# Linux Sucks: If It's Not Broken Don't Fix it



## Amzo (Sep 14, 2018)

So it's that time of year again, where classes are starting, it's time to put the games down, install my favourite Linux distribution and get on with my assignments and work. As always. I generally run Linux for my system, It's a delicate balance for me, Netflix works, has the driver support I need, and even allows me to sync my files to my freely provided OneDrive account by my education institute. I know, I know. I can do this on FreeBSD, though, as far as I'm aware, no app makes use of kqueue to sync my changes to one drive automatically. Though, I can always do it via the web app. Anyways, back to my main point.

Classes had started back up, after a massive summer of playing nothing but games to relax after a successful year in education and meeting all my targets, it was finally time to remove that distraction, pop back Linux back onto my machine and restore my backup. (Though I couldn't decrypt my full system backup on Windows, it just didn't like GPG). So I rush over to the ArchLinux website and grab the latest ISO to copy to my USB drive. Eager to things set up quickly, and get back to my work. Then, nothing but issues happened. (It had only been a month since college finished for the summer mind).

First copy to USB, and no good. Grub errors and won't proceed with the boot, though not unusual, I still had the USB drive in my USB 3.0 port which grub doesn't like for some reason, so again, I plugged it into the USB 2.1 slot, and still the same. I thought "Maybe it's because I copied it when I had it plugged into USB 3.0", so I copied it again. Still no go. No worries, I'll use DD mode to copy it... Again, still no go. Eventually, I switched application, as I had been using UNetbootin at this point. Switching to Rufus worked, I finally had a bootable CD, so I boot up, and I shit you not, the most idiotic thing happened, which I'll get into below.

So my machine starts, as usual, POSTS, as usual, num lock key lights up, I tap F12 to choose my boot device. Take note of the working keyboard here. Eventually, after SystemD worked its magic, I'm automatically logged in as root, I go to start trying to partition my disks, to my surprise, no keyboard. Weird I thought... I've been using Unix since around 2004, no issues with keyboards, but after some more experimentation, I realise it does not jut keyboard, but I have no mouse. Over 14 years without an input issue and I finally get one. I figured it was just a bug with ArchLinux, but after some digging, nearly all distros are having an issue with kernel 4.17 and above plagued with no input.

No input, I don't know about you, but to me, a computer takes input, processes it and generally gives you output. However, these cowboys who managed to sit and read a PDF of how to learn c in 24 hours and are submitting commits to Linux have done it, they've fucked up soo badly, you can't even do what a computer is intended, and that is to give it input.

Reading scourges of posted about how this version is meant to be the best, they've gutted loads of code, and they've tidied it up, it's the best release yet. Though it can't even do a simple thing like take input from a keyboard? What am I mean to do? Install a webcam and wink in morse code to give it input. Stupid. It is. So after all this time, out of the box, a simple USB keyboard doesn't even function on Linux. The same keyboard I've used for many systems.

I downgraded the kernel to 4.16 the one I used a month ago, and keyboard functionality was back, so I knew it was a kernel issue, so somewhere in the last month, they've cocked up soo badly, that keyboard functionality isn't even available out of the box. It was at this point I thought "You know what, f*ck this shit, I'm going back to FreeBSD" and that's what I did. Immediately, out of the box, I was wowed with keyboard functionality. I could tap away, give my machine instructions again, tell that cute little thing precisely what to do. I was in control again at last. Thanks, FreeBSD. I don't even know why I went to Linux in the first place, the ever-changing piece of crap that breaks when an idiot who doesn't understand what basic functionality is needed in a computer system gets to mess with it.

Typically, this wouldn't bother me, but after working for soo many years and this issue is present in the last TWO release, it's not just the latest kernel version, but the last two 4.17 and 4.18, and I even install the testing kernel from ArchLinux repository, and the same thing happened. It's the fact that they've broken it which bothers me, I have no idea what they've done, but imagine a new user, with no experience, trying for the first time. They may assume they are at fault when it's the monkeys spitting out shitty code over at linux.org.

After this little charade, it's safe to say, as much as I love Unix, I will never, ever go back to Linux ever again, it just doesn't have the professional feel that FreeBSD has, management or the solid foundation that it offers.

So it looks like my platform for achieving my studies on is now FreeBSD. So Hey guys.

I apologize for any language, i tried to keep it to a minimum, but this is truly stupid.


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## funkygoby (Sep 15, 2018)

Try Debian Stable maybe?
Quite the opposite of Arch. In every possible ways.


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## ShelLuser (Sep 15, 2018)

No offense intended but I get the impression you're blaming the tools for your own mishaps. I conclude as much from the topic itself: you blame "Linux" (which is basically only the kernel) while your mishaps seem to sit mostly with Arch. Or your own doing. I mean; when I read that you "_automatically log on as root_" then that _seriously_ makes me shudder at the though of all the mishaps that could have come from that (and likely have come from it, but... that's my own biased assumption).

See: you say "Kernel 4.17" but what exactly does that mean? Do you grab the kernel source from the distributions own repositories or did you grab 'm from kernel.org? If the latter then the way you configure it will also have an impact.

