from freeman@feddit.org to linux@lemmy.ml on 31 Jul 08:10
https://feddit.org/post/16589649
tldr: For Linux adoption it would be better for devs to focus on 2 (“main”) distros which are very similar to Windows and macOS and then 2-3 further (“big”) distros which give a bit more room to experiment. All the other distros create confusion and analysis-paralysis for the user who wants to switch or wants to help others to do the switch.
Edit because some people got emotional and I was being imprecise: Disclaimer: I dont want to dictate any foss dev, I understand that “Linux” isnt a company. By “Linux” in this post I only ment the desktop OS for personal and work use.
— (sorry for the long paragraph, i ranted and brain dumped the idea)
I see a problem: Even “stable” distros like Debian and big and “fully developed” DEs like KDE or GNOME arent ready for the majority of the users switching from windows. Missing software compatibility and the need to fall back on the commandline are just some of the problems. The biggest one is the confusion for the average user: They google “install Linux” and then need to do research for at least 30minutes, figuring out which of the popular distros is the right one for them. If decided, then (depending on the distro) they then have to choose the DE.
Its a sinilar problem to the adoption of the Fediverse: You are expected to decide what instance you want to be part of. This makes it also very hard for a linux enthusiasts to convince/help install a distro for a family member, as you dont know their preferenced or how they use their Win/Mac machine. So either you as an expert have to observe and then do research on what distro+DE fits the usecase or the enduser themselves need to distro-hop, which is obviously not happening.
Now you are thinking: But just install Linux Mint and they probably do most of the things in their Browser anyways.
But in my experience the switch of potentially the browser, the mail-client and ontop of that the OS is a pretty tall ask for an average end user. So the whole switching thing becomes a multi year operation where they first switch the software they use to FOSS one. Which is a tall order and it makes it even harder to explain and convince someone. Heck, it already takes multiple days to get my grandma up to speed after the change Win10 -> Win11, because some buttons moved and the context menue looks different.
Now my utopian idea: If there were only a handful of popular distros+DEs, one could map them on a 2D-plane or even on a spectrum of “fixed, you have to adapt” to “flexible, you have to adjust the settings”. Mac users could switch to a distro which is quite fixed (comparable to macOS). This fixed distro should out of the box be close to the mac experience. With windows the same.
Very very rough prototype of the spectrum to visualize my idea. I dont know enough about it but tried anyways:
flexible <Arch + Hyprland>
<Debian + KDE Plasma>
Windows 10
<Linux Mint + Cinnamon>
MacOS
<Debian + GNOME> fixed
If then most of Linux Devs (from Kernel to distro to UI to software) mostly focus on the 4-5 main distros, then they would get more stable and they could be made to behave closer to their proprietary counterparts.
This then could make the switch from Mac/Win so much more easy because:
-
The distro is closer to the old proprietary OS. So the enduser just has to learn other “new” software, the OS doesnt demand a learning curve but just replicates the Win/Mac experience.
-
The decision which distro to use is easier, as there are the main ones which are easy to choose because they are distinct from one another.
Disclaimer: No, i am no expert, I probably dont know enough of the technical side, I just wanted to share the enduser experience. Obviously there will always be countless distros by enthusiasts who tinker with their dozends of dev-friends for their personal-perfect distro. There will always be the people who deliberately do some frankensteined distro, and I am not here to forbid any of this. The confusing diversity of all the options is just not helping the wider public.
threaded - newest
I’ve seen this opinion voiced quite a few times for the last 28 or so years I’ve been a Linux user.
Guess what? It’s free and open source software. People work on what they feel like when they feel like if they feel like. You can’t mandate “let’s just have a couple of distros, think of the public!”. It doesn’t work like that. Yes, life is not perfect.
100% agree
Furthermore, Linux (as a whole) is not a for-profit project, or a singular organization.
Desktop Linux is far from it’s only purpose, and many of the devs are far more interested in their own use-cases: servers, embedded systems, supercomputers, phones, special purpose OSs. Wikipedia even has a page for the wide range of use beyond desktops and servers. So we can’t simply treat devs as a unified group with a common goal like we can generally do with Microsoft, Apple, Google, Steam, etc. unless you pick a particular distro!
Exactly. I need Debian, Alpine, Manjaro, OpenWRT, MoOde Audio Player, Lakka and SteamOS.
They all serve different use cases. That’s the beauty of it, the utter flexibility to turn it into whatever you need because you can.
