From Russia, with love!

[GreyGeek]

While researching another topic I stumbled across this article, posted on a Russian website.
Very good reading.

Desktop Linux Problems and Major Shortcomings:

http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux...p.current.html

[dequire]

This was a good read. As with most good articles, the comments are almost (and in some cases more so) as relevant as the article. Fragmentation is a double-edged sword. Linux leads the way in DE innovation and customization because of the freedom we have to experiment and innovate. But, as always, it is at the cost of 'standardization'. So we have a fragmented ecosystem of what is, at best, a pool of 2% of the worldwide pool of computer users and potential developers. A fraction of a fraction of a fraction...(add to that endless distros and DE's your head will start to spin). I do think that while most of the issues raised are, to varying degrees, somewhat valid, they are getting better! The best example of this is Wayland. X.org needs to die, although I know realistically it will still be around for a while. The sound stack definitely needs improvement. As the article points out, simply too many layers! If I plug in a USB headset it should just work. However experience says that this will not be the case. I should be able to launch KMix and tell Kubutnu whether the sound for a particular app should come from the speakers, headset, or both...

But no one can tell me the situation is a bad as it was a few years ago, where wireless was a disaster, any printer not made by HP would have a snowball's chance in hell of working, and gaming was a pipe-dream. And to be honest when I launch into Windows XP I cringe. I mean literally. The beauty and elegance of KDE and the awesomeness of the Kubuntu community and the developers at large make these occasional inconveniences all the more worthwhile. And let's not forget that Linux is free.

[tek_heretik]

Not anything I haven't read before, but what really makes me laugh is how much this guy or other whiners pay for Linux, a big fat ZERO DOLLARS, zero rubles, whatever. I'd personally rather put up with a few little shortcomings than corporate tyranny, gouging, spying, the list is endless, this clown should be thanking his lucky stars there is a FREE alternative, which BTW, 'powers' most of the servers and super computers of the world, those super computers AREN'T running WinDOHS!.

Edit: This is why I keep my mouth shut, because until the day comes I engineer an OS kernel and write the perfect distro, I've got NOTHING to complain about.

[bsniadajewski]

I agree with Dequire's comment about fragmentation in the Linux ecosystem. I betcha (though I'm not a betting man) that of the hundreds of distros out there, the lion's share of that 2% (using dequire's numbers) goes to only maybe 10 of them, with Ubuntu and its ilk (includiong Mint, Bodhi, and all the *buntus) beting dominant of those.

[tek_heretik]

From Russia with love also (actually a guy from the Ukraine found this)...



Too funny.

Sorry about the off-topicness Grey.

[SteveRiley]

This one...

Linux security/permissions management is a bloody mess: PAM, SeLinux, Udev, HAL (replaced with udisk/upower/libudev), PolicyKit, ConsoleKit and usual Unix permissions (/etc/passwd, /etc/group) all have their separate incompatible permissions management systems spread all over the file system.

...hurts because, well, it's true. You all will hate me for this, but Windows beats the pants off Linux here. Permissions, rights, and ACLs are consistent everywhere and managed through one set of UIs.

[GreyGeek]

Sorry about the off-topicness Grey.

But VERY funny! I wonder if the resemblence is family related?

[GreyGeek]

The Four Men From Yorkshire

When I was a kid, we had to ......

This one...
...hurts because, well, it's true. You all will hate me for this, but Windows beats the pants off Linux here. Permissions, rights, and ACLs are consistent everywhere and managed through one set of UIs.

True, and in my opinion it is all due to the different approaches taken by various distros in their desire "automate" everything, including security, in order to remove the user from being responsible. That desire stems from the fact that as Linux rose in popularity its usage by Joe and Sally Sixpacks, who know nothing about anything related to computers and don't care to learn, increased to the point where they are now the majority user of Linux. Distro designers tried to make installation and operation almost brainless for them. They've succeeded, but at the cost of complexity. How many know how to edit /etc/network/interfaces, or /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf to modify or fix connection problems? Or, how to take command of the DNS and configure /etc/resolv.conf to setup DNS?

