Linux user-facing software usability
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@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I told you why: not enough people use it.
Why not? It's free. It should be super-popular. Again, you're saying these things as if they're Laws of Nature set down by God himself, not the natural result of human beings making decisions.
@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
There's not really anything you can do to encourage vendors to care about maybe 2% of the market, particularly when said 2% has a reputation, deserved or not, of not wanting to spend money.
Let's say there's 90% Windows and 10% Linuxes in the world. I build a hardware device called a Woozle. It takes me $25,000 to make a Windows driver for my Woozle.
The obvious solution is to make Linux driver development so easy that it takes only $2,000 or less to make a Linux driver for a Woozle. Then it'd be a no-brainer for the company to do it, they'd be practically guaranteed to sell more Woozles.
(Is making driver development that easy a difficult problem? Yeah. Sorry Linux fans, you want to run an OS, you have to solve a lot of difficult problems.)
But what happens here in the real world is it costs $25,000 to build the Windows driver, but it costs $50,000 to build the Linux driver-- and the Linux driver has fewer features, or worse performance. It's no wonder nobody wants to port their drivers to Linux. Why would they? People respond to incentives.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Why not? It's free.
The perception that you have to futz about with configuration files and recompile kernels to get anything to work isn't helping, but there are more important factors:
- Most non-technical users have no idea what Linux even is.
- The vast majority of computers come out of the box with either Windows or OSX installed, and it takes work to get one that doesn't. So either is effectively free if you buy a new computer.
@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
People respond to incentives.
Incentives are all I've been talking about in my posts on this subject. Who exactly are you talking to here?
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@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Incentives are all I've been talking about in my posts on this subject. Who exactly are you talking to here?
You, but you're missing my point utterly.
What I'm saying is that Linux has the number of users it has because of decisions by Linux leaders. You keep posting like it's some Law of Nature carved into granite that Linux has fewer users, and thus less incentive to make hardware, and I'm trying to communicate to you: no. The problem is Linux leadership is really shitty at making an OS, so shitty that they can't even sell it for the price of $0.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
The term was coined on Mac Classic which did, indeed, "just work". I'm sure you've never used it, since you like Linux you obviously have zero exposure to a truly well-designed usable system, but just trust me on this one.
I used MacOS before I'd heard of Linux. It was terrible. Nothing made sense to me. Granted, I came from a DOS / Windows background, but it was a horrible experience.
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@blakeyrat And I'm trying to communicate to you that the reasons you think Linux isn't in common use are more like excuses. Even if they were fixed, vendors still wouldn't be putting extra work into drivers until the users show up, and the users won't show up in huge numbers because they already get Windows for free when they buy a new computer.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
90% of the time it's because of bad hardware drivers or limited support for proprietary/patented formats, and that's not their fault.
Microsoft and Apple those exact same problems, and somehow they make it work.
It's almost as if there's problems in the world you can't solve with a Git pull request, you actually have to get on the phone and talk to other human beings. Hm.
I'd say they make it work by already being popular enough to make hardware developers test. There's a strong network effect where being successful makes is much easier to continue being successful, because you have
Look at Android. Imagine you had an OS right now that was better than it in every way (ahem, Windows Phone), do you think you could just publish and people would start switching? Of course not, no one would give a damn. Maybe you could get them to switch over decades, if you had massive investments, publicity campaigns, and played things right.
No, I'm not saying Linux is doing things right and only losing because the market is unfair. I don't know if Linux is doing things right or not. I'm just saying you have to acknowledge they're still at an enormous disadvantage, so they'd have to do things better than right to recover, while Microsoft can make anything that works and they're still guaranteed to sell billions.
Honestly, if I wanted to start my own OS to compete with Windows and Linux, I'd probably go the Apple way and only sell it with my own hardware. Only I wouldn't also overprice the hardware.
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@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Even if they were fixed, vendors still wouldn't be putting extra work into drivers
Well, Linux has dug a big hole, but they would if Linux made it so easy to provide drivers that it'd be a no-brainer not to. Which I believe I just posted a second ago.
