The trouble with Linux: there's too much choice

12. What you want is an OS 100% similar to Windows or Mac. Why don´t you just buy one of those?

11. I do not agree about Shotwell. It has much better designed interface and has some really basic features that F-Spot misses, for example choosing by which parameter to sort the photos in collection and if to sort them descending or ascending. And it uses the same parameter on publishing. F-Spot is just pile of undesigned chunks of code that gives you an appearance of lot of features, but much of it is actually useless. And slow. And buggy. I suggest you study the programs under discussion a bit more before making general claims about their essence.

I am not a developer of Shotwell. I just have used both F-Spot and Shotwell lately and I am just happy to let F-Spot free... Even installed Shotwell trunk, that has some more basic stuff that F-Spot has not managed to incorporate for ages. For example, remembering which was the previous publishing target used.

Take care,

G.

10. The problem is choice?

I find that kind of thinking dangerous. What if governments all over the world adopted the same idea, too? I guess one or two tyrants would applaud that statement, "The problem is choice; let's do away with that stupid thing called democracy!"

True, abundance of choice may be confusing, even overwhelming, but it should never, under any circumstance, be viewed as a problem, nor in politics, nor in computers, music styles or dress codes. Actually, the real problem in the world of computers is a blend of intolerance with the stubborn idea that "what I find useful should work for everybody else." Such mentality is typical of corporate thinking, to which open source mentality does not always conform.

Unity and cohesion are very different from forced goals and limitation. For example, some people may perceive Windows developers as cohesive, but that is simply because they are paid to do the job regardless of what they want. What if they don't like it? They get fired, and someone else replaces them. It's really easy getting people to reach the same goals that way, believe me.

You cannot fire open source developers because many of them aren't even being paid to begin with, so we must understand that the paradigm is different. Unifying all open source developers under the same goal is almost impossible, but that doesn't mean their work lacks a clear direction or is inferior.

I prefer to be provided with lots of choices, even if I have to struggle with some, than being confined into a paradigm in which "the same" should make me happy because all the others are happy with it. Probably many of them aren't happy, either, but they just don't know it because they haven't experienced anything different.

9. The biggest problem with Linux choice is that its pseudo-choice, not real choice. All the hundreds of Linux distros are different enough to be incompatible, but not different enough to offer any real benefits. Different wallpapers, apps appearing on different menus, different fonts, etc, are too trivial a difference to warrant all the effort that goes into making one distribution incompatible with another. Its like having hundreds of different models of car, where they are all identical except for slightly different ashtrays and sun visors.

8. @rule24

Thanks, you've managed to reinforce the stereotype that all Linux users are patronising *****. Keep the good work up you idiot and it won't be long before we all fade into utter oblivion!!

7. 12 years using Linux and you don't know how to install software?!?!?! And you write for Linux Format?

I salute your skill of hiding your obvious incompetence from your employers.

If I were you I'd order one of these fast (or start getting that CV updated) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Linux-Dummies-Computers-Richard-Blum/dp/0470467010/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1287261405&sr=8-2

6. @ ruel24.

Your right. Windows is for the masses. It certainly isn't for T0ssers like you who come out with statements like the ones in your idiotic post.

People that aren't smart enough?. Go find a mirror, idiot.

5. Choice is good in Linux. I'd hate to see the day that I have to either use Ubuntu or something else altogether, like Windows. If I don't like what Suse is doing, I can use Fedora, who isn't doing the same thing. If I didn't like what KDE did with KDE 4, I could have simply started using Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, Openbox, or whatever. It's the choice that's attractive. I'm not pinned down to what someone else thinks I should be using. If I really don't like the state of things, I can even roll my own (with a steep learning curve to go with it).

Windows is fine for the masses. It's tailor made for people that aren't smart enough to figure out that they shouldn't open the strange attachment that came with an email from a friend... For people who buy a new computer whenever Windows gets infected or corrupted and starts slowing down or acting up... Linux is not really for the masses. Linux is for those that are willing to learn a little and open their minds. Linux is for those that have a clue.

I sincerely hope that Microsoft continues to dominate the desktop landscape. They can keep the hordes of people that take their computer in after it starting going haywire because they downloaded a XXX video of Paris Hilton, or whatever.

4. "Recently, the Fedora distribution decided to dump its long-standing photo manager application, F-Spot, in favour of an upstart called Shotwell. Shotwell doesn't have anywhere near the features, stability or stature of its precursor. But it doesn't use Mono either – the .NET-inspired framework that many people love to hate thanks to its third-party association with Microsoft."

That really had very little to do with the decision, and we'd contest your characterization of F-Spot and Shotwell. We switched to Shotwell because we think it's a better project, simple as. We found F-Spot was very slow and buggy when dealing with large collections of images, and Shotwell handled this much better. We also preferred Shotwell's interface.

Development on F-Spot has noticeably picked up since Fedora switched to Shotwell and Ubuntu announced it would be switching with 10.10, but until then, development on F-Spot seemed almost dead.

"If we'd had a global package manager, and a way that we could all share and install the same software, this might not be such an issue."

That's just not going to happen, ever. You're tilting at windmills. The differences between distributions *are*, in large part, the differences between their packages. Asking for a universal package repository is effectively the same thing as asking for a single universal distribution, and that just won't ever happen, on the desktop, never mind expanding it to server use or cellphone(!) use. The cellphone idea is just utterly impractical: there's no way you can run the same packages on a desktop machine as on an Android phone as on a Palm phone as on a Meego phone. They have major implementation differences - Android doesn't even use X. It's just not remotely technically practical.

3. And this is why Desktop Linux will always be niche and inferior to Windows. To many different companies/engineers/product packages all pulling in different directions.

Right now Linux is great as a server or embedded OS, but for anything else, it's just a cheapskates Windows. Until Gnome & KDE decide to pool their efforts and all the Linux vendor can decide if deb, rpm or portage is the standard package management, or even where to put files on the filesystem and how to handle startup scripts in a consistent manner, then Linux Desktop is dead in the water.

2. The problem with Linux is not that there is too much choice, there isn't enough. Choice is a great thing. Good apps do well on mobile phones, as well as on social networking sites, and it's no secret why: communication.

Linux too needs to incorporate the ability to communicate what is good about it-from whole programs to libraries and frameworks. If something is being used, the rest of us need to know about it. In other words social networks, need to be aware of YOUR system event log, and YOU need to be able to choose which, and how much of that information is passed on, and to whom. Equally, I need to be able to choose which events of your log I receive.

A more advanced, socially aware system event log is all that is required.

Linux is simply missing its missing link.

1. I agree. I think what Linux needs is someone to step up and back it with a friendly face and hardware. "Penguin Computers" making good looking, slightly cute computers, desktops and laptops at really competitive prices. Something consummers would understand. It wouldn't be hard to rebadge something. I think too many Linux supporters are too wrapped up with the software and forget about (or aren't even aware or caring about) shipping it and popularising it.

Until that happens it'll remain the realm of geeks and tinkerers. It had a chance when DELL shipped some PCs with it, but they didn't advertise it and so only people who already wanted it (and a way of saving licence money to MS) bought it - and frankly 99% of such people wouldn't have been going to DELL in the first place.