Yes, sorry, that wasnt my intention.
When I talked about “Linux” or “distros” i only ment Desktop OS for personal use. Sorry!
That’s alright, and I’m also a little bit sorry for nitpicking! I just saw it as an opportunity to illustrate how complex this whole software mess is.
I’m not sure if you’ve come across it yet, but there’s a well-known copypasta posted to satirize the way many Linux users will nitpick terms.
I’ve read that before, didnt realize that this was a joke…
It’s fine.
Every Linux user goes through this, because the freedom means choice, and choice means lots of options.
Agree! I dont want to dictate anyone and I understand that my rant wont change anything.
It was more about the hypothetical optimum “if we one wanted to optimize for user-share of the desktop OS market”, then there should be fewer but better distros.
My feeling on this is that or the “general public desktop” use case we have to defer to corporate supported distros (RedHat, Ubuntu, Suse), because they have to work with hardware vendors that are typically averse to the idea of sharing driver code, and you have to make sure your desktop runs smoothly on your average PC.
I don’t see it happening, honestly.
<img alt="I am not a crackpot" src="https://frinkiac.com/video/S04E19/JAh5SnE8Jl8zGAHsMMhrddZNFSw=.gif">
xkcd.com/927/
My first thought as well :)
No, I dont suggest that there should be another new distro. The existing ones are pretty good at the goal of being userfriendly, at least some of them like Linux Mint
But mint wouldn’t be possible without the work that the Ubuntu community puts into making a stable and polished distribution. And Ubuntu wouldn’t be possible without the Debian community who put in the effort to make the distribution the best for their usage.
I guess its in the nature of open source. However really need to get on top of the search results of “install linux”. I like the End of 10 campaign, however i also have just noticed that in their install guide they don’t specify where to get Linux exactly just
Agreed that that’s the case, but don’t quite agree that that’s a problem
It is a problem if the goal is to increase the “personal desktop OS marketshare”.
But diversity is a good thing for itself I agree. I have the feeling that it is a bit sad that it seems that there isnt one or two “main” distros, which one could recommend that tech illiterate family member.
The problem isn’t diversity of distributions. The problems are people who go on describing history of GNU/Linux when a newbie asks them what distribution to start with; and ‘top 10 Linux distributions’ articles which litter the Internet. Just the other day someone shared a link to Distrochooser, a website which gives newbies ten distributions to pick from.
When a newbie asks about Linux, point them at Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition and that’s it. Or at most ask if their primary use-case is playing games in which case recommend Bazzite. That solves the ‘problem’ of distribution proliferation.
See also New to Linux? Stick To These Rules When Picking Distro.
I switched to LMCE when Win 10 becoming unsupported started being announced. I fucking love it. Sure it was different from what I was used to, but it worked, right away. I was able to install software that did what I needed with 0 hassle with very few exceptions and now I’m used to it. I also have no urge to distro hop, but I’m glad that the people who want to can.
I’ve given up as their thinking is so fundamentally different, and they refuse to meet even one inch towards the middle :-)
It’s like cooking vs going to McDonald’s. Lots of choice and thinking vs. being fed with whatever they put you on a tray.
I think this is a great unpopular opinion. TL:DR; In a similar sense to Lemmy/Fediverse vs. Reddit, the diversity of setups and software with some common elements is part of the point.
the rest of my long comment
Many of the dev teams have different philosophies and aims, and they aren’t being paid to work together, let alone if they’re receiving any money at all. Ubuntu kind of was the normie out-of-the-box distro previously, but people always had a bone to pick with Canonical, be it with systemd, their Amazon ad stuff or with snaps. On the gaming side, Valve helped immensely with the commercial aspect, boosting tireless efforts by community developers of projects like DXVK and Wine to make Linux gaming viable. Valve was trying long before the Steam Deck. In 2013 they released the Linux Steam Client and their port of Portal. Later they released the Steam Machine which wasn’t too successful but along with the Steam Controller was a precursor to the Deck. Now with arch-based HoloOS, Proton, as well as the sandbox system, games built for Windows can easily be made to work on most Linux distros without worrying about library dependencies or other issues that were common from the way various distros are built and managed. My main point of contention is that having everything around a handful of distros makes it vulnerable to single points of failure and more of a target for malicious exploits. See how the Crowdstrike incident bricked a huge number of servers and stopped many vital buildings from operating for a few days? Linux, even it its current state, is not immune to that, as some important and widely-used libraries have been targeted by malicious actors and nearly succeeded. From an enduser perspective, as long as you can access the apps you want and do the things you want to with your computer, it’s mostly the look of the desktop environment rather than anything under the hood that matters to most people. The big ones are GNOME, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, MATE. Perhaps user guides could be made to better transition people to not feel lost, but there are both legitimate reasons (like accessibility) and others as a matter of taste to select a particular desktop environment.
