Is the Linux desktop experience really this bad?
- Thread starter theheyes
- Start date
Ralink RT2870/RT3070 wireless adaptor,this is on my Ubuntu distros.
I've been running Unbuntu 13.04 on my Thinkpad T420 for the last month and not had any stability problems at all.
But I do agree that the out-of-the-box experience is pretty poor. The issue is that the Linux devs are having to support all kinds of hardware mostly without any help at all from the manufacturer.
Any PC you buy with Windows preinstalled will have been comprehensively tested by the OEM. If they find compatibility problems with Windows then they will not release it. No such luck for the vast majority of Linux machines.
But still... I had to do a huge amount of set up. Mostly in the terminal. Ended up solving the following:
- Fan not supported properly
- Terrible battery life
- Hybrid graphics not supported
- TRIM for SSD not enabled
- Screen dimming not working
I switched to Ubuntu with eyes open because I wanted to have a project and something to muck about with. I got what I asked for.
I couldn't recommend it to a non-technical user unless it had been completely set up for them first. Even then tasks that are basic in Windows (e.g. installing new software from the internet) tend to require the terminal in Ubuntu.
My overall impression is that they have focused so much on making the UI simple to use that anything beyond the most basic task quickly becomes very complex.
But I do agree that the out-of-the-box experience is pretty poor. The issue is that the Linux devs are having to support all kinds of hardware mostly without any help at all from the manufacturer.
Any PC you buy with Windows preinstalled will have been comprehensively tested by the OEM. If they find compatibility problems with Windows then they will not release it. No such luck for the vast majority of Linux machines.
But still... I had to do a huge amount of set up. Mostly in the terminal. Ended up solving the following:
- Fan not supported properly
- Terrible battery life
- Hybrid graphics not supported
- TRIM for SSD not enabled
- Screen dimming not working
I switched to Ubuntu with eyes open because I wanted to have a project and something to muck about with. I got what I asked for.
I couldn't recommend it to a non-technical user unless it had been completely set up for them first. Even then tasks that are basic in Windows (e.g. installing new software from the internet) tend to require the terminal in Ubuntu.
My overall impression is that they have focused so much on making the UI simple to use that anything beyond the most basic task quickly becomes very complex.
spot on. I tried it again recently it feels slow and unintuitive, its not a work horse and things are missing or a bit odd ball.
the next step for ubuntu is to use KDE code and look 100% tablet / windows 8 and thats just going to take years to pull everything together so it doesnt fall apart quickly (which it will for early adopters)
no a good solid desktop to use is mate/xcfe. Gnome has got better when i tried it with opensuse recently but just like ubuntu the more they give you the less you learn and the less flexible it is
(bit like society i guess)
I've been running 13.04 on my Samsung R540 for about 2 weeks now, no instability issues, everything works. Made a couple of tweaks as it was a little sluggish out the box.
I edited /etc/sysctl.conf and added vm.swappiness=10, made everything generally more responsive. You can read about it here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq.
I also switched off "include online search results" in the privacy settings, which really improved how responsive the Unity Dash was.
I edited /etc/sysctl.conf and added vm.swappiness=10, made everything generally more responsive. You can read about it here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq.
I also switched off "include online search results" in the privacy settings, which really improved how responsive the Unity Dash was.
Associate
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This thread is pretty much the entire reason Linux has never succeeded on the desktop.
I administer both Linux/Unix and Windows at work and am pretty ambivalent, but techies are irrelevant in the size of the overall market. Normal users just want it to work even if it means they have to pay. Ubuntu claimed to be trying to rectify this but they've messed it up too.
I administer both Linux/Unix and Windows at work and am pretty ambivalent, but techies are irrelevant in the size of the overall market. Normal users just want it to work even if it means they have to pay. Ubuntu claimed to be trying to rectify this but they've messed it up too.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Jun 2008
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i had similar issues with ubuntu. As you said, there's always "something", when i finished my work i just went back to windows.
I think there are better distro options then Ubuntu ie Mint or Zorin(yes still ubuntu based but better UI).
I also think it depends what you want to do with Linux in general ie it's fine for general browsing ,checking emails etc...you do have a higher learning curve then Windows, however DOS was like that to decades ago.
I find it quite amazing for the most part Linux is more of a complete installation then Windows ie with Windows you have to install a few third party add-ons where's Linux has all the important stuff you need out of the box.
There is always room for improvement,Linux has come a long way from the old days.
I don't have much faith in the average user,half of them can't even handle the old start button missing in Win8 let alone a full working Linux OS (which is not hard)..
I also think it depends what you want to do with Linux in general ie it's fine for general browsing ,checking emails etc...you do have a higher learning curve then Windows, however DOS was like that to decades ago.
I find it quite amazing for the most part Linux is more of a complete installation then Windows ie with Windows you have to install a few third party add-ons where's Linux has all the important stuff you need out of the box.
There is always room for improvement,Linux has come a long way from the old days.
I don't have much faith in the average user,half of them can't even handle the old start button missing in Win8 let alone a full working Linux OS (which is not hard)..
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People have probably spent years getting used to the quirks of windows that it feels normal to them, to change over to a new system and learning new ways is a shock to them.
If you want a OS that acts like windows then use a windows machine but if you stick at it it becomes easier.
If you want a OS that acts like windows then use a windows machine but if you stick at it it becomes easier.
