Linux user-facing software usability
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I got a text from my brother this afternoon, asking if I wanted to come over to his place and hang out and watch a movie. So I went over, and when I got there I found him struggling with his media center.
He had some big elaborate Linux system set up, with a media center on a Banana Pi (apparently one fruit flavor isn't enough?) and a Linux desktop running some obscure distribution called Peppermint (because peppermint and banana are flavors that go so well together!) and he sat there flailing at it for like 20 minutes, trying to get XMBC to actually play a movie. He tried multiple different approaches, through XMBC, through the browser, and even through VLC with a DVD in the drive, (which sorta defeats the whole purpose of having a media server,) and nothing actually worked. No matter what he did, no movie would play.
Finally, I said, "you keep working on this; I'll be right back." And I left and drove back to my place (about 10 minutes away), grabbed my Windows 7 laptop, and drove back. When I got there (total elapsed time: about 40 minutes) he was able to play video... but he had no sound. He was able to get the program to play test sounds, but not the audio track from the movie.
I opened up my laptop, got the Wi-Fi password from him, went to my Amazon Instant Video library.
Have you seen this?
Yeah.
Have you seen this?
Yeah.
Have you seen this?
No, what's it about?
X, Y, and Z.
Sounds fun.So I grabbed the HDMI cable from his media center, and I had a movie running. Total time: about 2 minutes.
Now, my brother is by no means a technical illiterate. He's got a CS degree from a good school with a pretty Linux-heavy CS program. In a sane world, he should have been able to get that working easily.
Problem is, he's not in a sane world; he's in Linux-land. They've had some great successes over the years in certain areas, but end-user-facing software is not one of them. Which isn't too hard to comprehend; we're talking about heirs of the Unix Tradition, a system design philosophy that's 3 decades out of date now, heavily influenced by the same people who coined the term "luser". Outright contempt for end-users runs deep in the Unix Tradition's DNA.
My system was designed with end-users in mind. I don't need to configure anything to make the sound work. If I have headphones in, it automagically turns off the speakers and redirects sound to the headphones. If I unplug headphones, it turns the speakers back on. If I stick an HDMI cable in, it automagically turns off the speakers (and the headphones!) and redirects sound to the HDMI out. All without any input from me beyond changing some hardware connectors around, because it was developed by people who understand that there are obvious responses the user will want from his computer under certain conditions, and they set it up to do those things by default. Apparently the Peppermint people, and the core Linux people, don't understand that.
You know who does understand that? The Google people. Which is why they've managed to produce the only Linux distribution that's earned a non-trivial market share among end-users. But Android really isn't a desktop OS.
Maybe they ought to make it into one? Then maybe my brother would be able to watch movies with no hassle and no poking around in fiddly configuration settings and wondering why nothing works.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Maybe they ought to make it into one?
Chrome OS is getting the Play Store, and multiple Android docking devices are being made (e.g. Samsung's dock and Sentio's laptop shell), so there is general progress in that direction.
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[He was using] Banana Pi ... [and an] obscure distribution called Peppermint ... [but n]o matter what he did, no movie would play.
I ... grabbed my Windows 7 laptop... [and things Just Worked(TM).]Would you expect any more success with an oddball credit-card sized computer running some stripped-down version of WinCE?
The failure's not a fault of Linux, it's the fault of an oddball distro (that's apparently not configured to actually play fucking media) running on oddball hardware. Video playback Just Works on mainstream distros running on full-sized hardware.
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@bugmenot Sorry if it wasn't clear. Media server was on a Banana Pi, but there was also a full-sized desktop system involved, running Peppermint. Neither one was able to produce any usable video.
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@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Would you expect any more success with an oddball credit-card sized computer running some stripped-down version of WinCE?
I wouldn't really consider WinCE to be necessarily user-facing - every instance in which I've used a device running it has either been a single purpose device where we never interacted outside of the one app it was intended to run - kitchen screens, price checkers, GPS - or when I worked retail and we used WinCE handheld computers with a barcode scanner, where they had put a locked down UI on it so we could only use the apps they wanted us to.
