I was always in and out with Linux.

My problem was always that something was always a bit off with the apps or environment than I got used to, and most of thr times I just couldn’t adapt. Things like my laptop touchpad worked differently, the mouse moved differently, apps had functions differently or lacking onebthing, others other things.

Also, most DEs was lacking functions (like dbl click on window icon to close), or were buggy. Then KDE4 came out and it was a trainwreck after 3.5 and I lost all my hope for a while.

And, on my mission to kinda solve these resulted always me bricking the system.

Now, to be fair, this was 10 years ago.

But, I know I won’t use Windows 11 for a while now and I kinda bored with Windows 10 so few weeks ago installed Debian on my PC with KDE Plasma. Tho I have nothing against Windows, it served me well in the past… 25 years. But now I’m more focused on dev work and productivity, and Windows 10 became slowly awkward for the different works I had. Most of the times I used WSL so why not just hsve the realdeal at the first place? Also, lots of Pis and some servers I have are also running Linux, so why not have it on my main machine?

It’s nice. Still have some minor annoyance or inconvenience with it, but I don’t care. Honestly, seeing what Linux became in these 10 years made me go ‘wow’.

So, I have hope in Linux in the future. Especially since OS and architectural boulders are rapidly disappearing.

I remember Wine being no more than a POC you can run Notepad or Solitaire on Linux. Now you can almost run any fucking game on a Linux system. This is awesome.

So, I’m testrunning Linux again before I invest a motherload of money into a new PC (I’m using a 2009 era server machine as my desktop atm) and if it’s good, I will continue to use Linux and probably Debian on my new machine and will format my drives and set up a partition table that is Linux-y, and not just mount all my NTFS drives and use them like they are native to the system.

An immutable OS that run all app whatever are their package distribution.

Later a full OS rewritten in Rust with goods tools that share folder’s content accross all devices and mass storage device as syncthing do.

Let’s imagine a button where you click on add devices, then you scan the QR code and chose which folder you want to share. :)

I’d go a few levels deeper: the kernel development process seems to become more and more dysfunctional. Legacy code hindering innovation, bad people being bottlenecks and this absurdly ancient “send a patch via mail” process.

Currently, that’s only sand in the gears, but if it gets worse, this could seriously threaten the future.

I think stability is a huge factor. Just yesterday, my laptop shit off without any forewarning. There is still too much random issues that seemingly have no reason.

I think it’s already a great system, its philosophical foundation of being built around user freedom is fantastic. It just has a few things that are definitely still problems for desktop users. Namely,

• Sensible defaults
• Proprietary driver management
• Distros needing to distribute software in their repos instead of authors doing it themselves
• Too many competing application formats, each with glaring issues
• Inconsistent theming with GTK vs QT (mostly app developers’ faults tho)
• Both popular display servers have huge issues
• Lack of manufacturer support for hardware (this will come with time if Linux continues to become more popular)
• Incompatibility with existing standards, especially Microsoft products
• Lacking proper professional applications for things like video editing that actually work consistently
• Gaming anti-cheat compatibility
• Generally being easy to break the whole system on accident
• Power consumption on mobile devices

I guess that’s a lot, but it’s still a great system ha.

For me it would be open-ness and through that privacy. The dream device would be some mobile convertible with the repairibility of framework, that is completely free and open source hardware and software. Like powered by risc-v, with some future open gpu, and every (storage-/keyboard-/touchpad-/touchscreen-/battery-/network-/wifi-/ etc) controller on it being risc-v and running open firmware as well. Just such that for every byte being processed in this device you could pin down the piece of circuit and line of code that makes it so. In terms of linux some future version of gnome on a immutable distro with flatpaks that have very tied down permissions would be a nice future to me.

And I think overall many aspects of this are moving in that direction. The biggest roadblock is probably a truly open gpu, and then highly integrated controllers like for storage.

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.

1. Linux Distros finally work together better. Canonical merges its Snaps with Flatpak. In times where we are so closw to unifying all apps in one package format, and Canonical does THAT.
2. a smooth Desktop that is cleaned up and focusses on stability. I think KDE 6 will be very good, as they cut off old and duplicated code. But tbh I also look forward to Cosmic, as I think a new desktop, in Rust, fast and stable, made with all the modern features planned in from the beginning, has an awesome future.
3. More Value in FOSS from Companies. Reverse-engineering sucks, but maany of the supported devices simply use Blobs, which is not the future I want. So Hardware with real opensource drivers, this also goes for entire Mainboards i.e. Coreboot. Coreboot is so unknown, even though its literally the only BIOS there should be. Novacustom, 3mdeb, Starlabs, System76 all work on small projects, not to forget Googles Chromebooks (with their horrible hardware)
4. Accessibility, standardisation, unifying of standards. I talked with some people and they meant for example Accessibility Documentation is worse documented and not standardized, in contrast to MacOS and Windows.
5. More Linux preinstalled. On routers, Laptops, phones.
6. Security and privacy out of the box. All Flatpaks using portals, a differentiation between FOSS and Proprietary apps. Mac randomization, SElinux confined users, containerization for all apps. Simply what Android has since forever. A share dialog. Verified and measured Boot like with the Heads Bios.
7. Stability and ease of use. An immutable distro with all the right presets, automatic updates that listen to unmetered networks and enough battery level. A nice setup dialog including things like that. (Possible in GNOME and KDE)

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.