Why Linux on the Desktop Is Dead

MrCaffeineX said:
Sadly, it is true about PC gaming. At best we get weak console ports, at worst we get horrendous console ports. Though every now and then a developer still gives us a stellar experience for the PC to give us hope...
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Why do people still feel this way? The PC gaming market is still huge, and we've got titles written specifically for the PC that either appear on the console later or not at all. There are many genres that are still almost entirely PC based and very popular (MMO, MOBA, RTS).
 
i have tried Linux loads of times even used it when it was for Folding@home,

you just cant do simple tasks on it with out doing some l33t command (that's likely to be 20 letters long) that fix's all your issues (ok there mite be 3-4 commands after that you need to do)

i am all for learning but the programmers mind set needs changing commands need to be simpler and the GUI side (if working that is) needs improving with better simpler tools for managing drivers and other basic tasks that are currently overly complicated, have an standard for programmers to follow when making programs as most apps do things differently from program to program (depending on how old the Linux programmer is and if he gives and dam other users are going to use it)
 
this guy is stupid looks like he used wubi did not even do a full blown installation
 
Funny this whole thing just came up. Just last week I installed Kubuntu on a 2 year old ASUS laptop. Kubuntu looks a lot like Windows for those that haven't tried a recent KDE based distro.

Everything worked. Video, sound, wireless, LAN. It was super easy to use. Felt just like XP. It was fast. It had a one-click update, just like Windows update. The app installer was idiot proof. No reading, no forums. I found out where to change settings, bind network adaptors, change backgrounds in seconds. I liked it. And this is coming from someone who has believed anything-nix was designed by super nerd programmers with nothing but jargon command inside jokes. (Seriously, who the f4ck would know what "grep" does based on the name of the command alone?)

Then something happened. I ran the updates for Kubuntu and the laptop locked up halfway through the installs. I gave it the one finger salute and rebooted. No biggie I thought. But then I after I rebooted the update installer was f4cked and so were most of the apps in the OS.

This was an instant show-stopper for me and a huge fail. There's no way a modern supposedly rock solid OS should that. I then realized Linux is still completely unpractical to the average home user.

I should note though, Kubuntu felt like Linux has been closer than ever to competing with Windows. Was a nice surprise after dabbling so many time over the years.
 
VIC-20 said:
Funny this whole thing just came up. Just last week I installed Kubuntu on a 2 year old ASUS laptop. Kubuntu looks a lot like Windows for those that haven't tried a recent KDE based distro.

Everything worked. Video, sound, wireless, LAN. It was super easy to use. Felt just like XP. It was fast. It had a one-click update, just like Windows update. The app installer was idiot proof. No reading, no forums. I found out where to change settings, bind network adaptors, change backgrounds in seconds. I liked it. And this is coming from someone who has believed anything-nix was designed by super nerd programmers with nothing but jargon command inside jokes. (Seriously, who the f4ck would know what "grep" does based on the name of the command alone?)

Then something happened. I ran the updates for Kubuntu and the laptop locked up halfway through the installs. I gave it the one finger salute and rebooted. No biggie I thought. But then I after I rebooted the update installer was f4cked and so were most of the apps in the OS.

This was an instant show-stopper for me and a huge fail. There's no way a modern supposedly rock solid OS should that. I then realized Linux is still completely unpractical to the average home user.

I should note though, Kubuntu felt like Linux has been closer than ever to competing with Windows. Was a nice surprise after dabbling so many time over the years.
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In fairness, Kubuntu is the red-headed-step-child of Ubuntu. Just about *any* distro out there does KDE better in terms of implementation and stability. Best one for those getting into or back into would be Mint, they do KDE too.
 
Why do we even call it Linux? Linux is the kernal. If you are using the command line, then you are using Linux. But how many times have you ever touched the command line in Android? Even most people who use Linux never touch the command line, they use the GUI which is GNOME or the various other ones.
 
I used to think that Linux based distros would be big on the desktop once they got all the bugs out (still waiting 10 years later) but the fact of the matter is that it will always lack most commercial software because those who use Linux are all about free and think that paying for software should be a crime.

This is why Linux will never be a target platform for any developers who are not open source zealots (mostly armature kids who don't expect to get paid for anything).
 
Staples said:
Why do we even call it Linux? Linux is the kernal. If you are using the command line, then you are using Linux. But how many times have you ever touched the command line in Android? Even most people who use Linux never touch the command line, they use the GUI which is GNOME or the various other ones.
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Linux is a synonym and came about that way over the years. The same way people call tissues Kleenex.
 
