Why Linux (Still) Sucks (And What We Can Do To Fix It)

[Behemoth]

The real issues is lake of mainstream software suppot

I assume you mean lack of Windows software support.

Which, there are many alternatives to the 'mainstream' software that you are referring to. Granted, most of the big boys write for Windows systems, and I'm not trying to suggest that the GNU/Linux alternatives are equal or superior, but they can get the job done.

The biggest drawback with GNU/Linux is that Windows users want it to be Windows. It's not. It is a completely different operating system, that requires the same dedication and patience with learning any OS. If every Windows user gave up on Windows on the first try, there would be no Windows.

[Charisma Veteran]

Long time lurker, first time poster... but I gotta toss my two cents in at this one because it's a pet peeve of mine. Most people who are violently opposed to Linux (or any OS for that matter) just don't want another learning curve. No matter what a person starts with, they're going to be more comfortable with that and resist change, because that's human nature. "Linux sucks, boo hoo" translates to, "I don't understand it, so I'm opposed to it!" Windows is just what far more people cut their "computer" teeth on than any other, thus its ubiquity despite its inherent flaws, especially in security. It's a preference, just as with anything else. I prefer mint chocolate chip ice cream to any other. What, you've always gotten vanilla and you love it? Great! I'm glad you found something you enjoy. It'd be stupid of me to go on an anti-vanilla tirade because I don't happen to prefer it.

Alright, I'm done feeding the troll. Back to your regularly scheduled debate.

[TDT]

Just finished "testing" the latest Ubuntu (and Kubuntu, for that matter) version via Wubi on my PC. This was a nightmare for me. I'm not a complete noob in Linux stuff, I've used many distros over the years (Fedora, RedHat, etc.), but I never had so many issues like now. It seems to me that, by trying to make it as simple as they can, they're breaking stuff.

The biggest problem was with the dual display setup. I can't drag windows accross monitors, just icons (and this really bugs me). That Xinerama thing, if I activate it, totally screws up both of the displays (weird artifacts, low resolution, etc.).

The taskbar (or...panel, as they call it) doesn't show the running apps and I really don't know how to do that. I found a way with some gnomenu program, but I couldn't make it to run at startup. Also, at one point I've removed the "taskbar" entirely; I couldn't find a way to get it back. The desktop had nothing on it, just the wallpaper. Oh well...

And many, many other issues (small issues, but annoying).

With Kubuntu, the secondary display was all black, and the mouse cursor on it was a big white X. Also, the taskbar (to be fair, the taskbar in kubuntu shows the running apps) doesn't stretch on the entire width of the screen if the resolution is higher than 1024x768. It's like on 3/4 of it.

So there you go. Things like theese really make you wonder why on Earth someone would go for a Linux distro. :)

[VII7]

Video Drivers suck big time for those with new hardware.

Beyond Servers and Programers - the only satisfied users I know are those with ancient Desktops, some Notebook users and some kids that like to play with Compiz or some hacking software.

As for my self, kinda stuck in the middle - yet I'm doing 2 x Boot with Windows and that helps and mostly agree with what he said in that video.

====================

So, in your opinion Linux should be only for older generations...

This is ridiculous, why an old man? It should be a naked woman, and all of the blocks should be the same colour and be the same size.

Are you one of those GUI haters, those that hate the GUI for simplifying things so that even an average user can use it? Guess every Linux community has some old and some younger... And even got verbally attacked in one Linux community for saying "GUI is evolution" - yet by that they understood that "the terminal" is useless or something like that (which I never said since I'm aware that terminal is still need it if you want to get more out linux distros) and they gut real aggressive for no reason.

And this is another thing that needs to be improved in Linux - the community attitude.... Don't get me wrong I got my share of knowledge and I can do just fine without asking for help (cause the one I needed like "better video drivers" definitely won't come from a community user) but some that one try Linux, even "most" best on Linux average user knowledge, might like it more if things would be a little different... Something you don't see in Windows community - where user can get mad on Drivers Developers, but rarely get mad among themselves... I mostly see this on Linux/Mac communities - where those feel like banished back to Windows for their lack of knowledge or for their expectations regarding a Linux Distro. Now "Puppy Linux community" could argue with me saying "hey we're not like that" - yes I know, wasn't talking about you... :)

[08993]

^

My point is that, like Lego, Linux is a framework. You can't blame the Lego if somebody uses it to build something you don't like.

