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ZDNet reports that from supercomputers to stock markets to smartphones, Linux dominates most computing markets, but Linus Torvalds still wants Linux to rule on one place it doesn't: The desktop. "The challenge on the desktop is not a kernel problem. It's a whole infrastructure problem. I think we'll get there one day," said Torvalds at the LinuxCon Convention in Chicago. "Year of the Linux desktop?" asked Kroah-Hartman. "I'm not going there," replied Torvalds with a smile.
Torvalds also discussed the issue of kernel code bloat as Linux is now being run in small-form-factor embedded devices. "We've been bloating the kernel over the last 20 years, but hardware has grown faster," Torvalds said. Torvalds wants to push the envelope for the embedded market despite some challenges. He noted that some of the small-form-factor device vendors have their own operating system technologies in place already, and those vendors don't always make hardware readily available to Linux kernel developers.
The issue of Linux code maintainers was another hot-button topic addressed by Torvalds, who noted that some Linux kernel code has only a single maintainer and that can mean trouble when that maintainer wants to take time off. Torvalds said that a good setup that is now used by the x86 maintainers is to have multiple people maintaining the code. It's an approach that ARM Linux developers have recently embraced, as well. "When I used to do ARM merges, I wanted to shoot myself and take a few ARM developers with me," Torvalds said. "It's now much less painful and ARM developers are picking up the multiple maintainer approach."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @12:13PM
While Linus is the leader in the kernel area, there is no driving force in getting a workable Linux desktop. Ubuntu tried, but did not go far enough. A group, comprised of members from the many distributions, should get a working specification together. All of them could drive to get the spec working, and all of us would benefit. It would need to be modular enough so that individual parts could have multiple choices, but all the distributions would need to follow similar behaviors with documentation, tools, etc. Until there is a more seamless experience, GNU/Linux will only be the choice of the bold, and not the masses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by CRCulver on Friday August 22 2014, @12:32PM
The backend of the various desktop choices has already been integrated for years now thanks to the Free Desktop standard. Whether you are running Gnome, KDE or Enlightenment, your desktop's paths of interacting with the system are similar. As for the front end, this is the most acrimonius aspect of a desktop interface where everyone wants to go in a different direction, but would you expect otherwise when "desktop users" in fact refer to a wide range of people with different needs? In the early millennium, when GNOME started disabling customizability and removing options, it might have alienated people who wanted a home desktop, but it was right in line with what usability studies found is best for corporate desktop users.
When people advocate for more desktop unity than already provided by Free Desktop etc., then it's likely that what they oppose is simply choice itself. But why shoehorn everyone with their different needs into a single way of working?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 22 2014, @01:52PM
Ubuntu tried and didn't go far enough? What kind of shit are you smoking?
Ubuntu went too far, Canonical like Mozilla turned their stable and extremely useful flagship product into a cryptically laid-out and dumbed down overcommercialized pile of shit.
<most interesting man in the world> I don't always run Ubuntu, but when I do I prefer 10.04. </most interesting man in the world>
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday August 22 2014, @03:53PM
My feel, systemd is trying to do this, but I don't really like their methods. I'm not so partial to init, but I do not like the monolithic approach systemd is taking. It also goes against your suggestion of a modular solution, unless you are considering things like gnome, kde, xfce, openoffice, and libreoffice as the modular choices.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday August 22 2014, @04:35PM
systemd is not a desktop environment, it's an init daemon and system-management daemon. This isn't something unique to desktop systems, it's something that embedded systems and servers also can make use of or actually require. So yes, it is an example of different distros working together on something, but it has very little to do with Linux-on-the-desktop.
As for the "monolithic approach", last I checked, systemd is actually composed of various modules, and you don't have to actually run them all. I could be wrong on that though.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 22 2014, @04:02PM
Ubuntu had it in the bag and blew it. They had the rep of being the best choice for a beginners Linux, a huge (and easy to use) software installation/package management GUI and the insanity of Windows 8 was just around the corner. Then, the they caught that same brain disease that has been sweeping across the industry the last few years "Super Arrogance/GUI Crap-ism." and made UNITY the default. If they hadn't done that, I think we'd have a huge base of Ubuntu desktops right about now.