I'm also missing (or overlooking) the part where you grab an Arch or Debian install/rescue disk and try to boot from it to see what happens next. You only seem to address your own system which, once again no offense intended, seems a bit tainted to me considering the comments above.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 15, 2018)

ShelLuser  Some people, here lately, would be far less offended if the story was about FreeBSD and would even give their condolences and exclaim, "FreeBSD sucks!" to applause so ...


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## Emrion (Sep 15, 2018)

I think this problem just happens in certain configurations. But I understand this strong and bad feeling of being unable to do anything... But to stare the screen. 

Also and mostly, it made me laugh. You have a good sens of humor.


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## Minbari (Sep 15, 2018)

Amzo said:


> Eventually, after SystemD worked its magic, I'm automatically logged in as root,


Don't blame Arch GNU/Linux  blame yourself! I've installed it 5 years ago and it's still working without a glitch!


```
echo $(($(($(date +%s) - $(date -d "$(head -1 /var/log/pacman.log | cut -d ' ' -f 1,2 | tr -d '[]')" +%s))) / 86400)) days
1923 days
```


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## Amzo (Sep 15, 2018)

It's not a mishap on my own, it's a problem I could've resolved my self, but I shouldn't have to compile a kernel out of the box. This wasn't just ArchLinux, but also Ubuntu, the fact that there was no keyboard input (Which should be expected out of the box), unless I compiled my own kernel. So say it's all my fault, or blame me for this issue, and the "It's your fault, you just didn't do it properly". While yelling "LALALALA" with fingers in your ears. Though the issue still stands, keyboard is something you need working from all installation medium. How else are you going to install if you can't even type. I'll wait for you answer, i'm sure you'll be able to tell me a command to type into the terminal to fix my not working keyboard issue on kernel version 4.17 and 4.18. Oh wait...



Minbari said:


> Don't blame Arch GNU/Linux  blame yourself! I've installed it 5 years ago and it's still working without a glitch!
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



It's my fault keyboard and mouse doesn't work on the installation medium? Yeah, If you beleive that it's my fault for these not working when booting an installation medium, then sure. It is my fault. My bad, for expecting basic input functionality from an operating system that has matured over years without this issue up until today.



ShelLuser said:


> No offense intended but I get the impression you're blaming the tools for your own mishaps. I conclude as much from the topic itself: you blame "Linux" (which is basically only the kernel) while your mishaps seem to sit mostly with Arch. Or your own doing. I mean; when I read that you "_automatically log on as root_" then that _seriously_ makes me shudder at the though of all the mishaps that could have come from that (and likely have come from it, but... that's my own biased assumption).
> 
> See: you say "Kernel 4.17" but what exactly does that mean? Do you grab the kernel source from the distributions own repositories or did you grab 'm from kernel.org? If the latter then the way you configure it will also have an impact.
> 
> I'm also missing (or overlooking) the part where you grab an Arch or Debian install/rescue disk and try to boot from it to see what happens next. You only seem to address your own system which, once again no offense intended, seems a bit tainted to me considering the comments above.




I shouldn't need to grab the kernel sources as I don't want to have to compile my own kernel. and what else did you think "kernel 4.17" would mean? This wasn't a configuration issue in the slightlest, it's a kernel issue, and the fact that it is only present in kernel version 4.17 and 4.18, but not previous versions should indicate this, but hey, believe what you wish.


Offers a working keyboard out of the box:


FreeBSD
Haiku
Beos
Solaris
ReactOs
Windows
Amigos
Doesn't offer a working keyboard out of the box in latest version of the kernel:

GNU/Linux


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## sidetone (Sep 15, 2018)

Xorg or Xf86 for a past release of FreeBSD had a similar problem, where the default was for Xorg to not take in Keyboard input. I searched for the answer through a search engine, and I found it in a forum, perhaps this forum. I had to change an AllowEmptyInput setting in xorg.conf, which is no longer used by default. That problem wasn't with the console.

It seems input is always needed, unless it is an end user terminal for displaying information only. If the keyboard doesn't work for the terminal, then making that intentional doesn't make sense. It would make sense if it's a problem with the driver for a non-standard like bluetooth keyboard: you said it works here, so that can't be the case.


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## Amzo (Sep 15, 2018)

sidetone said:


> Xorg or Xf86 for a past release of FreeBSD had a similar problem, where the default was for Xorg to not take in Keyboard input. I searched for the answer through a search engine, and I found it in a forum, perhaps this forum. I had to change an AllowEmptyInput setting in xorg.conf, which is no longer used by default. That problem wasn't with the console.
> 
> It seems input is always needed, unless it is an end user terminal for displaying information only. If the keyboard doesn't work for the terminal, then making that intentional doesn't make sense. It would make sense if it's a problem with the driver for a non-standard like bluetooth keyboard: you said it works here, so that can't be the case.



Yeah, Xorg can be a pain to get input sometimes, but this actually is a configuration issue, atleast you could drop back to the TTY and type still to try and resolve the issue, this wasn't possible at all on Linux, you couldn't even type into the terminal from the provided ISO which is my issue regarding this. The fact that the distributed ISO don't even offer functional working input to be able to even install.


