Have to say, I've been using Linux since Slackware 95. And ChromeOS + Debian container is my favorite desktop Linux experience. I do wish a couple of things are different, but with the Android app support too and the nearly seamless Wayland integration etc it's just been so...low-maintenance. For work as a developer, etc.
Most people are not just happy because OSes that use the linux kernel now account for 3% of desktop Oses, but because presumably 3 percent of desktop users are using an OS that gives them choice and freedom. Which as the article mentioned isn't a trait of ChromeOS, the less popular ChromiumOS on the other hand, I would happily consider Linux as having 7% of desktop users out there if ChromiumOS had that 4%.
Agreed that ChromeOS is a linux distro, weird, but a distro nonetheless! I am curious as to what percentage of ChromeOS users have actually enabled linux apps vs those who just use Chrome
After having tried many distros, I settled on Fedora. It’s a boring choice, but it has been a great experience for me. Everything pretty much works without issue, and the OS gets out of the way for me to do my work.
I also think that having a trustworthy company and team behind it matters. It’s hard to trust some obscure distro to provide proper support, security updates, and proper testing.
Also, while I enjoy tinkering and messing around, my main OS is not one of the thinks I would want to tinker with. I have work to do, and I need a stable platform i can rely on.
I know this thread is old, but let me add this to the conversation: Look into distrobox, it essentially allows you to use packages from any distro inside of your current one.
Warning: not space efficient
That said, this takes the question of “what packages do I want” out of the equation when choosing a distro
Every one of the major ones boot into a GUI and have package managers, and most of them also support some sort of containerized app system like Flatpak. Imma get some hate from those who are wedded to their distro, but it honestly doesn't fucking matter.
Just pick the one with the cutest mascot/best looking logo.
I only have one AppImage app, because dev releases it this way (or docker, which I avoid too). I do not need flatpack and snap and avoid them, packages are ok.
I've been on XFCE for well over 15 years, maybe nearly 20.
In the beginning I ran Xubuntu because it was faster than Gnome 2 on my ancient laptop.
Nowadays, I just run it out of habit on top of Arch. I've had my stints on KDE and modern Gnome, but I like how "out of the way" XFCE is.
GSDE looks interesting, but I'm sure it will only appeal to the Elders that have used nextstep and similar UIs.
Honestly, I feel the 1:1 compatibility issue is overrated.
We want a stable distro that has ABI compatibility throughout the 5-10year support cycle, I don't really care if it's 1:1 compatible with RHEL.
For the niche or specific usecases where RHEL compatibility is needed, they offer their UBI container.
In the past I did care more about it, because we were using specific Puppet modules and other provisioning tools that were validated against specific RHEL versions, but in the age of containerization it's much less of an issue.
It might be an issue with certain ISO compliance, because we can't just blindly throw a RHEL 8 CIS security benchmark script at a base Alma image anymore and expect everything to work fine. But it's not a dealbreaker in my sector. We can reach compliance by making up our own benchmarks. The sectors that don't have this luxury are probably already on RHEL for different reasons.
With what Rocky tried to do to remain 1:1 compatible with RHEL (Pretty much leaking and stealing the rpm sources) I'll stay with Alma, even if they are no longer "bug compatible".
Hurrah!
Let's see if this will be the update that will break everything and force me into a reinstall of LMDE… I wish I knew more about Linux, m re-installation rate is far too hi.
First, most of the people I saw discussing it support flatpak, not packages. They support flatpak like they support a football team. example here: "Mostly because they're uneducated fools".
It's all about reputation. There are people I trust, like Steam and there are perfect strangers from the internet. Who do you trust the most between "debian VS mastakilla_51"?
Wake me up when a flatpak app is thought with clear boundaries and doesn't just request access to my whole home directory. Until then I much prefer to have a team of packager maintaining a reputation, dedicated to their job and producing fine, reliable apps.
The Audacity fiasco was a perfect example of that. The apps was bought by someone, then telemetry was introduced into the flatpak and no one saw it. Instead, the distro maintainers noticed it and deactivated the telemetry. This is how we saw the thing.
Be very careful of what you lose when you say goodbye to distro packages, don't take it for granted. If you walk the flatpak way you will have access to a mountain of unverified software built by a random person of the internet having access to your full homedir. It's like installing freewares on Windows, you end up with a lot of crap on your computer. A packages repo is not like freewares for Windows.
Yes, I know, you think flatpaks come with sandboxing. It does not, because most of these packages use /home as the sandbox anyway and people click yes. Pick some flatpaks and see the access level their require. Most of the time it's /home. This is a terrible trend and I wished more of the flatpak supporters mentioned it when they praise the tool. Some people don't care. I do.
Cryptocurrency does nothing to help you since it gives a very strong incentive to criminal to scan your homedir. Scammers will use shiny software, flatpak it, add their "secret sauce" and publish it. If you had to install a cryptowallet, would you install the one from the debian repo of the one from mastakilla_51?
Until this whole jungle is sorted out: thanks, but no thanks.
This is a good example of this kind of evangelism for the hot new packaging standard gone wrong.
A pull request was made for a half-baked appImage version of OBS by appImage creators.
They refused to support it, and the OBS developers refused to merge it because they have no appImage knowledge.
Drama ensued.
I do like how nixOS is tackling this issue, but I don't really care enough to switch away from Arch.
This thread is closed, but I'm going to make a final reply before I ban you and your associate from our organization for your inflammatory, incorrect, and downright rude comments. Actions have consequences. Any time anyone asks us why we don't support AppImage, I'm going to point them to this thread, and how it was you, personally, who irrevocably burned all bridges with our development team.
And then he harassed the OBS team claiming that "users want appimages"
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