Do Linux users suffer from lack of software?

[TiggrToo]

I've tried too many times with Linux now and I've all but given up.

Sure there's thousands of applications out there for Linux - however most are either unsupported, require command line gymnastics to get to work, or all have a UI that was old back at the turn of the century.

And don't get me started on finding out that you have to change Repos just to get an updated version of an app because the OS repo doesn't have the update.

Linux on the desktop will always be a niche environment with a vocal minority championing it's use. Linux on servers is where it's all about.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[TiggrToo]

I had dual-boot home-built Windows NT/Linux systems between 1997-2002. I switched to OS X in 2002 which resulted in an immediate 95% drop in system administration load.

My main Linux complaints back in 2002:

• piss-poor device driver support
• excessive system administration load
• abysmal end user documentation

were my primary reasons for dumping Linux on the desktop. I primarily used GNOME on Red Hat Linux back then although I briefly tried KDE. I also tried the fledgling Gentoo distro before I finally kicked Linux back to the curb for good. At one point I built a FreeBSD boot drive to see if the grass was greener on the other side. It wasn't.

I remember having to buy commercial Xserver software because XFree86 didn't support my Matrox G400 video card which I first started. Even then, I spent hours and hours diddling with the text configuration file. What a royal pain.

Back in 1997, the Web had very little in the way of resources to guide people in installing Linux.

Today Linux remains a worthy candidate OS for servers as well as an embedded OS for devices over which I have little control over (like WiFi routers, etc.).

I have a handful of 20-25 year old shell scripts that I use from time to time and my preferred way of copying large directories is still a tarpipe:

tar -cpO foo | ( cd /path/to/destination; tar -xvpf - )

but my disdain for the Linux desktop is rooted in five years of user experience, probably before you were in high school. Hell, maybe you weren't even around.

In any case, I have moved on with my life and have zero interest in futzing around with Linux on the desktop.

Frankly, I'd rather spend two hours in my garden over farting around with Linux.

 

[MacBH928]

I've tried too many times with Linux now and I've all but given up.

Sure there's thousands of applications out there for Linux - however most are either unsupported, require command line gymnastics to get to work, or all have a UI that was old back at the turn of the century.

And don't get me started on finding out that you have to change Repos just to get an updated version of an app because the OS repo doesn't have the update.

Linux on the desktop will always be a niche environment with a vocal minority championing it's use. Linux on servers is where it's all about.

I had dual-boot home-built Windows NT/Linux systems between 1997-2002. I switched to OS X in 2002 which resulted in an immediate 95% drop in system administration load.

My main Linux complaints back in 2002:

• piss-poor device driver support
• excessive system administration load
• abysmal end user documentation

were my primary reasons for dumping Linux on the desktop. I primarily used GNOME on Red Hat Linux back then although I briefly tried KDE. I also tried the fledgling Gentoo distro before I finally kicked Linux back to the curb for good. At one point I built a FreeBSD boot drive to see if the grass was greener on the other side. It wasn't.

I remember having to buy commercial Xserver software because XFree86 didn't support my Matrox G400 video card which I first started. Even then, I spent hours and hours diddling with the text configuration file. What a royal pain.

Back in 1997, the Web had very little in the way of resources to guide people in installing Linux.

Today Linux remains a worthy candidate OS for servers as well as an embedded OS for devices over which I have little control over (like WiFi routers, etc.).

I have a handful of 20-25 year old shell scripts that I use from time to time and my preferred way of copying large directories is still a tarpipe:

tar -cpO foo | ( cd /path/to/destination; tar -xvpf - )

but my disdain for the Linux desktop is rooted in five years of user experience, probably before you were in high school. Hell, maybe you weren't even around.

In any case, I have moved on with my life and have zero interest in futzing around with Linux on the desktop.

Frankly, I'd rather spend two hours in my garden over farting around with Linux.

I have to agree, MacOS is user friendly, stable, and "it just works". I hardly have to go to system preferences.

That being said, due to privacy concerns and Apple's expensive and limited hardware to their personal style choice (going all USB-C on Macbooks), Linux is our only salvage.

I really feel like whatever issues Linux has it can be overcome. MacOS is based on a unix-like system and look how good it works. We just have to find a way to do it, instead of each programmer building his own distro that he is comfortable with. It can be FreeBSD for all I care, as long as its a modern user-friendly working OS with modern software that can replace Windows. I don't care whats going on under the hood.

 

[Mikael H]

I have to agree, MacOS is user friendly, stable, and "it just works". I hardly have to go to system preferences.

