Linux - Your likes/dislikes

Naikon

So, most people posting here know that there are many benefits to using a typical GNU/Linux system, yet there are always dislikes to be accounted for too.

Mine:

+ Dev tools(compilers,debuggers,linkers) easy to obtain without bull****
+ Package managers in place of downloading random .msi files off the net
+ /etc dir for system wide configuration, unlike that Win registry mess
+ Not having to reboot your box on a constant basis. Ksplice ftw!
+ Mostly compliant POSIX API's( great when writing C code especially )

- Commercial software still lacking for new/potential converts to Linux
- ALSA is not as nice to use as OSS4 which is not a Linux default. Pulseaudio
and other sound servers complicate the issue far more than should be tolerated.
- Did I mention ALSA/Pulseaudio/ESD ect is a nightmare(also non portable)?
- OSS Software Extremists.
- Dodgy ATI blob support.
- OpenOffice in general

*** Other Unix users, don't feel left out. Anything that is POSIX is allowed here ***

Trivarion

I agree with most of your points. In particular:

+Best dev enviroment
+Secure package managers
-OpenOffice just isn't good enough. It's faster than it was but if it wasn't for the great work of the Wine team getting MS Office 2003 and 2007 (word, excel and powerpoint) working perfectly in Linux I would have serious problems.
-ATI support for older cards. It's AMDs fault but it sucks in general.

I'd also add:
-Needs a good 'find GUI' with more options. Think windows Locate32 (www.locate32.net) but for Linux. Catfish isn't great. Ironically locate32 started as a port of 'locate'.
-Needs a good tabbed PDF viewer. I use PDF XChange from wine.
-Needs an easy to use applicaiton specific firewall application, like Comodo Firewall.

Naikon

Trivarion wrote: »

I agree with most of your points. In particular:

+Best dev enviroment
+Secure package managers
-OpenOffice just isn't good enough. It's faster than it was but if it wasn't for the great work of the Wine team getting MS Office 2003 and 2007 (word, excel and powerpoint) working perfectly in Linux I would have serious problems.
-ATI support for older cards. It's AMDs fault but it sucks in general.

I'd also add:
-Needs a good 'find GUI' with more options. Think windows Locate32 (www.locate32.net) but for Linux. Catfish isn't great. Ironically locate32 started as a port of 'locate'.
-Needs a good tabbed PDF viewer. I use PDF XChange from wine.
-Needs an easy to use applicaiton specific firewall application, like Comodo Firewall.

Good points. Yeah, the find utility is hopelessly unfriendly to most. I use it all the time just cause I am used to it, but a nice Windows like live search ot something is in order.
Search for files seems to be a nice interface to the traditional ugly use of find, locate, grep ect. From a users point of view that is. Sysadmins woulden't have it any other way.

I use xpdf or evince which suit me fine, but I don't use tabs. There are firewall wizards for Linux like Kfirestarter or whatever, but then again, any interface to IPTables is bound
too be a bit...clunky. Most users on Linux assume they don't need a firewall. You can't beat an old Linux/BSD NAT box over personal firewalls though:pac:

Trivarion

Naikon wrote: »

There are firewall wizards for Linux like Kfirestarter or whatever, but then again, any interface to IPTables

I use ufw which is great for setting rules for ports. However I mean one which allows you to set individual permissions for applications. Like:
firefox can use ports 80,8080
firefox not allowed to connect to 100.0.0.1-100.0.0.255
filezilla can use port 22
/home/user/.wine/drive_c/appunderwine is blocked
etc

As far as I know there's no easy way to do that. For example blocking wine apps getting internet access requires creating a new group and dropping all packets for its processes.

Eliot Rosewater

I agree with all that's been said before. I'd be coming at the OS from a more "regular user" perspective...

+Command line "ethos": obviously the command line itself is great, but I love the way, say, the GNOME menu or the startup manager can accept "CLI commands" as arguments, so you can do a startup like "firefox www.gmail.com", or a menu entry that restarts Apache. Shell scripts are the business too; I made one the other day to edit where Apache subdomains point to (using symlinks) then beefed it up with a GUI using zenity, giving me a full-fledged "program" that anyone could use, even though I'm not that skilled with programming besides PHP.

+Software: extremely easy to install through apt-get or the GUI version, lots of choice, ethical (:D) and of generally good quality (no freeware/adware crap).

+Ubuntu 9.10 is way faster than XP on my PC, one of reasons I switched over in the first place. Faster at responding, faster at copying files etc.


-Poor support for external devices. I discovered the other day that my mp3 player is MTP compatible: the first time I plugged it into Rythymbox it worked perfect, the next time and all subsequent times, only 6 out of the 500 or so songs were detected.

