Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks

What Hacker News said

Recommends cogman10 · 2021-05 · on “Rust Is a Wave of the Future”

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 [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.

Recommends mumblemumble · 2021-07 · on “Are we GUI Yet? The state of building user interfaces in Rust”

Linus recently said something that left me thinking that Linux on the desktop has much deeper problems that need to be addressed before it's worth even thinking about the fine details of GUI toolkits. [this video]

Recommends KiranRao0 · 2021-08 · on “AMD and Valve Working on New Linux CPU Performance Scaling Design”

I remember a Linus Torvalds video on this exact problem. I found it both blunt at insightful: Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks : [this video]

Recommends jiggawatts · 2021-11 · on “Flatpak Is Not the Future”

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: [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

Recommends Gareth321 · 2023-07 · on “After 30 Years, Linux Finally Hits 3% Market Share”

> You accumulate software yes, but you also accumulate habits and knowledge. Changing OS means discarding all the accumulated knowledge, which 0% of "normal users" want to do. I only ever hear Linux users make this argument. Mac users are confident enough in MacOS UX that they know it’s not a significant barrier to transition. The same is not true of Linux. So many solutions to problems require opening the CLI, and that’s just an automatic fail for the vast majority of consumers. Honestly, I would like Linux fans to just accept Linux for what it is: an amazing kernel with incredible GUIs built by and for developers. App developers just do not care about (or do not have the resources for) mak

Cites arunc · 2021-05 · on “Linux and Glibc API Changes”

glibc breaks ABI quite often. Linus has roasted about it openly in the past [this video] Notable quote from that: If there's a bug that people rely on, it's not a bug, it's a feature.

Cites eddieh · 2021-06 · on “Flatpak – A Security Nightmare”

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] [this video]

Cites dcode · 2021-07 · on “An Urgent Notice from AssemblyScript”

This is common indeed, and isn't a bug in the affected source languages for reasons. How it displays when printed is irrelevant. Here's Linus Torvalds explaining it better than I could: [this video] And sure you can transfer your string that someone else does not consider a string using alternative mechanisms, but then you are only not doing anything wrong because you are not doing it at all for entire categories of languages. There is no integration story for these, and once one mixes with optimizations like compact strings or has multiple encodings under the hood one cannot statically annotate the appropriate type anyhow. And sadly, adapter functions won't help as well when the fundamental 'cha