I came across this Reddit thread* about why devs use Mac OS X instead of Linux. I tried to pick out a representative set of comments below as I thought it could be a useful exercise to help us refine or reinforce our efforts around the Fedora Workstation. Being human there probably is some confirmation bias in my selection of quotes, but hopefully not to much :)
I think a lot of these items are things we are already aware of and trying to fix, but of course not all of them are easily fixable, like access to proprietary Windows or MacOS X applications or similar hotkeys/behaviour across UI toolkits. I think we made some great strides in the stability department, but reading the reddit thread did reinforce that it is an area we need to keep focus going forward.
Christian
"I'm one of the only linux users in a mostly mac web dev shop. The sense I get from everyone else is they don't want to play sysadmin or tweak all the things. They put 100% of their brain cycles into getting shit done. Taking a half hour here or there to google for better xbm icons for their tiling WM's bar is not part of their day."
"I play in Linux and work on a Mac (or work on Linux servers through the terminal). Just because I have the knowledge doesn't mean I want to put in the effort when there are other things I'd rather be doing."
"Seriously long battery life"
"Access to commercial apps like Excel and Photoshop"
"The desktop looks OK, not spectacular, but it generally stays out of the way and lets us get on with the work."
"Sure, I'd prefer to have a pure linux working environment, but it's not worth the heartache of figuring out why last weeks update broke my multi-monitor, again. I've got stuff to do, and OSX is good at allowing me to get that stuff done."
"Experience on a Linux desktop is so dependent on the hardware that is running. There should be a buying guide where folks have tested everything under the hardware. My bet is that if hardware manufacturers experiences a significant jump on their products, they'll start watching more carefully and will want to be on that recommended list."
"Close to all applications on OS X follow the design guidelines, and if you can navigate one application, then you can likely navigate them all. On Linux the UI is a mess of different UI libraries that all look and act differently. Sometimes a central enforcement of things is actually a good thing."
"I find OS X to be much more polished than any Linux GUI I ever used. Are there any Linux distros that automatically adjust the LCD and keyboard backlight when ambient light changes?"
"There's absolutely nothing that will ever make me switch to desktop Linux from OSX. Anything I want to do requires Googling, complex CLI operations, and usually takes a few "solutions" before things actually start working or are fixed while doing untold damage along the way."
"I don't want to fiddle with config files, /etc, anything anymore."
*http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/30pgob/why_do_web_devs_use_os_x_what_...
Exactly.. the point is that **time is money** (if you are a professional or a salaried person)*. *
Every minute spent on system maintenance, configuration of tools etc. is *waste of money* (your own or you employer's money) and not all all funny or meaningfull at all if you have other things to do (contrary to what some OSS addicts seem to think)*. *The mantra that "you can build it yourself and configure as you like" only applies if you can afford the time and the loss of revenue/income resulting in spending time of such things.
-- Peter (using Windows and OpenSuSE primarily)
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 4:19 PM, Christian Schaller cschalle@redhat.com wrote:
I came across this Reddit thread* about why devs use Mac OS X instead of Linux. I tried to pick out a representative set of comments below as I thought it could be a useful exercise to help us refine or reinforce our efforts around the Fedora Workstation. Being human there probably is some confirmation bias in my selection of quotes, but hopefully not to much :)
I think a lot of these items are things we are already aware of and trying to fix, but of course not all of them are easily fixable, like access to proprietary Windows or MacOS X applications or similar hotkeys/behaviour across UI toolkits. I think we made some great strides in the stability department, but reading the reddit thread did reinforce that it is an area we need to keep focus going forward.
Christian
"I'm one of the only linux users in a mostly mac web dev shop. The sense I get from everyone else is they don't want to play sysadmin or tweak all the things. They put 100% of their brain cycles into getting shit done. Taking a half hour here or there to google for better xbm icons for their tiling WM's bar is not part of their day."
"I play in Linux and work on a Mac (or work on Linux servers through the terminal). Just because I have the knowledge doesn't mean I want to put in the effort when there are other things I'd rather be doing."
