MIT study says Arctic ice thinning 4x faster than predicted - <AUTHOR> http://bostinnovation.com/2011/08/10/mit-study-says-arctic-ice-thinning-4x-faster-than-predicted/

<comment><USER2> This is a report that adds nothing to the original release from MIT and in fact fails to mention that these new predictions are based on actual observed data. Here's the original post from MIT:

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/arctic-ice-melt-0810.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> The question isn't whether the earth is warming or not - it clearly is. The real question is what should humans do about it?

I think it's pretty reasonable to ask if trying to turn down the heat is the best use of our resources? That is, perhaps the incalculable trillions of dollars that it would cost to adjust the earth's climate would be better spent on helping humans adjust instead. Hell, there is significant evidence that a warmer climate would lead to an agricultural boom - which coincidentally is exactly what is going to be required to feed 7 billion humans.

Or look at it another way - what if it turned out tomorrow that the climate is warming because of solar activity? Would the environmentalist movement still be advocating that we try to prevent climate change?

<comment><USER2> Reasonable environmentalists aren't advocating that we prevent climate change. The earth's climate changes. It always has and always will. There is nothing we can do to prevent the natural cycles the earth goes through.

What we need to adjust is our unnatural, unbalanced effect on the earth's climate.

<comment><USER4> Why do we _need_ to? Just because it is unnatural and you are philosophically opposed to it? Or are you saying something about the fact that the temperature change is driven by humans rather than nature makes it a problem?

<comment><USER5> The distinction is one of knowledge. We have evidence that that the environment as it exists now, is a relatively stable regime. The climate has changed throughout history, but not, obviously, to the extent of rendering us extinct.

If, however, we act to bring the climate out of the regime for which we have this evidence (for example, by raising the CO2 level to its highest value for 800,000 years), then with our present rudimentary understanding of the climate, we cannot predict what will happen with any great confidence. And, there is evidence that climatic changes can cause tremendous damage. So, the burden of proof should be on those who say that these changes are safe.

<comment><USER6> <quote>The climate has changed throughout history, but not, obviously, to the extent of rendering us extinct.</quote>

It's come pretty close, and that's typical. Most species that have ever existed on this planet went extinct ages ago, often during periods of drastic climate change (as far as we can tell from the archeological record.)

Our own fairly recent past is the same. The latest research on the 'flood' that gave rise to flood myths in every civilization in Southern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, suggests that the Mediterranean Sea was a fertile populated valley during the last ice age. But when the ice age ended due to natural climate change, the rising Atlantic broke through the natural dam at Gibraltar and flooded the valley, and into the Black and Red seas, up the Nile, etc. That's a massive natural disaster that must have wiped out a pretty big chunk of humanity. It was probably repeated on a smaller scale around the world too, as seaside villages were flooded out by the rising oceans and likely increase in the number of storms as the world warmed up.

<comment><USER7> Even more dramatic, a number of genetic studies suggest that hominids faced near extinction more than once eg [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early- human...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-human- population-size-genetic-diversity) estimates a total population of around 50k.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing the world's first beer brewed by artificial intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://intelligentx.ai/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome!</comment>


Ask YC: How do you keep your place cool in hot weather?  - <AUTHOR>

I live in an apartment, its getting really hot. I am not going to invest in an AC. I have bunch of fans and so far its setup for corss ventilation. Any other tricks you guys have to keep your self cool. Hot weather is very distracting and energy draining. <comment><USER2> I moved from Texas to the valley in winter of last year, and was stunned to find that a lot of places (a majority?) don't have AC, including the house I rented. But, the fact is it's not too bad. Yesterday and today were pretty toasty, but after the long winter (I'm from Texas...the bay area is cold in contrast), it's kind of a relief.

I have a swamp cooler in the bath tub with a fan blowing out into the rest of the house. I'm running the vaporizer that I bought when I got a nasty sore throat and head cold a couple of months back--a cool mist drizzling over me all day is pretty sweet...actually, I think it's better than AC, but I might be weird. And, of course, all the windows and doors are open (after about noon when the house has heated up to be warmer than outside--since it cools down a lot at night) to maximize the breeze.

And, as others have pointed out, there are other places to go. Coffee shops often have AC. Libraries always do. Sitting under a tree in the park is probably cooler than your apartment by 10 degrees, and pretty girls (or boys, depending on your preference) might walk by once in a while.

Or you could buy a window unit. I made it through last summer without too much discomfort, so I'll probably skip AC this year as well.

<comment><USER3> Smart people might walk by your tree, too. In case you swing _that_ way...

<comment><USER2> Who cares? It's too hot to talk.

<comment><USER3> Screw that. How am I supposed to get in the mood without a little roleplaying?

<comment><USER2> I usually just put on my robe and wizard hat.

<comment><USER3> You again? I told you to stop messaging me.

<comment><USER4> awesome subthread

<comment><USER4> why was I downmodded? I actually legitimately do not understand why.

<comment><USER3> even my haiku was downmodded! who knows. just ignore them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.gmilburn.ca/ac/pete_ac.html>

[http://www.everythingusb.com/diy_usb_air- conditioning_13207....](http://www.everythingusb.com/diy_usb_air- conditioning_13207.html)

<http://www.instructables.com/id/Free-Air-Conditioning/>

<comment><USER2> My ghetto/redneck solution is a towel with the end dipped in a bucket or tub or sink hanging an inch or two from the intake of the fan. As the water evaporates (and cools) more is drawn up into the towel via the wick effect. Definitely not as fabulous as an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys seen in those fine examples of ingenuity, but it works and allows me to be very lazy.

<comment><USER6> The cooling effect of evaporation doesn't affect the vapors, infact it is just the opposite, it only cools the body from which they are evaporating. All you are doing is making your area more humid, thus making your sweat less effective.

<comment><USER2> OK, Mr. Science. Now I'm confused. Again.

However, I just stuck my hand in front of the fan, and I believe my experimental method is sound. If you have trouble reproducing my results, let me know. I'll have my landlord fix the physics in my house and try again. (Or, you could add the cooler temperature of the water in the basin to the calculations in your model.)

<comment><USER7> Actually, the evaporation effect will reduce the temperature of whatever is around it, in this case the air. I don't know whether the effect is dramatic enough to provide significant cooling for an entire apartment, but it's probably enough to make you feel it. Do a calculation using the heat capacity of water and referencing it against how often you have to refill the bucket.

Evaporation is what separates nice, cuddly good-weather clouds from thunderstorms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Go to the public library.

<comment><USER9> What a coincidence, I was interested in this very question just yesterday! Here's the best I found:

[http://www.wikihow.com/Cool-Yourself-Without-Air- Conditionin...](http://www.wikihow.com/Cool-Yourself-Without-Air-Conditioning)

<comment><USER3> did you reply to that particular comment just to get to the top of the thread?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why aren't you going to invest in an AC? They can be had for as low as $100 nowadays. You can even spend a few dollars more and get one that's very energy efficient. Seems like the smart move to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please find me portable ACs for <$100. I dont think i can install a AC in my window.

