{"id":268,"date":"2009-01-05T17:56:45","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T21:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mattfife.net\/wordpress\/?p=268"},"modified":"2009-01-05T17:56:45","modified_gmt":"2009-01-05T21:56:45","slug":"fixing-whats-wrong-in-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=268","title":{"rendered":"Fixing what’s wrong in Linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing is a panacea.\u00a0 Over time, I’ve found the most intelligent thing you can do when making choices is to take the time to understand the good and bad about the decision\/life choice\/political philosophy\/etc before moving forward.\u00a0 If you can’t say both what’s good and bad about something – then you need to do some more homework.<\/p>\n

So here’s a very well balance and well-written article on what’s needing some work in Linux<\/a>.\u00a0 Interesting points:
\n1. Package management<\/strong> – RPM’s and inter-dependencies are a huge headache.\u00a0 I think people underestimate how much thankless work goes into folks who make packages that automatically resolve conflicts and versioning problems that arise with every singe release of anything.\u00a0 I remember when not only did you have to go through the headache of building yourself (which required a degree in CS to figure some of these build procedures out), but you had to do the interdependency updating yourself.\u00a0 Doing this yourself by hand made me want to commit suicide and really turned me off from Linux.\u00a0 I thought windows install\/uninstall was goofy and unstable (leaves junk even after installs\/etc).\u00a0 But when I realized my parents couldn’t even figure windows install out – I knew Linux was hosed for the average Joe.\u00a0 Fortunately they’ve really fixed this in modern versions – but I know what’s going on underneath and it’s frightening.
\n2. Configuration files everywhere <\/strong>– same problem exists in windows – saved preferences and data files for individual programs live EVERYWHERE.\u00a0 Backing up a computer\/system is a huge pain the rear because of this – so much so that I’d bet that a full 50% of backups people make probably don’t actually back up the data you think it did and will get burned later.\u00a0 As a solution, he even suggests it might be good to have a central configuration file – that sounds a lot like a *registry* to me…
\n3. Kernel Application Binary Interfaces<\/strong> – <\/span>kernal interfaces change too much\/moving target.\u00a0 Haven’t had too much trouble with this – but keeping legacy support is the same problem Microsoft has had.\u00a0 Apple went around this by making fat binaries with multiple executables and then just drew a line in the sand and ended backwards support.\u00a0 I personally think that’s the way to go for desktops; but linux has way, way too many ancient apps that have been running in back rooms for decades now – and have to keep them running.\u00a0 Legacy support is a big nasty problem that only Apple has tried to solve well.
\n4. Native file versioning<\/strong> – rollback on individual files has been in OS X and has recently come to Vista.\u00a0 With the outrageous storage capacity of drives today – there’s no reason not to allow rollback saving.\u00a0 Linux doesn’t have much in this department yet – but will.\u00a0 It’s only recently become viable now that 1 terabyte drives are at $100 – but should become second nature.\u00a0 How many times do I mess up word documents, save it, and then realize I needed the old version with revision notes in it.\u00a0 Word files are like 50-100k, why not save buckets of them?\u00a0 Having this built into the OS is a nice way to not have to save 50 files with different names.\u00a0 Space is basically limitless anymore on desktop machines…
\n5. Audio application interface <\/strong>– multimedia on linux has always been a bit of a backwards child compared to Windows, and should be embarrased when compared to OS X.\u00a0 Too many half-baked solutions, but no silver bullet.\u00a0 Agree.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this also implies a whole suite of tools that are user friendly for using multimedia – DVD players, video players, audio\/iPod\/TV tuners\/surround sound\/etc.\u00a0 Even Windows struggles with a nice uniform exposure that my mom can figure out.
\n6. GUI <\/strong>– He actually recommends a committee to define interfaces for apps to use in order to get fast access to kernel managed system resources.\u00a0 He further recommends the shockingly obvious – that GUI’s need more uniform look and feel that were actually developed by GUI experts – not Joe’s backyard garage experiment.\u00a0 This is probably the #1 soft issue for non-linux people.\u00a0 More on that below.\u00a0 But the interfaces question sounds a lot like what Microsoft tried to do with MFC.\u00a0 A common interface for asking for GUI interaction.\u00a0 This is a great idea – but just like MFC – is less flexible than ‘to the metal’ coding.\u00a0 There was a lot of folks that had to go back to Win32 just to get features working they needed in their guis.\u00a0 One would need to think very carefully about what that interface would look like before doing it…
\n7. App integration with X11<\/strong> – Welcome to Windows 95.\u00a0 In linux, if a gui app crashes well enough, then the windowing system\/gui crashes.\u00a0 And people *itch about windows?\u00a0 Agree on this point.\u00a0 Understand how it got there, but what the user sees and experiences is what matters – and pressing <ctrl><alt><backspace> is just as fun as hitting <ctrl><alt><delete>.\u00a0 I see no difference – so fix it.
\n8. Commercially supported save\/restore<\/strong> – related to 2 in my opinion.\u00a0 His proposal is almost already being done by IBM and others that sell *services* that provide you with an always up, always patched, always backed up server to the internet.\u00a0 However, I disagree that this is universally desired.\u00a0 A company cannot really take the risk of the lowest-bidder backup service won’t ever leak their important data or simply go away unexpectedly as things hit the skids.\u00a0 If it must absolutely, positively be backed up and secure – companies must be able to do it themselves.\u00a0 That and I, Joe Average, don’t want to have a bill each month when I can buy another hard drive.\u00a0 But again, very few backup solutions really work well – amazing how bad the commercial sphere is in this department for all 3 OS’s (linux, win, mac).<\/p>\n

Here’s one I’d like to add:<\/p>\n

9. Ripping it off and then calling it your own<\/strong> – I was amazed how many ‘new features’, ‘updates’,\u00a0 and programs that the linux community touts as star children of open source have blatantly ripped off commercial products.\u00a0 Star Office is a good one.\u00a0 When it was it’s own deal back in the day – it was terrible to use.\u00a0 Now it’s called OpenOffice and looks just like Office XP\/2003.\u00a0 GIMP was the most horrid pile of hooey – but has gotten somewhat better now that it kind of looks like Photoshop.\u00a0 X looked like a pile of jagged polygon edges with Motif and now most of it’s windowing systems look just like MS Windows or OS X.\u00a0 Installers now work a lot like OS X\/Windows.\u00a0 Yet, everyone seems to walk around like they were first to come up with all these ideas.\u00a0 They weren’t.\u00a0 My concern is that the open source world doesn’t realize what a debt they owe to their commercial brethren for investing LOTS of time\/money\/effort\/insanely talented people into the experience of using a machine – not just its nuts and bolts working together.\u00a0 And if commercial development went away – what exactly would they be left with?<\/p>\n

Most of the business models for open source are service models.\u00a0 You don’t make money from the software, you make it from the services of setting it up\/maintaining\/consulting\/etc the code for the job at hand.\u00a0 This isn’t entirely bad – but that means money won’t come from investing 3 years to come up with revolutionary ideas.\u00a0 It comes from continuing the status quo\/obfuscation that is job security.\u00a0 I think people have underestimated how much that force will become dominant if left by itself or if commercial endeavors become too costly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nothing is a panacea.\u00a0 Over time, I’ve found the most intelligent thing you can do when making choices is to take the time to understand the good and bad about the decision\/life choice\/political philosophy\/etc before moving forward.\u00a0 If you can’t say both what’s good and bad about something – then you need to do some more homework. So here’s a very well balance and well-written article on what’s needing some work in Linux.\u00a0 Interesting points: 1. Package management – RPM’s…<\/p>\n

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