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?

onlinepersona,

TLDR: The future are linux hardware vendors, governments deciding to use linux, and RISC-V+ARM.

There are already a few linux hardware vendors out there and my favorites are Tuxedo Computers as well as Starlabs and Slimbook (the guys who make the KDE laptop. Not to be outdone by linux phone vendors like Pine64, Purism, and Volla. We need more of them.
Hopefully they will have the funds to start marketing and ad campaigns to change the image of linux from “just for geeks” or “only if you have spare time” to something like “better for privacy”, “the only option for true freedom”, “cheap but classy”, “subscribe to nothing”, etc.

Linux has no problem providing a fluid experience with RISC-V and ARM, while windows struggles - especially due to the amount of proprietary and legacy software that exists on it. Windows might be able to prepare for it and provide a translation layer or VM for those things, but probably not with a good experience.

Finally, governments. I thank Trump a lot for this: getting China to start accelerate ditching Microsoft. The EU is also wary of Trump winning again to start a tradewar + there is an EU level decision to use opensource. Countries are slow to implement this decree, but I only see it accelerating and countries wising up to international collaboration to create either their own distro (e.g EULinux or something), or paying emergent opensource vendors to write solutions for them.

I don’t believe this will be done before 2030, probably 2035 we might see ~50% of government desktops and laptops on linux, but the future is very difficult to predict.

anon_8675309,

I’m still a proponent of phone as workstation. They’re fast enough. I’ll still run a server at home but being able to plug a cable into my phone and it turns into a work station is still a dream of mine.

woelkchen,
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

being able to plug a cable into my phone and it turns into a work station is still a dream of mine.

Is it a dream because you think it’s not possible? If so, I have good news for you:

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/97ff68c8-037b-49d4-820b-02b5d7cd4266.png

mintycactus,
@mintycactus@lemmy.world avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    I would like to do same.

    Then do. DeX exists on Samsung phones and tablets since years.

    slackassassin,

    Seems like it is not available for newer versions.

    https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/7a64a871-3b52-4a48-b769-df655889c661.jpeg

    woelkchen,
    @woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar

    DeX itself is just built into Samsung phones. DeX Max is a 3rd party app that merely forces some apps into fullscreen that would otherwise stay in the phone screen’s aspect ratio. I used it for Netflix which did not work in fullscreen under DeX at some point but I cancelled my Netflix, so I don’t care much anyway.

    slackassassin,

    Oh, OK. Thanks!

    ExLisper, (edited )

    Nothing special. Normal adoption of new standards, protocols and features and some new, easier ways to develops desktop apps for it.

    For example let’s say we want to add moving windows between phone and a desktop by swiping. It would be some new protocol and would be handled by DE on Linux and Android. Someone would develop the standard and different Linux app would add support for it. Exactly the same way we have bluetooth now.

    buckykat,

    The good future includes the total and final death of Trusted Computing, which means the end of capitalism.

    mmstick,
    @mmstick@lemmy.world avatar

    I hope to see Linux brought to the Web 2.0 era with proper use of Git forges. As it is, most people won’t bother to go through the existing processes unless they’re paid to do it. Raising the barrier to entry in order to discourage low quality submissions is a poor excuse. The existing system makes it difficult to get any changes approved or reviewed with a serious eye, regardless of their quality.

    jackpot,
    @jackpot@lemmy.ml avatar

    a small thing is that hardware will be linux focusef, such as removing the windows icon kn the super key

    tsallinia,

    We are the future already :)

    andruid,

    Hyper convergence between phones, desktops, storage and networking. I think there has just been awesome progress in all of those fronts to the point that have a home server(s) that serves out the home wifi, shared storage, desktops (for gaming, school, and personal use) to the sharef human interfaces of choice. Even more so treat them as one giant multiuser machine, instead of a dozen separate devices.

