I have already spoken about this marketing issue like two weeks ago in one another forum thread, but the author of the video nailed it: “The traditional Linux problem of having nerdy developers attempting to explain the Linux experience to someone who has never had the interest in Linux before.” But how does Blufin market itself: “It is not immutable, what ever that means… but it is cloud native desktop, built with the same technology used to build the cloud…” and another one: “We are not Linux distro… we just build images…” What are we packagers (not to be confused with package maintainers), repackagers…?
I really fully agree Blufin’s marketing is not great (gently, politely said). But why? Because marketing is a business discipline on its own, requiring an expert in marketing field. That is why company products are way better marketed, because marketing is done by experts in marketing.
Blufin’s target users are non-technical, non-nerdy average computer users, that wants to use word processor, web browser etc, then whole new marketing strategy is needed. In this aspect, we need to picture the users and then sell them the idea. Lets imagine we are selling washing machine to my elderly pretty irritated uncle: “This is super machine, having eco settings, wast amazing spinning options, temperature ranges, it is build on the same technology all other highly modern appliances are made…” And the response: “I give a damn. I just want to put clothes in, press the button and leave.” Probably marketing would be much better to say to my I give a shit uncle, the real marketing slogan for real washing machine product: “It is simple and logical.”
At the end of the video he adds: “It is the best new Linux distro I have ever tried.”
Actually I see the whole video as a result of not the best marketing of Blufin. He starts video with the info he installed “Blufin DX”, this is another great way how to not market the product. Blufin and Blufin DX are completely different products for completely different audience. You don’t market Hyundai i10 and Bentley Continental with Blue and Blue RD (for Rich Dudes). It is even a problem when you download a Blufin it ask if I am a developer and not explaining the average dude what developer is? Sure I am developer, I develop my story in text editor.
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At the end of video there is Problems I had:
- kvm issues switching between openSuse to Blufin
- theming in dark mode for some flatpaks e.g. Geany
- default terminal (don’t like)
All this are nerd talking, nothing for average Joe and Jane user. Kvm is totally out of reach of average user. Dark theme is also to my experience with average users not to be used section, weird. Terminal for average user it just no go.
Theming can be real issue by the way, but nerds can fix it for Greany like this:
- Search for some dark Gtk3 theme:
flatpak remote-ls flathub | grep org.gtk.Gtk3theme - Install one of them:
flatpak install -y org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Adwaita-dark - Open Flatseal and scroll down to the Variables section, click on “+” and paste:
GTK_THEME=Adwaita-dark - Start Greany and it is in dark mode.
This actually is not Blufin specific, but Blufin greatly relies on flatpak not like most of other distros, so issue is much greater then in most other traditional distros. In my humble opinion this is more of the Flathub issue, because not requiring flatpak to work fine with dark mode. Flathub has its own problems, it is run by volunteers in there spare time… and we are all grateful it exists, but we can’t expect QA at the level of serious company (e.g. Apple, Google…) and so rules to apply applications are not strict and controlling. We expect to get free as free beer applications and no company is behind to support QA.
There is just one important thing for average user, that it all works. If I would be in charge of marketing of Blufin I would not market it as “cloud native”, but “it just works desktop”.