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To make desktop Linux a reality we need more standardization in the Linux world, not less. If some GNU/Stallman types get offended, so be it. It's a worthy trad

To make desktop Linux a reality we need more standardization in the Linux world, not less. If some GNU/Stallman types get offended, so be it. It's a worthy tradeoff.

account42 4y ago
Desktop Linux is a reality. "Standardizing" won't make it any more mainstream and will destroy what makes it special: That you get the OS that YOU want.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  ~2% market share is far away from a reality. Everywhere mainstream I go I only see either Mac or Windows.
  - lproven 4y ago
    > Everywhere mainstream I go Do you visit people's homes much, or to schools and universities, or anywhere in China? Because various vendors have shipped something like ¼-⅓ billion ChromeBooks over the last 3-4 years. That's a lot. That's more than Apple has shipped Macs. You don't see them in offices much, it's true, but that's because they're in homes and educational institutions. China has been following an aggressive program to dispense with foreign computers, called 3-5-2: https://www.ft.com/content/b55fc6ee-1787-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406 https://www.ft.com/content/b55fc6ee-1787-11ea-8d73-6303645ac... The plan is that by 2025, everything will be Made In China: https://cybershack.com.au/opinion/made-in-china-2025-a-policy-with-intended-consequences-opinion/ https://cybershack.com.au/opinion/made-in-china-2025-a-polic... I reckon there is a lot of desktop Linux out there, but we don't see it. Like it or not, ChromeOS is Linux. (Somewhere way down there, it's Gentoo.) Unity OS and openKylin are, basically, Ubuntu. Deepin is its own thing but at least until last year it's Debian underneath. You don't see much of Kylin or UOS or Deepin, but for nearly 20% of the human race, those are the dominant Linux distros.
    - pxc 4y ago
      Most people who consciously prefer 'desktop Linux' do so not because it's based on the Linux kernel. They do so because it feels better to use than alternatives. And the reason a Linux desktop feels better to use goes understated because it seems 'political' and the people who have explicitly advocated for it most visibly have been smeared as extremists, ideologues, etc. But it's clear: using a system comprised as far as practicable of free software is refreshing, because it provides respite from the artifice, malice, and opacity of big tech products. It's a lost treasure from a forgotten world. Chromebooks are so thoroughly productized that they have very little to do with what most 'Linux' advocates really like about Linux. We should wake up and recognize ourselves as advocates of software freedom, user choice, community-driven development, and a particular free software ecosystem, instead of getting into nonsense arguments about 'what is really Linux'. The same goes double for similar discussions that crop up around Android, which is as productized as ChromeOS but additionally much more locked down, further alienating it from the actual virtues that make good Linux experiences good.
      - lproven 4y ago
        I find this a very strange response, because while I can't really argue against any of it, it reads to me not as an answer but as a passing comment, tangential to what I was writing about that intersects with it almost incidentally. There are big issues here but I am not sure that our views overlap by more than a wafer-thin ellipse. One question: does it really matter why people use it? Another: which is more important, the people who use it for political or ideological reasons, or the ones who use it from pragmatism? Another: does it maybe matter how many use what form, than why they do it? For 3 decades or so, there have been 2 main camps in the FOSS world, which is why the term "FOSS" was invented. One camp is the GNU folk, the Free Software types. The other is the Open Source folks. Free Software: purity is more important than functionality. Don't use anything non-Free. Open Source: what's important is that it works and does the job. Try to keep it all Free but if the choice is not working or not being free, it's more important that it works. Fair so far? This split exists in Linux. So, for example, some distros (Ubuntu, Mint, and others) include proprietary blobs and drivers because without them it won't work on most computers. Other distros (Fedora, Debian) don't. If you have problems getting it working, tough. Try a wired Ethernet connection. Try a USB wifi dongle. It's more important to them that it's all Free, but they may include non-free firmware in some versions or as extras. Other distros refuse that, and purge the whole codebase of all BLOBs: Trisquel, Purism Pure OS. They accept and embrace that this choice means restricted hardware choice, and you may have to build computers specifically to run them. But the thing is that now there's a 3rd kind of Linux. Linuxes that don't even claim to be a Linux, corporate products that happen to be based on Linux, but don't mention it, and are sold to the public as appliances, devices that work and let you use the Internet, and who cares how it works underneath. Android, ChromeBooks, ChromeCast, etc. And the thing is, these are way more successful. Billions of people use them and don't care what they run. As a result, some of the changes have filtered back up the software chain and now desktop Linux is way more viable than it was, and a lot of stuff mostly just works. But the two FOSS camps unite over this: these things Do Not Count and are not considered Real Linux. I think market success matters more than ideology. We can say that it's arrived and it's practical and usable because hundreds of millions of people buy this kit every year and just get on with using it and enjoying it, and they don't care -- and don't need to care -- if it's FOSS software underneath.
liveoneggs 4y ago
chromebooks are the standard linux desktop
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  No thanks. I'm not sinking myself deeper into the Google data collection and advertisement empire. The whole point of the Linux desktop is freedom from such anti-consumer behaviors.
  - lproven 4y ago
    > The whole point of the Linux desktop is freedom from such anti-consumer behaviors [[Citation needed]] That may be your use-case, but it's not everyone's. I use it because it works well on cheap generic kit, it's free, it's faster than Windows, and it's largely immune to viruses. My machines are all connected to paid Google accounts.

