The problem with Linux

the biggest problem with Linux is that there are FAR too many distributions. Plain and simple. I'm getting sick and tired of people bitching and moaning about Ubuntu this or Ubuntu that, because Ubuntu is providing for the Linux community what no other distro has been able to yet (except maybe Red Hat). It's providing a unified front, so to speak. If Linux is to ever catch on, there needs to be some standardization, and a large portion of the Linux community tend to disagree for one reason or another. There are three main culprits here and I'm going to break it down Barney style for you:

1) The Elitist - you all know exactly who I'm talking about, and if you're a noob to Linux, he's the guy who's going to inform you of that fact. He insists on running some lesser known distro simply because it's not Ubuntu and therefor he is intellectually superior to the rest of the sheep. 2) The Microsoft Whore (aka, the "average computer user") - This person is SO engrained in the Microsoft way of doing things that using the command line interface is ABSOLUTELY out of the question. They post questions on the forums as though it were Microsoft tech support, and then become angry when their questions are not answered to their satisfaction and/or in a timely manner. This person is generally of the mindset that a product that is free could not POSSIBLY be as good as a product that costs money. 3) The avid Mac User - The guy who's answer for everything is "Windows/Linux sucks, buy a Mac". That is not helpful in ANY way. The main reason why people switch to linux is the fact that it's FREE. Mac's are awesome, but they cost an arm and a leg.

I think that for linux to catch on all the THOUSANDS of offshoots of Linux should be absorbed into a few larger projects, but in all likelihood that will never happen. If you want Gnome, get Ubuntu. If you want KDE, get OpenSUSE. If you want a micro-distro, get DSL. If you want something more corporate, get Red Hat/Fedora. I don't know what that would mean for other Linux/Unix types like BSD, Solaris etc. But quite frankly I don't care. If Linux is to get any kind of foothold in the market, (and I do say MARKET because there is PLENTY of money to be made off of Linux, or rather--ANY alternative to Windows) there needs to be some pairing down. In battle, this is called triage. In nature, this is called survival of the fittest.

Welcome to the FOSS world.

With the no of Linux distros available currently, sometimes it is overwhelming but it's a happy situation to be in. I'd rather have 1000s of distros to choose from rather than stuck with take-it-or-leave-it 'Vista' situation.

Linux has come a long way in the desktop environment thanks to distros like Ubuntu, OpenSUSE etc. There is scope for a business model and many Linux companies seems to be doing pretty well so far. With the rise in Linux popularity this is only the beginning.

I certainly do encourage more collaboration between different developers/distros, which Mark Shuttleworth is himself very keen on, so there is no duplication of effort and more quality product is available.

I agree with noob there are to many distro's. But if a group of people want to create there own distro its a free country.

It does seem like a waste of recourses having all these people working on there own separate project. If you could get the bulk of the linux developers to work in unison on one system you could get a lot more done. Microsoft has thousands of programmers working on Windows which gives them a big advantage.

Microsoft is worried about Apple and Linux. They would like to see the competition go away. If you've noticed MS is working very hard to come up with a version of Windows 7 for the eeepc market to quell any possibility of Linux gaining market share of that segment. They aren't satisfied having dominance on the desktop.

Plus they see a problem if people are using Linux on there eeepc it might transfer to people using Linux on there desktop pc.

You can bet Apple and Microsoft are aware of what Linux is up too. And they see the advancements Linux has achieved. I see Linux continuing with a uphill battle, but in the long run they could still win.

N00b-un-2 said: the biggest problem with Linux is that there are FAR too many distributions.

i disagree. the more the merrier. if you want a windows clone, just use windows. that is the nature of linux. to be "unified" would be to be like windows and mac. there is no problem with linux, it is people's attitudes that is the problem.

wolfen69 said: i disagree. the more the merrier. if you want a windows clone, just use windows. that is the nature of linux. to be "unified" would be to be like windows and mac. there is no problem with linux, it is people's attitudes that is the problem.

