[Tangent] Desktop Environments and their threats

Chat about Zorin
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For me personally, I consider Gnome to be antithetic to FOSS.
Simplifying it to one argument does not negate all the removals of functionality Gnome does, nor does it detract from the guidance of Gnomes antics being led by a desire to remove modularity and assert dominance in the same vein as Microsoft.
The clearest that I can state this is simply: We migrated away from Windows in order to free ourselves from developers seizing control and ownership of our personal computers.
To witness a repeat of this behavior from Gnome is utterly disturbing. Your example of LibAdwaita is a pure example of a developer seizing control for no other reason than to have and retain control from the users.
I posted in a different thread about the commentary that it is a "big no" to patch or fork or extend upon the theming API's and LibAdwaita - this is an extremist point of view that utterly disregards the FOSS environment that GnuLinux thrives in.

If you want call it "evil:", feel free.
What I can say is that those of us that speak up and voice our discontent are doing so for good reason.

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Theoretically You can install another DE from the Ubuntu Base Repos. That Zorin itself offers other DE's, it doesn't look like at the Moment. I mean, they shrink actually because they end the Lite Desktop in th Future. And replace Gnome ... well that is a lot of Work I think.

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They have expressed no interest in changing Desktop Environments at this time.
The only expression they have given directly is one that supports Gnome,
They have announced the termination of using XFCE and releasing Zorin OS Lite in the near future.
This solidifies Gnome as dominant, due to a highly popular Distro setting it as the Exclusive Default desktop.

I disagree with this - this does not mean that I think the ZorinGroup is "evil" by any means. Opinions and Vision vary widely on these topics.

I am heavily influenced by the timing - when I made my initial foray into GnuLinux was at the very end of the Freedom era and the very beginning of the new Microsoft-like era in which GnuLinux is transforming into Red Hat (IBM) vision of being fully integrated and standardized the same as Windows OS.
I experienced a brief stint of the freedom as I watched the immediate regressions stripping them away.
The timing, for me, was not a slow and gradual process. It was stark. Since I arrived at this transition, I was looking up 8 month old guides that were rendered obsolete on the versions introduced during my migration.
What I could have done had I joined GnuLinux sooner - I can no longer do.

I began many projects that were built on what I can do that were made defunct not long later.
Many users just join GnuLinux to have a working computer, but I joined while also coding and expanding my own skills, which meant I was far more observant and more heavily affected by the changes that cut the strings of the swords of Damocles over my head.
All of this influences my voiced position.
This is a bias, However, this is not an unfavorable one- Users that do not do development still rely on development and having someone voice their experiences is very helpful to them to gauge the direction of our future.

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Honestly, I've stayed on Zorin despite GNOME being a pretty big con for me, independent of its antics as a project. With NO distro offering everything I want and the two closest being A) broken on my hardware or B) immutable, it didn't make sense to leave altogether. The black mark that is GNOME feels bigger now though. Time to prod myself into trying rolling releases that run Plasma 6 I guess. If I'm stepping out of my Debian comfort zone, might as well bungie jump.

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For me, this applies to Browsers, lol. I cannot find one that has all the features I want. Some offer some of what I want that others lack, yet those others have features I want the first few lack. It is strange and weird.
It's like they conspire and plan it. (They don't. )
I do not dislike the Gnome D.E. experience (non vanilla). I just do not find it conducive to my workflow. Gnome likes to hide the tools, the ones it does not remove. Hidden behind hamburgers and gsettings. Gnome wants me to experience not just their desktop, but their firm belief about how to act and behave.

I like my tools laid out where I can see, access and reach them. To me, a menubar is part of the toolbox, not an eyesore to be eliminated.
Gnome removed it
Then they removed the toolbar, too.

I am not vision impaired. But I am dismayed by Gnomes recent trend of not respecting those who are. Gnome eliminated many desktop and file manager elements that assist the vision impaired making things like scrollbars a nightmare.
Gnome wants to make a Mobile-like interface, with scrolling run automatically. Scrolling cannot be done automatically. It is often a precision movement on a desktop P.C.
This is why range has fine tune marks.

