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

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

What Ubuntu has is a (small but at least existent) marketing machine creating some mind share, hence why they get all the hype, prising and/or blame for features that other distros already had.

The thing is that if you want to deliver a product you don't only need to develop the product but also to let people know that the product is there. Canonical might not excel at the former, but at least they do a fair contribution on the later.

I'll give you that. From a technical standpoint Ubuntu offers nothing Fedora or openSUSE or even Debian don't have.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

1. I'm not american.

2. if this thread goes off topic again, im going to close it.

thread cleaned

[.Neo]

Maybe you're doing it wrong. Ubuntu has far lower hardware requirements than Windows 7 and MacOSX, if those "run like a dream" than Linux will run even better on that system.

The thing is, I can't do anything wrong with both Windows and Mac OS X. Mac OS X Snow Leopard offers full support for my Mac Pro out of the box, nothing else is required (obviously that's a special case, but still). Windows 7 only requires the Boot Camp drivers on my Mac OS X Snow Leopard install DVD for optimal experience. But even there things like Aero work out-of-the-box without installing those Boot Camp drivers in the first place.

So basically with both Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows 7 I pop-in the Install DVD and when the installer is done everything works the way it should. With Ubuntu not so much.

As for "that summing up your experience" do know that that image represents nothing more than FUD, a very old one that keeps getting repeated when lacking valid arguments to criticize Linux, which isn't the perfect OS (quite far from that). It was true something like 13+ years ago. Then came the package systems (rpm, deb, (...)) that package your software for you in way similar to what is done in a Windows world. After that, advanced package managers came into use, like synaptic, here it is again:

Read next time. Nowhere did I say I experienced the issues described in the picture, but the end result described in the picture is exactly the same: I always end up hitting some wall when installing Ubuntu, be it in VMware Fusion or natively on my Mac, frustrating the hell out of me. After trying to find a fix for a day I end up deleting the Ubuntu partition.

[Kyentei]

For crying out loud, even MS finally stopped doing gui only changes......finally, but they did it

You clearly have no ****ing idea what went on behind the scenes, let alone looked into it. And why should you? You clearly hate ubuntu. I'm pretty sure you didn't read up anything. You're just another kid trying to have an opinion.

What about the insanely fast boot-time, the couchdb integration and the way ubuntuone can sync pretty much everything into the cloud?

<snip>

Edited May 14, 2010 by Rob2687

[HawkMan]

You clearly have no ****ing idea what went on behind the scenes, let alone looked into it. And why should you? You clearly hate ubuntu. I'm pretty sure you didn't read up anything. You're just another kid trying to have an opinion.

What about the insanely fast boot-time, the couchdb integration and the way ubuntuone can sync pretty much everything into the cloud?

(snipped)

Impressive amount of searing and writing MS with a $ really scores the point right home.

too bad your post lacks any real content though. except flaming some other guy, if you think he's ignorant, just ignore him, OR reply to him in a mature composed manner. Fight his ignorance with logic.

Doesn't change the fact that he is kind of right. at some point linux used to make better use of hardware. Today... Ubuntu and the other user friendly distros have fairly horrible performance. on my N270+ION stuff flies in windows., accelerated desktop works great, no lag, just as fast as my desktop or gaming laptop. 720p and above video play in flash 10.1 rc, I can browse websites fast and smooth, app switching is fast. basically in windows it runs like my gaming laptop. except it can't play games and such of course.

In linux though, the 2D desktop is slower, the accelerated desktop, even at lowest settings which has horrible visual quality compared to the fixed high quality setting of Aero/DWM, is slow at best, laggy and jerky at most times. flash can't even play the lowest res youtube videos smoothly, app switching is far from optimal. browsers are laggy, can't scroll smoothly can't load smoothly.

Basically linux on an atom powered laptop/netbook with ION wich should run like greased lightning on an accelerated desktop is a horrible painfull experience. I liked ubuntu, I used it for a fairly lng time to try it out, I tried using it longer. I booted windows to try some stuff and check if the difference was as bad as I thought... and I couldn't make up any reason to switch back. Sure there was stuff I liked in linux, but overall smooth user experience was worth more than laggy desktops and apps among the other problems I ran into.

