Both KDE and GNOME To Offer Official Distros (theregister.com) 24
king*jojo writes: KDE and GNOME have decided that because they're not big and complicated enough already, they might work better if they have their own custom distributions underneath. What's the worst that could happen?
A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald Sitter, was entitled An Operating System of Our Own, and the idea sounds simple enough: Sitter proposed an official KDE Linux distribution. Now the proposal is gathering steam and a plan is coming together for an official KDE Linux -- codenamed "Project Banana."
A talk from this year's KDE conference, Akademy 2024, looks like it's going to become real. The talk, by KDE developer Harald Sitter, was entitled An Operating System of Our Own, and the idea sounds simple enough: Sitter proposed an official KDE Linux distribution. Now the proposal is gathering steam and a plan is coming together for an official KDE Linux -- codenamed "Project Banana."
Strength and weakness (Score:2)
It's great that nothing stops anyone and everyone from doing this. At the same time, when it happens too frequently the barrier to entry rises as newcomers have no idea how to select what they need to start and just pay Apple or Microsoft instead.
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As for the main filesystem, ZFS should be a core option, with btrfs and ext4 as options. XFS is okay for data, but definitely not great for a root filesystem, as it can't be shrunk, and has no checksumming capability for data.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that ZFS wouldn't be considered a core option as its licensing prohibits its adoption as part of the kernel?
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I have always wondered if these compatibility licensing issues could be solved by distributing the incompatible software as source and making it trivial to have it compiled and linked locally (launching gcc on first run). I think if you compile it yourself and don't distribute binaries, licence compatibility questions are less problematic.
Re: Strength and weakness (Score:2)
You would be correct, sir. ZFS runs in userland via FUSE.
For those confusing a GUI with an operating system (Score:2)
I for one was sold on Arch Linux the very moment its installation ended in a console command line prompt on the screen. No one trying to force bloatware, gimmicks or religi
Don't reinvent the wheel (Score:2)
If Kdisto was based on Fedora, Debian --> Ubuntu or Mint, that'd be great. And, I would probably use it.
As for Gnome... yeah, whatever. I don't care. Do it. Or not.
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If Kdisto was based on Fedora, Debian --> Ubuntu or Mint, that'd be great. And, I would probably use it.
I have great news for you, KDE already publishes KDE Neon, a distribution based on Ubuntu LTS + rolling latest KDE software.
TFA says it isn't clear whether the new KDE distro will be a replacement or a complement to Neon.
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Yeah I got excited until I read the article and if they were just rebranding Neon. Tried it possibly 1 decade ago and went back to Debian when I realised I didn't need to be bleeding-edge!
You'd only really care about a KDE specific distro if there were officially branded hardware such as the Slimbook. But even then, couldn't you just do an official ISO 'spin'?
Unless they're radically diverging on non x86 hardware projects e.g. tablets or e-ink slates (such as PineNote) and they want to save the user from al
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You'd only really care about a KDE specific distro if there were officially branded hardware such as the Slimbook
If they do it right, they can also attract new developers. Many KDE users have some development background and could fix at least some small bugs that annoy them. But setting up a development environment in a regular distro might not be easy, and you won't see the result in the distro maybe until next year, unless you run KDE from git, which isn't very recommendable. With an official distro, you get an easily configured development environment to write bugfixes, and you get to see your own bugfixes in the o
The Year Of... (Score:2)
Another candidate - or two - for The Year Of Yet Another Linux On The Desktop.
I love the choice I enjoy in Linux, but I can't help wondering if having so many flavours works against it being more widely adopted. I'm sure a lot of would-be Redmond Refugees look into it, see all the choices, have no clue where to begin, and go crawling back to Winblows.
Thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
I was just thinking about how there simply aren't enough Linux distros around!
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Could be "Standards" https://xkcd.com/927/ [xkcd.com]
Hmmm, not sure if that's the right approach. (Score:3)
There's a lot of distros, which means there's a lot of redundant effort and insufficient quality control or differentiation.
There IS, I believe, a space for a new distro, one similar to Gentoo but which senses your platform and configures the kernel and compiler flags to default to whatever is optimal for that system. If it's not a known system, it should run tests to see what is optimal for it.
But I can't see the sense in building a distro around a desktop. The desktop is central to how you think, but it is not dependent on what you're thinking about. The distro is about the activity, the GUI is about the mind. It is the act of trying to force users down specific paths that weakens Windows and MacOS.
What you want is for users to use a distro that does what they want and a GUI that does it how they want.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't see the sense in building a distro around a desktop.
One point of view:
KDE appeals to power users, and a subset of those want the latest and greatest KDE (because desktop software is the core of our daily activities and a bugfix or new feature can improve significantly the daily experience). But latest and greatest KDE is not easy to get. Many distros publish numbered versions so you're stuck with a given KDE version for 6-12 months; or you get testing distro versions and get an overall unstable system; or you get a gentoo and can mix stable and unstable soft
12 years too late. (Score:2)
Link to the presentation (KDE) (Score:2)
Took some digging, but I've found you can watch the original presentation in Sept. about KDE's distro plans here [fediverse.tv].
Project Banana sounds great (Score:2)
If they find an art gallery where they can tape their Project Banana on the wall, they might get rich with that idea. (ref [nytimes.com])
Ditch 'em both ... (Score:3)
I was on KDE for many years. ...
But they started changing things around, and deviate from their philosophy of having everything configurable, and hiding or eliminating configuration, settings, and so on
As a result, I have been on XFCE (Xubuntu), and never looked back ... ...
Small, functional and stays out of the way
Next thing - GNU releases an official distro (Score:2)
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Neon (Score:2)
Does KDE not consider Neon their own distro? I assume whatever they are thinking of coming out with will be a derivative of another distro either way.
Not the year of Linux on the desktop (Score:2)
I can buy a Toyota or a Honda, GM, Ford, VW, Nissan - whatever - I can choose based on preferences, and each maker offers different models and features to entice different buyers.
But, when I need to add gas, oil, new tires, they all support the same standards and industry wide interoperability.
"Tech" has failed to achieve the same. For all of its other warts, love 'em or hate 'em, MS has come closest to having a universal computing ecosystem that can be used by anybody, not just experts, with good backward