What Solus (and Budgie) developpers think about that ? @JoshStrobl maybe ?
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-desktop-is-in-trouble/
It is not easy building and supporting a Linux desktop. It comes with a lot of wear and tear on its developers with far too little reward. [...] 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.
I know it. Every type of this kind of article always highlights how fragmented Linux desktop is. Like did you listen to yourself when trying to write this article? People is different. The only thing why proprietary desktop OS isn't fragmented, is because they are making the OS 'cause of the money. Guess what? If they can, people will make, choose, or use different thing.
For me, Linux distro is a passion project. If someday Solus gets shutdown, like Josh, Kyrios, Justin, Girtabulu, or the other mainteners is going away. I just accept that and move on. But, before that happen, I'll be damned if I wouldn't help out whenever I can.
Some people thought using Linux as using free version of Windows or MacOS. They don't understand that it's another different beast and that's okay. I see some people demand things from developer, and that's not the right attitude for Free Software. But, I admit the burnout is real. I've been hoping that so many burnout is because of they want to archive a technical excellent like what the Linux Mint been facing.
PS: Writing english sentence is hard. ┐(-。ー)┌
Perhaps the way forward for the Linux desktop isn't to unify desktop environments, but to fragment individual DEs further?
As in, tools and frameworks within a DE should be split off into entirely separate projects with their own branding, and exposed to the wider community.
Linux's greatest strength is its fragmentation imo. We have the base for a remarkably modular system. That modularity just needs to be standardised, so that functionality that needs to be exposed to other applications is exposed in the same way. It doesn't really matter how functionality is implemented in different DEs so long as its output to third-party applications is the same.
If there's a strong commitment to 'upstream-first', and core frameworks are made standalone to be shared with the wider community, then it seems to me that it doesn't really matter if we have different desktops with their own interfaces, so long as developers of higher-level applications don't need to worry about writing different code to work with the different interfaces.
Standardisation is great in the sense that if different environments follow the same standards, then other developers can work with those environments much more easily. You don't need a common environment to achieve that though; you just need common standards.
Jazzyboy1 I agree! But, if there is one standar don't make another one
I hate clickbait
There are only 2 main groups of DE the GTK-based and the Qt-based.
GTK wouldn't exist without Gnome and Qt-based DE wouldn't have any visibility without KDE.
Professional world will most likely use one of these two now that Unity is dead. That's not exactly what can be called fragmentation.
Others DE are mainly popular on the (home) desktop segment and a few others niche markets.
The market share of linux desktop is around 2% for years. Do anyone really believe that if there was only 1 desktop environment this porcentage would significatly increase ?
TIP: Few years ago people were saying linux desktop wasn't popular because it lacks good games. Nowadays we have Steam/Lutris/GOG/Humble Bundles/itch.io, ... still the linux DE market share hasn't evolved much.
Because no one is pushing them to install Linux and there are no big companies behind it (well relatively speaking), so the average person has little knowledge of what Linux is (or isn't). They aren't even aware that in the embedded devices in many of their homes/phones, they're using Linux.
Mid sized companies, certainly not in the league of Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. Most average people in the States (and probably world wide), would show no recognition of those names (RH and Canonical).
As someone who has worked in the IT industry for 20 years. I can tell you the year of the Linux desktop is never happening. An it has nothing to do with fragmentation or companies pushing it. The majority of people don't even know what a operating system is. That Linux exists, hell many don't even know what Windows is, seriously.... They have a computer they turn on and look at porn... That's it.
I've worked at a company that pushed to move people to openoffice to save a heap of money. They abandoned the plans when employees who's only skill is typing at 80+WPM complained, despite being offered on site training with full pay. For software a 12 year old should be able to figure out.
I did freelance work for a company back when people used to actually get photos developed that was paying Adobe thousands of dollars so some people in the office could do red eye reduction on school photos. Oh and who was contractually obligated to pay to upgrade to the latest version of the software when it was released regardless of if they needed those new features or not.
You get people who make shitty youtube videos who tell you, you can't be a true professional and use kdenlive. That Windows is for gamers, Linux for nerds who don't do anything creative and macs are for professionals.
Ohh an why does any of this matter, we're in the post-pc era remember. roflmfao...
Harvey, I've been waiting for the year of Linux on the Desktop since at least 2010. But I don't disagree with you, I think it's simply wistful thinking on my part. However, the internet of things is most definitely linux and linux based, which is a major achievement.
I am not touching this topic - - - no no no ! ! !
I will leave this as food for thought, if you will. There is some good reads here, Harvey that is good haha porn.
Humor me for a second if you shall.
There was people who said we could not sail the seas and discover new lands.
There was people who said trains would never catch on it was a fade.
There was people who said those same things of cars, going to space, landing on the moon, the list goes on.
That is the great thing about humans - for every person or group that says something is impossible there is a group opposite that mindset that will step up and say well watch this.
the multiple DEs aren't the problem IMO, but the fragmented bases... i hopped between many distros until I got to Solus, some were too outdated, the others were too bleeding edge which made them both unstable for even basic tasks . Solus kinda perfected the orchestration between latest and stable. Which is the most sane choice until now.. but it all boils down to subjectivity here. And the fragmentation of the Linux Desktop was always a double edged sword
Further to Harvey's point on normies( 
), I think the only way any Linux distro will become truly mainstream is if it's adopted by hardware developers. The average user doesn't know how to install a different operating system on their device, so often the only way to convince people to adopt a new operating system is to have it already preinstalled on the device they're using.
That's all very unlikely though, unless a large business decides to take up the mission. Microsoft can just keep giving hardware developers new incentives to release their devices with Windows preinstalled.
Cause Harvey is right. A surprising amount of people don't even know how to install new software on Windows itself, nevermind installing a different operating system.
Of course, we can hope that the next generation growing up with 21st century tech might put in the effort to learn how it works. A bit of healthy scepticism considering that apparently some parents recently haven't even toilet-trained their kids according to an article today, but there is hope.
On that note though; perhaps if and when education improves, people's willingness to adopt new software may also improve. Of course, the way our UK education system at least is heading at the moment, education seems to be degrading rather than improving, but eh, we can dream of a resurgence.
Digressing, but...imo education has actually gone far downhill in my area than what it was when I grew up (40 years or so ago). The darn 'No kid left behind' is absurd. You drag smart kids down and make them bored. They are the hopes of the future (or you would think). Of course, the fact that teachers make less than workers at McDonalds...is rather worrisome too. Oh, and I'm in the US, which is sadly less than it once was (or maybe I'm just more aware now).
Even then, I realized in college (early 80s) that it wasn't so much what classes you took, but what work you did outside that actually made a difference. So, if you don't make the effort, you really don't learn anything. And circling back to the topic, if people just exist as vegetables, nothing will ever change regarding the desktop.
yursan9 Well Linux is actually good environment for that
Linux needs marketing! And for it, needs money. And the big companies prefer spend money with IoT. In the end, Linux is used developers. Desktop is dying for normal users, smartphones is the way for than. Desktop is only for professionals that need it.
Yes, but they'll pry my desktop from my cold dead fingers 