Thank God you are not forbidding anyone from working on their own distros.
Can you elaborate on how we are going to get Ubuntu and Fedora developers to work on Debian and Arch instead? Are we going to buy out IBM and Canonical?
FOSS developers don’t develop distros. Distro maintainers package that software into distros. Linux, KDE, GNOME, systemd, GNU software etc are just single pieces of the puzzle developed individually.
There’s always a learning curve with new things (software or otherwise). In case of Win why would we want to go back in time in usability? E.g. Cinnamon and KDE are far superior in UX compared to Windows. Also in Linux distros you can actually fix problems unlike in windows.
I’ve been using Linux as a daily driver since 2018 (thanks Valve and Proton) and in my experience things just work (if they are supported) and thing like headset don’t just randomly stop working because reasons unlike in windows. In windows you then run some troubleshooter that can’t fix it, reboot several times while praying to whatever gods you like and hope for the best. If that doesn’t help you start searching online and only find vague instructions that might help but no solutions.
What compatibility? If user insists on running some windows only software it’s expected to run into problems.
So? Even windows and macOS has a command line. It’s easier to help with problems if you instruct them to run some command (though running random commands of the web is not really a good idea security wise) then trying to navigate them to some gui which might not exist in their distro. Even in windows users are told to run commands in the command line to try and fix problems e.g.
sfc /scannowanddism <whatever>.In AD 2025 this is true in most cases. People just use social media, some webmail, youtube, read news etc. The OS is just there to start the web browser.
the average user isn't going to install linux; the average user is going to use the linux that came installed on their computer.
What you say could be boiled down to:
If just everybody concentrated on making quality software for Windows, we could have much more quality software for Windows.
Your view is common but irrational.
The concept is described by Linus Torvalds as “Scratch your own itch”. The richness and diversity of Linux distros is a strength not a weakness.
If you want to make a Barbie themed distro you can. And if you want to, why should anyone try to prevent you?
If development was concentrated around fewer distros, it is far from a sure thing this development would go in the direction you would personally want. You would just have fewer options.
You’re laboring under the common misconception that enticing windows and macos users is the objective. It’s not.
For anyone involved in any FOSS project (linux or otherwise), your objective is to make your project the best it can be. In this context the endless variety of distributions and their philosophies is a great strength.
Yes. This opinion piece pops up every couple of months and it’s always related to “this is how we get more Mac and Windows users”.
It’s the same thing with trying to make the fediverse more popular. I’m glad people have found their way to communities they’re happy with, but things were just fine before.
It’s not wrong. If the only objective of Linux were to steal users from Windows or Mac, becoming a homogeneous dictatorial OS is the way to do it. Most people don’t care about choice, and in fact having to choose is an anti feature. Apple’s success proves this, but companies like Microsoft for the same reason: it’s all a boring dystopia of sameness.
Linux’s strength is diversity. It’s both the only functioning communism on the planet, and the best evolutionary testbed for software. It’s great for people who value freedom and choice; it’s mostly a confusing mess for everyone who don’t give a single shit how computers work, or which style that use - they want to be given something that works OOTB and always have it work the same way. They want to be told what to do, because honestly they can’t be arsed to figure it out. This doesn’t imply anything at all about the kind of people they are, they just aren’t interested in computers.
I give no shits about how a car works; I don’t care how many HP it has, I don’t want to assemble and decide on every single component. I don’t even like driving - it’s just time out of my day which demands all of my attention, and which I’d rather spend doing something else. I absolutely hate the car buying experience - taking days to test drive and decide. I’d be just as happy to be able to look up “best car this year at this price point” and buy that.
For a great many people, computers are like cars are to me: a necessary evil.
So: it’s not a bad expectation that Linux adoption would dramatically increase if it became a monopoly of software. If all the Gnome developers would stop wasting their time and work on KDE instead. (See how that sounds when you swap out “X11” and “Wayland” for “Gnome” and “KDE”? I see people making this argument all. The. Time.) But it’d become a lesser ecosystem.
