 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1048, 4 December 2023 |
Welcome to this year's 49th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
In the Linux community, the herd of Wayland-backed desktop sessions have been slowly coming over the horizon for years. As window managers and desktops gradually adopt Wayland, some distributions are looking to phase out the old X11-powered desktop sessions. Our Questions and Answers column tackles the topic of Wayland gradually replacing X11 sessions and how long X11 applications are likely to be supported. Also this week, in our News section, we talk about Red Hat's plans to ease X11 out the door in favour of Wayland. Meanwhile the Fedora team is looking at making it possible to start new Wayland sessions remotely as the UBports team highlights a new tool to help develop applications on mobile devices. First though we take a look at openSUSE's MicroOS running the GNOME desktop. MicroOS is an immutable operating system which combines openSUSE packages with portable packages on a fixed foundation. Read on to learn more about this interesting branch of the openSUSE family. Plus we are pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a fantastic week and happy reading!
This week's DistroWatch Weekly is presented by TUXEDO Computers.
Content:
- Review: openSUSE MicroOS
- News: Red Hat phasing out X.Org packages, UBports makes it easier to develop on mobile devices, Fedora to support remote Wayland login sessions
- Questions and answers: The transition from X11 to Wayland
- Released last week: 4MLinux 44.0, Armbian 23.11, NixOS 23.11
- Torrent corner: Armbian, KDE neon, Proxmox, Tails
- Opinion poll: Does your desktop or window manager support Wayland, X11, or both?
- New distributions: AcorOS, Starbuntu
- Reader comments
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| Feature Story (By Jesse Smith) |
openSUSE MicroOS
MicroOS is a special branch of the openSUSE project. The MicroOS branch, which uses the same technologies as other openSUSE editions, offers an immutable operating system. This means the core system is read-only and not meant to be changed while the distribution is running.
I tried MicroOS a little over a year ago, running the edition's KDE Plasma desktop. The experience, in line with the edition's label of being alpha-level software, was (in brief) poor. A year ago the Plasma flavour of MicroOS threw a lot of errors and ran into a number of problems. Though, again, in all fairness it was marked as "alpha" quality software.
I checked back on MicroOS and discovered that, in terms of classifications, not much has changed. MicroOS still bears the warning that the Plasma flavour is alpha software and the GNOME flavour is still considered a release candidate (as it was a year ago). Things may be moving slowly in the MicroOS ecosystem. Still, I was curious to see how the GNOME edition was coming along and if it could offer a better experience than my trial with the Plasma edition.
MicroOS is offered as a 4.1GB ISO file. A minor annoyance I ran into early on was the ISO's filename didn't match the filename listed in openSUSE's checksum file. This just means that automated hash checking tools don't work (reporting an error) and the checksum needed to be verified manually.
Installing
Booting from the MicroOS media brought up a boot menu where we can choose to boot from a local hard disk or launch the system installer. Taking the Install option launches a graphical environment and starts openSUSE's installer.
The install process is fairly straight forward. We are shown a license agreement and then asked to select a role for our new operating system. Roles include: MicroOS (minimal install with no services); Container Host (this offers Podman for handling container workloads); Desktop (with GNOME); Desktop (with Plasma); Remote Attestation (Agent); and Remote Attestation (Verifier). Since it didn't seem like the desktop flavours had advanced in their stability, I chose the GNOME option for my trial since the Plasma role was a mess during my previous experiment.
We are asked if we'd like to select a remote time server for syncing our system's clock and then given a chance to create a password for the root account. We're then shown a summary of actions the installer will take and we can click convenient links next to each action item in the summary to change it. These links to advanced options in the installer might be my favourite part of setting up a fresh copy of openSUSE.
The installer then set up a Btrfs volume and copied its packages to my hard drive. Once the installer finishes its work the computer is automatically rebooted and launches the new copy of MicroOS.
Early impressions
The first time MicroOS boots it brings up the GNOME desktop and runs a wizard to complete a few configuration steps. We're asked to pick our preferred language from a list, select our keyboard's layout, and asked if we'd like to enable location services. We're then asked to pick our timezone from a map. The final two steps invite us to connect with on-line accounts (Google, Nextcloud, and Microsoft are supported) and then create a username and password combination for our regular user.
At this point we are presented with the GNOME desktop and left to explore. In the future, when the system boots, it shows us a graphical login screen. From the login screen we have four session options: GNOME (running a Wayland session), GNOME Classic (also on Wayland), GNOME on an X11 session, and GNOME Classic on X11. I mostly stayed with the GNOME Wayland session and it worked well during my trial.
openSUSE MicroOS 2023 -- The GNOME Settings panel
(full image size: 579kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
GNOME is presented in a fairly minimal style with a panel across the top that holds the Activities menu and system tray. The default theme is dark, though this can be adjusted in the desktop's settings panel. When the Activities screen is opened, a dock is presented at the bottom of the screen with a few launchers and a button to display a full screen grid of application launchers. This makes getting to the applications a bit of a process, with a lot of mouse movement. GNOME's layout is awkward, but functional.
Included software
The first time I ran the GNOME session a window popped up letting me know Firefox was being installed. This was followed by other messages indicating additional apps, such as a calculator, were also being installed. Once this series of packages were installed I browsed the application menu to find the following items: Firefox, GNOME Software, the GNOME Files file manager, a system monitor, virtual terminal, and a text editor. These applications worked and I had no problems with them. The GNOME Help documentation portal is also installed, but no help pages are included. Launching GNOME Help just displays an empty window instead of the expected documentation. The GNOME Settings panel is also included to help us customize the desktop.
openSUSE MicroOS 2023 -- Seeking documentation in GNOME Help
(full image size: 451kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
Behind the scenes we can find the GNU command line utilities installed. There is no man command, so no access to local manual pages by default. The systemd init software is provided and, at the time of writing, MicroOS was running version 6.5 of the Linux kernel.
Hardware
When I tried running MicroOS in a VirtualBox environment the distribution performed adequately. The system was stable and ran without serious issues, though desktop performance was subpar. This is fairly typical for GNOME running in a virtual machine. When running MicroOS on my workstation all of my hardware was detected, the distribution connected to local wireless networks, and performance was improved. The desktop still wasn't particularly responsive when compared with alternatives such as Xfce or Plasma, but it ran well enough for me to work comfortably with it.
openSUSE MicroOS 2023 -- Exploring the system in a virtual terminal
(full image size: 657kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
MicroOS is unusually heavy in memory, taking up 1,100MB of RAM just to sign into the minimal GNOME environment. MicroOS's Plasma flavour took 640MB, for the sake of comparison, a little more than half the memory with the same base operating system. Other mainstream distributions I have run this year tend to consume between 500MB and 800MB of memory. The MicroOS distribution also consumed a lot of disk space, 7.2GB for a fresh install, which feels like a lot since only a handful of applications are included. Again, for comparison's sake, my experiment with the Plasma flavour used 2.8GB of space on the drive.
