For example, I'm using Debian, and I think we could learn a thing or two from Mint about how to make it "friendlier" for new users. I often see Mint recommended to new users, but rarely Debian, which has a goal to be "the universal operating system".
I also think we could learn website design from.. looks at notes ..everyone else.
All distros, or none: flatpak has to improve in regards to launching an app from terminal. Following is a joke:
flatpak run com.github.iwalton3.jellyfin-media-playerflatpak run com.github.iwalton3.jellyfin-media-player
You can use
/var/lib/flatpak/exports/bin/com.github.iwalton3.jellyfin-media-playerinstead. and then create aliases or symlinks (for example in ~/bin/) for that.It’d be dangerous if an installed app claimed to be something like sudo or bash. Even if a mechanism was created for flatpak apps to claim a single shell command, there is no centralized authority on all flatpak apps to vet them. If there was for flathub, and each uploaded package was checked, that still leaves every other non-flathub flatpak repo which must implement the same vetting. Because there’s no way to guarantee to do it safely, and because flatpak devs are unwilling to compromise, this is just what we get.
https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/issues/1188
However in the same way, compromised flatpak app can also put a malicious .desktop file in
~/.share/applications, which also allows execution of arbitrary command, even outside of the flatpak sandbox.User home permission is just incredibly dangerous on linux, I think we need special permission to explicitly allow access to these folders in home. Fortunately more and more app starts to support portal, which makes them much more secure.
Although, I do wish portal would have a access per session vs access forever option. For now if you open a folder through portal, the app was granted r/w permission to that folder forever.
It would be pretty neat if they did like zsh does, where it asks you if you mean a certain command when you only type it partially.
you're missing a directory from your PATH if you have to do that. flatpak Has friendly names
Fedora, NixOS and Void need a proper wiki like Arch
Most distros could also learn from Arch and create something similar to the AUR. Nix is going in the right direction.
And I guess almost all distros could learn from Artix and Devuan and reconsider if systemd is the right choice.
Gentoo - patience.
But seriously. With theUSEflags, compiler options, you can understand software more from a developer's point of view.
You can try to optimize software for your hardware.
Fully explore theconfigureoptions. With a binary package you have no control.How are those new binary applications coming along? is it feasible to mix. I don't want to compile everything.
Quite useful if you don't mess with the
USE. I can be mixed.
I recently tested the binary option, I set desired profile (eselect profile list) and it just worked™.
Some applications still require manual compilation, e.g.llvm,gcc,systemd.
I think with Linux Mint the main User Friendly thing is its DE. But with Debian you can install Cinnamon DE as well. https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=cinnamon
btw, I quite like the Debian website, colors and design.
The Debian web site needs a good UX overhaul. Prioritize the things people are most likely to want, make them prominent and uncluttered, and present a logical flow from one task to its follow-ups.
Just a quick glance yields the simplest example: the download link is not the first or most prominent thing on the main page. Clicking "download" gives you the netinst AMD64 ISO, which is reasonable enough, but there is no indication of how to install it. Clicking "user support" takes me to a page with extremely verbose descriptions of IRC, usenet groups, and mailing lists. I think the fastest way to get installation instructions is to click the tiny "other downloads" link (after I've already downloaded the one I want!), and then a link to the manual from there.
This is not a good UX. This is a demographic filter. You can argue that's appropriate for a technically-oriented OS. 9front explicitly makes itself unapproachable to dissuade casual users, but I think Debian can and should be more appealing to mainstream, casual newcomers.
The Debian web site needs a good UX overhaul. This is not a good UX. This is a demographic filter. You can argue that’s appropriate for a technically-oriented OS. 9front explicitly makes itself unapproachable to dissuade casual users, but I think Debian can and should be more appealing to mainstream, casual newcomers.
Your opinion, fine. So why do you want Debian to have more mainstream users ?
Why not? It's a great general-purpose distro.
