Should Being Competitive With Windows Matter For Linux? 645
An anonymous reader writes "Is Linux being held back by distributions bent on competing with Microsoft Windows? This article argues that it's a real possibility. Quoting: '... what was apparent early on during my Linux adoption was my motivation for making the switch in the first place — no longer wanting to use Windows. This is where I think the confusion begins for most new Linux adopters. As we make the switch, we must fight the inherent urge to automatically begin comparing the new desktop experience to our previous experiences with Windows. It's a completely different set of circumstances, folks. ... The fact that one platform can support a specific device while the other platform cannot (and so on) doesn't really solve the problem of getting said device working. You can see where this dysfunction of thought can become a big problem, fast."
Registry is bad, but not for the reasons you think (Score:5, Informative)
The registry isn't bad because it's stored in binary form, or because it's heirarchical, or because it supports transactions, or because it has ACLs. These are good (or at least acceptable) things.
The registry is bad because it's global and forces a lot of configuration to be global as well. For example, COM components are registered globally, so only one DLL can be associatded with a class ID at a time. That's why you can only have one version of Internet Explorer installed on the same machine. Yes, users have their own registry subtress, but not every key can be configured under the user-specific heirarchy. Even a user-specific key can only have one value at a time for a given user. Unix systems, on the other hand, use environment variables to hold (or point to) configuration information, which results in a lot more flexibility.
Because registry values are global, application developers only consider the case of running one program at a time. If you want, say, two copies of Outlook, each with different settings, you'll need two separate users. A lot of programs don't even support multiple concurrent instances, which is maddening.
Another maddening side effect of the registry being global is that it's not possible to have the equivalent of NFS-mounted home directories under Windows. Say you have a domain user foo\bar on machines A and B. It's natural to want them to have the same %USERPROFILE% (read $HOME) on a fileserver somewhere, and on Unix, that works just fine. But under Windows, when the user logs into machine A, the system will lock ntuser.dat (the file containing the registry), which prevents the user logging in under machine B. Application-specific configuration files that are locked only during actual changes don't have this problem.
The global nature of the registry also makes it difficult to maintain application configuration: if you want to isolate the configuration information used by a program, you're essentially reduced to looking at procmon output and seeing what registry keys it touches. While in principle programs should limit themselves to storing information under HKLU\Software\Blah\..., in practice, they scatter stuff all over the registry, especially when they register COM stuff. You can't keep just, say, Word's configuration under version control.
When people say they hate the registry, what they mean is that they hate that Windows is not very well-modularized. Isolating one application's registry configuration is like removing one egg from an omelet.
A better model would have been to have application-specific registries, searched according to a PATH-like environment variable. In this scheme, when the system needed to, say, look up a COM class ID, it would just search each registry in sequence until it found the right one. Applications would simply store their configuration and registration information in their own registry, making management easy.
But like most Windows brain damage, this scheme wouldn't have worked on a 386SX with 4MB of RAM [msdn.com] in 1995, which means it can't possibly be changed in 2010. As we all know, design decisions are irrevecorable and eternal (and I'm only half-joking).
Re:If Linux wants to have broader adoption... (Score:5, Informative)
You do realise you're talking bullshit, right?
You can already get the Toshiba AC100, and ARM laptop/netbook thing based on nVidia's Tegra platform. It ships with Android but Ubuntu apparently runs nicely already. It's pretty cheap.
ARM have PCI and PCIE bus available as well as a lot of other standard stuff like USB.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:3, Informative)
People who care about security hate it too.
I do? The security model makes sense, you have coarse-grained user oriented controls (like UNIX has) and also fine-grained NTLM permissions. Kind of like a file system for keeping small pieces of data.
As does anyone trying to fully uninstall an uncooperative program. Things can stay hidden there essentially forever.
How is that exclusive to the registry? You can at least search through it all pretty easily. If a program doesn't want to be uninstalled there are better ways to stick around than using the registry.
Besides, it's a bunch of settings that is completely unorganized, does not exist as a single file anywhere on the hard drive, and is essentially hidden from normal users. It should be hated on principle.
