System76 Engineer Confirms Work on New Rust-Written Desktop, Not Based on GNOME (phoronix.com) 125
Phoronix reports:
System76's Pop!_OS Linux distribution already has their own "COSMIC" desktop that is based on GNOME, but moving ahead they are working on their own Rust-written desktop that is not based on GNOME or any existing desktop environment.
Stemming from a Reddit discussion over the possibility of seeing a KDE flavor of Pop!_OS, it was brought up by one of their own engineers they are working on their "own desktop". System76 engineer and Pop!_OS maintainer Michael Murphy "mmstick" commented that System76 will be its own desktop. When further poked about that whether that means a fork from GNOME, the response was "No it is its own thing written in Rust."
Word of System76 making their "own" desktop not based on GNOME does follow some recent friction between Pop!_OS and GNOME developers over their approach to theming and customizations.
Or, as Murphy wrote (in response to a later comment): What are you expecting us to do? We have a desktop environment that is a collection of GNOME Shell extensions which break every GNOME Shell release. Either we move towards maintaining tens of thousands of lines of monkey patches, or we do it the right way and make the next step a fully fledged desktop environment equal to GNOME Shell.
In other comments Murphy clarified that essentially the gist of it would be an independent/distro-agnostic desktop environment, and that they'd be "using tooling that already exists (mutter, kwin, wlroots), but implementing the surrounding shell in Rust from scratch..." And he added later that "We already do our best to follow freedesktop specifications with our software. So there's no reason to think we'd do otherwise."
One of the most interesting exchanges happened when one long-time Reddit user questioned the need for another desktop. That user had posted, "Linux is great, choices are great, but our biggest problem is that in the pursuit of choices for the sake of choices we have a ton of projects that are 95% of the way to prime time readiness, but none that are fully there, because instead of fixing problems, everyone decides they just want to start over."
Murphy responded: "You have it backwards. Choice is the best part about open source. None of us would be here today if people weren't brave enough to take the next step with a new solution to an existing problem..."
Stemming from a Reddit discussion over the possibility of seeing a KDE flavor of Pop!_OS, it was brought up by one of their own engineers they are working on their "own desktop". System76 engineer and Pop!_OS maintainer Michael Murphy "mmstick" commented that System76 will be its own desktop. When further poked about that whether that means a fork from GNOME, the response was "No it is its own thing written in Rust."
Word of System76 making their "own" desktop not based on GNOME does follow some recent friction between Pop!_OS and GNOME developers over their approach to theming and customizations.
Or, as Murphy wrote (in response to a later comment): What are you expecting us to do? We have a desktop environment that is a collection of GNOME Shell extensions which break every GNOME Shell release. Either we move towards maintaining tens of thousands of lines of monkey patches, or we do it the right way and make the next step a fully fledged desktop environment equal to GNOME Shell.
In other comments Murphy clarified that essentially the gist of it would be an independent/distro-agnostic desktop environment, and that they'd be "using tooling that already exists (mutter, kwin, wlroots), but implementing the surrounding shell in Rust from scratch..." And he added later that "We already do our best to follow freedesktop specifications with our software. So there's no reason to think we'd do otherwise."
One of the most interesting exchanges happened when one long-time Reddit user questioned the need for another desktop. That user had posted, "Linux is great, choices are great, but our biggest problem is that in the pursuit of choices for the sake of choices we have a ton of projects that are 95% of the way to prime time readiness, but none that are fully there, because instead of fixing problems, everyone decides they just want to start over."
Murphy responded: "You have it backwards. Choice is the best part about open source. None of us would be here today if people weren't brave enough to take the next step with a new solution to an existing problem..."
Is it slated to come out in 2022? (Score:5, Funny)
Year of Linux on the MS Windows Desktop (Score:2)
Is it slated to come out in 2022? Because THAT could be the year of Linux on the desktop!