.... I am ranting.

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If I had a nickel for every time I pinned a ribbon menu that Windows or Office was sure I didn't want to see...

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It's been a while... I had actually forgotten about this...

Yep. Yep. Same thing.

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Ok I'm going to duck from hurled stones and mud but I don't mind the desktop environment that came with Zorin Core. Ok before you judge me, wait! Wait!

Remember I just came from Windows and macOS! I don't even know how to call Linux properly yet! (despite the multiple gentle corrections, made to a grown person...) So let me explain.....

...it's just because right away it was so familiar to use and I was relieved as a keyboard-centric user to see so much accommodation. Even the commands are so familiar and similar that it was like no learning curve. This is without tiling even. I thought it was well thought out and equipped with every comfort. I would have given a 5 star rating.

So that is probably why they are sticking with Gnome (though really I don't know if it was the window manager, the de or the shell that is responsible for such a functional design). Not because they love Gnome and hate everything else.

Ok but here again I need to dodge missiles ... when y'all explained what FlatPaks were I got pretty intrigued. WAIT!!! Purely from an objective interest! I swear I haven't been here long enough to know why people hate them yet! Anyhoo I was poking around to learn more about them and I happened upon the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines site and they seemed reasonable to me, interested in accessibility and pretty consistent with the demands of any marketplace interested in creating a reliable environment. Maybe these are outdated and what they did away with, I don't know.

Anyway forgive me everyone, I'm really not even sure what's missing now or what changed, just that everyone is upset about it, so I hope Zorin can come up with a solution to not leave people out. If anyone here can chip in money or skills to help get Zorin an alternative de it would be nice because then there would be a choice without overburdening a probably already overworked team.

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Although the Zorin Core Desktop is based on Gnome, it is the Zorin Desktop not the Gnome Desktop. The two in appearance, use and layout are quite different.
For me, Zorin Core is the most usable implementation of Gnome that I have seen on any distro.
It is not usable enough, for me, for it to be a better alternative to other D.E.'s.
But as Desktops based on Gnome go - I agree it is one of the top ones. They added quite a lot.

GnuLinux.
Linux is the kernel.
While you get people like me that differentiate the names; in reality, so many refer to GnuLinux as just "linux" that it is very easy to get away with just calling it Linux.

This is a good thing. It is best to examine and research things for yourself.
There are associated problems with Flatpak but there are also solutions associated with Flatpak.
Like Wayland, Flatpak brings controversy because in trying to fix one thing, they broke something else.
Neither Flatpak, Snap or Wayland are ready for prime time. The biggest cause of the controversy stems from each and all of the above being applied with force, even while unready, by developers.
Canonical, the company that makes Ubuntu, promised the users that it would not replace APT with Snap. It immediately broke that promise and quietly replaced APT with Snap. In fact, you could install using apt, giving the apt command, and the system would then install the Snap without informing the user of the change it made. This has a lot to do with the controversy.

They do seem that way. Seem...
This is something that I will not delve into here and now... I just leave you with this thought: If you really wanted to convince a person to accept something you know they will not want to accept, you would create a bit of P.R. to market it hoping to attract as many people as you can.
Look deeper... Look closely at actions, not words.

I think you are very insightful in this - Artyom Zorin has said as much directly. What Gnome offers them, with scripting and extensions which they already have a strong understanding of without re-training is a benefit to them.
Yes, perhaps KDE's Plasma can emulate Windows OS in some ways better. But it would delay all Core Development to switch to it.
The issue I personally disagree with is the exclusivity of Gnome support at this critical time.

I hope this clarifies some standings on these issues.

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This is definitely not a forum where missiles will be thrown, don't worry. I prefer .debs, but I don't mind flatpaks in general. Snaps get more hostility than flatpaks anyway, for reasons Aravisian explained.

