What do you dislike about linux the most?

kilowatt

kilowatt

mach-o mach-o man
Ok, lets get one thing out, linux has its problems. Not necessarly the OS its self, but rather the things a regular user has to put up with. You could extend this post to FreeBSD as well, but I think FreeBSD has some of the most common issues allready worked out, so I'm gona skip it for now.

1) Package management, or lack there of. This includes RPM, dpkg, etc.

2) XFree86. Lots of people are a little tired of this system.

3) Desktop mess. KDE, gnome, afterstep, enlightment, window maker.... On one hand, this makes linux kinda cool, but on the other, it can appear very disorganized, and I believe, hinders comercial success.

4) Installing. Personally, I've grown to expect it. And, linux installers have been growing in ease of use lately. But there are still some issues. Lets go ahead and put 'hardware detection' in here too.


So lets hear it! Whats not to like about linux?
 
Hardware compatibility. That's all that keeps me from installing linux on any of my old macs. Lack of drivers is of course a result of lack of users, which also means lack of developers... especially on the mac side. Sort of bad circle.

Nah - OS X all the way :D
 
lack of gui's for many apps.

this relates to the whole concept of typing in commands. if this was such an appealing way to run a system, DOS would have ruled the world long ago. it is archaic to put it nicely.

the whole open source thing - theorectically this is its strongest point. but in reality, it seems to add up to unfinished apps and lack of any meaningful support outside of forums and such. without having an 'investment' that will reward the developer, many apps never get the attention that they would if the developer was being compensated for their time. even apps that do get continual development, do so at a snail's pace. very frustrating.
 
the lack of apps like the main programs of adobe and macromedia. i have used bluefish and gimp etc - but in some cases even a linux user would like to use photoshop and such.

gnome, for the gui. ugly.

i wish installing and disinstalling were like on macs, click and if you dont like just drag to trash. as an alternative for doing all from terminal ... i don't mind it, but most 'normal' users don't to touch the terminal.
 
Not user friendly for the masses. Great stuff for the tech heads, but for average Joe and Jane Doe, it's simply too complicated. Great server OS, great for learning computer science, but for the family, I don't think so.

I'd have to agree with the comments about a lack of serious apps.
 
when they do have a gui for an app, it is written in geek. and little inconsistencies in the desktop environment drive me insane. samba. i want to be able to browse samba shares easily in nautilis. sorta like network neighborhood in windows. id like to see this in osX as well. so instead of command+k, i could just open finder, go under network, and my windows/linux box is there. webmin is cool, but it is written in geek. i kinda like playing in terminal, but come on, i dont want to do it for everything.
installing apps is easy enough with apt-get+synaptic, but i would love for it to be easy like osX. same with uninstalling apps. it would be nice if adobe, macromeida, autodesk, would write native linux apps of their popular software. then i could be rid of windows at work and home ( i only need autocad & 3d studio max, but they are windows only). someday, i think the distros will get their shit together. mandrake i hear is doing a really good job. i think i will go download it...
 
yea, well the whole reason that major players won't bother to write apps goes back to the whole open source conundrum - nobody in the linux community believes in paying for anything. so you'd have a market share of approximately 5% of 5% at best. again, what appears to be the best part about it is what keeps it from being a legitimate competitor.

but i think this all stems from the real linux hardcores not wanting it to be for anybody but them. it's a geek prestige thing. one that makes about as much sense as 'uptime' vanity. os x appears to have done more to bridge the gap between linux and an accesible operating system than anyone could have dreamed possible. in the end it may do more to point out to linux gurus how to play well with others instead of huddling in their pseudo intellectual cliques and pretending they are somehow more advanced than other system users.

what i guess i'm trying to say is that i have a hard time figuring out if linux's flaws are inherent to the system or to the people who support it?
 
Well, sorta both. The people that support it are the ones who help develop the system ;)

There are a few commercial products for Linux (ones you have to pay for & not open-sourced). Just not very many.

I happen to like Linux, but I'm not a fanatic. Heh I've thought most of this stuff over the past few years that I've been using it. Though I'd like to say that RPM is a pretty good package manager...
 
Just for the record the only linux software I use that is not part of the base install is in the neighborhood of $10k a seat. I think that there is actually a booming industry for people who use Linux for "Real Work" with expensive vertical applications. Now I won't argue with you about the stuff one would find at BestBuy but the consumer software industry is really not where the majority of the action really is.