No, because 2022 will be the Year of Linux on the MS Windows Desktop via MS' Windows Subsystem for Linux. Your Linux distro is now available from the MS App Store for Windows.
Kinda funny how thing are evolving.
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Even more interesting is that for software development a fairly strong case can be made that Windows is a better Linux dev environment right now. Especially on laptops you have better hardware support and better power management but you can still have many Linux installs to test your code on different versions without issues and completely binary compatible. When you are ready you can deploy to a real Linux server. You also have access to Microsoft Office to make life easier on integration with the rest of
Re:Year of Linux on the MS Windows Desktop (Score:4, Interesting)
When I removed Windows and installed Linux, battery life on my laptop went from 10 to 14 hours.
Hardware support and power management in Windows is a patchy mess, with subpar drivers from barely motivated devs employed at various computer manufacturers, not building on each others successes.
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When I went from OSX to Linux on the same laptop, my battery life dropped significantly. I fixed most of the problem by dimming the screen when on battery. OSX aggressively dims the screen when you unplug your laptop. Screens take a lot of electricity.
A handful, just like the last 25 years (Score:2)
When I removed Windows and installed Linux, battery life on my laptop went from 10 to 14 hours.
Hardware support and power management in Windows is a patchy mess, with subpar drivers from barely motivated devs employed at various computer manufacturers, not building on each others successes.
10 v 14 hours on battery is such a niche thing. Of course a handful will use Linux as a desktop. A handful, just like today, just like the lat 25 years.
Others will find the convenience of MS WSL more attractive. As others have found the BSD environment of macOS more attractive. Its really about the FOSS software, and the vast majority of FOSS software and tools are not Linux specific. Bringing this FOSS software to the two commercial operating systems is a game changer, proprietary and FOSS on the same d
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I remember the denial in the Linux community when it was revealed Linux-powered netbooks had far worse battery life then those running Windows.
As usual, it depends which Linux desktop environment you're using, and YMMV.
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That was over a decade ago. Much has happened since.
And on Windows, it depends on how well the drivers for the system you have happened to be written. I'd rather have the decision of battery life in my hands than in the hands of a nameless engineer who doesn't care.
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At the very least, it would make it the year of a desktop on Linux. ;)
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I like the joke. :)
The reason it won't be the year of the Linux desktop is the same as we've never had a year of the Linux desktop: There are too many wankers deciding that they need to make yet another distribution instead of concentrating on a smaller number, and using the extra resources to make them bullet proof. Distributions that just work, where people virtually never have to tweak config files or roll various modules into kernel space. And do things like get long running projects finished, polished,
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My year of the Linux Desktop was 2013. Never looked back since then. Most of the people are just deluded, and the "Linux on the desktop year" has become a really sour joke. It works great, better or less better, depending on your choice. I will recommend only a couple of DEs: Mate[ which I've been using], Xfce, and LDXE. Maybe Pop OS or Ubuntu. That's it. Try and choose which one you like the best. Can you do that with Windows or MacOS? I use all three for different purposes and I'm an IT maintenance worker
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Sadly, it won't be the year of Linux on the desktop until we get a single, unified API for the Linux desktop. Developers need to be able to write a single app and say "My app runs on Linux", rather than "My app runs on Ubuntu, but not Red Hat." They also shouldn't need to be concerned with which desktop the user is running (KDE vs Gnome, etc.) The desktop should be a user choice, not a developer choice.
If it's truly free from Gnome-based code (Score:3)
I hope it catches on quickly. Gnome is a steaming pile.
Re: If it's truly free from Gnome-based code (Score:2)
What things do you speculate it will fix?
Separate the fucking GUI (Score:2)
What's needed is an OS-neutral stateful GUI markup language. Stop typing GUI's to OS's and app languages, dammit! Separate the fuckers or the penguin and Clippy takes one in the throat; Gottit? Tying is a bad fucking habit. Wake the hell up.
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Addendum: For games and bitmap graphics, a direct tie to the OS or language may still be needed. But regular widgets can go through the abstraction layer.
