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The Latest Distro Trying For Commercial Success Uses Arch & Wayland

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  • #11
    It will be very hard for a linux distro that is taylored for end users to achieve comercial success while staying true to the foss ethos. It can be done, though. Naturally, you'd need all of the things any entreprenurial venture would need, but you would need one thing that most people have not done while staying true to the open source ethos. The missing element is unfortunately open source and DRM free crapware and similar things. It would allow the company to make money with each download (or similar metric) and offer lower prices on devices sold with it preinstalled. That's how Windows dominates. Since as we all know, the core linux users are tech people of various sorts who would be angered by it. I don't know how anyone could get around it, other than adding a way to easily remove all of the crapware once it is installed. Honestly though, considering how much people freaked out when Mozilla considered using ads, I doubt current linux users would go for any such thing. Also, what firm would make open source and DRM free crapware?

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    • #12
      Originally posted by schmidtbag View Post
      While I personally find Arch overall more user friendly in a maintenance perspective than most distros, I'd say it's harder than average as a whole. Regardless, these people have seriously unrealistic goals who have been using linux too long to not understand the stupidity of the average user.


      That may be true, but to be fair, they made a lot of moves that people weren't happy with. Canonical acted like they were the authority over the linux community and they did things that hardware vendors find difficult to work with. Their end products are, from what I hear, pretty good for newcomers (who at least give it a shot). But, people hate change - if Canonical really wants to attract new users, they're either going to have to have an experience that closely resembles Windows or they're going to have to run ANY Windows program they want, both of which are incredibly stupid things but that's how you attract the herd. But, the problem is if something LOOKS like windows but doesn't run Windows programs, that changes people's expectations and therefore causes disappointment. This is why Windows RT failed - it looked like Windows, it was called Windows, but it couldn't run x86 programs. So in this perspective, an unfamiliar interface is the best thing to do. It's just a matter of how you prioritize familiarity.
      People dont want another windows, thats a myth...
      people want something pretty, easy, and stable.
      if people wanted something like windows why do they desire OSX?
      OSX is nothing like windows.

      In my personal opinion linux on the desktop dosent evolve beacuse of the community wars and the stallman free crap.
      dont get me wrong i admire stallman for hes work, but for non-geeks they dont give a crap about the free (has in freedoom) as long as it does not affect theyr stuff.
      The current linux comunity barely or does not tolerate DRM at all, and this is bad becuase companies want it....
      Like how people hate canonical for using the dash online thingy, look at other OS's now. All of them use it, win8 and even OSX with the recent update.

      There needs to be a balance bettwen free and "usable".

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      • #13
        Originally posted by TheSoulz View Post
        The current linux comunity barely or does not tolerate DRM at all, and this is bad becuase companies want it....
        What the actual fuck?

        If you want an OS that panders to corporate interests and sells out its users while doing it, why not just use Windows? What good is it to have a popular Linux Desktop OS if it turns out to be just as shitty as windows? Just to be able to say "look, Linux is popular now"? Pointless...

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        • #14
          It's nothing about Linux. A young guy instead of going to a boring job decides to open his own company/shop and sell electronics, computers. In this case he creates his own brand in a form of a Linux distribution name. Kickstarter will provide him money to start the company without mortgages and stuff like that. Plus free advertisement From a economic/financial point of view this is quite good plan and often brings good result in crowdfunding. Some money will go to develop the look and feel of the system (to get consistent brand identity), but overall he is just "starting a new company in the new world of web 2.0+"

          Arch and Wayland is there probably because it was picked by a Linux geek Old guy in a limo would probably pick Centos/RHEL... or Oracle Unbreakable Linux. Average user Ubuntu... If they will advertise something with Raspberry Pi (and optionally with the addition of Banana Pi) on the crowd funding they may get few times as much (even though no consumer would want a Macbook looking laptop with stone age CPU, brand fanatics would do the job... )

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          • #15
            So... they just want a linux desktop with the mint menu and synapse indicator. What a revolution.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by alazar View Post
              So... they just want a linux desktop with the mint menu and synapse indicator. What a revolution.
              Don't forget the huge focus on asking for money. I'd say that's their biggest revolution so far.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by TheSoulz View Post
                There needs to be a balance bettwen free and "usable".
                There is truth to that I believe. I remember arguing hard on a forum ten years ago that we should make it dead easy to install nivida driver on linux. Some disagreed strongly with me. Then Ubuntu came around delivering on it, making it dead easy to install a number of proprietary drivers. Ten years later my view of the right balance has shifted significantly in the direction of "free-is-important". There are several reasons for my change of opinion, which can shortly be summarized- as follows:
                -easy installation of proprietary drivers (or apps) did nothing for the linux desktop (actually it only exposed us to risk by trusting the faith of the linux desktop into the hands of Canonical)
                -the real challenges of the linux desktop have little or nothing to do with how easy (or difficult) we make it for proprietary software. Debian simply leaves it to every vendor to package and distribute their stuff if it is proprietary, I believe that is sufficient.
                -Ten years later, what still gives me hope for the linux desktop is all those who valued the freedom, and what that brought (open graphics drivers that work, open wireless drivers almost across the board pioneered by Luis Rodriguez, pulseaudio clearing up the sound mess, systemd finally cleaning up the remaining plumming, fantastic suite of free productivity applications maturing, etc). But yes, I do acknowledge that Steam is an important part of making the linux desktop viable.

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                • #18
                  Who are these people?

                  I have a unique point of view on this. I am an Arch Linux TU and MATE developer. I am also the maintainer for MATE on Arch Linux and the maintainer for Ubuntu MATE Remix.

                  None of the indivuals involved with Operating System U have approached Arch or MATE, nor contributed to either project, as far as I can tell. I'd also like to highlight that we (the MATE team) have not completed adding support for GTK3 to MATE, although that is a roadmap item due for completion in MATE 1.10 and a precursor to adding Wayland support.

                  I can only imagine that the Operating System U team are about to submit some massive pull-requests to the MATE project what with the "CEO" proclaiming to be such an Open Source enthusiast. If Operating System U are to be taken seriously I'd like to see some proper community engagement first.

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                  • #19
                    I like how they make it sound like X11 was the No. 1 thing that kept Linux from being a good desktop OS.

                    Yeah....

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by TheSoulz View Post
                      if people wanted something like windows why do they desire OSX?
                      OSX is nothing like windows.
                      Nobody wants OS X.

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