These Are The Biggest Problems With Linux

[rainbyte]

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 ^^.

Is normal to help others with tasks like making backups or with dangerous configuration options (like partitioning a disk)... But it isn't normal that they need help with common tasks, like printing, selecting the default audio output (mostly solved by pulseaudio) or even installing a simple app (like a calculator)...

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 ^^.

Why does the user need to know about kde, gnome, etc? If you are using (for example) okular or evince to read pdf under kde, gnome or other, you expect it to work and print ok in any case...
Why does the user need to remember something like localhost:631 to make something work? Maybe you and I can use that, and even the other forum members, but that's not easy for a common user...

The dialog is different in almost every app... For example, libreoffice uses it's own dialog, inkscape have a different dialog, gnome apps use their own dialog, (non-gnome) gtk apps use their own dialog, kde apps use their own dialog, etc...
This kind of things confuse the common user... And there are already many bugreports: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=180051 https://bugreports.qt-project.org/browse/QTBUG-6239 (those are from kde and qt, but there also for gnome, and other apps).
I use duplex almost everyday... I had to find the correct config in forums and bugreports, because some options are incompatible between them and are not disabled automatically... That's only an example, there problems that I did not experienced, but bugreports exist for them...
The printers situation is only an example, there are other similar problems with webcams, scanners, etc... It's a problem of bad designed user interfaces not only 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.

I don't use proprietary drivers on my machines (except some wireless driver)... That's not my point here, I'm talking about user documentation... How to do simple things in a standarized way, without having to rely on distro specific documentation (mostly outdated in many cases)...
Nowadays there are lots of ways to do the same thing, that's not ok... We need at most two or three: one graphically and one in text mode, and maybe an extra (like web config) on cases where it is necessary.

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.

Why do we need hundreds of distros creating and solving the same bugs again and again? We are part of a community and in order to improve the situation we have to find and accept the issues... I'm not trying to say distros how they should do their stuff, but as experienced users we have to help with our opinion (and also with code, translation, etc).

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.

We are talking about desktop Linux here, not about specific needs... The Linux kernel stable, that's why they are using it for critical tasks... But we also need a stable and friendly desktop environment for the Linux kernel (and I'm not talking about creating other desktop, instead we need to improve kde, gnome, etc and make them coexist in a friendly and uniform manner).

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.

We use KDE SC at home, and we are happy with it (I don't think it's for nerds, it helps me to have my work done), but I have also xfce and lxde as light environments...
But that's not the problem... I doesn't matter if the user has gnome o kde installed, the basic things should work in a common way without the need of desktop specific configurations or even hacks... We need a common place to configure and install software and also hardware...
Sometimes I enter to IRC to help other users, and I have to ask them if they use gnome, kde or other to help them, that's not ok... If there would be a common place, there would be good documentation of how to use it, and that would mean less trouble to do things.

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.

Most important distros are talking about that issue... I read on the mailing lists that they are trying to bring something similar to the ubuntu software center to the other distros, with a common api based on packagekit.
Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppStream

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.

We shouldn't need to have different interfaces on different desktops... Most interfaces should be similar (if not equal)... Why do we need different dialogs for doing the same things? A good designed one should do it well (maybe changing only the toolkit implementation). This things have to be transparent to the user...

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.

And why not distro independent documentation that is usefull for every Linux desktop?

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".

Microsoft and cia. make problems to Linux and the community, but not all the problems are caused by them... We have to be sincere and accept the issues that come from inside...
When we accept that problems, the others will not be able to interfere with the Linux desktop expansion.

[blackiwid]

Is normal to help others with tasks like making backups or with dangerous configuration options (like partitioning a disk)... But it isn't normal that they need help with common tasks, like printing, selecting the default audio output (mostly solved by pulseaudio) or even installing a simple app (like a calculator)...

I dont want to go in to all your points, but your main point is to have a common everything, but thats what ubuntu does, you said you wanna not ask if you use ubuntu or kde. or which browser do I use... that solves ubuntu by just install one browser the firefox as example. so if you ask in a forum about how to configure THE browser, its clear that that noob asks about mozilla.

So for your demand there are 2 solutions, first only allow 1 or 2 distries? with one or two browsers and thats it? thats impossible ^^ but even to force softwareprojekts to use same libs or stuff is not possible, because Linux/Opensource is freedom, so each man can do what he wants at least if he gets not money from a company for it.