(Incidentally, based solely on the bizzare behaviours of the handheld computers, I reached the conclusion that it's called WinCE because that's exactly what you do if you have to do too much with it.)
edit: I accidentally a paragraph
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@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Video playback Just Works on mainstream distros running on full-sized hardware.
Wrong.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
If I have headphones in, it automagically turns off the speakers and redirects sound to the headphones.
What a luser. When I have headphones in, my Arch Linux box directs sound to the headphones up until its next wake from sleep, then it lets me screw around with alsamixer until my sound works again.
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@Gąska I opened a video file in Chrome on Ubuntu for the first time ever yesterday. I then cast it to my Chromecast. It worked perfectly, and took about 3 seconds.
I run OpenElec on as a raspberry pi on the main TV. Literally, my two-year-old can operate it.
Occasionally it crashes (maybe once per week), because I have a massive video library (mostly Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine and Bing Bunny) and the Pi has 512MB of RAM and no swap space configured.
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@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Gąska I opened a video file in Chrome on Ubuntu for the first time ever yesterday. I then cast it to my Chromecast. It worked perfectly, and took about 3 seconds.
I run OpenElec on as a raspberry pi on the main TV. Literally, my two-year-old can operate it.
Occasionally it crashes (maybe once per week), because I have a massive video library (mostly Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine and Bing Bunny) and the Pi has 512MB of RAM and no swap space configured.
THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS WITH LINUX BECAUSE I CAN USE LINUX! MY ANECDOTE MEANS YOURS IS WORTHLESS!!!
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Problem is, he's not in a sane world; he's in Linux-land.
i love you instantly for this one
@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
You know who does understand that? The Google people.
yeah, but they're starting to forget it as well. why else would google give me "hilary clinton" as main search result when I was explicitly searching for "COSMID hilary"?
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
My system was designed with end-users in mind. I don't need to configure anything to make the sound work.
I've had more problems with sound on Windows than Linux. YMOV.
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@Jaloopa said in Linux user-facing software usability:
THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS WITH LINUX BECAUSE I CAN USE LINUX! MY ANECDOTE MEANS YOURS IS WORTHLESS!!!
Finally! Some sense in this thread.
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I've had more problems with sound on Windows than Linux.
QFT.
Unless you own a Sound Blaster card. (Why?) Then you're fucked on Linux,
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Video playback Just Works on mainstream distros running on full-sized hardware.
Wrong.
Unless you're using a shitty distro or really weird media formats, it kinda does.
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@asdf "Just Works" is like "pregnant:" there's a yes or a no, but no "kinda".
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@masonwheeler "Kinda" because BluRays won't work OOTB.
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@Jaloopa said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Gąska I opened a video file in Chrome on Ubuntu for the first time ever yesterday. I then cast it to my Chromecast. It worked perfectly, and took about 3 seconds.
I run OpenElec on as a raspberry pi on the main TV. Literally, my two-year-old can operate it.
Occasionally it crashes (maybe once per week), because I have a massive video library (mostly Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine and Bing Bunny) and the Pi has 512MB of RAM and no swap space configured.
THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS WITH LINUX BECAUSE I CAN USE LINUX! MY ANECDOTE MEANS YOURS IS WORTHLESS!!!
Well, yeah? One positive anecdote has the same value as one negative anecdote.
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Video playback Just Works on mainstream distros running on full-sized hardware.
Wrong.
Linux has a lot of design and usability problems, but when you encounter something that just outright doesn't work, 90% of the time it's because of bad hardware drivers or limited support for proprietary/patented formats, and that's not their fault.
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@Jaloopa said in Linux user-facing software usability:
MY ANECDOTE MEANS YOURS IS WORTHLESS!!!
I didn't say anyone else's anecdote was worthless.