It is a dangerous trap to look at computers from purely a consumer's perspective and then pass judgment on them or the industry. I would not be surprised if more than 95% of the money made in commercial software was on stuff you never see in shrinkwrap. *

-Eric

Disclaimer: No real statistics were injured during the composition of this post. All statics used in this message are purely fictitious but are in the right direction for various values of right. ;)
 
damn, yet another dangerous trap i've fallen in. :p

would somebody lend me a hand and pull me up out of here?
 
can I help you of the trap, ed? ;)

hey, i know a lot of people who are stuck in using windows as they don't have $ to get a mac ... but they would migrate to Linux on their current wintel stuff, if they could use e.g. Photoshop or Dreamweaver. GIMP on Linux is OK, and it has even some things that I enjoy more on it than on Photoshop - but it still has some really annoying issues (and Bluefish has many of them). If Adobe and Macromedia would do - PAID - programs for at least Redhat / Mandrake and Debian / *BSD, they could discover a lot of potential customers. Of the wintel stuff using geeks I know, most would try. And not *all* Linux users want everything free, they probably would try GIMP and Bluefish, and once that would not satisfy them, want to get a working, paid version of those programs (PSH, DW etc). Linux people do still respect stuff like of those companies, and aren't all warez freaks. Maybe Adobe and Macromedia are just afraid that the versions should be particularly bug free on Linux platform(s)? :rolleyes:
 
I can't really say I've used linux a lot, because I've only used it at TAFE, first off because it was part of the course. And, now, at the moment I'm using it again, because someone else and I have to make a PHP/MySQL assessment server, and I had no intention of using Windows for it. I also recently put XDarwin back onto this system, and first tried AfterStep, then KDE. For one thing, Afterstep is just plain weird. Maybe its just me. But. Compared to Gnome, KDE, with the right icon set/theme installed, is almost LICKABLE!. lol. I think that linux will never be "suitable" for the masses of wintel desktop users. Because rather than saying, "How do i write a word processing document" they will say "Where is Microsoft Word?" or "Where is the 'New Word Document' menu from right click?" It seems to me that a lot of Windows users are just that. They're not computer users, they're windows users. They're so accustomed to Windows little features (we call them bugs) etc, that anything else scares them. These are the sorta person who just accepts what microsoft says, and will never look at something different.
On the other hand, recently, some friends have had a chance to use my G4, both here at home, and one weekend when it was at a friend's house cus they wanted to play red alert on a lan. While they all (except 1, who did a Video-Ed. class and knew they were good, but was surprised at only having a 16mb video card) said, haha, get a real computer, blah blah, most of them managed to understand how to use itunes, and how to open music videos from the finder. Of interesting note, mine was the only machine that performed as it should have (even running win98 in VPC) from the get go. anyways. back to the topic at hand. I think linux is a great OS, and is the future of Server OSes. As for desktop use, I would prefer if everyone used something like OSX, which gives you a bit more GUI and a bit less CLI..

thats just my thoughts though..
 
UH!, you are talking about Linux ...

OK Linux (all derivatives) has problems ... Solaris (SunOS) too ... and, speak clearly, even Mac OSX have problems (not talking about Windows ... too many times he windows software is written bad, and if a system driver is written bad ...)

Actually Linux is only the kernel written by Linus Torvalds (and others), the applications are GNU (open source, GPL) so to compile, try, test, etc... allt he things isn't easy and someone (RedHat, Mandrake, SUSE, etc ...) sell the user support.

Linux runs mainly on PC (x86) because thm are the most popular machines for the home users. More users means more hardware means more problems, but more users means even more developers so more solutions for the most common hardware/problems.
Apple has only limited (in numer) hardware confgurations so the problems are at min.
So don't blame that Linux has many problems (an windows too ... Sun is another problem itself...).
The GUI ... X11 ... OK ... X11 is the most common graphical server for the UNIX community ... X11 is not a gui!!!
Window managers are far less to be complete because the user needs are too many so became common the integrated environment like KDE and Gnome that are more than only WM ... they are more like programming interfaces!
So KDE and Gnome are more integrated but that has to be paid ... (less freedom to configure). (Gnome??? they can take gnome for themself , I don't like that!)

So now we have BSD?!?!?
NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD You know the difference????? (awaiting your response)
Talking of FreeBSD (the Mac OSX Kernel) we can say that WAS an optimized porting of NetBSD on x86 machines!!!!, but they made some porting on other processors like PPC ...
(the most beautiful aspect of BSD is that it has an "emulation" library for Linux, so you can execute Linux software on FreeBSD more faster than Linux native!!!)

The result is that *ALL* kernels are good ... MSDOS kernel is good, Windows Kernel is good, BSD kernel is good, Linux kernel is good, etc... but without software the kernel is of no use and software became a problem source!!

