Re: [tlug] There are way too many Linux distros

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Attila Kinali writes:

 > It isn't like BSD where there is one true distro[tm] and everyone
 > has to use it or die in pain

Well, no, there are *four* major free BSD distros (forgot Darwin,
didja?), a major *free* SVR4 distro (OpenSolaris), and a plethora of
minor free BSD distros, each with their own package management system
(Darwin has *three*, Apple's, DarwinPorts, and Fink).  NetBSD's pkgsrc
builds on at least NetBSD, FreeBSD, Darwin (MacOSX), Debian and Gentoo
(from personal experience), so everybody has that choice as well as
whatever else they were using.

 > With linux you have the choice, with choice comes power, but with
 > power and choice come responsibility and problems. So far, i'd say
 > the advantage of having different distros to choose from outweights
 > the disadvantages.

I wouldn't know, I gave up on the Linux distros years and years ago.
AnyDistro[1] is good enough (and very convenient) for a base install,
but after that I read through /etc/init.d (generally with a growing
sense of horror :-), and prepare to redo the "important" things My
Way.[2]  Not to mention building "important" programs from source
(unfortunately I didn't do that with Debian OpenSSL).  Ie, I'd be a
great candidate for a BSD. ;-)  I'm just more familiar with Linux, and
I enjoy the company of TLUGgers.

The thing that bothers me is that I don't know any free distro that is
a great improvement over Microsoft Windows, the way that Mac OS X is.
You'd think that the non-commercial distros (and the desktop
environment developers) would be targeting Mac OS X, rather than
Windows, as the rival to beat.  Or take my favorite whipping boy,
NeoOffice (OOo for the Mac).  Simply opening a file is an excuse for a
coffee break on a 1.25GHz iBook G4, it's impossible to turn off the
invariably wrong automplete feature, you can't override the equally
broken autoformat (bullet lists and enumerations) feature without
turning it off entirely, etc.  To add insult to injury, you can't use
the "What's this?" facility to get help on autobogitify functions.

I get the impression that there are no HCI people _at all_ working on
these projects.  Except maybe drew.adams@example.com on Emacs.  God
save the GNU Emacs project. :-)

 > I'd like to cite Reimar Döffinger here:
 > 
 > "Reinventing the wheel certainly is annoying, but as long
 > as all other wheels are square..."

Perfect example of someone who Just Doesn't Get It.  That's the
obvious completely self-serving analogy.  But it's equally obviously
completely wrong.  The correct analogy is reinventing the (currently
square) peg as round because it's more elegant to drill round holes,
without a plan to retrofit the several trillion existing square holes
(or even recognizing that it's necessary).


Footnotes: 
[1]  I generally avoid RPM-based distros due to now-ancient technical
and political issues, but that's irrational.

[2]  Usually to the tune of The Who "Going Mobile", and definitely not
Sinatra.