I'm mad about linux distros again today and I think I am realizing why this is so hard for me to write about systemically: I have a software engineer brain and so I try to model the various problems as technical problems.
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@glyph (fully recognizing how helpful the following take isnt)
Yes, but also extremely no.Being able to put forward a coherent, open-source, not-megacorp-owned product that is approachable for everyday use probably only happens if we do something like this.
On the other hand, there is strength and value in decentralization, and also value in specialist and niche distributions (even if some of their value is simply the delight they gave their developers)
I would also bet that a at least half of the stubborn split efforts are not around technical merits or the way they tie into developers egos.
@glyph (rereading, I realize you did not say or even imply that we needed to unite around *one* distro/project, but rather we need around 99% fewer. In that case, maybe I'm just quibbling over whether 99% is the right number or if maybe it's more like 80%)
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@cthos @miss_rodent I think I do have some nuanced structural critique of flatpak that I sadly don’t have time to get into right now, but if I am being honest most of my systems have a weird quirk where user data lives outside home directories on external media and this causes flatpak’s weird slightly-wrong but makes-things-mostly-work heuristics absolutely violently explode in ways which cause huge issues that contributes to an overall *immediate* negative impression
@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent Sorry, hadn't yet seen this post.
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In short, all the volunteer-based distributions need to have a gigantic conference where they all come together and *agree to stop working on about 99% of them*, to pool efforts to make a real Linux platform. A lot of people will need to put their egos aside and decide to acquiesce to solutions they believe to be technically inferior, in order to be able to address the diffusion of labor into pointlessly recreating basically the same toolchain a thousand times.
@glyph this assumes I have interest in (volunteer) working on something watered down enough to work for 99% of people
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@glyph this assumes I have interest in (volunteer) working on something watered down enough to work for 99% of people
@glyph I like building a small garden not industrial agribusiness
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In short, all the volunteer-based distributions need to have a gigantic conference where they all come together and *agree to stop working on about 99% of them*, to pool efforts to make a real Linux platform. A lot of people will need to put their egos aside and decide to acquiesce to solutions they believe to be technically inferior, in order to be able to address the diffusion of labor into pointlessly recreating basically the same toolchain a thousand times.
@glyph It’s not just about egos either. Different people have different incompatible ideologies. You have free (libre) software purists and open source purists and free (beer) purists and license hawks and IP anarchists and people who may not be able to say it out loud but are quite happy to serve the interests of capital and people who can’t even agree what serves the interests of capital. And many of these aren’t differences of opinion in means but differences of opinion in ends. You can’t get people to agree who don’t agree on goals. If you can get everybody to agree that the goal is to create the Linux, you have a shared goal and it is conceivably achievable. I can’t see that happening. Distributions, like all software, are always a means to an end.
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@glyph It’s not just about egos either. Different people have different incompatible ideologies. You have free (libre) software purists and open source purists and free (beer) purists and license hawks and IP anarchists and people who may not be able to say it out loud but are quite happy to serve the interests of capital and people who can’t even agree what serves the interests of capital. And many of these aren’t differences of opinion in means but differences of opinion in ends. You can’t get people to agree who don’t agree on goals. If you can get everybody to agree that the goal is to create the Linux, you have a shared goal and it is conceivably achievable. I can’t see that happening. Distributions, like all software, are always a means to an end.
@glyph That might be the downfall of Linux, but isn’t there a certain beauty in that too? You don’t have to use a system created by people who you hate. Or worse and more likely, who hate you.
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@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent Then the community should definitely organize to make Flatpaks work more reliably across distros. What are the biggest problems that make it necessary for app developers to put in distro-specific work even when targeting Flatpak? (I have no experience with this yet; my main desktop app project at this point is a remote desktop access tool, so that's a whole other can of worms.)