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## kpa (Sep 15, 2018)

The Xorg thing with AllowEmptyInput was a combination of being stuck with the very old release of Xorg because FreeBSD couldn't use the newer one until we got KMS and the related drivers into the kernel and misinformation about the setting on the net, even on these forums.


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## sidetone (Sep 15, 2018)

You installed a fresh installation of the older version that worked?

Everyone makes mistakes when code gets gutted and improved. When attempting to make something more efficient, something else often inadvertently gets left out. They have to troubleshoot, and figure out what it was. It happens when Clang is better than GCC, but most code was made for GCC, and there are parts that Clang hasn't covered. Others' and my problem with Linux distributions, is SystemD, and stuff like that.


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## Crivens (Sep 15, 2018)

Well, a system is like a big FSM. With no I/O it can be minimized to {0}, which you did. Good job, full marks.

And yes, others screw up also, everybody does. Since 11.0 the ACPI C states no longer work for me.

But I want to friendly remind the kind ladies & gentlemen here that flaming around gets stuff closed and deleted, especially when penguins are threaded up.


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## Carpetsmoker (Sep 26, 2018)

Your post seems to suggest that you think that Linux developers are some sort of group of blubbering idiots who don't understand what they're doing.

Clearly that is not the case. Most Linux developers are smart; probably smarter than I am. Has Linux (ecosystem as a whole, not just kernel) made some decisions that I think are unwise? Sure. But if you look at *why* those decisions were made then they often have a rational reasoning behind. Not necessarily a reasoning I agree with, but rational and well-thought out nonetheless. Sometimes reasonable people can disagree.

As for your keyboard not working, not sure what the problem is there. You could try toggling the "legacy USB mode" option that most BIOS settings have. There's also a iommu setting that some have reported that can help.

Getting something like the keyboard working sounds simple, but in reality Linux has to support 20+ years of hardware in which there have been a bunch of fundamental changes to how things work (DIN -> PS/2 -> legacy USB -> modern USB). There are tens of thousands of different mainboards in total,some probably have specific quirks that "happen to work" on Windows. I don't envy the people that have to support all that stuff.

It's not just Linux that has had issues with this. I remember FreeBSD (8 IIRC) having a bug with dropping characters in some cases as well, which is probably even worse than not working at all!


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## hitest (Sep 26, 2018)

Carpetsmoker said:


> Your post seems to suggest that you think that Linux developers are some sort of group of blubbering idiots who don't understand what they're doing.



Agreed.  Stating that Linux sucks in a topic title is provocative.  I hope that you get your issues resolved


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## shevegen (May 19, 2019)

Lots of strange comments made by a few folks here.

So, a tiny bit of intro from myself. I have been using Linux since ... I think
2004 or so, so quite some time. My favourite distributions/concepts are found
in slackware, GoboLinux and Linux from scratch mostly. I compile everything
from source (well, almost ... 99% or so) with a set of ruby scripts, all 
available online under a permissive licence (GPLv2.0 mostly; I use BSD/MIT
style licence too, LGPL as well - but I am not going into the why here, this
is just a little bit of intro).

Anyway.

I guess everyone knows IBM Red Hat's systemd, so I will not comment much on
it. Instead, Amzo made a few statements, and others made ... strange follow-up
comments, and I will reply to a few things.

First, the keyboard input situation:

(1)

> the fact that there was no keyboard input (Which should be expected out of the box)

Completely agree here.

sidetone wrote:

> You installed a fresh installation of the older version that worked?

> Everyone makes mistakes when code gets gutted and improved. When attempting
> to make something more efficient, something else often inadvertently gets
> left out. They have to troubleshoot, and figure out what it was. It
> happens when Clang is better than GCC, but most code was made for GCC,
> and there are parts that Clang hasn't covered. Others' and my problem
> with Linux distributions, is SystemD, and stuff like that.

Yes, we are all aware of this. The various different build tools are a wonderful
example - meson/ninja, cmake, GNU/autoconfigure. They all behave differently
and allow the end user different things. And often don't allow for feature
parity.

So we all end up with this:









						Standards
					






					xkcd.com
				




But actually, 200 different standards and all having their own subtle bugs and
oddities.

It's quite annoying if you think about it. Should software development be so
brittle and error-prone?

Carpetsmoker wrote:

> As for your keyboard not working, not sure what the problem is there. You
> could try toggling the "legacy USB mode" option that most BIOS settings
> have. There's also a iommu setting that some have reported that can help.

> Getting something like the keyboard working sounds simple, but in reality
> Linux has to support 20+ years of hardware in which there have been a
> bunch of fundamental changes to how things work (DIN -> PS/2 -> legacy
> USB -> modern USB). There are tens of thousands of different mainboards
> in total,some probably have specific quirks that "happen to work" on
> Windows. I don't envy the people that have to support all that stuff.

> It's not just Linux that has had issues with this.

I think you misunderstand what happened, so I can give you an example.

I have tried out some linux distribution recently, some based on systemd.

That one went straight into xorg-server, but there was a problem in the
setup where the mouse was working (in xorg) but the keyboard was not
working properly.

