Why Linux remains unpopular?

On 2/16/2020 at 9:35 AM, Graf Zahl said:

If there ever is to be a successful desktop variant of Linux it will probably have to be a commercial product that can finance its own development so that the things that need to be done are getting done in order to make it successful.

You just described Ubuntu :)

22 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

You still don't understand. Nobody expects *YOU* to do such a project - just not stand in the way.

i can't see how could i stand in the way of something i absolutely don't care about. i am sittilng in my corner and doing things i like. except when some people came to my corner and start telling me that i should be "more welcoming", and should implement their requests for free -- then i'm telling such people to GTFO, and they start yelling about "toxic freetards". (it is not about you personally, it is about a bigger picture.)

as for NVidia, they're simply abusing holes in GPL, so they got a middle finger. i can't see why being a money bag should magically make them immune from obeying the spirit of the rules. they want to do things their way, and we want to tell them to GTFO.

2 minutes ago, ketmar said:

as for NVidia, they're simply abusing holes in GPL, so they got a middle finger. i can't see why being a money bag should magically make them immune from obeying the spirit of the rules. they want to do things their way, and we want to tell them to GTFO.

Yeah, ignore real criticism from outsiders. Nice way to quickly lose relevance for yourself and your work.

11 minutes ago, chungy said:

You just described Ubuntu :) 

You mean what Ubuntu should be, instead of just sticking to the core Linux formula we all know is not mass market compatible. :P

4 minutes ago, ketmar said:

as for NVidia, they're simply abusing holes in GPL, so they got a middle finger. i can't see why being a money bag should magically make them immune from obeying the spirit of the rules. they want to do things their way, and we want to tell them to GTFO.

Thanks for proving my point! The rules have indeed become more important than the end result - and the end result sucks. Well, you don't deserve better.

13 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

ignore real criticism from outsiders

telling us that we should obey money bags is not a "real criticism".

9 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

The rules have indeed become more important than the end result - and the end result sucks.

the result is impossible without the rules. if you really cannot see why, just look at windows or macos, where the rules are set by money bags. yes, we do care about the long-term future, and we don't want to trade it for some short-term advantage. windows users did exactly that, and hey, are they happy now?

...and the end result sucks

maybe it sucks for you. but it doesn't suck for me. why should i accept your PoV instead of mine?

Ladies, LADIES! 

You two have the personalities of drag queens Jesus H. Christ.

Take it to Discord DMs if yall wanna bitch at each other into oblivion. 

51 minutes ago, ketmar said:

maybe it sucks for you. but it doesn't suck for me. why should i accept your PoV instead of mine?

You don't think it sucks that Microsoft and Apple owns the user base?

25 minutes ago, markanini said:

You don't think it sucks that Microsoft and Apple owns the user base?

i don't care. it is not my business to "liberate" those people. they choose to give their money to those corporations, and i am fine with that. just don't expect me to go "fighting for their freedom" now.

@UncleTito eh, making discussion somewhat... hotter is fun.

No they didn't, the OEM did 99% of the time. And you are putting up a fight already, except it's directed at users and not your competitors.

15 minutes ago, markanini said:

No they didn't, the OEM did 99% of the time

as far as i know, it is possible to ask to remove preinstalled windows when you're buying a PC, and get back the money for it. and for apple, people deliberately chose it as a whole unit. sorry, i won't buy this argument.

15 minutes ago, markanini said:

except it's directed at users and not your competitors

what competitors? windows and macos are not competitors for us, they have completely different target audience.

You brought up all kinds of grievances, so apparently you do care. But don't take it from me, call up Dell and HP and ask how many percent of their users choose a system without a Windows licence.

2 hours ago, UncleTito said:

You two have the personalities of drag queens Jesus H. Christ.

What does that even mean?

18 minutes ago, markanini said:

You brought up all kinds of grievances

really? like this one, yeah?

18 minutes ago, markanini said:

call up Dell and HP and ask how many percent of their users choose a system without a Windows licence

why should i care? those people don't want to spend their time to make a conscious decision, and now i have to waste my time fighting for their rights? should i also refund their windows copies from my pocket too? because this is my duty after all, and i should care, i guess.

2 hours ago, ketmar said:

windows users did exactly that, and hey, are they happy now?

I kinda am with Windoze, yes :V.

23 minutes ago, Asking4Id said:

What does that even mean?

I feel like that means the same as the slang "white girls" used by some female netizens.

Y'know, some of those annoying other netizens.

I think its safe to say here that both Ketmar and Graf have a different idea on what the road they are going to drive over together in their Uber needs to consist of.