Monocultures suck.
How the Hell do people who think like this function in the supermarket where they have to make choices between many different breads for example?
I assume that under normal circumstances. you are intelligent enough to handle making a choice and have just been brainwashed by Microsoft and Apple into thinking that choice in an operating system is a bad thing.
Sorry if that comes off as aggressive, but the learnt helplessness of it makes me very angry.
Edit: add missing word
Imagine this:
You’ve been living off Nescafé your whole life, and your friend told you there’s a whole world of artisanal types coffee out there. Your friend told you to try single origin – robusta or arabica – from Brazil, Columbia, Indonesia, Etiopia, and other regions, each with its own characteristics, whatever your palate prefer.
When you ran out of coffee, you went to the store. All that choices overwhelm you. Your friend was busy that day, and all you were told was just to pick whatever you like. At the same time, your body’s already craving some caffeine, and you just need something for that. Well, there’s that Nescafé you’re already familiar with. So you just went with what you already know and love. After all, you don’t know if you’re gonna like what your friend recommended.
Yeah. but you’re going to pick one like you’ve been recommended, try it and see if you like it. If not, you won’t get it again and you’ll try something else. There might be a moment of indecisiveness but it’s not hard. If that overwhelms you, how do function in modern society?
You’d be surprised at how a lot of people function in a society. People taking up college majors without knowing about these studies. People getting expensive fashion items because their friends wear them. Some people even have kids just because they’re told to.
Back to the coffee analogy, I’m sure you’d try the artisanal stuff when your friend have it served to your face. When you know ‘what you’re supposed to get’, you may face uncertainty, especially with the fact you may have to go out of your way to get it. Perhaps you’d try it out and actually like it. Perhaps you’d still prefer your Nescafé as that complexion doesn’t suit you and you’re more familiar with that basic miserable taste.
Its like restaurants . you could go and some menu items you like and some you won’t like. asking for a recommendation from the waiter is a pretty good bet.
I think the analogy would be better if your favorite restaurant is McDonalds.
That’s just part of being an adult? Pick one. If you don’t like it, pick a different one next time.
Live your life, ffs. Why does this need to be explained?
You’d be surprised at how some adults function. This saddens me too.
I suppose you’re right.
I have to interject: It is not like bread, as it is a bigger commitment (as I dont want to distrohop for longer than a week) and also it is more complex to create an OS than to create a bread (so more manpower is needed). Choice is a good thing. But too much choice can be bad. Imagine someone is directing a “linux curious” person to distrowatch. There the newbie will be overwhelmed. Maybe not and he just clicks on a distro and tries it. Probably a bad idea as the change from his previous (corporate) OS is a big change already, now the newbie uses a distro which probably doesnt fit his needs.
My case is that, like with the fediverse, the different options hinder the wider adoption, as potential new users have a problem with it during onboarding. Which is a difficult time as is. Even for someone who is switching from Windows to MacOS, two polished and widely adopted OSes, they are gonna have a hard time. Now add the choice from dozens of distros and the very vocal linux community and the switch is impossible for many potential new linux-users.
I’d like to say that I am not brainwashed, I am currently using Debian+KDE in Dualboot wuth Windows and Linux Mint for the selfhosting server. (Yes I know, this is the wrong distro for a server, it was my first contact with linux so I just picked the most polpular among newbies. Which is kind of the point of the whole thread.)
I’m sorry, but the process is exactly the same. Pick one you’ve been recommended, pick one you like the look of, or pick one at random to try it. With pretty much every distro having a live environment, you don’t need to install it to try it out. Hell, if you use distrosea, you don’t even need to download it to try it. It’s not rocket science, it’s just that people are conditioned to think there shouldn’t be choice in an operating system. I suppose it’s fairer to say it’s more like a car. See which ones you like the look of, try them out and make a decision.
This is a mythical man-month fallacy. If everyone who works on distributions focuses on just a handful of them, that does not mean development will go any faster or lead to better outcomes.
Also observe that majority of work which ends up in GNU/Linux systems is outside of distributions. And this work often ends up quite focused.
Linux Mint is not harder for Grandma than windows 10 was. Granny just is used to use windows. Same with children. With less tech people when talking about Linux or choices, I just talk and choose Mint. If they evolve, they will know better. (btw, This is exactly the path that old-schoolers take to become Mint users .)