That being said, due to privacy concerns and Apple's expensive and limited hardware to their personal style choice (going all USB-C on Macbooks), Linux is our only salvage.

I really feel like whatever issues Linux has it can be overcome. MacOS is based on a unix-like system and look how good it works. We just have to find a way to do it, instead of each programmer building his own distro that he is comfortable with. It can be FreeBSD for all I care, as long as its a modern user-friendly working OS with modern software that can replace Windows. I don't care whats going on under the hood.

The answer, of course, is "write the software, then". As we've discussed in this thread, there's nothing in the OS that prevents anybody from doing so; but the OS has a relatively small desktop following and therefore few end-user software devs.
So: See anything on another platform that you need your free Unix to be able to do? Port it if it's FOSS, write your own if it isn't.

 

[Reflej0]

In the past it was like that (Before 2012) but currently Linux has enough support, I don't have any strong statistics to show how many programs each OS has (W10, OS X, Linux).
My recommendation is always to go with Ubuntu or Linux Mint which has more facility for the installation of programs.
In fact, a few weeks ago, I am using OS X, Linux and Windows 10 for a while each day to be able to verify exactly the differences in the daily life of each one.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[TiggrToo]

I have to agree, MacOS is user friendly, stable, and "it just works". I hardly have to go to system preferences.

...

I really feel like whatever issues Linux has it can be overcome. MacOS is based on a unix-like system and look how good it works.

Yes it can be overcome, but consider what Apple did: they spent probably millions of dollars in taking the BSD base and giving it a shiny GUI. And then even more in maintaining it.

Having control of the hardware layer was probably crucial to them as well.

Look at the next nearest GUI competitor in the Linux world, Canonical: they tried oh so hard to push Unity but ultimately failed.

Even the best looking GUI skins out there are just that - skins.

Linux desktop will never be anything more than a niche & mostly developer desktop. And there's a good reason for saying that: the desktop war is over and Microsoft won with Apple coming in 2nd.

The new war started several years ago when smartphones came into the scene. More and more users are slowly leaving desktops behind so Linux can never succeed in that arena now because desktops are going to slowly fall in popularity.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[TiggrToo]

It's not a new war anymore.

PC unit sales have declined yearly despite the fact that the world population is increasing. While Macs have increased as a percentage of PC market share, the overall number of units shipped keeps falling.

This started around the 2008 recession; there was a slight bounce back until 2011-12 at which point smartphone and tablets established a strong foothold. PC sales have been in decline every since:

PC vendor shipments worldwide by quarter 2023 | Statista

Lenovo shipped 16.21 million personal computers during the fourth quarter of 2023, surpassing HP's 13.95 million shipments in that same quarter and retaining its position as market leader.

www.statista.com

In 2008, you issued notebook computers to your warehouse staff so they could fulfill orders and track inventory. In 2020, you hand out smartphones and they scan barcodes with the phone's built-in camera or scan an RFID tag.

Have you ever been in a store that uses tablets as cash registers, Point Of Sale terminals, product information kiosk, etc.? Each time you see one, that's one less PC.

The glory days of the PC are over.

I know.

Read my post again. I stated the new war is now with mobile. The old one was with desktops.

I was not saying there's a war between desktops and smartphones, rather a new war with vendors in the smartphone space.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

Linux on the desktop will always be a niche environment

Yup. That's the message I've been trying to convey as well.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[MacBH928]

Yes it can be overcome, but consider what Apple did: they spent probably millions of dollars in taking the BSD base and giving it a shiny GUI. And then even more in maintaining it.

Having control of the hardware layer was probably crucial to them as well.

Look at the next nearest GUI competitor in the Linux world, Canonical: they tried oh so hard to push Unity but ultimately failed.

Even the best looking GUI skins out there are just that - skins.

Linux desktop will never be anything more than a niche & mostly developer desktop. And there's a good reason for saying that: the desktop war is over and Microsoft won with Apple coming in 2nd.

The new war started several years ago when smartphones came into the scene. More and more users are slowly leaving desktops behind so Linux can never succeed in that arena now because desktops are going to slowly fall in popularity.

I still have my hopes that someone will make it work. ProtonMail saved us from Gmail and DuckDuckGo saved us from Google search and LibreOffice saved us from Microsoft Office. Having the human race tied to using a computer running 2 American company software is just something I am not comfortable with, its like saying only 1 company in the world controls all sources of drinking water.

There's really no war in the smartphone space, at least not where Apple is competing. There are two companies: Apple and Samsung that are responsible for almost all of the smartphone industry profits. There's enough room for both of them.

