Yup, now you touch one core problem why Linux in desktop cannot get to masses — too much fragmentation. Next to unlimited chain of options and preferences, many of which even lead to severe incompatibility issues.
Ubuntu some decade or two ago looked promising ”one distro to rule them all” but seems to have turned to shit since.
If you look at Windows or macOS, it’s basically just a version or two to choose from, and the most common one suits 90% or more.
The same should happen in Linux world too. If an ”easy install tool” like described above would offer just ~5 most common distros, in their most common variant, it would still be a tremendous step forward.
If someone is knowledgeable enough to have strong distro pref, or knows that they need a certain system component, they most likely are not the target audience anymore as they can handle a manual install too. The target user may not even know there are different distros, and will just pick the ”Linux version” based on a screenshot that looks familiar or interesting.
So IMO; no options other than the absolutely critical ones (like to dual boot or not). There shouldn’t be more than maybe 3 big things the user has to decide themselves, for everything else the Linux community as a whole MUST be able to take a hard look at themselves and decide what are the most viable, compatible and best supported branches, and unite behind those.
Yup, now you touch one core problem why Linux in desktop cannot get to masses — too much fragmentation. Next to unlimited chain of options and preferences, many of which even lead to severe incompatibility issues.
Ubuntu some decade or two ago looked promising ”one distro to rule them all” but seems to have turned to shit since.
If you look at Windows or macOS, it’s basically just a version or two to choose from, and the most common one suits 90% or more.
The same should happen in Linux world too. If an ”easy install tool” like described above would offer just ~5 most common distros, in their most common variant, it would still be a tremendous step forward.
If someone is knowledgeable enough to have strong distro pref, or knows that they need a certain system component, they most likely are not the target audience anymore as they can handle a manual install too. The target user may not even know there are different distros, and will just pick the ”Linux version” based on a screenshot that looks familiar or interesting.
So IMO; no options other than the absolutely critical ones (like to dual boot or not). There shouldn’t be more than maybe 3 big things the user has to decide themselves, for everything else the Linux community as a whole MUST be able to take a hard look at themselves and decide what are the most viable, compatible and best supported branches, and unite behind those.