When you come from world business models, efficiency, where marketing sacrifices all the values for profit, your ideas look rational. However, ideological point of view, does Linux necessary need those people ( who obviously needs Linux )? This is a free world, you can choose exploitation, abuse and inefficiency if you want - Microsoft or Apple.
You’ve given it a lot more thought than the average person pointing this out, so thanks, but ultimately the same stuff that makes Linux and Fediverse good is what prevents most people from adopting them, you can’t really have it both ways, and when you try you just end up with the worst of all worlds like Canonical with Ubuntu and it’s enshittification, GNOME with their extreme vision causing mass user flight to KDE, or .world having what seems to be a printer of dumb motherfuckers in any comment section.
I feel like there really are just 2 or 3 main distros for Linux adoption. Every article, forum, discussion, etc… it’s always Mint, followed by either Fedora or Ubuntu. IMO distro is less important for converts than desktop environment.
I think the most important thing for adoption is actually little quality of life stuff.
Is this really still a problem? I haven’t used anything but Gentoo (and some Arch) for 18 years, so for me it hasn’t been a problem for a long, long time. By now it should be clear that these patents are unenforceable and distros, especially non-corporate ones should just ignore them.
Kinda. It’s not hard, but it’s also not idiot proof.
On Fedora for example you just need to use RPM Fusion instead of the standard Fedora repos. The problem is that you need to know that you need to use RPM Fusion.
Fedora is a pretty common recommendation to new users (with good reason it’s excellent) but plenty of casual users will run into that problem and decide that videos don’t work right on Linux.
Your problem is that you’re starting from the wrong premise: the primary goal of most people working on Linux is not to make more people switch to it, strange as that may sound, it’s to create an operating system that they personally want to use. Which can mean a lot of different things, depending on the person. So it’s inevitable that there are a lot of different distros, and the only reason there aren’t even more is that most of the one-man shows that don’t attract many users peter out and vanish after a few months or years.
Well put, thanks
I’ve personally always been of the opinion that it’s great to have so many different options, and i also never understood why people get so stressed about choosing a distro. You can always switch to something else later if you find something better, but first you need to find out your likes and dislikes about a distribution to begin with. Pewdiepie said in his linux video “just pick one!”, and that’s how i went about it as well. When i saw an LTT video about trying linux instead if windows 11, they recommended PopOS, so that’s what i chose. Ended up trying a bunch of different ones later, and as of right now i’m on Void linux.
Tldr: Why can’t Linux be more like Windows! With less options and more corporate control!?
No corporate control, not less options.
There need to be a handful of distros with less settings, being more “fixed”.
I personally like to being able to set everything how I like it.
But it just isnt necessary to have THAT many actively developed distros. If devs could drop 1/4 of the distros and redirect their efforts on bigger projects, those would profit massively.
There are two negatives to the “fragmentation” of Linux.
1 - application compatibility
2 - paralysis of choice
For the first, we need to put as much focus as possible on Flatpak and we need ONE independent App Store where app devs can distribute and users can subscribe.
For the second, the Linux community needs to agree on one or two distros that we agree should always be the recommendation for new users. I always recommend Mint. We could maybe have one more specifically for gamers.
But, overall, diversity is the great strength of Linux. Not only can it adapt to every niche but the is competition and innovation between distros. The entire ecosystem drives itself forward in a way that a “unified” platform cannot.
Thanks, you condensed my thoughts very well. The point with flatpak is very important. I used discovery by kde but it seemed not as polished as it should be. Not to say that there are better “stores”. I hope the inclusion of flatpak/flathub into distros/DEs gets improved significantly and gets adapted wider.
Bee hearing that since 25 years ago
I agree with the sentiment because it is a pain to find a distro which you want. But the reason for this is that Linux has given you the luxury to pick and choose what distro and DE you want. When you go to Windows or Mac, people just accept that it is what it is.
That being said, I will blame the Linux community to some extent for promoting “complicated” (like Arch) or too barebones distros (like Debian) to newbies. The shock of moving from Windows to Linux is already a hurdle for most. When you add the need for tinkering and troubleshooting from day one, I can see why people would quit.
We are indirectly focusing on a handful of “distros” as most distros ship with KDE, Gnome or something similar.
True! And for an enthusiast who wants to spend only a few days on finding a distro and setteling into it, like me, its nice to have only three (big) DEs, which you can test and choose in one day and then are set for the further journey.
Now “bundle” a distro to each DE and a newbie would have that experience for the whole distro-finding-experience