The low-end devices are low margin or sell at a loss. That's probably two-thirds of Samsung's smartphone product line.

There are a boatload of smartphone manufacturers who don't make a dime selling them. They may have marketshare as a percentage of total units shipped, but it's not translating into revenue.

Apple is fine letting this guys bloody themselves grubbing over a $2 profit from a $199 bargain smartphone. Apple's gross margin has hovered around 38% in recent years. How many $199 smartphones do you need to sell to equal the $380 from a $1000 iPhone? Plus Apple is raking in service revenue dollars.

Even the smartphone chip vendor wars are almost over. Some of the former major players (Intel, nVidia, Texas Instruments) threw in the towel years ago. It's really just Apple, Samsung, Qualcomm left. There is enough room for all three.

The only real smartphone war is iOS vs. Android. The problem with Android is that unit sales isn't translating into service revenue. Even app developers who develop for both platforms say that they make 5-10x more in iOS revenue than Android revenue. The industry would be better served by a strong third smartphone operating system platform, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen. Look at the graveyard: Microsoft Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS, Nokia's entry, HP Palm OS, Tizen. Remember Firefox OS? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

And again, this isn't new. This has been the way since Apple opened up their iOS App Store.

Why do you think multi-billion dollar companies failed at releasing a smartphone OS? Steve Jobs on day 1 showed up with iphone and the iOS worked flawless. Is it that they do not have the skill to program for mobile devices?

 

[Mikael H]

I still have my hopes that someone will make it work. ProtonMail saved us from Gmail and DuckDuckGo saved us from Google search and LibreOffice saved us from Microsoft Office. Having the human race tied to using a computer running 2 American company software is just something I am not comfortable with, its like saying only 1 company in the world controls all sources of drinking water.

Again: That "someone" consists of humans. The only way to make a real difference is to be one of the people who makes that difference. Whining that the software is missing or that its GUI could be so much better doesn't really help anybody - we all know, but too few of us do anything about it.

Why do you think multi-billion dollar companies failed at releasing a smartphone OS? Steve Jobs on day 1 showed up with iphone and the iOS worked flawless. Is it that they do not have the skill to program for mobile devices?

Steve Jobs had a knack for a) understanding what makes people want to use a product, and b) applying the correct mix of carrot and stick to developers on his payroll to transform his vision to a finished product. But even he couldn't get more than a few percent of PC users to switch to a more elegant - and Unix-based - platform when there were cheaper alternatives around.

 

[BootLoxes]

I have been on and off linux since 2011 with my last go in 2019. I was surprised how well the newer versions work. However I am nearing my late 20s and my work requirements have been shifting. Before if I had a linux issue I would just google and post on forums. However that was a very frequent thing which back in my early 20s was no problem because I had the time that I no longer have. I need to get things done and cannot afford to miss deadlines.

Many of my programs are not supported and looking up alternative open source programs, I find myself asking "why am I doing this?" So I keep going back to Windows because I never have to worry about compatibility of errors. It just works.

I am saving up for my first macbook pro but that will take a while. I am hoping the synergy between my ios devices and much better privacy will be the thing to finally get me away from windows.

 

[Ritsuka]

Well, unless I missed something, Linux on Mac hardware is a dead end.

I have a MacBook Air 2019 and Mac mini 2018. Both have the T2 Security Chip.

No it's not dead. The T2 does nothing to prevent running Linux. But it does nothing to help running Linux too.
It took some time for someone to write the drivers needed to run Linux on recent Mac, but nowadays it mostly work.
For example: https://linuxwit.ch/blog/2020/01/installing-fedora-on-mac-mini/

 

[MacBH928]

Again: That "someone" consists of humans. The only way to make a real difference is to be one of the people who makes that difference. Whining that the software is missing or that its GUI could be so much better doesn't really help anybody - we all know, but too few of us do anything about it.

Actually I believe in whining, because I have seen it work. Last time I have seen it work was when people whined so much they made Apple backtrack from the butterfly keyboards, and Apple is a hard headed company. Whining also shows the opportunity for others that there is a market to be filled.

That being said, I will not spend 4 years of my life learning C just so I will be able to contribute few lines of code in the next Linux release. There are armies of programmers around the world looking for a job. Mozilla made it work, Red Hat made it work, ProtonMail made it work, LibreOffice made it work. The way I make a difference is by advocating for FOSS, try to increase the user base(which thrives the community), and monetary donations. We all can contribute with whatever means we are capable of, not just writing software. I do agree, we should take part in being the solution, and its too cheap. $1 per user can go a long way, based on 10M users, surely enough to create the software we want, I think....