I'm not sure what attacking the Linux community has to do with anything either, we use and enjoy the features that set it apart from other OS's and get chastised for it, but this is typical Human behaviour of attacking anything it doesn't understand.

[VII7]

That's one way to look at it, yet this is not a topic about Window but Linux and his family of distributions. You either judged Windows or a single Linux distribution (let's say Arch), cause you can say that every Linux distribution comes with same Lego package.

[Motoko.]

I just came back from my Ubuntu experience

and I have to say Linux is not for me, to be quite frank I think it's bullsh*t

[VII7]

I just came back from my Ubuntu experience

and I have to say Linux is not for me, to be quite frank I think it's bullsh*t

No games or is to complicated (yet Ubuntu is among the easiest I know)? :)

[Motoko.]

No games or is to complicated (yet Ubuntu is among the easiest I know)? :)

It's like when I try to do something like install flash 10.1 RC4 for example, I forget how to use the CLI and I get all confused and start searching on google on how to install it. I mean why should it require that much effort.

If you want an analogy it'd be like trying to typing in commands in photoshop for special effects to take place. It's ludicrous..

So yeah.. I learned Linux is not for me.

[Yorak]

It's like when I try to do something like install flash 10.1 RC4 for example, I forget how to use the CLI and I get all confused and start searching on google on how to install it. I mean why should it require that much effort.

If you want an analogy it'd be like trying to typing in commands in photoshop for special effects to take place. It's ludicrous..

Really...is it that hard? I am fairly sure my five year old niece could remember a simple command.

Most software can be found in Synaptic. Is pointing and clicking too difficult as well? Just curious.

[iamwhoiam]

Really...is it that hard? I am fairly sure my five year old niece could remember a simple command.

Other than that comment not being completely demeaning, those types of comments are all over *nix forums.

[Motoko.]

Really...is it that hard? I am fairly sure my five year old niece could remember a simple command.

Most software can be found in Synaptic. Is pointing and clicking too difficult as well? Just curious.

Flash 10.0 was available at the software center but I want 10.1 for its improvements. I use to know how to compile tar.gz files but it slipped away from me.

Stickcam was giving me problems too with my camera.

I was like to hell with this, I want to be productive not tortured.

[TDT]

I was like to hell with this, I want to be productive not tortured.

Yeap, exactly. At one point I had a triple boot, Win 7 x64, my primary OS, Leopard and Ubuntu. Right now, I'm using Win for almost everything (production wise) and Leopard just for Logic studio. Ubuntu is now gone, too many things to do for some simple tasks. And I don't agree on the "point and click" thing. This might be true if you're installing something from that software center, but there are drivers and apps out there that you have to compile and do other additional things to make them work. This is really not normal for the average user, no matter how you try to wrap it in the "customize the OS as you see fit" thing. :)

[Behemoth]

^

My point is that, like Lego, Linux is a framework. You can't blame the Lego if somebody uses it to build something you don't like.

I'm not sure what attacking the Linux community has to do with anything either, we use and enjoy the features that set it apart from other OS's and get chastised for it, but this is typical Human behaviour of attacking anything it doesn't understand.

I agree 100%.

Blaming Linux, which is actually the kernel, is fruitless. If there is something wrong or something you don't like with the distro you tried, blame the distro. Try a few more, there are hundreds; if you still can't find something that suits you, so be it. Linux isn't for everyone.

These 'Linux sucks' threads are getting old.

[VII7]

It's like when I try to do something like install flash 10.1 RC4 for example, I forget how to use the CLI and I get all confused and start searching on google on how to install it. I mean why should it require that much effort.

If you want an analogy it'd be like trying to typing in commands in photoshop for special effects to take place. It's ludicrous..

So yeah.. I learned Linux is not for me.

It's funny you say that, since you picked Ubuntu - which is among the most User Friendly OS, as in aiming for Windows simplicity with Ubuntu Software Center... plus Synaptic. To put it simple as some did in another topic - Linux is not Windows - yet there are some distributions that aimed for Windows "point and click simplicity" to improve their popularity. As mentioned in another topic...

Most forget one very important thing... Linux is just recently aiming for Desktop, as in the last years - yet Windows had this target since Windows 95 and made a huge leap with Windows 98 and the support for games and that was just the beginning.... Back then, 95% of current Linux users wouldn't even look at it...

