Sometimes (rarely, alas) a disillusioned Linux Desktop user will make an incontrovertible, gotcha, point. Well, actually, it happens quite often; but very rarely is it so totally, awesomely, incontrovertible that even Linux fanboys can’t disagree.
This is where they deploy their weapon of last resort:
“That’s just ranting! It doesn’t help with fixing the problem!”
A perfect example of this is http://www.osnews.com/story/21999/Editorial_X_Could_Learn_a_Lot_from_Vista_Windows_7. Lead paragraph:
“Over the past couple of months, and especially over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working very hard to write and complete my thesis. I performed all the work on Windows 7, but now that the thesis is finally done, submitted, and accepted, I installed Ubuntu – and immediately I was reminded of why I do not do any serious work on Linux: the train wreck that is X.org.”
This leads on to a touching little tale wherein resizing a window takes the whole of X down, followed by a reasoned analysis. Several respondents dismiss the entire article with the simple phrase, That’s just ranting!
It’s a good thread for comments, including
“Well, it would work if only …”
“X doesn’t have enough developers …”
“What’s new? We’ve known this for 12 years. Yawn …”
“It’s all the fault of proprietary firmware …”
“It’s too late to replace X because every application depends on it …” (which is my favourite)
... and various insane discussions about the internal architecture of X (apparently there is one. It may or may not use sockets. Sometimes).
All of which misses the point. For this knowledgeable user, X is a crippling waste of time, and a single good enough reason not to use the Linux Desktop.
But that’s just ranting…
Comments
If only the idea that they couldn’t replace X because apps depend on it. Xorg is the steaming pile of crap. I’ve never seen XQuartz go down and I regularly have to do X forwarding. In fact, the only annoyance that I’ve ever had with it is that sometimes windows spawn with their resize handle of the screen.
You sir are a jenious. Please write a massive tome of “just ranting” fur teh lulz.
@Declination
I still hold that X should be just that — ex. Swatted With a Large Knobkerry, if necessary. Not that this is the point of the TM, of course.
XQuartz is an interesting diversion when talking about Open Source. Obviously, we’re skipping XFree here, and why not? But the interesting things to me are that:
Don’t get me wrong. I seriously can’t be any worse than X.Org, and it really ought to be an improvement over XFree.
But I’m still wondering why it’s not possible to build a sane video stack between (roughly) the HAL of FreeBSD/ the “HAL” of Linux and the big kahuna of sozzled X-dependent applications out there.
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