Software centre
The GNOME flavour of MicroOS uses GNOME Software to manage applications. There are three tabs in this software centre: Explore, Installed, and Updates. During my trial there were no new updates released, which made the Updates tab uninteresting.
openSUSE MicroOS 2023 -- Browsing software packages
(full image size: 568kB, resolution: 1920x1080 pixels)
The Installed tab lists packages which are already on the system. These include items like Firefox and the calculator. MicroOS installs applications as Flatpak bundles on a per-user basis. These Flatpak packages are pulled from the Flathub repository. This means each user gets their own copy of an application. A nice side effect of this is we can add or remove applications to our account without needing to use a password or other form of administrator access.
The Explore tab shows us categories of applications we can browse. There is also a search box where we can search for software based on a name or description. Clicking on a specific application's entry in the Explore tab brings up a full screen description and a screenshot of the software in action. We can click a button to install new items and continue to browse for additional applications. Software is fetched in the background and we can check on the status of items being installed by switching to the Installed tab.
Conclusions
I feel as though openSUSE's MicroOS is, at the moment, less a full featured operating system (like openSUSE Leap), Ubuntu, or Manjaro, and more of a minimal platform on which we can build our computing experience. The MicroOS edition ships with very little software, beyond the core desktop, and we (as the user) are expected to layer on any software required to accomplish tasks. While this introduces a bit more set up time at the beginning, the idea of installing just the Flatpak bundles we need does appeal to me, at least in terms of setting up an end user desktop experience.
Unlike the experience I had with MicroOS's Plasma flavour last year, the GNOME experience was quite good. I'd even say it was pleasantly polished. It feels like the developers actually use this system and have ironed out most of the issues. There were just a few exceptions, such as the GNOME Help application not displaying any documentation, but otherwise my trial with MicroOS was quite solid this time around.
When I test out distributions, especially ones trying new things, I strive to look at two key factors: Does this project accomplish what it sets out to do? And will I find this useful?
The GNOME flavour of MicroOS (which is sometimes referred to as openSUSE Aeon) certainly seems to be accomplishing its goals. The distribution was stable, worked well with my hardware, and presented very few problems. It was easy to install new desktop applications, even more seamless than on most distributions since a password wasn't required. One of my few concerns was how heavy MicroOS was when running GNOME, even compared to the Plasma flavour of the same platform. It's unusually large, but the experience and software included are minimal.
While MicroOS appears to be accomplishing its goals and doing well, I'm not sure I'd want to use it myself on a regular basis. Apart from the heavy memory usage, I ran into two things which make me hesitate to keep running MicroOS. One is that there doesn't appear to be much documentation for it yet (or a community around it). I tried looking up a few aspects of how the atomic updates work and how to perform some configuration tasks without openSUSE's YaST control panel. The documentation in the wiki appears to be limited and more of a quick reference for people already familiar with MicroOS.
My other concern is, as with some other immutable platforms, low-level package management and software configuration gets complicated. It's easy enough to fetch a Flatpak and install it in our user's account with MicroOS. The process is quite smooth. However, when it comes to adding or configuring command line software and libraries (things I use in my line of work administrating and developing software), MicroOS becomes awkward. First, the documentation on package management linked to in the wiki is missing at the time of writing, so that's no help. It looks as though the recommended way to handle command line software and libraries is to install a container, put a base image of another openSUSE edition in the container, and then install RPM packages into the container. This feels really indirect and leaves me feeling as though people like me will be better served by simply installing a different edition of openSUSE as the main operating system.
In short, openSUSE's MicroOS is doing well, it runs smoothly, it's accomplishing its goal of being an easy to use, immutable operating system. I might set up something like this for less technical users. However, it's quite minimal, there isn't much documentation, and the immutable nature makes some low-level tasks and tweaking more complicated.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a Lenovo desktop with the following specifications:
- Processor: Hex-core Intel i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz
- Storage: Western Digital 1TB hard drive
- Memory: 8GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 wired network card, Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe wireless adapter
- Display: Intel CometLake-S GT2
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Visitor supplied rating
openSUSE has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.7/10 from 437 review(s).
Have you used openSUSE? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Red Hat phasing out X.Org packages, UBports makes it easier to develop on mobile devices, Fedora to support remote Wayland login sessions
Red Hat has announced plans to drop X.Org packages from the upcoming release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10, instead using Wayland and (when necessary) Xwayland for backward compatibility with X11 applications. "With this, we've decided to remove Xorg server and other X servers (except Xwayland) from RHEL 10 and the following releases. Xwayland should be able to handle most X11 clients that won't immediately be ported to Wayland, and if needed, our customers will be able to stay on RHEL 9 for its full life cycle while resolving the specifics needed for transitioning to a Wayland ecosystem. It's important to note that 'Xorg Server' and 'X11' are not synonymous, X11 is a protocol that will continue to be supported through Xwayland, while the Xorg Server is one of the implementations of the X11 protocol." Details on this change can be found in the company's announcement.
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One of the barriers to running many open mobile operating systems on phones is the lack of applications on these platforms. The latest UBports newsletter highlights some new applications, one of which aims to facilitate development on the UBports mobile operating system. "Touch IDE is a touch-optimized, mobile-friendly development environment. Its programming language is easy to use and doesn't require tedious keyboard input. You can create and run your scripts on your mobile device without using a PC. The scripts are converted to pure HTML/JavaScript-based applications in the background and are therefore executed on your device immediately, without further compilation." Additional information on Touch IDE can be found in the UBports Open Store repository.
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There are some interesting components coming together in GNOME and in the Fedora distribution which will soon allow users to set up remote desktop sessions and login to their GNOME desktop running on Wayland. Christian F.K. Schaller takes us through a tour of new features, such as PipeWire, updated NVIDIA video drivers, and remote Wayland sessions in an exciting feature preview. "One feature we been also spending a lot of time on is enabling remote logins to a Wayland desktop. You have been able to share your screen under Wayland more or less from day one, but it required your desktop session to be already active. But let's say you wanted to access your Wayland desktop running on a headless system. You [have] been out of luck so far and had to rely on the old X session instead. So putting in place all the pieces for this has been quite an undertaking with work having been done on PipeWire, on Wayland portals, gnome remote desktop daemon, libei; the new input emulation library, GDM and more. The pieces needed are finally falling into place and we expect to have everything needed landed in time for GNOME 46."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
The transition from X11 to Wayland
Phasing-out-the-old asks: With Wayland quickly gaining in popularity, how long before we can expect X11 applications to no longer work?
DistroWatch answers: While the Wayland display protocol is currently being adopted by a few of the major desktop environments and, by extension, enabled in quite a few distributions, there is a lot of inertia involved in the situation. The X11 protocol, and the related display servers which implement X11, have been around for around 40 years. X11 has been a central component of desktop computing for Linux distributions, the BSDs, and related operating systems for decades. There are dozens of window managers, several desktop environments, and thousands of applications which were developed to work with the X11 protocol. When a technology becomes this widespread and ingrained, it takes a long time for it to fade away.