-OpenOffice: for me, simply because it won't render Microsoft formats like .doc in any way near the they render in MS Word, thus, for example, my father can't use Linux as he needs MS Word for work. I know that's not really OpenOffice's fault, but I think the point still stands.

Pygmalion

+Development
+Package Management
+Better Window Management (Multiple workspaces/desktops)
+A non-**** command line
+Better applications in general, easier to find (not counting Office and Photoshop which I don't use)
+No Windows update deciding to reboot my computer against my wishes.

-Games, don't play much thankfully so doesn't bother me a huge amount.
-Dodgy wireless and graphics card support. Thankfully neither really apply to this laptop, but setting up my second screen with better than 1024x768 was a bit tricky, not something you could do without being comfortable with Linux IMO. I imagine it's far worse for non-Intel cards.
-Inferior ports, not a Linux issue technically, but I got the impression that some "cross-platform" programs just sucked on everything but Windows. Firefox was a big offender for this, fast and reliable on Windows, crashed all the time on Linux, and was slow as **** when it wasn't crashing.

Johnboy1951

A few things bother me at times ... like

lack of drivers from the hardware manufacturers, so no way to have new hardware up and working usually.

I cannot have the wordprocessor from OOO without the rest of it ..... so use Abiword presently



The most useful function I have installed this year is
PulseAudio.
All but one app I have attempted to use have PA plugins.
It is what Audio Control should have been and thankfully now is.
I have never had this much control even when I used Windows.

I suppose if I had a need for proprietary applications the lack of same would bother me ......

Naikon

Oh yeah, forgot games. A big showstopper at the moment. However, we can build the market for Linux by buying some native games from companies such as id software, Linux game publishing(Shadowgrounds games/Jet's and Guns rock)and indies such as hemisphere games, 2DBOY, Frictional studios. There are games out there, the list just pales in comparison to Windows at the moment. Mostly the same situation with MacOSX aswell. The marketshare for Linux can only grow... Thankfully, I don't play enough games, so the current selction does me fine. I would never suggest Linux as a main OS to a hardcore gamer at present. WINE is not a solution to the games problem on Linux. More native support is required.

Trivarion

Naikon wrote: »

does me fine. I would never suggest Linux as a main OS to a hardcore gamer at present. WINE is not a solution to the games problem on Linux. More native support is required.

Steam is on the way (soon). Rejoice.
Also WOW and many other games work okay under Wine. 'PlayOnLinux' really helps in that regard.

Naikon

Trivarion wrote: »

Steam is on the way (soon). Rejoice.
Also WOW and many other games work okay under Wine. 'PlayOnLinux' really helps in that regard.

Yeah, WOW works fine under WINE because you can choose the OpenGL renderer, which removes the need to translate DirectX calls. I am no graphics developer, but I assume an OpenGL backend will always improve game performance. It would be super for Steam to come to Linux, but that Phronix guy is full of ****. He gave absolutely no sources, claimed a hacked client is Valves new client, and that that steam is officially confirmed. He is quiet now. It's not. A tit of the highest order imo.

Not a huge fan of Steam, but it's needed for mainstream adoption of gaming on Linux...totally.

Naikon

OSI wrote: »

-Lack of hardware support

This can be a problem with most hardware, considering most devices are built to act as cheap commodities under Windows. I always research the hell out of hardware before I make purchases. You will pay more for good hardware, but Linux compat is better in most cases. People assume they can just use their crippled, closed broadcom wincard and then bitch about lack of Linux support. You are asking for trouble when you incorporate hacks like ndiswrapper. I now find that FreeBSD supports win wireless cards better funny enough. Can't comment on Solaris, but I reckon it's better than Linux. You need to buy better hardware imo. There is a reason Atheros and Intel wireless hardware works well for the most part under Linux. Never skimp on hardware. I learned this lesson the hard way.

z0oT

+ Stability (Depending on the Distro of course)
+ Resource Usage (Get rid of a DE and you can have a very light system)
+ Lack of Bloatware/Crapware, it's nice to get only what you want for a change
+ Package Management (Updating everything in a single command)
+ Awesome Customisability in comparison to OSX or Windows
+ Cost

- Lack of decent software
- Audio, still a disaster in general, 2010 and it's still very problematic
- Video Drivers, ATi are especially a pain, nvidia not so much any more
- Lack of Hardware Support
- Wireless Annoyances
- Updates that break core functionality
- Dependency Hell (One reason I like Slackware as much as I do)
- Printing being a disaster at times

Pygmalion

Naikon wrote: »

He gave absolutely no sources, claimed a hacked client is Valves new client

Actually he didn't, the download link provided was on Steam's own server.
Unless someone hacked Steam's website, put a hacked client on it and it went undetected for weeks despite constant media exposure.

