Comment by anonymous_sorry
3 years ago
>If Linux neckbeards truly want to realize the Year of the Linux Desktop, they have to accept how the rest of the world at large works and play by those rules.
Firstly, name-calling does not help in getting your point across.
The opposite argument could easily be made. What would be the point of the "year of the Linux desktop" if Linux is not substantially different from other OSes in the way it treats its users? That's why nobody is celebrating the "era of the Linux palmtop" with Android.
Linux makes different trade-offs from those made by the commercial OSes. The diversity is valuable. That's not to say there isn't room for improvement, but I would be pretty bummed if Linux lost what makes it different.
Linux is more than likely suited for a different sector of the computing market than the desktop, considering its endless failures to breakthrough (Android aside) and the unchanging and fundamentally incompatible-with-desktop ideologies held by the neckbeards who really run the whole show.
The point I want to convey is not so much that Linux should change (though as a desktop user I certainly wouldn't mind), but that anyone within Linux who complains about How The World Is Wrong(tm) needs to wake up from their freedom-infused obsession and smell reality. The rest of the desktop world functions fine, so if it's only Linux that Just Can't(tm) then the problem is Linux.
> Linux is more than likely suited for a different sector of the computing market than the desktop, considering its endless failures to breakthrough
Linux has suited me very well as a desktop for 10+ years. (I'm aware it is probably not suitable for every person or use case.)
To maintain the health of the Linux desktop(s), we do need to be open to new people and ideas from outside. But Linux is, and should remain, different from proprietary OSes. Otherwise, what is the point?
Being different for difference's sake doesn't mean much if it's not useful.
It's like saying a certain screwdriver must be made with a smooth ball point to be different from other screwdrivers. Nevermind that nobody can figure out a use for such a screwdriver and everyone happily (or begrudgingly) goes back to using flathead, Philips, and Torx drivers.
Most people don't care about free-as-in-freedom software or open-as-in-auditable source code, they just want to run Office and Photoshop and maybe play some snazzy games. A tool must first and foremost be useful in order to achieve mainstream appeal, Linux has consistently failed to do so because it is flat out not useful for most people.
If achieving the "Year of the Linux Desktop" is a real goal of the Linux community at large, some fundamental changes in ideology must happen:
* Acceptance or at least tolerance of proprietary source code (eg: Nvidia drivers). Most users don't care what philosophy of code they're running, they just want their computer to work and be useful.
* More emphasis on GUIs and a refined user experience. Neckbeards might only want the CLI and consider anything else below their ability to care, but most users want a good GUI like in any other widely accepted operating system.
* Accept that there can be such a thing as too much choice. Developers don't want to look after their code on five dozen flavors of Linux, some consolidation and stabilization of distros and runtime environments are a hard requirement to beating the chicken-or-egg problem.
* Less hostility to new users and outsiders. The elitism within the Linux community at large is stupid. Being a CLI wizard doesn't give anyone a higher horse to ride on, and it's not going to attract new users anyway.
* Less marketing emphasis on liberal and FOSS ideologies. They're all fine concepts to have, but most users care about free as in free beer, not free as in freedom. Cater to what users want in order to win users over.
Linux can be many great things, but its ideologies and philosophies hold it back in a wider world that values usability and practicality more than freedoms and openness.
If "Year of the Linux Desktop" is not a goal, then Linux can continue as it currently is. The enterprise world will be Linux's stronghold for the foreseeable future as before, and the desktop world will continue moving on with Windows/Mac/iOS/Android like always for better or worse. But Linux can't then complain the desktop world keeps disregarding them, because priorities are different and Linux chose to be incompatible.
2 replies →
Back to the insults again,
Linux is working fine for those who want to use it as such. No neckbeard owes a 'fuckstain' rest of the world a god damn thing.
Actually the only thing Linux Android has is the kernel, nothing on userspace APIs exposes them to app developers.
Any access to Linux subsystems or syscalls on Android, work as matter of luck on specific devices, or is an area Google isn't yet enforcing Android security userspace rules.