At the moment there are two major desktops which are moving toward being primarily Wayland-based (GNOME and KDE Plasma) with a few others (such as Xfce and Cinnamon) planning to slowly implement Wayland sessions in the coming years. That still leaves several desktop environments and most window managers remaining on X11, at least for the moment. It's probably going to be at least another five years before all the major Linux desktop environments default to running Wayland at its current rate of adoption.
After that, there will still be some holdouts which continue to run X11 sessions by default, or even exclusively. And, even if those projects switch over to Wayland eventually, the X11 protocol will likely live on as a legacy option, at least in conservative desktop environments and long-term support distributions which offer up to ten years of support.
In the Linux ecosystem, where Wayland is gaining most of its ground, X11 still likely has a lifespan of 15 to 20 years before it is no longer supported directly. I say "directly" here, because part of Wayland is the XWayland component which allows Wayland sessions to run X11 applications. This will allow software built to work with X11 to continue to run for years, probably decades longer, even after standalone X11 sessions are no longer supported by most Linux distributions.
I'd also like to observe that, while Wayland does work on some other platforms, it is most commonly used on Linux distributions. It would not surprise me if X11 continues to be the default display protocol for a while longer on the BSDs and other, more conservative, branches of the Unix family.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
Nitrux fefc905b
The Nitrux team have published a new version of the project's Debian-based distribution. The project's latest release, which is labelled "fefc905b" and referred to as 3.2.0 in the release announcement updates the kernel, key desktop applications, and enforces strict password checks in the Calamares system installer. "Nitrux 3.2.0 build.301123.fx uses Linux 6.6.2-1 (Liquorix). We've updated the following components of the distribution. Firefox to version 120.0. KDE Gear version 23.08.3. Updates to our Calamares settings include the following. Calamares will now enforce a stricter user password quality check by using libpwquality to increase user account security. When creating the main user account, i.e., the 'system administrator,' users must use a password over eight characters long, including uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols, when creating their user accounts during installation. We recommend using a password generator application or website. Otherwise, the password quality check will be too low, and the installation will not continue."
Armbian 23.11
Armbian is a Linux distribution designed for ARM development boards. The project's latest release is Armbian 23.11 which is based on Debian 12 "Bookworm". "Key Improvements in This Release: Addressing numerous bugs for improved functionality for Banana Pi CM4. Mainline Kernel for RK3588 with experimental HDMI support. Fixed Display Managers across all desktops. Experimental EDK2/UEFI Support for RK3588 boards. Introducing Ubuntu Mantic and Debian Trixie as daily image builds. Enhancing quality control through automated tests. Highlights of completed actions: closed projects - In this version, we've successfully closed several projects, including switching the default login manager, enabling artifacts creation at pull request, and adding support for Hikey 960. Additionally, we've updated the edge kernel to v6.6 and introduced new Armbian wallpapers. The support for various boards like NanoPi R6S/R6C, TI SK-TDA4VM, Xiaomi-elish, and more has been added, enhancing the range of compatible devices." Additional information is provided in the project's release announcement.
4MLinux 44.0
The 4MLinux project develops a lightweight distribution with a focus on four key areas (gaming, multimedia, servers, and maintenance. The project's latest release is version 44.0 which introduces some new features. The release announcement reads: "The status of the 4MLinux 44.0 series has been changed to STABLE. Edit your documents with LibreOffice 7.6.3 and GNOME Office (AbiWord 3.0.5, GIMP 2.10.34, Gnumeric 1.12.55), surf the Internet with Firefox 119.0.1 and Chrome 119.0.6045.123, send emails via Thunderbird 115.4.2, enjoy your music collection with Audacious 4.3.1, watch your favorite videos with VLC 3.0.20 and SMPlayer 23.6.0, play games powered by Mesa 23.1.4 and Wine 8.19. You can also setup the 4MLinux LAMP Server (Linux 6.1.60, Apache 2.4.58, MariaDB 10.6.16, PHP 5.6.40, PHP 7.4.33, and PHP 8.1.25). Perl 5.36.0, Python 2.7.18, Python 3.11.4, and Ruby 3.2.2 are also available. As always, the new major release has some new features. Mesa3D drivers providing system-wide support for Video Acceleration API (VA-API) have been added. QMMP (audio player), Media Player Classic QT (video player), Capitan Sevilla (platform video game) are now available as downloadable extensions. Additionally, the new stable release offers improved support for SPL printing as well as wireless networking."
NixOS 23.11
NixOS is an independent distribution based around the Nix package andsystem manager. The project's latest release is NixOS 23.11 which upgrades the LLVM build software and introduces GNOME 45, along with several other package upgrades and new modules. "In addition to packages the NixOS distribution also features modules and tests that make it what it is. This release brought 113 new modules and removed 18. In that process we added 1565 options and removed 362. GNOME 45 - GNOME has been updated to version 45 "Riga", which introduces a new image viewer, a new camera app, and more changes. Refer to the release notes for more details. Default LLVM version - The default version for the LLVM package set has been updated to 16 (from 11) on both Linux and Darwin, which introduced lots of new features and improvements. The full lists of changes are available here (LLVM) and here (Clang)." Additional information is available in the project's release announcement.
NixOS 23.11 -- Running the Plasma desktop
(full image size: 525kB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
Murena 1.17
Murena has announced a new stable update to the project's 1.x branch. The new version, Murena /e/OS 1.17, updates the web browser and the microG compatibility software, and introduces a number of bug fixes. "We're excited to bring you /e/OS 1.17 with significant improvements. Stay updated with refreshed Browser and microG, ensuring a more secure online journey. Bug fixes include functional bookmarks, smooth SMS experiences, and improved settings visibility. Device highlights feature firmware upgrades for Fairphone 5 and Teracube 2e, with improved functionality and fixes. Important note: This version marks the final version for Android Q; please consider upgrading for continued support if your device is compatible with a more recent Android version." Additional details can be found in the project's release announcement and in the release notes.
Mabox Linux 23.12
Daniel Napora has announced the release of Mabox Linux 23.12, an updated build of the project's lightweight Linux distribution that features a customised desktop based on the Openbox window manager. The new release updates the Linux kernel to the long-term supported (LTS) version 6.6: "The December 2023 release of refreshed ISO images brings the latest 6.6 LTS kernel. Of course, there is still an ISO image available with the slightly older 5.4 LTS kernel version which may be a good choice for some older hardware. The Tint2 panel and Jgmenu are known for offering advanced users incredible capabilities and customization options. We use these possibilities in Mabox. One of the unique features of the Tint2 panel is the ability to connect your own actions (commands or scripts) to events such as left, middle or right click, mouse wheel up or down on panel elements. Conky in Mabox has been equipped with additional features that you will not find in any other Linux distribution. Here again, the wonderful Jgmenu was used with the addition of excellent glue - Bash scripts." Read the rest of the release announcement, with many screenshots, for further information.
