The future of Linux

I’m not proposing anything here, I’m curious what you all think of the future.

What is your vision for what you want Linux to be?

I often read about wanting a smooth desktop experience like on MacOS, or having all the hardware and applications supported like Windows, or the convenience of Google products (mail, cloud storage, docs), etc.

A few years ago people were talking about convergence of phone/desktop, i.e. you plug your phone into a big screen and keyboard and it’s now your desktop computer. That’s one vision. ChromeOS has its “everything is in the cloud” vision. Stallman has his vision where no matter what it is, the most important part is that it’s free software.

If you could decide the future of personal computing, what would it be?

flashgnash,

I like that it’s kind of the wild west, there’s no single way to do anything and you’re sort of on your own with it, which also means you’re free to do whatever you want with it.

Choose what software you do or don’t want, delete important system files if you really want to, break stuff and be allowed to fix it yourself rather than a company telling you what you can and can’t do with your own computer

As long as it stays like that it’s good how it is

More of the few games remaining that don’t run on Linux via proton making the slightest effort to support it would be nice though

broface,

I’d be happy with the destruction of copyright and patent laws.

MayonnaiseArch,
@MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org avatar

An immutable distro with working gpu passthrough for vms (or whatvere that’s called). That’s the dream

PR_freak,

The future of PCs in general is tied to professionals and gamers, there is no need for a pc anymore in an household who is not anything of the above

Which means that the average PC user will become more and more tech savy, this is the only thing that could raise the Linux market share

On the other hand I don’t see a single chance of linux becoming relevant in personal computing unless a big corporation decides to offer an experience that is/has:

  • A polieshed UI, something eye-pleasing like MacOs
  • Noob friendly in the sense that it offers a 100% TRUE terminal-free experience
  • Reliable across hardware of any kind, the average user doesn’t want to worry about graphic or wifi drivers. Heck the average user doesn’t even know what a driver is
  • Not buggy
  • An easy way to install any software they need, today’s program coverage in various software centers often doesn’t fulfill the needs of the average user
SapphironZA, (edited )

I wish distro’s would combine efforts much more so we have a better desktop experience. Do we really need 15 window managers when we could have 2 or 3 much better ones.

Unify to a single package manager, they are all functionally the same.

Standardize on flatpacks and abandon snaps and appimage

tar_xf,

I like the option to pick different package managers but it would behoove the community to actually settle on a package format. Making a deb or rpm are very different processes and while containers are nice for server side stuff I wish there was something easier for desktop

flashgnash,

Nix might be what you want. Haven’t tried out the package manager on a non-nixos distro but it can be done

Massive package library, everything installs the same way and I believe it’ll run on any distro

I hear the aur is very good as well but I believe that’s arch only

SapphironZA,

The fact that the processes are so different, is part of the problem. Developers need to spend the same effort 3 or 4 times.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

I wish distro’s would combine efforts much more so we have a better desktop experience. Do we really need 15 window managers when we could have 2 or 3 much better ones.

What is it when almost all window managers have moved or are moving to wlroots? KWin and Mutter are exceptions because they predate wlroots.

q47tx,
@q47tx@lemmy.world avatar

Appimages serve a different purpose than packages that you install.

SapphironZA,

I get that, but in functionally they are so similar from an end user perspective, I would argue their development efforts should be combined.

Eryn6844,

I hope the joy and knowledge and freedom our for-bearers had is what we will continue to reap in the future. there will be challenges, but we will prevail.

glasgitarrewelt,

I hope selfhosting becomes even more convenient. It already is for tech savy people, but I mean ‘buy a Pi and press a button’-easy. It would take away the power of so many big companies.

Caboose12000,

I just want it to become more popular and easy to use while remaining free (like to buy, hot take I know) and libre.

I want it to be something I can endorse to all my friends, even the friends that almost never use computers and barely know what a filesystem is

my hope is that after this point of it being popular and accessable, FOSS principles will start to gain more traction in spaces like mobile phones and car head units. there will always be proprietary OS’s and software, but in my ideal world FOSS is at least an equal competitor, not just a a niche thing that only super involved computer people get into

eugenia,
@eugenia@lemmy.ml avatar

My favorite idea is Linux or Android-derived, or a completely new, Rust-based AGPL-licensed OS, running on 100% open RISC-V hardware. Same for its phone equivalent. All chips must be open, no secret code in them.

helenslunch,

I just want a system that doesn’t require a software engineering degree to operate. That’s all I need.

liberatedGuy,
@liberatedGuy@lemmy.ml avatar

Linux Mint is what you are looking for.

csolisr,

I expect to see distros that use Flatpak as its exclusive package manager, even for the bare-metal, in the near future. Also, Linux as a remote desktop on the cloud will probably be attempted at a larger scale, given that Windows 12 is rumored to try that route.

samuelc,
@samuelc@lemmy.world avatar

Flatpak are still not designed to run clis so that’s a long way to go at least

(would love to be proven wring because I’d love to not have to ship deb and rpm for the OSS projects I take care of)

intrepid,

I really don’t want Linux to be a remote desktop on the cloud. That’s already possible easily with Linux. But OS as a service is another attempt by companies like MS to pry the control of the system and data away from their customers. Worst of all, we have to pay a monthly subscription even after we buy hardware. To put it simply, it’s rent seeking. Linux on the other hand, is good at making the best of even mediocre or low-end hardware.

AdrianTheFrog,
@AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world avatar

I couldn’t find a single gui resource monitor on xcfe that I wouldn’t have to build from source.

Killercat103,
@Killercat103@infosec.pub avatar

To be more mainstream granted it isn’t because of a shitty locked down distro incompatible with the others.

What I love most abou Linux is its freedom. It doesn’t try screwing me over for their own benefit, gives me full control of the system and is broken down into components. Having the underlying system foss for many is great to provide and make it easier to adopt more ethical software for computing.

jadelord,

Accessible for everyone.

If the desktop UX has very good screen readers, keyboard navigation, voice to text etc., I believe its benefits would automatically spill over to all.

Also it would retain the UI / UX experts who become forced to abandon Linux for macOS which maintains a niche in this.

0x0,

The RedHat and Canonical oligarchs are well underway in achieving their windows-like linux desktop through systemd and flatpaks and what not, so we may see a small but highly deployed number of immutable distros becoming the forced de-facto standard.

Microsoft continues their new approach at EEEing linux through WSL Azure, and everyone’s happy about it.

Torvalds will eventually die, as will Stallman, so all that’ll be left are the communities, which unfortunately don’t have that much strength/voice.

Caboose12000,

I think other figureheads will rise up and take charge, I don’t think Linux is going to just blow away like a pile of leaves in the wind when stallman and torvolds are gone.

0x0,

I hope so too.

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