But where I maybe go with you is what you call standardisation, I would as programmer call it modularisation. Its a automatic process as a developer (if I earn the title) to try to decouple shit, and to first look at the most used solution, and only if that sucks I search somewhere else.

So when I make a new programm or even when I refactor one, I try to use as much as possible 3rd party modules because my code gets smaler and I profit from the work of others when fixes and new features are implemented in the sub packages.

But I see here and ubuntu did the same gnome ahead, so when kde uses gstreamer and co thats great do it. But its hard to merge the toolkit, gtk and qt are so much differnt, Maybe they would go there and together make a gtk-look+feel not what is at the moment there like you can see in minitube, that looks like a gtk app but is qt, that goes maybe in the right direction but its not totaly at the goal. but maybe gnome devs and gtk devs could use some day that as replacement for gtk, but then there is so much gtk magic that is gone.

So ok sinse 2009 qt is also in all oses under the lgpl so its not long that that happend 3 years are nothing against the 20 years this 2 desktop-libs exist ^^.
So yes its hard if you would have me asked before gtk3.0 I would have maybe said lets go to qt its better for developers, but with the css-js directeion they are going I cant deside so easy what is better, I find it genious that they made gnome-shell themable by css files. its cracy how good and radical this is. They really invented the desktop new, kde didnt do that, I know Kde != qt and gtk != gnome but they made the changes for gnome.

Maybe they make somehow a new thing some day that combines the best parts of it to one project but that will take years to make it as good as qt and gtk are today, I fear. The other alternative is that one of the desktops will be used primary in the future (in the past this was in the last years ubuntu=gnome2) but on the other hand is qt so strong on other oses like windows ^^. So its hard to make here a compromise... but the compatiblity layers are getting better so maybe it does not hurt in the future if I programm in qt or with gtk apps it looks nativ anyway, minitube is a good example, its programmed in qt uses gstreamer and looks like a normal gtk/gnome app ^^.


AND I think here GTK goes maybe not in the direction to harmonise or standardize with qt, but they harmonise with web developers, so each web developer where 1000x more are there as programm-gui-designers are out there, will be able to make a good looking gtk programm. with javascript and css. So that at least makes in standardised in the way they use a even bigger standard the web developing standard. Maybe soon you can look at w3c.org how to write a gnoem programm that works in the browser and in the gnome-desktop.

[rainbyte]

I'm not talking about forcing people to use the same x app... I'm talking about following a common application design for certain tasks...

You talk about browsers and that's a good example... You don't need to teach everyone to use a browser, because all of them follow a similar interface design.
I'm talking about basic things (like navigation buttons and a direction bar) that everyone knows how to use.

I'm a programmer too, and I'm not talking about modularization... I'm talking about good interface design patterns, making the life of the user easier...
Linux already has a solid foundation, the kernel behaves well now and the low level libraries and toolkits evolved well too...

If the interfaces follow a similar design pattern, the user would find the same options in the same places (like in web browsers)...
So the problem lies on a higher level... You could use different toolkits and libraries at low level, but the user can see almost the same gui.

It's not necessary to merge toolkits and libraries, you can see that they can coexist in other systems, why not on Linux?
In Mac OS and Windows you can use different toolkits or libraries, but there are things that behave similar in every app (like printing and open file dialogs).

Desktop users are lazy, they like to find everything in the same place behaving the same way...
They suffer if things change a lot (like menues or buttons they expect to be in certain place)...

We tend to improve the app's at low level, but sometimes forget to improve the gui's easiness.

edit: fix some typo's

[manmath]

We tend to improve the app's at low level, but sometimes forget to improve the gui's easiness.

I agree.

But in additio to that other major handicaps are the bad integration. Linux kernel may be more advanced, stable and high-performing than Windows, but linux gui breaks more often than windows.

[blackiwid]

Desktop users are lazy, they like to find everything in the same place behaving the same way...
They suffer if things change a lot (like menues or buttons they expect to be in certain place)...

We tend to improve the app's at low level, but sometimes forget to improve the gui's easiness.

edit: fix some typo's

I dont agree to that, that would also imply as example that the gui have the start button on the same corner so who would gnome-shell work in that place that basicly has no "start-button". Where is the point to write kde or next-gnome xy when you only are allowed to make the same gui again with other toolkits?