Mabox Linux 23.12 -- Running the Openbox window manager
(full image size: 835kB, resolution: 1920x1440 pixels)
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 2,935
- Total data uploaded: 43.8TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll (by Jesse Smith) |
Does your desktop or window manager support Wayland, X11, or both?
In this week's Questions and Answers column we talked about the aging X11 protocol being replaced by the new Wayland graphics protocol. A few desktop environments and window managers have already adopted Wayland, a few exclusively, though X11 is still a supported session option with almost all graphical desktops. This week we'd like to hear whether your preferred desktop environment offers Wayland, X11, or both at login time.
You can see the results of our previous poll on using various types of swap space in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Does your desktop/window manager support Wayland or X11?
| Wayland: | 125 (9%) |
| X11: | 668 (47%) |
| Both: | 587 (42%) |
| I do not use a graphical session: | 6 (0%) |
| I do not run an OS where X11 and Wayland are supported: | 26 (2%) |
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| Website News |
New distributions added to waiting list
- AcorOS. AcorOS is a Debian-based distribution which uses the Calamares system installer. AcorOS is available in LXQt, Xfce, and Cinnamon desktop flavours.
- Starbuntu. Starbuntu is an Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the Openbox window manager with a number of customizations.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 11 December 2023. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Weekly Archive and Article Search pages. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • Wayland/XWayland/X11 (by Brad on 2023-12-04 01:39:05 GMT from United States)
I haven't run Wayland for several years, because every time I tried it, there was always at least one component that didn't work properly, when the same component worked as expected with X11.
I'm glad to see that there will be "XWayland", but I'm hoping that the "legacy" will be available for some time to come, in case there are issues with Wayland.
2 • Wayland (by kc1di on 2023-12-04 02:04:56 GMT from United States)
I am currently using KDE-Neon with Wayland running plaasma DE and it's working well with this implementation. No real problems on my machine and it allows me to get my work done. So It's come a long way since I last tried it about a year ago.
3 • RedHat dropping X.Org (by Andy Prough on 2023-12-04 02:52:18 GMT from United States)
In the past I would have been concerned to read that RedHat was dropping X.Org, but in the last year RedHat has made it abundantly clear that they no longer support anyone using their distro except wealthy corporations on high-priced subscriptions. So, since RHEL is not in any way a contender for me to use, it's hard to care about the distro design decisions they make.
4 • Wayland (by cor on 2023-12-04 03:16:38 GMT from United States)
The last time I tried a Wayland session, I couldn't set my mouse to left-handed support. End of test.
5 • SUSE Micro Service OS (by Linuxseekers on 2023-12-04 04:26:17 GMT from Malaysia)
I suspect some of the developers have mutated their focus for OpenELA since mid August 2023.
6 • Wayland (by nsp0323 on 2023-12-04 05:28:37 GMT from Sweden)
Wayland was/is written without any consideration for anything but Linux. Ironically, something that claims to be an abstraction layer, ends-up demanding system specific syscalls and components. My guess is that I will never run Wayland at all.
7 • Wayland on OpenBSD (by Matthew T Hoare on 2023-12-04 06:01:48 GMT from United Kingdom)
@6: https://xenocara.org/Wayland_on_OpenBSD.html
8 • @3 (re Red Hat) (by Simon on 2023-12-04 06:19:32 GMT from New Zealand)
I agree that Red Hat don't care about the wider FOSS community (beyond their own customers); but, unfortunately, Red Hat are major contributors to kernel development, so their distro decisions can matter whether you use their distro or not. As systemd shows, their screw-freedom-if-we-profit attitude is lapped up by a Linux user base who are now overwhelmingly ex-Windows users, keen to have their computers make decisions for them, preferring complex automation over simpler, safer, but slower-to-learn traditional UNIX-style setups. So, the bad decisions that Red Hat makes can easily trickle into other distros: they are, thanks to all their full time paid developers, among the leaders of the GNU/Linux world.
9 • Blurry text with fractional scaling (by Luca on 2023-12-04 07:36:34 GMT from Italy)
What prevents me from running KDE Plasma 5 on Wayland is that fonts are not as sharp as in X11 when you choose a fractional scaling factor. AFAIK this issue will be resolved in Plasma 6, thanks to Qt 6... so 2024 is going to be the year of Wayland, finally!
10 • Wayland (by Josh Smith on 2023-12-04 08:12:12 GMT from Australia)
I use i3 as my window manager and it uses X11. I have used Sway in the past and it's essentially the Wayland counterpart to i3 but I found it buggy as hell, so I just stick to i3 as I know it's rock solid.
11 • Wayland (by Romane on 2023-12-04 08:14:40 GMT from Australia)
Have been running almost exclusively with Wayland for more than a year now - almost, because some distro's that I install to "test" do not, apparently, support a Wayland session, only an X session.
Have found that Wayland has matured considerably over the last year.
Actually have a copy of Neon Unstable installed on my beastie, running Wayland, of course, and like what I see. The Wayland session is rock solid, though there are some bugs in Neon, as expected and as "they" advise is quite likely.
Find that, in general, Wayland is more than acceptable as a replacement for trusty and rusty X, and that it is actually more responsive (no strict assessment of this has been made by self, just based on what I see)
With my eyesight, unlike @9, text is not an issue - any blurriness is my eyes, not the text.
Romane
12 • Wayland on *BSD (by nsp0323 on 2023-12-04 08:39:46 GMT from Sweden)
@7, the article just reinforces what I wrote. You have to go a long way to make it work, moreover in a buggy way. Yes, it's possible, with a lot of layers but X runs without those.
Like @8 pointed out, the way "progress" (regarding other aspects, though) is being implemented is not for everyone, it's for the masses, just like Windows. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate progress but, when progress means having more and more layers of complexity and thousands of lines of code just to boot the system, I'd say thanks but, no thanks.
13 • @11 Blurry text with fractional scaling (by Luca on 2023-12-04 09:07:08 GMT from Italy)
I agree that Wayland has matured a lot in the last few years. issue I referred to, which is expected to be resolved in a couple of months with Plasma 6, is described here: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=446674
My current global scaling factor is 137,5%: text looks pixel-perfect on X11, slightly blurred on Wayland. On the other hand, Wayland allows per-monitor scaling factor, and many other enhancements, so I'm looking forward for the release of Plasma 6.
14 • Objectivity (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 09:38:04 GMT from The Netherlands)
"MicroOS is unusually heavy in memory, taking up 1,100MB of RAM just to sign into the minimal GNOME environment. MicroOS's Plasma flavour took 640MB, for the sake of comparison, a little more than half the memory with the same base operating system." (by Jesse)
I am seriously concerned about the understanding, objectivity and plausibility of the DW testers.
Let me show you five pictures to illustrate the point.