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Basically exists, but many people do not like it:
* HTML
* QML
* Flutter
Probably many more - I find Flutter elegant, though.
As I mostly program Desktop Apps in Swing ... I do not really care about anything anyway :P
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"avaloniaui" Interesting project. Thanx.
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It seems to be based on HTML, or not?
(And has ugly programming conventions, hurts my eyes :P )
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A bit like SOM and IDL, perhaps, which the Workplace Shell [wikipedia.org] was based on (even though most of it was still written in C)?
That was in 1992, by the way. And personally I'd still take the WPS over any existing desktop without hesitation for its substantial advantages in the combination of usability, configurability and extendability, to which still no current desktop comes even close, whether on Windows, Linux or Mac.
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You mean like Gnome, or KDE, or Xfce, or ...? I'm guessing you might not understand this.
Whats wrong with KDE? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, its not perfect, but at least its usable by power users unlike Gnome.
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The problem is distros don't implement KDE correctly. Using KDE Neon gives me no problems at all.
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The history of licensing probably had much to do with it. Until 2009 the licensing was incompatible with anything but GPL and commercial use, and evidently this legacy lives on to this day as some portions are still not available under LGPL.
Another is the choice to be natively C++, which is awkward for C applications.
As an implementation, they've done a good job. As a set of libraries to target from an application perspective, there's some challenges compared to the GTK area.
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Ah Yes... (Score:5, Funny)
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They should be dated. Now it's USB-C for the flyover.
GNOME (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it going to contribute besides fragmentation, defocus, distraction, and rehashing of old mistakes? How long will it take to mature the feature set? What is broken in GNOME?
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What its going to contribute is that the system supplier doesn't have someone else breaking their software, they can do it themselves. This is often, but not always, better.
Now what it's going to mean to the end user is another question. I'm dubious about anything dependent on Rust, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. Just because I dislike the language doesn't mean that others will, and it does provide protection against some kinds of errors that C doesn't offer.
FWIW, if I were writing system software,
Re:GNOME (Score:5, Informative)
I can only answer what it will contribute. Based on their videos,
https://pop.system76.com/ [system76.com]
the window manager will automatically tile windows, with touchpad gestures and hotkeys to change focus and move windows. Windows can also be stacked like tabs in a browser. That seems like it would be useful for mapping a collection of windows to one task (unless you want to tile them, of course).
It looks like a pain to maintain all this functionality in Gnome.
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Well, a feature I would like to see is the ability to scale windows by ctrl-dragging their corners (note, scaling is different than resizing .. in scaling all elements of the window and text including the menu bar expand/shrink without text re-alignment.) Window scaling is good especially on large high-res screens for having multiple documents on the side for reference or copy/pasting and things like that.
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Since Gnome famously thinks their way is best, you'd have a better chance of convincing System76 to implement this (or accept a patch) than Gnome. Though in their shoes, I'd want to hear a more detailed use case, and be convinced it's broadly applicable. My own experience is that I set the DPI to be readable or zoom documents/web sites, rather than wanting to scale windows. Though it's possible I've been in situations that would benefit and haven't realized it.
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VisualBox has had this capability for years.
But feel free to tell them they're holding it wrong.
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GNOME is broken in GNOME. Or at least in it's current incarnation.
The first thing I do when moving in to a user account is give GNOME the boot and select Xfce so I can get something done.
Gnome WAS good once, the various forks that stuck with the old look and feel (Mate and Cinnamon mostly) are fine. GNOME *IS* the mistake and thank the gods of computing it is not the only choice available on Linux.
With enough plugins, it maty be possible to Frankenstein GNOME back into a productive environment, or I can jus
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Broadly speaking, there is only one way of doing things, and to throw a bone to customization, they have what could have been a good framework for allowing addons to extend the desktop, however they don't provide a stable set of interfaces and such every 6 months a random assortment of extensions break and if a shell extension author leaves their extension alone, then it's not going to work at all within 6 to 12 months.
