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| --- | ||
| layout: post | ||
| title: "Django 1.3 vs Rails 3: A not so final showdown" | ||
| categories: | ||
| - Ruby | ||
| - Rails | ||
| - Python | ||
| - Django | ||
| --- |
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| @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ | ||
| --- | ||
| layout: post | ||
| title: "Java.next() - Java 7: The King is dead, long live the King" | ||
| categories: | ||
| - Java | ||
| --- | ||
|
|
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_posts/2011-06-11-linux-desktop-experience-killing-linux-on-the-desktop.markdown
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| layout: post | ||
| title: "The Linux desktop experience is killing Linux on the desktop" | ||
| categories: | ||
| - Linux | ||
| - Windows | ||
| - Rant | ||
| --- | ||
|
|
||
| **Disclaimer** | ||
|
|
||
| _This post is a bona fide rant. It tells how a hardcore Linux user | ||
| (me) decided to abandon Linux as a desktop platform and the reasons | ||
| behind this decision. It might provoke some controversy, but | ||
| I frankly don't care._ | ||
|
|
||
| # Overture | ||
|
|
||
| I'm generally known as one of the biggest supporters of GNU/Linux, | ||
| I've taught courses on Linux administration, I've spoken at Linux | ||
| conferences and I naturally use Linux as my primary desktop on all my | ||
| machines. Well, that last part is not so true anymore. Here the story | ||
| begins... | ||
|
|
||
| # The background | ||
|
|
||
| I've been using GNU/Linux exclusively for 8 years now. I've spent a | ||
| lot of time with Fedora, Gentoo and Arch Linux. I use it at home, I | ||
| use it at work and along the way I've converted many Windows users to | ||
| Linux. I've lived through a lot of driver and software problems | ||
| with Linux, hoping that the day would come when it will become a | ||
| first-class citizen of the desktop operating systems town. Alas, this | ||
| day never came and probably never will. | ||
|
|
||
| My patience ended this week and I'll be gradually moving all my | ||
| desktop machines back to Windows. What caused me to take such drastic | ||
| course of action? I've bought myself a new ThinkPad T520 laptop, | ||
| powered by Nvidia's Optimus GPU switching technology - when the GPU | ||
| load is low it uses the built-in Sandy Bridge GPU, when it gets higher | ||
| - it switches to the discrete NVS 4200M GPU. Needless to say - this | ||
| technology is not supported under Linux, but I was prepared to live | ||
| without it. After all both Intel and Nvidia are known to have decent | ||
| Linux drivers so I was about to try both GPU and select the one with | ||
| the better performance. All I had to do was pick a shiny new | ||
| distribution to power my mobile powerhouse... | ||
|
|
||
| # The Distribution | ||
|
|
||
| I love Fedora - always have, always will. They constantly deliver to | ||
| the end users the cutting edge in Linux technologies (both desktop and | ||
| server), so it's naturally my distro of choice (I'm quite fond of | ||
| cutting edge tech). I installed on the new | ||
| laptop the latest Fedora 15 with GNOME 3.0 and here the problems | ||
| started. GNOME 3 requires 3d acceleration to work properly - a | ||
| reasonable requirement these days, at least on an operating system with | ||
| normal video drivers. | ||
|
|
||
| The Intel driver sucked so bad that I got constant screen corruption | ||
| and hang-ups. Too bad, because I preferred to use the Intel GPU since | ||
| I mostly work on the laptop. The open source Nvidia driver nouveau | ||
| doesn't support the NVS 4200, so I was forced to install the | ||
| proprietary driver. It ran OK initially, but after some time my system | ||
| just started to freeze while waiting for Plymouth (probably after some | ||
| kernel update, which I didn't notice). I could have tried the usual | ||
| tricks and fixed the problem, but at this point I finally realized how | ||
| idiotic it was of me to keep using Linux for a desktop OS after all | ||
| the shit I've endured and the time I've wasted dealing with stuff that | ||
| should have been "just working". I just want to get some work done, I | ||
| don't want to waste my time debugging all kind of crap. | ||
|
|
||
| # The Shit I endured | ||
|
|
||
| **Non-existing ethernet/wireless drivers** - not so common today, but | ||
| try remembering the time circa 2005 | ||
|
|
||
| **Non-existing/crappy audio drivers** - got an X-Fi 5 years ago, ALSA | ||
| driver was released 3-4 years later and was total piece of garbage, | ||
| OSS driver was barely usable | ||
|
|
||
| **Lamest video card drivers ever** - most video card drivers for Linux | ||
| are so bad I cannot even watch tear-free video. Nvidia have the only | ||
| decent video driver, but it's far from perfect either - no KMS, poor | ||
| 2D acceleration. AMD's drivers are a punishment from the Lord and | ||
| Intel's constantly "evolving" drivers are barely usable most of the | ||
| time. The video card drivers made me buy and HD media player and an | ||
| PS3 (for which I'm thankful), but I have to ask myself - why suffer | ||
| all this shit instead of getting a normal desktop OS like OS X or | ||
| Windows? Did I love Linux that much? Did I believe that much it's | ||
| desktop day would come? What an idiot I was. | ||
|
|
||
| **Lack of printer drivers** - that's a funny one. Often printers | ||
| listed as having Linux drivers are mostly unusable. The printer that | ||
| own is listed as having a "perfect" Linux compatability in | ||