Staples said:
I used to think that Linux based distros would be big on the desktop once they got all the bugs out (still waiting 10 years later) but the fact of the matter is that it will always lack most commercial software because those who use Linux are all about free and think that paying for software should be a crime.
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It's true that the Linux community is grossly over-infatuated with the whole copyleft, anti-commercial software concept. They drone on and on about "freedom" while shackling their own open-source projects to the GPL, thereby placing severe restrictions on how that code can be used by others. Trading one ball and chains for another set of ball and chains and ensuring that no potentially valuable code gets ushered into the public domain where it can be truly free.

Those who use well-supported commercial operating systems and frequently closed-source software have it better. Our shackles aren't clamped as tightly, and we don't really suffer any for it. We get the best shit — who cares if someone profits from it?
 
Staples said:
Why do we even call it Linux?
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That's why they are called Linux distros aka distributions.
Linux does not naively have a gui, but the gui is just used to modify and/or work off of the Linux kernel itself.

Linux itself is just the ambigous name given to all of the distros in general.
Kind of like how people just say "Windows" or "OS X" even though there are obviously different versions of each such as XP/Vista/7 and 10.0-10.7.

I'm sure you already know this, I'm just pointing it out. :)

avoid ubuntu like a plague!! try linux mint
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Mint 12 is one of the worst Debian distros I've ever worked with.
Very rigid and hard to modify without breaking back-end functionality.

I could expect this from OS X or Windows, but not from a Linux distro, especially off of the Debian branch.
However, LMDE is one of the better Debian distros I've had the pleasure of working with.

Really just depends on the users' needs though.
 
Linux mint was really meant to be a good out-of-the-box distro without the whole canonical dictatorship issue and full multimedia support, so it's going to be less flexible due to it's fundamental design for new users.

Different philosophy for different distros.
 
Staples said:
Why do we even call it Linux? Linux is the kernal. If you are using the command line, then you are using Linux. But how many times have you ever touched the command line in Android? Even most people who use Linux never touch the command line, they use the GUI which is GNOME or the various other ones.
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"Linux" and "Gnu/Linux" are often used interchangeably even though they semantically different. So It's said to make things less cumbersome amongst the masses.
 
nOrVow said:
Linux mint was really meant to be a good out-of-the-box distro without the whole canonical dictatorship issue and full multimedia support, so it's going to be less flexible due to it's fundamental design for new users.

Different philosophy for different distros.
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I agree with you on that.
Unfortunately, it is very flaky, even for basic functionality. The GUI constantly has graphical errors, programs and daemons do not load correctly, and other basic back-end functionality will crash without warning.

It is by far one, if not the most, buggy Debian/Linux distros I've seen.
I can see how it would scare many beginners and new-comers away from Linux all together.

Even Ubuntu 11.xx is more solid with the exact same functionality.
No reason to go with Mint 12, especially considering it is based heavily on Ubuntu 11.xx.
This is all considering the user is just using the front-end as well, nothing technical at all.
 
Well, I'll be damned! I've been hearing good things prior to 12, but haven't really been up to date on it since it's latest release.

wtf linux mint
 
^ Yeah, it really surprised me as well, considering so many people were saying good things about it.
I was looking forward to this amazing distro, and was nothing short of disappointed with how unstable, buggy, and difficult it was, even for very basic usage.

However, LMDE was absolutely amazing and one of the most stable Debian distros I've worked with, considering it's bleeding-edge nature.
Mint 12 may have been a disappointment imo, but LMDE was a great achievement and is one of my favorite Debian-branch distros.
 
Skripka said:
In fairness, Kubuntu is the red-headed-step-child of Ubuntu. Just about *any* distro out there does KDE better in terms of implementation and stability. Best one for those getting into or back into would be Mint, they do KDE too.
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Actually, I tried Mint first on another machine. Had trouble getting wireless working and video driver kept crapping out. Figured I would try Kubuntu as I've had good luck with driver support with Ubuntu and Xubuntu, but hated the GUIs. Tried some BSD distros too, but I thought they all looked pretty dated.

Kind of all got started after I was given an old Powerbook G4. Updated it to last PPC OSX. 10.58 or something. Then updated a G5 iMac to the same. Got bored a few weeks and sold the machines. To get something more powerful I built a few hackintoshes. After messing with kexts and permissions and crap I got everything working great. Then got bored again. Didn't care for iPhoto/iLife, iWork or iAnything. Dragging .dmg images to an app folder to install it and not even getting an icon unless I dragged it felt like I was using a nicer looking DOSSHELL. Simple, but not very intuitive. At least they got that part right with iOS. Tap install, it installs and OMG it gives you an icon on your desktop area lol.

Anyway, I didn't care for OSX at all. Nice for somethings, brutal for others (like network file sharing). So I thought I would try some distros again, but so far nothing has made me want to permanently remove Windows from one of my 5 rigs or 3 laptops.
 
Anyway, I didn't care for OSX at all. Nice for somethings, brutal for others (like network file sharing).
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Network file sharing was best on 10.4 and 10.6 imo.
It was a bit difficult on 10.5 and horrible on 10.7, at least from my experiences with them in an enterprise environment.
 