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@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I'm just saying you have to acknowledge they're still at an enormous disadvantage, so they'd have to do things better than right to recover,
I do acknowledge that. I spent years during the whole "this year is the year of Linux on the desktop" thing arguing with morons that, yes while it's true that Linux is getting better every year, it's also true that Windows is getting better every year, and Windows is getting better faster than Linux is. Look how long it took Linux to get even moderate adoption of systemd. Or how long it's taking to replace the crappy X11 protocol with something sane.
And sure there's a lot of complicated reasons why it takes that long, all of them individually fairly reasonable, the fact of the matter is you can't win the drag race if you're accelerating slower than the competition.
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@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
I'd say they make it work by already being popular enough to make hardware developers test. There's a strong network effect where being successful makes is much easier to continue being successful, because you have
I already tried that line of argument, but maybe he'd rather hear it from you. Good luck!
@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Well, Linux has dug a big hole, but they would if Linux made it so easy to provide drivers that it'd be a no-brainer not to. Which I believe I just posted a second ago.
I do remember you posting that. I don't agree with it now any more than I did then. Again, we're talking about less than 2% of the market with a reputation for not wanting to spend money. If it costs dollars for vendors to make sure their stuff is compatible, I'm sure that's enough to make it no longer a no-brainer.
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@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
If it costs dollars for vendors to make sure their stuff is compatible, I'm sure that's enough to make it no longer a no-brainer.
Which may be why Linus is using the strategy of "hey just let our developers do it for you." The problem is: that strategy doesn't work for two reasons.
- A lot of hardware can't have open source drivers for legal reasons (GPU patents, FCC or FDA regulations, etc.)
- Linus doesn't have the manpower.
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@antiquarian said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@blakeyrat And I'm trying to communicate to you that the reasons you think Linux isn't in common use are more like excuses. Even if they were fixed, vendors still wouldn't be putting extra work into drivers until the users show up, and the users won't show up in huge numbers because they already get Windows for free when they buy a new computer.
Yeah...and really, hardware support isn't an issue. It's easier to use any arbitrary thing with my Linux machine than the Windows boxes here. Printers, headsets, scanners. They Just Work. Like...right away.
There are three main hurdles for Linux:
- Nearly every computer comes installed with Windows (aside, duh, from Macs, which come with OSX).
- Games. This keeps a lot of home users on Windows.
- MS Office. This keeps a lot of business users on Windows. Certainly more than the games do for home users.
Hardware support seems to be a mostly solved problem, at least from the user's point of view.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@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.
@bugmenot's point still stands. Peppermint is a community project only based on Ubuntu, it's not a major distribution and it seems to be designed to be lightweight and fast, so probably it's packed with applications that have a very small userbase and equally small group of maintainers.
Seriously, bashing Linux based on something called Banana Pi and Peppermint is low.
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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!!!
It's not that. It's that there's Linux and then there's Linux. Some people use Peppermint, which is probably supported by ten people and only two of them are still alive. Others use Arch which is bleeding edge and when they cut themselves on it, they complain. Sucker, that's what you signed up for.
But then there are distros that are much better at it, like Ubuntu and Fedora and probably something else that I forgot about. These are projects that are backed up by huge communities and corporations. So if you want to really bash Linux on desktop, start with installing one of these. If you don't, it's the same as if I downloaded a Russian remix of Windows and started bashing Microsoft.
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@kt_ said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It's not that. It's that there's Linux and then there's Linux. Some people use Peppermint, which is probably supported by ten people and only two of them are still alive. Others use Arch which is bleeding edge and when they cut themselves on it, they complain. Sucker, that's what you signed up for.
I can imagine someone getting one of those WinRT devices and being upset about how they couldn't run much software on there. Then I would make fun of the Windows guys explaining the details because it would be fun to troll them.
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@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@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,
It reminds me how after upgrading to Windows 10 I lost scroll in my touchpad and had failing sound through HDMI, which I could either solve temporarily by restarting Windows Audio service, until after a few restarts this would fail too and I'd have to restart system.
