# Miguel de Icaza gives up on Linux



## drhowarddrfine (Mar 6, 2013)

Link


> To me, the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros, and the incompatibilities across versions of the same distro were my Three Mile Island/Chernobyl.
> Without noticing, I stopped turning on the screen for my Linux machine during 2012. By the time I moved to a new apartment in October of 2012, I did not even bother plugging the machine back and to this date, I have yet to turn it on.
> 
> Even during all of my dogfooding and Linux advocacy days, whenever I had to recommend recommended a computer to a single new user, I recommended a Mac. And whenever I gave away computer gifts to friends and family, it was always a Mac. Linux just never managed to cross the desktop chasm.


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## CoTones (Mar 6, 2013)

His (and Microsoft) sabotage with Mono failed - so, good news for Linux.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Mar 7, 2013)

CoTones said:
			
		

> His (and Microsoft) sabotage with Mono failed - so, good news for Linux.


Thankfully he hasn't gotten involved with BSD. In fact he might indirectly be the reason some of us got here.


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## throAU (Mar 7, 2013)

I totally agree with him, and its the reason I run OS X on the desktop myself.

The desktop is good enough, has good commercial software support for multimedia, the hardware is nice and there's a whole raft of other cool stuff that the unix desktop just lacks - like applescript and automator.  I doubt the free unix desktop will ever get those two either, as they require standardization and sticking with an API for a reasonable period of time - unix desktop developers are too busy reinventing the wheel every couple of years.

Could you do similar with the command line, command line tools and a shell script?  Probably.  You still can't integrate your script into the (GUI) shell so you can just drag/drop to a folder to activate it (or otherwise have the OS "watch" the folder for changes without messing with cron or similar) - or even cooler, a friend of mine has his wifi enabled camera transfer the photos in it's memory card to his mac, where they are automatically scaled and converted without him needing to do anything.  Took him about 5 minutes to set up, first time he used automator.

For desktop use, Linux is just currently "too hard" to bother with, and you miss out on so much.


Server use is another matter, OS X server is a bit of a joke.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Mar 7, 2013)

throAU said:
			
		

> I totally agree with him, and its the reason I run OS X on the desktop myself. . . . For desktop use, Linux is just currently "too hard" to bother with, and you miss out on so much.



I suppose that my idea of "desktop use" is completely different from yours and de Icaza's. As an amateur I just have to install and everything works (upgrading is another matter), and if it sometimes doesn't, I just stick in another distro. It always puzzles me why the pros have such a hard time with this. I have no doubt that Icaza has computer skills that a way beyond anything which I could even comprehend, but why would he want to paint himself as someone who has difficulty installing and using Linux? Pardon me for broaching the subject, but there seems to be some dysfunctional psychology at play here. 

One of my personal reasons for changing to FreeBSD is not because Linux is "too hard to bother with", but because people like de Icaza keep stirring the pot.


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## throAU (Mar 7, 2013)

OJ said:
			
		

> and if it sometimes doesn't, I just stick in another distro. It always puzzles me why the pros have such a hard time with this. I have no doubt that Icaza has computer skills that a way beyond anything which I could even comprehend, but why would he want to paint himself as someone who has difficulty installing and using Linux?



It's not about it being "difficult".

It's about it being a *waste of his/my time*.  Time is something we are all short of on this planet, and wasting it chasing down/fixing issues that shouldn't happen, and can easily be avoided by simply running a platform that doesn't incur those problems eliminates that waste of time.

The benefits of running a free Unix desktop to offset wasting my time dealing with these sorts of issues is simply NOT there.  For me, and it would appear, Miguel, either.


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## drhowarddrfine (Mar 7, 2013)

OJ said:
			
		

> ...why would he want to paint himself as someone who has difficulty installing and using Linux?



He doesn't. His complaint is the inconsistencies and lack of stability.


> ...the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros, and the incompatibilities across versions of the same distro...


