7 ms·

Seems targeted at office workplaces. A locked-down system that cannot even be corrupted or tampered with. Consider a workplace of a receptionist at a medical of

by nine_k 1y ago

Seems targeted at office workplaces. A locked-down system that cannot even be corrupted or tampered with. Consider a workplace of a receptionist at a medical office, or a library computer. Linux is wonderfully flexible, which allows to create distros like that, among other things. Linux is also free as in freedom, which may be very important for trusting the code you run, or which a governmental official runs. I bet that past the alpha stage they will offer a configuration tool to prepare the images to your liking, and ways to lock the system down even more. Would work nicely over PXE boot.

Blikkentrekker 1y ago
That seems like a good niche to exist indeed and many people would probably misunderstand its purpose by it being called a “KDE distribution”. It would perhaps have been better if it were created by some independent group for this purpose and just happened to settle upon KDE as its interface, or rather offer multiple choices to be honest.
- DoctorOW 1y ago
  I disagree, KDE needs both a distro and a niche for that distro to fill: > KDE is a huge producer of software. It's awkward for us to not have our own method of distributing it
  - Blikkentrekker 1y ago
    No, KDE does not need its own distro, that's the issue. They don't need their own method to distribute it which benefits no one. The idea of a distribution for this specific purpose is best left in the hands of some organization with experience with this specific purpose, not KDE whose experience is developing desktop environments. How exactly is it “awkward” for them and how exactly does distributing this in any way improve the development process of KDE? They can't even dogfood it obviously.
    - DoctorOW 1y ago
      Plasma[1] is a desktop environment made by KDE, who also makes lots of other software. They make stuff like Dolphin (file manager), Konsole (terminal emulator), and Partition Manager as OS basics already[2]. [1]: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop https://kde.org/plasma-desktop [2]: https://apps.kde.org/ https://apps.kde.org/
      - Blikkentrekker 1y ago
        Yes, I'm well aware of that, Plasma can be installed on many distributions. How exactly is K.D.E. making their own software distribution benefiting the development of Plasma? This really feels like they first decided they wanted to make their own distribution for no reason, and then went to search for the niche for it to fill which is the wrong way to do it. Usually someone, who typically does not do anything else at the moment, realizes there is a certain niche that needs to be filled and then decides to make a distribution that fills that niche.
macco 1y ago
The problem for this use case is that certain businesses, like medical offices, use specialized software that is often Windows only.
- Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
  More and more of this software is moving to the cloud and only requires a web browser. A distribution that is very difficult to break and can launch a web browser would already meet many use cases for receptionists, hotels, consultation stations, etc.
  - bb88 1y ago
    Yes, but doctors offices are still the last places in the US to use a fax machine.
    - alex_suzuki 1y ago
      Not just in the US, they‘re surprisingly popular still here in Switzerland. I‘ve written interfaces to fax gateways (convert incoming fax to pdf, extract metadata, save in DB) multiple times.
    - Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
      The United States is not the only country in the world. In France, it is almost impossible to make an appointment without using Doctolib, which is SaaS software for booking consultations (and lots of other things).
      - Hendrikto 1y ago
        Same in Germany. Doctolib got popular very quickly, in just a fee years. Now it’s almost mandatory. I am not a fan. It’s a big outage waiting to happen. It’s an enormous data breach waiting to happen. It will inevitable be enshitified.
        1y ago
uneven9434 1y ago
What you want may be an "immutable" distro (KDE Linux also is). And there have be some immutable distros now. Such as Fedora Silverblue.

by nine_k 1y ago

Blikkentrekker 1y ago

That seems like a good niche to exist indeed and many people would probably misunderstand its purpose by it being called a “KDE distribution”. It would perhaps have been better if it were created by some independent group for this purpose and just happened to settle upon KDE as its interface, or rather offer multiple choices to be honest.

DoctorOW 1y ago
I disagree, KDE needs both a distro and a niche for that distro to fill: > KDE is a huge producer of software. It's awkward for us to not have our own method of distributing it
- Blikkentrekker 1y ago
  No, KDE does not need its own distro, that's the issue. They don't need their own method to distribute it which benefits no one. The idea of a distribution for this specific purpose is best left in the hands of some organization with experience with this specific purpose, not KDE whose experience is developing desktop environments. How exactly is it “awkward” for them and how exactly does distributing this in any way improve the development process of KDE? They can't even dogfood it obviously.
  - DoctorOW 1y ago
    Plasma[1] is a desktop environment made by KDE, who also makes lots of other software. They make stuff like Dolphin (file manager), Konsole (terminal emulator), and Partition Manager as OS basics already[2]. [1]: https://kde.org/plasma-desktop https://kde.org/plasma-desktop [2]: https://apps.kde.org/ https://apps.kde.org/
    - Blikkentrekker 1y ago
      Yes, I'm well aware of that, Plasma can be installed on many distributions. How exactly is K.D.E. making their own software distribution benefiting the development of Plasma? This really feels like they first decided they wanted to make their own distribution for no reason, and then went to search for the niche for it to fill which is the wrong way to do it. Usually someone, who typically does not do anything else at the moment, realizes there is a certain niche that needs to be filled and then decides to make a distribution that fills that niche.

macco 1y ago

The problem for this use case is that certain businesses, like medical offices, use specialized software that is often Windows only.

Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
More and more of this software is moving to the cloud and only requires a web browser. A distribution that is very difficult to break and can launch a web browser would already meet many use cases for receptionists, hotels, consultation stations, etc.
- bb88 1y ago
  Yes, but doctors offices are still the last places in the US to use a fax machine.
  - alex_suzuki 1y ago
    Not just in the US, they‘re surprisingly popular still here in Switzerland. I‘ve written interfaces to fax gateways (convert incoming fax to pdf, extract metadata, save in DB) multiple times.
  - Beretta_Vexee 1y ago
    The United States is not the only country in the world. In France, it is almost impossible to make an appointment without using Doctolib, which is SaaS software for booking consultations (and lots of other things).
    - Hendrikto 1y ago
      Same in Germany. Doctolib got popular very quickly, in just a fee years. Now it’s almost mandatory. I am not a fan. It’s a big outage waiting to happen. It’s an enormous data breach waiting to happen. It will inevitable be enshitified.
      - 1y ago

uneven9434 1y ago

What you want may be an "immutable" distro (KDE Linux also is). And there have be some immutable distros now. Such as Fedora Silverblue.