this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Pop_OS! is about to drop a whole new desktop environment (COSMIC) made from scratch that's not just a fork of Gnome. Canonical tried that as well a while back with Unity although it was mostly still Gnome with extra Compiz plugins.
A lot of cool stuff is also either for enterprise uses, or generally under the hood stuff. Simple packages updates can mean someone's GPU is finally usable. Even that LibreOffice update might mean someone's annoying bug is finally fixed.
But yes otherwise distros are mostly there to bundle up and configure the software for you. It's really just a bunch of software, you can get the exact same experience making your own with LFS. Distros also make some choices like what are the best versions to bundle up as a release, what software and features they're gonna use. Distros make choices for you like glibc/musl, will it use PulseAudio or PipeWire, and so on. Some distros like Bazzite are all about a specific use case (gamers), and all they do is ship all the latest tweaks and patches so all the handhelds behave correctly and just run the damn games out of the box. You can use regular Fedora but they just have it all good to go for you out of the box. That's valuable to some people.
Sometimes not much is going on in open-source so it just makes for boring releases. Also means likely more focus on bug fixes and stability.
Unity was envisioned to become mir based eventually. So they invented a whole new display protocol when wayland was there, vastly immature though :)
Wayland was entirely unusable and mired in politics. (Still is mired in politics tbh.) So Canonical took the things they wanted, added things they needed to get it working, and called it Mir.
When Wayland finally became functional, they also made mir a Wayland compositor.
Some of the Wayland Frog protocols stuff is stuff that originated with Canonical trying to make Wayland usable before they took their ball and went home because the giants of the industry didn't want to talk to a company of under 1000 people.
My point was that unity was innovative, not just gnome with extras.
Back then I actually liked mir (also unity) personally more than wayland.