"Seriously long battery life"
"Access to commercial apps like Excel and Photoshop"
"The desktop looks OK, not spectacular, but it generally stays out of the way and lets us get on with the work."
"Sure, I'd prefer to have a pure linux working environment, but it's not worth the heartache of figuring out why last weeks update broke my multi-monitor, again. I've got stuff to do, and OSX is good at allowing me to get that stuff done."
"Experience on a Linux desktop is so dependent on the hardware that is running. There should be a buying guide where folks have tested everything under the hardware. My bet is that if hardware manufacturers experiences a significant jump on their products, they'll start watching more carefully and will want to be on that recommended list."
"Close to all applications on OS X follow the design guidelines, and if you can navigate one application, then you can likely navigate them all. On Linux the UI is a mess of different UI libraries that all look and act differently. Sometimes a central enforcement of things is actually a good thing."
"I find OS X to be much more polished than any Linux GUI I ever used. Are there any Linux distros that automatically adjust the LCD and keyboard backlight when ambient light changes?"
"There's absolutely nothing that will ever make me switch to desktop Linux from OSX. Anything I want to do requires Googling, complex CLI operations, and usually takes a few "solutions" before things actually start working or are fixed while doing untold damage along the way."
"I don't want to fiddle with config files, /etc, anything anymore."
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/30pgob/why_do_web_devs_use_os_x_what_...
desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
----- Original Message -----
I came across this Reddit thread* about why devs use Mac OS X instead of Linux. I tried to pick out a representative set of comments below as I thought it could be a useful exercise to help us refine or reinforce our efforts around the Fedora Workstation. Being human there probably is some confirmation bias in my selection of quotes, but hopefully not to much :)
I think a lot of these items are things we are already aware of and trying to fix, but of course not all of them are easily fixable, like access to proprietary Windows or MacOS X applications or similar hotkeys/behaviour across UI toolkits. I think we made some great strides in the stability department, but reading the reddit thread did reinforce that it is an area we need to keep focus going forward.
Christian
<snip>
"Sure, I'd prefer to have a pure linux working environment, but it's not worth the heartache of figuring out why last weeks update broke my multi-monitor, again. I've got stuff to do, and OSX is good at allowing me to get that stuff done."
The "OSX isn't buggy" meme is a serious fallacy, as anyone who's had to support OSX machines will attest. "Why is Wi-Fi not working anymore? Who knows! Why is Lightroom hanging for 20 seconds when making a pixel's worth of change? Who knows!".
Regressions on Linux and Fedora are a problem, and better QA is definitely needed, but OSX certainly isn't the gold standard here.
<snip>
"I don't want to fiddle with config files, /etc, anything anymore."
I'll add: "I can play videos and music out of the box" to that list.
Cheers
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 11:21:02AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I'll add: "I can play videos and music out of the box" to that list.
Actually, I found it interesting that this _wasn't_ a big deal on that thread.
Matthew Miller (mattdm@fedoraproject.org) said:
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 11:21:02AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I'll add: "I can play videos and music out of the box" to that list.
Actually, I found it interesting that this _wasn't_ a big deal on that thread.
... I wonder how much of that is due to much of that use case being browser-embedded (and therefore not an OS-specific thing) these days.
Bill
More reasons:
1. Management directs you to use a Mac. 2. You can walk into a store and buy a Mac. You can't walk into a store and buy a Fedora or Ubuntu or openSUSE laptop with every ounce of unneeded weight stripped out and battery life approaching a full workday. 3. If you want to develop for iOS you have to have a Mac.
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 8:56 AM, Bill Nottingham notting@splat.cc wrote:
Matthew Miller (mattdm@fedoraproject.org) said:
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 11:21:02AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I'll add: "I can play videos and music out of the box" to that list.
Actually, I found it interesting that this _wasn't_ a big deal on that thread.
... I wonder how much of that is due to much of that use case being browser-embedded (and therefore not an OS-specific thing) these days.
