The Linux desktop is in trouble | ZDNet

Coffee break
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Torvalds thinks there’s been some progress. For software installation, he likes Flatpak. This software program, like its rival Snap, lets you install and maintain programs across different Linux distros. At the same time, this rivalry between Red Hat (which supports Flatpak) and Canonical (which backs Snap) bugs Torvalds. He’s annoyed at how the “fragmentation of the different vendors have held the desktop back.”

I’ve heard this before. There have been a lot of Linux desktop distros over the years. They tend to last for five or six years and then real life gets in the way of what’s almost always a volunteer effort. The programmers walk away, and the distro then all too often declines to be replaced by another.
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Looking ahead, I’d love to see a foundation bring together the Linux desktop community and have them hammer out out a common desktop for everyone. Yes, I know, I know. Many hardcore Linux users love have a variety of choices.

Well, of course, everyone wants his favourite environment and distro to become the one and only… :roll_eyes:

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This is just restating where the Linux desktop has always been. It never has and never was going to get significant market share compared to M$ and Apple with it’s current organizational model. More accurately lack of organizational model.

A standardized Linux desktop is a kind of a dream, always has been. Linux Torvalds is probably correct in that if this ever happens it will be something like Android or Chrome because to do this you have to have an organization that can develop relationships with manufacturers. It has to be done as OEM. The business model is what made M$ not the quality of it’s operating system.

Full disclosure: From a moral and ethical standpoint I do not particularly like and do not at all admire M$, Apple, or Alphabet. The business model I’m talking about evolved without any input or approval from me and arguably does not operate with my interests foremost. Thus I am not advocating for this model.

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