What's Wrong with Linux?

Date: Nov 18, 2005

To A. Lizard, Linux is a lovable mutt: reliable, stable, and darned safe, but not nearly as easy to use as Windows or Mac. In this article, he analyzes what's wrong with Linux distributions as a breed.

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Linux servers are ready for prime time and most web sites run on them. This article examines Linux desktop problems.

I've used Linux for a little over a year now, from the perspective of a power Windows user. I can do almost anything on my Linux system that a Windows XP or Mac user can do on his system. My system is reliable, stable, and far safer from malware/intrusion than Microsoft products. I can watch almost any multimedia product, same as a Windows or Mac user. I have both a drive mirror and DVD-R backup sets for backup.

I run Windows on my Linux workstation via Win4Lin emulation, which allows me to run an actual copy of Windows concurrently with Linux. But all I really run on Windows day to day are Eudora (email), Microsoft Office, and graphics software—everything else I do in Linux.

Is the Linux Desktop Ready for You?

With any typical Linux version (called a distribution or just distro in Linux parlance), you get an operating system and a browser, plus a fairly powerful office productivity suite roughly equivalent to Microsoft Office. Are you mainly interested in web surfing and light business correspondence or academic work? If so, and if you can get a preconfigured Linux system with multimedia already set up, it's ready now.

At a shop with lots of people doing "back office" functions or whose office productivity work product is used internally, the company's IT department should be looking at thin-client deployment of a Linux office productivity suite across the company. (Multimedia is no big deal if IT preconfigures it.)

The question "Is Linux right for you/your company?" really means "Is the software out there to support the way you work? If it takes minor changes in your work style, is it still cost-effective?"

Turning an installed Linux distribution into a fully functional workstation isn't really difficult if you know how and are willing to spend money to get past the hard parts quickly. Actually, the biggest problem—other than missing applications—is getting useful information. So much Linux information is available that finding what you need to know is difficult and time-consuming, and almost all of this data is useless to the newbie trying to do a specific task. Some procedures in tutorials take from a few minutes to few hours to apply. Finding those procedures and making them work takes from several hours to several weeks.

What's Missing from Typical Linux Distributions?

As mentioned earlier, the major Linux distributions (Red Hat, Debian, SuSE, and so on) include at least the base-level Linux kernel, a browser, and some combination of GUI productivity applications. But most people need—or at least want—to be able to do everything with Linux that they can with Windows or Mac, and that isn't always simple. The typical distribution is lacking strength in several areas:

Multimedia
Microsoft Office compatibility
Backup capabilities
Graphics
Drivers for peripherals
Installers

Let's look at some of the specific problems.

Multimedia

There are good multimedia apps for Linux. Multimedia files I can't play in Linux are rare. But getting them to work correctly is considered an accomplishment. Why?

A workable Linux multimedia environment requires installing in this order:

MPlayer
mplayer-skins
w32codecs (required for AVI/WMV/QT compatibility)
RealPlayer for Linux (RPM/MP3)
xine (DVD)
xine-lib-devel
flash-plugin
plugger

Why isn't all this software preinstalled? And if applications invoke w32codecs (which can't go into a free Linux distribution due to license problems), why don't those apps help the user get it? MP3 licensing for a free distribution is also a problem, but couldn't you solve it with a pop-up that would appear when you try to play a proprietary format, providing a one-click download/install? Or perhaps MP3 support could piggyback on a licensed product; RealPlayer is already partially open source.

Why isn't a DVD burner application installed? K3b is open source, comparable to Nero, works well, and took me too much time to find/install.

Microsoft Office Compatibility

Nothing is available with 100% Microsoft Word compatibility—by Microsoft's choice. OpenOffice.org is reverse-engineered to be almost completely compatible with Microsoft Office. But if "almost" covers something that must work for you to get paid, you're stuck with Microsoft Office.

Backup Capabilities

Why isn't a GUI backup application included with Linux distributions? The backup scripts I had to write—because nothing out there would enable me to easily back up to a drive mirror or DVD-R archives—work just fine, but I shouldn't have had to write them.