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## kpa (Mar 7, 2013)

Reason I use OS X on desktop/laptop exclusively is that it "just works" and doesn't give me too much hard time to use the computer the way I want. Also it has a full fledged command line interface that I prefer over a GUI for most of the stuff I do.

Getting the same things done using Linux or *BSD just hasn't worked for me despite the promises and I have been following Linux from the very early stages from around 1995.


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## throAU (Mar 7, 2013)

kpa said:
			
		

> Getting the same things done using Linux or *BSD just hasn't worked for me despite the promises and I have been following Linux from the very early stages from around 1995.



Pretty much exactly the same for me.

OS X can host a collection of terminal Windows (to headless Linux or FreeBSD boxes) just as well as X11, and the dedicated GUI apps / hardware support are just simply superior to what is available with X11.


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## CoTones (Mar 7, 2013)

Ha, seems corporation eunuchs again try their old mantra - windows and mac desktops are OK, BSD and Linux - no; especially Linux, because of getting better and better in this particular area...


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## kpa (Mar 7, 2013)

Well not really in my case, I've seen it all long time ago and it's my personal first hand experience that has driven me to make my choises.

Computers and software are tools, if one tool does not do what you want it to do you try something else that does hopefully. Eventually you'll end up with a collection of tools that suit your needs.


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## _martin (Mar 7, 2013)

Well .. I don't know .. 

If I compare FreeBSD / Linux as a server node, I can see many advantages in using FreeBSD. But aiming for desktop both FreeBSD and Linux were pain to use for me. I used to have FreeBSD desktop for 5 years and was happy with it. But recently whenever I wanted to use it on notebook something didn't work - it got frozen on X, switching back to console was not working, flash was not working, etc. I just don't have (and don't want to invest) more time adjusting something I expect to be working out of the box. Especially when I come tired from work and don't want to troubleshoot just so I can watch a movie, etc. (yes, I'd rather invest money into desktop OS ; money well spent). 

I very much agree with this saying: 


```
..linux is only free if your time has no value..
```

Talking about desktop, I can apply this to FreeBSD too.

I love FreeBSD .. but keep 'em on servers.


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## sossego (Mar 7, 2013)




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## _martin (Mar 7, 2013)

@sossego: This picture made my day!


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## Crivens (Mar 7, 2013)

throAU said:
			
		

> The desktop is good enough, has good commercial software support for multimedia, the hardware is nice and there's a whole raft of other cool stuff that the unix desktop just lacks - like applescript and automator.


ARexx, those were the days... <sing>
But getting something like that trough all those steering comitees these days would end in much wasted time, I think. But it would be nice, being able to do as we did on the good 'ol Amiga so many years before.



			
				throAU said:
			
		

> I doubt the free unix desktop will ever get those two either, as they require standardization and sticking with an API for a reasonable period of time - unix desktop developers are too busy reinventing the wheel every couple of years.


Sounds like Linux user land, not like unix developers. (scnr)
Would be great to add something to f.e. KDE that allows for a named pipe to be opened and then you can send command lines to the program, doing almost anything the program can do via command line and UI interfacing, then allow the developer to add their own hooks to that. I do not know how big that change might be on the toolkit, but I would like to see it. You might then use this interface from any language you want. Well, when I have some years to spare, maybe...



			
				throAU said:
			
		

> Could you do similar with the command line, command line tools and a shell script?  Probably.  You still can't integrate your script into the (GUI) shell so you can just drag/drop to a folder to activate it (or otherwise have the OS "watch" the folder for changes without messing with cron or similar)


There are systems to do that outside of OS-X, look at f.e. BeOS/Haiku. The mail application did simply outsource all the sorting/foldering/... work to the file system and threw all mails into one folder.  New mail arrives, it got processed by the code registered in the file system layer without the app being involved, so even when your mail backend programm was not running at that time.

When I am forced to leave *BSD, that would be the way to go for me. Because, yes, I also want a desktop which 'simply works', but then again I also like to tinker with stuff, call it a hobby.

