EVERY LINUX DISTRO should have THESE FEATURES!

Server — 01/10/2022 · 28 Comments



Get 100$ credit for your own Linux and gaming server: https://www.linode.com/linuxexperiment Grab a brand new laptop or …

28 Comments

  4. Great video! Let's see how well NixOS performs:

    01:43 Multi-desktop installers ✓

    You select the desktop in the installer, or select "No desktop" and configure a window manager (or whatever you want) manually.

    03:14 Recovery partition

    I think it is not needed since NixOS has rollback built-in. You can revert any system config. change!
    Only when you mess up the bootloader, you can't boot the system. Not sure if a recovery partition would help here. You can boot the installer and reinstall the bootloader.

    04:34 Restore and sync installed applications ✓

    Applications are installed by declaring a list in the system configuration, so you can copy that to a new install.
    You can sync the list by having the config. in a git repository and use the same config. for multiple devices. Many users do that.

    07:02 Privacy tools and dashboard

    System settings are part of the desktop, not really the distro. NixOS packages desktops as-is and don't add own tools.
    It would be great if desktops would collaborate on such a feature.

    08:37 Update notes framework

    This is also not part of a distro. AppStores and Apps would have to support the framework individually.
    Many AppStores and Apps already show update notes. An open standard would be great.

    10:13 Graphical error messages

    It would be very simple for a distro to build a wrapper for every graphical tool to show errors in a dialog, but terminal output is usually for developers, not for end-users.
    If a message is important for a user, i think a program should show a dialog itself.
    Maybe when a program crashes, a crash report tool should open. Not sure if it should report to the distro or developer.

    11:18 Improved graphical app stores

    NixOS don't has a graphical app store, so here it fails in usability. You can look for packages at https://search.nixos.org/packages and add the names to your config.
    There are ideas to add Nix support to Gnome Software and KDE Discover. They are already packaged and i think work with Flatpak.

    So, NixOS is actually not so bad in context of these requirements.

    Here is a corresponding thread in NixOS Forum: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/the-linux-experiment-every-linux-distro-should-have-these-features/21955?u=davidak

  5. I completely agree with all points in this video. It helps make Linux more user-friendly. It looks like small changes but has a big impact

  6. Things like these are the main reason for me not switching to Linux atm. It may be true that each disto is different and suits different people but then there are things like the stuff you listed or for example power saving modes noone would not want on their distro.

  8. Accounts are an awful idea because I dread them because I have so many of them and then there is the fact that every Account is a potential risk for privacy

  10. Another suggestion for the wishlist: Keyboard-emulated mouse ("mouse keys")that doesn't break the actual mouse working. I know Linux can fix it before Microsoft does.

  13. If a distro is going to support Flatpak, they should include Flatseal Flatpak manager by default. This package is very useful for managing the permissions for flatpak packages.

  14. Some of this would require the linux community to cooperate and agree on something together which unfortunately is highly unlikely why do you think we have 500 distros with various states of cross compatibility instead of 3-4 distros and a bunch of variations of desktops that work on them all

  17. Some users here have multiple computer operating systems. Our applications need to get compatible for our choice of operating systems.
    This is not mentioned enough. Libre Office. Blender. Qbittorrent. Free File sync. Chrome. Slimjet. Firefox. Shotcut. Vivaldi. Obs.

  23. I agree with most of what you mentioned, but not fully with a few.

    Multi-DE Distro images could work but be stupidly big. Netinstall is an option, but far from perfect. Having premade ISOs setup with certain DEs is the best for me at the moment.

    The recovery partition, yes its nice and really helpful when needing to refresh a broken system without nuking files. But it shouldn't be mandatory upon install of the distro but rather an option similar to how Timeshift is on Linux Mint.

    Easy restoring of installed apps/packages is interesting and would be a massive convenience though would necessitate an account or some form of text files with the packages, but that point its pretty close to a shell script that sets things up and installs the packagaes. Maybe an app that can generate a shell script based on currently installed packages and selecting which ones to include on a script would work.

    More graphical error messages, yep really agree with that as I've run into some GUI apps randomly crashing with no errors showing. An example was OBS and running from terminal I saw it was spewing errors and warnings related to my GPU.

    The GUI for package managers. Honestly don't use them myself much as I tend to stick to Synaptic if I'm not using the terminal. Muon and the Mint software center are also decent for me, but what isn't is the GNOME Software Center. I don't know why its still a bloated mess, it was slow back during GNOME 3 and still slow now.

    Also the mention of Solaar and Piper reminded me that Solaar exists. I learned of it back when I was trying to find a Linux app to configure my Logitech G102 mouse, but Piper was the one I needed since Solaar is for the wireless devices from Logitech.

    Anyway this is more of a comment to boost engagement even if its a few days late.

  24. 5:00 — I strongly disagree with this take. I don't want a "universal Linux account" or anything even remotely similar, and I would get super annoyed if I was ever asked to make one. I think the idea of having a text file you can import/export app IDs from so your graphical installers and automate that task would be really cool, but the overall take seems, at least to me, to be pretty removed from what most Linux users probably feel about Linux.

  25. First resolve the inconsistencies in the DEs where apps don't respect theming and where it doesn't have proper scaling on 4k monitors and above. And don't tell me the scaling is because of the drivers, just fix the damn drivers then.

  26. "Restore and sync installed applications" => This would require an online service that needs maintaining. Problem is, you'd have to pay for this service, because if you base it on pure donations, then it's prone to failure. It would be nice, don't get me wrong, but Linux is all about DIY.

  27. Every distro should have: Multiple mice (to change their buttons & maybe speeds) I use 2 mice. Left & right. And mirrored buttons is optimal.
    Scroll wheel speed adjustment (DUH).
    After they got that, we can talk about what else every distro needs.
    I personally appreciate F19 working for keyboard shortcuts, and screenshotting an area with only one button. no pressing enter to confirm or anything.

Leave a Reply

© 2023 53GB