Do you want talk about GUI? OK Windows GUI (Explore) is very beautiful, usable, etc ... but is very fragile: every software of third part is able to "damage" the GUI.
KDE??? is quite good but difficult to setup (compared to Explorer) and has no user friendly support (i.e. cut&paste is a mess: you can do that at minimun in two different manners).
Gnome is more integrated, more beautiful graphics, more user friendly, more configurable, more ... more but require too much processor power (it's only used as UI!!!).
Aqua ... OK, I'll be gently ... I have to say that I don't like Aqua.
I'ts beautiful, colored, user friendly etc ... It's the most useful, complete, easy UI but do too many things in software (without using hardware acceleration).
Is my PERSONAL OPINION that a good compromise is KDE ... running KDE on FreeBSD (oooops I should say Mac OSX) is a good alternative.
Apple hardware is supported and tested so the sistem will "almost always" run well (OK I will not install the brand-new-mega- ultra-fast graphics card to play that blazing 3D game because there's no software driver, but who could??)

My answare is that there is nothing that I dislike about linux more than athers OS.

A la prochene foi_
 
Originally posted by Easter
...
So now we have BSD?!?!?
NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD You know the difference????? (awaiting your response)
Talking of FreeBSD (the Mac OSX Kernel) we can say that WAS an optimized porting of NetBSD on x86 machines!!!!, but they made some porting on other processors like PPC ...
(the most beautiful aspect of BSD is that it has an "emulation" library for Linux, so you can execute Linux software on FreeBSD more faster than Linux native!!!)
Click to expand...

Well the old way to distinguish them was:

FreeBSD - The preferred x86 BSD.
NetBSD - The BSD for people running almost anything other than x86, great for those with obscure hardware or old *nix machines that couldn't afford the original OS license (e.g. HP and HP/UX)
OpenBSD - For those worried about security. Also with multiple platform support, but usually not as good as NetBSD in this regard.


The result is that *ALL* kernels are good ... MSDOS kernel is good, Windows Kernel is good, BSD kernel is good, Linux kernel is good, etc... but without software the kernel is of no use and software became a problem source!!
Click to expand...

MSDOS, kernel! A bit of a stretch of definition ;)
 
Hello binaryDigit,

Originally posted by binaryDigit
MSDOS, kernel! A bit of a stretch of definition ;)
Click to expand...

yes, every OS have a kernel, big or small but if you can type some commands on a shell you have some software layers and one of them is the kernel.
MSDOS kernel is msdos.sys and io.sys

bye_
 
The one big thing I hate about Linux is X. Besides that I always found Debian to be an absolute pleasure to run. And I always found Red Hat a complete PITA to run. RPM. Blech. Can you say unresolved dependencies?
 
Originally posted by Easter
Hello binaryDigit,



yes, every OS have a kernel, big or small but if you can type some commands on a shell you have some software layers and one of them is the kernel.
MSDOS kernel is msdos.sys and io.sys

bye_
Click to expand...

Yes, well there are many that would say that DOS is not an operating system (despite the name), which is where my statement comes in. For those OS purists, one must have things like process control (vs simple launching) and memory management at a minimum, which DOS doesn't have. It does have file services though, and in many ways is more like a higher level BIOS than a true OS.

But anyway, I made my statement in jest and am not looking for any wars on what constitutes and OS and what doesn't :)
 
Dos is just a non-reentrant interupt handler ;) that is a far cry from any modern notion of an OS.
 
Why are you so defensive?
I only add that CBM Commdore 64 have a kernel.
Everything that has an interface more evolute than simple binary or hex digit has a kernel and a shell.
I STOP.

Originally posted by lurk
Dos is just a non-reentrant interupt handler ;) that is a far cry from any modern notion of an OS.
Click to expand...

byez_
 
Originally posted by Easter
Why are you so defensive?
I only add that CBM Commdore 64 have a kernel.
Everything that has an interface more evolute than simple binary or hex digit has a kernel and a shell.
I STOP.
Click to expand...

Actually I was trying to be funny with a hint of truth, hence the ;).

As to your assertion that things like DOS and the Commodore 64 having kernels is just wrong. As I believe someone else has pointed out a kernel is traditionally tasked with providing basic OS functionality like process control, memory management, interprocess communication, IO and so forth. A good idea when trying to figure out what a kernel is it compare it to a microkernel to see what is left out and why. For instance IO is traditionally moved outside of the kernel in a microkernel.

As for DOS it does not have a kernel which is not suprising because it does not provide any of the features that a kernel would be needed for. Everything is loaded into the same address space and there is no concept of independent processes. The only services provided by DOS are interupt handlers and thereby basic IO. This really is an architectural issue about how the OS is constructed.

Keep in mind that not having a kernel is not a bad thing in context. The 8088 for which DOS was designed (ignoring other architectures) was a very primitive processor by today's standards and you could not efficiently provide the features which would have made a kernel useful.

Just some examples...

Apple ][ - no kernel
Palm OS 3 - no kernel (I think)
Palm OS 5 - has kernel
Atari - no kernel
My Microwave (6502 based) - no kernel
DEC PDP 11 (running unix) - has kernel

-Eric
 
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