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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Are there any things in Linux that need to be started over from scratch? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm curious how software can be created and evolve over time. I'm afraid that at some point, we'll realize there are issues with the software we're using that can only be remedied by massive changes or a complete rewrite.

Are there any instances of this happening? Where something is designed with a flaw that doesn't get realized until much later, necessitating scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Happens all the time on Linux. The current instance would be the shift from X11 to Wayland.

The first thing I noticed was when the audio system switched from OSS to ALSA.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

And then ALSA to all those barely functional audio daemons to PulseAudio, and then again to PipeWire. That sure one took a few tries to figure out right.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

GUI toolkits like Qt and Gtk. I can't tell you how to do it better, but something is definitely wrong with the standard class hierarchy framework model these things adhere to. Someday someone will figure out a better way to write GUIs (or maybe that already exists and I'm unaware) and that new approach will take over eventually, and all the GUI toolkits will have to be scrapped or rewritten completely.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Desktop apps nowadays are mostly written in HTML with Electron anyway.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which - in my considered opinion - makes them so much worse.

Is it because writing native UI on all current systems I'm aware of is still worse than in the times of NeXTStep with Interface Builder, Objective C, and their class libraries?

And/or is it because it allows (perceived) lower-cost "web developers" to be tasked with "native" client UI?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Are you aware of macOS? Because it is still built with the same UI tools that you mention.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Aware, yes. Interested, no - closed source philosophy, and the way Apple implements it specifically, turn me off hard.