CRUCIAL POINT in the LINUX WORLD

As many of you may already know, Ubuntu 18.04 which will be released in April of 2018 will ship with GNOME 3, not UNITY.

Many people will like this, but many people will not.

So this is a crucial period in the history of Linux. Which Distribution can successfully take over the majority of users Ubuntu loses in it's harsh move?

Ubuntu Gnome reminds me of Unity too much.
MATE and even Kubuntu's latest are quite improved but still glitchy.
So, depends on how they can fine tune their Gnome.
If they can overcome extensions that break with every new update, then that'll already be a huge plus!

danielson: Unity however was a huge success and great DE, people are going to miss it when it goes

A heartbreaker for some i'm sure!
But, someone will surely come around to revive it at the "community" level and you know the rest.

Just wish that, instead of having 5,000 linux distros we could have at least 10 reliable that won't disappear tomorrow.

danielson: actually i like the fact that there are 5000 linux distributions. i like all the options

also, i am using unity on one of my laptops, i absolutely love the DE!

I'm sorry for you James and for all other Unity fans.

Point is, with regards to so many distros, how many will find the man power to upkeep and then perfect?

ChaletOS hasn't been updated or improved in a year almost and its dev hasn't shown any sign of life for how long?

Take Makulu... a one-man band with a fistful of followers.

If each distro could have at least 5 devs to assure stability and development, then users would have greater confidence and perhaps contribute even more since they know they're efforts would not be in vain.

danielson wrote:Just wish that, instead of having 5,000 linux distros we could have at least 10 reliable that won't disappear tomorrow.

I agree in a way but choice is a good thing, without it we are TOLD what we can and cannot use to a larger degree.
The current overload of such choices is no doubt mind boggling to the majority of newbies. Added to that, all of the inhouse and user wrangling over what is the best desktop enviroment, which is faster, which is best for this and best for that does not really help pintpoint which to try. It is very confusing.

Also for people transitioning from Windows, where they are comfortable, linux I feel has tried pretty hard to make the differences obvious in the past. They have been too afraid to make a linux distro that looks almost the same as windows intentionally, to keep their differences. Most windows users do not get involved in command prompt and never will but yet with linux seem to feel that they are bombarded with terminal this, terminal that etc etc. I fully understand the "why make a distro that looks like windows" but to assist and encourage people to make the change surely it would be a good idea. Of course they do/have exist/ed but due to the popularity within a total linux user base, not just newbies, they get swollowed up and lost in the ether.

I do think that there is a little more cohesion between linux and windows now starting due to the introduction of "apps" and software centres being adopted by windows and hopefully that will start to bear fruit for linux transitioners.