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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 ...
. While the Linux-based Android operating system dominates the smartphone market in many countries, and
Linux Linux ( or ) 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 as a Linux distribution, whi ...
is used on the
New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...
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 instructio ...
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 manag ...
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 allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' ( LXC, Solaris containers, Docker, Podman), ''zones'' (Solaris containers), ' ...
using Linux has raised the profile of attacks against the kernel, and that
Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...
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 f ...
by default, but its effectiveness is debated.
Con Kolivas Con Kolivas is an Australian anaesthetist.Anaesthesia Information Page
by Kolivas, Jan 2001
H ...
, a former
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...
developer, tried to optimize the kernel scheduler 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 Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...
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 Theo de Raadt (; ; born May 19, 1968) is a South African-born software engineer who lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He is the founder and leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects and was also a founding member of NetBSD. In 2004, 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 e ...
, compares OpenBSD development process to Linux:


Desktop use

Critics of Linux on the desktop have frequently argued that a lack of top-selling
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...
s 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 vaporizatio ...
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 Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...
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 environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a grap ...
s. * 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 Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in rast ...
and
Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor, word processing software developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name ''Multi-Tool Word'' for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other pla ...
). 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 Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...
, a
virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...
, or dual-booting. 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. "Chick ...
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 informati ...
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 ''InformationWeek'' is a digital magazine which conducts corresponding face-to-face events, virtual events, and research. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California and was first published in 1985 by CMP Media, later called Informa. The p ...
: 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 ...
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 com ...
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 udev (userspace ) is a device manager for the Linux kernel. As the successor of devfsd and hotplug, udev primarily manages device nodes in the directory. At the same time, udev also handles all user space events raised when hardware devices ...
. Some companies, such as EmperorLinux, 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 In computing, a directory structure is the way an operating system arranges Computer file, files that are accessible to the user. Files are typically displayed in a hierarchical tree structure. File names and extensions A filename is a string use ...
, 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 administrato ...
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 h ...
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 Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
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 Total cost of ownership (TCO) is a financial estimate intended to help buyers and owners determine the direct and indirect costs of a product or service. It is a management accounting concept that can be used in full cost accounting or even ecolog ...
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 ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...
'', 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 Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...
also mentioned the tendency of Linux
desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a grap ...
projects to blame their users instead of themselves in case of criticism.


See also

* Criticism of desktop Linux * Criticism of Microsoft Windows * The Unix-Haters Handbook


References

{{Linux
Linux Linux ( or ) 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 as a Linux distribution, whi ...
Linux