• Ketmar wants the road to be made by how the factory today produces roads, through mass production. These roads do not have aquaplaning reduction systems built in, but since they are factory made, its the common method of making roads, being cheaper. Since it currently only exists as an idea by a start up, Ket does not like it that Graf has an idea for a different road and tells him that his road is more expensive to make and it is experimental.
• Graf wants the road to be made by its original design philosophy. This includes systems to keep the road dry through asphalt that can breathe and thus channel the water away when it rains. However, Graf's road is not made in factories, and only exists as a start up idea and is thus more expensive to produce. Graf tells Ketmar that yes, his road is more expensive and experimental, but it comes with several improvements, and he mentions the aquaplaning system.

So:

• I think we can see the benefits of Graf's road, but he does not have the option to go on a production wide scale, plus it is in an experimental stage since everyone is used to Ketmar's road.
• I think we can also see the benefits of Ketmar's road, as in that it is cheap to produce, but it is not very friendly for the car since the road does not support water reduction systems.

The truth thus lies in the middle: Both parties need something from one another but refuse to accept the flaws of the other party. Thus the result is a stalemate situation.

20 minutes ago, seed said:

I kinda am with Windoze, yes :V.

great for you (no sarcasm here). yet alot of people seems to be totally unhappy. i strongly believe that they are the very same people complaining about GNU/Linux not being a "free windows" too. ;-)

@Redneckerz i just don't want to build my roads in the way somebody wants them to be. i like what i built, it serves me fine, and i see no reasons to rebuild it from the scratch to make it unusable for me as a result. this is exactly what i meant in my first message in this thread. ah, and i want another small thing: i want people to stop telling me that i am doing my road wrong. ;-) all the bricks and tools are there, anybody can build the road they like. just don't tell me that i have to do that for others, it is not something i am interested into (at least not for free ;-).

5 minutes ago, ketmar said:

@Redneckerz i just don't want to build my roads in the way somebody wants them to be.

Like a factory. ;) I never said your road is bad, its mass-produced for a reason :)

Just now, Redneckerz said:

I never said your road is bad

yeah. but Graf strongly... hints at that. i am totally disagree, of course, and we're playing the game "you're wrong! no you!" now. ;-) (just to note, i have nothing against this game, i often can get something to think about from it)

@Redneckerz:

I think that's a bad analogy.

What I would like to see an approach where also future prospects are being factored in. The current model of how computers operate will not do anything good long term - it has already created some monsters that are hard to control - it needs to change, because otherwise these monsters will take over control entirely.

Taking another car analogy, that'd be actively working on the transition to future-proof engines. No, we're not even close to make it feasible, but it needs to be done, despite being painful. The same is true for computing. The current system is very convenient for everybody despite knowing what kind of damage it will incur long term. But how can it change if even the ones that are not part of the system that needs to be abolished are trying their best to keep it up?

Where I see Ketmar in here is as a typical SUV driver (of course using a home-built SUV ;)), to continue with the car analogy. As long as he can drive fast and doesn't have to care about fuel consumption, all is well. The problem is just - it's not sustainable.

12 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

@Redneckerz:

 

I think that's a bad analogy.

I would have guessed it was going to be one - Either for you, or for Ketmar. The analogy is simply a simplified hypothesis revolving roads to explain where both sides come from - Obviously i am not factoring in superfluous details (Though i was tempted to) or list future feature lists. Its not mean't to be a 100% accurate presentation, its simply a laymans explanation of where both stand.

Its why i conclude a stalemate - Because neither of you is going to be marred with the downsides of eachother's implementation of the road.

If i were to continue this analogy, the most obvious way foward would be that you, as a start up, will grow to effectively replace Ketmar's prefabbed road and thus becoming the standard. In doing so, the costs will also drop.

Until another Graf comes along as a start up, and presents a road that not only has aquaplaning, it also has GPS built in, so it can tell your car about the other cars along the road.

A fun thought experiment would be if at that point, when you find out about this second Graf, you are going to adopt Ketmar's current stance or embrace its feature set.

And as for Ketmar's road? Well, eventually the production facility will have to close up shop since Graf's aquaplaning reduction roads are superior and now produced on a factory-wide scale. But when that happens, Ketmar is already retired, having never had to be bothered by Graf's road until late in his carreer.