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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[Mikael H]

Ahaha. That part of Linux hasn't changed since I initially installed it on a system in 1997: device drivers simply don't exist for the latest hardware.

In 1997, Linux ran pretty well on three-year-old hardware. That's why I ended up buying commercial Xserver software for my year-old Matrox card.

So it took someone 18+ months to write the device drivers to get Linux running on a T2-equipped Mac mini. Good on them. And like in 1997, it's a lovely, super-duper user-friendly patch that must applied to the kernel and recompiled.

Is this part of a standard off-the-shelf distro yet? Or is it just the patch right now?

But all of this is elementary. Linux is still an abject failure on the desktop, just like it was in 2000. I abandoned Linux 18 years ago. I can't imagine how much time I have saved. Maybe six months of my life (waking hours)?

Linux system administration is still great resumé fodder if you're an IT person.

Yes, the solution to running an operating system on a piece of hardware with no vendor support is to write (or port) the driver yourself, and yes that takes time.
On the other hand, and for most people, choosing a computer that would run Linux just fine is just a matter of having a vendor curate models for this purpose. Here are a few. Naturally, there are more manufacturers who do, and even more whose hardware de facto works with Linux but isn't specifically certified. If you look at System 76 who have an economical incentive to keep up-to-date, they don't exactly seem to be selling you three year old hardware.

I will repeat my earlier point, that Linux today doesn't have to be more complicated to use than Windows, if you stick to the major desktop environments. But yes, from a market share perspective, Linux on the desktop is inarguably a failure, which comes with a bunch of secondary problems, like a lack of will among many software houses to port their products to the platform. We'll see what happens.

 

[MacBH928]

Ahaha. That part of Linux hasn't changed since I initially installed it on a system in 1997: device drivers simply don't exist for the latest hardware.

In 1997, Linux ran pretty well on three-year-old hardware. That's why I ended up buying commercial Xserver software for my year-old Matrox card.

So it took someone 18+ months to write the device drivers to get Linux running on a T2-equipped Mac mini. Good on them. And like in 1997, it's a lovely, super-duper user-friendly patch that must applied to the kernel and recompiled.

Is this part of a standard off-the-shelf distro yet? Or is it just the patch right now?

But all of this is elementary. Linux is still an abject failure on the desktop, just like it was in 2000. I abandoned Linux 18 years ago. I can't imagine how much time I have saved. Maybe six months of my life (waking hours)?

Linux system administration is still great resumé fodder if you're an IT person.

FOSS aficionados will probably not like what I will say but, this is the point I am trying to say, isn't it better if people worked on support and stable software than releasing yet another distro of the hundreds of distros out there? Its even worse when you know multiple Distros are aiming to do the same thing like Mint, Elementary, and Zorin are all supposed to be the "user friendly" distro. And god knows how many distros are the "light and minimum" distro.

 

[SandboxGeneral]

isn't it better if people worked on support and stable software

That's called Debian Linux.

 

[MacBH928]

That's called Debian Linux.

Yea I know about Debian, but Debian does not support drivers for hardware as they believe everything should be FOSS. I get why they are doing it, but its not practical for the average user.

 

[Mikael H]

Yea I know about Debian, but Debian does not support drivers for hardware as they believe everything should be FOSS. I get why they are doing it, but its not practical for the average user.

Hence the variety of distros: People have different priorities and different considerations.

But to be honest, among Linux users in the corporate world, people basically use RedHat or Ubuntu. In day-to-day use, for someone who doesn't need the command line, the choice is pretty much moot. Even when you do use a shell, the tooling has seen a lot of convergent evolution. Again, it's mainly a question of a) availability of end-user machines with an alternative preinstalled operating system, and b) corporations and schools deciding to have their users on something other than Windows: What people use and become accustomed to decides what they buy for themselves when they get to decide for themselves.

 

[MacUser2525]

FOSS aficionados will probably not like what I will say but, this is the point I am trying to say, isn't it better if people worked on support and stable software than releasing yet another distro of the hundreds of distros out there? Its even worse when you know multiple Distros are aiming to do the same thing like Mint, Elementary, and Zorin are all supposed to be the "user friendly" distro. And god knows how many distros are the "light and minimum" distro.

I think that one all the time and it is not just a tiny period of time but DECADES since it has been time to get organized. They are all fine to talk about community and organizing support for free software. But nothing about organizing to actually make it a success by doing it in an organized to do the development in a manner working toward the same goal. It always has to be the let us fragment the effort making sure it will never get done.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

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