Fedora 39 GNOME: https://ibb.co/qpcyS4s
Fedora 39 KDE: https://ibb.co/w0pn5Sf
Ubuntu 23.10 GNOME: https://ibb.co/5MBrKTz
Ubuntu 23.10 KDE: https://ibb.co/PCyNWry
What this tells us is that GNOME is not "unusually memory hungry" and that KDE is no better. They both use about the same amount of memory, plus or minus a few services that are responsible for the difference. By the way, GNOME and KDE use about 500 MB on Porteus.
This comparison also shows us that the DW testers don't know what my mom knows.
https://ibb.co/7Sp674h
My mom knows that 1 spoon is not the same as 1 spoon, so she always uses the same measuring spoon for all of her recipes.
(What we can also see is how incredibly inefficient and screen-space-hungry KDE is, aside from its Windows pre-alpha state appearance.)
15 • Weirdness (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 09:43:21 GMT from The Netherlands)
"My current global scaling factor is 137,5%: text looks pixel-perfect on X11, slightly blurred on Wayland."
Why not try 136,369%? ;)
16 • Wayland (by James on 2023-12-04 10:52:42 GMT from United States)
More fragmentation, larger kernel, bigger mess, seems they are determined to make Linux no longer Linux.
17 • MicroOS installs applications as Fatpack bundles on a per-user basis (by Thinpak on 2023-12-04 11:02:53 GMT from Germany)
Great idea! Since we all can afford TB-size SSDs.
18 • MicroOS (by dragonmouth on 2023-12-04 11:58:14 GMT from United States)
"MicroOS is offered as a 4.1GB ISO file."
"Micro" must refer to its usability rather than the size of its .ISO. LOL
19 • Why GTK+ and QT cannot take over all responsibilities for wayland transition? (by enihcam on 2023-12-04 12:00:10 GMT from Hong Kong)
Why GTK+ and QT cannot take over all responsibilities for wayland transition?
Software has to be layered in archtecture, right?
20 • Usability (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 13:06:26 GMT from The Netherlands)
@18: ""Micro" must refer to its usability rather than the size of its .ISO. LOL"
Why? They use GNOME, and GNOME has scored well in usability studies, unlike KDE.
https://medium.com/gnome-usability-testing-report/gnome-usability-testing-report-93320514ea86
https://en.opensuse.org/images/b/bb/FOSDEM2007-Usability_Research_for_KDE_at_openSUSE.pdf
21 • Unweirdness (by ynotx11 on 2023-12-04 13:08:14 GMT from Germany)
"My current global scaling factor is 137,5%: text looks pixel-perfect on X11, slightly blurred on Wayland."
"Why not try 136,369%?"
Because 136,369% lies so nicely half way between 125% and 150% ...
22 • Weird Unweirdness (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 13:34:42 GMT from The Netherlands)
"My current global scaling factor is 137,5%: text looks pixel-perfect on X11, slightly blurred on Wayland."
"Because 136,369% lies so nicely half way between 125% and 150% ..."
Might be nicely half way between 125% and 150%, but the number isn't as nice as 136,369. How about 135,797531? Maybe it could further improve your blurriness. ;) :)
23 • Mouse Movement (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 16:11:19 GMT from The Netherlands)
BTW,
"When the Activities screen is opened, a dock is presented at the bottom of the screen with a few launchers and a button to display a full screen grid of application launchers. This makes getting to the applications a bit of a process, with a LOT OF MOUSE MOVEMENT. GNOME's LAYOUT IS AWKWARD, but functional."
That's wrong, of course, and GNOME's layout is actually quite well thought out.
When used correctly, it actually requires less mouse movement and gets you start applications you want faster.
The way you are used to using your operating system is a habit. Replacing a bad habit with a better one depends on your ability to learn and adapt to your environment. It is like when the bullets are flying around you, you can stay where you have been standing for the last 30 years, or you can move to a safer place.
Remember the Fisherman's Friend slogan? "If they are too strong, you are too weak". The same goes for using GNOME. "If it's too complicated for you, you're too ..." 😉
It's just a matter of getting used to a different workflow.
The choice is yours.
24 • Wayland/Plasma and french keyboard (by PhilippE on 2023-12-04 16:34:29 GMT from France)
Wayland with Plasma works now quite well for me except one minor but annoying issue: the decimal separator in the numerical pad for french keyboard stays to dot instead of comma, so decimal numbers are not recognized in Libreoffice. No such trouble with X11.
25 • Wayland / X11 (by Keith S. on 2023-12-04 16:48:33 GMT from United States)
People have been whining about X11 for over 20 years now, and yet it still works. OpenBSD has solved most of the issues with xenocara. The only reason to switch to wayland is to give redhat more power over your life, since systemd wasn't enough for them. Just go back to Windows already.
26 • UI (by a on 2023-12-04 16:59:16 GMT from Brazil)
@14 • Objectivity (by why-oh-why)
I miss the time when GNOME(2) was functional, fast and rational.
https://ibb.co/887Kj4p
27 • Bad GUI (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 17:24:24 GMT from The Netherlands)
@26: "I miss the time when GNOME(2) was functional, fast and rational."
Well, that's an example of a lot of mouse movement and a totally inefficient GUI. Probably the worst GUI ever made.
This GUI disaster still lives on as Mate. Even on Fedora 39, where it is known as "classic", and at least, it looks nice.
https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Studies?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=ut1_report.pdf
28 • UI (by eliveus on 2023-12-04 17:42:09 GMT from Brazil)
@27 • Bad GUI (by why-oh-why)
"a totally inefficient GUI"
Using 113.7 MiB of RAM and the median CPU usage of 0.0%? I would have several adjectives to describe the respective GUI, but inefficient would certainly not be one of them.
29 • @28: BAD OS choice? (by eliveus from Brazil) (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 17:59:11 GMT from The Netherlands)
"Using 113.7 MiB of RAM and the median CPU usage of 0.0%? I would have several adjectives to describe the respective GUI, but inefficient would certainly not be one of them."
1. Efficient GUI has nothing to do with low resource usage. Get rid of that Ubuntu 6 or Elive 3 (== stable).
2. 113.7 MiB of RAM at a time when Xorg alone uses over 80 is impossible. But yes, I think I still have some screenshots of Debian Wheezy and 48 MB RAM consumption. Elive 3 (== stable) is based on Wheeze. 32-bit thing with no webbrowser...
30 • 'Micro'OS (by John Shuttleworth on 2023-12-04 18:18:13 GMT from Denmark)
4.1 GB iso. 'Micro'? Really?
31 • Nostalgia (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 18:54:50 GMT from The Netherlands)
@28: I found two of the three screenshots...
53 MB RAM: https://ibb.co/171bLXQ
48 MB RAM: https://ibb.co/njWQLsm
Unfortunately, the one of Windows XP running with 21MB of RAM is lost. :(
32 • since we're being subjective (by why mandatory on 2023-12-04 19:04:36 GMT from United States)
@23
" It is like when the bullets are flying around you, you can stay where you have been standing for the last 30 years, or you can move to a safer place."
