Oh, Linux... you can still blow me.

[feren]

Dear Linux, you can blow me.

You clearly hate your users and the developers of big-name apps you're so desperately trying to woo. I mean let's talk about rudimentary functions for a minute here. It's been what, 15 years or so now, right? And yet you still can't make sound work decently enough to let a professional developer port his game to your platform? Seriously, give that link a read. Be sure not to skip the comments. When the Free Software Apologist Brigade comes in and starts belittling a professional developer in his blog comments because he's (unsurprisingly) found that Linux is a complete steaming pile to work with? It ends badly, let me tell you, with the developer being attacked from all angles and finally throwing up his hands and stating what nobody there seems to want to hear. And they wonder why they can't attract professional programs and the people who develop them to the platform. With a platform and tools that can't meet your needs... paired with support that sports an attitude like that... it's not really a mystery to me. The outcome here and the profound amount of "la la la I can't hear you you SUCK for being unsatisfied with our buffett of crappy and half-cooked API choices" coming from the community in response to this guy's concerns and problems is no different than every other "Hey, this doesn't work, can you guys give me a hand?" situation I've seen in the Open Source Software world.

Conclusion: The only thing holding Linux back from seeing wider adoption is the core essence of Linux, meaning not just the environment/tools but the very people who make it and taut its open nature. Don't criticize the environment, whatever you do! The problem isn't that what we've created is an obscure, twisted maze of shit. The problem is you. You aren't committed enough, aren't knowledgeable enough (I so laughed at that one... this developer has been with Linux since the 0.91 kernel) or are unwilling to change how you do things (Read: you won't adapt to our model's limitations). I think I even saw that famous standby of if you don't like it, fix it yourself! Yep, that's all indicative of open and flexible alright. Especially that last one, because users who find bugs are now being told it's their responsibility to fix somebody else's fucked-up code. It's like a really shitty, elitist version of that grade-school grind of "He who smelt it, dealt it." Which is fine if you're a programmer, but nothing short of infuriating if you can't even slap a Hello World program together in C++. I'm sorry, I don't want to learn your AJAX program so I can fix your retarded bug. I just want it to work, or for you to fix it when I tell you it doesn't work. Pushing the responsibility off onto the userbase is moronic.

I think roho summed it up for me when he said "[I have] run a number of distros for the last...12 years, I guess, and it's amazing that that attitude still there. 1: Come to Linux, everything works better 2: If it doesn't work, it's probably your fault 3: If it's your fault, and you try to fix it, and fail, you are probably a Linux Saboteur/M$ lackey in disguise."

So in conclusion, dear Linux, it is no wonder I avoid you as much as possible and stay in the big kid's sandbox with my *elitist sniff* commercial UNIX and desktop operating systems...

Comments

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

C'mon! Sound is hard, well, it was in 1982.

Now the whole world knows.

[kozmcrae.livejournal.com]

You've been reduced to asking for gratification from an operating system. May I suggest Xandros?

[captain18.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I happily drank the Linux kool-aid back in 1996. But you are absolutely correct. The Linux crowd has become so complacent and so into dickwaving that I cringe when something breaks, because finding a solution is nearly impossible.

A Google search will turn up dozens of people with the same problem I'm seeing, and all but one have the person asking for help bent over and a splintery broomstick shoved up their ass by the so-called "support" groups they appeal to. And the person who does get an answer, gets a wrong one.

The stupidity over suidperl and postgresql on Debian is a great example. Currently postgres has a suidperl wrapper around some of its tools. But Debian deprecates the use of suidperl. So the postgresql package as downloaded is always broken -- by design!

I remember when I used to have to compile everything myself. None of this package shit. I remember what a pain in the ass it was to start building something and then have to go download fifteen other libraries to finish the compilation. At the time, package management seemed like a grand idea. Now I'm enslaved by how some fascists at Debian believe my system should be set up.

When my current Linux installation is stretched past the breaking point -- and it's getting close now -- if I don't jump ship for FreeBSD I'll revert to Slackware. At least once I get shit compiled it really will behave the way I want it to and not the way some fucktard thinks it should.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

While I've gone to Ubuntu, which may very well have its own problems, conflicts with the package manager have frequently made me wish I was managing everything by hand. This happens every time I want something that's not package-managed.

At least I went up a few levels in Sysadmin Best Practices since 1998 or so, and keep all the stuff that is "mine" in /usr/local instead of trying to fit it into /usr where it probably shouldn't be. It helps a lot, but it doesn't really make things suck less.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

The source material certainly makes me glad I don't program for a living, much less write games. I'd be constantly at war with the people who do things differently from the way I do them (I think vi for editing and printf for debugging work fine. :o)

I've done well by using Linux my own way since 1995 and just ignoring the fanboy bullshit. It makes a fine server, but the instant I could run a better desktop that let me keep all the good Unix bits, Linux was gone from my home on the desktop.

I have also helped many people get things working and never blamed them for "not being knowledgeable enough" or something equally elitist. It's not them. It never is. They don't have to "change how things are done" when they're having problems like this one, for instance.

On the issue of sound, I find it very annoying that it is 2008 and the majority of Linux sound drivers block when more than one program tries accessing the hardware. 1995 (or maybe even 1989, if you consider NeXT and SGI may have solved this by then) called. They want their problem back! People should NOT need to care if their prospective sound card has hardware mixing just so they can hear the email ding while their MP3s are playing.

[captain18.livejournal.com]

Yakko, for your patience back in the early days, I still owe you a steak dinner. Someday, I will make good on that debt.

[doomsey.livejournal.com]

On the issue of sound, I find it very annoying that it is 2008 and the majority of Linux sound drivers block when more than one program tries accessing the hardware.

Believe it or not, it's worse than that.

All the distributions use ALSA now. Some of the ALSA drivers support multi-open, but the most common ones (i810/AC97, for instance, which covers most chipset-based sound solutions) don't. But if you have one of the ones that doesn't support multi-open, you can set up and use the dmix plugin - a standard part of the ALSA distribution - to add multi-open capability. You do this by placing magical incantations into some configuration files.

The code is ALL there to make it work. It just needs to be activated.

But of course nobody activates it, and sound breaks horribly whenever you try to run a web browser while you're listening to music. For absolutely no reason. It's not like we don't know how to fix it. Somebody did. But nobody bothered turning it on!

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Threadwinner: There are black magic and dragons in Linux

Thank you for concisely pointing out the goddamned problem and then refactoring that into an asset of the system because it facilitates your cockwaving attitude. Well-played sir.

[loboguara.livejournal.com]

You come across a box blocking your path.

1. Mac user: Move the box.
2. Windows user: Move the box.
3. Unix user: Move the box.
4. Linux user: Spend two weeks working on a box-moving machine, then complain bitterly that the box is the wrong size and that there should be more box support for your framework.