+1. I think alot of distros is a strength of Linux. People have the choice of whatever distro they want to use, and anybody with different needs can use a different distro.

zero244 said:

I see Linux continuing with a uphill battle, but in the long run they could still win.

win what? and why does linux have to be #1?

it seems to me that some people's lives would be more validated if linux *was* #1. then they could go around beating their chest, yelling: "look at me! i use linux, we're #1! geez people, it's an operating system, not war and famine.

if mark shuttleworth wants ubuntu to be #1, then fine. but i certainly don't need it to be #1 to feel secure in my manhood.

instead of worrying about ubuntu taking over the computer world, people's energies would be better spent helping out with bug squashing and contributing.

wolfen69 said: i disagree. the more the merrier. if you want a windows clone, just use windows. that is the nature of linux. to be "unified" would be to be like windows and mac. there is no problem with linux, it is people's attitudes that is the problem.

+1 Indeed, and people's expactations..

Since when is Linux not having any serious foothold in the (desktop) market a problem?

You all bring up very good valid points. But until there is some massive change in the way people look at Linux and stop seeing it as something of a mystery, or the territory of programmers and hackers alone, the corrupt convicted monopolist corporation (Microsoft) will still continue to rule the computer market. Mac is better, but not by much. Apple/Mac are monopolistic in their own right, they try to own every aspect of their particular market from top to bottom. On advantage there is that there isn't the massive problems that Windows (and to a lesser extent Linux) has with driver compatibility, and all software is custom designed to work with their hardware. But where Mac starts to suck is where they depart from the principles of the Linux underpinnings that the Mac OS was originally based on. Things like only being able to sync an iPod with ONE instance of iTunes, for example. Or the fact that OSX can only (legitimately) be installed on a Mac, although now that they're using Intel hardware it's not *impossible* to install OSX on non native (Mac) hardware. Just difficult, and there is no guarantee of it working properly. I never said that Linux needs to be #1. I am a firm believer that Microsoft is an EVIL organization and needs to be taken down. I'd rather see Apple owning a majority of market share, and Google having a monopoly searching, and Mozilla having a monopoly on Web Browsing and E-mail than give another inch of cyberspace to Microsoft. And I think that Linux could grow MUCH faster and become a more robust operating system choice if there weren't so many side projects of distributions. But thereing lies the problem. In the corporate world, you can just buy out the company that makes the product you want to absorb. Linux is not subject to such limitations, and thus the problem will not go away. It's a double edged sword

Sounds like you've missed the entire basis of linux. That being the FREEDOM of choice. One size does not fit all. Even when I used windows my windows was never the same as anyone else's. I like things my way and changed it in so many ways it was funny.

I hope to God Linux never ends up like you're saying it should be. I want choices and the freedom of having things my way.

You seem to have a personally frustration with Microsoft. If you feel the need to destroy Microsoft for some reason go ahead. I don't see what Linux has to do with this.. Linux is doing fine for more then 15 years or so.

Why should Linux "grow MUCH faster"? This attitude will destroy Linux.

2hot6ft2 said: I hope to God Linux never ends up like you're saying it should be. I want choices and the freedom of having things my way.

I am not saying that Linux should change. it's good the way it is. But what I am saying is that if instead of there being 20 different music players, each with their own strengths -- Amarok for tagging/organizing tracks, Rhythmbox for it's excellent iPod support, Exaile for those who like Amarok but want something that is written for GTK, etc... And then on top of that, being able to incorporate other types of programs that do one particular fuction, like Sound Convertor for converting files into a particular format/bitrate. If the developers of these types of software could collaborate together better, then we would end up with better quality software in the end. But that is just my opinion. I may consider OOO Writer to be the best word processor around but others may prefer ABIword. It's the same with Distros. So I guess the problem will never go away, simply because of the freedom that Linux gives you.

wolfen69 said: i disagree. the more the merrier. if you want a windows clone, just use windows. that is the nature of linux. to be "unified" would be to be like windows and mac. there is no problem with linux, it is people's attitudes that is the problem.