| openprinting.org. If this is perfect I cannot begin to imagine what | ||
| is "poor" compatibility. | ||
|
|
||
| I'll stop writing about the driver problems now, because they affect | ||
| so many thing. Even my fairly advanced mouse is missing some functions | ||
| in Linux. I'm not even mentioning the things like support for "Turbo | ||
| Memory", Optimus, etc. | ||
|
|
||
| **Lack of decent office software** - call it OpenOffice.org and don't | ||
| insult it anymore... | ||
|
|
||
| **Problematic sound architecture** - let me be completely blunt - | ||
| everything sound related in Linux sucks - OSS, ALSA, PulseAudio (the | ||
| sucker king). From a technical standpoint OSS never actually sucked, | ||
| but since it wasn't picked up by the community the project fell | ||
| into oblivion. How many of you have enjoy Dolby Digital or DTS sound | ||
| from their Linux boxes? | ||
|
|
||
| **Poor flash support** - should I explain? Have you tried it on a 64 | ||
| bit distro? Do I hate it? Sure. Do I hope HTML5 will kill it? | ||
| Sure. Do I need it? Sure. | ||
|
|
||
| **Poor skype support** - Same story as with flash. I keep dreaming of | ||
| a world with more intelligent users where GTalk has a conference | ||
| mode and everybody's using it instead of skype. | ||
|
|
||
| **Poor quality of desktop apps** - Known issues in core applications | ||
| such as Nautilus don't get fixed for years. Such things naturally | ||
| piss me off. Trying to contribute to the solution of a problem is | ||
| often met with apathy by maintainers. Btw Linux users thing that | ||
| Mozilla Firefox is very slow and memory hungry - but it turns out | ||
| that the Windows version is generally performing a lot better (not | ||
| to mention - supporting hardware video acceleration). | ||
|
|
||
| I can keep listing things here forever. When I come to think about it | ||
| for the entire time I've been using Linux only one major problem got | ||
| resolved - USB devices support. I still remember the days when I had | ||
| to write auto mounting policies myself or to use _mount_ manually all | ||
| the time. I won't even mention the quality of most proprietary apps on | ||
| Linux, the huge amount of missing essential application and the | ||
| unavailability of mainstream video games. | ||
|
|
||
| So this is it! Asta la vista, Linux! You still remain the best server | ||
| operating system, though. You'll always have a special place in my | ||
| heart and a VMWare instance on my Windows boxes. | ||
|
|
||
| # What I'll miss | ||
|
|
||
| - shell | ||
| - transparency | ||
| - package management | ||
|
|
||
| Although most common desktop users probably don't use the shell very | ||
| often, I practically live(d) in it. OS X has zsh and bash, so it's a | ||
| long term option for me, but due to the need for new hardware I'll be | ||
| using Windows 7 on the desktop front for now. Hopefully the rumors | ||
| that PowerShell is great will turned out to be true. | ||
|
|
||
| The ability to tweak every aspect of the configuration, to build | ||
| custom drivers and kernels will be missed as well, but I don't tend to | ||
| do this as often as I used to. | ||
|
|
||
| Probably the biggest loss for me would be the wonderful distro package | ||
| management systems like YUM and APT. | ||
|
|
||
| # Epilogue | ||
|
|
||
| I remember the first time I used Linux. A friend of mine installed | ||
| Fedora 2 on my personal computer and there was a glitch in GRUB that | ||
| prevented me from booting in Windows. My ethernet card wasn't | ||
| supported so I was left without Internet. I asked my friend can I at | ||
| least watch a few movies while he brought me a patched version of the | ||
| buggy GRUB. He told me - you need to compile MPlayer from sources with | ||
| several optimization, you need windows video codecs, etc. At the time this | ||
| excited me a lot - adventure, excitement. I learned A LOT by using | ||
| Linux non-stop for so long time. But at some point you stop learning | ||
| exciting things and are just stuck with tedious things you have to | ||
| keep doing over and over again. And as I already mentioned - I don't | ||
| want my time wasted, I want to get the job done with minimum hassle. | ||
|
|
||
| I've been hearing each and every year that "year 20xx" will be the | ||
| year of the Linux desktop. It never came and it's my firm believe that | ||
| it never will. Constantly plagued by hardware and software woes Linux | ||
| is doomed to fail. Without major support from hardware and software | ||
| vendors every OS is ultimately doomed to fail. | ||
|
|
||
| It's no secret that a lot of money are made by Linux server businesses | ||
| and this naturally drives a lot of the development in the area of | ||
| improving server performance. Nobody put it better than | ||
| [Con Colivas](http://apcmag.com/why_i_quit_kernel_developer_con_kolivas.htm) | ||
| - "_Linux is burdened with enterprise crap that makes it run poorly on | ||
| desktop PCs, says kernel developer Con Kolivas who recently walked | ||
| away from years of work on it._". Linux will remain the king of the | ||
| server world, but on the desktop front it will always be an OS for | ||
| enthusiast and hackers only. | ||
|
|
||
| Goodbye, my dear old friend. You'll be missed... but not that much. | ||
|
|
||
| P.S. Btw I'm as pro a Linux user as they get - a professional sys | ||
| admin, a former kernel developer so don't bother me with moronic | ||
| comments from the type "you're not doing something right/you should | ||
| try another distro". |
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