It's nearly finished.

A reminder that on Linux you do not even need to have a desktop at all. I suggest some menu or something so you can find the programmes you use less often. I tried that and it works but went back to using a desktop now that I have more RAM.

It's about desktop as personal computer/workstation (i.e. not server) not desktop environments...

So, what exactly is the problem "Linux" needs to fix, and how?

Linus implied the problem is that there are so many Linux distros that you can't make a "Linux binary" that works in every Linux distro... but as the first, pinned, comment mentioned, Snap, Flatpak and AppImage are the proposed solution to that problem, if it is considered as a problem. (Someone commented that it is a problem in itself that there are several solutions, but I disagree, e.g. considering the resistance Snap has received from Linux users... so it would kinda suck if Linux users were forced to use Snap, against their own will).

If your proposed solution was that there would be only one Linux distro that one company controls, e.g. Ubuntu controlled by Canonical, or RedHat controlled by IBM... one of the main strengths of Linux, compared to Windows, is exactly that it is not controlled by one big company who dictates everything.

Like when Canonical did something unpleasant with Ubuntu... fine, people like me who didn't like that, moved to other Linux distros (I moved mostly to Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, but without those bad things I don't like in Ubuntu).

Or when IBM/Red Hat surprised all CentOS users by abruptly killing off CentOS 8, obviously wanting people to pay for RHEL instead, people had the option to move to other Linux distros. E.g. I know some who moved to Oracle Linux 8, and there is a third-party "CentOS replacement", like Rocky Linux, apparently coming out.

In a way, saying that there should be only one Linux distro is like saying there should be only one digital game store in the world, or only one gaming console. Why can't all PC gamers buy all their games from Steam, or better yet, Windows Store, only? Or why can't all console gamers just play on XBox?

I guess it would be more convenient to game publishers, but still...

Seems i've been corrected, and it was 2014.... Oh well, it still is fairly old.

A lot of problems still with the desktop and other environments may be that it is slow to transition, that people don't like breaking things so not to break things you make it more complicated. But things are changing, directory structures that we used to use aren't used anymore or changed. But maybe there's too many window managers.

Though that talk Linus was talking more on the shared libraries vs statically linked code and how much a pain that was. And looking at the dead Linux games (From humble bundle) where i can't get the dependencies because they are just gone now, i'll have to agree, statically linked code would still have worked so long as say SDL and other libraries were there, but now i can't get hardly any of them to work. (Fez being an exception).

Many developers don't like what has become of their inventions, sometimes because they drifted too far from the original vision, sometimes because there was no evolution at all. So this is a nice piece of historical information, but nothing more.

wonder what he thinks of it now

Ah, fair enough... I did not have time to watch the video initially, but did now. Still, except for a GUI/desktop environment "Desktop Linux" is and has always been "Server Linux", so expecting something to radically change in order to conform to a very specific user base is perhaps an endeavor which can only be taken forward by a very specialized distro, as Linus also argued. Be it Valve or someone else who will be behind it, that remains to be seen.

I'd welcome its existence and admit it would probably have a very beneficial effect on the gaming ecosystem, though I'd still use a general purpose distro as a daily driver... because gaming is not all I do on Linux.

And before anyone mentions SteamOS, no, that's not what I am talking about - at least not as it stands today. A rehash of Debian or Arch is not something that can ever hope to gain a serious market share for Linux gaming.

Ok, seeing this thread on top of your "My thoughts about Linux 2021" thread makes me want to draw parallels to Orkhepaj's apparently severely traumatic experience with Linux gaming that made him the way he is.

But let's not do that. Yet.

What I'm wondering about is why do people feel the need to downtrod the minority every way which they can? Like, Linux gamers represent about 1% of the market share, and here people are just glorifying and shilling for Microsoft, i.e. the monopoly in the desktop market. Why do people feel threatened by such a minority? Really, what's the point of even saying "well, if the marketshare was bigger, there would be more support and games released" "Windows is thus more compatible with games". Duh.

Hey, I like stating the obvious as much as the next guy, but I'm fascinated about the motivations for doing so.

And aren't we literally the minority fighting the behemoth, as GOG gamers? The same arguments apply then too. "It's not worthwhile to support a minority cause". Errr, what.

Sure, you can carry on about the horrific Linux community who are apparently autistic (heavy needless negative connotation there from you) as much as you want - but that's just *your* perception of things. You'll find plenty of people with opposite experiences than you. I for instance happen to think the Linux community is awesome and very well informed, able to help out people with a single line of commands.

What is the objective truth? Probably somewhere in the middle of 'Linux gamers are TOXIC and autistic (I really dislike this usage btw)' vs 'Linux gamers would donate an organ to help you'. So please, let's not misrepresent things.

Linus? He's probably happy with it.

Keep in mind, the kernel is not the desktop/GUI; The kernel is the engine in your car that makes it work, not the dashboard layout you need to use.

but you need both for a desktop

You could try Hurd.... It's said to be semi-stable. So no you don't need linux for the desktop. Although i am not sure Hurd will be popular for a while.

Richard stallman explained how it used a lot of communication channels, while Linux uses a very straight forward function calling approach.