<comment><USER11> Even if it costs $200, it's well worth it for the productivity you gain. You'll make that back in a week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wear few, or no clothes. Drink cold drinks. Take cold showers. Soak feet, hands in cold water. Keep all the doors (internal, I mean) open. Open windows. Using air con only adds to global warming.

<comment><USER13> I tend to soak 2 towels in cold water and wrap them around my torso and legs, respectively. Repeat every few hours. In REALLY hot weather, frequently take very short showers with your clothes on.

Luckily the place I'm living at has a basement, which stays cool even in summer, so those methods aren't necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Investing in AC. :-)

It's well worth it in productivity costs alone. Even one of those portable units that you can park next to your window works wonders.

<comment><USER15> Can I assume that you (lyime) have at least one computer in your apartment and that you have it on most of the time? I hate pointing our the obvious, but excessive heat is not good for computers. If you are not comfortable there, you could risk baking your cpu.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well my machine is properly cooled. I built my own machine, so picking the right cooling for my case/cpu/gpu was my number one priority :)

You are totally right though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I spent a summer working in a kitchen without AC. The trick I learned to survive it is to get two dish towels and soak them in water. Wring them mostly out and put them in the freezer. Wait a few hours and take one out and wrap it around your neck. The blood flowing through your neck cools down and cools your entire body very well. The reason for two is to alternate throughout the day.

</comment><comment><USER17> assuming you live in the bay area: sleep all day and work at night

<comment><USER9> _Reduced melatonin production has been proposed as a likely factor in the significantly higher cancer rates in night workers,[28] and the effect of modern lighting practice on endogenous melatonin has been proposed as a contributory factor to the larger overall incidence of some cancers in the developed world.[29]_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin>

<comment><USER18> Fortunately you can buy Melatonin in pill form at your local drug store. 3mg pills are common, a doctor would recommend taking 1mg because that is closer to a natural dose. Side effects include vivid, lucid dreams...

<comment><USER17> have you personally experienced this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you already have a cross ventilation setup, that's pretty close to the limit of how nice your place can be without AC. One thing you can do improve the effectiveness of your setup is to work where all the airflow is going on. Place your desk in between the air coming in and the air going out so you can directly benefit from the flow.

</comment><comment><USER20> Work where there's a breeze and shade. 3g is roughly the same cost as AC/heating these days.

</comment><comment><USER21> Had this problem once here. Got a portable AC.

Next time I moved, I made sure I had (central!) AC. I think if you're working from home in the Bay Area, it's not really optional - maybe it used to be, but not any more.

</comment><comment><USER22> Air Conditioning is one of the great modern inventions. It is what separates us from the rest of the apes. Living without AC is like living without plumbing - sure you can do it, but why would you want to?

</comment><comment><USER23> If you revealed why you aren't going to get an air conditioner maybe it would lead to more relevant suggestions. Money? Environmental concerns? Too difficult to install? Something else?

</comment><comment><USER24> Why not move to a place that has A/C pre-installed - is that an option? I know that in some cities you're pretty much stuck with window units or nothing.

</comment><comment><USER25> Get a de-humidifier. They are cheaper than AC, much more convenient, and usually just as effective.

</comment><comment><USER26> Eat cool melon and nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER27> Window unit AC?

</comment><comment><USER28> How hot is it?</comment>


Crossing the U.S. Border? Here's How to Securely Wipe Your Computer - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/crossing-us-border-heres-how-securely-wipe-your-computer <comment><USER2> Note that we also emphasize that we don't think most travelers would want to do this.</comment>


Ask HN: Learn Arabic? - <AUTHOR> Anyone have any suggestions/hacks for learning Arabic? Note I'm aware of immersion and unfortunately right now I'm US based. <comment><USER2> First, think about what you want to do with the language. If you were to learn classical Arabic, you could understand news broadcasts, or the Koran, but little spoken language in any Arab country you were to visit.

That's because most regions speak a dialect of Arabic which can be quite different from classical Arabic. Apparently, the translators trained by the US Army for Iraq service learned Modern Standard Elementary Arabic, and when they got to Iraq they couldn't understand what the locals were saying. Thus the army had to hire local translators.

Watch this link to find out more...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDg3yPSzsEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDg3yPSzsEg)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.reddit.com/r/learn_arabic/comments/ad26ry/more_l...](https://www.reddit.com/r/learn_arabic/comments/ad26ry/more_learning_resources/)</comment>


www.facebook.com now redirects to web.facebook.com - <AUTHOR> https://wwww.facebook.com <comment><USER2> I'm not seeing the redirect. If it is there (or planned), I wonder if it's a response to Chrome's ridiculous new "feature" that hides the "www" in URLs.</comment>


Twitter have been surprisingly slow about /N? - <AUTHOR>

Any update on this?
https://twitter.com/N
Still shows that it hasn't been returned. <comment><USER2> They probably won't do anything about it.

Accounts are jacked all the time and they usually don't do anything unless the person was verified.

</comment><comment><USER3> due to the way the account was "handed over" to the attacker, it puts Twitter in a difficult position - they don't really want to open the floodgates of having to investigate every single request for intervention due to an alleged account hijack/ transfer made under duress etc.</comment>


Major Linux Problems on the Desktop, 2020 edition - <AUTHOR> https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html <comment><USER3> This list exaggerates many issues in an attempt to inflate the list.

It's totally bloated, full of baseless personal opinions.

A few examples:

\- "Nvidia open-source driver nouveau.." \- why include it if not to bloat the list?

\- "Under Linux, setting multi-monitor configurations especially using multiple GPUs running binary NVIDIA drivers can be a major PITA" \- Bollox. Gnome/Mate Display-Manager does an excellent job. If you're still using X11 manual configs than what do you expect..

\- "Linux drivers are usually much worse (they require a lot of tinkering..)" \- Broad statements are usually wrong. Especially this one based on an opinion from the 90's.

\- "Resume after suspend in Linux is unstable and oftentimes doesn't work." \- Bollox. Resume from Hybernate - maybe. But suspend works perfectly most of the time.

\- "X.org is largely outdated" \- duh... the whole list on this topic is dated issues resolved by WM.

\- "Adding custom monitor modelines in Linux is a major PITA." \- Is it? a one line command? and how do you do it on Windows? oh you can't...

\- "Applications development is a major PITA" \- this is ridiculous.

<comment><USER4> I use Linux every day. I love it. But I don't think your list reflects reality.

> Bollox. Gnome/Mate Display-Manager does an excellent job. If you're still > using X11 manual configs than what do you expect..

I have to go from multi-screen configuration to configuration because of my job. I happen to try a lot of combinations of connectors, dongles, screen brands/resolutions...

And no, this is really, really not solved. I have problems 1 time out of 3.

> "Linux drivers are usually much worse (they require a lot of tinkering..)" > \- Broad statements are usually wrong. Especially this one based on an > opinion from the 90's.

They are, here. For BT, Wifi, graphic cards and printers at least, I attest that I most of the time have less features and/or stability using Libre drivers.

Does it work well enough for day to day use? Certainly. Can I use my "scan" button on my Epson laser? Absolutly not.

> "Resume after suspend in Linux is unstable and oftentimes doesn't work." \- > Bollox. Resume from Hybernate - maybe. But suspend works perfectly most of > the time.