I just moved away from Windows a few months ago because Microsoft was ever more intrusive about controlling my computer. As long as I don't feel like a technology is inescapable or intrusive, I don't get too riled. Zorin installs snapd by default, but I can get rid of it without breaking the system and use .debs, flatpaks, and AppImages. I object to snaps for the reasons Aravisian gave, and because too much control lies with Canonical.

In the case of GNOME, the latest changes didn't affect me at all. Other than selecting a non-default interface from Zorin Appearance, I haven't changed things and didn't notice whatever was done. It bothers me in principle, but in principle I don't like systemd, either, and yet I'm running Zorin, which uses it. The reason I'll spend time this weekend subjecting myself to much less user friendly distros like Arch and OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is because the "in principle" issue was also a last straw for me. I only recently switched to Linux, but I TRIED to back in 1998, and even then I strongly preferred KDE (at the time it wasn't Plasma—in fact, KDE stands for "K Desktop Environment") over GNOME. This is just "Okay, one annoyance too many, PLEASE let me find another distro closer to my goals."

It bugs me not having Plasma as an official, out of the box desktop environment, but that doesn't mean I don't understand. Nothing is ever going to satisfy everyone, and GNOME didn't start out ticking people off. As Aravisian mentioned, it was originally a protest to KDE using Qt, which was proprietary at the time. I don't know much at all about the Zorin brothers, but if their background and familiarity is with GNOME, including it makes sense. I just wish they included alternatives.

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Ah, yes! When they come to You in an aggessive Tone and say ''It is called GnuLinux!''. And then they ''preach'' like religious Fundamentalists.

And one Thing: When You like Gnome, You don't have to justify. That is not a bad Thing. In the Linux World, You have the choice if You use Gnome, KDE, xfce, Cinnamon or whatever DE You want. When it suits You, that is what matters. Sure, the Zorin Desktop is a highly customized Desktop Version of Gnome; no doubt.

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Yes this has actually happened, not here of course. Here I see some people call it Linux and some people call it GnuLinux and I just assumed Linux was some general term and GnuLinux meant something more specific. But trust me, if you are sleuthing down information on the web and happen on some other GnuLinux sites you will see things get heated over that. It makes me appreciate this forum even more. And if I ever have need to speak of my os in public, I'm just going to call it "Zorin".

Yeh that makes sense, it seems like leaving Windows has been a rocky ride for you so far and you're no longer interested in compromise. I hope you update us after the weekend adventures.

And of course, I haven't tried the other ones so there could be one I like better.

Well that's solid advice. I will keep that in mind and keep watching.

Actually I forgot to mention the part I found most disturbing, that quote there. Their actions seem to show so much disregard and contempt for people in general.

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I wouldn't call it "rocky" so much as frustrating. As I've expressed in other threads, Zorin's goals and mine are misaligned, and there's nothing wrong with that. It wants to be a safe, stable, easy to adopt Windows alternative that you CAN game on. I'm looking for a faster moving, gaming targeted distribution, but the ones I've found (Nobara, Bazzite, Garuda, Draugr) are all out of the question for one reason or another. (Unstable on my machine, immutable, HEAVILY modified KDE Plasma that I can't stand, dubious staying power in that order.) I know precisely what I want, and at this time, Nobara seems to be the only option... but is just very unstable.

Sadly, I balked at Arch when I read the installation instructions. (I'll have to look at Arch derivatives sometime; some make a point of addressing the pain of installing.) OpenSUSE Tumbleweed seemed pretty promising, but their instructions for installing Nvidia drivers kept offering "do this or this," with one method or the other just not working, failing on the side of OpenSUSE's repositories, not Nvidia. I finally got it installed and got the drivers installed and a game running to test, only for it to work fine in Steam but behave weirdly and then kill my video output entirely (no signal to monitors) upon exiting a game running via Bottles.

