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The future of Linux

I'm not proposing anything here, I'm curious what you all think of the future.

What is your vision for what you want Linux to be?

I often read about wanting a smooth desktop experience like on MacOS, or having all the hardware and applications supported like Windows, or the convenience of Google products (mail, cloud storage, docs), etc.

A few years ago people were talking about convergence of phone/desktop, i.e. you plug your phone into a big screen and keyboard and it's now your desktop computer. That's one vision. ChromeOS has its "everything is in the cloud" vision. Stallman has his vision where no matter what it is, the most important part is that it's free software.

If you could decide the future of personal computing, what would it be?

188 comments

  • 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. :)

    • The sharing thing sounds like a security nightmare. And who the hell am I sharing files with anyway? No thanks.

      My vision of the future is having an os that'll install itself on any device I own whether the manufacturers want me to or not. I want to own the things I own.

      That's it. Everything else is fine.

      • Well, that depend a lot on how do you setup security.

        On nextcloud, i can see which device are connected to it, who, when, where and i get alert mail. When you add a new devices, as it is in the settings you will need your password. You might want to extend this security to usb storage with an isolated environnement. So all you need is a dashboard.

        The solution i suggest is also a security in case of hardware faillure. How many people do a backup and copy their important file regulary ? I think i'm just making their life easier by hardcoding it. For me it's as brushing my tooth, it's not mandatory, but it's better to make it mandatory.

        My vision of the future is having an os that’ll install itself on any device I own whether the manufacturers want me to or not. I want to own the things I own.

        Same but i differ. I don't want any kind of device to exist to reduce our footprint's carbon. Eg :

        I would limit phones to 3 models and remove all brand. No ads needed, nor announcement. Something low tech. There would be lot benefit on the software side and repairability. It's easier to maitain and it leaves our hand free to improve the OS

    • Network shares aren't exactly a new thing. They exist now for almost exactly half a century.

      • Yes and i didn't reinvent the whell. However, I still remind people to do backup accross those devices. It's not news but it's not well applied by lot people, so i would hardcode it into the OS.

        • Do you have a phone ?
        • Please scan qr code
        • Choose folders
        • Do you have a mass storage device ?
        • Connect it
        • Chose folders
        • Warning : you haven't setup any backup
        • Warning : your last backup was last week. please connect your mass storage device to save your backup.

        So, for something new, i would like to improve those utilities/tools and expand their use.

    • Syncthing hahaha. Would just need a very simple system tray / settings page UI with just the "show ID" "select folders" and more buttons

      • Ahah yeah but completely integrated in the OS so we do need to remind people to save their important data in 3 differents supports. I'm pretty sure people don't do thoses saves. Except techies and people who learned it the hard way.

        And a better UI where you can setup the folder space as a disk manager. eg : don't save video on my phone. Limit the folder to 1gb on phone. And on external mass storage, share everything : 1tb

        I think there is lot potential and that Syncthing should be integrated in the GNU/Linux's core.

    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 want to be able to use all the software I want on Linux, officially supported by the manufacturer. No more unofficial version that's kinda working but not really. All the hardware in my new Laptop should come with official Linux drivers, so I can actually use all the things I payed for. I want to be able to contact the support if something doesn't work, and not get a "we don't support that" as an answer. And I want to be able to truly recommend a Linux OS to my non-techy friends and family, so they too can enjoy the freedom and privacy instead of having to sell it out to big corporations because they just can't use a terminal.

    I don't think this "plug in your phone and use it as PC" will ever really work. Apps and games always get more fancy and demanding as computers become more powerful, and desktop PCs will always be much more powerful than phones. E.g. a couple of years ago I thought at some point I can buy a tablet and use it for heavy duty coding because it will have become powerful enough, but all the tooling just eats up the performance increase to help you be more productive.

    I also don't believe in the "OS in the cloud" thing. Always connected programs and games are shitty already, just image that with your entire OS. There are physical limitations that will always make it inferiour to a good local setup imo, at least until we figure out how to connect network devices with wormholes instead of cables. What I do believe in is having a small always-on personal server in your home, that can replace most of the cloud services we rely on today.

  • There are a couple factors that play into future-planning. The first, and most important factor is that most people neither care what OS their hardware uses or actually need more than the barest baseline. They want to spend time with their friends doing the things their friends are doing.

    This is what has allowed Android to gain such massive prominence in the mobile space. It's all that's needed to play crap web games, listen to music, watch videos, and commune on social media. Expect more and more consumer hardware to be ARM-based devices running Android for the next few years.

    The next big factor is that Linux has become a sort of driver dumping ground for reputable hardware manufacturers. Want to sell a piece of hardware? Better make damn sure it's got Linux driver support so that it can be part of an Android device. This means that more manufacturers are contributing drivers and code to the rest of Linux. It doesn't necessarily mean that code that works with Linux is going to be open source or play well with others. nvidia has proven to be an absolute bastard in this regard.

    I don't think that means the future for Linux is going to be dim. I do think we need to expect and plan for more corporate presence. Some of that presence will be good. It doesn't take much to be a good member of the community. However, we do need to keep our collective eyes out for nvidia-like presences that will only serve to anchor everyone else down.

    Where I'd personally LIKE to see Linux going is to provide more power to older hardware. We have a wealth of hardware that's in the 10-20 year-old range that can be doing useful work. The problem there is maintainership. It's harder to get volunteers to work with older hardware. If you can get people to work on supporting that hardware, it means fewer PCBs in landfills and more doing hobbyist or scientific work.

    In the 'modern' Desktop Linux space, I'd like to see a renewed focus on privacy. I'd like to see privacy features baked into the kernel alongside security features. In a lot of cases those are the same feature.

  • My favorite idea is Linux or Android-derived, or a completely new, Rust-based AGPL-licensed OS, running on 100% open RISC-V hardware. Same for its phone equivalent. All chips must be open, no secret code in them.

  • 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.

  • To be more mainstream granted it isn't because of a shitty locked down distro incompatible with the others.

    What I love most abou Linux is its freedom. It doesn't try screwing me over for their own benefit, gives me full control of the system and is broken down into components. Having the underlying system foss for many is great to provide and make it easier to adopt more ethical software for computing.

  • I think immutable distributions will be more attractive to hardware vendors. I think hardware vendors feel that current Linux is too much like the wild West. Much like Chrome OS, the immutable OS can be a lockdown for work environment or school environments.

    I can see a market for that.

    Those of us who know how to unlock it, will have a large selection a very powerful Linux hardware.

  • I hope to see Linux brought to the Web 2.0 era with proper use of Git forges. As it is, most people won't bother to go through the existing processes unless they're paid to do it. Raising the barrier to entry in order to discourage low quality submissions is a poor excuse. The existing system makes it difficult to get any changes approved or reviewed with a serious eye, regardless of their quality.

  • a small thing is that hardware will be linux focusef, such as removing the windows icon kn the super key

  • I couldn’t find a single gui resource monitor on xcfe that I wouldn’t have to build from source.

  • 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.

  • El futuro de los pcs sera importante para Linux solo si los fabricantes de hardware apuestan por Linux o las leyes oblligan a publicar sus drivers como software libre. Mientras esto no suceda, veo dificil el futuro de Linux, al comprobar como la gente renuncia tan facilmente a su privacidad a cambio de la experiencia de usar windows, google,...

  • An immutable distro with working gpu passthrough for vms (or whatvere that's called). That's the dream

188 comments