My point is that 9front's user-unfriendliness is a feature (explicitly intended), whereas I think Debian's is a bug (not intended or desired). I'm not psychic, though, so I could be wrong about the Debian team's goals.
Why not? It’s a great general-purpose distro.
My point is that 9front’s user-unfriendliness is a feature (explicitly intended), whereas I think Debian’s is a bug (not intended or desired). I’m not psychic, though, so I could be wrong about the Debian team’s goals.
As far as I am concerned Ubuntu has since around 2004 already helped a great deal with getting more mainstream Linux users on board. With the new Debian stable release of Bookworm for the very first time non-free firmware came with the installation media and that could be useful for lots of people, but still I will not recommend Debian for people interested in Linux. I will tell usually them to go for Linux Mint or Ubuntu.
Here an example of what I think could do better website design (Not Linux but zsh) : https://www.zsh.org/ And this is also not too appealing to get more mainstream Linux users on board : http://www.slackware.com/ (One of the first Linux distributions. No SSL, but the site seems pretty functional).
Here an example of what I think can appeal to a lot of mainstream : https://bazzite.gg/ That may attract quite some people (though I personally do not like such site design at all) to use Linux.
Then again, people are different. I find the Arch wiki a fantastic resource. Today in a comment on Lemmy someone wrote that it is horrible.
I mostly agree. I usually recommend Mint to new users, largely because their web site and defaults are very beginner-friendly. Mint is the modern version of what Ubuntu used to be 10-15 years ago. At this point I don't think Ubuntu has tangible advantages over Debian for new users.
I really like Slackware's site. It's not sexy, but it's functional, organized, and easy to navigate. The Zsh site is counterintuitive to me with that sidebar-that's-not-really-a-sidebar, and hyperlinks whose text requires the context of a header that is not aligned with them.
I just checked out Ubuntu's web site for comparison, and...uh...now I feel like I owe Debian's web site an apology. I guess the consumer desktop Ubuntu distro doesn't actually have its own web site anymore? I mean, you can get to it from there, but it's hidden under menus, and seems almost like an afterthought. Ubuntu's main web site is bizarre right now, with a prominent green "Download Now" button that does not lead the user anywhere close to downloading Ubuntu, but rather directs them to one of a rotating selection of signup forms to download various technical whitepapers like "A CTO’s guide to real-time Linux". That's a radically different target audience than the last time I went to their web site (and also a weird design anyway).
I just checked out Ubuntu’s web site for comparison, and…uh…now I feel like I owe Debian’s web site an apology. I guess the consumer desktop Ubuntu distro doesn’t actually have its own web site anymore? I mean, you can get to it from there, but it’s hidden under menus, and seems almost like an afterthought. Ubuntu’s main web site is bizarre right now, with a prominent green “Download Now” button that does not lead the user anywhere close to downloading Ubuntu, but rather directs them to one of a rotating selection of signup forms to download various technical whitepapers like “A CTO’s guide to real-time Linux”. That’s a radically different target audience than the last time I went to their web site (and also a weird design anyway).
I guess this has to do with the fact that BDFL Mark Shuttleworth after putting so much money into Ubuntu finally wanted to see some profit (I think I read that Ubuntu was not profitable for a long time) and went in the same direction like RedHat Enterprise and Novell SUSE had been going. If you look at Canonical Juju https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juju_(software) launched 12 years ago, and things like Landscape https://ubuntu.com/landscape which has been there perhaps more than 10 years as well, and now with Ubuntu Pro it seems clear to me that Ubuntu was not just meant to be a desktop Linux distribution. In fact, nowadays when I try to find an iso file for an Ubuntu installation I need to be careful not to end up at a download page for the Ubuntu server iso.
Anyway, maybe I should instead try out and be recommending Pop! OS to new Linux users soon. It seems very popular https://pop.system76.com/ ;-)
Fedora Atomic Desktop, mainly KDE.
