These Are The Biggest Problems With Linux

[cbamber85]

I used to have lots of little issues in the past, but these days I have hardly any.

I'm currently running openSUSE 12.1 with Gnome 3.2, and the only thing I can think of that currently irritates me is both my 5yr old Dell laptop and my fancy new custom built workstation both struggle to come out of S3 sleep. About 1 in 4 'wake ups' the Dell will wake up and various critical parts of the DE will be missing, and my workstation will get into an endless cycle of resetting itself (probably motherboard driver issue, it's a Gigabyte MB after all).

This is no better or worse than the irritations I have had with Windows over the years.

[XorEaxEax]

When my web-cam, USB-wifi, or printer doesn't work on some version of Windows, it's a problem with the web-cam, the USB-wifi or the printer;
When my web-cam, USB-wifi, or printer doesn't work on some version of Linux, it's a problem with Linux. -- Can you say "double standard"?


I've been using Linux for a dozen years -- and I'm just a used-books dealer. My friends all have problems with Windows (less since Vista/7, but still more than I have with Linux). Windows isn't ready for the average desktop user. -- Can you say "double standard"?


Firefox, Opera and Chrome can cope, HP and Brother printers/multifunction can cope, various games can cope. Wall Street stock markets and traders can cope. Even Hollywood can cope. Heck, even Broadcom could cope, once they realised they were losing sales by pretending Linux was too hard. I suggest the problem is less some supposed "lack of standardization" and more a combination of inertia and accumulated bad, OS-dependent code. -- "Works with Windows (version X, but not version Y)" isn't "standardization either.


I keep hearing this, but as far as I can tell, when all is said and done, complaints about unstable APIs are just a roundabout way of saying that OEMs aren't used to it / that that's not how Microsoft does it.

Most complaints about Linux boil down to "it's a Windows world -- give up and just use Windows".

Mirrors my thoughts exactly, just wished I could have said it

[schmidtbag]

When my web-cam, USB-wifi, or printer doesn't work on some version of Windows, it's a problem with the web-cam, the USB-wifi or the printer;
When my web-cam, USB-wifi, or printer doesn't work on some version of Linux, it's a problem with Linux. -- Can you say "double standard"?

For me, in any OS a device not working means it is either physically/electronically defective or its more of the drivers' fault than anything. If something USED to work in linux and no longer does, then it SOMETIMES is something you can blame on linux. So for example I had a special keyboard that used to work, it no longer does - that would be linux's fault. A kernel update or xorg update happens and Catalyst stops working - that's the driver's fault. Use a stable version of linux and both problems can be avoided. I personally am a cutting-edge person, so I'm not one to take my own advice, however, I don't encounter such problems as often as other people. I personally have never encountered almost any problems with Catalyst when properly installed - I guess I'm one in a million.

I've been using Linux for a dozen years -- and I'm just a used-books dealer. My friends all have problems with Windows (less since Vista/7, but still more than I have with Linux). Windows isn't ready for the average desktop user. -- Can you say "double standard"?

Linux isn't ready for the average desktop user specifically because of the list of problems in this article. People don't have many places to go to for help, and most importantly, their old binaries won't work. You can say the same about Mac users but they at least have MS Office, the Adobe suite, some games, and other high-demand programs. If you know how to use any OS properly, you won't encounter many problems. You apparently know how to use linux very well, but without your help your friends won't be able to say the same if they decide to switch.

Firefox, Opera and Chrome can cope, HP and Brother printers/multifunction can cope, various games can cope. Wall Street stock markets and traders can cope. Even Hollywood can cope. Heck, even Broadcom could cope, once they realised they were losing sales by pretending Linux was too hard. I suggest the problem is less some supposed "lack of standardization" and more a combination of inertia and accumulated bad, OS-dependent code. -- "Works with Windows (version X, but not version Y)" isn't "standardization either.

Nice try, but it isn't really that simple. Things like web browsers or really any generic program revolve around toolkits and perform specific functions supplied by multi-platform libraries. That makes them relatively effortless to port. Drivers are even simpler - if you've got a printer you code it to work with CUPS. If you've got a webcam you code it to work with V4L. The fact that most of the libraries used are open source makes it that much easier to make them multi-platform. But games aren't that simple. If they're designed with DX, it isn't that easy to just convert to openGL. They need to make sure the game works with the proper drivers too, and make sure it won't break from a kernel update. Companies have complained before that there's just too many variations of linux, and it just becomes a hassle when trying to support them all. If their product were cheap or free, then I guess they could just say "this is the platform we support on this hardware and with these drivers" but a commercial product can't just endorse products like that. As for games that will work in Vista or win7 but not XP - there's enough changes to the OS and DX that the game can't run on the old stuff anymore. But linux changes a lot more often than windows.
The point is, if you intend something proprietary to work on another platform, you either need to do a complete overhaul or plan/prepare to do it from the beginning. The former isn't really an option worth it to most companies and the latter is something that many companies clearly don't put much thought into.