One example of the asinine thought is that when they started, virtual desktops were only
It's much easier now! (Score:4, Interesting)
So a new desktop would be a fair amount of work, but not as insurmountable than in the past.
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Canonical tried to build their own GUI called Unity
They tried to re-implement a bunch of low-level stuff, like the display server (Mir). They also were doing this before a lot of modern infrastructure became fully developed.
Rookie mistake? (Score:2)
Somehow it is less work to build a new desktop from the ground up rather than fix problems after GNOME updates? I am fully willing to be wrong here, but it sounds to me like this guy is making a classic rookie mistake. I think he is just trading in one set of problems for a different set of problems. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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GNOME-devs won't even consider fixing things upstream or considering literally anyone else's needs or tastes and instead tell you to put up or shut up, so trying to fix things upstream is a no-go.
That phrase doesn't mean what you think it means.
"Put up or shut up" in this context would mean "provide patches not just complaints" but as you said that doesn't work. GNOME refuses everyone's patches to their mess. They have their little clique and they like it. "Putting up" does no one else any good because GNOME's actual policy is simply "Shut up."
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Somehow it is less work to build a new desktop from the ground up rather than fix problems after GNOME updates
There are far more desktop environments than just GNOME...but apparently none of them are good enough either.
Rust-Written (Score:5, Insightful)
And instead maintain tens of thousands of lines of code to patch around Rust's constantly moving "spec" and inability to properly modularize due to fragile shared libraries support.
Anytime a project mentions its underlying programming language as a "feature", there's something fishy going on.
Re:Rust-Written (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not fishy, it's just plain misguided. When you build a building and brag about the construction method, the only purpose of the building was to show off how you can build something.
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OK, that was just an attempt at a metaphor, but the architect designing the building has a purpose other than showing off how you can build something, and the contractor who actually builds it gets to brag about the construction method without implying anything about the purpose of the building.
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Rust does not have a constantly moving spec. Of course, it changes, what language does not? But, changes are forward compatible where ever possible. Breaking changes are bought in during "editions" -- the last edition (2021 just released) has an automatic upgrade path. And if you don't want to upgrade, you don't have to, since editions are binary compatible with each other.
I don't think he did announce it as a feature, just a description in a one line comment on reddit.
Re:Rust-Written (Score:5, Insightful)
> Anytime a project mentions its underlying programming language as a "feature", there's something fishy going on.
No it's not. Rust exists for C++ like performance without the risks of memory mismanagement. If there were a dozen such languages then your argument would be correct but there aren't.
KDE will often go 3-5 years on bug reports with reduced test cases. This means it's too hard to work on or nobody cares. GNOME3 is just too weird for most people XFCE is ideal except for all of its engine bugs and lack of features.
System76 knows exactly what they're doing. I hope they allow bazaar participation eventually.
Rust's constantly moving spec. (Score:2)
Only half kidding. Forking doesn't so much cause chaos as it makes visible the chaos that already exists. I'm pro-visibility. Making a problem undeniable is the first step to getting people to solve it. Fork Rust, and see how the mainstream Rust developers respond to that. Maybe they'll take it as a wake up call.
Give it a different name, though. The fact that Python 2 and Python 3 are both referred to simply as 'Python' rustles my jimmies.
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What would that be likely to achieve? Would the maintainers of this fork be better than the people and processes Rust already have?
Churn in the earlier days of Rust was a known issue. So now they have a much better story there with "editions", and that most people have moved of nightly now. The lack of a second implementation of a Rust compiler is a known issue, so there is work to achieve that, not as a fork but based on a different back-end. And there is work to stabilize a core set of libraries.
The forkers might be better. (Score:2)
The point is for there to be alternatives to choose from. When consumers have choices, producers are kept on their toes.
People tell me forking will cause churn. I look at things that aren't forked and... I see a lot of churn. Cognitive dissonance.
