
Desktop Linux – The Case for a Single Distro - rsandhu
https://medium.com/@robsandhu/desktop-linux-the-case-for-a-single-distro-2dac8b2b8c8e
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SanchoPanda
I bet if I swapped out xfce when someone was upgrading from win7 to 10, and
could sed -i s/ubuntu|xfce/win|ms|etc/ in just the main screens maybe a
quarter of all users would never notice. Buying a computer was a thing
everyone took seriously in days past, clicking around the Dell website for
days. Today, not so much. People often __still__ have a computer, and they
view it that way. I can imagine many will not even other replacing aging
machines once they croak.

Desktop linux will be bigger, probably much bigger, but as a share of the
total desktop market. That market itself is not exactly promising. I think the
last data I saw was that desktop sales had been falling for the better part of
a decade! Counting laptops. With a dead cat bounce here or there.

This is all a roundabout way of saying that there is still a fight to be had
for linux, but it's on phones. Desktop share will not be won, it will be
conceded by the big guys as a sales pitch to the primarily techy types using
it to embrace their SDK on mobile, where the money is.

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apexe
As a new Linux user, I used to think along these lines as well. The problem is
that the whole reason I was using Linux in the first place was my
dissatisfaction with the offerings from Apple and Microsoft. I started on
Ubuntu and became dissatisfied with that. I tried a handful of other flavors
and eventually settled on Arch.

One of the issues I see with requesting Linux consolidate to become more like
Windows or MacOS is that the people who abandon those platforms likely will
not be happy with a one-size-fits-all solution. From my perspective, the
diversity of choices is one of the main strengths of the platform. If there is
already a platform that better suits your needs you have no reason to switch
in the first place.

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dilippkumar
> In a world of Chromebooks and virtualized/web apps, the need for
> customization and multiple flavours is dwindling — we are good with the
> browser running smoothly.

> What we need is snappy window management, smooth scrolling and simply a
> beautiful environment.

I love having single purpose native applications running on my laptop. The
current situation with a GNOME desktop environment is terrible.

Where are the regularly updated RSS feed readers, native blogging clients,
journaling applications, podcast players? Moving from a macbook to a linux
laptop has now become a massive downgrade.

I wonder if the iOS and Android app stores have become so profitable that
developers who would previously build linux desktop applications have all
moved on to greener pastures.

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SifrNihilum
I'm confused by this. In my experience there are PLENTY of up to date and
generally consistently updated apps on the Linux desktop. In a lot of cases, I
can find more things that work out of the box on Linux than I can on any other
system. If we go with the idea that the universal Linux the author speaks of
should be Ubuntu with GNOME, then RSS is covered easily by 'feeds' which is
still updated, as is 'feedreader', native blogging is a bit more complex, what
does that mean? Microblogging is well supported. Multiple options for twitter,
or mastodon are available. If you're hosting your own blog, hugo, jekyll,
nift, are all easily supported. I admit I don't do Journaling at all, so I
can't help with that, but I'm pretty sure there are options. Podcasting though
is pretty easy to cover. Spotify if you just want something quick and easy,
GNOME podcasts, Vocal, just look in the Ubuntu store and you'll see heaps of
options. If you just like your macbook, that's fine, but let's not malign
Linux because it isn't apple...

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vehemenz
Change a few of the details, and this post could have been written twenty
years ago.

The situation in 2020 is different though. What do you gain with XFCE, Gnome,
or your favorite window manager, that is not done better in MacOS or Windows?
Both of those environments already provide *nix support, and they have much
better (understatement) hardware support.

~~~
SifrNihilum
I'm not entirely sure what hardware support you're missing, but in my
experience using Linux works out of the box far more often than Windows. Can't
speak for Apple obviously. I can guarantee it won't install and run on my PC
without a LOT of work though... But hey. If Windows works for you, then stick
to Windows!

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quattrofan
And better 4k support...

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juststeve
Maybe not single a distro, but consolidate? yes.

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watertom
Really?

You really think that an article is necessary to discuss the fragmentation of
Linux and how it's holding back the platform.

The fragmentation predates Linux, System V vs BSD, it was a problem in the
80's.

Linux is the technology equivalent of protesting COVID-19 lock-downs. Everyone
is so selfish, and self absorbed that they are unwilling to yield for the
greater good.