It also doesn't support my VPN, despite using RPMs, though that seems to just be an issue with ProtonVPN's install instructions not liking OpenSUSE. Might be able to unravel that, but settled for invoking WireGuard from the CLI instead. So I suppose that's my positive take: I can't say I know it well, but if I ever want to get connected from just the terminal, as long as I can get WireGuard, I can work it out now.

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There was also the inclusion of Amazon advertising within the O.S. several years ago.
It just reminds us all: Companies are not benign even if they start out that way. They will always push to find the angle to squeeze every last nickel and dime out of the end user.

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Just for clarity, it is GNU/Linux, this is to differentiate the fact that GNU came first (GNU (is) Not Unix), and Stallman wanted to create a kernel for GNU for his HurdOS, but struggled to do so, and so the Linux kernel came along a few years later. I am not chastising anyone, just relaying facts. So really we are all using GNU OS, just different manifestations, but all using the Linux kernel; you can't have one without the other.

Now in regard to Flatpak, this was a group of independent developers trying to establish an alternative system for installing software without the need for OS dependencies. An innocent innovation, that caught Red Hat's eye ... and who do they send to the group to find out more? None other than Herr Poettinger, hence Red Hat's adoption of Flatpak, and they were trying to use their muscle to make it the default method for packet management across the GNU/Linux universe. (Herr Poettinger was responsible for introducing the megalith of systemd to replace SysVinit used to boot the system, but systemd also creates interdependencies throughout the system which users have no control over and make GNU/Linux more resource hungry than if it were not present. Herr Poettinger is also responsible for the inferior audio system Pulse Audio, who in his silly way names an associated service of PulseAudio 'rtkit'! I have seen many posts on other forums where they believed they had been infected with a rootkit!)

So Ubuntu decides in its haughtiness to counter flatpak with snap. There is of course a third alternative that is OS agnostic, App Image.

The problem with all these alternatives is they are 'removed' from the system of GNU/Linux. IMHO, this adds another layer of problems as updates have to be run separately from system updates making GNU/Linux more problematical to maintain.

Why don't I like any of these? Because it is the big boys of GNU/Linux trying to dictate what the community needs. As the founding fathers slowly disappear from view, this is when we all fall foul of complacency (and ignorance, GNU/Linux has to be by the community, for the community, not some Microsoft wannabes like IBM (RedHat), and their ilk.)

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You mentioned RedHat was behind flatpaks and we all know Canonical is behind snaps. Who's the "big boy" behind AppImage? I'm not going to tell anyone they specifically need one of these package formats, but one of the reasons I favor Debian based distributions is that .deb is more commonly available than anything else when I try to download software not in a repository. So .deb is receiving the defacto benefit of Canonical's weight—it may not be what Ubuntu wants to support anymore, but it became the package of choice for many developers and companies because of Ubuntu's outsized adoption.

I see two ways to avoid Canonical, RedHat, or another third party dictating their packaging: either make everything available as a .deb, AND a .rpm AND .whateverarchuses AND AND AND, which is non-feasible, or have a community supported, distribution independent package. The alternative is that large numbers WILL adopt snap/flatpak/whatever for convenience. If I were a new user running something not Debian or Fedora based and wanted software outside my repos, I'd be pretty screwed if not for the existence of distribution independent packaging. Even Valve, which maintains its own Arch distribution for Steam Deck, only provides .deb.

I prefer native packages for the reason you stated: simple package maintenance in line with the intention for GnuLinux. I avoid snaps to avoid Canonical's control of them. My ideological preferences start to hit turbulence when I can't get software I want to use, though. I see two ways to avoid Canonical, RedHat, or another third party dictating their packaging: either make everything available as a .deb, AND a .rpm AND .whateverarchuses AND AND AND, which is non-feasible, or have a community supported, distribution independent package. The alternative is that large numbers WILL adopt snap/flatpak/whatever for convenience. If I were a new user running something not Debian or Fedora based and wanted software outside my repos, I'd be pretty screwed if not for the existence of distribution independent packaging. Even Valve, which maintains its own Arch distribution for Steam Deck, only provides .deb. (AUR is a thing for Arch, but I don't really like the idea of random people repackaging source for easy download.)