To make matters even MORE worse, once Joe and Sally learn the basics about Kubuntu but decide to move to SUSE they find out that it is designed entirely different and what they did in Kubuntu wouldn't work in SUSE. SUSE uses YAST (Yet Another System Tool) application to make add, change or remove system settings. When YAST closes down it runs SUSEConfig, which calls about 20 Python scripts. Each script is an automated tool which uses settings created by YAST to modify the parts of the system it is responsible for. When I used SuSE making a change meant waiting several minutes, sometimes up to 20, for the scripts to run. IF you decided to jump in and make a quick edit to the config file that YAST created, just to save time, YAST notices the time stamp change and assumes that you are going to be responsible for system maintenance, informs you, and promptly shuts down. Now you are neck deep in the swamp and the aligators are BIG.

I'm not complaining. The older I get the more I forget, and I'm thankful that Kubuntu installs so easy and "just works" (most of the time), because I haven't written more than 80 lines of code since I retired 5 years ago. But, take internet connectivity, for example. When I began using Linux in the spring of 1998 I had to compile the Tulip driver for my ethernet card. Since I was a programmer that was no problem. I also had complete responsibility for configuring the card and setting up the routing table and DNS. For my sound chip I just purchased a $4 driver from 4Front Technololgies. Setting up the display was simply running XF86Config and picking my video chip and display. It wrote a basic xorg.conf file which you edited to add or fix capabilities. After I logged in I got a console. I issued startx to start the window manager. Before KDE I used FVWM95 When it crashed, which wasn't very often, if ever, you got a console, not a hang. I used it

because it looked and ran a lot like Win95 after I configured it. That made it easier to switch between Windows and Linux. FVWM95 remains the fastest desktop I've ever used (and one of the most limited).

When I was asked to replace a Win98 system running the WildCat BBS system with something that wouldn't break three or four times a day and always on weekend, which required an IT staff member to drive into work to reboot the system so that tax preparers could download approved income tax results, I took a SuSE 6.4 system and modified /etc/inittab to spawn the two modem cards to roll back and forth between them. It took two lines of code. I then modified bashrc in /etc/skel so that when users logged into their account they were presented with a bash menu script which looped between the options to log out, view reports status, or download a report. A clerk with root access created the user accounts (dial in access only) and ran import and export scripts. One bash script and three Python scripts, each only a page long, replaced the Wildcat BBS. That system ran for 18 months without a single failure, before the job was outsourced. Back then the user had full control and it was easy to do. If you were a geek. Now, Joe and Sally (and me as well) run it till it breaks then re-installs. I keep a backup. Re-installation takes only 20 minutes and restoring my files about an hour. I've wasted more time than that trying to fix a single problem ... like the ath9k problem.

I began in IT by taking a data processing class at Barns School of Business in Denver in 1960. The hardware was the IBM 402 Tabulator and its gang punch and sorter machines. I took Fortran IV in grad school in 1968, on a CDC 6600 and later a Honeywell 200. Ten years later I was at the birth of the PC. I bought the first Apple ][+ sold in the state of Nebraska in August of 1978, from Team Electronics, the first store to carry Apple computers in the state, to the best of my knowledge. Later that fall I began selling demonstrating and selling Apples at that store to supplement my teaching income. Now, thirty five years later, I believe that I am witnessing the end of the home PC market. PC OEM production is dropping because Joe and Sally found out that smartphones and 10" or less tablets do everything they want to do without having to learn squat. And they are cheaper and more portable, too. These small form devices are moving into the workplace as well. Desktop towers and high powered laptops are being retired from the server room to be replaced by stacks of blades, or even big iron (!), running hundreds or thousands of virtual desktops and virtual databases, any of which can be popped into or out of existance with clicks of a button. IT and clerks in some workplaces are required to bring their own tablet to do work (tax deduction). IF I live as long as my dad did, to 94 in 2035, I belive I will live to see the last PC or laptop coming off the production line, only to be placed into the Smithsonian, beside the other historical relics.

[tek_heretik]

There's something to be said for 'fragmentation', keeps the script kiddies on their toes.

[jpenguin]

That's the name of the Tetris documentary

[bsniadajewski]

There's something to be said for 'fragmentation', keeps the script kiddies on their toes.

Very True, but hell on legitimate developers.