+1

(Love multi-booting.)

The ONLY reason I want Linux to gain market share is so that it will gain more support from hardware and software developers. Other than that, who cares if it has a greater market share?

Saying Apple has a monopoly with Mac is like saying GM has a monopoly with Chevrolet, or Sony has a monopoly with the PS3. Apple effectively sells an appliance, with their hardware and their software. It happens to be a computer.

I guess that what I consider to be the problem(s) with linux, other people consider to be strengths, or simply are non-issues. I have a vision for what linux could and should be and that may or may not be what others think. But at the same time, for every ten people I encounter who disagree with me, I could find another 10 to support me. It's all subjective. To each their own. I guess that's why they make Chevy and Ford. And Dodge... And Honda... And ...

N00b-un-2 said: But what I am saying is that if instead of there being 20 different music players, each with their own strengths -- Amarok for tagging/organizing tracks, Rhythmbox for it's excellent iPod support, Exaile for those who like Amarok but want something that is written for GTK, etc...

in case you havn't noticed, windows has even more choice in media players than linux. i guess i don't get your point.

N00b-un-2 said: I guess that what I consider to be the problem(s) with linux, other people consider to be strengths (..)

Pretty good observation ;-)

Time will tell how things work out.. pretty exciting.

when and if the day comes that your local electonics store starts selling computers with linux preinstalled (besides netbooks), consumers probably won't care too much which distro is on it. as long as it "just works".

wolfen69 said: win what? and why does linux have to be #1?

it seems to me that some people's lives would be more validated if linux *was* #1. then they could go around beating their chest, yelling: "look at me! i use linux, we're #1! geez people, it's an operating system, not war and famine.

if mark shuttleworth wants ubuntu to be #1, then fine. but i certainly don't need it to be #1 to feel secure in my manhood.

instead of worrying about ubuntu taking over the computer world, people's energies would be better spent helping out with bug squashing and contributing.

+1. Of course, if Ubuntu ever did make it to the top, all those people wanting that would just switch to Mac or Windows again. I think some people like being different, like being the underdog.

For me...I don't care if Linux ever goes to the big show. I like Ubuntu, and will use it for as long as it's around. That means whether it's in first, fifth, or a hundredth place in whatever d*ck measuring contest is popular at that time.

:)

N00b-un-2 said: the biggest problem with Linux is that there are FAR too many distributions. Plain and simple. I'm getting sick and tired of people bitching and moaning about Ubuntu this or Ubuntu that, because Ubuntu is providing for the Linux community what no other distro has been able to yet (except maybe Red Hat). It's providing a unified front, so to speak. If Linux is to ever catch on, there needs to be some standardization, and a large portion of the Linux community tend to disagree for one reason or another. There are three main culprits here and I'm going to break it down Barney style for you:

1) The Elitist - you all know exactly who I'm talking about, and if you're a noob to Linux, he's the guy who's going to inform you of that fact. He insists on running some lesser known distro simply because it's not Ubuntu and therefor he is intellectually superior to the rest of the sheep. 2) The Microsoft Whore (aka, the "average computer user") - This person is SO engrained in the Microsoft way of doing things that using the command line interface is ABSOLUTELY out of the question. They post questions on the forums as though it were Microsoft tech support, and then become angry when their questions are not answered to their satisfaction and/or in a timely manner. This person is generally of the mindset that a product that is free could not POSSIBLY be as good as a product that costs money. 3) The avid Mac User - The guy who's answer for everything is "Windows/Linux sucks, buy a Mac". That is not helpful in ANY way. The main reason why people switch to linux is the fact that it's FREE. Mac's are awesome, but they cost an arm and a leg.

