I wonder if the unspoken “paradigm” shift is the distribution was vibe coded.
There’s a lot of contradictions on the landing page that would easily be explained by either kids writing it, or someone vibecoding the site.
Such as their claim that updates are a “single iso”, and also their claim about a single App Store, and they then go on to discuss flatpak and homebrew package management.
Or their claim to have redesigned the desktop from the ground up, while boasting they run KDE/Plasma.
And there’s also the claims that it brings something totally new while then going on to describe core Linux features.
Also the scripts running “non intrusively” yet that’s just what you’d expect any seasoned admin to do. This isn’t a headline feature unless you’re new to the game.
Good luck to the guys. I hope they enjoy the exercise. But this is definitely a hobby project cosplaying as a serious distro
I'm not sure where some of these "contradictions" come from, as I e.g. can't find anything about them having "redesigned the desktop" on the page with those keywords. But for the rest, I don't see how they are contradictory - at least if you've spent a few seconds to understand them.
> Such as their claim that updates are a “single iso”
Updates literally are a "single image" (didn't see "iso" mentioned). Where is the contradiction?
> and also their claim about a single App Store, and they then go on to discuss flatpak and homebrew package management.
There literally is a single app store. Homebrew is not used to install apps, only for CLI tools. Flatpak is the single app store which users use to install apps (through Bazaar). Where is the contradiction?
> And there’s also the claims that it brings something totally new while then going on to describe core Linux features.
Can you explain what exactly you're referring to?
> Also the scripts running “non intrusively” yet that’s just what you’d expect any seasoned admin to do. This isn’t a headline feature unless you’re new to the game.
This distribution isn't targeted at "seasoned admins", so why wouldn't they mention something relevant to their target group? No contradiction here.
Yeah I was typing from memory on phone. So the citations aren’t going to be verbatim.
> Updates literally are a "single image" (didn't see "iso" mentioned). Where is the contradiction?
Because that’s not how homebrew works. And you can’t have a single image if you’re expecting people to install apps via their multiple different endorsed delivery mechanisms.
> There literally is a single app store. Homebrew is not used to install apps, only for CLI tools. Flatpak is the single app store which users use to install apps (through Bazaar). Where is the contradiction?
Because an App Store is ostensibly just a package manager. I get they’re making a distinction between desktop apps and CLI (homebrew does GUI apps too by the way), but when their emphasis is on “easy” and “one way to do things”, having two different ways to install apps contradicts their mission statement.
If they actually cared about this mission statement AND had half the competence they claim, they’d build a unified UI that supports all use cases rather than expect people to learn those different tools and why it matters that they’re different.
> Can you explain what exactly you're referring to?
“Aurora is a paradigm shift for Linux.
To rethink the Linux Desktop experience from the ground up, we built Aurora on new technology and principles.”
Bazaar, Plasma, homebrew, etc. none of this is unique to Thor distribution.
They also boast about being able to rollback updates. That isn’t new to Linux either. Though I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they’ve created a smoother default experience here.
> This distribution isn't targeted at "seasoned admins", so why wouldn't they mention something relevant to their target group? No contradiction here.
i didn’t say thy are targeting seasoned admins. I said seasoned admins would take for granted that’s how you’d write that code. So wouldn’t even consider it something to announce.
The only reason you’d announce it would be because you hadn’t worked in this space before and feel a sense of achievement doing the bloody obvious. (And to be clear, I have zero issue with people having projects like these to learn new skills)
Also, I clearly didn’t say “literally everything was a contradiction.”
I am interested who you think this is targeting. Because they do specifically say this is for developers (amongst other people). And the reason they give (VSCode) is a pretty noob argument. If you can’t figure out how to install an IDE then you’re clearly tech savvy enough to be a developer.
the updates being a single image has nothing to do with homebrew. The OS is a single image that gets updated, that 100% the same that every user will get daily or weekly (depending on what branch/stream you are on).
I get that. But my point is if you’ve got 100+ bits of software installed via homebrew and flatpak, then it’s a bit of a stretch to say updates are a single image.
I’m sure there is a reason for their design but the messaging is all over the place. They boast about things that you should expect to happen (like testing packages before releasing - even bleeding edge distros do this) and throw superlatives around with little substance to back them up while quoting pretty run-of-the-mill choices like KDE and VSCode. It leaves an overall impression that the people behind it can’t be taken to seriously.
If that’s unfair then I’m sorry. But it’s their job to convince me that I should trust them with something as important as an OS. It’s not my job to give them the benefit of the doubt.
If that distro is even just half as good as it claims, then they need to seriously redesign the entire landing page to be more focused on what those gains are. And I say this as someone who's ran several open source projects myself and has immense difficulties designing landing pages for them. I know it's a hard thing to get right. In fact I think it's actually harder than creating a new distro.