If point and click is the only think you can do, why bother with Terminal? If you want simplicity stick to what you can do... Beta and RC are not for those that aim for simplicity, yet even those could be available in synaptic... Regarding Flash and Ubuntu that's more like Adobe's fault - since 10.1 RC4 simply doesn't work (RC2 used to...), not even with Terminal... And even this is still new to Linux, since Adobe has a long history with OSX and Windows.... so they're more like in the betas when it comes to Linux yet on Windows and OS X they're kinda mature...

It's a different culture... yet Ubuntu and other similar distributions tries to get some of both cultures (both Linux and Windows). I for one, like both... and that's why I use both. For me Windows is not complete without Linux and Linux is not complete without Windows and that's being realistic, since another 10 years might pass until things get to a cross point. And the reason why I need Linux (and that's subjective), well, honestly - beyond games Windows gets real boring for me - it's like switch channels on TV, nothing happens this days....

[SMELTN]

So the kids where loving the Ubuntu 10.04 laptop until last night. They wanted to play Fusion Fall on Cartoon Network, but it requires that Unity plugin to work. There is no Unity plugin for Linux, only Mac, iPhone and Windows, and come to find out the Unity devs said they do not want to put time and resources to develop on a OS that isn't "main stream"

Sucks too because everything was running fine, and for what they need it for, Ubuntu was perfect

[Lechio]

So the kids where loving the Ubuntu 10.04 laptop until last night. They wanted to play Fusion Fall on Cartoon Network, but it requires that Unity plugin to work. There is no Unity plugin for Linux, only Mac, iPhone and Windows, and come to find out the Unity devs said they do not want to put time and resources to develop on a OS that isn't "main stream"

Sucks too because everything was running fine, and for what they need it for, Ubuntu was perfect

There's always the possibility to install the Windows version of Firefox on WINE and play it there. Don't how that would work, but it seems to be an alternative.

[ichi]

There's always the possibility to install the Windows version of Firefox on WINE and play it there. Don't how that would work, but it seems to be an alternative.

I did just that to play Dofus back when the flash plugin for Linux was almost a whole major version behind the plugin for other platforms, and it worked great.

[ichi]

It's like when I try to do something like install flash 10.1 RC4 for example, I forget how to use the CLI and I get all confused and start searching on google on how to install it. I mean why should it require that much effort.

Use the CLI to do what exactly?

-Download the tar.gz from adobe.

-Right click -> extract here.

-Open synaptic, type "flash" in the search box and uninstall your currently installed flash plugin.

-Copy the file you extracted from the tar.gz to ".mozilla/plugins" (.mozilla is a hidden folder in your home folder, press ctrl+h to show hidden folders if you don't feel like typing it on the address bar).

-Restart your browser and have fun :)

[KiHu]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9640/windowsvslinux.png

I was going to post something, but my thoughts has already been said by other posts in this thread.

Im just dropping off this image.

[ViperAFK]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9640/windowsvslinux.png

I was going to post something, but my thoughts has already been said by other posts in this thread.

Im just dropping off this image.

Having to compile from source is something you VERY rarely have to do if ever in a modern distro.

Its more like:

Open package manager, check box, apply.

Or if you want to use the cmd?

sudo apt-get install appname

password

done

pacman -S appname

password

done

yum install appname

password

done

ect...

Have you ever tried to compile a program from source on windows? its even worse :pinch: I was tryin to get banshee up and running in windows, to do it you need to install a couple things, install git, download it from git, open it in an ide and compile it, then get a bunch of uncorrectable errors lol.

I still lol'd at the pic though :rofl:

[jets0n]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9640/windowsvslinux.png

That's incredibly disturbing. No man should feel that way about an OS, sir.

[HeretikSaint]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9640/windowsvslinux.png

I was going to post something, but my thoughts has already been said by other posts in this thread.

Im just dropping off this image.

That image is incredibly deceptive as most programs do not need to be compiled from source anymore. In fact, most programs on Linux can be installed easier than on Windows. It goes something more like this:

Windows | Linux

Press Ok sudo apt-get install [application]

Press Next Done

Press Next

Press Next

Press Next

Press Next

And on Windows, there was probably a box somewhere you forgot to uncheck that installed a toolbar.

[Lechio]

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9640/windowsvslinux.png

I was going to post something, but my thoughts has already been said by other posts in this thread.

Im just dropping off this image.

Cool story bro.

[TDT]

And on Windows, there was probably a box somewhere you forgot to uncheck that installed a toolbar.

Right. Damn those developers that release free quality software and give you the option to support them by installing a toolbar!