Ask HN: Why is Linux so buggy?
6 comments
Your question is not really one. It's an unfounded rant with a question mark behind it.
So, let me counter with some questions.
What Linuxes did you try, that convinced you all of Linux is buggy and not one (release of) one distro?
What hardware are you running, on which the bugs surface? Is it a cheap, low end laptop with a stressed out motherboard, for example? Did you run other OSes on that same hardware to compare?
Is 'networking' the only bug? Because if so, how does 'one bug' equal to 'full of bugs' or 'buggy'?
Edit: to be clear: I'm not saying your troubles are not troublesome or the bugs you encounter dismissable; on contrary. I am trying to say that there are a lot of reasons for a bug and that debugging or troubleshooting requires elimination. You seem to have concluded that it is "Linux", to have eliminated all other causes (a distro, a faulty setting, broken or buggy hardware, etc) which may be a fair assessment, but if you did, please give the details that made you conclude that.
So, let me counter with some questions.
What Linuxes did you try, that convinced you all of Linux is buggy and not one (release of) one distro?
What hardware are you running, on which the bugs surface? Is it a cheap, low end laptop with a stressed out motherboard, for example? Did you run other OSes on that same hardware to compare?
Is 'networking' the only bug? Because if so, how does 'one bug' equal to 'full of bugs' or 'buggy'?
Edit: to be clear: I'm not saying your troubles are not troublesome or the bugs you encounter dismissable; on contrary. I am trying to say that there are a lot of reasons for a bug and that debugging or troubleshooting requires elimination. You seem to have concluded that it is "Linux", to have eliminated all other causes (a distro, a faulty setting, broken or buggy hardware, etc) which may be a fair assessment, but if you did, please give the details that made you conclude that.
Running Linux on desktop today has never been better. I dont even know what setup you have, but I've run linux (mainly Mint) on countless laptops/stationary pcs the last 10+ years and never had any network problems. Coming from win XP/7, swiching to linux was a breeze. Driver problems? Try XP/7, nothing works out of the box. To be fair, yes, now and then there are some issues that needs to be resolved. Just duck it and there's usually many links to ppl who's solved the problems. Also good foruma to get good help. I would never recommend Mac today. "Everything works on Mac" is a straight out lie
Depends on the distro you're using and the hardware you're running it on.
Linux doesn't suck. The drivers suck. Fix the drivers, fix "Linux".
(Of course the state of Linux drivers plateaued a decade ago, and everyone else says it's just fine, so I'm not really holding my breath).
(Of course the state of Linux drivers plateaued a decade ago, and everyone else says it's just fine, so I'm not really holding my breath).
TLDR. Because the ecosystem has less money, and therefore developers to polish it.
P.S. Linux, by it's open nature, encourages users to tweak many things on the OS. This also helps to surface edge case bugs that were not encountered earlier. I doubt most users would encounter even 20% of the bugs they hit if they bought a linux machine from a vendor that sells them with pre-installed linux, hence guaranteeing hardware compatibility, and then didn't change key settings, meaning their user work-flows would be on paths tested by the developers. But where's the fun in that? :p
P.S. Linux, by it's open nature, encourages users to tweak many things on the OS. This also helps to surface edge case bugs that were not encountered earlier. I doubt most users would encounter even 20% of the bugs they hit if they bought a linux machine from a vendor that sells them with pre-installed linux, hence guaranteeing hardware compatibility, and then didn't change key settings, meaning their user work-flows would be on paths tested by the developers. But where's the fun in that? :p
I'm just so fucking tired having to spend hours upon hours fixing some bullshit network problem.
So buy your Mac. Problem fixed.
For what it's worth, I only buy Lenovo hardware. I shun HP hardware (except their laserjet printers) like the plague. For me. Debian and its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint) work 'out of the box'. I can't remember the last time I had network problems. EDIT: Yes I can, it was when I last had a HP laptop and why I made the decision to never again buy a HP computer. That computer's wifi didn't even work with Windows. (Well, to be honest, it was Vista.)
For what it's worth, I only buy Lenovo hardware. I shun HP hardware (except their laserjet printers) like the plague. For me. Debian and its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mint) work 'out of the box'. I can't remember the last time I had network problems. EDIT: Yes I can, it was when I last had a HP laptop and why I made the decision to never again buy a HP computer. That computer's wifi didn't even work with Windows. (Well, to be honest, it was Vista.)
Why is Linux so buggy?