[Udedenkz]

I thought up some questions which might serve nicely the purpose of trolling,

HD flash videos run well when my CPU is in power saving mode, would I get better performance if I installed Ubuntu on my netbook?

What drivers?

I double clicked on an MP4 and it laggs - what is the problem?

[ichi]

I thought up some questions which might serve nicely the purpose of trolling,

OK I'll bite.

HD flash videos run well when my CPU is in power saving mode, would I get better performance if I installed Ubuntu on my netbook?

Both my psychic powers polling on your hardware info and the lack of hardware acceleration of adobe's flash plugin on Linux point to a "probably not" answer.

Then again they may still run perfectly fine.

I double clicked on an MP4 and it laggs - what is the problem?

That you opened it twice, silly :p

Seriously, wouldn't the problem be the same as if that video lagged on any other OS?

[Udedenkz]

OK I'll bite.

Both my psychic powers polling on your hardware info and the lack of hardware acceleration of adobe's flash plugin on Linux point to a "probably not" answer.

Then again they may still run perfectly fine.

That you opened it twice, silly :p

Seriously, wouldn't the problem be the same as if that video lagged on any other OS?

You misunderstood my post entirely.

I am saying that Linux is highly outdated: it has bad hardware acceleration support, as proven by Adobe.

My whole post was inspired by HawkMan's actually.

Quite simply, if I decide to go Linux, I would loose the ability to,

1. Play 1080/720 Flash Video (which I can do on my Intel Atom CPU running at half its usual clock speed on Windows 7)

2. Double Click an MP4 and expect it to play (W7 automatically uses DXVA whenever possible by default, MP4 files will all be decoded on the GPU by default - CPU capped as well for DTS / FLAC even)

I am pretty sure I can run two videos at the same time, interesting, I should test that. :cool:

[markwolfe Veteran]

...

I am saying that Linux is highly outdated: it has bad hardware acceleration support, as proven by Adobe.

:huh: Huh?

You have proven that Adobe writes crappier closed-source software for Linux than they do Windows. Linux, even nVidia's drivers (also closed-source, I might add for no real reason) run perfectly well. If that isn't clearly stated enough, then let me say that the problem is not "[Linux] has bad hardware acceleration support", but "Adobe generally has old and cruddy flash releases for Linux".

...

Quite simply, if I decide to go Linux, I would loose the ability to,

...

2. Double Click an MP4 and expect it to play (W7 automatically uses DXVA whenever possible by default, MP4 files will all be decoded on the GPU by default - CPU capped as well for DTS / FLAC even)

Funny, but it works for me (attached full screenshot). I don't recall doing anything special and I certainly haven't compiled and killed anyone only to hang myself three years later. :p

[Lechio]

^ I'll add to the Adobe bashing that they have been recently responsible for making 85% (if memory doesn't fail me) of Windows systems exploitable. That alone should be a good enough reason to be quite happy when their proprietary plugin gets replaced with Web standards (HTML5).

BTW that sure is some serious web browsing going on there Mark...

[markwolfe Veteran]

^ I'll add to the Adobe bashing that they have been recently responsible for making 85% (if memory doesn't fail me) of Windows systems exploitable. That alone should be a good enough reason to be quite happy when their proprietary plugin gets replaced with Web standards (HTML5).

BTW that sure is some serious web browsing going on there Mark...

:p I love tabs, what can I say? Some (ok, a lot) of Neowin catching up and moderating, some facebook contact with friends and family, banking and a bit of research on advanced mplayer adjustments. About the normal amount of tabs for me.

The unintentional, but convenient, capture of my conky screen shows no load on my CPU.

[ichi]

I am pretty sure I can run two videos at the same time, interesting, I should test that. :cool:

My bad, I forgot to add the <tongue in cheek> tag ;)

Guess you should, considering I can play two HD vids on my "highly outdated OS" with a crappy integrated GFX card that doesn't even support VDPAU (so cpu at 80%).

[Negi]

:huh: Huh?

You have proven that Adobe writes crappier closed-source software for Linux than they do Windows. Linux, even nVidia's drivers (also closed-source, I might add for no real reason) run perfectly well. If that isn't clearly stated enough, then let me say that the problem is not "[Linux] has bad hardware acceleration support", but "Adobe generally has old and cruddy flash releases for Linux".