Most the time is not enough for sometime like suspend. The whole idea is that you _trust_ the computer to restore you work space the way it used to be. If you can't, if sometime it may not boot, or disable the network card (common problem), then it failed.

Can you imagine if VSCode would restore your file tabs, but only, most of the time?

In fact, one of the first thing I do on a fresh install is to go the the "close lid" settings, and disable suspend, because I'm afraid to lose state by mistake.

> "X.org is largely outdated" \- duh... the whole list on this topic is dated > issues resolved by WM.

X is largely outdated. That why we still have flickers when booting a linux desktop, which means you will never ever make a Mac lover use Linux because they will not trust it.

Yes, appearance matters.

> "Applications development is a major PITA" \- this is ridiculous.

If you talk about web or cli apps, yes. But desktop apps, no.

It IS harder to dev a desktop app for linux, because you have to support a HUGE diversity of configurations: distros, versions, desktop managers. Want to add a system tray icon ? Well, are you targetting Gnome 2, Gnome shell or Unity? Want to make a package ? rpm, deb, snap, flatpack or appimage? Want to use QT4? Not installable from the official repos in the last Ubuntu LTS.

Meanwhile, apps that worked in Windows XP often still works on Windows 10.

The alternative is to limit yourself to a weak % of users from something that is already a niche.

I love Linux, but being in denial doesn't help getting it in better shape.

Not to mention this lists is tiny compared to the actual article.

<comment><USER5> >Most the time is not enough for sometime like suspend. The whole idea is that you _trust_ the computer to restore you work space the way it used to be. If you can't, if sometime it may not boot, or disable the network card (common problem), then it failed.

I do not undertand what you guys are talking about. It works flawlessly 100% of the time on my Librem 15 and Lenovo T400 both in Debian and Qubes OS. Just find proper harware to run GNU/Linux.

<comment><USER6> > Just find proper harware to run GNU/Linux.

I suspect this is indeed the root of the problem; people tend to just pick any hardware first and then try to run Linux on it, whereas in reality they should pick hardware to run Linux on.

They seem to get this when it comes to Mac, but not Linux for some reason.

<comment><USER7> > They seem to get this when it comes to Mac, but not Linux for some reason

The reason seems pretty obvious.

<comment><USER6> Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I thought your post was sarcasm.

Well, you have literally no choice for macOs supported hardware. Only apple devices.

Whereas for Linux, you can in theory buy any laptop (there is no official list of supported laptops).

So it's not that they get it for Mac, it's just the lack of choice.

<comment><USER6> But that's precisely my point.

You don't _really_ have a choice of just any random hardware anywhere, not on Linux, not on macOS, not even Windows.

The only difference is that most BestBuy laptops come preinstalled with Windows, so of course they're going to support Windows. The support is often not excellent either, but in Windows world that's somehow just dismissed as expected or something.

Also, try picking a TALOS II POWER9 workstation and installing Windows on it. Would not go well.

My point being, people should buy Linux-supported hardware, preferably from a reputable Linux-friendly vendor, which would spare them a lot of trouble.

They're already doing this with macOS and they're doing it with Windows too, just not realizing it because that's what comes with the majority of PCs.

<comment><USER7> My point is that no-one is doing it _on purpose_ for Mac or windows. They either have no choice (for Mac) or it comes by default (for windows).

What you're asking is for people to do it on purpose, which is harder, and requires a lot of thoughts into it, reading about hardware vendors, ..

<comment><USER6> I agree it's harder, but my opinion is that at this point we should market Linux on the desktop as being a very specific thing requiring hardware explicitly for that purpose and should try to work with vendors to make it an option for more hardware, rather than trying to support everything and it not being the best experience as a result.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I agree with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Numerous people report that Broadcom and Realtek network adapters are barely > usable or outright unusable under Linux.

This links to a 5-year-old thread on reddit.

I have personally used both Broadcom and Realtek wifi cards in Linux and while they used to suck 10 years ago (i.e. go to a different computer, find the firmware blob you need, stick it on a USB stick and then come back to the computer you're trying to use and try to work out how to load the firmware blob), I don't recall recently having to do anything to get them to work. They just work straight away in the Ubuntu installer and you can select your network and connect, and this has been the case for several years. I'd say more than 5, but the reddit thread suggests otherwise.

> X.org is largely outdated, unsuitable and even very much insecure for modern > PCs and applications.

I don't have any comment to add to this, other than that the word "modern" links to a slashdot thread from 2012. Are we sure this article is 2020 edition?

> Web fonts under Linux often look horrible in old distros.

2 of the linked pages here have dates of 2013 and 2014, the 3rd link is to a Google+ page which no longer exists because Google+ no longer exists. And how are problems in "old distros" a 2020 problem anyway?

> As much as Ubuntu might be commended they still distribute their downloaded > ISO images via HTTP in 2020

Aha! Something about 2020. I went to ubuntu.com and tried to download the ISO and it came over https. I tried 3 times and got a different mirror each time, but each one was with https, so I do not understand the complaint. Maybe some of the mirrors aren't https?

<comment><USER9> Inherent X.org issues have never been solved. Why does it matter what the date of the linked article is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > All native Linux filesystems (except ext4) are case sensitive about > filenames which utterly confuses most users. This wonderful peculiarity > doesn't have any sensible rationale.

There is in fact a solid rationale behind this.

> No polish, no consistency and no HIG adherence (even KDE developers admit > it).

See also: every operating system. It's unfair to pick on Linux for this since pretty much every Windows and Mac program seems to want to invent its widgets & unique behaviours, and this has been the case since at least the late 1990s when I got into computers.

<comment><USER8> Lol, I missed that. Is the article claiming that ext4 is _not_ case-sensitive?

<comment><USER10> The author may be thinking of this work from last year: [https://lwn.net/Articles/784041/](https://lwn.net/Articles/784041/) I do not know if this has since been merged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are so many legit problems to be sad about, but he ruins the list by bloating it with like 20-30% crap/bullshit entries. Why? Would be so much better and more productive if he kept it tight.

He actually doesn't even have the issue that got me the most when I switched back from OSX (I hadn't been using Linux on laptops).

libinput is developed by one guy, so instead of real usability testing, he just sort of plays around locally and asks a few friends to record inputs so he can analyse them. This results in really terrible defaults for the trackpad acceleration and clicking, that I could only override with xinput commands that referenced the device IDs, but the device IDs would often change on reboot.

<comment><USER12> You might have already solved that since then, but you can also add config files to /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-mytrackpad.conf and that will set the properties you want for libinput devices at startup. Works on my xubuntu so I can disable the trackpad and use only the track point with custom acceleration and sensitivity values.

<comment><USER13> I'm not the parent but when I go through the trouble of creating a custom config I go one step further and switch to using synaptics driver instead of libinput.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Like 80% of the issue go away if you buy a machine with linux preinstalled. All the hardware issues are solved, all things just work. And there choice too: Dell, tuxedo, system76 and others

I have bought like 4 Dell xps 13 developer edition machines so far, never had any problems.

Why do ppl expect software to work on random crap windows-only machines?! There problems that can only be solved by vendor good will.