What sets this desktop apart? (Score:3, Insightful)
What does it offer that other desktops don't?
There are already too many half-baked desktops out there. Everybody wants to start a new project, but nobody ever really finishes them. It's not fun running that last, LONG mile, so developers just move on to a new project.
This is why commercial desktops succeed where open source desktops fail: commercial desktop builders are motivated by money to finish their projects and make them truly usable.
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This is why commercial desktops succeed where open source desktops fail
Windows and MacOS are the only commercial desktops that have succeeded. Countless others have failed.
On the other hand, KDE Plasma, XFCE, LXDE and a few others are plenty successful.
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You are absolutely right, it's not the features or quality of the UI itself that will lead to success. This is the mistake the "year of the Linux desktop" crowd keep making. They keep thinking that one day it will be "good enough" that people will start flocking to it. In order to gain widespread market acceptance, marketing is required. Somebody has to convince those users that they want it. And that is what Linux doesn't have: huge marketing muscle.
Yes, there is a minimum standard required in order to ga
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KDE Plasma, XFCE, LXDE are only "successful" in that they aren't actually dead. If "successful" means gaining significant market adoption by non-programmers, none of these have, or will ever "succeed." The fact that only two desktops have gained widespread adoption is a testament to just how hard it is to gain acceptance. This new Rust-developed desktop has no better chance, in my estimation, than the other Linux desktops.
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If "successful" means gaining significant market adoption by non-programmers, none of these have, or will ever "succeed."
Nothing will topple Windows or MacOS. The fact that DEs like KDE can get a user base in face of such market dominance is all the success that's necessary. Not everything has to be about beating the competition. Alternative DEs biggest enemy is basically inertia. Windows and MacOS are only successful by inertia these days. Both desktop interfaces really just sucks.
For me, KDE is not only powerful, but even simpler than Windows or MacOS. It does everything anyone really needs and is much more consistent th
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Oh, so it's big, bad Microsoft and Apple that sabotage the chances of success for KDE and friends? Whatever.
You talk about how "easy" it is to use KDE. Then why doesn't Grandma want to use it? She does like Chrome OS, so it's certainly not because she insists on Windows. Google HAS taken on the desktop, and though it doesn't dominate, it has succeeded in winning non-technical users. None of the free DEs have done that...
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Oh, so it's big, bad Microsoft and Apple that sabotage the chances of success for KDE and friends? Whatever.
No, you illiterate dipshit.
I said it's INERTIA. When you have INERTIA, you don't need "sabotage". Do you know what INERTIA is, dipshit?
If you can't make a point without twisting a word to use a concept that I did not use, you can fuck off.
Then why doesn't Grandma want to use it?
You live in this fantasy world where everyone is completely informed about everything in the world and everything they do.
Grandma doesn't want to use it because she doesn't know about the ins and outs of computers, just like Grandma doesn't want to use a Telecaste
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One principle of debate that I've learned over the years, is that when your opponent starts calling you names and swearing, they really don't have a logical argument, they are just angry that they lost, and don't want to admit it. If you have an actual point to make (without colorful language) I'm happy to debate further.
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On the other hand, KDE Plasma, XFCE, LXDE and a few others are plenty successful.
For extremely small values of successful. When the gulf in user counts between every one of those options and macOS is three and four orders of magnitude, calling them successful is a bit of a stretch. The word you are looking for is "niche". And that's before you consider the five or six orders of magnitude Windows has on them (depending on how you count Windows).
None of them are successful to my mind, both as a user and as a developer. Their "maintainers" (and I use the word loosely) are enamored of i
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The Linux desktop has been a shitshow for two decades and it's not getting any better.
Use KDE Plasma. I use it through KDE Neon. It works, and in a much more casual user-friendly way than Windows or MacOS does. I'm using MacOS at work. It fucking sucks. I've used Windows, KDE is miles better. I'm not a power user by any stretch. I barely configure anything ever anymore.
