this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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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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We need fewer distros and more focus on things that matter.
you are free to not make distros
Damn, those silly volunteers are doing the wrong things in their free time!
You're right. I will start a new distro that focuses on the the things that matter.
Man, I laughed so hard at this one
I think a unified package manager/app store model that is vetted by all contributing distros would go a long way. SteamOS/Steam deck is bringing gamers to linux and that's great. But it would be easier to bring on a lot more desktop users if there was an app store that every distro could visit. Flatpak is close, snaps however I think are too polarizing.
https://xkcd.com/927/
You're 100% right that this is a danger of attempting to consolidate
despite my xkdc smartassedness I would love to see something that made an easy to do thing like this for linux https://portableapps.com/ there are some close things but not quite so easy.
I use fedora silverblue. I'd like to switch to suse microos but the difference is so small that it's probably not worth it to switch. (Just a guesstimate, silverblue has some goodies afterall with the whole image centric os)
Probably, it's almost the same for vanillaos. Because everything is within distrobox and flatpak, I do not work with the native package manager anymore (almost, there are exceptions because of the DE).
If I would switch to microos, I, as an enduser, wouldn't notice too much a real difference.
People should stop making new distros for what should be a post install script. But, things are fucking complicated and that's why we need the forks and new distros.
Thx for the elaboration. That's what I roughly meant with "image centric os".
Opensuse aeon encourages you to use flatpak. The first thing it does right after installation is to install apps from flathub, including firefox (unlike silverblue).
An example from the doc
Especially the following
Usually, you do not rollback, you do not go back to an older system. On both systems, you use distrobox and flatpak. I don't see much of a difference as an end user.
Fedora has images which you can create yourself as an enduser which means a corporation with thousands of computers can create their own image. They don't have to create a new distro. That's not possible with suse but I don't know if that's so important since I do not administer such things. I as an enduser do not care about the underlying system, I don't tinker with it, I rarely touch it. That's the case for both distros. I may install a vpn or so.
If you want to tinker with your system, neither fedora nor suse are good for that, using arch is the way to go.
Why is fedora better for advanced users?
And why?
I just asked because you stated that it's better for advanced users and I wondered why because I don't see it yet
I disagree. Each distro is a user of a thousand different open source systems. When a distro developer integrates gnome, systemd, bluez, or whatever other system they're finding, reporting, and possibly fixing bugs that end users might miss. Other than arch users, who else is compiling these things from scratch and really digging into the documentation?
Us weird debian testing users.
Gentoo users? Void users?
They’d still be doing that.
That kinda is his point. A distro maintainer patching and distributing a thousand packages is duplicitous. Especially when the only real difference to the user is the DE. Putting those efforts upstream is a better use of resources. I develop software, and I’m not going to test a million different distros especially when the difference between Ubuntu and Zorin is a DE and some additional packages. It makes Linux users very mad, but the reality is that they are too fractured to support every distro they use equally.
The primary thing that makes FOSS popular is that you can fork it. You're saying that people need to not do the main thing it's designed to be able to do!