It's in C:\Windows\System32\config\ .. Yes it is hidden from normal users, because it should be. If it's unorganized that's down to the applications which use it (like the filesystem itself). For the most part applications use interfaces which automatically write only to their designated areas, and it's well organized. Either way the important thing is that it can still exist while being unorganized. /etc, /usr/local/etc, ~/.appname, ~/.gconf/, /var/db, etc really more organized/logical?
Anyway is
If you think it's hidden and want access to it you can use regedit, or better yet use powershell, and you can navigate the registry like a filesystem:
> ls -Recurse HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft | where { $_ -match 'Explorer' }
Mainly though it's just a remake of a non-distributed, integrated LDAP. If Linux used OpenLDAP for configuration instead of config files it would look pretty similar.
As is often the case it's the people who misuse the platform that deserve most of the criticism that the platform gets..
Re:Linux is everywhere. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually I know a Amish dude that runs Linux on his desktop, there goes the Amish theory.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:3, Informative)
The real problem is that the registry's organization is that it:
In short, the registry's ontology is massively overengineered, which makes it imposing, opaque, and inconvenient. In practice, a shallow hierarchy with shorter paths would have worked much better; gconf is better in this respect.
Re:Registry is bad, but not for the reasons you th (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox stores the vast majority of its configuration information in user profiles, not in the registry. It also uses its own COM system internally, not the one provided by Windows.
Re:Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
I had to run a control panel from the command line using sudo in order to make it keep my dual monitor preferences as recently as last year.
As recently as last year.... So one year ago (it's November). That's at least two versions back, maybe three. You should try it again. I am especially impressed with latest 10.10. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but I do. There are always a few bugs...sound in particular was annoying while all the Pulseaudio nonsense was being sorted out. But I haven't had a problem yet with the latest version. I don't have dual monitors, so can't vouch for that.
Also, "has a few rough spots" does not equate to "broken for end users." I've installed Ubuntu for plenty of people, and yes there have been occasional hiccups that I've had to help them fix, but completely usable. They're not going to delete their Windows partition any time soon, but they are happy booting into and using Ubuntu for various things.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:4, Informative)
> Erm, what's wrong with "chmod og-rwx somedir/"? Any decent backup
> program should be able to deal with directories with unfriendly
> permissions.
Root is immune to normal permissions. Thus backup programs running with root privileges assume they may read any file on the system. Taking a complete backup of a filesystem is otherwise impossible unless you go the dump2fs route and manually frob the raw device file. ~/.gvfs doesn't actually need to be backed up, but having to manually exclude it is a PITA and is certain to grow more exceptions over time.
The breakage of the UNIX API is in the fact it blows chunks just asking what sort of thing that name is and what it's permissions are. As a separate filesystem my configuration of rsnapshot wouldn't try to back it up anyway, but it gets into trouble just trying to determine that it is a mount point.
Re:Linux is everywhere. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows is the only place left for Linux to exp (Score:1, Informative)
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:4, Informative)
That's why we have /opt. Said incompetent developers can make all the mess they want there and it's isolated from the rest of the system.
Re:Why not? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm doubtful. When I tried using Ubuntu 9.10 to watch a movie, sound was too soft, so I tried all the GUI sound controls and sound was still either too soft, or clipped (and still soft).
In the end I had to go to the command-line, and run alsamixer and then push the "main-mix" volume up. The default volume somehow was _minimum_. Uh, WTF?
On a "mythical Desktop-Ready Ubuntu" you would just have to click on "the icon" at some system tray, or at worst click on System, Preferences, Sound, and work from there.
In contrast look at the bullshit you have to put up with here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10964/how-to-fix-sound-issues-in-ubuntu-9.10/ [howtogeek.com]
Look at the comments there to see more evidence of how crap the situation is.
Perhaps Ubuntu 10.10 is different. But it's a bad sign if a Linux distro that positions itself as a Desktop OS couldn't even get something _core_ like that right after so many years (9.10 is far from their first release). I'm not saying it's easy to get right, I'm saying Sound is a core feature in a Desktop OS.
FWIW, I use Linux distros almost daily, but they're all servers. Coz every time I check, the KDE/GNOME bunch haven't got their act together yet (and seem more interested in inane "features" like "wobbling windows"), and frankly most other Linux GUIs seem to be what Linux fanatics use as wrappers around "screen". It's a pretty crappy GUI you have if screen does a better job of window management - think about that.
