Biggest Gripes with Linux?

[MBarvian]

Hi guys,

I'm just interested to see what all of your biggest gripes with Linux are. Maybe that way we could start narrowing them down and finding solutions.

Thanks

[TemperingPick]

Fonts. Font's look horrible in Linux and that's the 1 and only reason I don't use it. I can't stand having sites look bad with deformed fonts.

[Darth Laidher]

Obvious one. Lack of application capability and I think WINE is buggy as hell.

[Alan-]

Fonts. Font's look horrible in Linux and that's the 1 and only reason I don't use it. I can't stand having sites look bad with deformed fonts.

Just go import all of your favorite fonts from Windows/Mac. That is what I did and things looked pretty decent. I did however dislike how I can't get MS Office on there. And no, WINE doesn't work with it as PowerPoint won't start up, I had only had luck with Word. Since it was a computer I needed for school, had to go back to Windows simply for the compatibility.

[TemperingPick]

Just go import all of your favorite fonts from Windows/Mac. That is what I did and things looked pretty decent. I did however dislike how I can't get MS Office on there. And no, WINE doesn't work with it as PowerPoint won't start up, I had only had luck with Word. Since it was a computer I needed for school, had to go back to Windows simply for the compatibility.

I do but they still don't look all that hot.

[spartyjohnson]

Fonts. Font's look horrible in Linux and that's the 1 and only reason I don't use it. I can't stand having sites look bad with deformed fonts.

True, but I think that traction is starting to be made on this front. Also I have seen people importing Windows fonts into Linux before. Not sure of legality of this if you own a copy of Windows.

Obvious one. Lack of application capability and I think WINE is buggy as hell.

Don't run Linux to run Windows apps. Wine is great for this purpose, but run Linux to run Linux apps.

--

If anybody remembers the posting on here not too long ago with a you tube video of some guy freaking out about Arch Linux. In his honor I installed Arch Linux last night. Got to say it is nice. I feel like I am in full control. :). Arch Linux installs fine BTW. Just need to know what you are doing -- which is clearly stated on their web site, wiki, forum and guides.

[Ryoken]

The UI I find clunky, and generally ugly.. even with other skins.. It makes me feel like it's a cross between Windows 9x, and Windows XP, only with different colours..

I also find Linux has no middle ground for stuff working.. It either works without a problem, it it becomes a real bitch to get working ( unless you really know what you're doing )..

[MarkusDarkus]

My biggest gripe with linux as a platform is it's forgetting what it is and is trying to break into a market that it is impossible to get into. Stop trying to be a mainstream, easy to use, compatible with home hardware, visually appealing OS because to do that you HAVE to be Windows and nothing will ever change that. Bill Gates was perfect with his timing and there is too much relying on Windows today that even Microsoft can't do anything about it. because of your lack of focus it has now also missed the mobile OS market (Yes it has!).

I Like you Linux but you need to look in the mirror and realise who you are. only when you do that can you be the best you can be. (Which isn't 3rd place)

[Darth Laidher]

True, but I think that traction is starting to be made on this front. Also I have seen people importing Windows fonts into Linux before. Not sure of legality of this if you own a copy of Windows.

Don't run Linux to run Windows apps. Wine is great for this purpose, but run Linux to run Linux apps.

--

If anybody remembers the posting on here not too long ago with a you tube video of some guy freaking out about Arch Linux. In his honor I installed Arch Linux last night. Got to say it is nice. I feel like I am in full control. :). Arch Linux installs fine BTW. Just need to know what you are doing -- which is clearly stated on their web site, wiki, forum and guides.

I don't run Linux to run Windows apps lol thats just silly.I run Linux to run Linux apps but there is somethings I like better on windows and WINE does a crappy job at making them run on Linux.

[TemperingPick]

The UI I find clunky, and generally ugly.. even with other skins.. It makes me feel like it's a cross between Windows 9x, and Windows XP, only with different colours..

I also find Linux has no middle ground for stuff working.. It either works without a problem, it it becomes a real bitch to get working ( unless you really know what you're doing )..

You could try KDE, XFCE, Openbox, LXDE, Fluxbox etc.

[spartyjohnson]

My biggest gripe with linux as a platform is it's forgetting what it is and is trying to break into a market that it is impossible to get into. Stop trying to be a mainstream, easy to use, compatible with home hardware, visually appealing OS because to do that you HAVE to be Windows and nothing will ever change that. Bill Gates was perfect with his timing and there is too much relying on Windows today that even Microsoft can't do anything about it. because of your lack of focus it has now also missed the mobile OS market (Yes it has!).