"It's just a matter of getting used to a different workflow."
I might also just choose to stay in place and put something bulletproof in front of me for protection.
What I enjoy most nowadays, is that because some snot-nosed young developer to not only justify his/her position in UI development but because he/she also feels that everything should constantly change -- the new and fresh and shiny, because of ADD nowadays -- decides that the interface should be a constantly shifting/moving target for us users to figure out and/or learn. What used to be a page (example, on my banking site) which previously fit on a single screen with many transactions, now takes scrolling and multiple clicking around and my needing to 'ctrl -' in my browser window to fit anything on less than 3 scrolled screens, because we also need to make everything 'for mobile' UI instead of respecting non-screen-tapping-monkeys... So now with our DE, we need to figure out which top or bottom screen corner one needs to move a mouse to, or which gesture to employ to get something to show up.
And since I'm obviously not as smart as you, I like to keep things simple for my brain cell duopoly.
33 • @32: (by why mandatory from United States) (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-04 19:28:42 GMT from The Netherlands)
Maybe try some Fisherman's Friend? 😉
There was absolutely nothing subjective about what I wrote above, and the usability study linked above confirms that.
You are right about modern web pages, but wrong about the GUI.
You need to move the mouse much less in GNOME than in Windows or KDE, for example.
The mouse is almost never in the bottom left corner, but usually in the middle or to the right of the middle.
In other words, you have to move the mouse, click the icon, go through the categories, and find the (tiny) program icon.
In GNOME, all you have to do is press the Windows key, and the application launcher you need will be near the center of the screen in most cases.
You are the one who puts the most important icons where you can reach them more easily.
You can't blame the GUI if you yourself mulfunction. 😉
34 • Color Inversions on Wayland Gnome DE (by 2312 on 2023-12-04 19:30:23 GMT from United States)
Wayland now is the default for Debian Gnome DE. We can use xcalib to invert colors on X11 Gnome. Does anyone know how to invert colors on Wayland?
35 • Linux degeneration/morphing to Windows-Like OS (by Otis on 2023-12-04 19:36:54 GMT from United States)
@8: "Red Hat are major contributors to kernel development, so their distro decisions can matter whether you use their distro or not. As systemd shows, their screw-freedom-if-we-profit attitude is lapped up by a Linux user base who are now overwhelmingly ex-Windows users, keen to have their computers make decisions for them, preferring complex automation over simpler, safer, but slower-to-learn traditional UNIX-style setups. So, the bad decisions that Red Hat makes can easily trickle into other distros: they are, thanks to all their full time paid developers, among the leaders of the GNU/Linux world."
This is true and sad. Also it is less talked about, the same as systemd has become less talked about over time and just accepted (by most). There were wars about that init here and elsewhere, died down now.
Microsoft's strategies work very well. They began it with scorched earth tactics in the retail marketplace in the 90s and they are continuing with the same mindset in the Linux development world.
Bigger, dirtier, easier to control from a corporate standpoint; the Linux of the near future (and largely now, actually).
36 • Starbuntu (by code dr on 2023-12-04 21:02:53 GMT from Iceland)
Starbuntu is an interesting distro, with many developer-crafted tweaks. It aims to get away from constrained developer choices, like DE overkill. A little slow in live mode, but definitely different from the usual cookie-cutter distros. Could even be worthy of a review.
37 • Minority Linux distros. (by gregzeng on 2023-12-05 01:26:50 GMT from Australia)
The big-boys might be Red Hat and the Ubuntu mainstream. The fringe dwellers experiment with Wayland and other novelties. Mainstream computer users currently are with Windows or Apple. Both these comply with WIMP, pioneered by Xerox.
Gnome 3 (now currently called Gnome) and other breakaway novelties try to force keyboard rigidity, rather than WIMP. When these novelties exist, the writers seem to not know how to test them.
Wayland supposedly can handle screen sizes better, with so many applications. Do writers show this? External monitors? Different font types & font sizes?
Gnome writers mention the Super-key on the keyboard. Again, hating the simplicity of the WIMP GUI. The Unix coders particularly hate the WIMP and the GUI. Instead, these geeks prefer all users to swot and memorize strange alphanumeric exactitude. No long the simple self-explaining GUI and Desktop Environments.
Linux will become ready for the mainstream users when these keyboard obsessives die.
38 • X11 vs Wayland (by v2 on 2023-12-05 03:09:29 GMT from United States)
X11 has nicer, not blurry, scaling but only gives me only up to 60Hz of my 120Hz 4k monitor.
Wayland gives me all 120Hz at 4k but scaling is terribly blurry.
When are we going to get one that works?
39 • @33 Mouse (by v2 on 2023-12-05 03:24:50 GMT from United States)
My mouse is always at the edges of the screen not the middle. I do not like seeing the cursor it is distracting moving it to an edge makes it mostly out of the way. The scroll bars are also at the edge of the screen. It is easier and faster to just shove the mouse cursor a corner and click than to aim at something in the middle of the screen to click an icon. Full screen "start buttons" failed to catch on with Windows 8.
40 • V2 Mouse (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-05 06:48:35 GMT from The Netherlands)
@39: "My mouse is always at the edges of the screen not the middle. I do not like seeing the cursor it is distracting moving it to an edge makes it mostly out of the way. The scroll bars are also at the edge of the screen. It is easier and faster to just shove the mouse cursor a corner and click than to aim at something in the middle of the screen to click an icon. Full screen "start buttons" failed to catch on with Windows 8."
Could it be that you are not working? I am aware that watching videos with the cursor hovering over the image in the middle of the screen can be a very uncomfortable experience, but...
1. For studies and usability it is irrelevant where YOUR mouse is positioned most of the time, but where most people's mouse is positioned.
2. Most people actually WORK on their computers, not just scroll through web pages or PDFs.
3. Most people scroll using the scroll wheel or multi-finger gestures.
4. When correcting a word in Writer, selecting an object in GIMP, drawing the icon in Inkscape, moving objects on the timeline in video editing, etc., the mouse is always positioned closer to the centre of the screen than to the edges.
https://ibb.co/4m4ykQn
The pointer is almost never at the edge of the screen when you are working.
5. Wherever your mouse is currently positioned, GNOME has either the same or less mouse movement than Windows and KDE, and it's always quicker and easier to find the (large) application icon you need. Since the Start button is in the bottom left corner, there's also mouse movement to that corner in Windows and KDE, and scrolling through categories in some nested menu and poking at some tiny icons is no more efficient than in GNOME.
6. Larger icons are also easier to see and more visually appealing. GNOME's start menu is definitely not a "full screen start button", and it definitely hasn't failed, as we can see on the Mac.
7. Alternatively, you can launch applications from the search field button at the top centre of the screen.
There is no point in disagreeing with me, because to do so would be to disagree with GNOME, Apple, and millions of satisfied users.