I was following up someone else's anecdote with a different anecdote (two anecdotes actually), relating a different experience, that also happens to be true. This thread was started by an anecdote. It makes no sense to suggest that anecdotes are not welcome here.
Mason's brother could not produce playable media on his Linux box.
I can - and do - produce playable media on my Linux box, and play it on my very-low-powered Linux machine, and I can do these things very easily, and - for the latter case - with a user interface that is simple to use with my TV remote control.
Please note neither of those sentences imply the other is false, nor did I ever suggest otherwise.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled "Show me where the penguin touched you" self-congratulatory theatre...
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@masonwheeler Except that's not true.
If "Just works" means "works perfectly on every conceivable hardware and OS setup everytime", then I don't think any software ever written anywhere qualifies. If "Just works" means something different, then there absolutely is going to be a "kinda", because the definition is going to involve quantify some criteria in which it might possibly not work.
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@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
If "Just works" means something different, then there absolutely is going to be a "kinda", because the definition is going to involve quantify some criteria in which it might possibly not work.
Or that it just works i.e. just about works ;)
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@RaceProUK Linux users' definition of just works seems to be "I only fiddled about in obscure configuration files for about 20 minutes, and didn't have to go beyond the second page of Google to get a result"
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@Jaloopa said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@RaceProUK Linux users' definition of just works seems to be "I only fiddled about in obscure configuration files for about 20 minutes, and didn't have to go beyond the second page of Google to get a result"
And Windows users' version was that it started playing immediately but 5 minutes in Windows rebooted for updates and it took 19 minutes to finish?
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@boomzilla Mac users' is that they found an app to do it and it only cost $99 and it's new and magical and we think you're gonna love it
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@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@bugmenot said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Video playback Just Works on mainstream distros running on full-sized hardware.
Wrong.
Unless you're using a shitty distro or really weird media formats, it kinda does.
I used to have Arch on EEEPC. Flash used ALSA for sound, Skype used OSS. I tried for half a year to make them both sound clear simultaneously (they each worked on their own, with slightly different config); tried and failed. And I've had to switch between speakers and headphones manually. Fuck this shit, no more Linux on multimedia machine.
My first Linux experience was Ubuntu. Specifically, Ubuntu fucking up display drivers and dropping me to 800x600 monochrome.
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I used to have Arch
And I'm not even trolling a little bit here, I'm 100% serious. It's Arch, did you expect?
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@Jaloopa "Linux" is an ugly, incoherent mess of software, built by people with practically no incentive to make a good product for end users, and with harmful design philosophies based entirely on cargo cultism, dislike for change and improvement, or just "some guy in the 70s said to do it this way and we never questioned it".
However, that doesn't mean it can't play a fucking video out of the box. The fact is that most mainstream Linux distros actually work pretty well on most modern hardware and can do pretty much everything common users do (i.e. browse the internet, watch video and photo files, view PDFs and send emails).
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@anonymous234 And yet...
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@anonymous234 And yet...
Don't leave us hanging! And yet what?
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@boomzilla And yet what @anonymous234 said doesn't happen is exactly what happened.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla And yet what @anonymous234 said doesn't happen is exactly what happened.
Um, actually it's perfectly consistent with what he said. Was Windows updating on you when you went to read it or something? Here, let me show you:
@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
The fact is that most mainstream Linux distros actually work pretty well on most modern hardware and can do pretty much everything common users do (i.e. browse the internet, watch video and photo files, view PDFs and send emails).
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@boomzilla Look at the sentence immediately before the part you quoted...
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@masonwheeler Yes, obviously you read that part. Have you now read the part that I quoted yet? Here, in case you can't find it:
@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
The fact is that most mainstream Linux distros actually work pretty well on most modern hardware and can do pretty much everything common users do (i.e. browse the internet, watch video and photo files, view PDFs and send emails).
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The only time I've ever had VLC not play a DVD, it was because the DVD had out-of-spec copy-protection on it. As confirmed by googling the title and finding out it won't play on a large fraction of hardware DVD players in the wild.
