The Trouble With Linux

I have Linux boxes, several of them. My day job is supporting Linux boxes. On my desk here is a dual 1207 Opteron with two Barcelona CPUs running Debian. At work, I have a Xeon quad core and a HT P4, one running Debian and the other running Mandriva. I also have a Myth box in the other room.

I have been using Linux for a while, and am pretty competent with it, is what I'm trying to say. I have even used Linux as my only system for stretches of time, normally ending up with some sort of Apple laptop sooner or later, because Linux just doesn't seem to work.

I switch between Debian and Ubuntu mostly, while work demands that I use Mandriva where possible. I switch between Debian and Ubuntu mostly because the underlying Aptitude package system is the best system configuration tool I have used.

While using Debian, I begin to pine after the desktop-like features of Ubuntu, when, for instance, my Debian system fails to play a DVD because the codec is invalid or missing or something. Also, Flash doesn't work well or often.

Then I switch to Ubuntu for a while. First off, I can't use my software raid main volume that I use with Ubuntu. The Ubuntu installer knoweth nothing about software raid. Well, put it on the SSD and worry not. Everything goes on so slickly; even Flash works and works fairly well. There is a really nice front end for the package manager and Ubuntu happily suggests packages when you try to execute a command that doesn't exist.

However, after a while, the automatics in Ubuntu make the system get weird. None of the configuration is in the correct place. I spend hours tracking down how to fix the simplest things. I don't like messing with GUIs to fix problems. Even when I fix something, it gets fixed back. It can get tiring.

I get to wondering, also, whether I really need all that UI stuff, and get to pining for Ubuntu's XFCE simplicity. Seriously, XFCE loads in less than a blink after login.

Anyway, right now, as I said, I'm using Debian right now, and exploring the wasteland that is GTK, using FreeCiv to do it. GTK has gotten so piggish that this monster Opteron machine running 2.4GHz is slow. It takes minutes for each move. It is so bad I am speccing out a new computer based on a much faster single CPU in order to achieve faster single-thread performance. There is really nothing wrong with this machine, but I need faster GTK performance.

Linux on the desktop is adrift. Debian is pretty much excused, as its focus has always been on the server, not the desktop. Ubuntu and Mandriva are both desktop efforts. Mandriva 2010 is providing, shall we say, a certain level of job security, and that is all I'm going to say about that. Ubuntu, however, is so very close.

GTK, Gnome, KDE are all pigs. They chew through CPU cycles and ram like rampant hogs. When you are done configuring a decent desktop system, you are looking at a VM footprint of around 2GB. Look at XFCE4 on Debian, with a minimalist system, and the VM footprint runs around 512MB or so.

Why does all this matter? Well, CPU performance is as much about bandwidth as anything else, and, keeping the VM size down leads to less bandwidth usage, meaning more efficient usage of clock cycles. Keeping most of the code the size of the L3 cache would be ideal, but unlikely.

Anyway, there is an old adage that the XFCE guys seem to get, that Debian has long fought to retain, that Apple occasionally rediscovers, that Microsoft has never seemed to get, which is that 'software does something'.

Linux developers need to understand that the strength of the platform is efficiency and reliability. This is important, because the fancy graphics is pretty much the strength of the professionals, Apple and Microsoft. Fancy graphics don't matter in the long run. What matters is rock-solid performance.

Anyway, that's my opinion; the trouble with Linux is that they seem to be trying desperately to match the architecture of the for-pay systems. They need to go back to the simple ideas that hatched the revolution.