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Futile Foray into Linux, 2011 Edition (Part 1)
Posted 11-12-2011 at 01:06 PM by commodorejohn
Of course, Linux advocates will say that I'm giving up too early, that there are probably solutions out there that I didn't find. It might be true. Certainly, I could tweak the GIMP's keyboard shortcuts to be more to my liking - but without that precious context-sensitivity, I'd still have to have a separate key to delete a path than I would to delete image data, and other similar-but-separate tasks would quickly exhaust my options.
I could look harder for alternatives - GIMP 2.7.2 is supposed to have a "single-window" mode that's apparently sort of like an MDI, and maybe there's a tracker out there that's more like Modplug and less like an ancient DOS app. Maybe there's a music player that can grok the idea of handling multiple files as command-line arguments.
But you know what? That's too much God-damned work. I tried downloading the source for the new GIMP. It needs a newer version of a library that's not in the repository. (It might need others, but config won't tell me about any other problems than the most immediate one.) I could install that library from source - but it might need others (or it might break something.)
Photoshop, on the other hand, is a good program, that's complete, doesn't need to be compiled, and just works. It doesn't get in the way of me doing drawing or touch-up. And it's designed for users, not designed with users as a begrudging afterthought.
They say that "Linux is free, as long as your time has no value." I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. I wanted that not to be true. But I have to say, I don't think I can disagree. The Linux community is so wrapped up in technical wankery (GIMP's backend functionality is excellent) that there's no time, effort, or motivation left for designing the un-technical parts, the parts that actually enable a person to use the program. Linux software isn't designed for people, it's designed for other software - and as long as that remains true, it's never, ever going to win the desktop market.
(What makes me uncomfortable about that paragraph is that it sounds like I want things dumbed down. I don't. I don't want any of this GNOME 3/Windows 8/OSX Lion crap about unifying desktop and tablet interfaces. I believe the "post-PC era" is a marketing myth perpetuated by Wired retards. But there's a big, big difference between simple and overly-simplistic, and anyway, Linux software isn't even in the modern PC era; it's stuck in the mainframe era and merely dressed in the trappings of the PC.)
I don't have time for this shít. I've got other interests and other hobbies that I could be spending my time on. I could work on one of my game projects, or get prepped for the webcomic I intend to start in the upcoming year. I could finish my next album. I could catch up on Sinfest. There are a semi-infinite number of things I could be doing with my time that would be a better use of it than futilely attempting to finagle badly-designed software into some semblance of usability.
I'm not quite 26, but when I think about the sheer waste of my time that this has been, I feel gøddamn middle-aged. Life is passing me by, and I've got a million better things to do with it than screw around with a culture whose only hope of improvement is to throw out all its designers and bring in new ones who actually give a damn about the user.
I'm done. I don't need this. I wanted it to work, because the idea of a free operating system, unencumbered by licensing restrictions and open to the masses, excites the hell out of me. But if it can't do the simplest things to be usable, it's not worth the trouble. I'm done with this, I don't think I'm coming back to Linux unless the community gets its shít together and completely overhauls its flagship applications. (And don't tell me that, well, the GIMP is a separate project. Bull. It's one of the flagship applications and one of the chief arguments for Linux as a multimedia platform - apparently its advocates have just never used it.) But I'm not looking for that to happen any time soon.
So I guess I don't know what's going to happen to me, then. I'm going back to XP, and I'm going to pick up a new laptop that I can run it on for the next few years. Unfortunately, it's already looking like newer machines aren't capable of running it; I don't know where I'll go from there. I don't think I want Windows 7, and I know I don't want Windows 8. Maybe ReactOS will be in a usable state by that time. Maybe I'll just invent my own gøddamn operating system.
Don't know what I'll do with the PowerBook, either. Maybe I'll try MorphOS. I don't know if I'll be anywhere near as comfortable with it as I am with XP, but it sure as hell isn't likely to be worse than my experience with Linux.
I could look harder for alternatives - GIMP 2.7.2 is supposed to have a "single-window" mode that's apparently sort of like an MDI, and maybe there's a tracker out there that's more like Modplug and less like an ancient DOS app. Maybe there's a music player that can grok the idea of handling multiple files as command-line arguments.
But you know what? That's too much God-damned work. I tried downloading the source for the new GIMP. It needs a newer version of a library that's not in the repository. (It might need others, but config won't tell me about any other problems than the most immediate one.) I could install that library from source - but it might need others (or it might break something.)
Photoshop, on the other hand, is a good program, that's complete, doesn't need to be compiled, and just works. It doesn't get in the way of me doing drawing or touch-up. And it's designed for users, not designed with users as a begrudging afterthought.
They say that "Linux is free, as long as your time has no value." I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. I wanted that not to be true. But I have to say, I don't think I can disagree. The Linux community is so wrapped up in technical wankery (GIMP's backend functionality is excellent) that there's no time, effort, or motivation left for designing the un-technical parts, the parts that actually enable a person to use the program. Linux software isn't designed for people, it's designed for other software - and as long as that remains true, it's never, ever going to win the desktop market.
(What makes me uncomfortable about that paragraph is that it sounds like I want things dumbed down. I don't. I don't want any of this GNOME 3/Windows 8/OSX Lion crap about unifying desktop and tablet interfaces. I believe the "post-PC era" is a marketing myth perpetuated by Wired retards. But there's a big, big difference between simple and overly-simplistic, and anyway, Linux software isn't even in the modern PC era; it's stuck in the mainframe era and merely dressed in the trappings of the PC.)
I don't have time for this shít. I've got other interests and other hobbies that I could be spending my time on. I could work on one of my game projects, or get prepped for the webcomic I intend to start in the upcoming year. I could finish my next album. I could catch up on Sinfest. There are a semi-infinite number of things I could be doing with my time that would be a better use of it than futilely attempting to finagle badly-designed software into some semblance of usability.
I'm not quite 26, but when I think about the sheer waste of my time that this has been, I feel gøddamn middle-aged. Life is passing me by, and I've got a million better things to do with it than screw around with a culture whose only hope of improvement is to throw out all its designers and bring in new ones who actually give a damn about the user.
I'm done. I don't need this. I wanted it to work, because the idea of a free operating system, unencumbered by licensing restrictions and open to the masses, excites the hell out of me. But if it can't do the simplest things to be usable, it's not worth the trouble. I'm done with this, I don't think I'm coming back to Linux unless the community gets its shít together and completely overhauls its flagship applications. (And don't tell me that, well, the GIMP is a separate project. Bull. It's one of the flagship applications and one of the chief arguments for Linux as a multimedia platform - apparently its advocates have just never used it.) But I'm not looking for that to happen any time soon.
So I guess I don't know what's going to happen to me, then. I'm going back to XP, and I'm going to pick up a new laptop that I can run it on for the next few years. Unfortunately, it's already looking like newer machines aren't capable of running it; I don't know where I'll go from there. I don't think I want Windows 7, and I know I don't want Windows 8. Maybe ReactOS will be in a usable state by that time. Maybe I'll just invent my own gøddamn operating system.
Don't know what I'll do with the PowerBook, either. Maybe I'll try MorphOS. I don't know if I'll be anywhere near as comfortable with it as I am with XP, but it sure as hell isn't likely to be worse than my experience with Linux.
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