To make desktop Linux a reality we need more standardization in the Linux world, not less. If some GNU/Stallman types get offended, so be it. It's a worthy tradeoff.

account42 4y ago

Desktop Linux is a reality. "Standardizing" won't make it any more mainstream and will destroy what makes it special: That you get the OS that YOU want.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
~2% market share is far away from a reality. Everywhere mainstream I go I only see either Mac or Windows.
- lproven 4y ago
  > Everywhere mainstream I go Do you visit people's homes much, or to schools and universities, or anywhere in China? Because various vendors have shipped something like ¼-⅓ billion ChromeBooks over the last 3-4 years. That's a lot. That's more than Apple has shipped Macs. You don't see them in offices much, it's true, but that's because they're in homes and educational institutions. China has been following an aggressive program to dispense with foreign computers, called 3-5-2: https://www.ft.com/content/b55fc6ee-1787-11ea-8d73-6303645ac406 https://www.ft.com/content/b55fc6ee-1787-11ea-8d73-6303645ac... The plan is that by 2025, everything will be Made In China: https://cybershack.com.au/opinion/made-in-china-2025-a-policy-with-intended-consequences-opinion/ https://cybershack.com.au/opinion/made-in-china-2025-a-polic... I reckon there is a lot of desktop Linux out there, but we don't see it. Like it or not, ChromeOS is Linux. (Somewhere way down there, it's Gentoo.) Unity OS and openKylin are, basically, Ubuntu. Deepin is its own thing but at least until last year it's Debian underneath. You don't see much of Kylin or UOS or Deepin, but for nearly 20% of the human race, those are the dominant Linux distros.
  - pxc 4y ago
    Most people who consciously prefer 'desktop Linux' do so not because it's based on the Linux kernel. They do so because it feels better to use than alternatives. And the reason a Linux desktop feels better to use goes understated because it seems 'political' and the people who have explicitly advocated for it most visibly have been smeared as extremists, ideologues, etc. But it's clear: using a system comprised as far as practicable of free software is refreshing, because it provides respite from the artifice, malice, and opacity of big tech products. It's a lost treasure from a forgotten world. Chromebooks are so thoroughly productized that they have very little to do with what most 'Linux' advocates really like about Linux. We should wake up and recognize ourselves as advocates of software freedom, user choice, community-driven development, and a particular free software ecosystem, instead of getting into nonsense arguments about 'what is really Linux'. The same goes double for similar discussions that crop up around Android, which is as productized as ChromeOS but additionally much more locked down, further alienating it from the actual virtues that make good Linux experiences good.
    - lproven 4y ago
      I find this a very strange response, because while I can't really argue against any of it, it reads to me not as an answer but as a passing comment, tangential to what I was writing about that intersects with it almost incidentally. There are big issues here but I am not sure that our views overlap by more than a wafer-thin ellipse. One question: does it really matter why people use it? Another: which is more important, the people who use it for political or ideological reasons, or the ones who use it from pragmatism? Another: does it maybe matter how many use what form, than why they do it? For 3 decades or so, there have been 2 main camps in the FOSS world, which is why the term "FOSS" was invented. One camp is the GNU folk, the Free Software types. The other is the Open Source folks. Free Software: purity is more important than functionality. Don't use anything non-Free. Open Source: what's important is that it works and does the job. Try to keep it all Free but if the choice is not working or not being free, it's more important that it works. Fair so far? This split exists in Linux. So, for example, some distros (Ubuntu, Mint, and others) include proprietary blobs and drivers because without them it won't work on most computers. Other distros (Fedora, Debian) don't. If you have problems getting it working, tough. Try a wired Ethernet connection. Try a USB wifi dongle. It's more important to them that it's all Free, but they may include non-free firmware in some versions or as extras. Other distros refuse that, and purge the whole codebase of all BLOBs: Trisquel, Purism Pure OS. They accept and embrace that this choice means restricted hardware choice, and you may have to build computers specifically to run them. But the thing is that now there's a 3rd kind of Linux. Linuxes that don't even claim to be a Linux, corporate products that happen to be based on Linux, but don't mention it, and are sold to the public as appliances, devices that work and let you use the Internet, and who cares how it works underneath. Android, ChromeBooks, ChromeCast, etc. And the thing is, these are way more successful. Billions of people use them and don't care what they run. As a result, some of the changes have filtered back up the software chain and now desktop Linux is way more viable than it was, and a lot of stuff mostly just works. But the two FOSS camps unite over this: these things Do Not Count and are not considered Real Linux. I think market success matters more than ideology. We can say that it's arrived and it's practical and usable because hundreds of millions of people buy this kit every year and just get on with using it and enjoying it, and they don't care -- and don't need to care -- if it's FOSS software underneath.

liveoneggs 4y ago

chromebooks are the standard linux desktop

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
No thanks. I'm not sinking myself deeper into the Google data collection and advertisement empire. The whole point of the Linux desktop is freedom from such anti-consumer behaviors.
- lproven 4y ago
  > The whole point of the Linux desktop is freedom from such anti-consumer behaviors [[Citation needed]] That may be your use-case, but it's not everyone's. I use it because it works well on cheap generic kit, it's free, it's faster than Windows, and it's largely immune to viruses. My machines are all connected to paid Google accounts.