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The criticism of Linux focuses on issues concerning use of operating systems which use the
Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...
. While the Linux-based
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
operating system dominates the smartphone market in many countries, and Linux is used on the New York Stock Exchange and most
supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
s, it is used in few desktop and laptop computers. Much of the criticism of Linux is related to the lack of desktop and laptop adoption, although as of 2015 there has been growing unease with the project's perspective on security and its adoption of
systemd systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. Its main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions; Its primary component is a "system and service manager ...
has been controversial.


Linux kernel criticisms


Kernel development politics

Some security professionals say that the rise in prominence of
operating system-level virtualization OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) paradigm in which the Kernel (computer science), kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' (LXC, Solaris Containers, Solaris containers, Docker ...
using Linux has raised the profile of attacks against the kernel, and that Linus Torvalds is reticent to add mitigations against kernel-level attacks in official releases. Linux 4.12, released in 2017, enabled
KASLR Address space layout randomization (ASLR) is a computer security technique involved in preventing exploitation of memory corruption vulnerabilities. In order to prevent an attacker from reliably jumping to, for example, a particular exploited fun ...
by default, but its effectiveness is debated.
Con Kolivas Con Kolivas is an Australian anaesthetist.Anaesthesia Information Page
by Kolivas, Jan 2001
He ...
, a former kernel developer, tried to optimize the kernel
scheduler A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible task (project management), tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order ...
for interactive desktop use. He finally dropped the support for his patches due to the lack of appreciation for his development. In the 2007 interview ''Why I quit: kernel developer Con Kolivas'' he stated:


Kernel performance

At LinuxCon 2009, Linux creator Linus Torvalds said that the Linux kernel has become "bloated and huge": At LinuxCon 2014, Torvalds said he thinks the bloat situation is better because modern PCs are a lot faster:


Kernel code quality

In an interview with German newspaper Zeit Online in November 2011, Linus Torvalds stated that Linux has become "too complex" and he was concerned that developers would not be able to find their way through the software anymore. He complained that even subsystems have become very complex and he told the publication that he is "afraid of the day" when there will be an error that "cannot be evaluated anymore." Andrew Morton, one of Linux kernel lead developers, explains that many bugs identified in Linux are never fixed: Theo de Raadt, founder of
OpenBSD OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project em ...
, compares OpenBSD development process to Linux:


Desktop use

Critics of Linux on the desktop have frequently argued that a lack of top-selling video games on the platform holds adoption back. For instance, as of September 2015, the
Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
gaming service has 1,500 games available on Linux, compared to 2,323 games for Mac and 6,500 Windows games. As of October 2021,
Proton A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...
, a Steam-backed development effort descended from Wine provides compatibility with a large number of Windows-only games, and potentially better performance over Linux-native ports in some cases. ProtonDB is a community-maintained effort to gauge how well different versions of Proton work with a given game. As a desktop operating system, Linux has been criticized on a number of fronts, including: * A confusing number of choices of distributions, and desktop environments. * Poor open source support for some hardware, in particular drivers for 3D
graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...
chips, where manufacturers were unwilling to provide full specifications. As a result, many video cards have both open and closed source drivers, usually with different levels of support. * Limited availability of widely used commercial applications (such as
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...
and Microsoft Word). This is a result of the software developers not supporting Linux rather than any fault of Linux itself. Sometimes this can be solved by running the Windows versions of these programs through Wine, a virtual machine, or
dual-booting Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting may ...
. Even so, this creates a
chicken or the egg The chicken or the egg causality dilemma is commonly stated as the question, "which came first: the chicken or the egg?" The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens. "Chicke ...
situation where developers make programs for Windows due to its market share, and consumers use Windows due to availability of the programs.