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@boomzilla Uh huh. I read that part too. And yet, the "watch video ... files" part is exactly what didn't work last night.
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@masonwheeler My claim is that Linux can play video files out of the box on most common hardware.
Thus, it's a matter of probabilities, so no single anecdote can prove it or disprove it.
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@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
The fact is that most mainstream Linux distros actually work pretty well on most modern hardware
Can you name at least one distro where I can just pick any 2015-and-up Intel CPU, NVidia GPU and mobo with Realtek soundcard, plug it up, install OS and you guarantee that everything, everything works out of the box with zero messing with configs? Because I can guarantee that with Windows.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla Uh huh. I read that part too. And yet, the "watch video ... files" part is exactly what didn't work last night.
So you've read it but not comprehended it. And you seem determined not to. I'll leave it alone for now.
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Can you name at least one distro where I can just pick any 2015-and-up Intel CPU, NVidia GPU and mobo with Realtek soundcard, plug it up, install OS and you guarantee that everything, everything works out of the box with zero messing with configs? Because I can guarantee that with Windows.
It's been a while since I did a fresh install, but any distro whose installer image includes the latest NVidia drivers or downloads them during the installation should work.
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@Jaloopa said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Linux users' definition of just works seems to be "I only fiddled about in obscure configuration files for about 20 minutes, and didn't have to go beyond the second page of Google to get a result"
True if you're using Slackware or Gentoo, but I've been using Ubuntu for years and it really does just work.
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@antiquarian My only experience of Ubuntu was back in the version 5 days, when it was best summarized as "The software you want has packages for various Linux distros, but not Ubuntu".
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@Gąska Look, this is irrelevant anyways.
The topic was supposed to be about "user-facing software usability". Lack of hardware support is (with some exceptions, I assume) not Linux's fault.
It would be a problem if the video player had some weird interface that required you to specify the audio and video codecs manually or something, or if the distribution maintainers refused to ship certain video libraries because of a personal conflict with their developers.
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
So you've read it but not comprehended it.
That's rich, coming from Mr. -Grade Reading Comprehension himself! :P
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@Medinoc said in Linux user-facing software usability:
My only experience of Ubuntu was back in the version 5 days, when it was best summarized as "The software you want has packages for various Linux distros, but not Ubuntu".
Granted, I don't have very sophisticated needs. I just browse the internet, keep a database of my chess games, listen to my mp3 collection, and watch
pr0neducational videos on YouTube. I have a cheap Acer laptop and everything I wanted to do worked out of the box, and I didn't touch any configuration files or recompile any kernels.
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
should
That's not what I asked.
Oh, go fuck yourself; I'm not giving any guarantees for software I didn't test myself. The fact that I refuse to lie to you doesn't make your assertion that "Lunix suxxxx" any more true.
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@gwowen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Occasionally it crashes (maybe once per week), because I have a massive video library (mostly Teletubbies, Thomas the Tank Engine and Bing Bunny)
You sure it's because of the size? Perhaps it's trying to make a commentary on the content...
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@Gąska Ubuntu (and derivates, like Mint), based off my experience. One thing to do manually is installing the official Nvidia drivers for full GPU acceleration, done with a couple clicks and a reboot with a program included with Ubuntu for that purpose. For my work laptop it was just install and go, no special config needed. Skylake CPU, AMD GPU and Conexant audio. Didn't even need to disable SecureBoot.
@asdf Fun thing: My SoundBlaster card works perfectly on Linux. Only problem I had was that ALSA disabled the center/subwoofer port by default and I needed to manually enable it. My Asus soundcard? Fuck you, no driver support for the sound chip.
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@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I didn't touch any configuration files or recompile any kernels.
luser
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@masonwheeler If you want to bash linux desktop usability, at least pick something reproduceable in a popular desktop distro. Try making a $20 media server with Windows too.