At least do you homework and check if your favourite distro supports the hardware you buy. Arch has a wonderful hardware-related wiki, ubuntu certifies machines, etc...

<comment><USER15> It kind of helps until you get a Linux update and a perfectly working driver gets replaced by some WIP alternative in name of FOSS.

Had that experience with an Asus laptop sold with Ubuntu LTS.

<comment><USER16> That's the risk when the perfectly working driver is binary only and the original vendor has just thrown it over the wall, with no intent of maintenance.

Speaking of ASUS, I've yet to buy something from them that doesn't have some quirk. The last thing I bought from them, a GPU, had never updated it's firmware, despite AMD releasing it to OEMs and other OEMs releasing it to their customers. Unlike your laptop, my GPU at works with the FOSS driver, its just limited while UEFI is running.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > _No high level, stable, sane (truly forward and backward compatible) and > standardized API for developing GUI applications (like core Win32 API - <USER2> > Windows 95 applications still run fine in Windows 10 - that 's 24 years of > binary compatibility). Both GTK and Qt (incompatible GTK versions 1, 2, 3, 4 > and incompatible Qt versions 4, 5, 6 just for the last decade) don't strive > to be backwards compatible._

So just install the previous version of those toolkits with the application (or use your package manager which will do that for you).

Windows gets around this by installing basically everything in the base install and that causes the OS footprint to be grossly inflated. Where as Apple basically stick their middle finger to backwards compatibility and tell devs they have to update their applications.

Personally I think Linux has the right approach here: being new features but allow old libraries to be installed _when_ required.

<comment><USER18> Try and run an app relying on Qt4 on the most recent Ubuntu. It's a total PITA. You'd need to compile Qt4 yourself.

(Not joking.)

<comment><USER6> Last time I used Ubuntu, there were PPAs for this, but Qt 4 is outdated and does not even support HDPI, coming from a Mac user it is rich, because macOS software tends to support at most 2 releases of macOS at any given time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if a semi-centralised -- and hopefully curated -- list of Linux- approved hardware can be maintained somewhere?

Even though I am generally sceptical towards desktop Linux due to a multitude or really weird issues some people report, I also know that it works quite rock-solidly for much more others. So I'd say nowadays "vet your hardware before investing in a Linux station" is a fair and balanced advice -- especially in a world where most hardware vendors just make a half-done Windows driver and peace out.

Furthermore, I wonder if something can be built on top of such a curated list of approved Linux hardware like, say, troubleshooting tips for multi-monitor setups, or multi-sound-card setups, or general weirdnesses that occasionally happen only to some?

At this point I believe it's really fair for the Linux community to give up on most of the hardware. But IMO if Linux is to have some mindshare of the desktop segment it should have a curated list of approved hardware and tidbits for addressing rare issues and improving the general quality of life.

(And let's not forget X11's scandalous ability to allow every program to capture keystrokes. This _has_ to be addressed in an ergonomic matter one day. Qubes is quite nice and all but it's a pain to setup. Somebody has to wrap this stuff in the usual brainless Next->Next->Next GUI wizards sometime.)

<comment><USER20> There is

For Ubuntu see: [https://certification.ubuntu.com/](https://certification.ubuntu.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oh, this paragraph is good, especially in light of the Corona impact on OSS too:

> Money, enthusiasm, motivation and responsibility: I predicted years ago that > FOSS developers would start drifting away from the platform as FOSS is no > longer a playground, it requires substantial effort and time, i.e. the fun > is over, developers want real money to get the really hard work done. FOSS > development, which lacks financial backing, shows its fatigue and > disillusionment. The FOSS platform after all requires financially motivated > developers as underfunded projects start to wane and critical bugs stay open > for years. One could say "Good riddance", but the problem is that oftentimes > those dying projects have no alternatives or similarly-featured successors.

</comment><comment><USER22> You can compile such a list for any operating system in 2020.

Recently I evaluated three randomly selected HDMI capture devices, Ubuntu supported each of them out of the box, while Windows and MacOs struggled. With the printer in our office its the other way around. The printer at home is old, so its just Linux supported. And so on..

</comment><comment><USER23> Tangent: What are people using for thin clients / terminals? E.g. stuff that is deployed at e.g. airport displays for showing connections flights or self service cash-registers?

Linux seems like the obvious choice as a base OS. However, running X+Firefox ontop of it seemed too clunky (slow) and unrelieable to me?

\- How do I make sure you recover from crashes reliably?

\- How do you secure the inputs, to avoid escapes from the application?

<comment><USER24> Considering the times I've seen airport connecting flight displays replaced with bluescreen "Your Windows 7 PC is out of support", shopping mall digital ad displays showing that a QuickTime 7 & iTunes patch is available, or the self-service grocery shopping terminals displaying a Windows XP style "Ethernet cable is unplugged" notification, I'd guess not as much thought is going into those kinds of concerns as we might like.

I think I have heard of some retail chain stores using FreeDOS with a dedicated keyboard-driven accounting package to run the business, though. (In this case I'm thinking of one of the larger Luxottica owned optometry chains.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The _only_ problem with desktop Linux these days is there still not being more companies throwing some effort in.

Adobe and Microsoft could make serious money here. Their tooling aren't just standards, they're —in many ways— the best available tools, that Linux does not have viable solutions for. Clawing our way along with alternatives, and Wine and VMs isn't sustainable. Not forever. We just need a couple of big names to start things going. But it perpetually never happens. Maybe 2021. I'm bizarrely optimistic about Microsoft.

Once software support comes, and people can carry on doing their work, the weight of demand forces hardware support for oddball wifi chips, RGB mice, whatever. I can buy another mouse today, I _need_ Illustrator and Photoshop for professional interop.

As for TFA, everybody derives their annoyances from different places. Desktop Linux isn't perfect, but it's the best I've got, by some distance, for my workloads.

</comment><comment><USER26> There is a flavour here that although the individual points are subsystem specific the overall view is very much the Linux Desktop as a whole.

The Wayland commentary is especially interesting and solidifies my view that Wayland is never going to replace X, and quite possibly this is intentional on the part of the Wayland devs. Reading through the X Server and Wayland headings, some of those issues sound so structural that the most viable long term path might be containerised mini-displays under some as yet unpublicised meta-manager that rethinks how applications play with together to manage keyboard and mouse.

The Wayland experiment remains a source of great entertainment. The devs are doing amazing work lightening the dependence of the Linux ecosystem on X11.

</comment><comment><USER27> I installed Fedora on my Macbook Pro 2015 a few weeks ago to try it out, mainly because of one killer app - the i3 window manager.

It's been a blast, albeit not without some frustrations.

The good

\- WiFi worked out of the box

\- i3 is awesome

\- battery life seems fine

The bad/annoying

\- took me a while to get a reliable way of setting sufficient Xrandr settings to allow me to extend my desktop onto a 2nd monitor.

\- took me a while to find out the right commands to use to switch keyboard layouts when I plug in an external keyboard.