- Fedora adds their pretty useless Fedora Flatpak repo, that is more secure but has unofficial packages, an additional runtime in RAM and a very small set of apps (they need it due to "legal problems" when preinstalling apps. Like... just dont preinstall them but add a startup page to install them manually?)
- There is no good way to use NVIDIA as it needs proprietary drivers and some tweaks. Ublue fixes that. Same with other out-of-tree stuff. Not really their fault, but be aware that atomic Fedora has basically no proprietary NVIDIA driver support.
- i think their kernel is extremely bloated, I would prefer having separate ones for only intel, amd, nouveau and also removing all the legacy hardware drivers nobody uses
- an x86_64-v4 (or at least v3) variant would be really necessary (my 2012 Thinkpad is v3)
- they will likely prefer to use flatpak firefox, just like ublue does, ignoring the inability to sandbox processes at all. This is the list of issues that need solving until Firefox "can be shipped as flatpak"
- they use toolbx (with that silly rename from "toolbox") instead of distrobox. Distrobox has way more critical features like a separate home, which prevents breakages through conflicting dotfiles. Toolbx is the worse product.
Also, their traditional KDE variant is very bloated, which is why I updated this guide
But overall its still my favourite distro. Has a nice community, all the desktops you want, SELinux (which is btw required to make Waydroid somewhat secure) and their atomic stuff is an awesome base thanks to ublue.
It wouldn’t be too difficult(tm) to fork their kernel and make custom configs of it. Here’s the git repo that holds their rpms and their respective kernel configs, it’s just that nobody has cared enough to create/propose “slimmed down” specialized kernel images: https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/kernel/tree/rawhide You can just clone the repo and point COPR to it, then automatically build custom kernels.
Awhile ago there was a proposal to move the x86 microarchitecture level. Here’s recent discussion on that proposal: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/what-happened-to-bumping-the-minimum-supported-architecture-from-x86-64-to-x86-64-v2/96787/2
In general, though, Fedora would not want to leave any users behind. Instead, the proposal for
hwcapsis currently being drafted: https://pagure.io/fesco/issue/3151 With hwcaps, default installs will be x86_64 v1, but will be upgraded to “optimized” packages if available upon updating. This makes packaging a bit awkward, though. Packagers already need to maintain packages for multiple versions of the distro. In fact, they need to support F38, F39, F40, and rawhide atm. Needing to maintain an extra 3 builds for each package on top of x86, x64, aarch64, ppc64le, and s390x is a bit of a burden, so success might be limited.Distrobox, while feature-rich, is still a bit hacky (though it’s still more reliable in my experience than toolbx). You’re not the first to want this, though: https://github.com/fedora-silverblue/issue-tracker/issues/440
Secureblue removes a good amount of unused kernel component, and even some useful ones like bluetooth and thunderbolts, but you can always manually enable them.
Yes thar is the direction I am going to. But they just disable kernel modules from running, I dont know if that is as complete as simply not building them.
But if its possible, then everyone with amd or intel should block nouveau, and vice versa. Just keep it small.
Yeah, this is the old philosophy of the "run anywhere" philosophy of linux (or computers in general) that got us here. Another problem with stripping down kernel drivers is that swapping hardware component will require rebuilding the kernel, which regular user will definitely not be happy about.
It would be a problem because of how it is currently done.
I imagine an install ISO to have a monokernel, build the kernel-building-system and detect the needed drivers. Save the config and build the matching kernel from that.
Now if you want to swap hardware, there is a transition tool within the OS that allows to state the wanted hardware component and remove the old driver from the config.
Or you switch to a monokernel and run the hardware detection and config change again.
Or you use the install USB stick (which you already have) which already uses a monokernel and has a feature to detect hardware, change the config on the OS, build and install the kernel to the OS.
This is a bit more complex than for example what fedora plans with their new WebUI installer. Poorly such a system also doesnt work that well with so many kernel updates.
