Linux

Linux on the desktop? Groan!

This last week has been pretty hectic as I am still settling into the office and getting my new machines set up. Unfortunately the Mac that was loaned to the foundation turned out to be unreliable and I had to set it aside and move the only Mac I have from home the office.

That means that I needed to promote a previously server-only linux box to a desktop box. That means updating the kernel, finding a suitable video card with drivers, finding a soundcard that works and then configuring the whole mess. I've spent about 10 hours doing this so far, and all I've got to show for is an ugly KDE installation, a slow video setup with fonts that I either too small, too big or too ugly. None of the KDE audio players will playback my network HTTP mp3 streams. 10 hours is a lot of work for migrating a computer from server status to desktop status! And it looks that before I have something working well it will be another 10 hours. Sigh.

Then this morning I saw the Slashdot posting that JWZ has switched to the Mac:

Remember last week, when I tried to buy exactly the same audio card that 99.99% of the world owns and convince Linux to be able to play two sounds at once? Yeah, turns out, that was the last straw. I bought an iMac, and now I play my music with iTunes.

This took... let me see... just about zero effort. Well, I still have to go buy some longer audio cables, but that's it.

I plugged a mouse with three buttons and a wheel into the Mac, and it just worked without me having to read the man page on xorg.conf or anything. Oh frabjous day.

The final straw that drove him mad? ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) -- the lovely replacement for the Linux sound system that has been in development for over 7 years now and I just made it into the Linux kernel. I got pissed off at ALSA about 6 years ago when I kept having to rewrite the FreeAmp driver for ALSA because they kept scrapping and redoing the API.

I'd hate to agree with JZW on anything but I do on this one -- Linux on the desktop is still a catastrophe after many years. In 1999 I was thinking that it would take a few more years before Linux was ready for the desktop. Then someone gave me a Mac and I forgot all about this. Revisiting this issue now brings back some painful memories.

So, what is it that Linux lacks to be a serious contenter on the Desktop? Unified leadership -- that's my answer. Linux, the kernel, is successful because it has one leader who really understands every aspect of the project and thus can direct the project in style, function and philosophy. Apple has Steve Jobs who is famous for hounding his engineers to make things simpler -- Steve Jobs pulls all the pieces together and leads apple in style, function and philosophy. And we get Mac OS X.

Linux on the desktop is missing this leadership -- there is no one person telling everyone to get on the same page. This is ironic since the Linux desktop is the place where design skills are most necessary. Anyone who attempts to take all the components from Linux and unify them into a coherent desktop (Ubuntu comes to mind, since I switched recently) is missing the boat. The leadership and direction needs to influence each one of the developers who is contributing. You can't tweak all of these disparate tools into one coherent desktop -- its going to look cobbled together, no matter what you do.

Cobbled together is the best way to describe the desktop I use right now. Unfortunately I have no suggestions on how to fix this massive problem. Maybe we need a new Steve or Linus to waltz in and lead a non X11 desktop created with a single vision from day one. This person would need to dedicate 10 years of their life to make this vision come through. And with no pay -- good luck.

And back to agreeing with JWZ again:

Dear Slashdot: please don't post about this. Screw you guys.

My sentiments exactly -- the great irony is that I read about this on Slashdot. Gotta love the open source community!

P.S. Don't get me wrong -- I still love Linux. I'll keep using it on the server, where is rock solid and awesome!

Posted by Mayhem at June 12, 2005 12:21 PM