What is happening with Linux?

[kraftman]

Please people, use PM if you want to fight about what's named trolling and what's not.
In my opinion calling someone an idiot is trolling too.

You should give this advise to someone else, too:

I'm sure there will be some stubborn idiots who will post this is trolling or argue how Linux has caught up with wireless...blah, blah, blah...

For me it's describing someone's behavior. I'm sure his a stubborn idiot.

[bwat47]

Anyone that says hardware support is 'getting worse' with linux is looking at the past through nostalgia goggles. Hardware support is better than its ever been, stop fooling yourself.

[AlbertP]

That's what I wanted to say, when typing that Dell, HP and Lenovo test Linux compatibility since 2010. On the many computers where I have run Linux, the only real hardware problems were Broadcom wireless (Atheros to a lesser extent) and SiS graphics. On Linux forums, there are many users without any hardware problem.

We have reached a point where the majority of computers is working well, or with only minor problems.

[Hey! Dojo]

What is happening in the recent times with Linux?
It seems that those days of solid rock stability in the Linux desktop are falling in the past. As I see this history, the decadence started more or less, at the time when kde4 was released; being kde3.5 a very powerful and stable desktop, the 4th release was no more than a technology preview that only recently have reached a quality point just between an alpha and a beta. Even now, only for example, we have not a printer administration panel like that one in 3.5.

Jeez. How many times must this be explained to people before they understand it???
KDE3 was very mature when KDE 4 was proposed. Have you even tried 4 lately???
KDE 4 in it's current version is light years ahead of 3.
There is a printer panel in 4. It's called printer applet and it sits in the tray.

In the current times, it seems that overlay bars, effects, and many other visual improvements are by far more important than hardware support. But people seems to forget that the first you need to display the "pleasant" effects is a WORKING desktop and OS.

No.
Desktop software in Linux has _nothing_ to do with hardware support in Linux. The two things are entirely separate and independent of one another but work cooperatively together to create a computing experience.
The Linux kernel and it's modules are solely responsible for any hardware support.
You are another person who does not understand the architecture involved because you did not know that the combination of the kernel and user land are responsible for a desktop Linux experience.
FYI KDE 4 was all about adding the layers to move forward with technology and use more of the hooks being provided by the kernel, along with making it easier to develop for the developers.
KDE 4 was also about the fact that QT3 was depreciated, slow and inferior to QT4.

A NVIDIA laptop? Optimus not so much supported, Hybrid performance is bad, to the level that it don't works at all...

There are on going efforts such as bumblebee. It does work for some.

A ATI laptop? AMD and hybrid with Linux promises a full degree of experience in kernel panics, X crashes, heat, regressions, etc...

I see no evidence to support this claim.

A Macbook? It seems the best or even the only one option for stability, but Sandy Bridge it's not so much supported yet...
Other options? I can only think in buy a 2nd hand minimum two years old laptop.

Nonsense. A fully upgraded copy of Fedora 15 has great Sandybridge support.
The Intel i series processors with the k in their serial number offer the best graphics because they are unlocked and support Intel's highest current built in HD graphics. If instead you buy a k and a main board which supports over clocking, you can over clock if you add an add in card.
An Intel sandybridge i3, i5 or i7 desktop system with an Intel main board is the newest Linux supported system you can buy.

Then, the question again, what is happening? You want a Linux computer to work with it, not to show the superb desktop to your friends, while crossing your fingers willing that the X server don't crashes again this time, or the system doesn't hang..

If Linux doesn't work for you, maybe try something else such as windows.
What's happening? I'd say it just doesn't work for you.

I think that Desktop developer companies like ubuntu, fedora, kde or gnome and others are missing the point here, as user experience is very important, but stability is the FIRST BIG part of it, and no the effects, shadows, or where to place the buttons.

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution. Fedora is a Redhat sponsored community project. KDE e.V is a non-profit organization and so is the gnome project. None of them are desktop developer companies.