Icaza started Gnome, which was good. Then he got into Mono and drew heat for that. I do not know how much he had to do with Gnome3, which IMHO should be nuked from orbit.
Sometimes I suspect he was being paid from Microsoft for subtily p*ss*ng off users, which is something he also did. But without Gnome, we would not be where we are today, because even if we do not like it - in that case it was keeping you on your toes.

So, goodbye and peace be with you.


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## zspider (Mar 7, 2013)

When buying for FreeBSD, I tend to look for hardware that's been out for a while, I haven't had any trouble getting it to do what I want. A couple of things don't work right now, but their wants and not needs and I know work is in progress to fix atleast one of them. 

Someday it may become too difficult for me to look after anymore, at that point I'd switch to something simple like Haiku, AmigaOS/variants.


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## sossego (Mar 7, 2013)

I'd rather go for what needs to be ported or what hasn't been hacked to work with FreeBSD. To me, there is no challenge in a normal system or the standard architectures.


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## throAU (Mar 7, 2013)

Crivens said:
			
		

> There are systems to do that outside of OS-X, look at f.e. BeOS/Haiku. The mail application did simply outsource all the sorting/foldering/... work to the file system and threw all mails into one folder.  New mail arrives, it got processed by the code registered in the file system layer without the app being involved, so even when your mail backend programm was not running at that time.



Yup. Unfortunately, BeOS/Haiku is even more fringe than FreeBSD for desktop use 

For all the flack that apple cop, the core design of OS X is amazingly impressive IMHO.  Forget Aqua, that's not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about the toolkits and integration betweeen apps and the OS, and just plain "cool stuff" going on under the surface.

Especially given that it is mostly based on Nextstep, which was from the early 90s.  And which could do most of what OS X can do today!  In 1993!!

Objective-C (and its runtime) is IMHO a huge part of how there is such tight integration between apps and the OS.

Yes, there are areas in OS X that pretty much suck (HFS, looking at you), but I just wish some of the ideas would spread to other systems.

edit:
For those who haven't seen Nextstep before...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j02b8Fuz73A

Bear in mind this was 1993, on a system with probably 16 megabytes of RAM.  The days of Windows 3.1 and fvwm.

I wish GNUStep or etoile would get more attention.


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## Crivens (Mar 7, 2013)

throAU said:
			
		

> Yup. Unfortunately, BeOS/Haiku is even more fringe than FreeBSD for desktop use


It was only yesterday that I had my NetBSD 1.1 install CD out of the cupboard and looked at it again. Also, my A3000T worked like a charm last time I powered it up. "fringe systems" do not scare me, because you need to be at the edge to go to new places.



			
				throAU said:
			
		

> For all the flack that apple cop, the core design of OS X is amazingly impressive IMHO.  Forget Aqua, that's not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about the toolkits and integration betweeen apps and the OS, and just plain "cool stuff" going on under the surface.


And admit it, somewhere in your head the voice of a 5 year old is screaming for toys to play with, right? 


			
				throAU said:
			
		

> Objective-C (and its runtime) is IMHO a huge part of how there is such tight integration between apps and the OS.


If Objective-C was having a more orthogonal syntax... it looks like a C compiler crashed with a SmallTalk system (which it is, come to that). Luckily lisp was not added to that mix.

It's one heck of a language, and you can do things with it which are really nice. But much of that also comes from using objects which are embedded a lot deeper into the OS as we have it. Same for BeOS/Haiku, a lot of that elegance comes from the object oriented power trough all the OS. In case of BeOS, what also broke their neck was that you were nailed fix to use the same C++ compiler as the kernel compile because the kernel interface was also based on C++ objects and virtual functions.



			
				throAU said:
			
		

> I wish GNUStep or etoile would get more attention.


Last time I tried it, it did not work really well and shut down itself after a minute of displaying a background. Must check it again.


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## vermaden (Mar 7, 2013)

> Miguel de Icaza gives up on Linux


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