this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
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How the narrative has turned Nvidias active sabotage into Linux maintainers fault is beyond me.
Latest for their reluctance to act on scalpers it should be transparent what you're getting into with Nvidia.
And then people like you write thing like this... Why?!
Wanna come configure optimus for me?
I think the disconnect here is that others are saying "they aren't supporting us," and your response is pretty much "lol, abandon what you're doing and go back to the corporations." A totally fair take, but how you're delivering it comes across as missing their point.
Also "it works on windows" is a terrible rebuttal in a discussion where you first say "it works fine on x11"
The problem is that nvidia's drivers are shit but we couldn't do anything because for the longest time, for nvidia cards to work at a decent speed, it requires the drivers to be signed by nvidia.
We couldn't do anything and you are blaming us for that.
Now that this, AFAIK, has been lifted new things like NVK are emerging.
The problem has been reluctance abd uncooperativeness from nvidia, not the linux community
The cause is what should matter because that's what could influence future decisions.
And there is no Wayland mandate anyway so I don't understand that side of the argument either - there is no "Linux" in this room who decided to switch...
See and that's what's backwards from my point of view. Even though I was on win mainly back then I refused to buy Nvidia because of their shitty practices.
I'm talking about your and my behavior not about anyone else. :)
My base opinion is flexibility. You blamed first Linux then Wayland now you're what about AMD... What's YOUR point?
You can stick with windows and Nvidia your whole life all I ask is not spread your bullshit from your OP.
Both Intel and AMD GPUs work fine on Linux. Both work fine with Wayland.
Wayland has been around for over a decade and has been in a usable state for the last 3 or so years.
Attributing the fact that Nvidia stuff still barely works to the fact that some distros have made Wayland the default is just stupid wrong.
Besides, Nvidia experience isn't/wasn't the smoothest even on Xorg. Linux desktop is simply not a priority for Nvidia.
Yeah, basically. Which raises a question: how companies with much smaller market share can justify providing support, but Nvidia, a company that dominates the GPU market, can't?
Debian supports several DEs with only Gnome defaulting to Wayland. Everything else uses X11 by default.
Some other popular distros that ship with Gnome or KDE still default to X11 too. Pop!_OS, for example. Zorin. SteamOS too, technically. EndeavorOS and Manjaro are similar to Debian, since they support several DEs.
Either way, none of those are Wayland exclusive and changing to X11 takes exactly 2 clicks on the login screen. Which isn't necessary for anyone using AMD or Intel, and wouldn't be necessary for Nvidia users, if Nvidia actually bothered to support their hardware properly. But I digress.
Oh, it's no way perfect. Never claimed it is.
This both depends on the disto you use and on what you consider a "usable environment".
If you extensively use Office 365, OneDrive, need ActiveDirectory, have portable storage encrypted with BitLocker, etc. then, sure, you won't have a good experience with any distro out there. Or even if you don't, but you grab a geek oriented distro (e.g. Arch or Gentoo) or a barebones one (e.g. Debian) you, again, won't have the best experience.
A lot of people, however, don't really do a whole lot on their devices. The most widely used OS in the world, at this point in time, is Android, of all things.
If all you need to do is use the web and, maybe, edit some documents or pictures now and then, Linux is perfectly capable of that.
Real life example: I've switched my parents onto Linux. They're very much not computer savvy and Gnome with it's minimalistic mobile device-like UI and very visual app-store-like program manager is significantly easier for them to grasp. The number of issues they ask me to deal with has dropped by... A lot. Actually, every single issue this year was the printer failing to connect to the Wifi, so, I don't suppose that counts as a technical issue with the computer, does it?
I use Gnome (Wayland) with an AMD GPU. My tablet is plug and play... Unlike on Windows. Go figure.
"most" desktops are used in business and other organizations, not by gamers, and it is these customers and their systems that will be the bulk of the e-waste generated by the forced-obsolescence of their hardware due to 10's EOL and 11's 'new' requirements.
Did you actually think about this for a second? Do you really think only 0.2% of the American population or 0.4% of American workers are working in the office? This should be a lesson on not to pick the first Google result.
Linux is only a problem for folks used to someone else. Also, the article is about ewaste. Meaning, these machines are going to be trashed unless someone puts linux on them. So I'd say your diatribe of misinformation was misplaced.
At EoL, corporate security tells the IT department to uninstall it.
Windows works great because MS tapes it back together slightly faster than it falls apart.
When EoL hits, those devices are either trashed, firewalled into oblivion, or assimilated into the kube.
I know someone who only just switched from XP to 10. They literally did it yesterday, after battling with 10 for a couple of months - eventually they relented and replaced the components that were simply too old to work with 10. They only upgraded they reached a point where too much of the software they relied upon ceased being compatible with XP. Technically their 15 year old graphics card is now unnecessary landfill, since it was working and my friend didn't want to stop using it - but I'm not sure I'd say a graphics card that has been in continuous use for so long could really be considered "wasted" even if it was still functional at the time of disposal.
Seems to me that the problem of working computers (and individual components) going to waste while still being usable, due to changes in software requiring changes in OS is not new. The only way to prevent it would be to ban all further development of both hardware and software, so that hardware never becomes out of date.