Bill
desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
----- Original Message -----
Matthew Miller (mattdm@fedoraproject.org) said:
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 11:21:02AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I'll add: "I can play videos and music out of the box" to that list.
Actually, I found it interesting that this _wasn't_ a big deal on that thread.
... I wonder how much of that is due to much of that use case being browser-embedded (and therefore not an OS-specific thing) these days.
Bill
desktop mailing list desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop
----- Original Message -----
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
But it's getting better. What's funny is that one of the first providers, who moved from Flash are - advertisements... Theirs business stands on ability to play the content everywhere :).
I'd like to add one thing from my experience from install fests. Recently, we had an event for 1st grade students at local university - Linux/FreeBSD is required for almost all projects (it's true, I studied there ;-). So we had install fest, with guys from Fedora QA helping and to be honest - after it I just recommend to use VM with Fedora in Windows. The main issue is - for students, they usually can't afford pretty well supported Lenovos but all that cheapest s*t you can buy. And it's extremely hard to support it, from graphics drivers, cheap wifis, other non-compliant HW there. You usually end up with noisy laptop, that overheats, battery drops to half, your wifi does not work or sensitivity is very bad :(. We can do a lot about how Fedora works and it's really getting better every single release, no need to edit anything, just install it and do your job (*) but only if your HW allows it...
(*) on my HW I'm able to install Fedora and set up everything the way I need for my job in less than one hour
Jaroslav
Jaroslav Reznik píše v Út 07. 04. 2015 v 06:13 -0400:
----- Original Message -----
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
But it's getting better. What's funny is that one of the first providers, who moved from Flash are - advertisements... Theirs business stands on ability to play the content everywhere :).
I'd like to add one thing from my experience from install fests. Recently, we had an event for 1st grade students at local university - Linux/FreeBSD is required for almost all projects (it's true, I studied there ;-). So we had install fest, with guys from Fedora QA helping and to be honest - after it I just recommend to use VM with Fedora in Windows. The main issue is - for students, they usually can't afford pretty well supported Lenovos but all that cheapest s*t you can buy. And it's extremely hard to support it, from graphics drivers, cheap wifis, other non-compliant HW there. You usually end up with noisy laptop, that overheats, battery drops to half, your wifi does not work or sensitivity is very bad :(. We can do a lot about how Fedora works and it's really getting better every single release, no need to edit anything, just install it and do your job (*) but only if your HW allows it...
(*) on my HW I'm able to install Fedora and set up everything the way I need for my job in less than one hour
They were not even cheap laptops, mostly gaming laptops with all the "cool" stuff such as dual graphics cards. I think the hardware support is the biggest PITA in case of Workstation. When I had a talk on Workstation at OSS Weekend in Bratislava in March and asked the audience what was their biggest struggle with Linux desktop, they mostly replied graphics drivers and support for dual graphics cards.
It'd be cool to have out-of-the-box multimedia support, but I don't think it's such a big problem for our audience to enable it themselves. But if you have a newer nVidia card and you want to run Fedora you're screwed because there is no easy way around. Fedora works really really bad with the proprietary driver and nouveau is far behind. The same applies to hardware support regressions within the same release. For example an audio output on my docking station stopped working after updating to kernel 3.19 last week. Those are problems that really annoy people. Enabling a repo and install a couple of packages is a piece of cake compared to it.
Jiri
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
One of those is youtube (vp8/9) besides .. we could play h264 on a large amount of hardware if our browsers would be using the GPU for decoding (through vdpau or vaapi) with drivers installed. So its not (only) a patent issue.
On 7 April 2015 at 11:36, drago01 drago01@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs.
Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
One of those is youtube (vp8/9) besides .. we could play h264 on a large amount of hardware if our browsers would be using the GPU for decoding (through vdpau or vaapi) with drivers installed. So its not (only) a patent issue.
Is Cisco's OpenH264 considered open source?
If so, can a pseudo repository be created via gnome-software that will add this package to an installed system?
(On the audio end, I think all known MP3 decoding patents are due to expire prior to the release of Fedora 23.)