I keep hearing this, but as far as I can tell, when all is said and done, complaints about unstable APIs are just a roundabout way of saying that OEMs aren't used to it / that that's not how Microsoft does it.

Most complaints about Linux boil down to "it's a Windows world -- give up and just use Windows".

Yup, you're definitely right about that.

[bug77]

The kernel is great. It runs on everything and the kitchen sink.

The problems start when people try to turn it into a desktop OS. For Linux to be a contender on the desktop market, it would need more convincing power than Microsoft, to get manufacturers to release Linux drivers. Why more? Because of its minor market share, it's just harder to justufy the effort.

In the end, the problem is people: if you look at Linux as an Internet enabler, it's doing great; if you look at it as a Windows clone, it sucks.

[blackiwid]

You can say the same about Mac users but they at least have MS Office, the Adobe suite, some games, and other high-demand programs.

Haha that is a funny arguing, linux is not ready for desktop because microsoft dont release a ms-office version for linux, so even if 200.000 people additionaly would programm stuff for linux the next 10 years fulltime, it would never get ready for desktop because they are not even alowed to make a 1:1 clone of ms office. So even linux would become 10 times faster than windows, and would be totaly bugfree and would support all hardware with perfekt fast free drivers, linux would never become desktop ready?

Thats just bullshit ^^. Linux is for people who are totaly retarded not ready, because they had always a blue car with a mercedes star on it and they will never use a red car from enother brand even if its free of charge and is better in any other way.

No you are wrong, you can say that you dont like libreoffice in its current state, but for 99% of the home users its 10x better than what they need. So windows is only widely used on nearly each private pc because oem + illegal copys. take that away and nearly nobody would buy a 100 dollar windows + 100 dollar office for his home pc. And like we saw with microsoft what people use at home they will use at the business too. not the opposite like os/2 did fail.

Linux said it in his speech, too. The biggest problem why linux is not successful on the desktop, is that its not preinstalled on systems, thats all. My dad surely a DAU or whats it called in english Noob? who cant install linux or windows using several years since star-office time staroffice -> openoffice -> libreoffice on several pcs, and uses also linux. Shure he has one laptop where windows is installed still, thats mainly because of one genealogie-tool thats only there for windows, and what else, Quicken, because he is used to it. But nothing that could be replaced easily and nothing that use most users. that are very special stuff.

Yes linux is not ready for the absolut noob, because a noob uses whats installed on his pc if there is a even when its a bad version of linux with shity apps installed... he uses that and is happy with it, because he dont even know what he could miss. as long as he can write stuff and print it... document-exchange with companies etc is not a problem for noobs most of the time, because they send anything they want with paper mail. or as email text, they even dont understand often how you can attach a file to a email ^^

[schmidtbag]

Haha that is a funny arguing, linux is not ready for desktop because microsoft dont release a ms-office version for linux, so even if 200.000 people additionaly would programm stuff for linux the next 10 years fulltime, it would never get ready for desktop because they are not even alowed to make a 1:1 clone of ms office. So even linux would become 10 times faster than windows, and would be totaly bugfree and would support all hardware with perfekt fast free drivers, linux would never become desktop ready?

Thats just bullshit ^^. Linux is for people who are totaly retarded not ready, because they had always a blue car with a mercedes star on it and they will never use a red car from enother brand even if its free of charge and is better in any other way.

I didn't say that it was a good reason, I just know that its something as simple as MS office not working why people don't switch to linux entirely. I could care less if I use MS Office, Libreoffice is perfectly fine for me and is suitable for most people in many situations. Also note that I brought up other programs too, not just MS Office. I didn't say that MS Office was a requirement for linux to be a desktop OS either. Don't just say I'm wrong about something when you didn't even interpret me correctly.

Linux said it in his speech, too. The biggest problem why linux is not successful on the desktop, is that its not preinstalled on systems, thats all. My dad surely a DAU or whats it called in english Noob? who cant install linux or windows using several years since star-office time staroffice -> openoffice -> libreoffice on several pcs, and uses also linux. Shure he has one laptop where windows is installed still, thats mainly because of one genealogie-tool thats only there for windows, and what else, Quicken, because he is used to it. But nothing that could be replaced easily and nothing that use most users. that are very special stuff.