\- I've seen suspend not work properly a few times when closing the laptop lid

\- have to get used to new keyboard shortcuts for copy&paste and other things, this is more of a problem with switching from OSX -> Linux rather than a fault of Linux

\- firefox performance is really really bad. like horribly slow switching tabs, and all the items on a website seem to load in really slowly, especially on resource hungry websites (e.g. YouTube). I've tried installing nightly, enabling webrender etc, but it's just been dogshit slow. In comparison, Chrome feels lightning fast so sadly, I've had to switch.

\- hardware video decoding in web browsers doesn't seem to be supported? i've been reading around, apparently there's a patched version of chromium out there that supposedly supports it - but it doesn't like that's ever going to go mainstream. I was shocked loading a video and seeing my CPU fan maxing out!

I'd imagine the xrandr/keyboard issues are mostly because of the manual nature of i3wm, over say Gnome where it might be more fluid

The depressing

At work I have a 2019 MBP which won't support linux out of the box (well - I'd imagine it boots, but it seems like there are horrible audio/wifi/input issues and problems with the T2 chip) and I really want to use i3wm at work. I'm tempted to get a VM going as a substitute...

<comment><USER28> Have you tried using SwayWM? It's compatible with your existing i3 configuration but uses Wayland as the display protocol so some of your issues could be solved by that switch (Firefox performance, hardware video decoding, multiple monitors...).

See [https://fedoramagazine.org/setting-up-the-sway-window- manage...](https://fedoramagazine.org/setting-up-the-sway-window-manager-on- fedora/)

And [https://fedoramagazine.org/how-to-setup-multiple-monitors- in...](https://fedoramagazine.org/how-to-setup-multiple-monitors-in-sway/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Some of those points seem taken a bit too far. For example:

> When people purchase a Windows PC do they research anything? No, they > rightly assume everything will work out of the box right from the get-go.

That's how I ended up with an Epson printer which works just fine with macos and Linux, but not with windows 10.

I also really enjoy the fact that printer drivers in Linux have no extra features. They normally support printing from a chosen tray with chosen colours and dpi. That's all I want from a driver. I hate every single value- add option stuffed into windows drivers.

</comment><comment><USER30> I just want to say that after upgrading to 20.04 from 19.10 something went wrong so I clean installed it. Then my Intel WiFi stopped working (even though the Bluetooth did work) and my multi monitor setup kept getting screwed up on reboot where a mousclick on the left screen would register on the right screen. I tried to file bug reports with canonical but the process seemed so convoluted I just gave up and am back to Windows and MacOS again. Maybe I'll try again in a few months, maybe not. WSL2 is working pretty well for me

<comment><USER31> Ubuntu 20.04 seem to get a lot of heat compared to previous LTS releases. IIRC 18.04 release was relatively uneventful (in a good way).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Get yourself a Tuxedo and be happy for the rest of your days: [https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en](https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en)

<comment><USER33> Until you need support, according to reviews: [https://www.trustpilot.com/review/tuxedocomputers.com](https://www.trustpilot.com/review/tuxedocomputers.com)

<comment><USER32> Support was excellent in my case. They responded quickly, and solved my issue competently.

I agree that not all of their laptops are top quality, but mine is just perfect for me, couldn't be more satisfied.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I used to develop on a macbook. Then I changed employer and consequently, changed laptop too. I won't name brand and model but it was running ubuntu out of the box with the following problems:

\- couldn't suspend/resume properly when folded

\- very low battery life

\- overheat, a lot, and of course noisy fans then

\- couldn't make use of all the ports of the dock

I actually liked the OS (eventually I switched to Debian/XFCE though), but should I be the one to pay for this, I would be pretty pissed off. We're talking about a 2500€ machine here.

</comment><comment><USER35> This list is too sprawling and too detailed. If the author used the same format he used for the summary or for his summary of Windows issues, and then put the detailed list under the summary, it would be far more useful.

Most Linux problems on the Desktop aren't the result of individual bugs/issues, but of structural problems, and highlighting these problems first would be much more accessible and useful than the bug reports.

<comment><USER9> > If the author used the same format he used for the summary or for his > summary of Windows issues

But there is one:

[https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.t...](https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current.html#Summary)

<comment><USER35> I noticed that (that's the "Summary" I mentioned).

But reading it after the very long text about individual bugs is much less useful. Most position/research papers put the executive summary/abstract _first_ with good reason - that helps the paper be better received. Maybe even organizing the lists as collapsible items could help the presentation be better* .

As for the summary list, it too can benefit from a more probing look which tries to look at the issue more deeply, much more than listing individual issues. For example, ABIs and APIs are often unstable on purpose, especially on the kernel. Linus has long arguments supporting the unstable model and some Free software proponents like that this encourages GPL code.

Do we want the Windows model? Maybe a shim could supply that? Or maybe we shouldn't have even that due to Free software reasons? (RMS tried that which gcc and it was one of the reasons that led to LLVM gaining traction). Or development speed?

* That doesn't require JavaScript. One could use HTML5's simple summary/detail elements.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/de...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/details)

There are css hacks which can achieve the same result on HTML4, but they are much more complicated and I suspect a list on Linux issues shouldn't care about supporting Internet Explorer.

<comment><USER9> The article was meant to be read in full.

Yeah, the modern generation of people is mostly capable of consuming 140/280 chars tweets and has severe issues with the attention span but if you're wanna get deep into it, you'll read it all. Or just dismiss everything because you didn't like how the article is organized - that'll work as well, as it has for the past 30 years which means Linux on the desktop will remain a hobby OS for geeks.

<comment><USER35> Your tone is unwarranted.

I did not dismiss anything. Nor did I ask you to remove any information. I merely wished you'd organize it in a better way.

The better way IMHO is to emphasize the structural economical/sociological/technical reasons. Why? Because even fixing all the small technical bugs in that long list would help only for a little while.

For example, if Linux Desktop somehow got to magically all items fixed case, it is way underfunded. So it will either stagnate in place or try to innovate and introduce new bugs... On the other hand, find a workable revenue model, and then devs would be paid to fix bugs, and that would be sustainable.

Another example, fixing current NVidia incompatibilities would help, but the unstable Linux ABI/API would remain, and that would cause issues in the future with any other future NVidia or other manufacturer which balk at putting their code under OSS. This issue needs a decision which balances all the competing interests.

<comment><USER9> > Why? Because even fixing all the small technical bugs in that long list > would help only for a little while.

Totally agree with that.

> For example, if Linux Desktop somehow got to magically all items fixed case, > it is way underfunded.

Kinda disagree with "the underfunded" part. The biggest issue with Linux is that it's not a platform like Windows, Android, iOS, etc. All of them feature

1) Rich stable APIs/ABIs, including for device drivers 2) Strong backward and forward compatibility 3) Strong cohesion between system components (e.g. kernel and userspace) 4) Excellent support for hardware 5) Universal packaging mechanism (the same 'exe' can be installed on any supported version of Windows/MS-DOS/OS/2, the same APK can be installed on any supported version of Android)

(See the Solving Linux part of the article).

There's just one distro which ticks almost all the checkboxes and that's RHEL and it's not exactly meant to be used on the desktop. Besides its hardware support leaves a lot to be desired as RedHat sticks to the same kernel release for all the support period (10 years or something) and regularly backports only certain drivers from mainline.

