SirPumpkin
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 13 months, 2011–2023
55:44 · 39K views · Jan 1, 2011
A 27c3 talk on the Linux desktop (GNOME) by Wolfgang Draxinger, repeatedly interrupted and corrected by Lennart Poettering from the audience. The description notes much of the talk's content is disputed.
HN points to it as a vivid example of the clash between two philosophies of Linux desktop design, often in systemd and Wayland arguments, though many find it disrespectful.
14 comments from Hacker News
If you think that the OpenBSD has it right, why don't you use it as a desktop, too? Why aren't you running a virtual machine of Windows 7 under OpenBSD? Probably because there's no proper virtualization support in OpenBSD. Linux is complex because sometimes it has too be, not just for the sake of it. systemd (which is great in my opinion) wouldn't be possible without cgroups. Should I also mention the better multi-processor support? Regarding the desktop, I strongly recommend watching "27c3 - Desktop on the Linux... (and BSD, of course) - Wolfgang Draxinger (+ Lennart Poettering)" [1]. [1] this video
This was an entertaining talk from CCC in 2011 on desktop Linux. 'datenwolf' was the speaker, and he starts talking about sound in Linux here. [1] He's quickly interrupted by the maintainer of PulseAudio, and this interruption continues throughout the talk. My takeaway was that if there was still this amount of confusion and misunderstanding in the community, my frustrating experiences with sound in desktop Ubuntu was not atypical of dekstop Linux users. [1] this video
There is no split "terrible for users, great for some developers". Casual users do have issue with X; see this thread recently on HN: [LINK] . Would you consider that normal for users to handle? Of course not. Casual users having no issue with X is a lie. The fact is, that some subsytems on Linux are pile of hacks piled upon something built on assumptions that are no longer true. X11 is one of such subsystems. It is a dead end. When you are stuck in the dead end, you can either back up and once you are out, continue in your ride, or keep being stuck in the dead end. Wayland is backing out of the dead end; yes, it is short-term, high intensity pain, when you are not going forward, and even have to go back for a while. Piling new hacks on top of X11 is trying how to continue going forward without backing out of that dead-end. You will be stuck in that place for a long time, and ultimately you will move nowhere. That is long-term, low-intensity pain. Some people do not take the long term view (or do want to avoid high-intensity pain), being stuck in a place works for them (and chronic low-intensity pain is fine to them). These two approaches still clash, it is this this video , all over again, 10 years later.
this video This is the talk you mean right? Have you actually seen the talk? Yes, Lennart interrupts the talk but everything he says is correct, while the presenter just spreads random FUD. The presenter clearly shows that he doesn’t understand most of the stuff he talks about, talks about 3 year old bugs that already got fixed, etc. Yes, it’s not the nicest way to interrupt a talk, but the presenter should have expected some kind of reaction, given the controversial headline. People like Lennart put their heart into their software. If you shit all over it and spread random FUD, you can expect some response. What would you have done? Also he doesn’t “take over the stage”. He comes up after the talk has ended, because people on IRC asked him to.
It's not that simple; explaining one reason why something would not work means re-examing many of the underlying assumptions and not many like to go deeper than that one problem at hand in isolation. The "ok, how would you do it" forces thinking about underlying issues, because the solution you propose has to account for factors you otherwise wouldn't think of. It is not a new problem either; this video is 9 years old already: this video . It is almost one hour long, but well worth to watch to see the two different approaches to clash.