Comment by SlinkyOnStairs
3 days ago
> Desktop Linux has gotten better
This is on me for being a bit too snarky.
So yes, Desktop Linux has "gotten better". What it hasn't done is solved any of the systemic problems.
The Open Source development quirks that created the shitshow of the 1999 is still here. Gnome is better but still suffers massively from mainstream features being declared stupid by the maintainers. (A power button that turns off the machine? Heretical.)
Valve's recent successes are pretty illustrative here. They used their money to directly hijack the projects their products rely on.
For what it pertains the comparison, Windows is not without this "slow" improvement either. 95 and 98 are lightyears behind contemporary Windows in so many ways. Until quite recently it still made about as much sense to use Linux as it did back then; Not much.
Take your Linux Laptop example. Sure, Linux finally kind of worked on some specific models that were tested for it. Meanwhile, Windows had moved from "it'll work with some mucking about with drivers" to "It works universally, on practically all hardware". Really, by the mid 2010s Windows would finally be quite tolerant of you changing the hardware.
Hence my original point; Desktop Linux hasn't really caught up with Windows in any meaningful sense. Windows is just nose-diving into the ground in the last few years.
> The Open Source development quirks that created the shitshow of the 1999 is still here. Gnome is better but still suffers massively from mainstream features being declared stupid by the maintainers. (A power button that turns off the machine? Heretical.)
Gnome have been chopping off their own limbs because it reduces weight. All in the name of simplicity. I think they are not the best example of Open Source development.
KDE on the other hand had a hard fall once and basically recovered and invested long term in Plasma and that has paid off handsomely. Today, it is one desktop that I can say is closest to typical/standard desktop paradigms out of the box while retaining a high degree of flexibility for those who choose to customise it. I have been using KDE on Fedora for a while now and it has been basically solid.
> I think they are not the best example of Open Source development.
They're not. I'm using them as an example of the "bad" in Open Source development.
But it's also not so much the individual OS components that are a problem, their interactions are just as fragile and usually subject to neither party taking ownership of the problem.
I feel like open source is a forest, not a garden. Things grow and die and those who are strong enough and useful enough and can fit in the environment do survive. The linkages are there but they are not perfectly arranged by some curator because it is not a curated garden. It is not totally haphazard though because the ecology has rules and the better pieces are in harmony with the rest of the system.
We forget that it this organic nature that makes open source what it is. Nobody charges you entry fee, there are no hidden fees once you enter, nobody is trying to sell you crap but you need to learn how to survive yourself. Once you do that, you understand how to deal with shortcomings of a package or finding another solution to your needs. Sure it takes time, but when that becomes second nature and you stop fighting the nature of the ecology itself, there is no other system like it.
That's why comparing it with advantages of other systems is pointless. I didn't choose to walk into the forest because it was a perfectly tailored experience, I did because I wanted freedom. It required me to learn how to fit in and now that I have, I'm at peace with where I am.