lie (or accept lies) in order to ascend to power (you need power before you can legislate change), but than once you are there, if you are still anything like what you were when you started, you can change things for the better. That’s the thing, what would Linux be like if it dismantled Microsoft, would it be the same. Would Linus be Linus or would he be Darth Linus?
This article was right on as far as i’m concerned. I especially like his example of something that sucks. Package management on some distros is just awful and there is no distro that gets everything right as far as i know. As a server linux kicks butt. The only thing that is as good or better is solaris. As a desktop its lacking in certain areas. Mandrake has come the closest to nailing this but there rpmdrake is so lousy that I moved on to another distro (Fedora which sucks even worse).
Everything is in the subject.
I think much of the flaws described in this article are simply due to packaging rework, or just rework in general.
There are at least about 200 Linux distro. It’s nice to have choice, but obviously there is too much of it.
There’s probably something that sucks in every linux distro, but there’s also something that sucks in every OS.
I use gentoo. I have problems sometimes to install some thing or the other, although I blame it on myself for liking to install the cutting edge stuff (I often install masked packages that aren’t considered well tested enough for general consumption)
However, it doesn’t drives me insane. What does is windows. I can’t stand that this OS needs regular maintenance (run anti-spyware stuff, run this, run that) and that no matter what I do (and no matter what all my computer knowledgeable friends, even those who don’t like linux do with their own achine either), windows seems to drop in performance with time, up to the point where it’s not snappy anymore. I hate it when I press windows-E and the explorer takes 10 seconds to show up, or to several seconds hang-up occuring randomly while I’m using visual C++.
Some people say linux isn’t snappy, I guess your mileage may vary, but for me, it is, and it has been for quite a while without any degradation.
There are windows-minded people who tell me it’s normal, that I’m supposed to actively perform maintenance to keep my system working properly.
Linux isn’t as good as windows as far as installation (of software, of drivers, of whatever, and I include configuration in this) goes. I won’t outright say it sucks, because I never tried any distro specifically designed to make these matters easier (like mandrake).
However, one thing that Linux does very well, especially compared to windows, is just working, once you installed all you need, without any need to clean up some thing or the other.
It all boils down to: pick your poison. I prefer to have trouble installing stuff, but do it once, and then not have the need to go out of my way to keep things working well.
Well, too bad that Enlightenment is in perpetual alpha state. I just compiled the entire stack two nights ago from cvs. It compiled fine, but when i went to load it up a white screen came up with garbage menus.
And then you go on the #e irc channel over at freenode and when you tell people about the problem they claim it’s your fault, and then when another guy comes on the channel 5 minutes later and has the same problem, their heads explode because because it reminds them that it’s still alpha-level quality and they just don’t want to hear about it – covering their ears with their hands “I can’t hear you…I can’t hear you…”
So don’t talk about videos, when we all know that you haven’t even tried E17.