So far what works for me is one machine running windows for "Desktop" stuff, and the rest Linux/BSD.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:5, Informative)
WTF is this? It seems to spit out an endless tirade of incomprehensible and meaningless shit. For instance:
0 10 FontSmoothing {Type, Text, SPIActionGet, SPIActionSet...}
It's a registry entry called "FontSmoothing", with 0 sub-entries and 10 keys (Type, Text, SPIActionGet, etc).
If you want more info about what PowerShell is returning you pipe the output to get-member, and it'll tell you what properties and methods are available. For example you could add and alter the set of keys returned, or add another where clause to limit your selection to a set of keys you're interested in.
Because it's structured and has a limited number of types you don't need to worry about the various locations or the structure of config files, and can alter and manipulate the returned output.
How is this in any way navigating "the registry like a filesystem?"
Because you navigate the filesystem in a similar way when using powershell, using ls on a registry entry like you would use it on a directory. It really shouldn't be too hard to see the similarity.
I can ls -R /etc | xargs cat and get a completely different pile of incomprehensible shit out of a Linux box, but at least it resembles English.
But neither seem to have any particular use.
If you can't think of a use for it okay, but that doesn't mean it isn't useful. /etc/Microsoft | ( where read f; do grep -q "Explorer" $f && echo $f; done ))
(By the way that PowerShell is more equivalent to find
Feh. If you were making a point, I've missed it. Sorry.
You said the registry was hidden on the hard drive and not accessible to normal users. My point was that it isn't hidden and is accessible. HTH
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:5, Informative)
Winkey+"path"+
Scroll down to path, click edit, then edit it.
Works in Win7. If you can't figure that one out, I'm pretty sure you won't need to change the path variable.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:3, Informative)
The registry is a database file, why can't be backed up?
Thats easy...
Lets say (and this has happened more than once to offices that I have had the pleasure of working in):
Program A is installed and messes with the registry.
Program B is installed and messes with the registry.
Program A runs an update and messes with the registry.
Something happens (malware, hotfix, windows update) and Program A has to be fixed with a registry backup restore at the time of its installation.
Now Program B is screwed up because its missing its entries. Oh lets put the registry restore back after its installed, but now we're missing the registry entries for the update.
Actually, I've never worked in an office where restoring the registry was considered to be a reasonable option and usually considered a last resort because so many things can go wrong.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:3, Informative)
Second, why in the hell would you tell ANYONE to type out a registry key anyway?
Norton Symantec Endpoint Protection has hosed the TCP/IP stack on your VP's laptop while he's in his hotel room on the other side of the country.
He needs to pull his PowerPoint presentation off the server that his office assistant worked on last night.
You're unable to remote in or email him the registry fix due to the glaring obvious problem that he has no TCP/IP connection and his local tech turned off Window's Restore on his image for some unknown reason.
Obviously the only thing you can do for him is to read out the entry over the phone... Just saying because its happened.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:3, Informative)
The registry is a foul design decision, and up to XP SP2, was accessible by anything for the worst of reasons. Because of its relationship to the kernel, user space, and hardware, it was ridiculously simple to screw it up, or make it the crux of bad behavior in strange, unusual, and bizarre ways. After XP SP2 when user-space was 'redefined', it continued to be the garbage pail for every bad programming mistake ever made in Windows.
Pretty much everything in this paragraph is wrong.
Re:End users hate the registry? (Score:3, Informative)
I love Linux... but apps dumping config files willy-nilly in my home is annoying as hell. They'll all come up with their own half ass directory convention in my ~/. Sometimes I wish applications were forced to put their config files in specific folders based on user/distro preference like ~/.config/appname/ so I can retain some sanity in my home folder.
The only way I know of to do this would be to have the OS run all apps in a sandbox and map folders for them. ./userconfig and ./globalconfig spring to mind but there are other methods. Of course, this is something that would have to be designed in from the start... I don't know of a good way to get old apps to follow that convention "easily." I guess you could create a virtual /home for each app that points to the user's /home/.config/appname
Why Linux is Better (Score:3, Informative)
There's a website listing the benefits of GNU/Linux [whylinuxisbetter.net]. IMHO the main things are: