Arch-Based arkOS Linux Being Discontinued

[GreatEmerald]

The problem with such a distro, in my mind anyways, is keeping it secure. I don't do the cloud with Google because of their behavior but on the other hand I don't have the confidence that I could maintain a cloud server that is secure and reliable enough. Frankly I'm not sure this can be accomplished from the distro maintainers perspective.

I personally use Gentoo Hardened. It's a hassle to initially set up, but once done, it's really solid due to security down to the source level. None of the recent high-impact vulnerabilities affected my server because of that. Maintenance required is slightly less than a regular Gentoo installation, since there are a lot fewer packages installed.

[Vistaus]

I think one of the main problems is that kids and big money are now focused on things like web, cloud, server, IoT, robotics, and mobile.

Desktop is seen as old and unsexy, so high-school/college kids don't hack on it, which means the talent pool isn't being refreshed, and the money people aren't backing it either. Also, having a lot of developers working on desktop apps is how you get lots of bug reports & fixes in your window managers and GUI tool kits. In the world of open source, your QA is only as good as your user community.

The only thing that's better now, than 15 years ago, are the tools. Not to say other things haven't also improved, but if we're talking about things which could lead to a better Desktop software situation, then I think that's about it.

Not sure where you got the idea that high school/college kids don't hack on Linux because there are quite a lot of them who do. The devs of ZorinOS come to mind and ZorinOS is quite a popular Ubuntu-based distro (which is even being used professionally in Italy and a few other places, check their blog!). Also, in the TV news I frequently see young ethical hackers using Linux. And even an organization like Bits Of Freedom (the Dutch EFF) is using a lot of Linux machines and most of their staff is 16-30 years old.
And don't even get me started on young Linux devs on GitHub. So yes, while Linux does need more young talent, there's still plenty of them who are already here.

[Vistaus]

I personally use Gentoo Hardened. It's a hassle to initially set up, but once done, it's really solid due to security down to the source level. None of the recent high-impact vulnerabilities affected my server because of that. Maintenance required is slightly less than a regular Gentoo installation, since there are a lot fewer packages installed.

I don't really have much experiences with servers, but wouldn't it be easier to just use Arch Hardened? You'll get the same hardening and rolling updates, but maintenance is easier.

[starshipeleven]

He mentioned a similar effort in Yunohost. Having a little look-see as we speak.

If we are talking of user-friendly distros that let you manage a normal server with full webinterface and whatnot, I can also mention Nethserver http://www.nethserver.org/ which isn't exactly a newcomer in the field either.

[GreatEmerald]

I don't really have much experiences with servers, but wouldn't it be easier to just use Arch Hardened? You'll get the same hardening and rolling updates, but maintenance is easier.

No, because building things from source also allows for disabling functionality that's not needed, and that's important for lowering the attack surface. nginx is a nice example of that.

[Cerberus]

I think one of the main problems is that kids and big money are now focused on things like web, cloud, server, IoT, robotics, and mobile.

Desktop is seen as old and unsexy, so high-school/college kids don't hack on it, which means the talent pool isn't being refreshed, and the money people aren't backing it either. Also, having a lot of developers working on desktop apps is how you get lots of bug reports & fixes in your window managers and GUI tool kits. In the world of open source, your QA is only as good as your user community.

The only thing that's better now, than 15 years ago, are the tools. Not to say other things haven't also improved, but if we're talking about things which could lead to a better Desktop software situation, then I think that's about it.

That is true and most of the people that arrived on desktop Linux in last 5-10 years ago dont send bug reports, dont contact developers etc, that doesnt even require any technical knowledge but improves the development. It was a norm in more ancient times that if you use Linux and encounter bugs, missing functionality etc that you file bug reports and communicate with developers in general. Most newcomers dont bother with that, if something doesnt work they change the distribution and/or desktop environment, they dont make an attempt to fix problems in any way. The amount of people that dont report bugs nowadays is staggering. Another big problem is fragmentation of desktop in general, we have way too many desktop environments, many of which are forks of existing ones and dont really bring anything new because existing desktops can do the same thing with extensions or just a little theming or extra settings. Instead of contributing to upstream they fork and reinvent the wheel with new desktops. I have the same opinion about hundreds of distributions out there, majority of which are Ubuntu derivatives even though we have a whole *buntu family to choose from. Waste of resources. Back in the days users were more responsible about using Linux, didnt fork on a whim and though hardware support was worse than today, overall experience of Linux desktop was better, it just worked, now the users needs to test multiple distributions and desktop environments to see what works well on their hardware, KDE 5 is especially sensitive to different hardware and graphic drivers.

[torsionbar28]

That is true and most of the people that arrived on desktop Linux in last 5-10 years ago dont send bug reports, dont contact developers etc, that doesnt even require any technical knowledge but improves the development. It was a norm in more ancient times that if you use Linux and encounter bugs, missing functionality etc that you file bug reports and communicate with developers in general. Most newcomers dont bother with that, if something doesnt work they change the distribution and/or desktop environment, they dont make an attempt to fix problems in any way. The amount of people that dont report bugs nowadays is staggering. Another big problem is fragmentation of desktop in general, we have way too many desktop environments, many of which are forks of existing ones and dont really bring anything new because existing desktops can do the same thing with extensions or just a little theming or extra settings. Instead of contributing to upstream they fork and reinvent the wheel with new desktops. I have the same opinion about hundreds of distributions out there, majority of which are Ubuntu derivatives even though we have a whole *buntu family to choose from. Waste of resources. Back in the days users were more responsible about using Linux, didnt fork on a whim and though hardware support was worse than today, overall experience of Linux desktop was better, it just worked, now the users needs to test multiple distributions and desktop environments to see what works well on their hardware, KDE 5 is especially sensitive to different hardware and graphic drivers.

^ Agree with all your sentiments. I've been using Linux as my primary home desktop since 1996. Installed Slackware from a mountain of floppy disks onto my 486 DX2-66. I downloaded the disk images from the local dial-up BBS over my US Robotics Courier 14.4 Faxmodem, and wrote them to floppies using RAWRITE.EXE on a Windows 3.1 peecee, so yeah I remember the good old days well!

That said, perhaps many of the issues you've mentioned stem from the wider adoption of Linux? Maybe its a sign of Linux having moved from the hobbyist realm, to the mass-market. Not to mention the surge of CompSci and IT majors graduated in the past two decades, eager to prove themselves by forking a project or starting a new distro. Plus the rise of cheap broadband and social media, folks want the bragging rights and 15 mins of internet fame associated with starting ambitious projects, rather than the relatively mundane task of communicating with devs and filing bug reports. Not saying it's good or right, but I can see why the kids these days act this way.

[starshipeleven]

That is true and most of the people that arrived on desktop Linux in last 5-10 years ago dont send bug reports, dont contact developers etc, that doesnt even require any technical knowledge but improves the development. It was a norm in more ancient times that if you use Linux and encounter bugs, missing functionality etc that you file bug reports and communicate with developers in general. Most newcomers dont bother with that, if something doesnt work they change the distribution and/or desktop environment, they dont make an attempt to fix problems in any way. The amount of people that dont report bugs nowadays is staggering. Another big problem is fragmentation of desktop in general, we have way too many desktop environments, many of which are forks of existing ones and dont really bring anything new because existing desktops can do the same thing with extensions or just a little theming or extra settings. Instead of contributing to upstream they fork and reinvent the wheel with new desktops. I have the same opinion about hundreds of distributions out there, majority of which are Ubuntu derivatives even though we have a whole *buntu family to choose from. Waste of resources. Back in the days users were more responsible about using Linux, didnt fork on a whim and though hardware support was worse than today, overall experience of Linux desktop was better, it just worked, now the users needs to test multiple distributions and desktop environments to see what works well on their hardware, KDE 5 is especially sensitive to different hardware and graphic drivers.

This is a generic old man rant.

Waah waah young kids, waah waah. It's not kids. This is people Canonical pulled in, as they went in and tried to get normal people to use Linux by simple marketing, without teaching them to be parts of a community, attracting mostly the freeloaders. Thanks Shuttleworth.

It also contains the bullshit notion that the resources spent on making more than The Only True DE are wasted, when in fact people that make different stuff would probably never cooperate on the The Only True DE (as they probably don't like it).

And of course it contains the bullshit notion that downstream projects don't contribute back. They contribute back bugfixes or other stuff that upstream can actually accept.

[stiiixy]

If we are talking of user-friendly distros that let you manage a normal server with full webinterface and whatnot, I can also mention Nethserver http://www.nethserver.org/ which isn't exactly a newcomer in the field either.

Ta. I've been poking around for some simple server solutions to recommend for charities etc that cant or dont want the expenses of MS server's. Tried a few. Tried Univention/UCS, but the latest iteration (4.2) left a bad taste in my mouth. Virtually nothing works, and can't even use XFS for system partitions of any sort. Maybe in a few months I'll try again, but Nethserver looks the goods.

[ldo17]

Desktop is seen as old and unsexy ...

So we’re not going to see the Year of the Desktop any time soon ... ?