Fedora May Finally Provide Official Support For The Raspberry Pi 4

[Neraxa]

Fedora won't do this precisely because of the license issues with WSL and the restrictions with putting it into the Microsoft Store. This is why people prefer Fedora over Ubuntu, and their fast-and-loose use of open source licensing to their own benefit (ZFS anyone?). There is no RHEL for WSL. WSL2 uses Microsoft's kernel, not Fedora's. This introduces a whole bunch of quality and support issues that they clearly don't want to deal with. If you think that Linux will more than double their marketshare because of WSL (this is precisely what you're saying in your last statement), you need to have your head examined.

If Microsoft would choose Ubuntu as a canonical (no pun) linux distribution standard with WSL2 and installed on all Windows systems, it could mean app developers could write software for Linux/POSIX and it would be a simple fast install for end-users, this could increase the base of Linux applications.

Also, I think the reason there was never a year of the Linux desktop is that people dont want to install operating systems, and most people dont even know what it is. So pre-installs are everything. Thats why, Ubuntu etc should have focused on working with computer manufacturers and built a consortium of manufacturers of hardware and software to sign a pledge to support Linux once a threshold of companies had signed the pledge. Its always been a chicken and egg problem, but if you can build consensus to support it among many companies where they can sign-on but are only committed to support it once most other companies are as well, you would eliminate the dead end investment problem linux has been up against where an investment in supporting it by companies was spotty so just one company doing it wasnt sufficient to build the momentum needed to make it useable by the masses, and thus a good investment. Thus, a consortium companies can sign in to which only becomes a commitment when most other companies also signed on to it solves the chicken and egg problem. That could have paved the way to pre-installs.

[arQon]

Does Ubuntu ship with gpu acceleration and everything working?

Yes.

As far as Fedora goes: if RH can use some of their influence to get ffmpeg sorted out, great. If not, nobody cares whether they have a distro for the Pi or not except the diehard RH stans: even the most ADHD of distro-hoppers have had years to settle on what they're going to run on.

That said, headless uses especially are so homogenized these days that it barely even matters any more, so, meh.

[pal666]

No, and that's not "precisely" what I said at all. I was laughing at your "niche" comment. Windows 10 / 11 have roughly 1.5 billion active (desktop) devices in the wild.

android for many years has more active gui devices in the wild and they don't even need vm to run linux

[pal666]

He has been working on Fedora over 15 years, as indicated by his bio. To say that Red Hat and Fedora are independent is a bit naive.

you missed part where he worked on fedora over 15 years in his own time prior to joining redhat

[Waethorn]

android for many years has more active gui devices in the wild and they don't even need vm to run linux

Actually, they need a Java VM: Dalvik.

[Waethorn]

If Microsoft would choose Ubuntu as a canonical (no pun) linux distribution standard with WSL2 and installed on all Windows systems, it could mean app developers could write software for Linux/POSIX and it would be a simple fast install for end-users, this could increase the base of Linux applications.

Also, I think the reason there was never a year of the Linux desktop is that people dont want to install operating systems, and most people dont even know what it is. So pre-installs are everything. Thats why, Ubuntu etc should have focused on working with computer manufacturers and built a consortium of manufacturers of hardware and software to sign a pledge to support Linux once a threshold of companies had signed the pledge. Its always been a chicken and egg problem, but if you can build consensus to support it among many companies where they can sign-on but are only committed to support it once most other companies are as well, you would eliminate the dead end investment problem linux has been up against where an investment in supporting it by companies was spotty so just one company doing it wasnt sufficient to build the momentum needed to make it useable by the masses, and thus a good investment. Thus, a consortium companies can sign in to which only becomes a commitment when most other companies also signed on to it solves the chicken and egg problem. That could have paved the way to pre-installs.

There is no set standard for Linux distros. Ubuntu is based on Debian. Fedora would be the best choice since it's a) wholly independent, not "based on" anything else, and b) it has the most Linux project managers behind it. However, Red Hat controls Fedora due to most of those project managers being paid RH employees working on the clock. They might have various "steering committees", but don't for once think that they aren't at the mercy of Red Hat's goals. Red Hat has no motivation of embracing desktop integration with Windows because it's a small percentage of their business, and an even smaller return on investment for Microsoft. IBM owns Red Hat now too, and they don't have the buying power to buy up Microsoft to accomplish that either.

Ubuntu already tried working with OEM's. The only major one that agreed was Dell. HP and Lenovo make their systems compatible in that they tend to build their enterprise machines without using incompatible wireless cards and such - but they still ship with Windows.

Running an OS on top of another OS just to run a selection of fairly unknown apps is a UX and support nightmare. It would make more sense from a user standpoint if Microsoft would just migrate from NT to Linux, but the likelihood of that happening is nil.

[Waethorn]

you missed part where he worked on fedora over 15 years in his own time prior to joining redhat

He didn't say that. Read his bio again.

[pal666]

Actually, they need a Java VM: Dalvik.

java vm is not a vm and is not used for running linux. and dalvik was replaced with art in android 5.0, i.e. they don't have java vm anymore

[pal666]

He didn't say that. Read his bio again.

he said exactly that in bio

[Waethorn]

he said exactly that in bio

Noooo, he didn't. You read it wrong. He started work there in 2014. 15 years before that, Fedora wasn't even a thing.