Could it be that desktop usage in general has gone down? That people use their phones and tablets for browsing and similar tasks. Then Linux would have a bigger share, but maybe not because there are more users.

As a percentage of desktop users or percentage of any users (including people who use their phones mainly)?

I agree on all points.

Banks sometimes need a 2FA app, this is what some people need “banking apps” for. The bank website itself is trivial to just use, but you need to be able to log in. In sweden, much of society, from fetching a post package to booking an appointment with a doctor or getting a bus ticket, relies on this 2FA app. You can barely function in society without this app.

If I may ask, where are you from? The city I live in is a nightmare for cars, the roads were made for horses and walking, narrow and winding cobblestone streets and the city tries its best to keep cars out of the center.

Yes, true. But then you need to carry an extra device. I know it’s just inconvenience.

A little bit yes, since the BankID is owned by private companies. There are those who are working on a free software version and some people think that the government should have an official authentication app free from private interests. But it’s been hard to make people aware and care about these issues. It’s like the xkcd worlds smallest open source violin. At the same time, many things that relate to proving that I am me has become very convenient in this society. For example I moved to a new apartment and they just sent a link to the contract and I signed it with the app and that was that, I did my taxes by just checking that the info they had was correct and signed it on my phone, etc.

In Sweden many parts of society requires an app called BankID. We authenticate getting mail packages, sign contracts, book a time in health care, etc with this app. It’s needed everywhere. Buying a bus ticket. A phone without this app is not sufficient to function in swedish society.

They don’t seem to have any supported devices apart from community contributions?
“These are the most supported devices, maintained by at least 2 people and have the functions you expect from the device running its normal OS, such as calling on a phone, working audio, and a functional UI. Besides QEMU devices, this is currently empty.”

I think the problem here is the motivation. The techies are scratching their itches because they can, making more tiling wms and such, but few are motivated to work on things they aren’t personally interested in, such as user-friendliness etc. So it’s either up to us techies to work on systems we don’t use ourselves, or it won’t happen.

Ok, let’s hereby declare that Debian + Gnome is the official Linux. Everyone who wants Linux to have more users must run Debian and Gnome. First, how do we convince everyone to not use their favorite distros?

In addition to this, it’s also a good idea to backup important data first.

Indeed. I believe most users will just switch to flathub. Sort of how most users will install some codecs, but it can’t legally be included in the base install.

It’s about making sure you know what is inside the flatpaks. If you make your own set of flatpaks, you can distribute them with the OS. It’s not that fedora flatpaks aren’t distro-agnostic, you can use them on any distro. They just want a set where they can verify the build process and trust.

Same. I have installed so many systems that I just want the defaults to be what I’m used to. The OS itself is just a tool to let me work on the things I actually find interesting.

I’ve read the arguments and trust the people who know far more than I do about this, but… I just find it difficult to think of “unlocks automatically” as more safe than “is locked until I enter my password”. I’m open for it, but it just feels strange to me.

The urge to distrohop can be a distraction, but an itch that needs to be scratched now and then. I tend to always end up where I started, but when I do I feel better about it.

Do you know which packages and what defaults? I’ve tried to find the differences but I can’t really find what is different, except for wallpaper etc.

What is in LMDE that isn’t in plain Debian out of the box beyond branding?

I’ve had this idea a few times over the years, but I always get stuck at figuring out: what is it actually I want to happen? If I remove a local file, should it be removed from the backup too? If I edit a file, should the newer version replace the old in the backup, or be saved separately, or just the delta between the files? I could never decide what I wanted.