> our main focus is shifting from (providing a distribution for old hardware) to a (functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer.)
I like Lubuntu and often use it for low powered devices and sometimes devices that aren't so low powered. This phrasing is a PR blunder in my opinion because the old focus is a lot clearer than the new focus. Here's how you should have said it:
We are focusing our resources on developing a fast, clean, functional distribution for devices manufactured in the last ten years.
Then you can go on to explain the rationale (which is all quite sensible, if you don't want to support hardware that's 15-20 years old, you don't have to, it's a pretty niche market anyway).
I have never used Lubuntu other than trying it out a few times, so this is just going off of the content in the article.
> This phrasing is a PR blunder in my opinion because the old focus is a lot clearer than the new focus
To me, it seems that they ran the numbers (kudos to them for taking an empirical approach) and figured out that their original USP was now no longer unique enough, and they need to do something different to stay in the game.
But this article makes it seem like they haven't figured out what that something different is. They list a number of things they are going to provide, including:
- leverage modern, Qt-based technologies and programs to give users a functional yet modular experience
- Lubuntu will continue to be a transparent and open distribution
- create and maintain complete documentation
And a few others. But none of these seem to be different enough from the other great choices available as Ubuntu flavors.
That's Linux Desktop distributions in a nutshell though isn't it? None of them are really different enough from Ubuntu to be noteworthy.
Personally, I think the fact that so many minor-variant distros exist is all the evidence you need that Linux is a terrible platform for customization, because if it were simple to customize everyone would just use Ubuntu and make their own changes, but instead you get all these distros.
I respectfully disagree with that. In my opinion the point of the different *buntus is convenience for beginners rather than solving hard problems. To that end I have taken Ubuntu machines at work and installed KDE and the whole process took no more than a few minutes and was pretty painless. But that's not necessarily something that a Linux n00b might realise they could do (nor even want to try)
If you look at any of the more "hands on" distros then you might find a couple of themed variations, but generally users will just recommend you install the base distro and change your personalisations yourself. As an aside I went through a phase of running a different DE/WM each week on ArchLinux. Never had any issues there.
Fedora has spins which are distributions of Fedora with differing desktop environments. The Fedora Spins website currently lists spins for 7 alternative desktop environments.
CentOS isn't even a split. CentOS is RHEL with different distribution without the trademarks - it's binary-compatible and documentation-compatible, and matches versions patch-for-patch.
Fedora is more like a split - it's the people who like RHEL but want a faster release cycle.
Not exactly. Fedora is more like a non-LTS version of RHEL, if we oversimplify it a bit. CentOS is more like a split, but their goal is to be functionally identical to RHEL.
Apart from a few philosophical design decisions (e.g. packet manager, update cycles) the main point of distros is how they are preconfigured, which default tools are installed for what job, etc. Sure I can just deinstall a couple dozen apps and then reinstall new ones doing the same job, but why should I do that when another distro directly ships what I want?
Same about being up to date. always want bleeding edge stuff that might be unstable at times, or change its GUI ever so slightly all the time? Go for arch Linux. Don't mind running a somewhat older version of most tools for some time but have it more stable? Pick Debian. Etc ..
Yep that's a great point, maybe they are not communicating what the unique benefits of Lubuntu will be in the future, or maybe they don't actually know what they'll be.
Right now Lubuntu's niche is really clear for me, if I want a lightweight, general purpose distro I use Xubuntu. If I want a really lightweight, general purpose distro I use Lubuntu. (A step beyond that if I wanted "so damn light there are probably a lot of things I don't be able to do, I would think of Puppy or Damn Small or something, neither of which I've needed to touch in a long time, not sure they're even still maintained.)
So if Lubuntu is no longer my super-light distro, erm, what is it. A competitor to Xubuntu?
(Total side note, I really love the space of light, clean, functional desktop operating systems. The most exciting development in computing for me personally would be if someone figured out how to commercialize one as a competitor to Windows and Mac. If I thought there was a good business model I'd start that company myself.)
In my experience such "lightweight" distros, over time, accumulate expanded functionality/compatibility/surface area and inevitably/gradually become "heavier".
Then the community complains "X" is too heavy, we need a lightweight system! and the cycle repeats itself.
Which is why ArchLinux is so nice that it doesn't suffer from this type of growth by nature of its design. You can very easily layer lightweight frontends on a very reliable core.
In my opinion, if you like tiny distros (as do I), you might want to look at Alpine Linux. It has a good number of up to date packages and has a very tiny footprint. The installation process could use some help to improve adoption, but it is otherwise a fun and tiny distribution of Linux.
Even at its worst (with Unity), I'd say Ubuntu does do a reasonably good job of staying out of users' way. Maybe not compared to other distros with lighter environments, but certainly compared to, say, Windows 10.
Not at all. It wasn't a comment on how well they manage it but both Mint and Ubuntu seek to work "out of the box" to the greatest extent possible. In my opinion, they do it much better than any other distro.
functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer.
It's been a while since I checked all possible distros out there (which used to be a doable thing 2 decades ago, not so much anymore) but to me this sounds just like a whole bunch of other distros out there? So yes, not the best PR.
Here's how you should have said it: We are focusing our resources on developing a fast, clean, functional distribution for devices manufactured in the last ten years.
They could have, but it also means something different because it specifically says something about older devices. Whereas it looks like they're actively shifting away from that. I'm saying 'looks like' because honestly after reading the text I'm still not sure what exactly the plan is.. On one point the core goals don't mention anythin about 10 years, and it says should still be usable on old systems which sounds like 'well, maybe, don't care' when on the other hand it also says we will no longer primarily focus on older hardware which implies there is still some focus left. Again, yes, not the best PR as this article just creates confusion because of the wroding.
> We are focusing our resources on developing a fast, clean, functional distribution for devices manufactured in the last ten years.
Very few distros want to support devices older than 10 years. That leaves the distros that want to be fast clean and functional. That really limits things down. </s>
I like Lubuntu and often use it for low powered devices and sometimes devices that aren't so low powered. This phrasing is a PR blunder in my opinion because the old focus is a lot clearer than the new focus. Here's how you should have said it:
We are focusing our resources on developing a fast, clean, functional distribution for devices manufactured in the last ten years.
Then you can go on to explain the rationale (which is all quite sensible, if you don't want to support hardware that's 15-20 years old, you don't have to, it's a pretty niche market anyway).