41 • Easier... (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-05 07:24:23 GMT from The Netherlands)
P.S. @39: "It is easier and faster to just shove the mouse cursor a corner and click than to aim at something in the middle of the screen to click an icon."
It is much easier to press Windows, type "pi" or "wri" and press Enter.
https://ibb.co/CsJBbyY
https://ibb.co/QPCFLQ1
And the screen reader reads me news; who needs scroll bars in 2023?
BTW, why not try saying "start inkscape"? That works too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ3LdaIpg4Y
😉
42 • Distrowatch should not be the gnome blog (by fedup on 2023-12-05 10:46:41 GMT from Germany)
"There is no point in disagreeing with me, because to do so would be to disagree with GNOME, Apple, and millions of satisfied users."
That is an extremely arrogant thing to write and says it all about the attitude of the GNOME developers.
That GNOME is simply wrong is shown by the way their "market share" among Linux desktops has decreased. But they do not care as long as Redhat, Debian and others accept their propaganda.
However, this is Distrowatch, not the official GNOME blog. There should be plenty of room for other opinions, and there is no need for one GNOME developer to reply to everything ever posted here.
43 • Propaganda? (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-05 11:12:13 GMT from The Netherlands)
@42: "That is an extremely arrogant thing to write..."
Maybe in your world.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/218089/global-market-share-of-windows-7/
Chrome OS's market share is growing, even though its Start menu has big icons.
Apple's market share is growing, despite the fact that its Start menu has large icons.
However, the increase is slow due to Apple's higher prices, poor gaming support, and tendency to suddenly change processor platforms and remove peripheral ports, etc.
BTW, DW is not a GNOME blog. It is about Linux, and GNOME is a Linux GUI. 😉
44 • Well now I have NO desire to try Nitrux (by Kingneutron on 2023-12-05 15:20:15 GMT from United States)
Enforcing password rules when I'm trying to install a system? Forget it. If I want to run my homelab or a VM with a basic password - or no password at all - that is MY choice as an admin. This is not Red Hat with STIGs. Faff off with your password enforcement rules.
45 • Wayland ~= Windows (by John on 2023-12-05 16:13:13 GMT from Canada)
@8 That is the way I see things also. Microsoft got its hands into the Linux Foundation by throwing lots of $ at it. So now we have secureboot, systemd and Wayland. To me it is a slow take over of Linux by Large Corporations with Red Hat being the "front".
My preferred distro, Slackware, had to jump through loops (v15) to remain UNIX-Like, but I fear it is fighting a losing battle. Even Slackware was forced to adopt a couple of items Red Hat is pushing. I hope Slackware can remain different from the crowd. If it was not for Gentoo people creating elogin, not sure what things would be for non-systemd distros.
Anyway, at least for now we have the BSDs. I have OpenBSD on an older system which I use when I need some sanity in my computing.
46 • X11land (by Cheker on 2023-12-05 18:07:40 GMT from Portugal)
Xfce is my DE of choice so I'm stuck with X11 for the foreseeable future. Not that I care that much.
The usage I've given Wayland (always under GNOME) was fine, can't say I ever came across a problem that I knew for sure was caused by Wayland. The only thing I missed was xkill, but that's just minor spoilage. There could even be an equivalent that I'm not aware of.
Xorg's abandonment is something that needs to happen eventually, and the sooner we all move to Wayland the sooner all of the paper cuts get worked out.
47 • @44 Nitrux (by Reyfer on 2023-12-05 17:37:35 GMT from Venezuela)
Yes, I let the "Wayland is the devil and Red Hat is the apocalypse" crowd fight here, what interested me this week is how moronic this thing about forcing me, the USER, to come up with a complicated password to continue the installation and then "you can change it later after install but at your own risk".....Every install is already at my own risk, stopping the install if the password I AS THE USER CHOOSE is not up to your liking is absurd
48 • @44 Nitrux (by Reyfer on 2023-12-05 18:13:35 GMT from Venezuela)
Yes, I let the "Wayland is the devil and Red Hat is the apocalypse" crowd fight here, what interested me this week is how moronic this thing about forcing me, the USER, to come up with a complicated password to continue the installation and then "you can change it later after install but at your own risk".....Every install is already at my own risk, stopping the install if the password I AS THE USER CHOOSE is not up to your liking is absurd
49 • @47 Nitrux (by Andy Prough on 2023-12-05 20:36:27 GMT from United States)
If Nitrux is enforcing complicated passwords just to try it in a VM then I guess I'll never try it out.
>"must use a password over eight characters long, including uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols, when creating their user accounts during installation. We recommend using a password generator application or website"
They want users to use a website to generate a password? That doesn't seem very private or secure. At least Nitrux could include a password generator tool on the live disk, like the pwgen cli package, or the revelation gui package.
50 • @49 Nitrux (by Reyfer on 2023-12-06 01:09:08 GMT from Venezuela)
Yes, it says right on the release notes, the installer forces the user to come up with complicated passwords or else the install will not continue.....and then they suggest using a password generator or website (facepalm)
51 • trip to retro country (by beardless the grey on 2023-12-06 09:11:54 GMT from New Zealand)
It's December and it became time to look back at Linux. Why? Because I had to recover some files for someone from a dead machine mothballed around 2005. I dragged out my ancient 486 from the same era, to mount the drive and copy files off. That succeeded, but the journey!
Firstly, back when this 486 was still in use, I was dual booting XP and Mint 9, Isadora. I found it all still there and still working. I could not see the added drive, until later I had a real duh moment and recalled jumper switches on the drive have to be set. Anyone remember those? But before I got to that I had hauled out an old stack of DVDs with a wide collection of old distros to try and get it going.
Many failed to even start up, but a few still made it. Manjaro v 0.8.7 Ascella went smoothly as did Greenie Linux which then was Lubuntu with a couple of tweaks and aimed towards e-books. Linux Lite 1.0.6, the disc dated Nov 2013. Many memories.
I hope as this festive season kicks off that all you readers can look back and appreciate the progress Linux has made over the years.
52 • @51 - drive jumper switches (by Andy Prough on 2023-12-06 14:56:47 GMT from United States)
@beardless the grey >"I had a real duh moment and recalled jumper switches on the drive have to be set"
What are jumper switches? I don't see where there could be any on my nvme ssd stick - that's a real head scratcher.
Just kidding.
That DOES bring back some memories. Did you have to push the tiny little clips onto the individual pins to set the jumpers? Was there a jumper diagram on the drive label that you had to interpret? Ah yes - good times.
53 • jumper switches (by beardless the grey on 2023-12-06 19:45:21 GMT from New Zealand)
@52 yes, the tiny fidgety little clip you have to extract and move to the pins required. Complete with a diagram on the label stuck to the drive. Good times indeed. And drive sizes of 40Gb and 80Gb. In digging for a PS2 mouse and keyboard I also found a 4GB drive, you can't even find a budget USB stick of that size any more, 16Gb is the minimum.
