Last year I covered the most common technical Linux issues of 2016 for OpenSource.com. I plan to update the article for 2017 and I'm curious was the LQ community thinks are the most common issues for 2017?

--jeremy

Software/library version incompatibility

I run into this on a near daily basis, and it drives the need for having multiple VMs around for different pieces of software and their different version idiosyncrasies.

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@suicidaleggroll: Out of curiosity, what distro/software combo are you using that you run into this? I've not had issues like that in many many years.

--jeremy

Mplayer, kicad, emulators, video encoders, the list goes on and on. It's almost always an issue on CentOS, less of an issue on OpenSUSE, and rarely an issue on Mint. It seems like developers these days only test on Ubuntu and ignore the rest of the Linux community, so unless your libraries are close to the versions currently being used on Ubuntu/Mint, there's a good chance you'll have a problem, at least in my experience.

I think the underlying problem is the emerging dependencies in the libraries.
The developers have no interest in backward compatibility; each new feature might break something.
With the introduction of systemd it affects "init" and the core of the OS.
Run ldd on the systemd binary; often it grows with a systemd update. Compare it to the old "init"!
Have a look on Gnome: cannot run without dbus, cannot run without systemd,...

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Wonder if a search of LQ data could reveal any useful information?

The problems I face are not what I'd call what the typical user who writes in might have. I suspect a lot of more well trained users simply fix it based on study and the problems never reach LQ.

Surprised that uefi concerns haven't made the list. I agree with video and nic issue in article.

UEFI and wifi still cause issues for some. Generally, there is a shortage of commercial standard applications. OCR is virtually non-existent, video editing is very limited - nowhere near professional standard, printer support is patchy and many lack maintenance and other features. Whinge over...

This does not make me a critic of Open Source - I just would like to see it take on "pro" Win and Apple apps.

I think that 2017 marks the start of the demise of support for 32bit architecture.
I point to the release of the new version of Skype and the recent problem with LibreOffice and Java.
These are commonly used applications with a broad installed base in both the business and personal arenas.

I'd say Amen to 1. Wifi-drivers. Luckily, I don't have a broadcom chip anymore, so for me personally that problem is out the door (solution: I bought a used Lenovo Thinkpad 2013 model. Everything works great. Best laptop I ever had). 2. printer drivers have been a problen on and off, but not at the moment, and not lately. I don't print as much any more. 3 and 4 (Video and Audio) haven't really been issues for me in a long time, and Installation - nope. It's just fun (as long as wifi works, that is...).
My only real addition to the list is Power management in general and suspending in particular. This is the one area where I still have the "wonder if it works"-kneejerk reaction. I tend to always check if all my work has been saved before I suspend, because I can't be certain that the machine will wake up again.
Two other areas where I used to have problems but no longer do, are usb/external hard drives and dual monitors.

For me atm is Virtualbox not working on Xubuntu because I guess DKMS is not being actively maintained, so it doesnt support end user kernel signatures of modules. So I cant load the vboxdrv module, because the new EFI_SECURE_BOOT_SIG_ENFORCE feature in the kernel prevents me from doing so.. My options are to either disable secureboot, or create a key-pair and import it in MOK, then sign the vboxdrv mudule with that.. It should just work..

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ZFS is, IMHO, the best filesystem for long term reliable storage. I have struggled to find a distro that supports it reliably. Best so far is Debian.

Lack of support for easy-to-manage clustering and resilience.

Power management support of wake-up timers is spotty across distros.

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Hello Jeremy

The one biggest issue I have with linux distros is the support of AMD graphics cards. I have and use Ubuntu, Mint, and returned to my favourite distro, now mainstream for me today, and that is openSuSE LEAP 42.3. BUT, this whole nonsense of them building opensource AMD drivers, and no longer supporting the proprietory drivers, never mind that AMD has dropped the proprietory drivers since 2015, is not working.

I need the full 3D acceleration performance that we got from the proprietory drivers, and the opensource just don't cut it at the moment. A sideline of my IT business is the building of virtual aviation systems, from cheaper desktop kits with controllers, and the use of multiscreens as the price goes up, to full blown cockpits/flight decks, and many times these run on X-Plane and FlightGear, the only two SIM's that work with Linux. But this is now sidelined with this proprietory support drop, as I am left with two choices, either change to nVidia (I am an AMD user and supplier for many reasons, one of them is the driving of multiple screens per card that nVidia cannot handle), or drop the stability of Linux and use a Microsoft O/S, both not ideal for me. Or thirdly use another professional SIM.

So at the moment there is a very bitter taste in using Linux distro's at the moment, they are going in the wrong direction, and that is not good for me personally.

Huge amount of different software offering more or less similar features/services. I'm forced to use the default repos, default packages, hard to add anything from outside, but there are a lot of goodies outside (like github).

The other problem I found: we use a lot of tools/apps/programs/whatever which are not ready, not completed, not finished. Therefore they are changing, not really stable, unreliable (just check for example: cloud or docker).

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Nvidia video drivers are the most consistent problem that I experience. I dread updating a physical machine because Nvidia drivers aren't going to work right. I installed OpenSuSE 42.3 on an Asus laptop a few days ago. With Nvidia drivers installed the brightness control doesn't work and when logging out the screen endlessly turns off and back on and I have to force the computer to turn off. Using Nouveau drivers on that particular machine.

I find that most of the programs are great but lack the documentation on how to use the programs. If the developers would just give us screen shots of examples, it would be a big help. I think we are all smart enough to take it from there.
KISS - Keep It Simple S...

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