So I, as a user, would be locked down in such a system. Every time I would
try to modify the system to my needs, systemd would act as a barrier
of complexity. It provides nothing I need, yet it causes issues, with
something simple as above. If the default boot would be to runlevel 3,
which systemd aggressively eliminated, we could log in to a non-xorg
server terminal and try to fix things or look at what is wrong.

I am somewhat ok at figuring out what I have to do with xorg-server
to get mouse + keyboard working, but with systemd I have to figure
out what is going on, where things are going wrong. All for functionality
THAT ALREADY IS KNOWN TO WORK RELIABLY ON THE VERY SAME HARDWARE that
I have been using.

So from this point of view, I can completely understand Amzo.

I guess the whole point of systemd, as it is used, is to hide as much
information as possible from the user. To me this is a hostile idea
to Linux as a whole.

I disagree with Amzo that one should move away from Linux because of
systemd. Quite the opposite, you need to oppose corporate clowns such
as those paid by IBM Red Hat (which admittedly pays a lot of developers
who, SURPRISE SURPRISE, will cheer up any stock increase they can get).

Linux works perfectly fine and it is important to remain flexible and
open, which is another reason why systemd should be rejected. But the
issue is not "just" about systemd alone; it's also how upstream 
developers and distribution creators abused downstream users. It does
not affect me since I can use non-systemd variants of linux just fine.
But semi-casual users? They are sort of stuck. It's like the ultimate
trojan horse on a boat ride for them.

ShelLuser wrote:

> No offense intended but I get the impression you're blaming the tools
> for your own mishaps.

I don't think so.

You can use this straw man attack from you on EVERY component available,
no matter the complexity - you can always say "hah, you fudged up because
you are a clueless noob". So who is wrong now - the person who does
not have enough knowledge? The corporate hackers who create an increasingly
complex system that becomes more and more brittle, with an ever-increasing
attack surface?

I believe that ultimately tools should be simple, as simple as possible,
but also should cover useful use cases sufficiently well.

The xorg-server is admittedly a pretty crappy piece of work altogether.
Wayland has its own problems, look at KDE plasma support and the problems
here or nvidia drivers.

> you blame "Linux" (which is basically only the kernel)

That is just pointless nitpicking. When people use the word Linux
colloquially or what else do you think will people refer to when
they use FreeBSD? Do they refer only to a kernel? Only to a server
system? If not, and you include xorg-server, then why would you
draw this distinction with "Linux" and not include the ecosystem,
but would do so for freebsd? How many applications would you then
include as part of freebsd? 100? 200? 5000? Why would any number
here be better or more accurate?

So sorry, that is just nitpicking.

> while your mishaps seem to sit mostly with Arch.

While individual distributions are largely at fault (Arch killed
itself, quality-wise), there are recurring themes. One is systemd;
another one is admittedly the xorg-server.

It's no problem when you can work around it, but just the above
example of infinite boot loop lockup when you get booted into
a running instance of the xorg-server but your keyboard is not
working, you can do ... what exactly in this setup?

So I think you are missing his point a lot.

> Or your own doing. I mean; when I read that you "automatically
> log on as root" then that seriously makes me shudder at the
> though of all the mishaps that could have come from that

Ah, really? What is going to happen? Aliens will abduct him because
he has as user id the value 0? Really?

Or do you think that the keyboard not working is connected to
him being the superuser?

I can happily tell you - I am the superuser here and xorg-server
works fine. The keyboard works too AMAZING! No green aliens
hijack my system.

The thing is that his problems have NOTHING to do with him being
superuser or any other lower user id. You just focus on it because
it annoys you. Of what concern is it to you?

The problems he described have nothing to do with the arbitrary
number he is using as the user ID.

> (and likely have come from it, but... that's my own biased
> assumption).

It is not just biased - it is flat out wrong and you should apologize
for assuming this.

> See: you say "Kernel 4.17" but what exactly does that mean?
> Do you grab the kernel source from the distributions own
> repositories or did you grab 'm from kernel.org?

Does it matter?

Keyboard support should work out of the box. It does so for sane
distributions. Granted, he is using arch rather than the true
successor to arch (voidlinux) so it is his own wrongdoing anyway.
And he is basing his comments on his experience with arch 
mostly - arch went downhill way before systemd, ever since 
judd left. New people change projects and often to the worse.

> I'm also missing (or overlooking) the part where you grab an
> Arch or Debian install/rescue disk and try to boot from it
> to see what happens next.

Quite frankly - I think a system needs to be WORTH your time in
trying to fix it. And many systems are really setup incorrectly
out of the box (or crippled - see debian systems; why is mkmf
removed from ruby out of the box, on debian?).

> You only seem to address your own system which, once again
> no offense intended, seems a bit tainted to me considering
> the comments above.

No, I think your analysis was very wrong.

You need to realize that a lot of complexity was added into the
linux ecosystem as a whole, for barely any real benefit.

There is, of course, hope on the horizon - e. g. projects such
as linux from scratch and beyond linux from scratch. Now THAT
is actually what is really helpful - and they went a dual-route
e. g. have information both for systemd-free and systemd-tainted
systems.