Then explain the fact that, when I disable Compiz, the stutter and lag from playing Flash videos go away completely.

Come on. Some things are just obvious. We know what the real reason is.

[Udedenkz]

My bad, I forgot to add the <tongue in cheek> tag ;)

Guess you should, considering I can play two HD vids on my "highly outdated OS" with a crappy integrated GFX card that doesn't even support VDPAU (so cpu at 80%).

[Offtopic]

I think two is the maximum.

I think it for the most part a CPU bottleneck, I should try this using VMR9 on XP/2003 system for comparison.

I think I should test this more, do you know any 30 to 90 Mbit h264 video samples?

[/Offtopic]

:huh: Huh?

You have proven that Adobe writes crappier closed-source software for Linux than they do Windows. Linux, even nVidia's drivers (also closed-source, I might add for no real reason) run perfectly well. If that isn't clearly stated enough, then let me say that the problem is not "[Linux] has bad hardware acceleration support", but "Adobe generally has old and cruddy flash releases for Linux".

Funny, but it works for me (attached full screenshot). I don't recall doing anything special and I certainly haven't compiled and killed anyone only to hang myself three years later. :p

Nonetheless the lack of proper support for web gaming, vector animation, and media delivery due to lack of proper flash support is a valid argument against using Linux. Or, the lack of open source hardware accelerated browser embedded solution that can be viewed as a valid alternative to flash.

Also you are intentionally misunderstanding what I am trying to say, more so by showing playback of a low-resolution media snippet without revealing your hardware specifications, etc.

Obviously this may be distro dependent where some distros are more up to date and more in tune with user expectations than others, all I know is I wouldn't expect playback in say Ubuntu 9.

Edit: I have attached example screenshot of playback of a 1080p youtube sample video...

Edit: Interestingly, are there any comparisons between video playback performance (Popular Linux dist. vs Windows) using modern low-end hardware?

Edited May 15, 2010 by Udedenkz

[Growled Member]

Then explain the fact that, when I disable Compiz, the stutter and lag from playing Flash videos go away completely.

I've always figured there was a problem with Compriz.

[Rob2687]

I never realized how badly the graphics card driver affected performance until recently. When AMD stopped supporting the r300-r500 cards there was a lot of development going on in the open source side. I think the developers started using docs provided by AMD which sped things up by leaps and bounds. Now my desktop with Compiz runs about 90% as fast and smooth as it does when it's disabled. There is no tearing and flash videos play with no frames dropped according to the Youtube debug display thing. Before when they were all airtight about releasing any documentation nobody wanted to come within 100 miles of trying to code a driver except for maybe a few brave souls. The last time I used fglrx a window wouldn't even minimise without tearing and scrolling lines through the entire minimise animation.

[markwolfe Veteran]

Then explain the fact that, when I disable Compiz, the stutter and lag from playing Flash videos go away completely.

Come on. Some things are just obvious. We know what the real reason is.

Yes. Obviously a configuration issue on your machine. And flash performance on Linux (in my experience) hasn't been quite as good as on Windows. For a while, the officially released version was waaay behind, but they have gotten better recently.

...

Nonetheless the lack of proper support for web gaming, vector animation, and media delivery due to lack of proper flash support is a valid argument against using Linux. Or, the lack of open source hardware accelerated browser embedded solution that can be viewed as a valid alternative to flash.

...

Yes, we agree that someone who is critical over their flash performance will notice a difference and perhaps find it unacceptable. A couple of years ago, the difference between Windows/Linux flash performance was horrid, and just tolerable for me (I am not a heavy flash user).

...

Also you are intentionally misunderstanding what I am trying to say, more so by showing playback of a low-resolution media snippet without revealing your hardware specifications, etc.

Obviously this may be distro dependent where some distros are more up to date and more in tune with user expectations than others, all I know is I wouldn't expect playback in say Ubuntu 9.

...

You said in Linux you could not "Double Click an MP4 and expect it to play". It plays. Were you not talking about ability to do exactly what you said? Sounds like you were implying Linux could not handle a GUI to start media playback. Or that codecs didn't exist. If you had something specific you were trying to say, just say it. The statement was certainly rather broad.

