[Tfug] Shuttleworth, Re: Desktop Linux isn't ready for prime time.

[bpoag at comcast.net]

....Wait a minute, you're saying someone had difficulty doing something ready-for-prime-time with Linux? j/k. 

These days, given the perpetual state of brokenness that most Linux desktop installs fall into within a matter of hours/days, i'm surprised people even bother anymore. It's testament to an individual's patience...or an indicator of their insanity. I haven't been able to figure out which it is. :) 

Great case in point--I have a couple coworkers who's Linux workstations recently recieved new widescreen monitors. After hooking them up, does their desktop automatically adjust the screen resolution based on the "plug and play" EDID information that's been built into every monitor on earth for the past 15 years? Nope. The screen resolution is hardcoded, set that way when Ubuntu was originally installed. Fix it using the display control panel in KDE? Doesn't work. Doesn't even give you the option. Go stone-age and edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file in console by hand? Sure, you can do that, and hey, it works -- until you reboot......and the xorg.conf you just edited gets -overwritten- by the one...created...when Ubuntu..was originally...installed. 

The whole situation is just......stupid. It supercedes simply being a technical issue when one is left to wonder, "Exactly what kind of thought process went into this design?" You just can't get around it. No matter what angle you look at it from, you come away with nothing but, "Wow, that's really, really stupid how they're doing that." That's happening alot in open source circles these days. As much as I dig open source, it will always have that one critical fault. The more high-profile or long-lived a project, the greater the probability that some aspect of it will become profoundly and irreversibly dumb. Something will change in a really, really dumb way, and stay there, for no reason, even when it can be pointed out explicitly. All you'll get is a dumb, glazed-over look straight out of Idiocracy.. "....but it's got electrolytes!".....*sigh*. 

I've watched Linux grow and mature since the mid 90's..and with each year that rolls by, I've seen things slowly grow worse. Things which worked, and should continue to work, no longer work, for reasons that defy logic. Things which used to work straight out of the box now break over time. 

...Which is why i'm happier with Darwin/OS X these days. All the joys of BSD without the stupidity curve that allows things like MP3 players that don't play MP3s out of the box, or client apps like KDE to overwrite server config files. I'm beginning to think it's because most folks who do software development in OS X don't form large groups. It's usually just one person writing the app. Which, when you think about it, is all the manpower you should really need in the first place if the API is clear and the SDK is full-fledged. 

Cheers, 
Bowie 








----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Christopher Merle" <chrislmerle at yahoo.com> 
To: TuPLEgroup at googlegroups.com, tfug at tfug.org 
Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:09:01 AM GMT -07:00 U.S. Mountain Time (Arizona) 
Subject: [Tfug] Mark Shuttleworth @ PyCon 

Mark Shuttleworth gave a keynote speech at PyCon 2010 in Atlanta this 
year. It was entitled Cadence, Quality and Design. It wasn't a bad 
speech and was moderately interesting but it wasn't inspiring. The best 
part of his speech was when he had brief technical difficulties in 
getting his presentation started on Ubuntu. 

This is a short video interview with him 
http://www.thebitsource.com/people/mark-shuttleworth-at-pycon-cadence-quality-and-design/ 

Most of the talks were video recorded at PyCon and are available here 
http://pycon.blip.tv/, but I don't know if Shuttleworth's keynote will 
be posted. 

Chris 


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