What happened, I'd say, is that he knew the Mac client was coming out soon and saw the Linux client on the server, expected a simultaneous release and thought he'd be the one to break the news.
The Mac client was released, the Linux one wasn't, and he rightfully looked like a tit.

I'd say there's someone in Steam working on a Linux client but it's nowhere finished, hardly anyone could even get the client that was available to run (including myself).
For all I know it's just some employees hobby and not anything official.

As for gaming on Linux in general, I'd say without something like Steam it won't be possible, developers just can't (nor should they have to) deal with dependencies and differing versions of everything and stuff like that.
What Steam will hopefully do is offer a more standard base, for example the Steam client could depend on the bare minimum needed (X, OpenGL) and check on startup that it's all present, then offer it's own versions of libraries, in a way guaranteeing to the games developers that they get libX version Y.Z and not some obscure version which differs from distro to distro.
When running a game it could provide a wrapper for each (even just prepending it's own PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH) to make sure the games get what they expect.

Naikon

Pygmalion wrote: »

Actually he didn't, the download link provided was on Steam's own server.
Unless someone hacked Steam's website, put a hacked client on it and it went undetected for weeks despite constant media exposure.

What happened, I'd say, is that he knew the Mac client was coming out soon and saw the Linux client on the server, expected a simultaneous release and thought he'd be the one to break the news.
The Mac client was released, the Linux one wasn't, and he rightfully looked like a tit.

I'd say there's someone in Steam working on a Linux client but it's nowhere finished, hardly anyone could even get the client that was available to run (including myself).
For all I know it's just some employees hobby and not anything official.

As for gaming on Linux in general, I'd say without something like Steam it won't be possible, developers just can't (nor should they have to) deal with dependencies and differing versions of everything and stuff like that.
What Steam will hopefully do is offer a more standard base, for example the Steam client could depend on the bare minimum needed (X, OpenGL) and check on startup that it's all present, then offer it's own versions of libraries, in a way guaranteeing to the games developers that they get libX version Y.Z and not some obscure version which differs from distro to distro.
When running a game it could provide a wrapper for each (even just prepending it's own PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH) to make sure the games get what they expect.

You could also bundle dynamic runtime libraries with the client itself, overriding the system ones when required. I think the whole alsa/arts/esd/jack/pulseaudio circus is a much bigger problem for games. First thing I do when I run
a fresh install is remove alsa for good and install the Open Sound System. Linux gaming won't be amazing without Steam, but there will always be some sort of "Game" available, be it Osmos or Quake $i, X3:Reunion and such.
Unix/Linux really isn't the best platform for games I guess. I actually play a hell of a lot less now(though I am hopelessly addicted to Quake Live). It's more interesting to work with the OS. I wish Steam was coming, but no word
from Valve does not look promising at all. The client could have been a hack for their own developers to use. Games companies always use some OSS software for their development. Subversion/Lua being prime examples.

Linux is a game;)

Capt'n Midnight

-something like system restore so if you can get as far as the command prompt you can untar your settings, or even do it from a live CD, and roll back a day / week or what have you instead of trying to figure out what the problem was

-most man files don't give examples of usage of a command, this means they aren't much use a lot of the time , I'd nearly rather a few basic examples and have to look up the rarer ones on the interweb than the other way around

oscarBravo

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

-Poor support for external devices. I discovered the other day that my mp3 player is MTP compatible: the first time I plugged it into Rythymbox it worked perfect, the next time and all subsequent times, only 6 out of the 500 or so songs were detected.

I think it's probably fairer to say that a lot of hardware has poor OS support than that Linux has poor hardware support. If a manufacturer makes the device specs available, there's a device driver written in no time.

-OpenOffice: for me, simply because it won't render Microsoft formats like .doc in any way near the they render in MS Word, thus, for example, my father can't use Linux as he needs MS Word for work. I know that's not really OpenOffice's fault, but I think the point still stands.

Again, to be fair, Word often doesn't render .doc files the way they were originally written. It's a truly dreadful piece of software, and an unbelievably horrible document format.

Eliot Rosewater

oscarBravo wrote: »

I think it's probably fairer to say that a lot of hardware has poor OS support than that Linux has poor hardware support. If a manufacturer makes the device specs available, there's a device driver written in no time.

Yes, I realise that! It is a cultural thing using Linux though, in that you have to buy hardware with "will it work with Linux?" in mind, which Windows users don't have to do. It's a hurdle from the point of view of gaining general adoption of Linux as a regular desktop OS.

Red Alert

- The proliferation of desktop environments and system file layouts.