And that's before you consider the five or six orders of magnitude Windows has on them (depending on how you count Windows).
Success can be measured in more than simply the number of installs.
When the fucking desktop can hard lock the entire system, to the point where it stops responding to pings or to its sshd, on a four year old machine with bog standard components and a bog standard distribution installation, I am not impressed.
I've never had that problem ever. I buy bog standard laptops with Windows on them and replace it with Linux. Nothing fails, at the very least.
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List the top five successful commercial desktops, please.
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Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Chrome OS.
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Two of those are not desktop environments. So three. And even then you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel, because ChromeOS is hardly successful.
The point is, there are very few successful desktop environments period. Their success has nothing to do with them being commercial or not.
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Just because Android and iOS run primarily on mobile devices, doesn't make the "not a desktop." They function in every way like a "desktop" for mobile devices.
But let's take your point and run with it. Yes, it is incredibly hard to be successful creating a desktop that will be widely adopted. But you didn't explain why their success has nothing to do with their being commercial. Why would you say that? No open source desktop has gained acceptance with non-programmers. How would you account for that, aside f
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Because mobile devices are, by definition, not desktop devices.
Desktops do not "work" for anyone. They are an annoyance to get past to get to the programs one wants to use. They are only accepted because they come with the system, and they allow launching the desired applications. The only part of the desktop routinely used by non-programmers is the file manager.
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What is a mess about KDE?
Even the bleeding edge in Fedora is very stable these days. The defaults are pretty sane, but you change almost anything you don't like.
It's not bravery (Score:2)
to scratch your own itch and make your own project that works only the way you want it to. To be truly brave, the individual would need to sacrifice what it wants for the greater good - like working on a single implementation that solves everyone's problems, rather than everyone working on their own solution to their own problems and nobody else's.
100% interested in seeing the results (Score:5, Interesting)
Pop_OS! is the distro I settled on for my Linux gaming rig (replacing windows 10) - it took me a good long while of trying out different distros.
As primarily a macOS user, but as someone who spent around a decade before that, using Linux as a desktop development environment, it seemed not a great deal had changed in the 5 or 6 years since I used Linux on the Desktop.
All that had happened, was just more and more distributions - which is great, sort of.
The desktop experience was still sub-par in my opinion, to macOS, by a very large degree.
The finer details were still missing, the polish still lacking.
But hell, this is FREE software, right, with many developers seeing no reward, other than the love of coding and participating in projects - so it's all good!
But hell, Pop_OS! had managed to apply a very good level of polish to the Desktop - and it absolutely "keeps out of your way", just like macOS.
I'll fess up here and say, I mostly just use it to launch games, so it's not like I'm delving into every corner of what's on offer - but what I do see, is slick. Super slick.
Looking forward to what System76 deliver, although I'm sure it'll be a good few years off still.
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Thanks, I'll check it out.
The last comment is right (Score:2)
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Linux has always been about "choice" but there is no doubt that the amount of time wasted developing, maintaining MULTIPLE desktops it has not helped Linux in the slightest.
I doubt it's harmed it either.
Any user curious about using a distribution would have their eyes glaze over the minute someone starts blabbing about why one desktop is superior to another. They don't care. They just want something that works out of the box with an expectation that it works as well as Windows or OS X and lets them get on
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How do I install this program? apt? yum? portage? flatpak? snap? appimage? Oh you published under this package manager but not the one I actually use for everything else so I guess I'll install a new package manager.
How do I access the settings? Is it some random file I use a vague bash script I found and blindly copied and pasted from StackOverflow or some other random stranger I'm going to totally trust? Oh sweet, it has a control setting, oh, only on Cinnamon so the instru
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How do I install this program? apt? yum?
For real? Linux had an "app store" well over a decade before the other operating systems. Now they're the thing and you're whinging that's a problem?
portage?