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 12:49 PM, Naheem Zaffar naheemzaffar@gmail.com wrote:
On 7 April 2015 at 11:36, drago01 drago01@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
One of those is youtube (vp8/9) besides .. we could play h264 on a large amount of hardware if our browsers would be using the GPU for decoding (through vdpau or vaapi) with drivers installed. So its not (only) a patent issue.
Is Cisco's OpenH264 considered open source?
Yes and no. It is open source but you only get the patent license if it is distributed from Cisco.
If so, can a pseudo repository be created via gnome-software that will add this package to an installed system?
Only if this repo is hosted by Cisco otherwise ... no patent license.
----- Original Message -----
On 7 April 2015 at 11:36, drago01 drago01@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs.
Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
One of those is youtube (vp8/9) besides .. we could play h264 on a large amount of hardware if our browsers would be using the GPU for decoding (through vdpau or vaapi) with drivers installed. So its not (only) a patent issue.
Is Cisco's OpenH264 considered open source?
If so, can a pseudo repository be created via gnome-software that will add this package to an installed system?
(On the audio end, I think all known MP3 decoding patents are due to expire prior to the release of Fedora 23.)
Even if it is considered Open Source, it's only video, we don't have an AAC decoder with a similar license.
----- Original Message -----
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
One of those is youtube (vp8/9) besides .. we could play h264 on a large amount of hardware if our browsers would be using the GPU for decoding (through vdpau or vaapi) with drivers installed. So its not (only) a patent issue.
It's only a patent issue, because, bugs notwithstanding, we can't even ship the intel libva driver in Fedora.
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 12:55 PM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
On Tue, Apr 7, 2015 at 11:42 AM, Bastien Nocera bnocera@redhat.com wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
One of those is youtube (vp8/9) besides .. we could play h264 on a large amount of hardware if our browsers would be using the GPU for decoding (through vdpau or vaapi) with drivers installed. So its not (only) a patent issue.
It's only a patent issue, because, bugs notwithstanding, we can't even ship the intel libva driver in Fedora.
True for intel but not for others but anyway as you said in the other mail it is worthless without audio support.
On Tue, 2015-04-07 at 05:42 -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
Well keep in mind, Firefox and Epiphany both support Flash if installed with Adobe's RPM, and MPEG-4 if installed from rpmfusion.
MPEG-4 is actually almost simple to install -- if only the rpmfusion web site was better.
I think we need to accept that our multimedia story will never be good unless the user is able to discover and enable rpmfusion. We also need to accept that legal doesn't want us helping the user find rpmfusion. I don't see any way around this problem. :( But it would be really nice if their website had a nice, simple "click here to enable multimedia" button that would give you the RPM to enable; it's just too confusing right now. There is a list of links and you're supposed to notice "Enable RPM Fusion on your system" at the top of the list, but it's hardly an eye-catching link.
Michael
On Tue, 07 Apr 2015 13:49:56 +0200, Michael Catanzaro mcatanzaro@gnome.org wrote:
On Tue, 2015-04-07 at 05:42 -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
Browser embedded videos will either require Flash, or MPEG-4 codecs. Chrome will have both of those, but not Firefox, nor Epiphany or Chrome.
The number of websites using free codecs is unfortunately very low.
Well keep in mind, Firefox and Epiphany both support Flash if installed with Adobe's RPM, and MPEG-4 if installed from rpmfusion.
MPEG-4 is actually almost simple to install -- if only the rpmfusion web site was better.
I think we need to accept that our multimedia story will never be good unless the user is able to discover and enable rpmfusion. We also need to accept that legal doesn't want us helping the user find rpmfusion. I don't see any way around this problem. :( But it would be really nice if their website had a nice, simple "click here to enable multimedia" button that would give you the RPM to enable; it's just too confusing right now. There is a list of links and you're supposed to notice "Enable RPM Fusion on your system" at the top of the list, but it's hardly an eye-catching link.
Michael
It's easy if you know you want RPMfusion. When I started using Fedora, it seemed infinitely strange to enable some random repository in my system to be able to play videos...