Computers are hard. Especially if you're using something called Peppermint, that's supported by a bunch of grandmas. Live with it.
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@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.
What the fuck? What's wrong with you people?! Repeat after me: you don't use Arch, you should never use Arch, Arch is fucked up, Arch is bad for you, you can use Arch only if you're a hard core Linux user with 10 years of experience and have a serious skin condition.
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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.
You missed the "mainstream distros" part. Peppermint is not a mainstream distro. It's the Serbian Windows XP remix people would install on their PCs because some guy on some forum said "it worked faster than the original SP3".
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
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's not Linux's fault, but it still makes Linux user-facing software unusable. It's not my fault either that I've lost a leg, but it still makes me unable to ride a motorcycle.
@anonymous234 said in Linux user-facing software usability:
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.
There was a time when Ubuntu maintainers refused to ship MP3 codecs for ideological reasons. Dunno if they still do it.
It was never the case. It was because of legal reasons, i.e. patents.
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@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
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 asserting that "Lunix suxxxx" any more true.
The fact you don't trust Linux enough to make such guarantee speaks for itself. Look - I have no problem making such a guarantee for Windows.
Well, that's no problem. I wouldn't ever venture farther than saying "it should work".
@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Gąska said in Linux user-facing software usability:
There was a time when Ubuntu maintainers refused to ship MP3 codecs for ideological reasons.
Are you sure you're thinking of Ubuntu? Because Ubuntu is exactly the kind of distro that doesn't give a flying shit about someone's idea of "free software", and instead simply installs all the "non-free" software necessary to make shit work.
Yes I am sure I'm thinking of Ubuntu. The very first thing I saw after installing Ubuntu 8.04 was some
CommunistGNU Manifesto bullshit saying they didn't install MP3 codecs because it might be illegal in my countryOh, so then covering their asses was "ideological"? Are you serious?
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Which may be why Linus is using the strategy of "hey just let our developers do it for you." The problem is: that strategy doesn't work for two reasons.
You have a point, but I'm actually amazed by how well it works for the most common hardware. The only reason why users experience a noticable delay is because distros don't always ship with the latest kernel.
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It's easier to use any arbitrary thing with my Linux machine than the Windows boxes here. Printers, headsets, scanners. They Just Work. Like...right away.
If you're using Windows 10 and hardware from this decade, you'll have the same experience most of the time.
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@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@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.
well, you can't just connect your DYI speakers to a customer-intended system and expect it to work! you've switched to a proper OS, you've got to switch to proper HW as well :-D
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@sh_code said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@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.
well, you can't just connect your DYI speakers to a customer-intended system and expect it to work! you've switched to a proper OS, you've got to switch to proper HW as well :-D
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Windows 7. Had to go to this website that looks like it's from the 80s just to get the network card working. Guess what's hard to do when you need the network card working?
Yeah, it's kind of a problem to get network card drivers if you have no network card drivers. But that's about the only problem you'll have with Windows installation. And honestly, it's only a problem with desktops, not laptops which come with Windows preinstalled, and the only people who make installations on desktops are people who know what they're doing, and have access to another PC connected to internet.
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@dkf i've had a friend at elementary school who when upgrading from 486 ripped pc speaker out of it and made ...music speakers from it. they played... surprisingly good, though he would only play Scooter on it so to this day I'm not sure if it was thanks to the speakers or thanks to the fact that Scooter sounds like shit by default anyway :-D
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@asdf said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
It's easier to use any arbitrary thing with my Linux machine than the Windows boxes here. Printers, headsets, scanners. They Just Work. Like...right away.
If you're using Windows 10 and hardware from this decade, you'll have the same experience most of the time.
Like...even printers? HP printers? Yes, I see you said, "most of the time."
It doesn't do that, "Windows is searching for drivers" or whatever any more?
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@boomzilla I connected my HP printer to my wireless, and it immediately made a popup appear on my Windows machine, asking me to let it install the drivers. Like two years ago.