If someone created a Linux platform, even with the same number of bugs/missing features that we already have and it would still be a hundred times more successful than Linux has ever been.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think linux works reasonably well on the desktop as long as you stick to the standard settings, i.e., running only linux, accepting the way things were set, not worrying too much about loud fans, etc.

The big issue I have is the mixed quality of documentation for "normal users" (those between just accepting everything on the one side and going through all man pages on the other), which always gives me an uneasy feeling that I didn't quite set something up the right way and that it could lead to issues somewhere along the way.

While it would be nice to have, I don't necessarily need a graphical/terminal configuration tool (though it would be nice when I'm setting up things that I only set up once and don't want to go through the trouble understanding how it works, e.g. wifi). What I really need is a good wiki that is up-to-date and useful posts on stack exchange.

Now this is where I run into problems: Arch for instance has a great wiki, but many posts, articles, etc. are for Ubuntu, which doesn't have a very useful wiki.

<comment><USER37> The man pages are the documentation for users?

I would say stay away from gnome if your fans are running all the time, it's a terrible DE and you don't need it. Just install eg fvwm or xfce (or lxde or whatever you like.)

>I only set up once and don't want to go through the trouble understanding how it works, e.g. wifi)

That's going to cause issues no matter which OS you run. Just read the wpa_supplicant man page (or the appropriate documentation if your distro uses something else and you don't want to change it.) You can skim for just the things you need and grab an example config, it's not a hard tool to use and it only takes a couple minutes. After you do this you won't be surprised when it breaks in a way you don't understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The biggest most obvious slap you in the face problem with the Ubuntu desktop is cut and paste.

This is the key thing a desktop should get right but it's so wrong.

It uses different keys to both OS X and windows, whereas it really should seamlessly offer both key combinations. And it's inconsistent between applications.

We're so far down the Linux desktop path for cut and paste to be this broken.

<comment><USER39> > It uses different keys to both OS X and Windows

Why should this be a problem? You are on a different system, learn to use it the way it was intended.

Ctrl-C has a different meaning in Unix. It has been so before windows and Macs existed.

<comment><USER38> This is so precisely a representation of Unix think, and why Linux has such a problem competing as a desktop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> > Under some circumstances the system or X.org's GUI may become very slow and > unresponsive due to various problems with video acceleration or lack of it > and also due to notorious bug 12309

Anyone know what he's talking about. It sounds a lot like the issue I was experiencing, but the ticket is not accessible, even when logging in. Would love to read the details. The constant, sometimes multi-minute stutters where the system became unresponsive is one of the main reasons I stopped using it last time. Every few years, I give it a shot, love it, and then something like this (or external displays no longer working 90% of the time) that just makes me give up. I've never had an install run for more than about six months without something catastrophic happening that requires a complete reinstall / restore from backup, usually due to some desktop environment issue preventing it from loading/displaying.

</comment><comment><USER41> I take the chance to report that, embarrassingly, Bluetooth is broken by default on Ubuntu, and has been since 18.04, due to wrong settings in the Pulseaudio configuration file.

This has been reported against 18.04, and has been ignored.

What are users going to think when they try such a basic functionality?

<comment><USER42> I have lots of bad experiences with Bluetooth. On Moto G1, Nexus 5x, Pixel 1, Aquaris X, Dell laptop with recent Windows 10, ARM Chromebook, x86 Chromebook, Ubuntu. While connecting between those devices, connecting to a Jabra headset, Lenco soundbar, noname mobile speaker, OneAudio headset, Renault Laguna audio system. Issues varying between: can't see any device at all; can't see the device I'm trying to connect to; can't connect; can connect, but the device freezes and needs a restart; can connect, but the sound still comes out of an internal speaker; can connect everything works, but then it stops working and above apply; everything works, but have to pair every time.

It's dreadful everywhere. I think I had somewhat better experience with a Macbook, but at this stage I use bluetooth as little as possible, so can't really say.

Sorry, I guess I'm just venting...

<comment><USER43> This is a generalization, but these devices are very likely only tested until they barely work on Windows and Mac OS. And if they have to choose between a quick fix that makes it work on those two, and implementing the spec properly, they'll pick the first option. So it's on Linux to discover and work around all the brokenness (in the bluetooth host device as well as the speakers, phones, peripherals, etc...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I have to agree with the post that explains areas of improvement.

I have been an ArchLinux/Gnome user for 1.5 years on my home laptop but I am pondering switching back to Windows since WSL2 support. I am currently writing this message from Windows10 partition. Windows10 has also its painpoints like Telemetry, default apps that I don't want, not following Unix philosophy (configuration with simple text files) and ability to customize but it is improving also.

For me the remaining painpoints for Linux on the desktop even if it improved a lot over the years are:

* bluetooth/pulseaudio not snappy and reliable. Sometimes my bluetooth headset connects instantly, sometimes it takes 30s to 1mn, sometimes it never connects automatically and I have to do it manually. I did not have that issue on Mac OS X/W10. Also I have yet not figured out why an audio profile is added with gnome bluetooth but not when I use sway as desktop environment

* resume from suspend reliably. Sometimes my network connectivity is broken after resume and cannot be recovered easily. I need to reboot.

* Graphic drivers support even if not running Nvidia simplifies it a little bit. For Intel IGpu, it is ok but it seems still less performant than on Windows/Mac

* lack of full featured drivers and software for some hardware especially for printers, scanners or fingerprint readers, the available ones lack proprietary features but it is obviously not Linux's fault.

* lack of default video acceleration for browsers. Even if it is now possible with Firefox on Wayland with some configuration and Chromium but with community managed VAAPI support

* Multiple screen and especially switching from Hidpi and low dpi. It is a really mess here due to different GUI toolkits being used and lack of standard. GTK has its own way, you can do with X or Wayland fractional (but blurry) scaling too. For instance what I do now on Gnome wayland is not doing any fractional (blurry) scaling but text scaling of 1.22 by default and using systemd udev revert to 1.0 when I plug my external display...

as for Gnome I like it, I find it to be a MacOS GUI clone with a lack of customization that can be circumvented with extensions except for performance (still laggy even if it improved also a lot).

<comment><USER45> > bluetooth/pulseaudio not snappy and reliable

Without patching of pulseaudio, microphone on a bluetooth headset doesn't work anyway. I'd take not snappy but working any day, really. Maybe in Pulseaudio 14 this will get resolved, there are a couple of proposals/drafts already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> It doesn't have to be Windows or Linux, it can be Windows and Linux. I just use Arch Linux on my Windows machine using WSL 2. Arch is my favourite linux distro with a really brilliant package manager and because of it being bleeding edge. By running it inside of WSL2, I don't have to bother much about stability since it's running inside Windows. But at the same time I get a full blown proper linux distro for my development work.

<comment><USER47> And similarly, Windows runs incredibly well under QEMU if you want to do it that way around, though that kind of setup really requires a second GPU to be performant so is better suited to desktops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> > Linux has a 255 bytes limitation for file names (this translates to just 63 > four-byte characters in UTF-8) - not a great deal but copying or using files > or directories with long names from your Windows PC can become a serious > challenge.

Most file systems on Linux like ext4 have a 255 byte file name limit. There's no limit in the kernel.

