Linux Daydreaming

Are you talking hardware or software manufacturers?

I don't quite understand the point of each (round)...

I confess, my daydream is too vague to satisfy your questions. I'm sure a real tournament would be fleshed out with more nuanced and meaningful requirements. However, for fun I will try to address a few points.
1. When I mentioned manufacturers, I had companies like Dell, HP, Acer, and ASUS (and their respective hardware & software partners) in mind.
2. Over the past five 5yrs I have personally had several distros fail out of the box...particularly on fairly old laptops.
3. In terms of performance, anecdotally, I've noticed differences between some of the various Desktop Environments. Also, Arch-based distros have been a bit snappier than some Ubuntu-based derivatives on my machines. I don't know what the discrepancies are...which is why I made it a factor in the tournament.
4. "Freedom to change" is very important. Thanks to the GNU GPL, I can't see how my fantasy would diminish Linux freedom. Lets say my fantasy came true and a distro like GeckoLinux won the tournament by being the most well-rounded and appealing of them all. The manufacturers would then add a new line up of Linux machines to their portfolios with GeckoLinux pre-installed. They would advertise the machines to the masses. And for the sake of arguement, let's say 1 million noobs (who have never heard of Linux) rush out to buy these GeckoLinux machines.
- How would the new users get "the wrong idea about GNU/Linux"?
- More importantly, in what ways would the existing Linux community be impacted?

* * * I don't know the answers. I just like the discussion. * * *
 


I confess, my daydream is too vague to satisfy your questions. I'm sure a real tournament would be fleshed out with more nuanced and meaningful requirements. However, for fun I will try to address a few points.
* * * I don't know the answers. I just like the discussion. * * *
That's fine, I was just trying to actively join the discussion because I found it quite interesting and because I wanted to see what point of view you were coming from :)
 
Sometimes I daydream about when we might see the fabled "Year of the Linux Desktop". It may happen one day but I think fragmentation (as beautiful as it is) has stymied the critical mass necessary to reach it. So, I have this fantasy where a group of computer manufacturers decide to bring about the apocalypse by investing heavily in one Linux distribution. However, instead of building their own Linux distribution, they choose to set up a "winner-takes-all" Linux distro tournament for teams of developers. The rules are as follows:

Round 1 - Each manufacturer will test every distro on their own unique hardware. The distros that install flawlessly and quickly move on.

Round 2 - A group of inexperienced users will test the user-friendliness of each distro. Distros with the highest scores move on.

Round 3 - A group of advanced users will test for functionality and overall performance. Distros with the highest scores move on.

Round 4 - The remaining distros will be critiqued by a panel of digital artists who will select the one that is the most visually appealing for mass markets.

*In the event of a tie, manufacturers will consider the size and quality of each distro's existing user base, forums, and online documentation.

----------------------------------------------------------


The winning team receives $1,000,000!

----------------------------------------------------------

Now that is just the first part of my fantasy. I recognize that Ubuntu, Fedora and a few of the other "big" distros would have a huge advantage in a competition like this. So in the second part of my fantasy I imagine Linux distributions with much smaller budgets would need to pair up with other (somewhat) similar distros to pool resources and give themselves a fighting chance. Here are some of my pairings for the Ultimate Distro Team-Ups:

TEAM ABSOLUTE SLACK (Slackware + Absolute Linux)

TEAM BLACK EAGLE MOUNTAIN (Manjaro + Garuda Linux + Black Arch)

TEAM DEEP END (Deepin + Endless OS)

TEAM EL VOYAGE (elementary OS + Voyager Live)

TEAM GECKOPEN (OpenSUSE + GeckoLinux)

TEAM LITE FX (Linuxfx + Linux Lite)

TEAM MAGIC QUBES (Mageia + Qubes)

TEAM MINT (Linux Mint + Peppermint OS)

TEAM MX-TRUX (MX-Linux + Nitrux)

TEAM NEO KALI (KDE Neon + Kali Linux)

TEAM PARROT POP! (Pop!_OS + Parrot)

TEAM POLKA (PCLinuxOS + KaOS)

TEAM SOVO (Solus + Void)

TEAM SPARQ (SparkyLinux + Q4OS)

TEAM TOOTOO (Gentoo + Funtoo)

TEAM ZORT (Zorin OS + Tails)

From there my fantasy fades and I'm left wondering what would happen. I suspect the team with deepest pockets probably wins...but boy, I sure would like to see the end products that these teams might come up with. Wouldn't you??
Nice dream.Mine is more modest:a Linux loaded laptop made in Canada that cost less than $1000.00 CDN.
 
That's fine, I was just trying to actively join the discussion because I found it quite interesting and because I wanted to see what point of view you were coming from :)
In hindsight, the whole daydream may have been my creative side creating a reason to come up with fun team names. But I certainly would love to see Linux gain a much larger % of the desktop market.

And some distro team ups would be really cnl too.
 
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Since it's appropriate for the topic: Happy GNU year to you! :cool:
 

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