I am not an expert, but I feel like rebuilding the kernel is probably too slow for most user.
And kernel already dynamically load the kernel module, then disabling them would practically make sure they will not be loaded.
I feel like we don't need to go down to micro-kernel to solve the problem of loading too many drivers.
What I really like about stuff like RedoxOS, COSMIC, typst, simpleX, Wayland and others is having stuff built from a modern perspective with modern practices.
Linux is ancient now, and its a miracle that it is thriving like this.
If dynamic loading really is that robust, it probably doesnt matter. But I dont know how big the performance increases are and I really need to do benchmarks before and after.
There are btw also some experiments on making tbe CentOS-Stream LTS kernel run on Fedora. Which would be another great way of getting a more stable system.
Everything from each other. Almost no distro will ever be extremely effective at doing anything that is literally impossible on any other distro.
I'm on Fedora Silverblue, which is great now, but when I installed it, I remember thinking that its installer was way less intuitive than Ubuntu's, and I think it also had fewer features (e.g. discovering existing operating systems and offering to install alongside it, IIRC?). I've seen screenshots of a new installer being in development, which looked like an improvement, but still not as smooth an experience as Ubuntu's.
I’d really like it if Fedora didn’t discourage packaging static libs, but still discouraged building packages with static libs. It’d be nice to have them for development purposes.
I also wish they made “third party” software a bit easier to access in their installer and distro as a whole. The option to enable Nvidia drivers is buried, and even though flathub is now unrestricted when toggled in the installer, it’s not the first priority when prompted for software to install in gnome software.
A longer support cycle with less releases would also be nice, but would defeat the purpose of the distro. I guess it’d make more sense if CentOS Stream released more frequently and with more packages available in EPEL, similar to Ubuntu.
I switched my daily driver to Linux Mint Debian Edition recently and it definitely does combine the best of both. It's easy to use and coming from plain debian has everything that I'm used to. Been loving it so far.
Not my current distro but I love ChimeraLinux, they manage to put musl and BSD userland into a working wonderful distro. I wish more distros adopted musl.
endeavourOs from arch by being less opinionated and giving away the awful colour theme
I think NixOS would stand to benefit a lot by taking inspiration from openSUSE's YaST system configuration tool. I think that if NixOS had a well supported graphical interface for creating and managing the system config, it would become so much more accessible to a very wide range of users who never would have given it a try otherwise, which in turn would bring in tons of new users and developers who will want to improve nixpkgs, etc.
I also think we could learn website design from… looks at notes …everyone else.
whacks you with a rolled up newspaper No! Bad. Wrong.
There is a beauty to simplicity that's lost on so many. I can load a Debian wiki page over a dial-up connection at the south pole. The design is uncluttered and uncomplicated. That goes for every page on debian.org
I often see Mint recommended to new users, but rarely Debian, which has a goal to be “the universal operating system”.
I always took "universal" to be in the sense of "universal remote": it's not universally adopted, it's universally applicable. The fact that it's the upstream of so many major distros (including Mint) indicates that it's accomplished that.
Making it "new user" friendly necessarily requires restrictions and choices made by the maintainers for the ease of the users, which negates the "unversality."
I agree that there is beauty in simplicity. In my opinion, OpenBSD has the best website.
It's not about using fancy effects, it's about the sprawling logical layout and making it hard to navigate. It used to be better around 2005, when it had the left navigation index. I remember people said it was ugly then, but imho they changed the wrong aspects of it, removing the structure without adding simplicity.
For example, a new user reading this page https://l10n.debian.org/ will be confused. It only makes sense to me since I've already translated a bunch of debconf-po-files. These are my opinions, but you are welcome to disagree. Also, please don't hit people with rolled up newspapers, it's rude.
Is it cheating, if my workplace makes me use a worse distro and I list all the ways it's worse than my usual distro? 🙃
