How things evolved since January

Here's how things evolved since my last post in January.

November 2022

It's fascinating how things evolve in unexpected ways: Back in January, I published a post describing "Why elementary OS is the right choice for me" - and now I'm trying to find the right words to describe what changed on my end.

Before I get more into the details, let me put one thing straight: I still think elementary OS is a great choice as an everyday operating system, which does a fabulous job in growing the Linux desktop ecosystem with an awesome holistic approach. Therefore my opinions expressed in the post from January still hold.

If I still think elementary OS is great, what changed anyway?

Earlier this year I started to experiment with XR on Linux. More specifically, I added support for xrdesktop on elementary OS as a proof of concept. While working on this and experimenting with XR on Linux in general, it became more and more obvious that one of the greatest strengths of elementary OS is also a weaknesses for this particular area: Because the underlying Ubuntu LTS is focused on stability - which is great for everyday work - its not designed for bleeding edge development. I found myself fighting more with outdated dependencies instead of getting actual work done.

This, of course is nothing one can blame elementary for - it is simply a consequence of some of the choices any distro has to make in order to strive towards its goals. For me this means I have to move on to a more bleeding edge distro for the time beeing. And my choice fell on Arch Linux with GNOME for now.

If you don't like my new focus: Don't forget to 💔 Un-Sponsor Me on GitHub!

I still miss elementary from time to time and I definetely keep tabs with it. On the other hand, I'm very excited to explore what XR on Linux offers in even greater depths and looking forward to contribute in this field.