Graphics

The GIMP 2 paint program is almost universally hated by graphics pros. Its user interface and lack of true CMYK support are usually the first problems cited. The KOffice paint utility Krita may evolve into a usable Paint Shop Pro substitute, however.

Is there a vector drawing program comparable to CorelDRAW? Not at the moment, although Inkscape will probably eventually develop into a useful product someday. Another project, the port of Xara Xtreme to Linux, also has great potential. Both are open source and free of charge.

Drivers for Printers, Scanners, Cameras

There probably is no Linux driver for many available peripherals. Check before buying the equipment. The Linux community needs a project to find a way to extract the information from Windows drivers and convert it into Linux formats.

Installers for Applications

Linux applications are usually installed from the command line:

rpm –Uvh filename

On the simplest self-contained programs, this method works fine. If the install fails, you usually get error: Failed dependencies: followed by a list of missing program modules to explain why. Have fun trying to find those modules and install them.

Automated installation programs such as yum, apt-get, and urpmi will track down dependent software modules, find and install them, and then install the program. This is better than Windows. They have several problems, though:

Coverage is limited to little more than the details on the programs bundled with the original distribution, although an aggressive web search may find alternate repository sites that have the programs you need.
These are command-line utilities only. (Although Synaptic is a very nice apt-get GUI shell.)
You can't simply download a binary file into a specific directory and have the program analyze the dependencies and download/install them; you must download from repository sites.
Before the installer is of practical use for multimedia installation, you must use a text editor to add repository sites to the installer configuration file. Why can't these installers track down new repository sites themselves upon discovering that a program is unavailable, and add the information to the configuration file?
Why don't installers always place icons in the Start menu, where they can be dragged/dropped to the desktop if desired?

Proprietary Linux Applications

If you make a living with a computer, you generally don't have time to wait for the open source community to write what you need if it isn't already out there. You've heard a lot about free open source applications, but some of the best Linux applications are for sale. Without these, I wouldn't be able to use Linux to do business:

Win4Lin enables you to run Windows applications. I recommend Win4Lin 9.x; Win4Lin Pro doesn't have a clipboard that allows cutting-and-pasting from Linux to Windows and the reverse. This feature is vital in a mixed Linux/Windows environment.
TurboPrint is a hassle-free print driver that will probably work correctly with your printer.
TextMaker is my favorite word processing program on any platform.
Have trouble with getting your scanner to work with XSane? (I didn't.) Check into VueScan.

These packages are easily installed, but make sure that they work for you before you pay for them. Try the demo mode, which on most applications allows you simply to pay for support.

So Why Do I Still Work in Linux?

My Linux desktop is stable and reliable. Even Windows 98SE is stable and reliable when run in emulation using Win4Lin. (Win4Lin 9.x requires an installed copy of Windows 9.x, and the Win4Lin Pro product that handles 2000/XP is not ready for prime time.) During the extremely rare times when Windows blue-screens under Linux emulation, a reboot takes less than 30 seconds, so there's no downside to using it to run the few Windows legacy apps I still use.

Some Linux applications are better than their Windows equivalents. gThumb (image browser) and KView (image viewer) are good examples. Some Linux versions of apps I've used in Windows are just as good, but prettier. (Opera and Adobe's Acrobat Reader are good examples.) Most importantly, I don't have to run the Windows apps with Linux versions in Windows, so they won't destabilize Windows when I run them.

Because my Windows install is protected by the Linux firewall, I don't have to worry about the "critical vulnerability of the week" for the Windows OS or Internet Explorer in a Windows-only installation.

Setting up Linux and then Win4Lin to run Windows in Linux took me a lot of time and required me to climb an unnecessarily steep learning curve. It was very definitely worth the effort; I just wish I could recommend Linux for ordinary users who don't have a Linux support team available.

Given the number of large organizations supporting Linux, starting with IBM and HP, and even governments (such as Munich, which plans to switch 14,000 desktops by 2006), I'm certain that these problems will be solved sooner or later. I just wish I knew when.

If all or even most of these problems are solved, Windows will have to catch up with Linux in terms of usability.