I think Windows' effective 260-char total path limit is worse.

<comment><USER9> > Windows' effective 260-char total path limit

was lifted a few years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> It still hurt me a bit to say it, but I have a really smooth experience with Linux on Windows 10 thanks to WSL2, the new Windows terminal, and the integration with VS Code. I use Linux a lot on desktop through windows and I have almost none of the issues listed there. Windows has other issues but not as annoying or time consuming to fix for me.

</comment><comment><USER50> It's 2020, and I still have to manually enable Wifi Mesh Networking (802.11s) and recompile in Debian, even Buster. But that is a minor inconvenience, and takes 5 minutes. I do that for some other package too, for some niche options, but it's very easy to do in Debian.

</comment><comment><USER51> Money and corporate influence and culture is a big cause of most of those problems.

If Linus Torvalds had been born american (just discovered he is naturalized american since 2010 [https://lwn.net/Articles/404729/](https://lwn.net/Articles/404729/) ), I'm pretty certain Linux would be quite a different beast today.

Generally, computing works best when the software dictates the homogeneity of hardware, something Microsoft managed to do. Microsoft is able to influence the hardware industry, which is why windows is a success.

I'm also suspecting microsoft got some kind of relationship with hardware vendors, to help them write drivers etc.

If you look at android, it's exactly the same scenario: the hardware follows the software, not the other way around.

Hardware will always be the problem, especially as long as hardware tools are also proprietary, and generally all you need to do is follow how the US maintains its grip on the industry.

</comment><comment><USER52> My desktop is a Raspberry Pi, you insensitive clod!

</comment><comment><USER53> Considering Microsoft's recent investments in OSS, it would be awesome to see a Linux distro developed and/or funded by Microsoft that makes the adoption of Linux an easier process.

<comment><USER54> The meme from way back when was that openSUSE was basically "Microsoft Linux", but I don't know what triggered that (maybe YaST making AD domain membership relatively painless?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I don't recommend Linux as a desktop anymore (free99 sold me for a while though).

Still beats windows on older hardware..when it comes to minimal browser boxes Linux is still the best.

<comment><USER41> That's a bit throwing the baby with the bathwater. There is a significant amount of people who use their machines in extremely simple ways, ie. web browsing. Desktop Linux is perfectly fine for that.

<comment><USER56> Unfortunately I have to disagree with even that. Firefox (the default browser in most Linux distros) can't do hardware accelerated video, so you tend to get tearing/stuttering or at the very least a higher CPU load when watching YouTube for example, compared to say Windows, resulting in increased battery consumption if a laptop or at the very least increase fan speeds.

I know it's being worked on with Firefox having acceleration worked on in Wayland, but right now, if even the simplest and most common use-cases have major downsides compared to Windows/OS X, it's hard to justify moving to a worse experience. Windows rules with vendor support, that's just how it is. I've grown tired of having to compromise.

<comment><USER47> AFAIK OSX hides from userland the support for VP9 decode acceleration present in the Macbook's hardware, Youtube's primary codec these days, so now Firefox supports VAAPI under Wayland it is already ahead of OSX/Macbooks in this regard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Most of the problems are valid, but some of them are... very much not, and haven't been for years (and others are "problems" but absolutely not "major" by any stretch).

> NVIDIA Optimus technology which is used in most laptops often doesn't work > well in Linux.

Then stop buying them. My laptop (Intel + AMD) works fine w/ Mesa, regardless of which GPU I'm using (Intel iGPU by default, and AMD if I set DRI_PRIME=1 for a given application, e.g. in a game's launch options in Steam).

NVIDIA's terrible. This whole section of the article seems to only describe issues with NVIDIA. If you buy hardware that's not shit, then lo and behold, you'll have a better experience.

> Open source drivers have certain, sometimes very serious problems

If "sometimes" means "basically never", then sure. I've "basically never" have had issues with Mesa on Intel or AMD hardware (I'm indeed running AMD hardware w/ Mesa on the very desktop on which I'm typing this comment, and it's been absolutely painless out-of-the-box).

> PulseAudio is unsuitable for multiuser mode

        sudo killall pulseaudio

Wow, so hard. Plus, the hyperlink for "multiuser mode" describes exactly how to launch PulseAudio system-wide to address this very concern (even if they do nonsensically advise against it, because of course they do).

PulseAudio's shitty, but this ain't a reason.

> There are still many printers which are not supported at all or only barely > supported

And there are many more which work just about perfectly out-of-the-box, namely almost everything by HP or Brother.

> Resume after suspend in Linux is unstable and oftentimes doesn't work.

On a wide variety of old and new laptops on which I've installed Linux this has simply not been an issue for years.

> I have personally reported two serious audio playback regressions, which > have been consequently resolved, however most users don't know how to file > bugs, how to bisect regressions, how to identify faulty components.

Most users will report bugs to their distros' maintainers, who hopefully know how to file these bugs against the kernel.

> X.org allows applications to exclusively grab keyboard and mouse input. If > such applications misbehave you are left with a system you cannot manage, > you cannot even switch to text terminals.

Alt+SysRq+R, then Ctrl+Alt+F1

Wow, so hard. Like, this works for even the absolute worst lockups (it's the first step of the "REISUB" maneuver to cleanly reboot a locked-up Linux system).

> X.org has no means of providing a tear-free experience, it's only available > if you're running a compositing window manager in the OpenGL mode with > vsync-to-blank enabled.

Sounds like a "means of providing a tear-free experience" to me.

And, like, does this _really_ warrant the double-exclamation-marks? God forbid you see a graphical artifact every once in awhile.

> Applications (or GUI toolkits) must implement their own font antialiasing

Applications might have different anti-aliasing needs. I see no problem with this. And again, this absolutely does not warrant double-exclamation-marks.

> Wayland doesn't allow XWayland applications to change display resolution

Good.

> Wayland doesn't allow applications to exclusively grab mouse/keyboard which > is required for games and applications like VMs.

Were you _not_ just complaining about X11 allowing this in the previous section?

> Traditional Linux/Unix (ext4/ reiser/ xfs/ jfs/ btrfs/etc.) filesystems can > be problematic when being used on mass media storage.

Okay, so don't use them. JFFS2 has been in the kernel since 2001. F2FS has been in the kernel since 2013. Both are commonly used for flash media. You're also free to use FAT like you would on Windows; that's been in the kernel since forever.

Not that this seems like a real issue anyway, given that I've used ext2/3/4 and XFS on thumb drives with no problems at all. ext2 is particularly useful if you're concerned about journaling shortening the drive's lifespan.

> For the same reason you cannot modify your partitions table and resize/move > the root partition on the fly.

I've resized my root partition on-the-fly multiple times with zero issues whatsoever. The fact that I use LVM on all my desktops/laptops might help with that.

> No unified installer/package manager/universal packaging format/dependency > tracking across all distros

The whole point of a Linux distro is to be able to differentiate on things like package management or system configuration. No package manager is perfect for all use cases.

And besides, AppImage works on pretty much every distro that uses a reasonably-modern glibc, and literally doesn't care about the distro itself. If your concern is "well I don't want to have to build packages for each and every packaging system out there", then AppImage is your tool, so use it.

