<story><title>What killed the Linux desktop</title><url>http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2012/Aug-29.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>diminish</author><text>To stress out again; OS/X has the poorest hardware support for 3rd parties; even compared to Linux. Just &quot;think different&quot; and buy some hardware and you ll see what I mean..</text></item><item><author>wheels</author><text>&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. [...] In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just because it&apos;s never happened to &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; on OS X or Windows doesn&apos;t mean it doesn&apos;t happen.  OS X 10.6.7 broke the output on my 13&quot; Macbook for &lt;i&gt;either&lt;/i&gt; of the two external displays I own.  &lt;i&gt;Both&lt;/i&gt; worked fine previously, when booted from the install CDs, &lt;i&gt;or&lt;/i&gt; from Linux on the same machine.&lt;p&gt;Plugging in my Firewire audio interface on the same machine spun the CPU up to 100% and kept it pegged there.  A lot of good having a nice mic pre-amp does when you get a high pitched fan whir added gratis to all of your recordings.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s silly to pretend that Mac is somehow perfect in these matters.  In my experience it&apos;s only been marginally better than Linux, if at all.  And with Linux you have some hope of finding a solution, whereas for OS X you&apos;re pretty much hosed.</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>This is the money quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; The second dimension to the problem is that no two Linux distributions agreed on which core components the system should use.&lt;p&gt;Linux on the desktop suffered from a lack of coherent, strategic vision, consistency and &lt;i&gt;philosophy&lt;/i&gt;. Every engineer I know likes to do things a particular way. They also have a distorted view on the level of customization that people want and need.&lt;p&gt;I like OSX. Out of the box it&apos;s fine. That&apos;s what I want. I don&apos;t want to dick around with Windows managers or the like. Some do and that&apos;s fine but almost no one really does.&lt;p&gt;Whereas Windows and OSX can (and do) dictate a topdown vision for the desktop experience, Linux can&apos;t do this. Or maybe there&apos;s been no one with the drive, conviction and gravitas to pull it off? Who knows? Whatever the case, this really matters for a desktop experience.&lt;p&gt;I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. Or I guess I should say it moved to the center of the two screens so is unusable. I have no idea why. It could be an update gone awry. It could be corp-specific modifications. It could be anything. But the point is: &lt;i&gt;I don&apos;t care what the problem is, I just want it to work&lt;/i&gt;. In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work. In many others too.&lt;p&gt;I can&apos;t describe to you how much torture it always seems to be to get anything desktop-related to work on Linux. I loathe it with a passion. I&apos;ve long since given up any idea that Linux will ever get anywhere on the desktop. It won&apos;t. That takes a topdown approach, the kind that anarchies can&apos;t solve.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bpatrianakos</author><text>Oh well now that you said it the argument is settled. You can&apos;t just say OS X has the poorest hardware support ever and not back it up with anything except &quot;go buy some hardware and see what works and what doesn&apos;t&quot;. Is there maybe a table online that lists these incompatibilities you can link to? Please don&apos;t say &quot;do some research&quot; because the onus is on you to prove yourrself right, not on me to prove you right.&lt;p&gt;You also said &quot;even compared to Linux&quot;. That&apos;s interesting. That statement there gives the impression that you&apos;re more interested in defending your own beliefs and/or choices rather than being truly interested in explaining to us what OS has objectively terrible hardware support. &quot;even compared to Linux&quot; sounds like something an apologist would say. Then when you added in the &quot;think different&quot; line you made it seem even more like your comment was based off some kind of blind loyalty to Linux rather than loyalty to facts.&lt;p&gt;Me? I&apos;ve used Mac, a handful of Linux distros, and Windows for a long time. I don&apos;t know which has the best or worse hardware support but I do know when someone says something based on what camp they&apos;re in rather than what the facts are.</text></comment>
<story><title>What killed the Linux desktop</title><url>http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2012/Aug-29.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>diminish</author><text>To stress out again; OS/X has the poorest hardware support for 3rd parties; even compared to Linux. Just &quot;think different&quot; and buy some hardware and you ll see what I mean..</text></item><item><author>wheels</author><text>&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. [...] In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just because it&apos;s never happened to &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; on OS X or Windows doesn&apos;t mean it doesn&apos;t happen.  OS X 10.6.7 broke the output on my 13&quot; Macbook for &lt;i&gt;either&lt;/i&gt; of the two external displays I own.  &lt;i&gt;Both&lt;/i&gt; worked fine previously, when booted from the install CDs, &lt;i&gt;or&lt;/i&gt; from Linux on the same machine.&lt;p&gt;Plugging in my Firewire audio interface on the same machine spun the CPU up to 100% and kept it pegged there.  A lot of good having a nice mic pre-amp does when you get a high pitched fan whir added gratis to all of your recordings.&lt;p&gt;It&apos;s silly to pretend that Mac is somehow perfect in these matters.  In my experience it&apos;s only been marginally better than Linux, if at all.  And with Linux you have some hope of finding a solution, whereas for OS X you&apos;re pretty much hosed.</text></item><item><author>cletus</author><text>This is the money quote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; The second dimension to the problem is that no two Linux distributions agreed on which core components the system should use.&lt;p&gt;Linux on the desktop suffered from a lack of coherent, strategic vision, consistency and &lt;i&gt;philosophy&lt;/i&gt;. Every engineer I know likes to do things a particular way. They also have a distorted view on the level of customization that people want and need.&lt;p&gt;I like OSX. Out of the box it&apos;s fine. That&apos;s what I want. I don&apos;t want to dick around with Windows managers or the like. Some do and that&apos;s fine but almost no one really does.&lt;p&gt;Whereas Windows and OSX can (and do) dictate a topdown vision for the desktop experience, Linux can&apos;t do this. Or maybe there&apos;s been no one with the drive, conviction and gravitas to pull it off? Who knows? Whatever the case, this really matters for a desktop experience.&lt;p&gt;I have two monitors on my Linux desktop. A month ago full screen on video stopped working. Or I guess I should say it moved to the center of the two screens so is unusable. I have no idea why. It could be an update gone awry. It could be corp-specific modifications. It could be anything. But the point is: &lt;i&gt;I don&apos;t care what the problem is, I just want it to work&lt;/i&gt;. In this regard, both Windows and OSX just work. In many others too.&lt;p&gt;I can&apos;t describe to you how much torture it always seems to be to get anything desktop-related to work on Linux. I loathe it with a passion. I&apos;ve long since given up any idea that Linux will ever get anywhere on the desktop. It won&apos;t. That takes a topdown approach, the kind that anarchies can&apos;t solve.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wsc981</author><text>Printer drivers seem fine. Scanner drivers seem fine. USB mouses and keyboards work fine. Most Apple products can&apos;t really be expanded in many other ways.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d say the hardware support is fine for what little customisability Apple allows on the hardware that they sell. Perhaps the Mac Pro might have some issues with internal cards (I honestly wouldn&apos;t know ...), but those devices are not affordable for 99% of the people.</text></comment>