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@Magus said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla I connected my HP printer to my wireless, and it immediately made a popup appear on my Windows machine, asking me to let it install the drivers. Like two years ago.
Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I plugged it in and could immediately print, without installing anything.
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This reminds me of the 3D animation class I took in college. There were ~30 people in the class 2/3 on mac including the prof the rest of us were evenly split between linux and windows. At various times we had to present things to the class, so we would have to connect our machines to the display setup. It never worked correctly (that I can recall) for the macs (many classes the first 5 minutes were wasted by the prof trying to get things to display correctly) and rarely worked correctly for anyone else. So I always laugh when people say, "It just works".
Funnily enough, I ran Gentoo and presented 4 times, never had any issues.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@wharrgarbl said in Linux user-facing software usability:
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.
The real problem is "why would you do that at all?"
You can get a Roku for that price, and they've already done the legwork to make everything as easy as possible. Only a badly reality-distorted Linux fan would think making their own with a [fruit]-Pi is a better option.
Will Roku play video files from my NAS OOTB with no shenanigans? No? Ok then.
Yes, I can stream then via Plex, but our Drobos do not have DLNA to my knowledge.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla first, "...but at least it fixes it." The same really can't be said for non-functional Linux installs.
Second, for all the meme-ness of it, the last time I actually had to reinstall Windows was in 2010, on XP. Some memes outlive their relevance.
I have a Lenovo laptop here on the healing bench that is going to require a reinstall. All the fancy whizbang features of Windows 10 that were introduced to make it so you do not have to reinstall are all failing. It is still a thing.
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@dcon said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Upgrading "just works".
Most of the time.
@dcon said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Installing a new version "just works".
Most of the time.
@dcon said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Side-by-side "just works".
Not for me. Not ever. It always seems to shit itself in new and interesting ways.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
What should Linux be doing to encourage vendors to do more of the work?
Get more people to use the OS, but you can't get more people to use the OS until everything just works, and it won't just work until there are more users.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
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I have also seen this media center show, except on real hardware.
Couple of my friends live together in what is essentially a very sad frathouse for 30 year old nerds. The living room features a 180ish inch projection screen and the whole place is basically ground zero for any hanging out or group activities.
The media PC died. They built a new one out of spare parts. As nobody wanted to bother asking me for one of my nine trillion MSDN Windows 10 serials, they decided Linux would work.
The one guy who kind of runs the whole media operation spent a week getting everything to work. Mostly. Including some stuff in Wine.
And then he went on a business trip. And I came over and said "Hey, I haven't seen this week's Last Week Tonight yet, let's watch that".
After 45 minutes of fucking with browsers, it was made to work. Except audio desync happened about 20 seconds into the show. Unacceptable.
So I sent the owner a text saying, and I quote, "Installing Windows on your media center. You do not have a vote."
And lo, thirty minutes later a working media center existed (most of which was spent failing at typing the serial with a faulty wireless keyboard).
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@kt_ said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Repeat after me: you don't use Arch, you should never use Arch, Arch is fucked up, Arch is bad for you, you can use Arch only if you're a hard core Linux user with 10 years of experience and have a serious skin condition.
I tried Ubuntu several times - it always fucked up in some way after update in a few weeks after install. I tried Fedora, and it was mostly fine except I had to manually connect to network on every boot, and there was something wrong with taskbar which I can't remember now. Arch is so far the least problematic distro I've ever had - the sound thing being the only one that I couldn't fix somehow. Also, the other two tend to have packages in repo that are several years out of date. Of the two, I prefer bleeding edge that never made me bleed than bugs that were fixed years ago but haven't made it into Xenophone Xena or whatever "newest" Ubuntu is.
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@sh_code said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@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.
well, you can't just connect your DYI speakers to a customer-intended system and expect it to work! you've switched to a proper OS, you've got to switch to proper HW as well :-D
Like Linux hardware?
