What could GNOME OS be?

Desktop
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The GNOME project is evolving towards a GNOME OS, there is already a GNOME OS Nightly, but this is just a test field, not a full-fledged operating system.
I’m curious to speculate on what the GNOME OS might be?

First, and most importantly, how GNOME OS will be funded?
I think the funding could come from Flathub payments, because only GNOME will receives a percentage of app sales/donates from Flathub (maybe Codethink too?)

But, most importantly, it’s about GNOME OS, I believe that GNOME OS must stand out from hundreds of other GNU/Linux distributions and be competitive with Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, and Android.
Most importantly, it’s be attractive to every user!

The problem is that there is really not a single Linux distribution at the time, that is convenient to regular users, who don’t know about computers, don’t know what megabytes, gigabytes, graphic cards, drivers, terminals, wayland and so on.
For the reason GNOME OS should just work out of box, so that the GNOME OS will automatically install drivers, automatically updates, automatically sends error reports to the developers, automatically fixes itself if something is broken, etc.
It’s funny, but most distribution developers don’t care about these obvious problems.

And one more thing it’s GNOME Shell, it is not really ready for regular users, it still lacks the ability to put files on the desktop, and dock… Dock still not a full-fledged :frowning: For this reason many people will avoid the GNOME OS.

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GNOME OS already exists, and its scope is exactly what it says on the tin:

  • provide a platform for design iteration and QA testing
  • provide a minimum viable product capable of being used by downstreams for their own projects, or for regression testing on their own products

Anything else is out of scope.

If you have a few million dollars, resources, and time, you could take GNOME OS and provide your own security and hardware enablement teams, and then go toe to toe with other companies working on Linux distributions; or you could try and deal with Microsoft, and sell your product to OEMs and ODMs. Other people have tried, maybe you’ll succeed.

As far as the GNOME project is concerned, that’s not achievable, so it’s entirely out of scope.

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:sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :sob: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

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Maybe open separate topics on how unit and driver issues can be handled, while also giving sample issues.

You can also open separate topics for these. There is already the automatic update option in Software. Sending automatic reports can also be discussed. It’s about discussing what’s needed, then having designs (and approval). After that, some developers have to volunteer for the development of the necessary parts. Ultimately, it will be up to the downstream distributors to decide whether to use these features or have their own tools.

Same. I think you need to explain why having a dock on the desktop is better than the current methods of launching applications and switching windows.

I think GNOME OS is not the ideal name here. GNOME Dev OS or GNOME Test OS would be more directly representative of what it is and avoid the hope of a GNOME OS for users.

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I shared some ideas about the dock here Dock on the Desktop (#90) · Issues · Teams / Design / Whiteboards · GitLab

Without the dock, GNOME feels very uncomfortable, I think it is much more convenient to use GNOME with a touchpad because of the gestures, but I don’t have a laptop.

On Windows, I use Dock/Panel, to switch apps, unhide, or hide it, to launch a new application, I use start menu.
All these actions are very easy to do using only the mouse on Windows,
but on GNOME all these actions to do with a mouse is incredibly painful and time-consuming.

Time, this is an especially important resource in wartime, because I have electricity not often and not for a long time :sob:

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There’s just no way we can ever provide an OS that is as good as Ubuntu, Fedora, or other major Linux distros. A huge amount of work goes into those distros. (Now a lot of work goes into GNOME OS too, but there’s just no comparison.)

Yeah, maybe we should consider a rename.

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You’re about 10 years too late for that; but, even if you jumped in a DeLorean and changed the name, “GNOME OS” is still pretty much descriptive of what this thing is, as opposed to its limitations and scope. It’s an operating system, built by GNOME, for GNOME. You can use it as a base for your own product/project, and you can use it as your personal build. It’s not a “universal operating system”, nor it claims to be.

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I think it’s stupid to create a system completely from scratch, with own repositories and other technical things.
The main thing is to take a cool and modern distribution as a basis, like Fedora Silverblue, using only Flatpak apps, and configure the distribution to be “smart”, to have as little work on the distribution as possible.

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Then you failed to understand what GNOME OS is and does.

Of course, telling people that they are doing a stupid thing is not a great way to endear yourself to them.

You’re absolutely free to create your own Fedora spin. That’s not what GNOME OS is.

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I don’t know how to make operating systems, it’s hard.

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If monetization is the main problem, why not take the elementary OS experience?

elementary_OS_monetization
elementary_OS_monetization1010×187 16.4 KB

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Elementary doesn’t make the OS: it takes Ubuntu, and Canonical’s work on hardware enablement and security updates. This limits the scope of the donations to what Elementary does and does well: the UI and application development layer.

Additionally, Elementary does not have an advisory board and a sizeable number of contributors working on what would be direct competitors.

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I think it’s a good idea to implement Pay What You Can as a temporary experiment. Perhaps a miracle will happen, and the influx of money will allow to fund a small team of full-time Gnome OS developers.

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It’s called “Donate to the GNOME Foundation”: Donate – GNOME

You can also set up a recurring donation.

The donations received by the Foundation make up a fair chunk of the money that the project can use to pay the existing staff, the infrastructure, and events like hackfests and conferences.

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