My secret hidden hardware specification?

Hidden where no one can ever find them. On my Neowin Blog. :p

[Negi]

Yes. Obviously a configuration issue on your machine. And flash performance on Linux (in my experience) hasn't been quite as good as on Windows. For a while, the officially released version was waaay behind, but they have gotten better recently.

Ah, yes, the wonderful scapegoat called "configuration issues". I'm sure that must be it. So tell me, how do I configure Ubuntu Lucid and Flash to be nice to each other on a laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 graphics card? :rolleyes:

[ViperAFK]

Ah, yes, the wonderful scapegoat called "configuration issues". I'm sure that must be it. So tell me, how do I configure Ubuntu Lucid and Flash to be nice to each other on a laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 graphics card? :rolleyes:

Flash runs fine for me in ubuntu with my mobility radeon 2600 and 2ghz core 2 duo using the oss radeon drivers. I've used both 64 bit flash pre-release and 32 bit flash from ubuntu's repos and they work fine.

[Negi]

Flash runs fine for me in ubuntu with my mobility radeon 2600 and 2ghz core 2 duo using the oss radeon drivers. I've used both 64 bit flash pre-release and 32 bit flash from ubuntu's repos and they work fine.

Well, gee, thanks and all, but the only useful information we got out of that is that Ubuntu can randomly decide to screw up for no apparent reason.

[markwolfe Veteran]

Ah, yes, the wonderful scapegoat called "configuration issues". I'm sure that must be it. So tell me, how do I configure Ubuntu Lucid and Flash to be nice to each other on a laptop with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 graphics card? :rolleyes:

Instead of doing the oh-so-cool eyeroll (I expect that from my pre-teen sons, really), try posting your problem in the Linux Client area to... you know... ask for help?

I would personally help you (as I have done for many others), but I don't use ATI or compiz. Start with ensuring what video driver is installed, and what your compiz issue is. You say it worked fine playing without compiz, so start by looking there.

Well, gee, thanks and all, but the only useful information we got out of that is that Ubuntu can randomly decide to screw up for no apparent reason.

Works fine for me. Fine for others. Not for you.

I think this can be resolved. (in the proper forum)

[Negi]

Instead of doing the oh-so-cool eyeroll (I expect that from my pre-teen sons, really), try posting your problem in the Linux Client area to... you know... ask for help?

I would personally help you (as I have done for many others), but I don't use ATI or compiz. Start with ensuring what video driver is installed, and what your compiz issue is. You say it worked fine playing without compiz, so start by looking there.

Your excuses trying to deflect the obvious was quite mature too, by the way.

I've already asked for help. More than a year ago, actually, when this problem first showed up in Intrepid/Jaunty. Nothing helped, which was unfortunate but also unsurprising, since you cannot usually fix bugs in the program code by "tweaking" or "configuring" stuff. You also came out swinging that crappy Flash performance is Adobe's fault instead of Linux's. Needless to say, this isn't (always) true.

Works fine for me. Fine for others. Not for you.

Correction: Doesn't work for me. Doesn't work for others. Works for you and ViperAFK.

See what you can do with a little wordplay? Clever, isn't it?

http://blog.mymediasystem.net/avchd/adobe-flash-player-10-and-hardware-acceleration-for-linux/

http://www.kaourantin.net/2008/05/what-does-gpu-acceleration-mean.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/05/flash_uses_the_gpu.html

[ichi]

Correction: Doesn't work for me. Doesn't work for others. Works for you and ViperAFK.

Is this a competition? If so, count me in the "works for me" side ;)

Anyway if HD h264 videos play fine on mplayer but lag on flash, I think it's obvious where the blame lies, isn't it?.

[Growled Member]

And flash performance on Linux (in my experience) hasn't been quite as good as on Windows. For a while, the officially released version was waaay behind, but they have gotten better recently.

I still have tearing during full screen flash games, even with Compriz turned off. I'm not going to place blame anywhere, but for me performance is nowhere near Windows level.

[ichi]

I still have tearing during full screen flash games, even with Compriz turned off. I'm not going to place blame anywhere, but for me performance is nowhere near Windows level.

Do you also get tearing with the windows flash plugin running on the windows version of firefox on top of wine?