Even those developers who DO provide .debs sometimes do it "wrong." Off the top of my head, Discord has no repository. Instead, the client itself does a version check and if it needs updating, has you download a new .deb the way you might download a new .msi on Windows. Their platform independent alternative is a tarball that includes dependencies. Setting aside any possible vulnerabilities that need addressing (not because those are unimportant, but because they can be addressed and aren't inherent to flatpaks), this seems worse than a flatpak, because the user just gets a mess of files, no version maintenance, no reliable application location, no easy uninstall in the same place as everything else, no attempt at security.

Flatpak doesn't SEEM to be directly handled by RedHat the same way Canonical lords over snaps, and I think it was you who pointed me to the OBS flatpak when the native was working poorly, because having the dependencies it was built for packaged with it made a difference. So there is a clear, if seldom visible, benefit to packaging this way, too.

So, if not snap, flatpak, or AppImage, what then? Because as I've illustrated above, there is value and in some cases need. If those in the community with clout reject all distribution independent packaging, the result isn't the "big boys" packing it in and saying, "gee, I guess everyone just wants native packages." It's abdication of a voice in the discussion. There are and will continue to be platform independent packages. The best thing those who care about keeping Linux out of corporate hands can do is come up with their own that complies with their ideals, the same way the original package formats were derived. The next best thing is to be very clear about the least of the three evils.

Though, to come back around to the start of this: who's behind AppImage, and do you dislike it for any reason other than being divorced from system updates?

Edit: Oh my god I need to learn to be more concise.

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Whilst this link does not indicate its origin, it does explain/confirm that it is separate from the system:

Just to add that .deb was from Debian, and as you have already stated, .rpm is from Red Hat (redhat package managerl, and more recently in respect of red hat based distros, yum, now superseded by .dnf:

Lastly if you want to install a package that is only available as an .rpm, you can convert it using a package called 'alien' to convert to .deb. Conversely if you are running a Red Gat based distribution, you can convert .deb to .rpm by using a package called 'worm'.

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It's good to know that they're convertible, but that doesn't address the core issue. Adding another step to convert it just to use something you want may not be difficult, but it's friction. The way companies get you to do what they want is by minimizing friction. Want to use our service? Look, you don't even need to sign up, just use your Google ID! Want to avoid OneDrive? We're going to make that as high friction as possible, so that as many of you as we can get set it up just to make Windows quit asking you to at boot!

Being separate from the system is part of what allows AppImage to work reliably. It carries its dependencies with it, so a system change won't alter them. That's got problems. I won't pretend it doesn't, and some of those can extend to security problems. To users educated on Linux, there are major advantages to packages made properly. To someone who just wants their damn program to work, the lowest friction method will be preferable almost all the time. I'm using OBS as a flatpak now, not because I wanted to, but because that got rid of the stuttering in recordings without going down a rabbit hole for who knows how long.

In a more extreme example, the Internet had everything AOL had to offer before it appeared, but it was largely inconvenient to find and use for people who lacked the knowledge or interest in figuring it out. But the tech savvy were happy, so we stuck with IRC and so forth. Then AOL rolled up, made things easy for one and all, and the Internet gained millions of new users. Compuserve and Prodigy also had a shot at it, but didn't do as good a job of making it easy to do what people wanted, so they lost out.

What I'm saying is, there WILL BE a low friction, distribution independent method. The fork in the road is "make one that meets the norms of Linux," "advise people to the one that's least bad," or "condemn them all and have the big guys that concern you (justifiably; I'm here to get away from MS!) ultimately have their next systemd." (And yes, I realize "make one" is kind of unhelpful and non-trivial, the way people tell me "just learn Japanese" when I dislike poor localizations, but it is ultimately the only way to completely solve the problem in both cases.)

