Great to see this perspective from a developer and it totally makes sense. I think the Firefox browser has encountered essentially the exact same thing. Linux support may be a strategic advantage for devs that embrace it.
That does not mean that every developer will find the same thing though. Proton and Unity have many, many Linux specific ( or at least non-Windows ) bugs I am sure. It would be easy to bemoan these. It takes a different kind of mind-set to see working around these kinds of issues as valuable. Even rarer are devs that take the opportunity to address bugs in the underlying tech ( outside the game - eg. in Proton ).
I suspect though that many non-Windows bugs are actually due to defects in the game. They are just not manifesting yet or in the same way. The fact that Linux exposes these is again an opportunity in the way the author of this post points out.
In other words, cross-platform deployment is an opportunity for a stronger product. Access to an engaged community with strong communication skills and technical chops is a bonus.
Hopefully more devs start to see the world this way. Great article.
(great ceo choice, she has experience in communication, which is the main thing a ceo has to do for gnome. She doesn’t need to do or participate deeply in development.
She sounds very experienced in managing larger projects and even some open source ones. Reading articles is not a hard endeavour. Perhaps you should try it. Gnome is the largest desktop enviorment on linux and it isn’t there because of bad decisions
Edit: my below comment was actually wrong. They actually do use git.
Thanks for sharing. What I find most interesting is that Linus is still using the same email-based software development methods for the kernel while the rest of the software engineering world has evolved to use his other invention, git, for that. I’m kind of second-hand embarrassed for those geniuses who have yet to adopt proper version control for (what I’d argue is) the most important project in the computing world.
Here’s a far more nuanced explanation from Spore’s reply to this comment :
Git and Email are not mutually exclusive. In order to collaborate with git, you need and only need a way to send your commits to others. Commits can be formatted as plain-text files and sent through emails. That is how git has been used by its author from literally the first release of it.
Git was originally authored by Linus Torvalds in 2005 for development of the Linux kernel, with other kernel developers contributing to its initial development. Since 2005, Junio Hamano has been the core maintainer.
Git and Email are not mutually exclusive. In order to collaborate with git, you need and only need a way to send your commits to others. Commits can be formatted as plain-text files and sent through emails. That is how git has been used by its author from literally the first release of it.
A git server don’t need to know email to work, and it is not required to have a git server. Email in this workflow is an alternative to a PR: contributor submit a set of commits to the maintainer (or anyone interested). Then the maintainer is free to apply or merge the commits. After that the code can be pushed to any servers.
Honestly I’m surprised that so many people don’t know how git can be used without those repository hosting sites. That’s one way to use it, not the only way. And it’s not even the way it was originally designed for.
I’m not so surprised anymore. I’m self-taught using open-source software projects for guidance. But not everyone learns like that. For example in the commercial software dev world, having patches easy to apply with minimum tooling isn’t usually a priority (for better or worse).
This is actually a little story I had half written down; your comment prompted me to finish it. Thanks! www.srcbeat.com/2023/11/git-email/
Yeah, that’s not quite right. You need a means to discuss things and review code. You can do this via a website or mailing list. The Linux kernel uses the latter. Lots of other devs use the former. Like Github. And Github and Git aren’t the same. The issue tracking, discussion platform etc are something Github does on top of Git. You can as well use Email or a different service/online platform for the communication. The actual program code is stored in Git in both cases.
<span style="color:#323232;">“We are delighted to welcome Holly to the GNOME Foundation. With her experience managing nonprofits, and passion for working with diverse communities of creators and technologists, she can strengthen the Foundation’s unique position as a partner and collaborator at the heart of the GNOME community. And, as an experienced communicator and fundraiser, she can tell our story to the outside world and position the Foundation in the wider ecosystem of nonprofits to raise the profile and impact of our incredible work.”
</span><span style="color:#323232;">Robert McQueen
</span><span style="color:#323232;">GNOME Foundation Board President
</span>
Installs mint. Connects to wifi at work. Prompted with a window that wants me to specify certificate versions or whatever. No clue about what any of it means and never get to connect. Uninstalled and back to Windows. Mint so easy to use /s 👍
Yeh and apparently Lemmy folks down votes legit bad experiences with gnu/Linux. If you think the user is the problem here, this community seriously have a problem if thet want gnu/Linux to be mainstream.
People here really do need to realize how little the average user is willing to tinker and troubleshoot. Not to mention the software availability. Saying “it’s soooo easy to switch over” is just blatantly false, even now. The vast, vast majority of gamers play games with incompatible anti-cheat. Those people will likely not stop playing the games they want to because of moral values or Foss whatever’s. Same with software. Sure, krita or gimp are easy as hell to pick up, but if you’ve lived your whole life with Photoshop, and have no problem other than the usual adobe bullshit, you’re not gonna switch to an is with zero possibility of supporting that app any time soon.
I can’t offer a solution to fix linux’s issues, but there needs to be a community willing to answer the most basic questions honestly.
Longtime Debian and Arch veteran here. I moved most of my workstations to Silverblue earlier this year (maybe 8 months ago now), and I’ve been very happy overall.
There is a bit of a learning curve if you aren’t familiar with Flatpak or container-based workflows, assuming you wish to embrace those elements, but the curve is nowhere near as steep or unconventional as NixOS.
I love the automated updates. The flexibility to rebase or rollback the core OS on the fly, without any extra work, is great too. For example, it’s very easy to test out beta releases, remixes, and preconfigured software bundles like uBlue.
I still use Arch for 99% of my command line tasks, inside a container managed by distrobox.
I strongly believe that Flatpak is the future of Linux software deployment, and although the format still has its kinks, it is already quite mature and will only get better as more and more upstream developers adopts its use.
we could have more merging of projects, like xfce and mate, both trying the same thing, both started with the same goal(keep the old gnome style) but both need help, why don’t work together?
edit: xfce is old than gnome 3 so i was wrong sorry, but more collaboration on apps that both need is interesting
What? Please no. XFCE is its own thing. It is not old GNOME. They are both GTK based so a little collaboration on apps they both need would be interesting. Beyond that, they are different projects—like GNOME and KDE. BTW, there is also an “old” KDE called Trinity.
yeah, even KDE dev said about it on their blog, that they gonna stick with their own library but it’s possible to port KDE to work on wlroots in the future, so theur don’t spend so much time in something that only them work(btw kde work very closely to wlroots anyway)
XFCE and LXDE are nice in their own right. I used to run xfce and lxde on my laptops and netbooks. Those bottom of the barrel, underpowered, bargain bin machines hummed. At the time though HiDPI support was weak still (at least for xfce) so they never made it to my desktop. Didn’t like many multi-sized monitors. I assume this is a problem of the past now.
linux
Newest
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.