;)

What's your obsession with roads? The computer is the car driving on the road (i.e. the internet.) with the OS being the engine. :P

6 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

Where I see Ketmar in here is as a typical SUV driver (of course using a home-built SUV ;)), to continue with the car analogy. As long as he can drive fast and doesn't have to care about fuel consumption, all is well. The problem is just - it's not sustainable.

i see it in a slightly different way. "consumer-grade system" is something for those people who don't want to know nothing about driving at all. "driving rules? different engines and fuel? maximum weight your car can carry? maximum speed for safe turning, and what kind of tires i should use? meh, it is too complicated for me, i just want to push that button, and the machine should do the rest!"

of course, this approach has the right to exist. but i believe that in the long run it is a dead end: if you don't know how your car works, you will always depend on somebody to do even the simplest things for you. and you won't be able to even check if they did the right thing, and if they didn't inflate your bill. while i don't want to block anybody from using such cars, i also don't want to build such cars too.

technology is the part of our lives. if we don't want to be enslaved by "technician guild", we should understand how the technology works. and we should be able to build our own things from the basic building blocks. i believe that understanding how to control your computer (or other devices) is the literacy of XXI century. yet moderns OSes are totally opposite of this -- they "know better what user wants", and they're mostly uncontrollable (by the user, at least). trying to hide their complexity by providing some GUI with several buttons simply won't work: those who want to learn their system will be frustrated by the limitations of the GUI, and those who don't want to learn will not use that GUI anyway. so creating DEs is a waste of time from my PoV.

but hey, if somebody wants to create someting i don't need, then go on! just don't tell me that i have to help, or that i have to change my habits, because "this is the modern way of doing things, and you're living under the rock!" make me interested, and i will help you. or DIY.

Linux is essentially the engine that lacks many good qualities needed to be widely usable. :P

7 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

What's your obsession with roads? The computer is the car driving on the road (i.e. the internet.) with the OS being the engine. :P

 

How were you going to go from A to B if it isn't a flying car and its not Nvidia''s Drive system doing all the calculations for you? :P

And what about the Uber driver then? It now lost its job thanks to you!

2 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

Linux is essentially the engine that lacks many good qualities needed to be widely usable

actually, it is unusable at all: it will simply panic on boot, because there is no even init process.

I already regret diving in as I’ve had this discussion many times before with GZ and others, but there’s a lot of Apple hate when MacOS is basically what happens when you take Unix philosophy and polish it for the end user (as opposed to Linux which is created by and for the developer). Also OS X (and by extension iOS) is a direct descendant of NeXT which are the machines Doom was written on and at the height of their popularity were supposed to be the power user’s PC of choice but ended up being too expensive to survive. Which is ironic given how many Windows gamer types hate Apple/Jobs. I’m not saying that just to be inflammatory but that I really think Apple got close to be UNIX for the masses, although the philosophy is ultimately incompatible with GNU philosophy even if it shares some overlap (privacy, corporate open source vs super left open source, etc).

4 minutes ago, insertwackynamehere said:

Also OS X (and by extension iOS) is a direct descendant of NeXT

...and it lost the most interesting part by the way: display postscript.

5 minutes ago, ketmar said:

i see it in a slightly different way. "consumer-grade system" is something for those people who don't want to know nothing about driving at all. "driving rules? different engines and fuel? maximum weight your car can carry? maximum speed for safe turning, and what kind of tires i should use? meh, it is too complicated for me, i just want to push that button, and the machine should do the rest!"

 

of course, this approach has the right to exist. but i believe that in the long run it is a dead end: if you don't know how your car works, you will always depend on somebody to do even the simplest things for you. and you won't be able to even check if they did the right thing, and if they didn't inflate your bill. while i don't want to block anybody from using such cars, i also don't want to build such cars too.

 

technology is the part of our lives. if we don't want to be enslaved by "technician guild", we should understand how the technology works. and we should be able to build our own things from the basic building blocks. i believe that understanding how to control your computer (or other devices) is the literacy of XXI century. yet moderns OSes are totally opposite of this -- they "know better what user wants", and they're mostly uncontrollable (by the user, at least). trying to hide their complexity by providing some GUI with several buttons simply won't work: those who want to learn their system will be frustrated by the limitations of the GUI, and those who don't want to learn will not use that GUI anyway. so creating DEs is a waste of time from my PoV.

 

but hey, if somebody wants to create someting i don't need, then go on! just don't tell me that i have to help, or that i have to change my habits, because "this is the modern way of doing things, and you're living under the rock!" make me interested, and i will help you. or DIY.

While there's many valid points you have here, I simply do not agree with your conclusions.

Yes, it's a big problem that many computer users have no idea what their machine is doing behind their back - and it is something that desperately needs to be fixed.

However - you cannot fix it by stripping away a user friendly interface. Going back to a CLI interface for common tasks would be akin to building new cars like the Ford T. The only thing you achieve with such an approach is the total opposite of what you really want, i.e. make the whole thing transparent and limit the inherent abuse - and push the non-tech-y users into the 'evil' camp even more.

This is why I would like to see an OS that is a) free from the shackles of big-corporationism and b) also free of the legacy cruft that permeates nearly all Unix-like systems and the user unfriendliness this causes for technically less knowledgeable people. Saying "It's good for me - and other computer literate people" is like dismissing the bigger picture behind the entire issue.