McGovern: Handing over [LWN.net]

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 18:41 UTC (Tue) by flussence (guest, #85566)
Parent article: McGovern: Handing over

> We’ve become the default desktop on all major Linux distributions.

GNOME has become the _Internet Explorer_ of Linux desktops.

I dread to find out what the Chrome equivalent will be.

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McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 15, 2022 20:47 UTC (Tue) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (10 responses)

Could you please elaborate? The problem with Internet Explorer wasn't its wide userbase alone. By being insecure and buggy, MSIE had negative effects far beyond its userbase. What's the GNOME problem that a large company would want to fix?

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 0:05 UTC (Wed) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link]

It's clear that desktop environments inspire passionate arguments in the Linux community. What I don't think some people understand is how reductive and mean some of the comments can be.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 2:04 UTC (Wed) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (5 responses)

Every time I log into my GNOME-based laptop, I have to futz with pulseaudio and/or pipewire for ~20 minutes to fix the sound. It's a corporate device with a lot of proprietary crap on it, but the same is true of millions of Windows laptops, and you don't hear about this problem there...

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 2:46 UTC (Wed) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (3 responses)

PulseAudio and PipeWire are not parts of the GNOME project. Whatever problems they have are Linux desktop problems that cannot be solved by replacing GNOME with another desktop environment such as XFCE or KDE.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 3:45 UTC (Wed) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (2 responses)

"X is not part of the Y project" is the reason that proprietary systems are *so much* less painful to use than Linux.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 15:12 UTC (Wed) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (1 responses)

That depends entirely on your definition of "pain," really.

Yeah, if you buy a Macbook or something you should expect that sound, etc. are going to "just work." But that comes with a lot of trade-offs if you don't want to do things the Apple way, etc. And are OK with a perfectly functional device going EOL when Apple stops updating macOS for it. And don't mind being limited in options if the device requires a repair, etc... But if you have the money to live in the Apple ecosystem and don't object to its limitations / proprietary-ness, it can certainly be convenient.

In my limited experience the Windows ecosystem can be less painful or a lot more painful than Linux depending.

I hear a lot of complaints about PulseAudio, etc. and I believe that some users definitely run into problems. I haven't, myself, run into very many issues -- and that's having run Fedora and RHEL desktops as well as PopOS and others. I expect there are lots of users who use these things quite happily without issue. I've never been clear if the problem(s) are of trying to do things that weren't use cases they expected or hardware related or what. It seems like they do pretty well with way fewer resources than what Microsoft or Apple likely throw at the problem, though. (Not to mention far less control to dictate things...)

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 19, 2022 7:27 UTC (Sat) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link]

My MacBook pro can't keep a reliable connection for long periods of time to a simple Bluetooth headset. Periodically have to repair, and occasionally reboot. No other real options.

My linux desktop is worse with the same thing, but neither Just Works. At least with Ubuntu / Pop, I get support that admits something is wrong, and provides useful advice (via system 76). And, in a pinch, can sometimes even be fixed by me..

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 8:51 UTC (Wed) by ovitters (guest, #27950) [Link]

> but the same is true of millions of Windows laptops, and you don't hear about this problem there...

That's a bit of a strange comparison. Manufacturers usually test for Windows. They don't test for Linux. As such, the software developers of Windows have a huge advantage.

FWIW, I use Windows as well and it's pretty standard to complain about issues. Except it'll be mentioned as a "laptop" issue, not specifically attributed to Windows.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 11:57 UTC (Wed) by jd (guest, #26381) [Link] (2 responses)

By being insecure and buggy, MSIE had negative effects far beyond its userbase.

Insecure and buggy, yes, but more importantly it used a proprietary dialect of HTML, broke with standards and (through monopoly abuse) killed off competition through illegal means. This, too, had a huge impact beyond the userbase. It meant many websites broke on other browsers and were thus unusable on other systems.

This included sites that were "mandatory training", government websites, etc. In some places, this meant you couldn't get well-paid jobs or claim benefits except by using one specific browser on one specific operating system.

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 16, 2022 18:18 UTC (Wed) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (1 responses)

Thank you! Bad stuff is forgotten quickly. I think GNOME is OK in comparison :)

McGovern: Handing over

Posted Feb 17, 2022 1:36 UTC (Thu) by jebba (guest, #4439) [Link]

Microsoft: A History of Anticompetitive Behavior and Consumer Harm

https://web.archive.org/web/20090618155904/http://www.eci...