> It should be possible to install any software by downloading a package and > double clicking it

Which is totally possible, thanks to things like AppImage (well, you download it somewhere and mark it executable, but wow, so hard). Hell, most distros support this even for .deb and/or .rpm packages.

openSUSE also has 1-click installers, but it seems like they've fallen out of fashion (which is a shame, since they address this issue pretty dang elegantly).

> Applications development is a major PITA.

Compared to Windows? Linux (and Unix in general) is a breath of fresh air in comparison. A PyQt5 app (for example) takes me a few hours (total) to design and develop in Linux... and then _days_ of nitpicky troubleshooting to get it working on Windows in a way that's reasonable for end-user distribution.

> Packaging all dependent libraries is not a solution, because in this case > your application may depend on older versions of libraries which contain > serious remotely exploitable vulnerabilities.

And yet this is exactly what Windows and macOS encourage, specifically to avoid the need for users to manage libraries. Like, you can't have your cake and eat it too; either you're gonna be dealing with dependency hell or you're gonna need to package libraries with applications.

\----

Continued below...

<comment><USER54> Continuing from above:

\----

> No plug-and-play support for a lot of input devices like joysticks and > steering wheels. Many require editing of cryptic configuration files.

My Logitech F310 and my Saitek X52 both work out-of-the-box without any such "editing of cryptic configuration files". At most, I might need to set bindings in the game itself. This applies even with Wine/Proton (I'm able to play Ace Combat 7 with a controller - like God intended - with exactly zero configuration on my part).

> Many anti-cheat protections fail to work under Linux.

Tell that to Valve Anti-Cheat.

> There's no concept of drivers in Linux aside from proprietary drivers for > NVIDIA/AMD GPUs which are separate packages: almost all drivers are already > either in the kernel or various complementary packages (like > foomatic/sane/etc).

Good. Like, how is this a _bad_ thing? It's the very reason (well, one of many) why I prefer Linux over Windows for my desktops and laptops.

> There's no guarantee whatsoever that your system will (re)boot successfully > after GRUB (bootloader) or kernel updates

That's much less of an issue with UEFI (where you're not mucking with boot sectors and such). And kernel updates haven't been an issue for me for years.

> Samba is not native

How is it not native? Just because it's "reverse-engineered" doesn't mean it doesn't ship with most/all modern distros and can be used for filesharing.

> Steep learning curve (even today you oftentimes need to use a CLI to > complete some trivial or non-trivial tasks, e.g. when installing third > [party software]).

The link is to a question that specifically asks how to do it through the command-line. The user didn't _have_ to do it that way (Google has provided .deb and .rpm packages on chrome.google.com for as long as I can remember, and nearly all distros using either package format are able to graphically install such packages with a double-click).

> Most well written GUI applications for Windows 95 will work in Windows 10 > (24 years of binary level compatibility)

And most "well written" GUI applications for Linux 1.2 (which is when Linux switched from a.out to ELF) will work in Linux 5.4.31 (24 years of binary level compatibility). The problem is that applications are rarely "well written"; there are plenty of poorly-written Windows applications that don't run on more modern versions, and Linux is no different.

If your (statically linked) Linux 1.2 compiled application doesn't run on the latest-and-greatest Linux, then that's a bug of the "Linus will verbally abuse someone on the LKML" variety.

> No standard way of software deployment (pushing software via SSH is indeed > an option, but it's in no way standard, easy to use or obvious - you can use > a sledgehammer to crack nuts the same way).

So? There are plenty of options here, ranging from "pushing software via SSH" to widely-used and industry-standard tools like Puppet and Chef.

> No CIFS/AD level replacement/ equivalent (SAMBA doesn't count for many > reasons)

Why doesn't SAMBA count? I've literally used SAMBA 4 as an AD domain controller in production (with Windows, macOS, and Linux domain members). Works fine.

There's also FreeIPA, but I don't have as much experience with it (besides trying it out when it was first announced, during which point it was pretty buggy, though Fedora was probably just as much to blame).

> No filesystems at all to support per-file encryption

        gpg --encrypt --sign --armor -r firstname.lastname@example.com wow-so-hard.txt

        openssl enc -in wow-so-hard.txt -out wow-so-hard.txt.enc -e -aes256 -pbkdf2 -pass 'pass:WOW SO HARD'

Like yeah, I guess it's cool if the FS itself supports encryption, but this seems like it's best left to the application (and obviously end-users shouldn't be expected to run these commands themselves, but applications can certainly do so or - better yet - use the actual underlying libraries).

<comment><USER9> Can your grandma do everything that you've just written? Is she even able to find all these solutions in the first place?

Yes, many (but not all, including compatibility, regressions and lack of proprietary software) Linux issues might be solved or worked around. This doesn't make the OS any more suitable for the average tech-illiterate Joe.</comment></comment></comment>


Box hands cloud encryption keys over to its customers - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/02/box-hands-cloud-encryption-keys-over-to-its-customers/

<comment><USER2> Seems like it will protect data-at-rest really well. Unfortunately there's still the issue of the file/Box Key existing[0] in plaintext on Box's servers. You're trusting them to keep those servers secure against intrustion, and not to retain copies of the plaintext file/Box Key.

If you use this feature and someone seizes all your existing data from Box then they'll still need to use your Customer Keys and your HSMs to decrypt it. Fantastic. If, however, they compromise the servers and start stealing the Box Keys as they are generated then they'll have be able to decrypt the data encrypted with those Box Keys. Not so fantastic. It's a trade-off which may be worth it in some cases, but it's a trade-off nonetheless.

I wish reporters who write about this stuff would challenge the security model more than just asking Box PR if the service is secure.

[0] In memory, during encryption/decryption. [https://blog.box.com/2015/02/breaking-the-last-barrier-to- cl...](https://blog.box.com/2015/02/breaking-the-last-barrier-to-cloud- adoption-with-box-enterprise-key-management/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems cool. I think it's safe to assume that the #1 concern of those unwilling to store their data in "the cloud" is the (valid) fear that service-provider-X has the ability to look at your files.

I think it's worth noting that this seems very similar to Spider Oak's zero- knowledge feature ([https://spideroak.com/zero- knowledge/](https://spideroak.com/zero-knowledge/)), which they implemented a long time ago.</comment>


How to Look Like a Badass at Your Next Tech Conference - <AUTHOR> http://thecooperreview.com/how-to-look-like-a-badass-next-tech-conference/ <comment><USER2> I'd enjoy the sarcasm more if I were more familiar with tech conferences. I assume the situations described are exaggerated tech conference tropes, but I don't have the firsthand experience to know for sure.</comment>


I dreamed Elon Musk hugged me for writing him some code - <AUTHOR> By the way I dreamed last night that I meet Elon musk, and he asked me to write some code to show some statistics of the latest SpaceX launch.  He told me to email some guy, so he would send me the raw data.  He hugged me and then went away.  I emailed that guy, but he didn't answer me, so I got stressed out.<p>Then I woke up feeling good this was only a dream that he didn't reply and feeling bad Elon musk didn't hug me for writing him some code. <comment><USER2> Dude you need to go play outside more</comment>