Today the PFYs add a splash screen and a custom theme =equals= !tada! "new" distro. Or put a landmine in the access route like comments above discuss the antics with Nitrux.
54 • @ 23, mouse movement, Gnome (by The Abominable Man on 2023-12-07 06:13:11 GMT from United States)
I'm also a blasphemer who prefers GNOME. I also found category menus inefficient, and it my experience, so did most Windows users, which is most Windows desktops I worked on were populated by shortcut/icons of apps, folders and documents. In a lot of them one could barely see a background. I tried OS X when it was released and liked it better. Cost and quality of hardware made me change.
So now I use GNOME, but I tweak it for my use. Ubuntu tweaks it some, using the dock extension, but I like more. For me it's all about mouse travel. I want it mouse-centric so to speak. These days I use a PC mostly for reading, videos and running full-screen VMs. The VMs have their own layouts, depending on use. So my main DE has a bottom dock with frequently used apps, along with log-out, power-off and sleep. Anything I want is always visible at a glance on the left panel, maximizing my vertical space, which I prefer. My cursor seldom has to leave the bottom fourth of the screen. Maxed apps on their own virtual workspaces are focused with a small movement and one click, same with any other apps. If I get up and want the PC to sleep, a small move and one click. Power off? Same. Moving back from a full-screen VM is just a move to the closest (hot) corner. So I can sit back with a cup of coffee in my left hand and my right resting on the mouse and work the computer with minor movements of my right hand. What if I'm typing? All the keyboard shortcuts are still available, nothing has changed in that regard. For me, that's efficient. You may prefer otherwise.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/164785504@N08/
55 • Mouse Movement (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-07 09:50:41 GMT from The Netherlands)
Depending on what I want to do, I open a few applications, each on its own virtual desktop, and that's it.
It's not like one would be opening and closing some applications all day long.
And if someone really has a problem with moving a mouse in these days of 32k dpi programmable mice and keyboards, they should hire a secretary or one or more employees to do the job.
Just Google "mmorpg mouse" or "lcd keyboard".
A mouse or keyboard click can launch applications or shut down the computer, and a keyboard can show you the time, date, Internet connection statistics, or even the timeline of a video editor.
Five images for illustration:
Example mice:
@2x.jpg?v=1687156732">https://redragonshop.com/cdn/shop/files/RedragonM990MMOGamingMouse_5_1024x1024@2x.jpg?v=1687156732
https://i.imgur.com/3Q3RWAv.png
Example keyboards:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0631/9590/6271/files/3_1788d173-5960-4595-b93c-da5655a38c90.jpg?v=1674860545
https://liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/FICIHIP_01.jpg
https://liliputing.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/FICIHIP_02.jpg
We are living in 2023, not 1983. The world is moving on.
56 • @55, mouse movement (by The Abominable Man on 2023-12-07 10:57:53 GMT from Philippines)
"You need to move the mouse much less in GNOME than in Windows or KDE, for example.
The mouse is almost never in the bottom left corner, but usually in the middle or to the right of the middle.
In other words, you have to move the mouse, click the icon, go through the categories, and find the (tiny) program icon.
In GNOME, all you have to do is press the Windows key, and the application launcher you need will be near the center of the screen in most cases.
You are the one who puts the most important icons where you can reach them more easily"
So you lecture about mouse movement, but when I show you that mouse movement can be made more efficient by tweaking the stock GNOME desktop, you change your tune. Now I need to go and get programmable mice and keyboards or else I'm a caveman. Seems that you like arguing for the sake of arguing. I use the equipment I have as efficiently as possible. You may do what you wish with fancy keyboards and such. I'm done here.
57 • @56, mouse movement (by why-oh-why on 2023-12-07 12:02:27 GMT from The Netherlands)
"So you lecture about mouse movement, but when I show you that mouse movement can be made more efficient by tweaking the stock GNOME desktop, you change your tune."
No, not really.
Mouse movement in stock GNOME is already better than on other systems, but...
Mouse movement (regardless of DE) has never been a problem, and if it is for anyone, there is a solution.
P.S.
Screen space is a problem in most cases, and your example shows how to very effictively reduce it. ;)
58 • mouse cursor (by eb on 2023-12-07 13:18:26 GMT from France)
"Mouse movement (regardless of DE) has never been a problem, and if it is for anyone, there is a solution."
Yess : https://github.com/jcs/xbanish
Very pleasant.
59 • re.51,52 and old drives (by Someguy on 2023-12-07 13:40:17 GMT from United Kingdom)
Ah, yes! I finally relinquished my favourite blast-from-the past at my last (probably final) move. 10Mb - long-time doorstep. Think it was still 'working'. Needed (real) low-level formatting once a year due to creep/slop/etc in the head slider....etc, etc.
60 • Comments 27 and 33, Gnome Usability (by Barnabyh on 2023-12-08 03:40:51 GMT from Germany)
The usability study linked to is for Gnome 1.2.2. Gnome 2 improved a lot on this and cannot be compared to it or tarred with the same brush. I'm surprised people missed that but maybe nobody could be bothered to check and engage on this level.
I remember using Gnome 1 and it was really a different beast altogether, very hodge podge and unprofessional, the community spirit, fun and geek anarchy of the early days really shone through. A lot of functionality was missing too so in the end I went with KDE 1 because it had a graphical disk mounting tool. The learning went into Gnome 2 which became a much more professional and finished product over time.
I'm aware the current Gnome is built more with the intention for using keyboard shortcuts to supposedly cut down on mouse travel. However, this can be set up in most if not all desktop environments if so desired. If I wanted to navigate my desktop with keybord shortcuts I could have just stayed on Openbox or another wm where I have my keybindings set up. So no real advantage here.
And btw, the super key always launches the menu and most menu implementations (looking at Cinnamon and Plasma) have a search box, this is not specific to Gnome Shell either.
61 • Preferred Desktops (by M.Z. on 2023-12-09 00:17:08 GMT from United States)
Last I checked the top two Linux were KDE & XFCE - who were in a dead heat for most users overall. Not sure why there is so much trolling about KDE from some quarters, but it does everything most users want in an efficient & very customizable way. As someone else mentioned you can use it with all hot keys (super plus type/arrows etc.) or be very efficient with the mouse. You can also easily set it to get a classic tree menu under your mouse or do basically whatever you want with it. If you think the panel is in an inefficient place you have the power to move it out of the box with out some special customization package. Add Cinnamon to the list & you have at least three desktops that can easily do what 90+% of all desktop users want & be easily customized with light effort.
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Chinese Linux Extension
CLE stands for Chinese GNU/Linux Extensions, it was a collection of Chinese related software on GNU/Linux platform. CLE was based on and optimised for the Red Hat Linux distribution. As with Red Hat, software was packaged in the RPM format. CLE also support other major distributions such as Slackware and Mandrake. You will get a complete Chinese (BIG5/GB) environment under Linux by installing CLE.
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