Video: Why Desktop Linux sucks - LFNW2009

Phew!

At least someone that says that they "like Linux" admits publicly that there are problems in the FOSS world. This is assuming that we know that the kernel is Linux and the tools/apps is everything else, generally GNU.

Anyways, GNU/Linux is getting better rapidly...

Thankfully, no single person *can* run the Linux show. Linux is NOT about cohesiveness, or a desire for oneness.

This guy really needs to understand that Linux was NOT made for him, was not designed to make his life easier.

If you are using Linux because you think it's support for your hardware, peripherals, and software are somehow going to be better than anything else, you'd best just forget about it and buy a Mac or a Windows machine.

One desktop, one dominant sound system, one whatever. Screw that. By competition we excel. This guy is damn near a communist, and the way these people were complaining, oh poor me, I have to use the console to configure 3 different monitors. Gee... it's little wonder you have few of the heavy hitters there. It's even less wonder that the Solaris guys make fun of you.

Linux is fine, I use Mint as my desktop at my house and where I work (major hospital). There is absolutely no issue for me with network communication. I'm not slowed down by it at all, far from it, using Linux and what it's got to offer *On the DESKTOP* has made my work days easier and better.

Why is everyone is so worried about gaining market share and expanding Linux? Do you think that by IBM, RH, whomever gaining market share, that suddenly all your wet dreams of killing Microsoft will happen? Grow up. M$ is here to stay, their products run most of the corporate world, and it's fine. Their stuff works quite happily with Linux, Solaris, Mac, whatever, so I just don't understand why most Linux users place M$ in the crosshairs.

/rant

Meeting about Linux sucking demonstrates it concretely.

Sorry, but don't mention OpenOffice. It's a horrid piece of s*** but it DOES NOT MATTER. If you're starting now to clone MS Office you are worse than irrelevant. End of story.

I tried Linux in 2001 (Mandrake, Redhat) and 2006 (Suse) and you're right on the money, it sucked. Not just because of drivers and config issues, but because the whole thing (except the kernel perhaps) is amateur hour, big time.

I want to like Linux, I really do. I heard such good things about Ubuntu I went and looked at some screen shots. You know what I saw? Not one, but TWO stripes of crap going across the screen -- one on the bottom and one on the top. Whoever designed this clusterwaste of vertical pixels at Gnome or wherever should be lobotomized.

Then you go to the Gnome site and they're boasting about how they're not the window manager that just copies Windows. You can't say that outloud without William Shatner walking in front of you and doing a voiceover. Newsflash: Windows is dying, and you're not as good as Windows yet. Give it up.

By now you're on about "packaging". Yes, we know; most of what you're saying is about the failure of totally open ecosystems to focus. The kernel is great because Linus rules it with with an iron fist (meritocratic though it is). There's nobody like this in any other aspect of the OS. And I doubt Linus could design a decent desktop.

Somebody made a crack about Windows with the slideshow problems. Yes, people have those kinds of problems in Windows. But not experts lecturing about the OS! Not even MBAs using powerpoint or keynote. Not even your Mom, most of the time.

Photoshop. You don't need it. The number of people who absolutely rely on a single monolithic app is very small. It's a tiny segment. And they're going to use Windows -- what's their motivation for using anything other than the native environment if they're only running one app? If they do care, they can use emulation -- they can afford to set it up for their one app. If you must have something, make it a Lightroom competitor.

But you don't need big, monolithic apps. You need lots of simple apps, but they need to be innovative, polished, they need to interoperate, and every one of them needs a 90% monopoly in their segment.

You need the best filesystem -- ONE of them. Probably IBM could be talked into backing this. Clone the kernel team, start with Reiser4 or ZFS, and flush ext down the toilet. You'll need absolutely rock-solid support for HFS+ and NTFS, including elegant metadata translators that work in the background when copying between filesystems.

You need infinite undo/redo across applications. You need baby steps to content-based (instead of application based) usage paradigms. It doesn't have to be revolutionary, but you should it should be enough to differentiate Linux from Windows and Mac OS.

You need cross-platform APIs good enough that ordinary developers are willing to make the Windows version the port. QT and Mono are the only serious contenders. Canonical should spend 30% of their budget on an in-house Mono team that keeps on fantastic terms with Microsoft. Hell, they should convince MS to put up serious money for it. MS is going to be history soon if they can't leverage their technology again -- .net is the obvious choice.

-A.