IMHO 90% of the reason people don't use linux is the masses are fucking noobs.

If you can't get a computer with linux already on it (this would without doubt be their best push.. teaming up with a company to get a line of netbooks or ultrabooks or something with an optimized distro for them) into Brick and mortar stores and online retailers.. you're not going to change the userbase.

Most people don't even know wtf linux is.. and those non technical folks that do look at it like its technie/nerd stuff that they'd have no interest in touching.
 
Weenis said:
IMHO 90% of the reason people don't use linux is the masses are fucking noobs.

If you can't get a computer with linux already on it (this would without doubt be their best push.. teaming up with a company to get a line of netbooks or ultrabooks or something with an optimized distro for them) into Brick and mortar stores and online retailers.. you're not going to change the userbase.

Most people don't even know wtf linux is.. and those non technical folks that do look at it like its technie/nerd stuff that they'd have no interest in touching.
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You should make it your mission in life to enlighten the masses to the wonders of the world that is Linux.
 
Starcrossed said:
You should make it your mission in life to enlighten the masses to the wonders of the world that is Linux.
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That's essentially half of the problem. What's the payoff? If there is no incentive in getting people to use linux, other than forcing operating system vendors who sell their OS to make improvements.. what do we get from it?

At a personal level you would save money, but those savings come at a time cost. Configuration and implementation cost of your time could far overrun the savings of the cost of the operating system. Thus negating the point, especially if the paid OS is more fluid or time saving in and of itself.

I think that's the major factor in the selling of OSX. It saves the average person who has no need or interest in customization or advanced functionality something we all cannot manufacture: Time. Some people see time as money, but at the end of the day, saving time regardless of how you value your own is a good thing.

Until the average user needs more advanced functionality or customization that the operating systems which are sold cannot provide... linux will continue to be an after thought at best. If you pay 100-150$ for an OS, and you make 25-50$ an hour or more as an educated (even technical) individual.. if it takes you 3-4 hours to set up the OS and more time to maintain it (installing custom solutions/troubleshooting/driver hunting) what is the benefit? The benefit would be argued as you have total control of the operating system! Of course, however if you do not need that total control... it doesn't benefit you.
 
Weenis said:
IMHO 90% of the reason people don't use linux is the masses are fucking noobs.

If you can't get a computer with linux already on it (this would without doubt be their best push.. teaming up with a company to get a line of netbooks or ultrabooks or something with an optimized distro for them) into Brick and mortar stores and online retailers.. you're not going to change the userbase.

Most people don't even know wtf linux is.. and those non technical folks that do look at it like its technie/nerd stuff that they'd have no interest in touching.
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Well thank you for proving my points re. the wonderful welcoming world of Linux users.

Happens everytime. :rolleyes:
 
daglesj said:
Well thank you for proving my points re. the wonderful welcoming world of Linux users.

Happens everytime. :rolleyes:
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I think you misinterpret my position. I'm in the same camp as you. I think you just read it with a little different view of my stance because I said 90% of the population are noobs etc.

I mean that 90% of the population DON'T WANT to learn something/have to customize it. I understand what you mean about linux help forums etc. It is a huge hurdle to try to overcome to get some very basic things to work.

My point is 90% of the people aren't willing to meet half way and do some research first.. They want things that just work out of the box. Without purchasing a pc/laptop etc that is preloaded with linux you're dooming the chance of new "average" users getting into linux, because getting the OS on the machine would be a hurdle to overcome for the average user in all likelihood.

So that means linux is relegated to technical users that are completely OK with sinking a ton of time into something, with little payoff other than that they can have EXACTLY what they want. The average user won't likely need that level of customization, nor have the patience to deal with the support community to try to get it even if they did.

The amount of experts in technical fields that aren't elitists is pretty small, it's the "Pay your dues" mentality that causes this. It simply isn't worth the time to most people to even begin to do this, which is why Windows/OSX are more popular.

Remove the cost of all the operating systems and see what people would choose... the numbers wouldn't change too much I don't believe.
 
VIC-20 said:
Funny this whole thing just came up. Just last week I installed Kubuntu on a 2 year old ASUS laptop. Kubuntu looks a lot like Windows for those that haven't tried a recent KDE based distro.

Everything worked. Video, sound, wireless, LAN. It was super easy to use. Felt just like XP. It was fast. It had a one-click update, just like Windows update. The app installer was idiot proof. No reading, no forums. I found out where to change settings, bind network adaptors, change backgrounds in seconds. I liked it. And this is coming from someone who has believed anything-nix was designed by super nerd programmers with nothing but jargon command inside jokes. (Seriously, who the f4ck would know what "grep" does based on the name of the command alone?)