I think that for linux to catch on all the THOUSANDS of offshoots of Linux should be absorbed into a few larger projects, but in all likelihood that will never happen. If you want Gnome, get Ubuntu. If you want KDE, get OpenSUSE. If you want a micro-distro, get DSL. If you want something more corporate, get Red Hat/Fedora. I don't know what that would mean for other Linux/Unix types like BSD, Solaris etc. But quite frankly I don't care. If Linux is to get any kind of foothold in the market, (and I do say MARKET because there is PLENTY of money to be made off of Linux, or rather--ANY alternative to Windows) there needs to be some pairing down. In battle, this is called triage. In nature, this is called survival of the fittest.

Okay I see you have only joined this forum on aug of 08 so I assume you started Linux in general around the same time...

So let me fill you in on something okay ...

Canonical(the makers of Ubuntu) have given the least amount back to Linux. Canonical has made a decent Distro yes this is true,but after around 7.10 or 7.4 it has gotten real slow and buggy.

Ubuntu is not a distro I would want to be the leader of the Linux world.

Oh and the more distros the better it shows what FOSS is about.

I think if anyone should be leader of the Linux world it should be Debian or RedHat.(edited and fixed)

Redhat and Debian both have given more back to the Linux world then Ubuntu. Hell I think even Gentoo has...

*breathes out*

Anyways enough ranting lol...

N00b-un-2 said: the biggest problem with Linux is that there are FAR too many distributions. Plain and simple. I'm getting sick and tired of people bitching and moaning about Ubuntu this or Ubuntu that, because Ubuntu is providing for the Linux community what no other distro has been able to yet (except maybe Red Hat). It's providing a unified front, so to speak. If Linux is to ever catch on, there needs to be some standardization, and a large portion of the Linux community tend to disagree for one reason or another. There are three main culprits here and I'm going to break it down Barney style for you:

1) The Elitist - you all know exactly who I'm talking about, and if you're a noob to Linux, he's the guy who's going to inform you of that fact. He insists on running some lesser known distro simply because it's not Ubuntu and therefor he is intellectually superior to the rest of the sheep. 2) The Microsoft Whore (aka, the "average computer user") - This person is SO engrained in the Microsoft way of doing things that using the command line interface is ABSOLUTELY out of the question. They post questions on the forums as though it were Microsoft tech support, and then become angry when their questions are not answered to their satisfaction and/or in a timely manner. This person is generally of the mindset that a product that is free could not POSSIBLY be as good as a product that costs money. 3) The avid Mac User - The guy who's answer for everything is "Windows/Linux sucks, buy a Mac". That is not helpful in ANY way. The main reason why people switch to linux is the fact that it's FREE. Mac's are awesome, but they cost an arm and a leg.

I think that for linux to catch on all the THOUSANDS of offshoots of Linux should be absorbed into a few larger projects, but in all likelihood that will never happen. If you want Gnome, get Ubuntu. If you want KDE, get OpenSUSE. If you want a micro-distro, get DSL. If you want something more corporate, get Red Hat/Fedora. I don't know what that would mean for other Linux/Unix types like BSD, Solaris etc. But quite frankly I don't care. If Linux is to get any kind of foothold in the market, (and I do say MARKET because there is PLENTY of money to be made off of Linux, or rather--ANY alternative to Windows) there needs to be some pairing down. In battle, this is called triage. In nature, this is called survival of the fittest. The problem is that you and I don't want the same things. I want a system with as little installed/configured by default as possible; a clean slate for me to build off. I want to use the command line and edit configuration files because that's easier for me. Why shouldn't we be able to choose different things that work for each of us?

N00b-un-2 said: If Linux is to get any kind of foothold in the market, (and I do say MARKET because there is PLENTY of money to be made off of Linux, or rather--ANY alternative to Windows) there needs to be some pairing down. In battle, this is called triage. In nature, this is called survival of the fittest.

Linux has never really been "marketed" as a competitor to anything. Hence the various distraction distros out there.

I think Mark Shuttleworth kind of agrees with you; he has been in favour of unified release schedules etc amongst the big players as a compromise between intra-distro and non-Linux competition.

But then, he's in the business of making money and marketing, unlike lots of Linux users (who don't care).