I Like you Linux but you need to look in the mirror and realise who you are. only when you do that can you be the best you can be. (Which isn't 3rd place)

Umm, Android?

Mainstream, compatible with lots of hardware and NOT Windows.

I don't run Linux to run Windows apps lol thats just silly.I run Linux to run Linux apps but there is somethings I like better on windows and WINE does a crappy job at making them run on Linux.

You are very right that Wine is buggy. Mostly because they are shooting in the dark. There is no official documentation from Microsoft about how to reverse engineer a Windows Executable.

But Wine really has nothing to do with Linux itself, it is a program which runs in Linux. Linux itself is great.

[Andre S. Veteran]

1) It doesn't run my favorite applications

2) It looks like poopoo

3) I get Windows for free (as a student)

It pretty much boils down to that...

[mak123]

for my view, everything is good in Linux.

:cool:

[Inklin]

I don't like all the different software packages across distributions and sometimes the need to compile software before you can use it. It is pretty annoying really.

[MR_Candyman]

1) It doesn't run my favorite applications

2) It looks like poopoo

3) I get Windows for free (as a student)

It pretty much boils down to that...

1: Nor does Mac OS or any other operating system.

2: No it doesn't. Windows 7 is the first good looking OS they have ever made, it it looks good because it looks like it's based on KDE

3: Funny, almost every linux distro out there is free too.

Quit being a troll

as for the topic: I just want better hardware vendor support. Once that comes around, all the bitching about installation issues will stop.

[Premvik]

The biggest problem i faced.. if you come with any driver problem you can't solved it very easily.

In my dell studio 1450 they do't have any proper audio driver, and in my desktop once i came with a problem as wireless got disabled and it takes me around 5 days to solve it. Going through all forum there solution is big pain in the ass.

And no track-pad driver.

And no way to have any solution to clean some space in hard-drive. In my laptop it using around 7gb of space and i do't know where to start deleting.

[MBarvian]

Quit being a troll

I'm sorry to intervene here, but really how is this trolling? I asked for the biggest gripes, and he answered simply and fairly. No harm done.

I guess I might as well put mine in too now, so they are: ugly looks (they all look so dated and amateur), and lack of support from large software companies like adobe

[hotosega]

Lack of software that does work on Mac and Windows. Such as the Adobe Software. I know that Flash runs on Linux but it's very unstable. If CS is coming on Linux/Ubuntu then I'm going Linux.

[Firethorne]

Hardware oddities that just don't occur on other systems. I remember installing a version of Mandriva, perhaps when it was still Mandrake, that somehow regestered mousedown and mouseup as seperate complete click events. So, if I single clicked on something, the system acted like I had double clicked it. I also had a recent struggle getting my broadcom wifi set up when even the Win 7 beta did this all automatically without error.

Distro that are discontinued. I was getting into kororaa, then poof, no more.

Aesthetics in some areas (fonts & themes) are sometimes sub-par.

Lack of an IDE that rivals Visual Studio. Eclipse is about the closest I've found, and I'm still not very fond of it.

Finally, zealots. The kind of people that would just respond to the last question by saying "UNIX is an IDE" or try to convince me that all I need is gvim or emacs without acknowledging it might be nice to have a design view when you're creating a form. Perhaps that also links back as a root cause to the aesthetics items.

[Guest]

No Adobe apps and when things go wrong, it's usually a day or two of googling to resolve problems. That's assuming you can get into a window manager at all. Oh and it doesn't feel like a professional operating system. UI looks like they it was done by a student or something.

I think the Linux window managers generally copy a little bit too much too. Also, chill out with the options. Take compiz fusion for example. There's a lot of cool stuff in there but only a small selection of useful options. Sometimes less is more.

[Rudy]

I run it in a VM all the time.... but I prefer OSX :p

OSX > Linux > Windows

[Kreuger]

Even though HP has made open source drivers, I still have problems with my printer. It worked when I first got it but now the pages just come out blank. On a smaller scale, I have a problem with Ubuntu's packaging but Im just too lazy to install anything else so I put up with it. Neither problems are major for me so I still use it all the time. I don't care about most of the crap other people have problems with (such as Windows programs) I just run their native alternatives. They work well enough for me.

[exotoxic]

The UI/fonts just do not have a poilshed feel. I have tried KDE, Gnome, XFCE all with a variety of skins and customization but i still cant find one that looks polished.

[nub]

Installing programs is confusing

[Prince Charming]

For a lot of people, biggest gripes with Linux will pretty much boil down to that it's not Windows. That's not a troll, it's just how it is.