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Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks
gentooman
2.9K subscribers • 1 video on Hallway
- Recommended by 6 people: 5 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
- Presented by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.
2.2M views5 years ago6 recommendations
Systems programmingTools and practiceOperating systemsLinuxOpen source
Linus Torvalds explains the difficulties of application distribution on Linux, criticizing distributions for breaking backwards compatibility and ABI stability.
Linus highlights several pain points with regards to desktop Linux. From DebConf 14 youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8 Application distribution is a huge PITA Distros break things and ignore backwards compat. Distros waste too much effort on package management Linus roasts his own package maintainer Windows has a better app distribution experience Linux distros expect users to compile everythingWhy it's here
6 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as a classic explanation of the packaging and ABI challenges that hold back desktop Linux.
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I think Linus really hits the nail on the head here. It's the fact that core libs, like glibc, are CONSTANTLY changing their ABI making it damn near impossible to ship a binary from one version of the platform to the next link to this video . You can still run windows 95 apps in windows 10. But running a ubuntu 12.04 binary in ubuntu 21.04? No way.
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I remember a Linus Torvalds video on this exact problem. I found it both blunt at insightful: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks : link to this video
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I watched a great rant by Linus T himself on how distributing code for Linux is a "pain in the arse", but is comparatively easier on Windows and MacOS: link to this video Something I took away from that is that it is Linus himself, personally, that is responsible (in a way) for Docker existing. Docker depends on the stable kernel ABI in order to allow container images to be portable and "just work" stably and reliably. This is a "guarantee" that Linus gets shouty about if the kernel devs break it. Docker fills a need on Linux because the user-mode libraries across all distributions are a total mess. Microsoft is trying to be the "hip kid" by copying Docker into Windows, where everything is backwards to…
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Okay I had to look up what Flatpak was since the link doesn't begin with a summary, abstract, thesis statement, or overview of whatever the subject is. Would it be so hard to start with "Flatpak, a cross distribution package format 1 for distributing Linux applications, is a security nightmare. We'll outline some flaws we believe to be deal breakers"? On the other hand, this seems like an attempt to fix application packaging on Linux which is something Linus has, rightly, complained about very publicly 2. 1 I don't know what to call it exactly, is it a package format or a package manager? Could be something else entirely, I'm not sure. 2 link to this video
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Linus Torvalds also has many criticisms of the Linux desktop.1 None of the commercial applications I have bought will run on Linux without wasting time tinkering. For programming, I'm forced to use Xcode because it's required on the App Store. I couldn't use Linux even if I did want to use something worse than macOS. 1 link to this video
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Linus at DebConf 2014 link to this video >I’m on a record saying, that maybe Valve will actually save the Linux desktop. And it’s actually not because I think games are important! I don't care, I don't play games. I think some people do, so games maybe important. But the really important issue is I guarantee you Valve will not make 15 different binaries. And I also guarantee you that every single desktop distribution will care about Valve binaries. The problem is Valve though build everything statically linked and it creates huge binaries. And that's kind of sad but that's what you have to do right now.
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