I guess you may be more likely to be able to compare it the
moment freebsd will become dependent on systemd. When I wear
a mischievousness hat then I think this is precisely what 
freebsd needs - if only to get the freebsd folks to understand
the larger problem domain here.


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## PMc (May 20, 2019)

shevegen said:


> I guess the whole point of systemd, as it is used, is to hide as much
> information as possible from the user. To me this is a hostile idea
> to Linux as a whole.



No, it is very important to hide some information from the citizen, because such information might *unsettle* them.
This is totally in line with most other social and cultural proceedings in the current western world.


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## blackhaz (May 20, 2019)

Linux powers one of the fastest supercomputers on this planet. It powers most of the servers on the Internet. Google runs Linux. It's an incredibly powerful system in the right hands. If you dismiss it on these grounds then - oh, dude - I can point you to so many surprises in FreeBSD you will be running away like there's no tomorrow. Besides, bashing Linux doesn't show this forum in a good light at all. Many smart people use and love Linux.


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## badbrain (May 20, 2019)

blackhaz said:


> Linux powers one of the fastest supercomputers on this planet. It powers most of the servers on the Internet. Google runs Linux. It's an incredibly powerful system in the right hands. If you dismiss it on these grounds then - oh, dude - I can point you to so many surprises in FreeBSD you will be running away like there's no tomorrow. Besides, bashing Linux doesn't show this forum in a good light at all. Many smart people use and love Linux.


I agreed. Linux is wonderful.


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## zirias@ (May 20, 2019)

shevegen said:


> I disagree with Amzo that one should move away from Linux because of
> systemd.


Why? Well, I wouldn't ever say someone _should_ do anything when it comes to choosing one OS or tool over the other -- but at least, moving away from Linux is a viable option. I moved from doing everything with Debian to doing everything with FreeBSD quite some time ago and found many things solved better that I wasn't too happy about with Linux, but I have to admit that for me, systemd was the trigger to finally try something else.



shevegen said:


> That is just pointless nitpicking. When people use the word Linux
> colloquially or what else do you think will people refer to when
> they use FreeBSD? Do they refer only to a kernel? Only to a server
> system?


This might be nitpicking, given the fact that people very often refer to Linux as a whole system including software distribution, so it's wrong, but you have to live with it and everyone understands the meaning. Not a huge problem. It's just a bit unfair in terms of credit.

But your comparison is of the apples vs pears kind. FreeBSD includes a userland, even in the same source repository as the kernel, delivered to the user _as a whole and runnable OS_. This is already a huge difference, Linux indeed "only" delivers a kernel, so you _need_ quite a lot of other tools to make it a complete OS. Additionally, FreeBSD also delivers the ports tree, that's used to build all the packages of third party software. So, that involves all the work that _distributions_ do in the Linux world.

Neither Linux nor FreeBSD include e.g. Xorg. But FreeBSD distributes Xorg packages ready to run on FreeBSD -- Linux doesn't distribute any packages.


shevegen said:


> > Or your own doing. I mean; when I read that you "automatically
> > log on as root" then that seriously makes me shudder at the
> > though of all the mishaps that could have come from that
> 
> ...


Are you serious here? Sure, I doubt this keyboard problem is related to running Xorg as root, but I wouldn't even bet on it. The point is: someone running Xorg as root proofs that his knowledge still needs some improvement. And indeed, running things as root _can_ trigger unexpected problems, e.g. because there is some software out there trying to protect the user against unintended consequences by just deliberately refusing to work as root.


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## k.jacker (May 20, 2019)

Did you read your text from my mind Zirias ? Well said 



blackhaz said:


> Besides, bashing Linux doesn't show this forum in a good light at all. Many smart people use and love Linux.


Blaming all forum members, for one person's post, isn't very open minded either. You should rethink that.


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## ralphbsz (May 20, 2019)

blackhaz said:


> Linux powers one of the fastest supercomputers on this planet.


Correction: It runs every single one of the 500 fastest supercomputers on the planet.  As of roughly a year ago, there is no serious supercomputer that's running an OS other than Linux.  (I should add a footnote here: this only applies to machines whose existence is publicly known; it is possible that the secret intelligence agencies have even faster computers, and don't run Linux, but I find that very unlikely.)  One should also add the next category, namely ...



> It powers most of the servers on the Internet. Google runs Linux.


In particular, Linux runs on the vast majority of large cloud providers or internet data centers; most of those machines are not visible to the public.



badbrain said:


> I agreed. Linux is wonderful.


I wouldn't go that far.  I use Linux, heavily at work, somewhat at home.  It has many advantages, and some disadvantages.  Some parts of it really annoy me, but most of it is fine to use.  For many jobs, it is the correct solution.  Other operating systems have different advantages and disadvantages.  I use FreeBSD for my home server, because there are fewer things on it that annoy me, and it does that job really well.  This doesn't imply value judgement, nor do I claim that it scales to all other uses.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 20, 2019)

blackhaz said:


> Linux powers one of the fastest supercomputers on this planet.


Those are highly modified custom versions of Linux.


> Google runs Linux.


When asked why, one of the founders said, "Cause it's what we used in school. It was what we were used to." And no other reason.


