Are there too many Linux distros? Is distro overload killing Linux on the desktop?

There used to be real choice in the distro's but now all we have is a wait and see concerning desktops. I hope I'm not the only one wanting something like that of the old gnome.. If I had to guess I'd say qt is the next big thing and hopefully the plethora of app developers jump on board as lxde and razor-qt seem to be a great outlook, at least I feel they are.

Right now I kinda feel like I'm using windows, using a search engine for these keywords: windows alternatives; to escape this trap of sorts.

Hopefully more distros keep popping up that are using alternatives to the big desktops that basically know what's best for us all and in effect give encouragement to existent and future developers.

I am not sure I understand your complaint. The desktop environment you use is not inextricably tied to a distribution. This is generally a changeable component. Many have one that they prefer or wish to fine tune, but you can choose others. Even if you discount the scores of different window managers out there, there is still quite a selection in the full on 'desktop environment' category. I am pretty sure no distribution defaults to fvwm, but that is what I have been using for the last 20 years <sigh> with a variety of distributions...

set wrote:The desktop environment you use is not inextricably tied to a distribution. This is generally a changeable component.

That is precisely correct but a point that many forget. It's not necessary to switch distributions in order to switch desktops. When my preferred distro switched from gnome2 to gnome3 and I determined that my productivity was going to suffer, I simply looked at the alternatives and found that xfce most closely matched my work patterns. No need to distro hop, just load up the desktop choices you want and carry on...

Life is good with linux.

kennethh, I sympathize with your frustration in not being able to find the information you are looking for with a google search. Maybe this quickstart will help you and others:

I am running a notebook that has been loaded from a Fedora XFCE installation. When I log in to this distribution I come up in the XFCE desktop.

Now, just for fun I decided to add a second desktop choice, KDE Plasma. It went like this:

From a root prompt: yum install @kde-desktop

After a five minute download (ok, I have a fast Internet connection) the KDE desktop installation was complete.

Now, logout from your XFCE session, and when you are presented with a new login screen you now have two desktop choices to pick from. Choosing KDE brings up a totally different desktop experience from the XFCE I was using.

Fedora supports all of the major desktops in this way. You are free to install as many different desktops as you like and you can experiment with them all until you find the one that best suits you.

Fedora is not unique with multi-desktop support, most of the distributions give you desktop choice.

A lot of distros give you varients with the full de/wm implimentation ie xubuntu for xfce but like other say this has nothing to do with the distro itself and is more for ease and convenience.

to truly understand the any de/wm is to see it as a front end and in how that front end enteracts with you and the system. the front end is the first and most telling image of any system. most people when talking about thier computers say somthing like I have a windows machine or a mac, are they talking about the base system or the way that they interact with the system the front end. linux is no different yet you have a choice in how you interact with de/wm or can even just use core utils to use the system.

I have known a lot of people with many front end installed at the same time (for testing mostly) which can be changed at login ether by a login manager or directly in tty's. you can also have multible environment on at the same time.

I really do not see much difference in most distro's at its core. linux is linux no matter how you package it but ease of use and the tools to accomplish this is what distro's are (ie package managers).