Yes, pre-installed systems would be a huge push, but its been done before (albeit, poorly) and it has proven to be unsuccessful. I agree that there are plenty of decent software alternatives to what is out there right now, but not everything has an appropriate alternative (such as the Adobe suite). The problem with pre-installing linux on computers is many users are too stupid to know what it is and don't have the patience to learn it, especially when it can look and react like windows but doesn't do things the same way as windows and doesn't run windows programs.
As much as I don't care for the new GNOME or Unity interfaces, they're actually ideal for new users because they're entirely foreign, and making it foreign will prevent people from expecting that it will do the same things Windows does. However, even unity and gnome are drastically different from each other, which in itself is a problem. Linux has so much variety in just the way you operate it that its confusing to new users. Its hard enough for noobs to know that you can't just double click on an .exe and expect it to run, it's harder when nothing looks familiar, and it's even harder than that when you go to look up a guide and the instructions are for another distro AND another UI.
This is why uniformity is crucial if you expect linux to work for the average desktop user. For enthusiasts like us, its not a big deal.

[blackiwid]

why are they so critical, would they be so critical if all that stuff that is other would be named windows 9 yes. They would be interested what new stuff is there, yes maybe some of them (even linuxers do this with gnome-shell and unity) would say I want my old 8year old windows where I know how all works, but after 1-2-3 years when they see it running on all their frieds pcs and see here and there some small nice features they would be open for that change.

So its not the differences from windows as example libreoffice vs ms office, its because they all are conservative and hate changes at all. But even microsoft have this problems and just with waiting and a bit of fixing the users come after some time faster and faster to the new plattform.

So if lets say in 2 years 80% of all the users would use linux because its the new thing each have to use. the other 20% would come too. and even less people 20% would maybe be enough. The run to Windows 7 did not start when 80% had changed, but when 20% had changed and they see hey here and there is it better + oem shit ^^.

So linux is desktop ready its the question if people are change-ready thats a different question.


But here also Microsoft is guilty in a big part. Because their first windows versoins where most users used for 10 years where unstable like hell, so to change a small thing update a driver or something ofter causes bluscreens of deaths and you had to install for several days completly new windows. So they trained people to be conservative because else bluscreens shockt them. So today whats the difference of a noob and a mid-level user, the noob is just so scared of pc that he could make something wrong that he not even tries to do some stuff. so in linux its mostly a question of do you belief in yourself or not, if you belief in yourself you can do nearly anything you want. So here are also big problems which microsoft created in the minds of his customers.

[rainbyte]

We (my girlfriend and I) have five pc's at home with Linux installed (Debian on the firewall and Arch on the others)...
My girlfriend doesn't have problems with Linux, but that's because I maintain the machines working...

Our friends know I have Linux on the pc's, and is not a problem if they need to surf on the internet, chat or similar things.
But there are simple things that are really difficult on Linux, and usually they need help for doing them.

For example, printing... There is not a common way of printing in Linux: no common dialogs, no common options, no common behaviour...
There are lots of applications that can do things like printing, but they do them in really different forms, and that makes confusion...
Normal desktop users doesn't know how to maintain Linux machines, they need things to be (semi)automatic or at least obvious..

All distros behave differently (without uniformity), so is really difficult to have good documentation and good drivers...
In order to have good documentation, we need standard ways of doing things: configuration files and tools, common packaging system, common dialogs...
In order to have good drivers, we also need standard ways of doing things, so that there is no fragmentation and testing is more useful.
Lots of issues are distro specific bugs (ex. when combining specific software versions or patches)...
We need to improve upstream stable software version, not to maintain old ones...

Desktop users need common ways of doing things, they need common behaviours... Because in that way they can exchange information and solve their problems easily.

So I think the real issue is the lack of uniformity and because of that, Linux has problems in other areas...

Anyway... We have interesting projects that can bring standarization, there are ideas for making a common packaging system, a common printing dialog, common sound system (pulseaudio), etc...
Now I feel that after years of using Linux, things are improving... The desktop experience is changing in a good way.
There will be a time when those little issues will be solved and we will have an impresive desktop experience.

Well, that's the way I think... And also, sorry for my bad english (spanish is my native language)...

[finalzone]

Linux isn't ready for the average desktop user specifically because of the list of problems in this article...

Linux operating system (major ones) is ready for average desktop users, the real problem is the political interference from the like of Microsoft (who went after the OEM daring to provide preinstalled Linux OS on machine right on retail shelves) and Apple resorting to patent lawsuits. Intel panicked when the original XO-1 become success when they made the Classmate, Microsoft extended Windows XP lifetime, when ASUS and others have their Linux netbook sold out, and force those retails pull out from shelves Linux machine like the ASUS fiasco with Microsoft VP aside. Yet you dare to say: "Linux is not ready for average desktop user".

