True! And for an enthusiast who wants to spend only a few days on finding a distro and setteling into it, like me, its nice to have only three (big) DEs, which you can test and choose in one day and then are set for the further journey.

Now “bundle” a distro to each DE and a newbie would have that experience for the whole distro-finding-experience

I have to interject: It is not like bread, as it is a bigger commitment (as I dont want to distrohop for longer than a week) and also it is more complex to create an OS than to create a bread (so more manpower is needed). Choice is a good thing. But too much choice can be bad. Imagine someone is directing a “linux curious” person to distrowatch. There the newbie will be overwhelmed. Maybe not and he just clicks on a distro and tries it. Probably a bad idea as the change from his previous (corporate) OS is a big change already, now the newbie uses a distro which probably doesnt fit his needs.

My case is that, like with the fediverse, the different options hinder the wider adoption, as potential new users have a problem with it during onboarding. Which is a difficult time as is. Even for someone who is switching from Windows to MacOS, two polished and widely adopted OSes, they are gonna have a hard time. Now add the choice from dozens of distros and the very vocal linux community and the switch is impossible for many potential new linux-users.

I’d like to say that I am not brainwashed, I am currently using Debian+KDE in Dualboot wuth Windows and Linux Mint for the selfhosting server. (Yes I know, this is the wrong distro for a server, it was my first contact with linux so I just picked the most polpular among newbies. Which is kind of the point of the whole thread.)

Well put, thanks

No corporate control, not less options.

There need to be a handful of distros with less settings, being more “fixed”.

I personally like to being able to set everything how I like it.

But it just isnt necessary to have THAT many actively developed distros. If devs could drop 1/4 of the distros and redirect their efforts on bigger projects, those would profit massively.

Thanks, you condensed my thoughts very well. The point with flatpak is very important. I used discovery by kde but it seemed not as polished as it should be. Not to say that there are better “stores”. I hope the inclusion of flatpak/flathub into distros/DEs gets improved significantly and gets adapted wider.

I’ve read that before, didnt realize that this was a joke…

No, I dont suggest that there should be another new distro. The existing ones are pretty good at the goal of being userfriendly, at least some of them like Linux Mint

It is a problem if the goal is to increase the “personal desktop OS marketshare”.

But diversity is a good thing for itself I agree. I have the feeling that it is a bit sad that it seems that there isnt one or two “main” distros, which one could recommend that tech illiterate family member.

Yes, sorry, that wasnt my intention.

When I talked about “Linux” or “distros” i only ment Desktop OS for personal use. Sorry!

Agree! I dont want to dictate anyone and I understand that my rant wont change anything.

It was more about the hypothetical optimum “if we one wanted to optimize for user-share of the desktop OS market”, then there should be fewer but better distros.

I instinctively do that as well, on Windows, Cinnamon and Plasma and it didnt work on Gnome, Superkey opened the Startmenu but then typing didnt search. Thats what I wanted to ask, if I miss something obvious or if Gnome doesnt offer that feature out of the box.

Debian probably changed the Key for the Spotlight-like search.

Short question because thats what made me swap to KDE: How do you quickly open an app, without navigating through the categories with your mouse?

Now make me look stupid :D

Very true in my limited experience

I upvoted you. <3 My experience was very similar but with the two swapped: After I used Linux Mint (with Cinnamon) I tried Debian, it came with Gnome.

I struggeled to find the apps (I dont know what they are called on a new OS) but I didnt find out how to search for them. Win+Type didnt search, I didnt see an obvious Spotlight feature like on apple.

Then I wanted to change some settings and couldnt change them (I dont remember what). I felt like customisation wise I’m using macOS, and thats a bad thing. So like you I reinstalled Debian with KDE after less than 1h in gnome.

Thats why we need different DEs, maybe they and their variations are more important than the huge selection of distros.

So the preinstallation of all the KDE apps is a choice of the distro?

On both Linux Mint and Debian+Plasma I got some apps preinstalled. That I can uninstall and that they arent developed by the same people doesnt play a role. For the user they come with the OS, like Win10 preinstalls the calculator and Candy Crush

I tested Gnome and KDE Plasma5 in the last year. KDE Plasma is in my opinion the first DE which is comparable with Win/MacOS. It looks modern, is pretty much feature complete and as an average user its nice to have useful apps preinstalled (calculator, libreoffice, firefox and so on), but no bloatware.

Its just a bit more customizable than windows, which is perfect and also not fiddly and a pain. It certainly has a handful of quirks, like Windows does, but you get used to them.

If I have to set up elderly relatives with a computer, I’d strongly consider a KDE Plasma Desktop

I saw the video by noBoilerplate. How useful is knowing and using Vim-Shortcuts when writing a letter or an email? Does it only make sense to learn it if you write or code all day or is it useful enough for moderate tech users or office workers?