> If you dismiss it on these grounds then - oh, dude


Most complaints about Linux are directed at desktop usage by every day users. Because it's so popular, you get 80% kids on reddit exclaiming how glorious Linux is and, therefore, everything else sux. 

At one time, years ago, we on this forum, and those before this one, considered Linux a cousin of ours and there was always friendly banter back and forth about technical issues and considerations. Owing to my remark about the kids of reddit, and elsewhere, too many people read the headlines and not the facts. Such social media is poison and is the sledgehammer that has destroyed any chance of civil discourse in the world.


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## D-FENS (May 20, 2019)

I think it is incorrect to expect human input as a part of the basic system. Of course, most use cases require some kind of input. However, there are surely embedded scenarios that should be run without any kind of input - for example, billboards and other kinds of non-interactive displays. Refreshing the information on screen triggered by a timer or something.

With that said, the input capability should be configurable and definitely present on an installation medium. That's for sure! But bugs happen, that's life.


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## kpedersen (May 20, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Most complaints about Linux are directed at desktop usage by every day users. Because it's so popular, you get 80% kids on reddit exclaiming how glorious Linux is and, therefore, everything else sux.



I certainly agree with this. Seasoned sysadmins using Linux day to day are still some of the most knowledgeable and technical people I know and I very much enjoy my conversations with them.

However Linux gamers / consumers just want more! More games, more speed, more GUI effects, more Wayland, more bootup speed, more, more, more!!!11
They do not consider that there may be use-cases for Linux other than hobbiest gaming toys. Thank god that many of them still live in the Windows world. I actually hope Microsoft keeps their successful desktop PC reign and the users locked behind their walls; away from us and what remains of GNU/Linux.


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## xtremae (May 20, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> I actually hope Microsoft keeps their successful desktop PC reign and the users locked behind their walls; away from us and what remains of GNU/Linux.


You don't have to hope, they will! It is the users that keep themselves locked behind those walls, not Microsoft.


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## Deleted member 9563 (May 20, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> In particular, Linux runs on the vast majority of large cloud providers or internet data centers; most of those machines are not visible to the public.



A few years ago the London Stock Exchange was running Microsoft code and on the projected busiest day of the year, the system went down for 5 hours. Up next .... Linux to the rescue. I thought that was funny.

Personally, I have great disdain for Microsoft, but that's personal and I have to admit that the OS works just fine for lots of people - including some professionals. The only real point that I can make to bolster my opinion is that Microsoft is proprietary and closed source. There is much to say about that, but at least going that direction the issues are arguable outside of personal opinion.

PS, ralphbsz although I agree with everything you said, the real reason for upvoting you is that I couldn't resist tipping your reaction score from 999.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 21, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> I actually hope Microsoft keeps their successful desktop PC reign and the users locked behind their walls; away from us and what remains of GNU/Linux.


Every time Microsoft swallows some Linux program or embeds Linux into its core, Linux users on reddit and other hobbyist forums jump with glee. So I question how long before Windows becomes another Linux distro and all those users flock to Microsoft Windows--Linux Edition.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 21, 2019)

ralphbsz I completely agree with your last paragraph. I started working on a project for a local company that involves Linux. I can take my time with it but it's frustrating as can be--and I'm not really entirely noobish. But when I switch that off and go back to my FreeBSD workstation and server, I sense of relief from sensibility comes over me.


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## ralphbsz (May 21, 2019)

(talking about supercomputers ...)


drhowarddrfine said:


> Those are highly modified custom versions of Linux.


Nope.  The one I worked on (about 2 years ago) ran stock RHEL 7.1 at the time.  Exactly as delivered from RedHat.  With a RedHat support contract, delivered through a big computer company.

(talking about Google running Linux ...)


> When asked why, one of the founders said, "Cause it's what we used in school. It was what we were used to." And no other reason.


The two founders of Google made technical decisions about 20 to 15 years ago.  Since then Google has grown enormously, so several hundred thousand employees.  Somewhere I read that 70K software engineers work at Google.  The decision which OS to run is not made by what the two founders ran when in graduate school; I bet it is made by a committee of 20 people, who look exactly at technical and financial advantages.  If running operating system "FOO" could save Google a buck or two per computer, I'm sure they would switch.

All the rest of your post I agree with.



> But when I switch that off and go back to my FreeBSD workstation and server, I sense of relief from sensibility comes over me.


EXACTLY!  I spend an enormous time (in my office) working on Linux machines.  I am not a system administrator, so I don't have to deal with setting them up or managing them, but I still use them as programming platforms.  In a previous job, I wrote kernel code and file system code for Linux.  At home, I have a handful of RPIs running Linux; I even had to configure a new systemd service and administer it.  It's doable.  Sometimes painful, but usually just boring and productive.  It's a job, and the Linux part is not the fun.

BUT: Whenever I get to administer my FreeBSD server, it "gives me joy" (to quote the TV star who helps people unclutter their lives).  On *BSD, things seem logical, they are well organized, and it is easy to use.  Documentation is clean and clear.  It probably has a lot less functionality than other systems, but it happens to have the functionality I need.  But I don't pretend that my personal taste should apply to other people.  Nor that the my requirements and problems are similar to other uses.  I assume that using it as a desktop machine would give very different results, but (for good reason) I don't even try that.