[blackiwid]

Our friends know I have Linux on the pc's, and is not a problem if they need to surf on the internet, chat or similar things.
But there are simple things that are really difficult on Linux, and usually they need help for doing them.

I dont see the difference to Windows here, if I install my father or my brother windows here, they are also not able to update it or make a backup or something like that, so I have to do that. Or I refuse then they make no backup or whatever ^^.

For example, printing... There is not a common way of printing in Linux: no common dialogs, no common options, no common behaviour...
There are lots of applications that can do things like printing, but they do them in really different forms, and that makes confusion...
Normal desktop users doesn't know how to maintain Linux machines, they need things to be (semi)automatic or at least obvious..

I dont understand your point here, I heard rumors about what you are telling but I do not see them here, if you mix widly kde/gnome/other apps you maybe have such problems. The only problem I have is that ubuntu not did go gnome-shell route but I think unity sucks, so I changed it also by my brother/father, even when I tried to install both but they changed then freely because unity seem to suck (more ^^). So there is no printer dialog when a print fails for some reason they cannot cancel a job the current workaround is to open browser localhost:9100 and use the cups-web-ui for that ^^, gratefully it happens not that fast.

But you point was that the dialog to print is different, I hear no complains about that, they even use features like duplex and stuff, they us basicly firefox/libreoffice and maybe a email-programm seems to be similiar enough to work good enough to not cause complains ^^.

All distros behave differently (without uniformity), so is really difficult to have good documentation and good drivers...

dont get that you mean ähh proprietary (in 99% of the cases) graphics drivers? yes the gpl kernel is not made with the major goal to support such crap.

In order to have good documentation, we need standard ways of doing things: configuration files and tools, common packaging system, common dialogs...

when fedora uses here the stuff most users (debian/ubuntu/mint) uses be my guest, but fedora means they do all things better but the opposite is true so, if they dont see that that way I see not why debian and co should go the way of the smaller market-player.

Lots of issues are distro specific bugs (ex. when combining specific software versions or patches)...

You cannot say a distro that not takes money from you how they should do their stuff, to have 100 unstable distries does not hurt you can use one of the 5 stable ones. this 100 unstable use nerds that finds bugs and helps to make a stable experince for the others.

We need to improve upstream stable software version, not to maintain old ones...

we need both, in a satelite is a linux from 1995 or so because then its 100% shure stable enough for such a device that when it hangs costs billions.

Desktop users need common ways of doing things, they need common behaviours... Because in that way they can exchange information and solve their problems easily.

we have basicly 2 desktops I agree in that way that canonical sucks here to create a third one with no need to do. kde is basicly only for nerds, even some would say thats not true ^^. but its ok and I dont want to disallow xfce and co, its better, if I am in windows, I have nearly no way to make it better its there sucks and keeps sucking. I hate the feeling of it, it makes my brain stupid. I get lazy if I use it, because I am in a jail. The Noob only will see gnome (ok at the moment also unity that really stinks but kde/xfce and other is no issue, because a noob dont will see it till he used 100 hours linux or more.

So I think the real issue is the lack of uniformity and because of that, Linux has problems in other areas...

so yes here gnome does got stuff makes all stuff for his desktop... basicly its a full desktop, but most users prefer to use other browser/office suits, where is the problem for mozilla to create a gnome-printing interface and interface at all if its running under gnome? if blabla == gnome: use_interface_gnome() there i did it ^^

Fun beside gnome cannot reprogramm all software and even if they do distributors may ignore them.

Anyway... We have interesting projects that can bring standarization, there are ideas for making a common packaging system, a common printing dialog, common sound system (pulseaudio), etc...
Now I feel that after years of using Linux, things are improving... The desktop experience is changing in a good way.
There will be a time when those little issues will be solved and we will have an impresive desktop experience.

common packaging system thats maybe a blog post from one devloper or so, dont see any distri go this way do you? Did I miss there something, do they even talk about such stuff (apart from the original blog poster)?

if they make a really good one, maybe, it will be hard for desktop users the users you think of its not important anyway, because they use software-installer-123 and install it if its deb files or rpm files or whatever he dont care. And then its a question of taste if you like more the software-center of ubuntu or more the less verbose software-installer of fedora.

What in fedora seem to suck is that their doku seems not there, the wiki of fedora seems to suck if you compare it with that of ubuntu.

And at the moment Ubuntu is standard, mostly at least till it choose to build unity. what was a big big mistake.