How about if you pick out a dozen or so of these distros you think are a waste of time and resources, and go tell their users to start using Ubuntu. See what the response is.

Funny that you allude to natural selection, yet you fail to see that differentiation is essential for natural selection. From a purely biological point of view, diversity is strength; but it's true of software as well.

Don't worry; all of us have gone through the "I know exactly what Linux needs to succeed, and these stoopid Linux geeks just won't do it!" phase. Eventually, you realize that what needs to be done to make Linux great is already being done, and not all problems are so trivial to solve.

Well i own a Mac and no i dont use the Win/Linux Sucks get a MAc, attitude. I do like my MAc and OSX, simply because it really works well, and for Music Production is an excellent platform. Since i got my MAcbook i have never had a single problem, crash etc... However, i dont 100% like or jump for joy about many off Apples's own closed ways off operating, much like Win in a way. Has for Windows, well im no fan, i have used it and enjoyed Win XP, but it gets to the point where after using it soo long, one starts to realise how bad and unstable it is, not too mention CPU hog, virus, etc... Now on my Toshiba (previous Win XP) lappy i use Ubuntu, i tried Linux out off curiosity and just got hooked on it. Im still a fair Noob to Linux, even thought i can do a few things by myself on it. I like the fact that there are soo many Distro's, this allows for growth and faster development of Linux. If and when one limits technology to 1 standard or 1 only way, we are only delaying the improvement/advancement. Like MS for example monopolies don't work. For me the real problem with Linux and even Mac OSX is MS! Everything electronic you buy (mobile, games console, soundcard, graphics card, printer, games, software...) will be available to work for the MS BAndwagon, rarelly maybe for the MAc, and almost guaranteed never for Linux!!! So i guess its Software/Hardware develepors, that need to start also supporting Linux, then and only then would people have a really free choice in computing and not be forced to use the MS bull just because its compatible with everything that they most certainly *force* it to be...

Rucas said: I like the fact that there are soo many Distro's, this allows for growth and faster development of Linux. If and when one limits technology to 1 standard or 1 only way, we are only delaying the improvement/advancement.

That's a very good point. With the large number of distros, there's more competition, and more innovation.

Yes, but don't you see? Linux competing within itself is counterproductive in a way. Sure it can lead to innovation, but it leaves a lot of people spinning their wheels so to speak. The hardware/software support thing will never change. Not until Linux gains more market share. Period. And it's impossible for developers to make software that may work on one distribution like RedHat for example, and expect it to work on EVERY other Linux distro. Hell, RedHat isn't compatible with Ubuntu, and I'd say that they're probably two of the biggest names in Linux. If all of the micro-distros would fall away and people would start to use a standard distro, even if there were only four or five of them, there would still be way too much confusion for developers to know where to start. Do you develop for Red Hat? SUSE? Debian? Ubuntu? If there were only 3 distros - RedHat/Fedora, Ubuntu and openSUSE, Linux might have a better chance of having things like the iPhone/iPod touch work OOB. We wouldn't have to use Wine or Cedega to play games or use certain programs. I'm not asking for Linux to be #1. I'd be perfectly happy if only 10% of all computer users used Linux.

N00b-un-2 said: Yes, but don't you see? Linux competing within itself is counterproductive in a way. Sure it can lead to innovation, but it leaves a lot of people spinning their wheels so to speak. The hardware/software support thing will never change. Not until Linux gains more market share. Period.

You seem to be laboring under the false pretense that many critics of "duplication" share: that FOSS developers are simply a generic resources which some central agent is choosing to deploy to their various tasks. In other words, if the developer of "yet another text editor" weren't spending his time writing that software, he'd be working on improving Ubuntu's package management or some such. Well, that's not the case.

You also seem to be forgetting that GNU and Linux went from being the pet projects of a couple of idealistic hackers to major forces in the global IT ecosystem with its current development model and ideals. Suddenly changing that is not a recipe for success.

