> However if it had become mainstream, it would be just as cluttered up with inelegant stuff as Linux is now
This is a community and distro problem. If you accept patches for the sake of adding stuff with no good reason then you're going to get linux. For example just the other day on the 9front mailing list someone submitted a patch for an ethernet driver they were working on to enable tcp/udp checksum offloading. Another user replied along the lines of "do we really need this? first thing I do as an admin is turn off weird/buggy
offloading" which the submitter agreed with and that was that. No one really needs that patch; its code for ONE specific ethernet device few if any other users own.
The community strives to keep the OS small and practical as it was intended. That's a big part of the culture behind plan 9: Keep it simple, stupid!
Another thing is porting software for the sake of porting software is also discouraged. If you need it, then you port it and maintain it. Dont port things you don't need.
> But try to get that working with Bluetooth, something mainstream desktop Linux has only just recently managed (i.e. use bluetooth headsets reliably and without fuss).
Not really a fair statement. BT is a horror show with its batshit layercake of drivers, protocols and profiles. Plus the Linux audio situation has never stabilized and invents a new audio subsystem every decade: OSS, ALSA, Jack, pulse, pipewire, etc. The BT situation on Linux is the fault of the constantly moving linux dev community who's focus seems to favor server side stuff and DE colors.
True no doubt, but as of one or at most two Fedora releases or so, you can plug in a bluetooth dongle (if you don't already have Bluetooth), pair a headset to it and use it! With selectable audio profiles even (the phone quality bidirectional one or the hifi stereo ones). And except for a rare glitch, it works. As well as Bluetooth ever does, judging from the experience in the car.
This was not so previously. I tried every release or two, and always ended up with a locked-up driver within 10 minutes of playing with it. This is totally Bluetooth's complexity's fault of course.
> If you accept patches for the sake of adding stuff with no good reason...
Linux kernel is used on billions of devices by millions of people. If you don't see a good reason for some feature in Linux, it doesn't mean there is no such reason.
I'd even argue it is impossible to have something small, simple and practical, but simultaneously supporting such a vast sea of hardware and software combinations.
This is a community and distro problem. If you accept patches for the sake of adding stuff with no good reason then you're going to get linux. For example just the other day on the 9front mailing list someone submitted a patch for an ethernet driver they were working on to enable tcp/udp checksum offloading. Another user replied along the lines of "do we really need this? first thing I do as an admin is turn off weird/buggy offloading" which the submitter agreed with and that was that. No one really needs that patch; its code for ONE specific ethernet device few if any other users own.
The community strives to keep the OS small and practical as it was intended. That's a big part of the culture behind plan 9: Keep it simple, stupid!
Another thing is porting software for the sake of porting software is also discouraged. If you need it, then you port it and maintain it. Dont port things you don't need.
> But try to get that working with Bluetooth, something mainstream desktop Linux has only just recently managed (i.e. use bluetooth headsets reliably and without fuss).
Not really a fair statement. BT is a horror show with its batshit layercake of drivers, protocols and profiles. Plus the Linux audio situation has never stabilized and invents a new audio subsystem every decade: OSS, ALSA, Jack, pulse, pipewire, etc. The BT situation on Linux is the fault of the constantly moving linux dev community who's focus seems to favor server side stuff and DE colors.