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent flatpak does not address the deficiencies or the expense of interacting with a zillion different compositors, or for that matter different audio systems or GPS daemons. the kinds of apps that need to interact with the platform need an API shaped in terms of d-bus endpoints, and the problem that flatpak addresses is one of .so files. flatpak also requires manual management of filesystem permissions, which means apps are just slightly dysfunctional
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent flatpak does not address the deficiencies or the expense of interacting with a zillion different compositors, or for that matter different audio systems or GPS daemons. the kinds of apps that need to interact with the platform need an API shaped in terms of d-bus endpoints, and the problem that flatpak addresses is one of .so files. flatpak also requires manual management of filesystem permissions, which means apps are just slightly dysfunctional
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
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@glyph I like building a small garden not industrial agribusiness
@jay this is what homelabbing is for, not operating system development
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent the main thing is that it is missing a macOS style powerbox file dialog (which, ironically, was originally invented in linux, via bifrost in OLPC)
@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent It looks like the File Chooser portal (https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/docs/doc-org.freedesktop.portal.FileChooser.html) is supposed to implement a powerbox file dialog. I assume it somehow doesn't get this right.
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent I don't agree that this is a "problem" per se, but most of the immutable distros (SteamOS, Bazzite, VanillaOS) lean _heavily_ on Flatpaks because you cannot just do `apt install {foo}`.
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@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I think *most* telling though, the thing that is downstream from all the various subtle upstream problems with flatpak, is why does the platform still have “native” apps and “flatpak” apps as separate categories? is there an OS yet which is ONLY a runtime for flatpaks and doesn’t have a privileged class of “good” apps which don’t have to live in flatpak jail?
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent as long as the native version of apps still exists then that’s still 1 platform with 2 platform targets which ISVs now have a bunch of research to do to find out users are gonna be mad if they package their particular app like that. which by itself is already more work. and if your platform also supports whatever a “snap” is, god help you
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@glyph @cthos @miss_rodent It looks like the File Chooser portal (https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/docs/doc-org.freedesktop.portal.FileChooser.html) is supposed to implement a powerbox file dialog. I assume it somehow doesn't get this right.
@matt @cthos @miss_rodent I have never seen an app do this in a way which appeared to work. my experience is limited though. glad to hear it at least exists though!
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent I don't agree that this is a "problem" per se, but most of the immutable distros (SteamOS, Bazzite, VanillaOS) lean _heavily_ on Flatpaks because you cannot just do `apt install {foo}`.
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent There are also other solutions for dev work, like most of those also have a contrivance for running a mutable distro in a container and then exposing binaries from that container to do stuff because not everything is a flatpak
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent There are also other solutions for dev work, like most of those also have a contrivance for running a mutable distro in a container and then exposing binaries from that container to do stuff because not everything is a flatpak
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent immutable distros are probably the future in more ways than one. I didn’t realize this nuance, I should probably get one of these installed (other than steamos)
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent immutable distros are probably the future in more ways than one. I didn’t realize this nuance, I should probably get one of these installed (other than steamos)
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Aurora and Bluefin are the Universal Blue immutable distros for development work, with either KDE or GNOME respectively - Bazzite's their "gaming" distro. They all work pretty similarly. VanillaOS is probably the most stripped-down one I've tried. And of course Fedora provides their own series of images.
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@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Aurora and Bluefin are the Universal Blue immutable distros for development work, with either KDE or GNOME respectively - Bazzite's their "gaming" distro. They all work pretty similarly. VanillaOS is probably the most stripped-down one I've tried. And of course Fedora provides their own series of images.
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
@cthos @matt @miss_rodent like if I were to create an operating system for doing SMTP with twisted and a different operating system with unrelated branding for doing websockets
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@cthos @matt @miss_rodent on the one hand this is encouraging. on the other hand omg the branding here is beyond stupid. why are these referred to as different operating systems, with unrelated nouns? are they somehow incentivized to confuse users?
@glyph @matt @miss_rodent Couldn't tell ya. Fedora does it too with Silverblue and Kinote (GNOME / KDE respectively).
