Sometimes I hate Linux

[Arwen]

At work they are migrating everything to RHEL. In one case it made a bit of sense. We have a mixture of mostly RHEL, then some AIX and Solaris. They have been threatening to get rid of Solaris since I started 4 years ago. Has not happened, though they did migrate some functions to RHEL.

We have multiple problems with RHEL.

The biggest is that some security tool we are contractually required to use, breaks every Linux kernel update. That vendor, (not Red Hat), is working on kernel API agnostic version. But, it is not here. So we occasionally have to delay RHEL patching that includes a kernel patch until that vendor can validate their software. (Or really, give us a new version that we can deploy BEFORE the new kernel update).

The Linux people call this kernel API breakage a "Feature". Real Unix OSes like Solaris, FreeBSD & AIX, (shudder), don't have this problem. Of course, those other Unix OSes may have other problems.


Next problem with RHEL is backing out a patch. Our AIX LPARs use broken mirrors for their root volume group as back out plan for the OS prior to patching. Have not really had to use that back out plan much.

Solaris of course uses alternate boot environments via ZFS snapshots & clones to allow booting to prior versions of the OS. We HAVE used this on occasion. For example, when an application person went wild with "chmod -R" or "chown -R" from the wrong directory, as "root". (Yes, we know app people should not have "root", I am still fighting that battle, and making progress...)

RHEL back out? It's either restore the server from the prior night's VMWare snapshot backup. (Which requires the VMWare team, AND paperwork, to perform that operation.) Or manually back out all the patches. No simple reboot to the old OS just before patching.


I experimented at home with alternate boot environments under Linux. Even 3 different flavors, and later experimenting, (but not actually using), a 4th.

• Extra OS partition, referenced by a different Grub entry. Each patch session makes a copy to that other partition, so easy back out is to reboot and select different Grub entry. Used this for a few years.
• BTRFS - I used this for a while, but I never felt safe using it. BTRFS initially had some quirks in that you could not name a clone on creation, thus you had to edit the prior & new boot environment's "/etc/fstab" AFTER you created the clone. That was fixed. Again used this for a few years on some home Linux computers.
• LVM extra volume - It is possible to have another OS volume in LVM and boot off it. A simple OS copy with RSync or such and away you go. Similar to the "Extra OS partition", except you can have LVM manage it. I tested this, it works, though never used it at home.
• ZFS - It's the best of the 4, even under Linux and exclusively what I use today. Enough said.

All in all, sometimes I hate having to deal with the Linux drama. Some people think it is the greatest thing. Some seem to worship it as the only "real" OS. When in reality it is the Distros that they are worshiping. Linux is just the kernel, (and module headache). The distros add the fluff that people need and use.


So back to my title, "Sometimes I had Linux". I use Linux more or less exclusively at home, (except for TrueNAS). Every now and then I have to fight with it to get something done. But, I wish Linux "Distros" gave a better experience. So I can't see the "year of Linux desktop" happening this decade.

Linux kernel needs less new features, except drivers for new hardware. But, we need more kernel stability and better distros.

 

[Jailer]

So I can't see the "year of Linux desktop" happening this decade.

That's because the majority of users of linux that you would find in a place like this aren't your average user. The "year of Linux desktop" needs to adopt the J6P crowd and they want something that works just like windows does or the "year of Linux desktop" will never happen. Gamers are the only wild card in that scenario that might push the needle a bit in the direction of linux if it's done right.

 

[Etorix]

Linux kernel needs less new features, except drivers for new hardware. But, we need more kernel stability and better distros.

Thanks for educating the mostly non-Linux-users and mostly happy readers here (in my case, these attributes are clearly correlated…) by sharing your pain.

From my totally unqualified point of view, the mythical "year of the Linux desktop" would require:

• Taming the GPL fundamentalists. ("Peace to the World" or solving P=NP are likely to be far easier undertakings…)
• Kernel API stability.
• Essentially ONE distro, because the current gazillion of mutually incompatible distros is impossible to navigate for a non-initiated (and about as hard to make sense of as the irreducible divergences between Trotskyist fractions…) and, in the absence of The-One-Distro-To-Bind-Them-All, one can safely expect that any attempt by any given distro to move a hair closer to being "THE Linux desktop for everyone" would be methodically crushed by the heinous rants of the fanboys of other distros (same destructive behaviour as the irreducible Trotskyist fractions of the previous parenthesis).

Which is why I expect that the "year of the Linux desktop" will come long after the last remaining proton in the Universe had disintegrated.

 

[Arwen]

I should probably clarify this statement, (with the bolded words);

Linux kernel needs less new features, except drivers for new hardware. But, we need more kernel stability, (aka bug & security fixes). and better distros.

 

[Davvo]

Well, in a relationship it's inevitabile to quarrel.

 

[SecCon]

All in all, sometimes I hate having to deal with the Linux drama. Some people think it is the greatest thing. Some seem to worship it as the only "real" OS. When in reality it is the Distros that they are worshiping. Linux is just the kernel, (and module headache). The distros add the fluff that people need and use.
.../...
Linux kernel needs less new features, except drivers for new hardware. But, we need more kernel stability and better distros.

I have come to realize that nothing is standardized in Linux. Every damn joe/jane and his/her distro seems to think their way or the high way. I hate it utterly. Yet, there are of course several systems that work rather well despite that, like the one hosting this forum. I just wish less customization and scripting was needed to get stuff working. More point - click - start - work and less random script from reddit.

Actually planned on posting a rant about it, but maybe this could be enough.