Even the printer dialog you could somewhat make it similar, but as example gnome has no save buttons or something like that but only close buttons, thats behave same in all gnome-apps. Thats the point, for a enduser its nearly like gnome is a os and kde a different os.

Because if you say windows most people think of the hole system not only the kernel, and if you say linux they think basicly the same. But there are also android, who is also linux nobody calls it linux. so why do we not stop saying linux (to linux + gnu + on of the guis...) and start saying that is kde(linux) or gnome(linux). And again here ubuntu goes the right way, they have distros that have the name kubuntu and xubuntu. thats the point.

What I agree is that it should not give non-gui-specific dialogs anymore. so if you start firefox in gnome, it should look as it is a normal gnome-program, even on the print dialog. In kde it should behave like kde-standard-dialog. for that we maybe need a layer or something, that programmers have not programm all double. And there are 2 ways to do that, 1. progamm all stuff for your os(desktop-environment) and make kind of warppers, or try to programm it twice. But it works nearly perfekt today.as a gnome-user you have to not use any non gnome non gtk app. only maybe the browser I tend to use chromium, but maybe that changes to because he integrates not that well into gnome ^^.

I mean such big projekt could implement the standard gnome or gtk gui stuff. Linux is not primary for idiots. if idiots also like it ok, but its the same point with stable kernel-api, that all is for stupid people that dont want to make thinks like you should in linux, so write and open free drivers, not make shity blobs. so if you release a program that integrates not well in gnome and kde it sucks. so maybe it is a bit of waste to implemnt often nearly the same programm one time for gtk and again for qt (kde/gnome) but its worth it because I dont like kde programs even minitube that tries to look like a gnome-program integrates not perfektly into gnome (non-standard key-shortcuts as example)

you could maybe somewhat define a very rought agreement to how a print dialog looks like, that they are not extremely different, but you cant use exactly the same dialog, and for some apps even the standart-de-print dialog is not good enough because u need some special options.

But again I have no problem as gnome user with kde apps, I just dont use it, or qt apps I just dont use it because for each there is a equivalent app for gnome. but where I see the problems is guis that come from other oses and that dont integrate in gnome or kde. like firefox like libreoffice like chromium, such stuff. I dont know how you can make that programs behave better, and even if you agree to a standard print dialog for linux, when it differes from the windows dialog, this programms I just named will not integrate into that. you have to explizitly port them, today and with you common print dialog.


What I find is the bigger problem is that there is not standard-environment, if its clear that most users like 80% of the users use gnome, then if somebody want common printerdialogs just make a copy of what they look with gnome apps. It looked a bit like that gnome is the clear winner in kde3 gnome 2 time. Now with kde 4 and gnome-shell and gnome-unity that isnt that clear. so it becomes a bigger problem. Again if you have 2 oses that share the market liek 40% vs 60% there is no winner...

If gnome would have won, qt will sucessful too at least for a long time... at least till gtk-gstreamer etc gets stronger on other plattforms. So it would be ok if the qt programms and even the kde-programs then are able to look like gnome-programms and do that even better than they do today. then you would have your standard it would be gnome. (if shitty unity would die or live not in a major distribution as major environment).

But as long as there is no winner you dont know do you want to have print dialog that looks like the kde ones or like the gnome ones as standard and if you ask some gnome-devs they will say that they made the right one and if you ask kde-devs they think theres the best.

[Alex Sarmiento]

The biggest problem for Linux is the userbase. Most of linux users are geeks and developers that no have a clue about simplicty and usability

[rainbyte]

Where is the point to write kde or next-gnome xy when you only are allowed to make the same gui again with other toolkits?

What about web browsers? You can learn how to use one web browser and you are learning how to use almost any of them...
They don't use the same gui, but follow similar basic patterns, so you don't need to learn the basic things again and again...

The same applies to desktop environments... It's not necessary (nor good) to have equal desktops, but it's ok to have basic design rules.

There isn't any need to combine toolkits... But there is a need to provide the same simplicty and usability from them (they can coexist)...

The biggest problem for Linux is the userbase. Most of linux users are geeks and developers that no have a clue about simplicty and usability

I agree... That's part of the same problem...