"Father of Linux" Linus Torvalds: The program compatibility of the desktop version of Linux is the worst problem! What do you think

Recently, the "Father of Linux" Linus Torvalds made a video about the problems of the desktop version of Linux at a conference 7 years ago. This video was dug up by netizens and the media again, which caused heated discussions.

In the video, Linus emphasized: Changing the core indiscriminately, causing application incompatibility. This is the worst problem with the desktop version of Linux!

As we all know, Linus has always been known for his sharp and aggressive language. Last year, Linus also put forward some radical views on Intel's Advanced Vector Extensions 512 (AVX-512) instruction set, calling it a "power virus", and angered Intel's outspoken "death".

In this video, Linus directly pointed to the program compatibility issues of major Linux desktop distributions, and emphasized the many bad experiences that this issue will bring to developers and ordinary users.

First of all, Linus pointed out an important reason for the split of Linux: each distribution is randomly modifying the glibc library and changing the underlying API.

Due to the differences in these APIs, application developers cannot create a universal package for the "Linux" platform, so application binary files are usually only applicable to a certain release.

We know that Linus has been calling for and asking all versions of Linux not to change the core as much as possible and not to destroy the user space, but in reality, basically no one abides by this principle.

Linus said that he has also participated in the development of a chat software and produced binary files packages for Windows and OSX. However, “I generally don’t make binary files for the Linux desktop. Different Linux distributions have different rules, because different versions of Linux have different rules. Linux adaptation is really a pain for X."

Secondly, API changes will also make some desktop versions of Linux poor in terms of backward compatibility. Linus said this will bring a very bad interactive experience to ordinary users who are not developers.

Finally, Linus also talked about the wasted energy of desktop Linux on package management, and the impact of SteamOS on desktop Linux distributions.

In fact, this is not the first time Linus has "spit on" the so-called desktop version of Linux.

In the past 20 years, we have been hearing about how desktop Linux will become a mainstream topic in "5 years". But at the same time, Linus also spent 20 years trying to explain to those "avid" desktop Linux operating system users-Linux was not designed for ordinary desktop operating system users at all, but for developers, IT experts and Designed by programmers.

So, we saw this Linus video on DebConf14 7 years ago.

But today, it seems that the program compatibility problem raised by Linus has not been solved, and the new Linux version is constantly splitting the Linux software ecosystem, which is really helpless.

Fortunately, we have also seen some good improvements, such as Snap, Flatpak, a unified package management program across Linux versions.

Among them, the snap package contains the binary files of the software and all the dependencies and libraries required by it. Therefore, the software can be installed on any Linux distribution regardless of the software version.

As a new framework for distributing desktop applications, Flatpak allows developers to completely get rid of the burden of packaging and distributing applications for different Linux distributions. Just build a Flatpak app to install and use on multiple distributions.

All of the above methods can solve the annoying dependency problem of linux software installation.

If you are also considering Linux as your main desktop operating system, you can take a look at the full video from Linus Torvalds "Tucao" on the issue.
（https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/n06qqf/linus_torvalds_on_why_desktop_linux_sucks/）