Distribution fragmentation

Another common complaint levelled against Linux is the abundance of distributions available. As of November, 2021,
DistroWatch DistroWatch is a website which provides news, distribution pages hit rankings, and other general information about various Linux distributions as well as other free software/open source Unix-like operating systems. It now contains information on ...
lists 275 distributions. While Linux advocates have defended the number as an example of freedom of choice, other critics cite the large number as cause for confusion and lack of standardization in Linux operating systems. Alexander Wolfe wrote in InformationWeek: Caitlyn Martin from LinuxDevCenter has been critical of the number of Linux distributions:


Hardware support

In recent decades (since the established dominance of Microsoft Windows) hardware developers have often been reluctant to provide full technical documentation for their products, to allow drivers to be written. This has meant that a Linux user had to carefully hand pick the hardware that made up the system to ensure functionality and compatibility. These problems have largely been addressed: At one time, Linux systems required removable media, such as
floppy disc A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...
s and
CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...
s, to be manually mounted before they could be accessed. Mounting media is now automatic in nearly all distributions, with the development of the udev. Some companies, such as
EmperorLinux EmperorLinux, Inc. is a reseller who, according to '' PC Magazine'', "specialize in the sales of pre-configured Linux laptops for companies and individuals that want stable, easy-to use laptops". EmperorLinux was founded in 1999 by Lincoln Durey ...
, have addressed the problems of laptop hardware compatibility by mating modified Linux distributions with specially selected hardware to ensure compatibility from delivery.


Directory structure

The traditional directory structure, which is a heritage from Linux's Unix roots in the 1970s, has been criticized as inappropriate for desktop
end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrat ...
s. Some Linux distributions like
GoboLinux GoboLinux is a Linux distribution whose most prominent feature is a reorganization of the traditional Linux file system. Rather than following the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard like most Unix-like systems, each program in a GoboLinux system has i ...
and moonOS have proposed alternative hierarchies that were argued to be easier for end users, though they achieved little acceptance.


Criticism by Microsoft

In 2004, Microsoft initiated its ''Get the Facts'' marketing campaign, which specifically criticized Linux server usage. In particular, it claimed that the vulnerabilities of Windows are fewer in number than those of Linux distributions, that Windows is more reliable and secure than Linux, that the total cost of ownership of Linux is higher (due to complexity, acquisition costs, and support costs), that use of Linux places a burden of liability on businesses, and that "Linux vendors provide little, if any indemnification coverage." In addition, the corporation published various studies in an attempt to prove this – the factuality of which has been heavily disputed by different authors who claim that Microsoft's comparisons are flawed. Many Linux distributors now offer indemnification to customers. Internal Microsoft reports from the Halloween documents leak have presented conflicting views. Particularly documents from 1998 and 1999 ceded that "Linux ... is trusted in mission critical applications, and – due to its open source code – has a long term credibility which exceeds many other competitive OSs", "An advanced Win32 GUI user would have a short learning cycle to become productive nder Linux, "Long term, my simple experiments do indicate that Linux has a chance at the desktop market ...", and "Overall respondents felt the most compelling reason to support OSS was that it 'Offers a low total cost of ownership (TCO)'."


Responses to criticism

The Linux community has had mixed responses to these and other criticisms. As mentioned above, while some criticism has led to new features and better user-friendliness, the Linux community as a whole has a reputation for being resistant to criticism. Writing for '' PC World'', Keir Thomas, noted that, "Most of the time the world of Linux tends to be anti-critical. If anybody in the community dares be critical, they get stomped upon." In a 2015 interview, Linus Torvalds also mentioned the tendency of Linux desktop environment projects to blame their users instead of themselves in case of criticism.


See also

*
Criticism of desktop Linux Criticism of desktop Linux is a history of comment on the perceived shortcomings of the Linux operating system when installed on desktop computers. These criticisms have been aimed at the plethora of issues and lack of consistency between Linux ...
*
Criticism of Microsoft Windows The various versions of Microsoft's desktop operating system, Windows, have received various criticisms since Microsoft's inception. Data collection Concerns were shown by advocates and other critics for Windows 10's privacy policies and its c ...
* The Unix-Haters Handbook


References

{{Linux Linux Linux