ОТКЛЮЧИТЬ РЕКЛАМУ Major Linux Problems on the Desktop o r Wh y L in u x is n o t (y e t) R e a d y fo r th e D e s k to p , 2015 edition Wh y L in u x s u c k s ? N o wh y , L in u x d o e s n 't s u c k ! 521 92 Font size: [ ▲ ] [ ▼ ] Table of contents The article translations: Preface Desktop Linux Problems and Major Shortcomings Una versión en español de este artículo se puede Summary encontrar aquí (2013) (2013) Linux Works for Me™, This Article is Bullocks! Частичный перевод статьи на русский (2012) Commentary from the Author More translations, please! ;-) СОCoЗmДmАТeЬnt sСАЙТ Preface: In this regularly updated article, which is without doubt the most comprehensive list of Linux distributions' problems on the entire Internet, we only discuss their main problems and deficiencies (which may be the reason why some people say Linux distros are not ready for the desktop) while everyone should keep in mind that there are areas where Linux has excelled other OSes: excellent package management, multiple platforms and architectures support out of the box, usually excellent stability, no widely circulating viruses or malware, complete system reinstallation is almost never required, besides Linux is extremely customizable, easily scripted and it's free as a beer. Again, let me reiterate it, this article is primarily about Linux distributions, however many issues listed below affect the Linux kernel as well. This is not a Windows vs. Linux comparison, however sometimes you'll find comparisons with Windows or Mac OS as a point of reference (after all, their market penetration is in an order of magnitude higher). Most issues listed below are technical by nature, however some of them are "political" (it's not my word - it's what other people say) - for instance when companies refuse to release data sheets or release incomplete data sheets for hardware, thus Linux users don't get all the features or drivers have bugs almost no one in the Linux community can resolve. I want to make one thing crystal clear - Windows, in some regards, is even worse than Linux and it's definitely not ready for the desktop either. Off the top of my head I want to name the following quite devastating issues with Windows: • devastating Windows rot, • no enforced file system and registry hierarchy (I have yet to find a single serious application which can uninstall itself cleanly and fully), • svchost.exe, • no true safe mode, • no clean state, • the user as a system administrator (thus viruses/malware - most users don't and won't understand UAC warnings), • no good packaging mechanism (MSI is a fragile abomination), • no system wide update mechanism (which includes third party software), • Windows is extremely difficult to debug, • Windows boot problems are often fatal and unsolvable unless you reinstall from scratch, • Windows is hardware dependent (especially when running from UEFI), • Windows updates are unreliable and they also waste disk space, • there's no way to cleanly upgrade your system (there will be thousands of leftovers), etc. Probably you've heard many times that Android thus Linux is conquering the entire world since it's running on the majority of smart phones (which are indeed little specialized computers but not desktops). However there are two important things to keep in mind - firstly, Android is not Linux (besides have you seen anyone running Android on their desktop or laptop?). Android contains the only Linux component - the kernel (moreover, it's a fixed old version (3.0.x, 3.4.x or 3.10.x as for 2015) which is maintained and supported solely by Google). Secondly, Android is not a desktop OS, it's an OS for mobile phones, tablets and other touch screen devices. So, this article is not about Android, it's about a horde of Linux distributions and Open Source Software included by these distributions (called "distro" below). Miguel de Icaza, the creator of Gnome and Mono, opined about Linux problems in a similar way, here's his opinion where he reiterates a lot of things mentioned below. He stopped using Linux in 2012, saying about his Mac the following, "Computing-wise that three week vacation turned out to be very relaxing. Machine would suspend and resume without problem, Wi-Fi just worked, audio did not stop working, I spend three weeks without having to recompile the kernel to adjust this or that, nor fighting the video drivers, or deal with the bizarre and random speed degradation that my ThinkPad suffered", highlighting problematic areas in Linux. Recently Linus Torvalds expressed his utter disappointment with the state of Linux on the desktop. Ubuntu developers decided to push Ubuntu as a viable gaming platform and they identified the topics which need to be addressed in order to achieve this