Major Linux Desktop Problems In 2016

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Major Linux Desktop Problems In 2016

A widely-cited blog post about the major Linux desktop problems has been updated for 2016...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Desktop-Problems-2016

[Candy]

I can't help myself but after going through the list from that .ru domain, I ended up concluding that the person behind mentioned list wants Windows or OSX. Though, some points are of course valid.

[smartalgorithm]

I wonder why I dont know about those problems?

[Turion]

Perhaps it is not ready for their desktops. It was already ready for mine about 3 years ago, coming over from Windows, frustrated with it's shortcomings.

[birdie]

I'm laughing every time when Windows fanboys tell me I'm a Linux shill and vice versa - usually none of them have enough time to read the entire article, "Oh, he's criticizing Linux, he must be a Windows fan". God, people cannot even imagine how much I hate tribalism - it looks like everyone must belong to some group/entitity/organization/etc. I choose what's suitable for me and I don't give a damn about false prophets/idols/etc. My primary OS is RHEL 6.7 (severely modified though) and I use Windows 7 for gaming - I'm not gonna hide it.

I pledge no allegiance to any existing OS - right at the beginning of this scathing article there's a link to devastating Windows problems.

Now, let's hear people out but I'm not holding my breath 'cause usually it all ends up with, "I don't use this or this so it's all false and this article is all wrong". Great.

[alpha_one_x86]

graphics driver issues: Sometime, audio problems: Yes, haswell: no hdmi audio, hardware compatibility problems: YES, wors when need firemware, X11: YES, multiple, I wait because Wayland will solve it

[Laser]

Open Source NVIDIA driver is much slower (up to five times) than its proprietary counterpart due to improperly working power management.

Well, who gives? I'm glad the open alternative exists. I just had troubles this weekend with the closed driver on a machine that's not graphically taxed.

AMD and Intel graphics drivers can be signficantly slower than their proprietary counterparts (for Intel that's their Windows driver) in new complex, graphically intensive games and applications. Luckily open source drivers have reached parity in regard to old games and applications.

From what I heard, the Windows Intel driver is not better.

The most recent test shows that open source AMD and NVIDIA drivers struggle to properly support many types of video cards.

???

Open Source NVIDIA driver do not properly and fully support power management features and fan speed management.

See above. Well, that's kind of a double of the first one.

Suspend and resume in Linux is unstable and oftentimes does't work.

I can't confirm that, I never had trouble with suspend and resume. Dunno about hibernate.

According to an anonymous NVIDIA engineer, "Nearly Every Game Ships Broken ... In some cases, we’re talking about blatant violations of API rules ... There are lots of optional patches already in the driver that are simply toggled on or off as per-game settings, and then hacks that are more specific to games ... Ever wondered why nearly every major game release is accompanied by a matching driver release from AMD and/or NVIDIA?". The open source community simply doesn't have the resources to implement similar hacks to fix broken games, which means at least for complex AAA games proprietory drivers will remain the only option.

This has been discussed a lot recently and general consensus is that this will change with Vulkan. So efforts are being made.

No reliable sound system, no reliable unified software audio mixing (implemented in all modern OSes except Linux), many old or/and proprietary applications still open audio output exclusively causing major user problems and headache.

Most of my woes are actually gone with Pulse. It created new ones, yes, but not those.

Too many layers of abstraction lead to the situation when the user cannot determine why his audio input/output doesn't work (ALSA kernel drivers -> ALSA library ( -> dmix ) -> PulseAudio server -> Alsa library + Pulse backend -> Application - in other words, six layers of audio redirection; or seven layers in case of KDE since they have their own audio subsystem called Phonon).

Why would you use dmix with Pulse? Also dmix is part of ALSA. And why would you, under normal circumstances, have another ALSA lib above the Pulse server? Am I missing something? Plus Phonon is the application in regards to simple applications.

An insane number of regressions in the Linux kernel, when with every new kernel release some hardware can stop working inexplicably. I have personally reported two serious audio playback regressions, which have been consequently resolved, however most users don't know how to file bugs, how to bisect regressions, how to identify faulty components.