@frog @MJBrune I don't think we need to ban development, I think we need to resume focus on optimization so that things like a chat app don't take up 1+ GB of RAM for example. If the operating system can still fit in old hardware's specs, then unless someone is trying to do a task that is demanding for the currently available hardware (and it sounds like 15yo graphics card ain't in that demographic) then it should largely be a case of update operating system, grab new versions of programs, and be about your day.
I think you're massively over-generalizing here to make Linux look like an unstable mess. Rolling release distros are the ones that want you to read the patch notes. Arch is the poster child for those. Stable distros like Mint and Ubuntu and elementaryOS don't brick your system with every update. They hold back updates and stick with older kernels to ensure stability. Linux is, already, very good. It sounds like you haven't used it for any length of time. Valve's work on Proton has made Linux gaming viable for a whole lot of people, but the majority of computer users don't play intense video games. They want web browsing, email, office software, that kind of thing. Linux does those just great on almost any device all the way down to Raspberry Pi boards.
I have to agree with this. I tried Linux a couple of months ago, and ran into those issues with Nvidia. My computer was reasonably stable in the desktop environment using a particular version of the drivers, so as long as I was happy to never update the drivers and never do anything but email, web browsing, and word processing, Linux would have been fine. If I wanted to play any games or do any digital art or anything else that required my graphics card, it was either unstable or running barely faster than continental drift, depending on which set of drivers I was using.
Like, I do think Linux is pretty cool, but it very much feels like a project for people who have the time and money to continuously tinker with their computer to get it working exactly as they want. It's not there yet on the "it just works no matter what you do" front, which is what the vast majority of computer users need from their operating system. Windows, for all its many faults, is broadly stable and can largely be ignored once it's installed - although I do think it benefits from a reformat every 12-18 months.
I think Linux blows windows out of the water as a server operating system. I've been using it that way for over 25 years now.
For desktop, there's a few problems. First is that the average user cannot install an operating system. So unless it comes pre-installed they're going to be out of luck. The second is that I've not found a distro that won't occasionally just blow itself up on an upgrade. Driver issues, circular dependencies, and all manner of other things that a normal user just doesn't know how to deal with.
Then you get to gaming. Which is WAY WAY better all the time. But, knowing what works and what doesn't, which drivers to use, the best distro that has most of the gaming stuff already sorted for you. Not to mention the Wayland + NVidia issues that people are also talking about here. Also, I've never proven it. But on FPS games it feels like there's just a bit more latency on linux (albeit I think overall most games run smoother on linux).
I think Desktop is still great on Linux. But for mass consumption, it still has a way to go and I do wonder if, while windows exists and is preinstalled on everything if it will ever be more than a niche thing. Most users don't know there's an alternative and for sure would have no clue how to go about installing it.
And if your machine was to be tossed in the trash otherwise, how well do the proprietary drivers operate in the dump?
I might as well have tossed my computer in the trash if I'd kept Linux on it, since I couldn't actually do anything with it.
compare this to your previous statement :
Can it do all these totally normal and useful things or is it trash because you can not do anything with it? What nebulous "stuff I need my computer to do" is linux not stable enough for?
I don't need a server, nor an office desktop. I need something that can play games and do digital art, both of which Linux is not stable enough for, which I stated in my initial post. A computer that crashes every couple of minutes while gaming or doing digital art is not useful for me. Chucking my perfectly good Nvidia graphics card in the bin so I can buy something else that is more compatible with Linux is wasteful. And since starting my degree, I have also determined that about 50% of the software I need to use for group project modules doesn't work on Linux and doesn't have appropriate open source alternatives that wouldn't cause compatibility issues when the files are sent on to other team mates - we've all got to be using the same version of the same software.
So yeah, Linux in its present state doesn't suit my needs.
The real ewaste problem here is not people like me that keep using components until they die from wear and tear, and replace only broken components not entire computers. I'm quite happy to keep using Windows 10 as long as it is compatible with my hardware and software, regardless of whether Microsoft are still supporting it. The problem is the people who throw out perfectly usable computers because the OS is no longer supported.
Wait, I'm allowed to dis Wayland here!?
That is because your statement is not particularly reasonable or rooted in reality.
If you want to dis linux that is fine, go right ahead. I crap on Mac all the time and hate MS with a burning passion. I still use them, which I suppose is why I hate them. I frequently hate linux too, that is just the nature of being in IT.
things have generally been going good in this section of the thread, but just a general reminder to all participants that thoughtful comments with some time put into them (as a few of the replies to this comment have been) are going to lead to more constructive discourse than quick, impulsive ones. you're also definitely not obliged to respond to everything you disagree with or anyone who replies to you, so keep that in mind
I maintain a Linux server at work which has our ERP on it (I wouldn't say I'm great at it but know the basics). I use Linux at home for a few projects and things like routers, etc. My daily PC at home is Windows. I like Linux but the issues I've had in the past, while they can be resolved, generally take up more time that I'm willing to put in. I don't want a hobby just to keep my PC working.
Because you were not just looking at the web and email, the issues are not relevant. Most folks are not setting up a load balancer or adding an extra NIC. Your protestations are invalid anyway as the article is about ewaste, and not personal choice given all options. These devices are what they are. So given the circumstances, it is put linux on them or they are trash.
It is so obivious that you have never used linux... or you have only tried vanilla arch or something