Posts by LPBBear

Top Linux distros drop fresh beats

Why bother posting a comment like that? I said nothing like what you came back with. Troll much?

I've been using Linux since about 1997. I see the same mistakes repeated over and over in many distributions.

1. Too much emphasis on making it pretty instead of fixing basics. Often new releases have obviously spent a great deal of time "rearranging the deck chairs" instead of addressing obvious bugs and flaws in the release. For example how many of you reading this are using a distribution that forces you to race the DVD drive tray when you eject the disc from the drive before it pulls back to closed? Yet those same distros have clearly spent a ton of time changing themes, wallpapers, icons, splash screens etc on each new release. I've seen these kinds of basic issues go on for years without fixes. I'm sure readers could post a huge list of similar basic issues like this one example.

2. Useless, broken, unfinished, and unfixed abandoned software in repositories. Another common issue. See this one often. Looking for a new software in your package manager. You find one that looks promising for the task you're needing a solution too. You run your package manager to install it. It installs but when you try to start the app it fails or gives some error message or if it does actually start it either crashes or does some weird glitch. Its basically useless. Distro Devs could do a lot to raise the reliability reputation of Linux by only including software in their repositories that has been tested to actually work with their distribution. If it hasn't been tested and proven to function DON'T include it in your repositories.

3. Releasing too often. A release every 6 months is too frequent. Use the entire year to fully develop and test your next release. In the meantime update the released version with regular tested updates. Releasing every 6 months causes too much "churn" especially if you're someone (resller/system builder) who is trying to build a Linux using customer base.

4. Nouveau/Nvidia Driver. I have tried numerous times to use the Nouveau driver with various Nvidia cards. It has failed in some manner EVERY time. Its unfinished not ready for prime time usage. Every distro should make the Nvidia driver the default driver right out of the box until such time as the Nouveau driver is fully functional.

5. Jumping on the its new bandwagon too soon. A long and continuing list of examples in this area. KDE4, KDE5, new Gnome release, Pulse, now Pipewire, Wayland etc. etc. etc. Nothing wrong with new cool stuff but fully test before adding it into your distro as a default I'm absolutely sure the same thing will happen with KDE6 when its released.

6. One of the really cool things about Xandros, before Microsoft trashed them, was that the installer set up your Windows for Workgroups during the actual install. When you were done with the Xandros install your system had a functioning Samba setup that allowed you to integrate right into a Windows network. Right now I only know of one distro that even tries to do this, MX Linux. Its not quite as good as Xandros in this area but better than any others I know of out there at this time. Xandros was doing this 20 YEARS ago. Holy Geebuz what the actual **** have you other distros been doing during all that time.

7. Abandoning libraries and older software. With the limited number of software programs available for Linux compared to Windows why are distributions completely abandoning libraries for older software? I have a ton of older applications that I know could run in current versions of Linux if it wasn't for the fact that the needed libraries have been removed from distribution repositories. In some cases the distributions have even removed all of the old versions of their distributions as well which makes it extremely hard to track down those libraries. I have spent hours tracking down libraries to get a single older game working. Its not that it won't work in a current Linux version, its that some genius decided no one needed the libraries anymore. C'MON!

During the past couple of weeks I have been testing some gaming oriented Linux distributions. While some of them have shown promise, several of them are basically unusable. One I tried had an gorgeous look to the desktop layout but right from a fresh install with zero changes it was freezing up constantly to the point where the mouse was solidly locked for minutes at a time. Another, also visually beautiful, had a mostly non functioning package manager. Since I use the same system daily with another distribution I knew this wasn't a hardware issue. The distributions I was testing are so buggy they shouldn't have been released. Yet you can find articles all over the net touting these same distros as great gaming platforms.

Basically, as long as this goes on the Linux world is ceding the desktop space to Microsoft. I'll keep using Linux but puhleeese. Some of this is just common sense. Fix it out there in distro world.

(but be aware, Xandros, Corel and others were doing this much need fixing years ago. Microsoft did come after them and did push out of business. They'll do it again should any of you get your acts together.)