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## drhowarddrfine (May 21, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> Nope. The one I worked on (about 2 years ago) ran stock RHEL 7.1 at the time.


Well, when I last read about it, all of those were modified to some extent so...


ralphbsz said:


> The decision which OS to run is not made by what the two founders ran when in graduate school


I paraphrased what either Sergei or Larry Page said in an article somewhere years ago where they said that was the only reason. Maybe I'll search for the article later.

EDIT: Spent a minute looking. The first one I found--but not the one I read--only partially iterates what I said:


> We had all kinds of computers: HPs, Suns, Alphas and Intel's running Linux. So, we gained a lot of experience with all of those platforms.
> 
> When we started Google, we had to make the decision of what we wanted to use. Of course we chose Linux, because it is the most cost effective solution.


Given the choice, Linux was free and the others weren't.


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## ralphbsz (May 21, 2019)

It is correct that Linux can be free, and was free in 1998-99.  Today, it is often not free: A large fraction of commercial (not internet data center) users of Linux run fully supported versions, such as RedHat and Suse.  As I said above: the supercomputers that I know well run RHEL with a support contract from RedHat.

The important thing is this.  Linux (the artifact, the OS one can download or buy in various distributions) is neither evil nor broken.  It is a good tool, better at some things than at others.  Exactly the same is true for Windows, MacOS, the various *BSD, and a few others: they are tools, good at certain things, and not so good at others.  If somebody (like badbrain above) wants to become emotional about them and love them or hate them, that's his right, but he is being crazy and/or stupid (in reality, I think he's just a troll).  Now some of the people involved in creating these OSes may very well be evil; in cases like Steve Ballmer, Linus Torvalds, or Lennart Pottering there is considerable evidence for that.  Now, people who purchase an OS may decide to boycott some versions, as a value judgement on the evilness of the people involved.  I have no problem with that, and actually applaud them taking an ethical or political stand.  But we need to be clear that this is not a technical judgement.

It is also possible to make technical judgements.  For example: I have WiFi card model ABC, and there are drivers for it in operating system X but not operating system Y, and therefore I run X.  That's fine.  But that doesn't mean that operating system Y is broken or evil.


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## aht0 (May 21, 2019)

Not the first time Linux has messed up like this. It happens time to time. I tried to install Ubuntu Server some years a go and stumbled on same issue. Swapped through 4 keyboards before I got convinced problem is not in "my end".

Problem of moving too fast and cutting code/changing code to radically I guess.


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## ralphbsz (May 21, 2019)

I'm sorry, but your suggestion that a version of Ubuntu server does not support keyboards in general is laughable.  Millions of machines run Ubuntu.  The company that creates Ubuntu survives by selling commercial support services for their OS.  If it in general didn't support keyboards, they would be out of business, because (a) their support costs would skyrocket, and (b) once the news got out, people would stop buying their services.  But that hasn't happened.

Now I'm no doubting what you're saying.  It's quite possible that you didn't manage to get any keyboard to work on your Ubuntu server installation.  I've had similar problems.  For example, I had to give up on using OpenBSD (because of too many Wifi issues), and then had to give up on using FreeBSD as a WiFi access point.  But I'm not going to claim that OpenBSD can't do WiFi, or that FreeBSD is generally unusable as an AP, only that in my particular situation it wasn't doable or worth doing.


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## aht0 (May 21, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> I'm sorry, but your suggestion that a version of Ubuntu server does not support keyboards in general is laughable.  Millions of machines run Ubuntu.  The company that creates Ubuntu survives by selling commercial support services for their OS.  If it in general didn't support keyboards, they would be out of business, because (a) their support costs would skyrocket, and (b) once the news got out, people would stop buying their services.  But that hasn't happened.
> 
> Now I'm no doubting what you're saying.  It's quite possible that you didn't manage to get any keyboard to work on your Ubuntu server installation.  I've had similar problems.  For example, I had to give up on using OpenBSD (because of too many Wifi issues), and then had to give up on using FreeBSD as a WiFi access point.  But I'm not going to claim that OpenBSD can't do WiFi, or that FreeBSD is generally unusable as an AP, only that in my particular situation it wasn't doable or worth doing.


It was this one https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1244176
Satisfied?


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## Sevendogsbsd (May 21, 2019)

xtremae said:


> You don't have to hope, they will! It is the users that keep themselves locked behind those walls, not Microsoft.



Yep, they all drank the koolaide back in the 90's and it's all they know so stick with it, warts and all. Those of us that are enlightened have already ventured off the path years ago


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## lauri (May 21, 2019)

I had my first proper experience with BSD using FreeNAS couple months ago.
Basically we had to set up storage for our KVM hypervisor hosts and
NFS/ZFS seemed the most logical way to go.
After exploring the command line I realized that most of the userland is the same.

I've been in the Linux scene by now more than 10+ years.
Lately a lot of disturbing stuff is happening ranging from nonsensical engineering choices to GPL copyright infringements by the companies listed as Linux Foundation members.
I find myself more and more time debugging trivial OS upgrades.