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@Magus said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@boomzilla I connected my HP printer to my wireless, and it immediately made a popup appear on my Windows machine, asking me to let it install the drivers. Like two years ago.
Yes, this is a thing. That popped up on my 5 year old's computer and he was able to go through all of install process (without my knowledge). A few days after I installed that printer I go in to my office to get something from the printer and there were a shitload of Dora the Explorer and Paw Patrol coloring pages and puzzles sitting in the tray.
I was impressed.
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@Dragoon said in Linux user-facing software usability:
This reminds me of the 3D animation class I took in college. There were ~30 people in the class 2/3 on mac including the prof the rest of us were evenly split between linux and windows. At various times we had to present things to the class, so we would have to connect our machines to the display setup. It never worked correctly (that I can recall) for the macs (many classes the first 5 minutes were wasted by the prof trying to get things to display correctly) and rarely worked correctly for anyone else. So I always laugh when people say, "It just works".
Funnily enough, I ran Gentoo and presented 4 times, never had any issues.
When was this? I have never had a single issue hooking up an external display to either of my MacBooks.
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@Polygeekery said in Linux user-facing software usability:
Yes, this is a thing. That popped up on my 5 year old's computer and he was able to go through all of install process (without my knowledge). A few days after I installed that printer I go in to my office to get something from the printer and there were a shitload of Dora the Explorer and Paw Patrol coloring pages and puzzles sitting in the tray.
I was impressed.
Oh, if only we'd had today's usability back when I was 5...
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@Polygeekery
~10 years ago now.
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@Dragoon said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Polygeekery
~10 years ago now.They have apparently fixed the issue. Since I got the free MacBook ~1.5 years ago that has ended up with me spending ~$10K, everything really has just worked.
Except Finder. Finder is a sack of shit that runs as well as molasses in January.
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@Polygeekery Probably, that was the test tech room. So it had lots of hardware that the department was testing.
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@blakeyrat said in Linux user-facing software usability:
The term was coined on Mac Classic which did, indeed, "just work". I'm sure you've never used it, since you like Linux you obviously have zero exposure to a truly well-designed usable system, but just trust me on this one.
I've used Mac Classic, so I had exposure to a "truly well-designed usable system". And yet I still like Linux, and very much prefer it over Windows and macOS. Was a bit too long since I actually used Mac Classic, though, so I can't really say anything about the usability of it. But with a sane desktop environment, Linux is as user-friendly as the competition I find.
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@masonwheeler said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@wharrgarbl said in Linux user-facing software usability:
MSX just worked. Even MS-DOS just worked. Soon we'll have TVs and toasters that don't just work.
"I have always wished for my computer to be as easy to use as my telephone; my wish has come true because I can no longer figure out how to use my telephone."
-- Bjarne StroustrupIt's almost as if things become more complicated when they can do more things.
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I've been using Kodi for years, since before it was Kodi.
Last week it informed me there was an update so I installed it. I use the program every day but the update seemed to jump a hell of a lot of versions and the UI has been completely redesigned. Checking the few parts I used, the changes include
- panels which used to stack horizontally are now vertical
- panels that used to open on mouse over now need to be clicked
- the subtitle panel has had the options re-ordered
As well as the subtitle panel items getting re-ordered, it also includes this fine bit of wankery where the close icon is hidden by the Kodi logo until you mouse over it
And a bonus
- the seek bar can no longer be clicked on to jump around the file. Now you have to click above the bar, where the invisible row holding the seek arrows is.It was great fun explaining these changes to my partner by phone the first time she tried to watch something!
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@coldandtired Kodi developers actively hate all of their users.
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@Polygeekery said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@coldandtired
KodiDevelopers actively hate all of their users.FTFY.
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@Unperverted-Vixen
I don't hate all of them, some are only at the mild disdain level.
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@Unperverted-Vixen said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@Polygeekery said in Linux user-facing software usability:
@coldandtired
KodiDevelopers actively hate all of their users.FTFY.
I only hate the idiots and help-vampires. The mythical “good user” might exist…