And it's impossible for developers to make software that may work on one distribution like RedHat for example, and expect it to work on EVERY other Linux distro. Hell, RedHat isn't compatible with Ubuntu, and I'd say that they're probably two of the biggest names in Linux. If all of the micro-distros would fall away and people would start to use a standard distro, even if there were only four or five of them, there would still be way too much confusion for developers to know where to start. Do you develop for Red Hat? SUSE? Debian? Ubuntu? If there were only 3 distros - RedHat/Fedora, Ubuntu and openSUSE, Linux might have a better chance of having things like the iPhone/iPod touch work OOB. We wouldn't have to use Wine or Cedega to play games or use certain programs.

This is not actually true, though there are a lot of "it depends" there. I have encountered a lot of apps that ran on various flavors and releases of Linux without special alteration. Packaging for various distros, if you want to use the native packaging formats, is another issue. But if you must have an app work across various distros and you don't want to package it yourself, you have options: - release source, and let the distros package it for you - release statically compiled binaries, and accept a bit of bloat. - write it in something like Java or Python, so that platform (theoretically) doesn't matter.

What's more, you're ignoring efforts like the Linux Standards Base, which defines a standard set of packages to make targeting multiple distros easier. IMO standards is a much better (and more realistic) way to go about things than wishing hundreds of distros would just fall off the face of the earth.

Think about your pc's hardware. How many different manufacturers are out there making video cards, audio cards, processors, hard drives, motherboards, etc? Yet they are all interchangeable; I can buy a full PC from Dell, HP, Apple, or assemble one from mail-order parts -- yet the same Linux or Windows disc can be used to install on any of them. Why not the same with the OS?

In any case, history has demonstrated time and again that monopolies don't innovate. Competition drives innovation. If all we manage to do is replace one monopoly with another, I don't see the point. The OS needs to become a commodity, and I don't see how it can happen unless it's free and open source.

In nature, this is called survival of the fittest.

There are more than 1.5 million named species in the world. Half of them are insects. It is estimated that there are several times more than that in the world. How many of them can you even name? There are a handful of very successful organisms, and a legion of also-rans.

The strength of FOSS is that any organism can come along and dominate. The weakness is schedule - natural selection moves at a glacial pace. Do you think humans are "the fittest"? If so then consider that it has taken several billion years for natural selection to produce them. And if we had standardized on dinosaurs back 65 million years ago by triaging away small furry creatures simply because they didn't have enough market share, humans would never have come into existence.

N00b-un-2 said: Yes, but don't you see? Linux competing within itself is counterproductive in a way. Sure it can lead to innovation, but it leaves a lot of people spinning their wheels so to speak. The hardware/software support thing will never change. Not until Linux gains more market share. Period. And it's impossible for developers to make software that may work on one distribution like RedHat for example, and expect it to work on EVERY other Linux distro. Hell, RedHat isn't compatible with Ubuntu, and I'd say that they're probably two of the biggest names in Linux. If all of the micro-distros would fall away and people would start to use a standard distro, even if there were only four or five of them, there would still be way too much confusion for developers to know where to start. Do you develop for Red Hat? SUSE? Debian? Ubuntu?

If there were only 3 distros - RedHat/Fedora, Ubuntu and openSUSE, Linux might have a better chance of having things like the iPhone/iPod touch work OOB. We wouldn't have to use Wine or Cedega to play games or use certain programs. I'm not asking for Linux to be #1. I'd be perfectly happy if only 10% of all computer users used Linux.

I can understand what you're saying. But I would rather not see a situation where there were only three distros! Anyway, too bad you see this as a problem because realistically Linux isn't going to turn into a situation where there are only three distros, thankfully. I don't share your concerns, I think things are going pretty well. Maybe it's because I'm not concerned about how many people use Linux or whether every piece of hardware works on it. I certainly don't care about games. Maybe it depends on what you want Linux to be. You say there's a problem with Linux but for me there's no problem.