I only want it to work 'like Windows' in the sense that I can rely on it, which is kind of sad for anybody wanting to promote Linux on the desktop.
CentOS for now, wireless networking aside, has been fine. I've had to add the odd tweak here and there (wouldn't remember the default gateway for some reason) and I've had apache running on it and that works fine. mySQL on the other hand is another story which I've actually given up on for now (chalk it down as another 'something' that doesn't work out of the box)
CentOS for now, wireless networking aside, has been fine. I've had to add the odd tweak here and there (wouldn't remember the default gateway for some reason) and I've had apache running on it and that works fine. mySQL on the other hand is another story which I've actually given up on for now (chalk it down as another 'something' that doesn't work out of the box)
Reasons Linux isn't taking over the world
1) Things don't "just work" - why can't I get HDMI audio passthrough on my HD6450? Windows can do it, why can't Linux? I know, proprietary drivers.... but I'm the end user, that's not my problem: I just want to plug HDMI into things and have them work.
2) WiFi. Seriously, this isn't new, and there aren't that many chips out there. I should not still be having issues with a commonplace WiFi dongle. I know this is sort of related to the above, but it's a much bigger single issue: HDMI passthrough affects a handful of people. HDMI affects nearly all.
3) The command line. I'm pretty technical, I don't mind having a go in the command line... but there's a reason GUIs were invented and are so popular. Stop making me input commands to a black and white terminal. Webmin goes a long way to fixing this, and there are various other GUI's and tools for this sort of thing... but I still end up in Terminal far too often. I can handle it, my mum can't.
Plus points since I first dabbled with Linux probably 10 years ago:
+ Installation is easy. Put the ISO on a disk, plug it in, follow an installer which isn't much (/any) more technical than the Windows one
+ App stores. I always loved apt, yum etc on Linux, for grabbing tools it was great. Having package managers over the top of this works perfectly. Nearly. And is the basis of the App Stores on everything these days
+ Less interaction needed, it does a lot more than it used to, automatically
1) Things don't "just work" - why can't I get HDMI audio passthrough on my HD6450? Windows can do it, why can't Linux? I know, proprietary drivers.... but I'm the end user, that's not my problem: I just want to plug HDMI into things and have them work.
2) WiFi. Seriously, this isn't new, and there aren't that many chips out there. I should not still be having issues with a commonplace WiFi dongle. I know this is sort of related to the above, but it's a much bigger single issue: HDMI passthrough affects a handful of people. HDMI affects nearly all.
3) The command line. I'm pretty technical, I don't mind having a go in the command line... but there's a reason GUIs were invented and are so popular. Stop making me input commands to a black and white terminal. Webmin goes a long way to fixing this, and there are various other GUI's and tools for this sort of thing... but I still end up in Terminal far too often. I can handle it, my mum can't.
Plus points since I first dabbled with Linux probably 10 years ago:
+ Installation is easy. Put the ISO on a disk, plug it in, follow an installer which isn't much (/any) more technical than the Windows one
+ App stores. I always loved apt, yum etc on Linux, for grabbing tools it was great. Having package managers over the top of this works perfectly. Nearly. And is the basis of the App Stores on everything these days
+ Less interaction needed, it does a lot more than it used to, automatically
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To correct my own post (2 previous to this one) - HDMI audio passthrough does work in Ubuntu... just not in the latest version. I've had to roll back to 12.04 LTS to get it working, apparently it's broken in 13.04 or whatever the current release is.
I agree with this. You can't not use Linux without ending up having to open Terminal to do something. CLI's are great in any OS but unlike any other OS in Linux you can't not avoid it.
That's a load of crap really. Typical PC use case is a browser, email and a word application. You can happily use and install all of these without ever touching the terminal. The guy you're quoting goes on to mention webmin, so he's talking about controling a webserver which is hardly standard practice.
That said, I find apache + CLI significantly easier to get my head around than dealing with IIS and clicking GUIs. Theres a reason PowerShell was invented and lauded. There is a reson few gui's for admining webservers exist despite there being an abundance of programmers capable enough to develop a GUI. It's because the CLI is good. In fact, the linux CLI is probably the only reason I use linux because lets be honest, the desktop does ******* suck but it sucks for other reasons than what are being posted:
> X.org is bad. There are many reasons it's bad but for me the biggest is when one app hangs, your entire desktop will take a nap. This sucks but they're replacing X.org so hopefully the new stuff will fix this.
> A scheduler that allows you to whore so much CPU your desktop becomes unusable sucks. The scheduler might be correct for servers (I'd argue a server that has so much load you can't SSH into kinda sucks personally) but it's deffo not for our desktops.
> Graphics support sucks. Intel is OK but not quite as good as performance on windows. AMD is getting there, but behind Intel. Nvidia sucks. You can install binary drivers, but that sucks in linux.
> The actual DEs are bad and messy. We had kde and gnome as the two formost DEs and both of them decided to **** off their userbase in a massive rewrite which gave us shiney at the cost of reduced functionality. No matter how many youtube videos you have of people being impressed with compiz and the cube BS, nobody uses a computer because you can do stupid crap like that.
X.org and graphics support is going to be a non-issue unless you have a nvidia card in the future, so we're just left with needing a solid DE that doesn't get a rewrite because the developers are bored and for mainline to take a desktop scheduler a bit more seriously (although that's not really such a big issue, most people don't create that type of load).