    Maragato,
    @Maragato@eslemmy.es avatar

    El futuro de los pcs sera importante para Linux solo si los fabricantes de hardware apuestan por Linux o las leyes oblligan a publicar sus drivers como software libre. Mientras esto no suceda, veo dificil el futuro de Linux, al comprobar como la gente renuncia tan facilmente a su privacidad a cambio de la experiencia de usar windows, google,…

    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

    spiderman,

    Better at gaming than now.

    unionagainstdhmo,
    @unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone avatar

    Linux isn’t inherently bad at gaming, it’s more like games are bad at Linux

    drwankingstein,

    I don’t like the migration to wayland when it is so woefully not ready to replace x11, terrible a11y, window embedding is still non existent, the window positioning seems like we might be getting is a watered down version that still wont be compatible with many apps.

    Im not saying x11 is good, I am more then familiar with the multitude of x11 issues that are honestly a meme at this point. pretending like migrating to wayland will be this massive step forward is wrong however, it’s a step to the side, just as broken, but different issues we can pick from.

    x11 is broken by design, and wayland is designed to be broken

    2xsaiko,
    @2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    terrible a11y

    Don’t think that is up to Wayland, but UI toolkits. What specifically do you mean?

    window embedding is still non existent

    They have documentation on how to do this. If there’s no libraries for this yet, it’s not up to Wayland, but maybe lack of interest.

    the window positioning seems like we might be getting is a watered down version that still wont be compatible with many apps

    Wait and see. What I’ve seen discussed seems pretty good. Also, they have to take into account that not every compositor is a floating window manager.

    drwankingstein,

    Don’t think that is up to Wayland, but UI toolkits. What specifically do you mean?

    a11y requires a large range of features, because of wayland most OSKs are now platform specific, we can’t have overlays (we might be able to when the layers protocol lands, but thats a privleged protocol which is kind of up in the air how it’s handled) etc. a11y requires an entire ecosystem, you cant just lay it on the tool kits, compositors handle a lot too.

    They have documentation on how to do this. If there’s no libraries for this yet, it’s not up to Wayland, but maybe lack of interest.

    I’ve tried this a while ago, it’s a bloody joke, not only is it much harder to actually just do it, worse performance, and now I need to manage a bunch of additional crap. the fact that this is actually the reccomended process is a bloody joke, if you want window embedding, just use xwayland.

    Wait and see. What I’ve seen discussed seems pretty good.

    we shall see

    Also, they have to take into account that not every compositor is a floating window manager.

    I have absolutely no idea why people keep saying this. weston doesn’t support some xdg protocols, and gnome some ext protocols, so why the does this matter? clearly neither xdg nor ext protocols are mandatory, so it has nothing to do with compositors not wanting to implement it.

    if it’s because tiling managers can’t do it, then simply combine both protocols into one, or use both protocols.

    2xsaiko,
    @2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

    a11y requires a large range of features, because of wayland most OSKs are now platform specific, we can’t have overlays (we might be able to when the layers protocol lands, but thats a privleged protocol which is kind of up in the air how it’s handled) etc. a11y requires an entire ecosystem, you cant just lay it on the tool kits, compositors handle a lot too.

    Ah, that makes sense. Tbf I’m not too familiar with it and mainly thought about screen readers and such, where only the toolkit knows what text is displayed since everything afterwards just gets a frame buffer. It would be great to get a portable way to do overlays and feedback like “user has focused a text input control”, yeah. How does this work on X11?

    I have absolutely no idea why people keep saying this. weston doesn’t support some xdg protocols, and gnome some ext protocols, so why the does this matter? clearly neither xdg nor ext protocols are mandatory, so it has nothing to do with compositors not wanting to implement it.

    As far as I know xdg protocols are supposed to be mandatory, ext ones aren’t. Weston devs just don’t care I suppose. (Though I can’t actually verify this so correct me if I’m wrong. I just know that getting a protocol included into xdg is a lot harder.)

    3arn0wl,

    FWIW I’m still very much an advocate of the Mark Shuttleworth Convergence vision. It’s the Holy Grail that makes sense to me.

    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.

    chicken,

    I want it to be accessible enough that people can realistically use it as a transition from mobile to PC

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