> Because that’s not how homebrew works. And you can’t have a single image if you’re expecting people to install apps via their multiple different endorsed delivery mechanisms.
As the other poster said, Homebrew has nothing to do with this. Please read up on how the technology works before declaring this a contradiction.
> Because an App Store is ostensibly just a package manager. I get they’re making a distinction between desktop apps and CLI (homebrew does GUI apps too by the way), but when their emphasis is on “easy” and “one way to do things”, having two different ways to install apps contradicts their mission statement.
You don't install the same things using Homebrew and Flatpak. You install apps through Flatpak, and non-apps through Homebrew etc. There aren't two ways to install apps.
Are you referring to "casks" when talking about GUI apps through Homebrew? Is that even supported on Linux?
> If they actually cared about this mission statement AND had half the competence they claim, they’d build a unified UI that supports all use cases rather than expect people to learn those different tools and why it matters that they’re different.
No, you're just arbitrarily asking for them to make changes based on your misunderstandings of the use cases of each tool.
> The only reason you’d announce it would be because you hadn’t worked in this space before and feel a sense of achievement doing the bloody obvious. (And to be clear, I have zero issue with people having projects like these to learn new skills)
No, that's not the only reason, but you're looking at the project with an extremely narrow lense while not spending any time actually looking into the technology and project, so I can understand that it's the only reason you see.
> I am interested who you think this is targeting. Because they do specifically say this is for developers (amongst other people). And the reason they give (VSCode) is a pretty noob argument. If you can’t figure out how to install an IDE then you’re clearly tech savvy enough to be a developer.
If you'd spend 5 seconds reading up on the technology, you could easily steelman a better argument.
> You don't install the same things using Homebrew and Flatpak. You install apps through Flatpak, and non-apps through Homebrew etc. There aren't two ways to install apps.
except from a user perspective there is. You have to first consider what type of app you want, and then search for it using the correct package manager.
As I said, if they had a single UI that managed both flatpak and homebrew, then it would be different. Users shouldn’t need to know which technology was used to download and install a particular package - that's a technical distinction that should be abstracted away by the "App Store".
Now I completely understand why they've taken the approach they have. But they've made a technical decision to fragment the UX while advertising the app store for its simplicity.
> No, you're just arbitrarily asking for them to make changes based on your misunderstandings of the use cases of each tool.
I'm not asking them to make any changes and I definitely do not misunderstand these tools (fun fact: I maintain a few open source projects -- so I'm probably more familiar than most with how brew et al actually work).
I'm simply pointing out how their advertising doesn't gel with the reality of the UX they're providing. It is feedback, not a request nor demand.
But for what it's worth, if they did decide they wanted to look into the possibility or a "single pane of glass" for all app management, then KDE already has a tool that might work here and which already supports pulling from different sources via extensions: Discover (https://apps.kde.org/discover). So it might be worth them taking a look at the viability of use that (again, just feedback, not a request).
> No, that's not the only reason
That’s not a rebuttal. It’s just a contradiction.
> you're looking at the project with an extremely narrow lense
I’m really not. I’m comparing it against my 30 years of professional experience with Linux (and UNIX as a whole) administration and highlighting areas where their docs are coming across as amateurish.
I’m open to being proven there there is more going on than appears, but your replies amount to “you’re wrong” without actually providing any detail why.
I run Linux workstations and because I don't get paid for keeping my workstation up to date, I do look for something that's as low-effort to maintain as possible. So it's quite possible I'm the target audience for Aurora. But the project does such a poor job of explaining why I should use this instead of any of the hundreds of other distros.
This isn't me being narrow-minded because, as I said elsewhere, it's their job to convince me that I can trust them with my hardware and my sensitive data. And their site, in it's current state, doesn't do a good job of that. In it's current state, it feels like it's being managed by people who don't have a whole lot of experience in this field.
But as I also said elsewhere, I know better than most just how hard it is to get a landing page right for a project as complex as an OS. So I'm being critical from a place of empathy rather than dismissiveness.
> If you'd spend 5 seconds reading up on the technology, you could easily steelman a better argument.
I was asking you a question. There’s no need to be confrontational with me.
I wonder if the unspoken “paradigm” shift is the distribution was vibe coded.
There’s a lot of contradictions on the landing page that would easily be explained by either kids writing it, or someone vibecoding the site.
Such as their claim that updates are a “single iso”, and also their claim about a single App Store, and they then go on to discuss flatpak and homebrew package management.
Or their claim to have redesigned the desktop from the ground up, while boasting they run KDE/Plasma.
And there’s also the claims that it brings something totally new while then going on to describe core Linux features.
Also the scripts running “non intrusively” yet that’s just what you’d expect any seasoned admin to do. This isn’t a headline feature unless you’re new to the game.
Good luck to the guys. I hope they enjoy the exercise. But this is definitely a hobby project cosplaying as a serious distro