Remote-Url: https://venam.nixers.net/blog/programming/2021/01/26/future-of-distros.html Retrieved-at: 2022-01-31 10:00:50.749325+00:00 * Blog * About * Projects * Others Venam's Blog // Patrick Louis A Peek Into The Future Of Distros Jan 26, 2021 The world description from an hermetic point of view was always convoluted and full of retrospective to enforce meaning The year of the Linux desktop is coming, and it looks like a pi?ata of micro-services. Let?s break it and see the candies inside. * systemd core ? the building block framework abstracting basic functionalities * A universal package manager with a single repository where anyone can push * flatpak/appimage/snap ? containarized applications * polkit, desktop portal, and apparmor ? granular security * systemd-homed ? movable home with an immutable base system * wayland compositors ? the graphical environment * pipewire ? media pipeline If you?re bored you can leave now, that?s it. Otherwise, let me get more ideas out, but nothing surprising to anyone that has been following RedHat, the freedesktop.org, and systemd. The key innovation of the picture I lay above is that every layer in the system is now isolated and communicate with one another through d-bus services. D-bus is fantastic in its own right and good at abstracting functionalities. All of these pieces need one another. Wayland compositors need pipewire to be able to access media hardware, and pipewire needs a polkit-like mechanism (D-Bus services such as policy managers and desktop portals) to select who can do that. Similarly, containarized applications access the rest of the system through systemd services, polkit, portals, and pipewire. What this leads to is a base system that is stable, a solid framework to build on. The home is transportable inside a systemd-homed, along with the containarized apps, proprietary or not. The deep secret insider info I got tells me that this is a giant scheme to get us all in a vendor lock-in. I can lie, this is the internet. Or better (or worse?), this is a new Android ecosystem. Who?s going to nag when this is all done in the open; when the open source movers are the implementers of the de-facto implementations; when they keep piling the standards until nobody can follow them. I believe the direction the Linux desktop is going towards will bring more incentives for investments. Distributions uniqueness won?t matter anymore as they?ll be centralized around a ?store? where devs will push directly. (see previous post about distros roles) Leave a comment if you weren?t aware of this vision of how distros will look in the future. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you want to have a more in depth discussion I'm always available by email or irc. We can discuss and argue about what you like and dislike, about new ideas to consider, opinions, etc.. If you don't feel like "having a discussion" or are intimidated by emails then you can simply say something small in the comment sections below and/or share it with your friends. The Author: I am Patrick Louis aka Venam, a deliberate person tackling the world as a system of interconnected ideas and concepts. Blog About Projects Others * Ascii Arts * Screenshots * Book Recommendations * Arts * Cooking * Quotes * Poems Help me with a contribution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- subscribe via RSS: All recent ? Computer Related Only ? Philosophy and Psychology Only ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ? Patrick Louis aka venam.