Are you really pretending that people who have picked an obscure option designed only for people compiling from source are going to be bothered by this? Why aren't you complaining equally that XCode and VisualStudio are install options for some programs?
Anyway what about pacman?
flatpak? snap? appimage?
The whole p
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Please lets not have any UI designer involved in designing the UI this time!
The desktops are not created by Linux. They are created independently, and work on other Un*xes.
As a *BSD user, I use Mate. I am as angry as everyone else when choices are removed. I am also extremely angry that, on my high-res screen, the text won't fit in dialog boxes, pop-ups appear where they obscure the information you need to complete the questions in the pop
based on orbital? (Score:3)
Does Rust have a good set of Standard Libaries yet (Score:2)
I check out rust every year or so, however I find it keeps on lacking safe and commonly used set of standard libraries (cargo).
I am not a fan of using 3rd party libraries, or poorly supported ones, because that piece of code that you expect for it to run for the next 3 years, ends up being a core part of your system infrastructure for the next 30 years. As someone with experience getting legacy systems that are decades old, having to deal with some custom string class, written for a 16bit computer then no
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Depends on your definition of "good". I'd say that at this point the Rust standard libraries are about on par with the C++ standard libraries, meaning that they provide all of the really core stuff (e.g. strings, basic collections, some concurrency tools, etc.) but for anything beyond that you're looking at third party libs. Of course, there's nothing equivalent to Boost in Rust, and there are a lot fewer third-party libs than for C++.
Still, it's not too bad, and if you need something more obscure interf
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Depends on your definition of "standard". As a design decision, Rust has gone the route of a fairly small standard library, and then to depend on dependency management after this, helping to avoid the pitfall that both Java and Python have fallen into -- parts of the standard library that exist but where nearly everyone uses an alternative. Whether that's a good compromise or not is so clear. But, I wouldn't transfer my experience from C or Python where there is still not a good packaging story, though. It'
Yet Another Desktop Shell - Not a bad thing (Score:2)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a hardware manufacturer and Linux distribution company creating their own desktop shell as an option and perhaps a default. Providing you have the freedom to change to Gnome, KDE, or even eliminate a desktop environment in favor of a custom environment.
A Rust based desktop shell with accompanying file manager and desktop icons along with virtual desktops, etc. Would potentially be very reliable and fast. If they pull off the necessary attention of detail to all the l
Re:no CSD, please (Score:4, Informative)
Article says it's NOT based on Gnome. It's written in RUST which of course Gnome is not.
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My understanding is also that it is based on Gnome.
Indeed it integrates within the Gnome ecosystem hence it is based on Gnome. It would not be based on Gnome if it would integrates within say the Xfce ecosystem.
As a side note it would be a great idea if it would integrate with Xfce. It is rock-solid in particular Xfwm4 the very good window manager. Xfwm4 has tiling capabilities and as requested in the reddit stream with Xfwm4 you can resize windows with Alt+mouse drag.
Furthermore porting the Xfce ecosystem
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I guess most people assume that in the context of open-source software, "based on" means "branched from", which this does not seem to be.
I think there's another definition, "uses bits from" and "interoperates with". Thanks to the work of the Free Desktop organisation [freedesktop.org] there's a bunch of stuff that can be shared below the actual desktop level. That's much better because it means that all different desktop ideas can be advanced by work done to benefit one desktop. Being able to share without imposing is the great benefit of free software.
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I too think that there's yet another definition. That perhaps it shared a bowl of oatmeal with Gnome once, but that it was the bland "season it yourself" kind and hence had little to do with Gnome after that.
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Perhaps they meant that it is not based on Gnome codebase, which would make sense if it is written in Rust.
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I'm fine with everything as long as while working on Rust he doesn't accidentally shoot someone.
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Woke is certainly living rent free in your head. You need a hobby besides being oppressed by so called woke culture.
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Well, Mate is the desktop I choose, but I can see arguments for both xfce and KDE. It depends on what you're doing.
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