Fedora 38 Might Ship With A Sway ISO Spin

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Fedora 38 Might Ship With A Sway ISO Spin

While the Sway Wayland compositor has long been available via the Fedora package repositories, Sway fans within the Fedora space are hoping that Fedora 38 will ship with a Fedora Sway spin being available for an easy and out-of-the-box experience for running this i3-inspired Wayland compositor...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fedora-38-Sway-Spin-Proposed

[soulsource]

I hope this happens. Not because I would actually use it, but it might be an incentive to finally fix the crash on startup that Sway has when combined with seatd > 0.5 and lightdm.

[Vorpal]

What are the points of all of these spins? Is it just about install mediums with different sets of default packages?

Couldn't you just have some meta packages that you can choose from during install? I seem to remember in the past some (Debian?) distro installer asking me which desktop environments I wanted to install.

In this day and age of fast internet connections and large thumb drives (16 GB was the smallest available in a store I was in recently), I don't see the need for separate spins or editions. This is not just picking on Fedora. Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu have the same exact issue. You can easily convert one to the other by changing installed meta packages.

It may be that me using Arch (where it is up to you what DE to install) colours my opinion here.

[dekernel]

What are the points of all of these spins? Is it just about install mediums with different sets of default packages?

Couldn't you just have some meta packages that you can choose from during install? I seem to remember in the past some (Debian?) distro installer asking me which desktop environments I wanted to install.

In this day and age of fast internet connections and large thumb drives (16 GB was the smallest available in a store I was in recently), I don't see the need for separate spins or editions. This is not just picking on Fedora. Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu have the same exact issue. You can easily convert one to the other by changing installed meta packages.

It may be that me using Arch (where it is up to you what DE to install) colours my opinion here.

You said what I was thinking. openSUSE does just that where during a fresh install, it prompts you for a KDE, Gnome, Xfce desktop experience. I am guessing they have their reasons though. I would be curious as to why they have the number of spins.

[reba]

What are the points of all of these spins? Is it just about install mediums with different sets of default packages?

Couldn't you just have some meta packages that you can choose from during install? I seem to remember in the past some (Debian?) distro installer asking me which desktop environments I wanted to install.

In this day and age of fast internet connections and large thumb drives (16 GB was the smallest available in a store I was in recently), I don't see the need for separate spins or editions. This is not just picking on Fedora. Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu have the same exact issue. You can easily convert one to the other by changing installed meta packages.

It may be that me using Arch (where it is up to you what DE to install) colours my opinion here.

Debian has it:



Never understood the reasons for spins either. They're just a additional burden for providers and consumers IMHO.

[RahulSundaram]

What are the points of all of these spins? Is it just about install mediums with different sets of default packages?

Couldn't you just have some meta packages that you can choose from during install?

Fedora has a net installer and package groups so you could do the latter if you want. However for trade shows or magazines that shipped with a live cd (this is an important medium for many parts of the world that don't have inexpensive high speed connections for instance), having the install media ship with only a small group of packages is very helpful. Spins can also ship with default configuration that is tailored to the spin.

[ehansin]

Currently with Fedora, the net installer is under the Server ISO image offerings, but is kind of a misnomer in that it gives you all sorts of install options. I have a lot of opinions and/or ideas on things with minimal installs, etc., but my head is too cloudy this morning to expand on my thoughts. That said, I'm seeing lots of good pieces in the Linux desktop space, and slowly see things moving in a nice direction.

Right now, writing this on an about five year old Macbook Air laptop (great hardware) and run Windows 10 for work. I can see why a lot of developers do their work on Macs and macOS. Get a Unix/POSIX like OS with nice fonts, design, etc. and don't need to overthink it. Homebrew has been great as a package manager. But it is Apple and is a walled garden in many regards. Windows 10 I like as well, from a usability/workflow perspective. But Windows 11 has really messed up the UI again (from what I can tell) and I am sick an tired of all the telemetry and integrations with online services. I am cheering for solid Linux alternatives, I really am. And I see good things happening.

[AlanTuring69]

It's very strange how there are so many desktop environments. Surely someone has thought to come up with a single DE that checks all the boxes?

[Vistaus]

What are the points of all of these spins? Is it just about install mediums with different sets of default packages?

What is the point of having 2000 car models from 200 car manufacturers to choose from? Is it just about delivering the same concept with a different amount options? And what about the 2000 fridges and microwaves to choose from?

[Vistaus]

It's very strange how there are so many desktop environments. Surely someone has thought to come up with a single DE that checks all the boxes?

You mean like how it's strange that there are so many cars, fridges, microwaves, etc. to choose from? Surely someone has thought to come up with a single car, fridge, microwave, etc. that checks all the boxes?

Everyone has different tastes, that's why not all people drive the same car model, have the same living room interiors, etc. So I'm happy that there are multiple DE's to choose from, so that I can decide for myself which one I like best.