1. One of the culprits of course is systemd. Stuff like mounting USB stick with udev doesn't just work as it did with Ubuntu 18.04. I basically spent half a day googling with no relevant howtos available. Plugging in USB key and having it mounted should not be a rocket science but now it is. There are numerous other annoyances - cron being swapped out for systemd, having machines hang arbitrarily during reboot due to systemd etc etc etc.

2. Now the latest invention in Ubuntu 18.04 is netplan. Idea is great and all, but it just doesn't work. First experience configuring slightly more complex network config - netplan apply finishes without errors but changes are not deployed. During boot the config doesn't come up. No complex scenarios documented the internet, the moment you explore a bit more esotreic config you're left with essentially nonfunctional system. Last time I checked setting MTU 9000 on a bridge doesn't work properly under netplan. 

3. Local storage options suck for Linux. If you need to pool bunch of disks, have SSD-s to accelerate reads/writes and have snapshots then you're out of luck. I've been actually insane enough to try to use Btrfs in production but the list of bugs is neverending - out of disk space errors, pools becoming unmountable after reboot, kernel hangs etc etc. I also used my fair share of LVM with a more classic filesystems but it still doesn't feel right.
ZFS does snapshots, dedup, compression, SSD acceleration and more.

It seems the cloud is priority no 1 for Linux now and using it on bare metal servers is real pain.
Couple days ago I played with chyves and iocage. I am seriously considering swapping out Ubuntu/KVM as my hypervisor host and use chyves instead. I was especially surprised about not having to have graphical console to the VM-s and seeing GRUB over SSH just made me smile.


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## ralphbsz (May 21, 2019)

aht0 said:


> It was this one https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1244176
> Satisfied?


OK, so it only applies to "old hardware" (not specified, but it looks like using 32-bit machines in 2013, which is about 10 years outdated), but that use USB keyboards.  Plug in a PS2 keyboard, problem solved.  I bet it only affected a very small (percent?) subset of Ubuntu Server customers.  This does not mean that Ubuntu Server is broken because it can not use keyboards, that statement is probably 90% or 99% false.

Now, I readily admit that this is bad enough.  And that a commercial product that people pay money for (which Ubuntu can be, if you buy support) should have better quality control.  But you can't leap from that to "Linux sucks" as a general statement.


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## aht0 (May 21, 2019)

Did I stated "Linux sucks" anywhere? It might have been 32bit iso, my machines themselves are all 64bit compatible and were back then. But when it had <4Gb Ram I often didnt care if software was 32bit.

For me it was pure sloppiness releasing obviously untested images and it's a word I have been associating with Linux for a long time. With rare exceptions like RHEL and Debian Stable. Cram in latest biggest features as fast as possible, experimental or half tested - does not matter - churn out iso's and let users be lab rats.


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## ralphbsz (May 22, 2019)

lauri said:


> 3. Local storage options suck for Linux. If you need to pool bunch of disks, have SSD-s to accelerate reads/writes and have snapshots then you're out of luck.


Why not use ZFS on Linux?  It pretty much has feature parity with ZFS on FreeBSD, and actually the two ZFS versions are getting closer to each other.  I hear good things about it, but have never tried it myself (since I only use ZFS at home, and there my server is FreeBSD).

There are also commercial file system options available for Linux.  They tend to cost big money.  In my humble opinion, if your storage is important and big enough (meaning you are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on disk drives), then buying a dozen K$ worth of storage software can be a good investment.



> I've been actually insane enough to try to use Btrfs in production but the list of bugs is neverending


Don't do that.  BtrFS has a horrible reputation; it is fundamentally a machine for destroying data.  It was an interesting experiment, and I know a few of the people involved pretty well personally (they are smart and hard-working).  But in the end, it wasn't possible to productize it into a functioning system, and the (serious) bugs have been killing it.



> It seems the cloud is priority no 1 for Linux now ...


I actually doubt it.  There is not a single entity that controls Linux, and that can set coherent priorities.  There is Linus and a small group of kernel developers, who have some control over the kernel; there is Lennart, who has taken over all decisions about integrating init-relatived stuff; there is the Linux Foundations, and its donors (all of which have different goals), there is RedHat (now a division of IBM), as the 400-lbs gorilla of Linux distributors and companies that make good money off of Linux, there are companies such as IBM, SAP, Oracle, HP, Dell, that need Linux because they need to have a functioning OS for their (systems/hardware/middleware/services) customers to run, and there are the big FAANG cloud companies that need an OS for their zillions of servers.  They all have different priorities, and all limited influence.


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## badbrain (May 26, 2019)

ralphbsz Don't mind my post. Most people said Btrfs works for them or they've never lost data with Btrfs or something like that indeed are hobbyist and run Linux as a desktop OS on their PC. Don't mind their opinions, since they have no authority to judge about server class quality requirements. I myself use Ubuntu Mate with root on Btrfs since 14.04 with no problems, it's a single 160gb disk with one big Btrfs partition and 4gb swap. We can't put swapfile on Btrfs.


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