I will bet the OP will change thinking this way in few months when he learns how things work.

but to N00b-un-2:

I urge you to make your own distro that replaces the other's. You should try to convince all the developers to drop other package managers and only use the one you want, even though there is no problem in making a program for linux that works on all linux, even though it may not be part of gnome or kde environment.

just think about how you would do stuff your self and then your brain will answer everything.

Crick said: There are more than 1.5 million named species in the world. Half of them are insects. It is estimated that there are several times more than that in the world. How many of them can you even name? There are a handful of very successful organisms, and a legion of also-rans.

The strength of FOSS is that any organism can come along and dominate. The weakness is schedule - natural selection moves at a glacial pace. Do you think humans are "the fittest"? If so then consider that it has taken several billion years for natural selection to produce them. And if we had standardized on dinosaurs back 65 million years ago by triaging away small furry creatures simply because they didn't have enough market share, humans would never have come into existence.

And here's where the analogy breaks down: evolution and natural selection are not the same thing.

"natural selection" is "survival of the fittest" -- given a diversified group, those most fit for the environment will survive; and as they reproduce, the population will tend to that group.

"evolution", according to accepted definition, specifies that the method of diversification is unsupervised, random mutation. There's where your glacial pace comes from, seeing as random mutation is relatively rare, and beneficial random mutation is even more so; and in any case, the changes don't become extant until the next generation.

Software development does not diversify by random mutation. It's an intentional act by intelligent beings, targeted at specific needs.

Given that, I think economics makes for a better analogy than biology. The free market is also "survival of the fittest", but it is diversified by intelligent agents making targeted decisions rather than random mutation.

Even so, your point about dinosaurs and humans is excellent, and parallels the reasons why Vista is not being used on netbooks. Netbooks changed the environment, and Vista could not be adapted. The diversity of the Linux landscape allowed it to adapt. The Xandros configuration on the eeePC, for instance, uses a customized icewm for the desktop. If the only desktop environment for Linux was GNOME with compiz, would it have been as attractive an option for a 500 MHz sub-notebook with a 2GB HDD?

N00b-un-2 said: Yes, but don't you see? Linux competing within itself is counterproductive in a way. Sure it can lead to innovation, but it leaves a lot of people spinning their wheels so to speak. The hardware/software support thing will never change. Not until Linux gains more market share. Period. And it's impossible for developers to make software that may work on one distribution like RedHat for example, and expect it to work on EVERY other Linux distro. Hell, RedHat isn't compatible with Ubuntu, and I'd say that they're probably two of the biggest names in Linux. If all of the micro-distros would fall away and people would start to use a standard distro, even if there were only four or five of them, there would still be way too much confusion for developers to know where to start. Do you develop for Red Hat? SUSE? Debian? Ubuntu?

Technically, anything written for Ubuntu will run just fine in Red Hat. The Debian package can't be installed, but the source will still compile. If Red Hat users want the software, they can then build their own package.

You seem to be laboring under the delusion that these "micro-distros" exist for no reason. They exist because people want to use them. If nobody wanted to use them, they would die.

N00b-un-2 said:

If there were only 3 distros - RedHat/Fedora, Ubuntu and openSUSE, Linux might have a better chance of having things like the iPhone/iPod touch work OOB. We wouldn't have to use Wine or Cedega to play games or use certain programs. I don't want to use any of those three distros. Red Hat is the only one that I would even consider, and I'm not a big fan.

Why should I use something I don't want to? I don't care about iPod touch support or non-Linux games. Why are your needs more important than mine?

cardinals_fan said: You seem to be laboring under the delusion that these "micro-distros" exist for no reason. They exist because people want to use them. If nobody wanted to use them, they would die.

I would add to this that the more popular distros benefit greatly from these distros with "more selective appeal". Niche distros -- such as OpenWRT, MythTV, Smoothwall/IPCOP, and Maemo -- all make their improvements available to the other Linux-based distros (Nokia alone contributed about 5% of the kernel changes last year).