Insane is somewhat harsh. You have regressions. It's not uncommon in software development. Given a complex enough application, you can't catch them all.

X.org is largely outdated, unsuitable and even terribly insecure for modern PCs and applications.

That is beating the dead horse nowadays.

most Windows 95 applications still run fine in Windows 10 - that's 20 years of binary compatibility

OK, not from what I've heard, but OK.

The points are somewhat correct, but the comparisons are not. Have a look here:

Linux doesn't have a reliably working hassle free fast native (directly mountable via the kernel; FUSE doesn't cut it) MTP implementation. In order to work with your MTP devices, like ... Linux based Android phones you'd better use ... Windows or MacOS X

I never had trouble lately with MTP (I did one year ago), as opposed to my Windows friends. So yeah, the industry has pretty ugly sides. But those affect other systems as well, and they are successful too - by that logic, nobody would use PCs anyways.

I know what this article is going for, but it doesn't achieve it. I use Linux on the desktop. I don't care if Average Joe does. The problems are being addressed. Listing them doesn't fix anything.

[lvlark]

Certainly Linux has its fair share of problems, and many are listed here (though I don't think it's an exhaustive list by any means).
However, there's also a few points where I disagree:
- The problem with graphics drivers and lack of games is the other way around: Commercial companies don't dare to open up because of commercialism and fear. In Linux, there is at the very least the possibility of doing things right and writing software FOR the user. (A difference that appears subtle but is huge: Most products are AIMED AT the user, in order to entice them to spend their money. User-friendliness as a marketing scam.) It doesn't happen enough, though, so that is indeed a problem.
- Arch's rolling release system is not aimed at everyone. Arch itself says so. Want a system that doesn't change so often? There's another Linux for you then.
- Fragmentation isn't only a problem. It also gives one choice. Although I'm quite willing to believe that it does complicate releasing for/supporting Linux.
- I also don't really see why text-file configuration is a problem. It takes a bit of knowledge about how your system works. Who'd want to know how their system works??

[eltomito]

The problems I run into are:
1) Graphics card drivers - the proprietary fglrx driver for my Radeon HD 6370M/7370M is necessary to run SuperTuxKart but it sucks when I use it for my Xfce desktop (screen update is often delayed until I move the mouse). And switching drivers usually leads to the X server failing to start.
2) Sound works fine except for some apps (Audacity, Ardour), I have to start Jack which I think is kind of dumb to have to do manually.

Apart from that, I have a few gripes with Xfce and Thunar (the file manager) but nothing incredibly serious.

Oh yeah, there's another one:
3) Gtk2 and Gtk3 apps don't share the same bookmarks in their file requesters. I hate that.

As far as printers and scanners go, I'm always amazed that every time I connect one of these things to a linux system, they work right away. At least for the past coupe of years. I used to dread printer problems but that's history.

Enjoy!

[lvlark]

This has been discussed a lot recently and general consensus is that this will change with Vulkan. So efforts are being made.

Also, why is it not possible for NVidia/AMD to add those fixes to the open source drivers? As I said, the problem is the other way around. Faulty products are being shoved on us, and open source drivers don't fix the faults, they aren't to blame.

I know what this article is going for, but it doesn't achieve it. I use Linux on the desktop. I don't care if Average Joe does. The problems are being addressed. Listing them doesn't fix anything.

Indeed - most of the problems on the list I recognised are being addressed. But it is worthwhile to list them, people should be aware that Linux has its fair share of problems. As long as the purpose of the article isn't to bash - it appears not to be - and points out that the alternatives have problems of their own. Linux isn't perfect, no OS is, and for me, Linux is the best out there for a number of reasons.

The closing statement

Yeah, let's consider Linux an OS ready for the desktop.

is uncalled for though. Linux is ready for the desktop, because people can use it to do a whole lot of things. It's not ready as in final/finished. No OS/platform will ever be.