I can accept that label. So while one of the comments I got on a previous post called me a “bozo” I wasn’t offended. The problem is the comment was merely that one word, with no qualifying explanation. It’s a waste of time to do that.
As I often tell people, I don’t take myself that seriously. I’m always surprised by the high amount of traffic this blog gets when I post about technology stuff, particularly Linux, and most especially Debian. Why would anyone care what I think? When I stumble across some new trick and explain how to do it, I can understand how that would draw some views, but when I whine about not liking this or that Linux distro/version, I’m not really trying to stir up flames. I’m just venting here on my own personal blog space. If I published such whining on the ezine site, that would be a different matter.
I don’t love Linux because it’s Open Source, or because it’s “not-Microsoft” — I use Linux because I’m used to the way some things work. Little things. I like the mouse text buffer, separate from the GUI clipboard. I can understand MS having no interest in implementing it, but there’s no excuse for Apple, since the mouse-paste is a Unix thing. I’m told it would not take much to make it happen. It even works on the console. I also like how the Linux framebuffer is so advanced and downright pretty.
There are plenty of things I don’t like in Linux. I really do not like X at all. I do like the way HAL and DBUS have saved a lot of heartache, but I have come to despise the primary desktops which use that. The GNOME Project reflects the very worst of Open Source coding practices and mentality. I use GNOME 2.14, and have used 2.16 a great deal in the past, but later releases are less usable. However, the entire GNOME community is bluntly hostile, even ugly, over the mere suggestion they should ever consider supporting the best of their previous releases. GNOME says there is no yesterday. KDE is no better, but at least I have had better luck getting later projects to compile on older releases. Still, if they respond at all, both will be openly hostile if you suggest backporting a fix might be nice. Neither is ever really “fixed,” always broken, always moving forward and incorporating new features with new bugs, etc.
I’ve vented about that enough already. Those who know how to code don’t want to hear from those who don’t. Elitist snobbery never once imagining maybe there’s a such as thing as pleasing the user, the only users they will talk to are users who think like them. So it’s only natural some of the best ever to come out of Linux development, some of the most brilliant solutions, was something from a few years ago.
Right now, I’m very unhappy with the way the Linux community is acting, and the way development as a whole is going. Obviously, some things are working; there are bright spots. I don’t think it’s just nostalgia which finds the bad outweighs the good right now. I believe there is a natural peak of human accomplishment in every endeavor, and we are sadly too slow to recognize when we have reached the climax. And there can surely be more than one high point, but right now the entire Linux thing has huge chunks still sliding downhill. We’ve passed the Zenith on a lot of issues, but no one with any leverage wants to stop and see that. Sure, I could be totally wrong, or simply deeply deluded, seeing something no one else sees because it’s just my own thing.
However, I find there are symptoms of decline everywhere, regardless of the numerous causes. SUSE was a great product until Novell got it; now it’s lost just about all the reputation it gained with their pinnacle release, 8.2. RedHat is still doing great work, but they have an almost casual disregard for laptops. It can be fixed, but it’s a pain in the butt. Various releases of Ubuntu and friends might thrill a lot of folks, but I find they fail to detect some of the most common commodity hardware. On a standard Dell Inspiron, for Pete’s sake, I can’t get past the loading of the desktop background. And on a desktop system, it failed to even recognize the signature on another piece of Dell equipment, a fairly common CRT. It was just as bad on an older HP system, again all standard commodity stuff found all over the world. Other distros are little better.
We are in a very difficult time for Linux right now, but anyone who suggests such a thing is dismissed. It’s too much like a bad religion, with only a handful of standard-bearers allowed to suggest things aren’t heavenly. When they do, it’s likely they’ll be whipped until they get back in line. And surely, if some nobody like me says it, there’s something wrong with me, but gods forbid we should ever think Linux might be going in the wrong direction on some things.
I use the stuff that works for me. Call me what you like and go on down the road. There’s nothing to see here. Move along. Keep your sacred cows inside your fence and they won’t be gored. Meanwhile, I really don’t think I’m alone in this. There’s a lot of stuff broken right now, and those who could fix it don’t want to know.