On 04/02/2015 05:45 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 11:21:02AM -0400, Bastien Nocera wrote:
I'll add: "I can play videos and music out of the box" to that list.
Actually, I found it interesting that this _wasn't_ a big deal on that thread.
Maybe because most users were using Ubuntu and Debian, as the cited numbers suggest? They come with H.264 and AAC support out of the box (Ubuntu perhaps through universe, which is enabled by default, but not supported by Canonical).
On Wed, 2015-04-08 at 09:59 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
Maybe because most users were using Ubuntu and Debian, as the cited numbers suggest? They come with H.264 and AAC support out of the box (Ubuntu perhaps through universe, which is enabled by default, but not supported by Canonical).
In Debian they are enabled by default. In Ubuntu they are not enabled by default due to legal fears, but a checkbox to enable them is presented in the installer, and I imagine most everybody checks it.
On Wed, Apr 08, 2015 at 09:59:14AM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
Actually, I found it interesting that this _wasn't_ a big deal on that thread.
Maybe because most users were using Ubuntu and Debian, as the cited numbers suggest? They come with H.264 and AAC support out of the box (Ubuntu perhaps through universe, which is enabled by default, but not supported by Canonical).
Could be. This is anecdotal, but when I talk to people about why they chose $OTHERDISTRO over Fedora (which I try to do *a lot*), I don't tend to hear this either. The main thing I get is: "I wanted to get started, looked, and there was plenty of help and documentation for what I wanted to do in $OTHERDISTRO, so I picked that."
I used to hear a lot of "I can't handle the update cycle", but (possibly as I try to talk more to people outside of the sysadmin background I come from), I think I get that less recently.
I'd love to have more real data to work from rather than anecdotes, of course.
Christian Schaller writes:
"Experience on a Linux desktop is so dependent on the hardware that is running. There should be a buying guide where folks have tested everything under the hardware. My bet is that if hardware manufacturers experiences a significant jump on their products, they'll start watching more carefully and will want to be on that recommended list."
Is this page up to date? http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HCL
Regards, Pierre-Yves Luyten
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 10:57:18PM +0200, Pierre-Yves Luyten wrote:
"Experience on a Linux desktop is so dependent on the hardware that is running. There should be a buying guide where folks have tested everything under the hardware. My bet is that if hardware manufacturers experiences a significant jump on their products, they'll start watching more carefully and will want to be on that recommended list."
Is this page up to date? http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HCL
No. Note last edit December 2009.
Hmmm; https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ#Is_there_a_certification_program_for_thir... should probably be re-written too.
On 02/04/15 02:04 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Thu, Apr 02, 2015 at 10:57:18PM +0200, Pierre-Yves Luyten wrote:
"Experience on a Linux desktop is so dependent on the hardware that is running. There should be a buying guide where folks have tested everything under the hardware. My bet is that if hardware manufacturers experiences a significant jump on their products, they'll start watching more carefully and will want to be on that recommended list."
Is this page up to date? http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/HCL
No. Note last edit December 2009.
Hmmm; https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ#Is_there_a_certification_program_for_thir... should probably be re-written too.
This post from Fedora Forum active since 2006[1] still provides information about laptop running Fedora. Since the discontinuation of smolt, I don't know if there is an application that allow gathering the hardware specification for better testing.
[1] http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=137531
Hi
On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 10:19 AM, Christian Schaller wrote:
I think a lot of these items are things we are already aware of and trying to fix, but of course not all of them are easily fixable, like access to proprietary Windows or MacOS X applications or similar hotkeys/behaviour across UI toolkits. I think we made some great strides in the stability department, but reading the reddit thread did reinforce that it is an area we need to keep focus going forward
Another thing that might be relevant but I haven't seen mentioned much is transfer of existing data and settings. For example something I have faced recently, is if you are an adium user in Mac OS X, you can't get your chat logs into Pidgin for example although some scripts can do the conversion other way around. If we make the migration easier, some more people might be willing to try it out. This has been attempted by distributions many times before but never at a cross distribution level, especially post-installation.
Rahul
desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org