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I briefly joined the test group for Windows 10, it automatically without my consent started uploading to One Drive everything I had saved to Documents. After a very small amount of unrequested uploads which were paltry in size, that I needed to sign up for more space at £3.50 a month. My solution was to delete One Drive. My preferred Cloud Storage presently is murena.io. When I joined after purchasing an e.foundation Fairphone 3+ I got a free e.email account and 1 Gb of free Cloud Storage and all their servers are in Norway not in Data Scraping US. I now pay a very reasonable £16 a year for 20 Gb of storage which is all I need. So I think, in terms of this thread it is a case of being aware what is out there, and what respects your Privacy. It can be a maze, and takes time to find a clear path through it. In my early days of GNU/Linux I discovered the community edition of Linspire, Freespire. Now this was an excellent distribution, Debian based, a Windows like desktop (KDE I think), but a security issue if you installed just yourself which gave you automatic root priveleges, but easily remedied if you installed a separate root account, then your own account as a standard user after install.
They had a brilliant software installer which used an easy to use GUI, called Click'n'Run. It was just about to reach it's zenith, when Michael Robertson, the man behind the paid version, Linspire, sold everything off to Xandros, which was comprised of what used to be Corel Linux (of Word Perfect fame).

I do find Q4OS a pleasant experience which uses its own software installer, OSI. When it installs a package it shows what it is being installed and where the libraries are being placed in the system, but not slow enough for you to note everything. Q4OS is a fork of Debian, and whilst it sadly uses systemd, I find it a better fit for Windows users, whether it is the Plasma 5.27 version or the Trinity Desktop version available in 64-bit and 32-bit. There are not many distributions that offer 32-bit, which means there are still some distributions that follow the old valid tenet of breathing new life into old machines. A classic example was the Eeepc netbook that came with Windows XP Home. The service I worked for used these for students as a display device for Braillenotes, which were replaced with small monitors so that mainstream teachers in school could see what the blind students were entering on their Braillenotes. When the Eeepc netbooks were decomissioned, the Manager of the Service started to use one of them for working at home. She came to me complaining it was no longer usable as Windows updates had filled the system partition. Now these were unusual machines. They came with a 10 Gb SSD with forced partitions of 4 Gb for the system and 6 Gb for Data. I tried to reinstall XP on the 6 Gb partition ... it wasn't having any. I searched the web which confirmed it was not possible. Solution? I installed Zorin 6 Core on the 6 Gb partition and was the first time I had to use '/boot' partition on the 6 Gb partition to ensure '/' on the 6 Gb would boot. The 4 Gb partition was used for '/home'. I took it one step further and naughtily installed a third-party app called 'Win 2.7-7' (not sure if I have remembered correctly) but what this did was install the Windows 7 bootsplash, and also installed all the MS program icons in Zorin's Arc Menu. I then installed Wine so I could install a licenced copy of MS Office 2007 Standard. Everything worked perfectly ... and she never used it! :face_with_symbols_over_mouth: :scream: :sob: :imp:

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Android or Samsung... I cannot remember which... was doing this thing where once in a while, it would show you a slideshow, composed of the images in your phone camera that you have taken, playing music and titled "Your Memories Of -such and such date-"
Which is annoying and invasive. I did not pay much attention to it.
I was selling on eBay as a seller at the time, so a lot of my camera photos were of those to accompany item descriptions.
One day, I got an alert saying I have memories available. What? I thought. Am I getting that old?
I opened it and pictures of HO Scale Steam Engine parts and wrenches were coming into focus and slowly zooming in on them with a background of Epic Music. I got a laugh out of it.

It is a funny thing. I have no password locking my phone. Any human being that picks it up, if so inclined, can just go through all my texts and photos. No one ever does... But... somehow, a company doing it seems invasive. They will use it for nefarious purposes. I wish I could password lock them out.

I remember this and how angry it made me. And I could not get it to stop.
I also use Murena and have an e.email address.

Kali used to be like this, too.