this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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Linux

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Try starting out from default GNOME, and then compare it to what comes with distros. It's essentially unusable if you don't spend a lot of time and effort to customize it in order to have the basic functionality you'd expect coming from Windows.

Oh man. I have to agree with you there. I've been using Ubuntu for so long I forgot how bad Gnome 3 is ootb. Ubuntu really brought some good quality of life improvement to the DE with their own modifications.

But I still stand by my argument that we need one desktop to be the star of Linux if et want more people to adopt it and for it to become mainstream. Giving most people too many options can confuse them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, if you want one simple DE for everyone it should probably be XFCE. Dead simple to use, feels vaguely familiar to Windows users, not overly complicated.

KDE is heavily customizable, Gnome is very opinionated, and tiling WMs don't adhere to orthodox UI patterns. Those are all suboptimal if you want something usable by the absolute widest range of users.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Someone recommended Linux Mint's Cinnamon also.

There's also Pantheon from Elementary OS that I really really liked. But it's missing a few features in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Mind you, the real winner is of course Android. It has a consistent, easy to learn interface and a wide range of applications that integrate nicely.

And we don't need to speculate; it has already won and is the true face of Linux for the masses. Plenty of young people don't even own traditional computers anymore and do everything on their smartphone or tablets.

And that's why this entire discussion is really just a form of fan wank; we don't need to find a unified UI for Linux because it has already been found and has a massive market share. You may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like.

Everything else can be as complicated, janky, or exotic as it wants because it doesn't matter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

We're talking about desktop environments.