goal. Uncannily the list, they've come up with, matches the list, you can read below, almost verbatim. Some of Fedora developers proposed to change this distro so it provides stable APIs/ABIs and avoids regressions if possible. Feel free to express your discord in the comments section. Attention: Greenish items on the list are either partially resolved, not crucial, questionable, or they have workarounds. This list desperately needs to be reorganized because some of the problems mentioned here are crucial and some are not. There's a great chance that you, as a user, won't ever encounter any of them (if you have the right hardware, never mess with your system and use quite a limited set of software from your distro exclusively). Here are a few important considerations before you start reading this article: If you believe Linux is perfect and it has no problems, please close this page. If you think any Linux criticism is only meant to groundlessly revile Linux, please close this page. If you think the purpose of this article is to show that "nothing ever works in Linux or Linux is barely usable", you are wrong, please close this page. If you believe Linux and Linux users will work/live fine without commercial software and games, please close this page. If you think I'm here to promote Windows or Mac OS, please close this page. If you think I'm here to spread lies or FUD about Linux, please close this page immediately and never ever come back. What are you doing here anyway? Please go back to flame wars and defamations. Keep in mind that this list serves the purpose to show what needs to be fixed in Linux rather than to find faults in it. Desktop Linux Problems and Major Shortcomings (For those who hate reading long texts, there's a TL;DR version below). S o L in u x su c k s b e c a u se . Hardware support: 1. Video accelerators/​acceleration (also see the X system section). ! NVIDIA Optimus technology and ATI dynamic GPU switching are still not supported on Linux out of the box in any existing distro. AMD hybrid graphics support is lousy and very incomplete. ! AMD's Linux development might be called an organized mess lacking engineering resources due to the shortage of funds. ! Open source drivers have certain, sometimes very serious problems (Intel-!, NVIDIA and AMD): ! Open Source NVIDIA driver is much slower (up to five times) than its proprietary counterpart due to properly working power management. AMD and Intel graphics drivers can be signficantly slower than their proprietary counterparts (for Intel that's their Windows driver) in new complex, graphically intensive games and applications. Luckily open source drivers have reached parity in regard to old games and applications. ! The most recent test shows that open source AMD and NVIDIA drivers struggle to properly support many types of video cards. ! Open Source NVIDIA driver do not properly and fully support power management features and fan speed management. The lack of suitable performance counters support due to different issues. OpenCL and multiGPU rendering are not supported by open source drivers. Oftentimes both open source and closed source drivers cannot properly detect and/or use monitors: with certain displays you may get black screen, or unsupported resolutions, or out of bandwidth message. !! According to an anonymous NVIDIA engineer, "Nearly Every Game Ships Broken ... In some cases, we’re talking about blatant violations of API rules ... There are lots of optional patches already in the driver that are simply toggled on or off as per-game settings, and then hacks that are more specific to games ... Ever wondered why nearly every major game release is accompanied by a matching driver release from AMD and/or NVIDIA?". The open source community simply doesn't have the resources to implement similar hacks to fix broken games, which means at least for complex AAA games proprietory drivers will remain the only option. ! Mesa problems (Open source OpenGL stack): All open source graphics drivers feature very incomplete and outdated OpenGL implementation (only version 3.3 is fully implemented as for the beginning of 2015, whereas OpenGL 4.0 was released in March, 2010, i.e. more than five years ago). The complete OpenGL stack cannot be legally implemented in/imported into Linux because many OpenGL features (like S3TC texture compression and floating point textures) are patented. Bad shape of Mesa. You cannot easily mix proprietary NVIDIA/AMD drivers with open source drivers because the former override system wide OpenGL/OpenCL libraries. ! NVIDIA and AMD proprietary graphics drivers don't work reliably for many people (crashes, unsupported new kernel and X server, slow downs, extreme temperatures, a very loud fan, etc.).