If you think that Ubuntu -- or Mandriva, or Red Hat, or Debian -- would be better off if the "lesser" distros disappeared, I would suggest randomly deleting half of the files on your hard drive in order to get a feel for just how things might be thus "improved". :)

I think it's a false assumption. FOSS developers work on whatever interests them. They're not interchangeable mindless drones so even if you had the power to stop a developer working on Redundant_Program#28282 it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to start working on whatever you want. You can't tell Linus "oh the kernel is good enough now go start working on an office suite"

Developers are people too.

shadylookin said: I think it's a false assumption. FOSS developers work on whatever interests them. They're not interchangeable mindless drones so even if you had the power to stop a developer working on Redundant_Program#28282 it doesn't mean they're suddenly going to start working on whatever you want. You can't tell Linus "oh the kernel is good enough now go start working on an office suite"

Developers are people too. Also, they have different skill sets. A developer of a shell is unlikely to instantly succeed working on a graphical video editor.

Twitch6000 said: Okay I see you have only joined this forum on aug of 08 so I assume you started Linux in general around the same time...

So let me fill you in on something okay ...

Canonical(the makers of Ubuntu) have given the least amount back to Linux. Canonical has made a decent Distro yes this is true,but after around 7.10 or 7.4 it has gotten real slow and buggy.

Ubuntu is not a distro I would want to be the leader of the Linux world.

Oh and the more distros the better it shows what FOSS is about.

I think if anyone should be leader of the Linux world it should be Debian or RedHat.(edited and fixed)

Redhat and Debian both have given more back to the Linux world then Ubuntu. Hell I think even Gentoo has...

*breathes out*

Anyways enough ranting lol...

Well thats subjective isnt it. Canonical have worked on GNOME and KDE. They also now have people working on the kernal. Where would most Linux desktops be without GNOME and KDE exactly?

Naiki Muliaina said: Well thats subjective isnt it. Canonical have worked on GNOME and KDE. They also now have people working on the kernal. Where would most Linux desktops be without GNOME and KDE exactly?

Actually, I think mine would be working fine...

most

Operative word :) Im sure i saw somewhere KDE and GNOME make up between 80%-90% of desktops. :)

wolfen69 said: win what? and why does linux have to be #1?

it seems to me that some people's lives would be more validated if linux *was* #1. then they could go around beating their chest, yelling: "look at me! i use linux, we're #1! geez people, it's an operating system, not war and famine.

if mark shuttleworth wants ubuntu to be #1, then fine. but i certainly don't need it to be #1 to feel secure in my manhood.

instead of worrying about ubuntu taking over the computer world, people's energies would be better spent helping out with bug squashing and contributing. I'm a programmer. I for one would be much more happy if people would stop running Windows. For one, it's very different to any other OS, so if you need to build a portable app the mere existence of Windows forces you to take special precautions in code. Second, it's measurably slower than any other OS, desktop and server alike, on the same hardware, for things that don't just draw nice shapes on the screen (OK, you may not feel a difference when running FF/Linux against IE/Windows on a quad-core system with 8 GB mem, but you already can feel the lag when you edit a huge Excel workbook with several sheets containing formulas in every second cell on a machine with just one core and 1 GB mem - which is what very many not really new but also not that old laptops have). Third, Windows is both bug-ridden and closed source, meaning you need to code around OS bugs in app code, instead of being able to debug the bug at the OS level itself.

All these things get me to charge customers more for Windows apps than I'd need to charge if I had only well standardized OS-es to work with and standards-compliant web browsers to deal with on the client side. (I mostly do web apps, and given IE's lack of standards compliance, testing and debugging for IE is half of the effort. The situation is better on the server side, i.e. when Windows is used as a server, but not completely - you still need to run an additional set of tests, to detect OS-related problems, and code around what you find - and you always find something.) So IMO/IME, purely from a technical point of view it would bring significant commercial benefits to everybody except MS if Windows would start disappearing, both from the server and from the desktop, since Windows becoming open source is highly unlikely.