Then something happened. I ran the updates for Kubuntu and the laptop locked up halfway through the installs. I gave it the one finger salute and rebooted. No biggie I thought. But then I after I rebooted the update installer was f4cked and so were most of the apps in the OS.

This was an instant show-stopper for me and a huge fail. There's no way a modern supposedly rock solid OS should that. I then realized Linux is still completely unpractical to the average home user.

I should note though, Kubuntu felt like Linux has been closer than ever to competing with Windows. Was a nice surprise after dabbling so many time over the years.
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Anyone new to Ubuntu or non technical should only use LTS versions. Any other version can get you into trouble. The LTS will only update you with stable and tested updates, that doesn't mean you will be trouble free, even OS X has troublesome updates, but you'll be less likely to have issues.

Unity does suck, but it will get better.
 
pgwalsh said:
Anyone new to Ubuntu or non technical should only use LTS versions. Any other version can get you into trouble. The LTS will only update you with stable and tested updates, that doesn't mean you will be trouble free, even OS X has troublesome updates, but you'll be less likely to have issues.

Unity does suck, but it will get better.
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Nothing against you personally, but the whole "You used the wrong distro" response to anytime you run into troubles is tiresome after a while and just sounds like an excuse to keep claiming how solid Linux is.
 
VIC-20 said:
Nothing against you personally, but the whole "You used the wrong distro" response to anytime you run into troubles is tiresome after a while and just sounds like an excuse to keep claiming how solid Linux is.
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I can't really argue with that. It's too bad they don't make it more clear for newcomers as to what they should use and when to upgrade. They should always have a very stable release. The OS is stable, but often the applications are not and that came become a headache.

It does make for a great development environment.
 
pgwalsh said:
I can't really argue with that. It's too bad they don't make it more clear for newcomers as to what they should use and when to upgrade. They should always have a very stable release. The OS is stable, but often the applications are not and that came become a headache.

It does make for a great development environment.
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Windows is fucking stable.. the applications are not... I never have any stability problems with Windows... it NEVER EVER crashes because why, I don't load it with shit code. Every linux distro i have used has shat itself before even loading any software that wasn't part of the distro itself.
 
gaspah said:
Windows is fucking stable.. the applications are not... I never have any stability problems with Windows... it NEVER EVER crashes because why, I don't load it with shit code.
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While I will say Windows 7 and XP were both pretty stable OSes for the most part, Vista was a nightmare without any sense of stability, extra software/code running/installed or not.

As for the Linux distros, if you are having stability problems, you need to alter the distro to your specific needs.

I've seen some very buggy distros of Linux, and have each time managed to make them very stable and solid.
Out of the box, Red Hat distros are the most stable Linux OS I've ever worked with, and yes, there are no-cost versions available because I know Red Hat Enterprise is $$$.

Every linux distro i have used has shat itself before even loading any software that wasn't part of the distro itself.
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I'm not trying to be mean, but if this is happening to you with more than one of the three major Linux distro branches, you may not exactly know what you are doing.
I'm not saying you don't, some people do have bad luck, but out-of-the-box, every single distro having problems before you load any other software is bullshit in and of itself.

Either you aren't exploring different distros/branches far enough, or you don't know what you are doing, it's one of the two.
 
VIC-20 said:
Nothing against you personally, but the whole "You used the wrong distro" response to anytime you run into troubles is tiresome after a while and just sounds like an excuse to keep claiming how solid Linux is.
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Actually, to compliment my above ^ post, there are in fact some unstable Linux distros in existence, I'm not denying that.

Mint 12 was unstable, difficult to use with simple front-end functions, let alone back-end functions which would constantly have to be reset.

Ubuntu 11.xx was the exact same way, big shocker considering Mint 12 was based heavily off of Ubuntu 11.xx.
Ubuntu 10.10 was a bit on the bleeding edge, and some of the updates pushed through would cause some instability, but could still be easily remedied with some extra work.

Yellow Dog Linux was a bit of a pain to get stable, but considering it's built for the PPC processor architecture, it's not really a complaint, just a noteworthy mention.

I haven't tried out all of the Red Hat Enterprise branch distros yet, but out of all of the ones I've used, with either a GUI or CLI, have been the most stable Linux distros I've used.
Debian in general seems to be a bit more unstable, but the plus-side is that it is easier to mold it to whatever hardware/software I need to use and build it with, while Red Hat is a bit stiffer to work with, but not by a lot.
 
The reason Linux is not getting anywhere on the desktop is simple - what problem does moving to Linux solve that otherwise exists with Windows? Prior to XP, the answer was stability. That hasn't been a valid advantage for a decade, though. Why should the average computer user switch from what they know? Why should the average computer user give up the massive software library that exists for Windows, or the vastly superior support infrastructure when something does go wrong? There is zero reason for most users to switch to Linux, and a lot of reasons to stick with what they know.
 
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