The person who has missed the point here is you. In that you believe that hardware issues are the responsibility of the KDE developers instead of the kernel developers. And that you believe that x server crashes are the responsibility of the KDE devs too.

No wonder we have so many Linux desktop experience idiots out there voicing there ill thought opinions on blogs and such, when the basic understanding of how the architecture and it's fundamentals work just isn't there amongst those idiots who believe that they have identified a problem. If your hardware isn't supported on Linux, use Windows and if you bought something new to run Linux on and it doesn't work, you should have done your research prior. You only have yourself to blame.
Linux supports a lot of hardware. But not everything.

[jmcharron]

It's getting better (and it can still run KDE 3.5.x).
/thread

Yup, I'm running OpenSuse 11.4 w/ KDE 3.5.10 from the build service and it works fine for me

[prophet5]

to the OP... From my point of view Linux is getting better whether it be from hardware support or tweaks here and there. My experience with this comes from an old Gigabyte board with athlon xp1700. It had kernel 2.6.22 to start with but suffered from kernel panics, as did 2.6.24 and 2.6.27. It has 2.6.32 on it now and has not had one kernel panic yet. For individual components I don't use wireless so won't comment on that, but the old ATI 9600 pro works better than ever even with compositing (kde 4.5).

My main machine is "slightly" higher spec than that old thing, but it does have a Hoontech ST2000 sound card which older distros, while supported, had "quirks" with routing and mixing to the break out box that seems to be resolved (for me).

As for stability, since kernel 2.6.38 I haven't had a crash that bricked the whole system. When plasma crashes it restarts itself without any issue. The most stable OS I've used was OS/2 ( now that's nostalgia ). It too had issues with 3rd party hardware driver support since IBM pretty much only marketed it for their hardware, but my god it worked...... until it didn't

[ahlaht]

It had kernel 2.6.22 to start with but suffered from kernel panics

The most stable OS I've used was OS/2 ( now that's nostalgia ).

It's very likely I have these "nostalgia goggles" on too, but in my opinion Linux has always been stable. I have been using it since kernel 2.0.X. I don't remember if I had a desktop environment on 2.0 kernel but I'm sure I had one on 2.2 and it was stable.

It mostly depends on hardware. Practically all kernel oopses I have seen had something to do with new or broken hardware or OpenGL. Fortunately hardware support is indeed getting better and better every day.

OpenGL is still often not that stable, but it's really not a requirement for that many things. Most non-gamers don't even need it.

[cobratbq]

Although there's one thing I have to note. The kernels that were released in the transition from the old situation to KMS and with the GEM and such (I'm not familiar with the details). That did cause a lot of problems for me.

[ahlaht]

Although there's one thing I have to note. The kernels that were released in the transition from the old situation to KMS and with the GEM and such (I'm not familiar with the details). That did cause a lot of problems for me.

You are right. That was a scary transition. But KMS is an optional feature. Linux distributions could have just kept it off by default.

But of course it's faster to do the alpha testing with users so there are more people complaining to upstream and things get fixed faster.

[Panix]

That's what I wanted to say, when typing that Dell, HP and Lenovo test Linux compatibility since 2010. On the many computers where I have run Linux, the only real hardware problems were Broadcom wireless (Atheros to a lesser extent) and SiS graphics. On Linux forums, there are many users without any hardware problem.

We have reached a point where the majority of computers is working well, or with only minor problems.

I have a laptop with SiS graphics.

I think the issues or problems are understated here. Then there's the trolls (same ppl who accuse others of being trolls) who pretend there's hardly any issues at all.

The hibernate/suspend/sleep problems is another that seems to be omitted from these types of discussions. I am not sure if it is usually distro-related, kernel/graphics or what but one of my laptops doesn't 'wake up' when the lid goes down. It requires a hard re-boot. I'm inclined to speculate it's often graphics related or something to do with X-Server?

Anyway...