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1. theruran 🌐🏴 (theruran@hackers.town)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:05:16 UTC theruran 🌐🏴
   I love the Linux desktop, but that doesn't mean I don't see its problems all too wellFragmentation has put paid to the dream of this OS ever being bigger than Windows

   https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/08/linux_desktop_blues/

   • libreバサラ (basara@www.librepunk.club)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:05:15 UTC libreバサラ

     in reply to

     @theruran well since windows has a desktop and linux has N desktops there are in fact at least N+1 desktop. There are too many desktops for desktops to be successful QED.

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   • theruran 🌐🏴 (theruran@hackers.town)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:05:16 UTC theruran 🌐🏴

     in reply to

     Think about it. Besides over 200 distros, there are 21 different desktop interfaces and over half-a-dozen different major ways to install software such as the Debian Package Management System (DPKG), Red Hat Package Manager (RPM), Pacman, Zypper, and all too many others. Then there are all the newer containerized ways to install programs including Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage.

     I can barely keep them all straight and that's part of my job! How can you expect ordinary users to make sense of it all? You can't.

   • Dave Lane (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:12:04 UTC Dave Lane

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @alcinnz @theruran reminds me of the endless stream we used to see of people writing MySQL wrappers for PHP back in the day, rather than learn an existing mature one. :) But that's calmed down quite a lot these days...

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   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:12:05 UTC Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • Dave Lane

     @lightweight @theruran To give an example of where this trend: The thing that fragments most are webframeworks & syntax highlighters. Its trivial to write syntax highlighters in any language that supports regular expressions!

   • Dave Lane (lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:12:07 UTC Dave Lane

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @alcinnz @theruran we're seeing a pre-Cambrian-type explosion of diversity. I suspect it simply accelerates evolutionary forces which will eventually coalesce around the 'fittest' options that the explosion produces.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Friday, 10-Jun-2022 04:12:08 UTC Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     @theruran If we take the approach of recommending e.g. a "free software system like elementary or Manjaro" I don't believe the "fragmentation" is actually a marketting issue.

     You can argue about duplication of effort leaving less available to create a truly excellent system. In that case I'd argue this fragmentation appears to be directly proportional to the ease of implementing those tools! Which can have negative externalities if you're not careful...