Current distros are satisfactory
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| cmost Dec 17, 2014 2:26 PM EDT |
Personally I believe the number of distros is in decline because current distros are satisfactory to most users. If one examines Distrowatch, one can find several distributions for example that offer Ubuntu with Gnome. Now that Ubuntu has an official Gnome edition, what can the unofficial Ubuntu based Gnome distributions really offer? We also have an official Ubuntu MATE variant. What does this offer that Linux Mint's very well polished MATE edition doesn't? In Debian's lineage, we have Linux Mint's excellent Debian edition as well as Trisquel, Sparky, Neptune, Point and Parsix all offering only minor differences (different DE's or a few custom tools) on top of Debians solid base. My point is that simply changing around the desktop presentation or swapping out some default applications for others is no longer enough to differentiate many distributions that are derived from well established parents such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mandriva. In my opinion, the really interesting distributions are those that are offering something truly novel such as DeepIn Linux or Elementary OS both of which sport new and interesting desktop environments and tightly integrated custom tools and services. These distributions will continue to rise to the top while distributions offering few if any real innovations will fall away in favor of their parent distros. |
| seatex Dec 17, 2014 2:38 PM EDT |
I agree, cmost. The thinning of the herd is a good thing, in my opinion. Darwin approved. |
| linux4567 Dec 17, 2014 4:43 PM EDT |
Darwin must be spinning in his grave for all the times he's being used to explain all sorts of things that have nothing to do with his theories... |
| seatex Dec 17, 2014 5:54 PM EDT |
> Darwin must be spinning in his grave for all the times he's being used to explain all sorts of things that have nothing to do with his theories... How does it not? Your theory? |
| jdixon Dec 17, 2014 8:40 PM EDT |
> How does it not? Your theory? Agreed. The full title of his celebrated work is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", after all. How the winnowing out of Linux distributions is not akin to natural selection is something I'd like to hear. |
| gary_newell Dec 18, 2014 4:59 AM EDT |
I think Linux has changed over the past few years. I think the respin market has all but bottomed out. There is no point creating a Debian respin with just a few extra applications. I see the future having around half a dozen or so core distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, PCLinuxOS) which are used by the majority of users. There will then be a number of specialist distributions that will survive because they are created for a specific purpose (Kali, Puppy, Knoppix, Sparky Gameover, AntiX etc). I still think there will be one more subset of nice alternatives which survive because they are good enough to survive without offering too much different to the core distributions, (Makulu, Sparky, Point etc). |
| linux4567 Dec 18, 2014 5:06 AM EDT |
> How the winnowing out of Linux distributions is not akin to natural selection is something I'd like to hear. Darwin wrote about nature where species compete with each other for limited resources. Most smaller distros (as in: 95% of all Linux distros) are hobbyist distros, they are mostly done to scratch an itch or simply for fun, they don't 'compete' with other Linux distros for any limited resource at all. Anyone talking about 'too many distros', 'competition', 'consolidation' and similar legacy terms that originate from the corporate world does not understand at all how the Linux and the FOSS world works. |
| jdixon Dec 18, 2014 5:19 AM EDT |
> Most smaller distros (as in: 95% of all Linux distros) are hobbyist distros, they are mostly done to scratch an itch or simply for fun, they don't 'compete' with other Linux distros for any limited resource at all. Developer time and attention is a limited resource. |
| linux4567 Dec 18, 2014 6:07 AM EDT |
> Developer time and attention is a limited resource. Again you haven't understood how the FOSS world works, the limit you mention is theoretical, in practice it's very elastic since if somebody gets bored with making his own distro that doesn't mean that he will join a larger distro. He can simply stop being active as a distro dev altogether and do something different (even completely unrelated to Linux). And that is the number one reason why distros cease to exist (because the main or only dev needs time for something completely unrelated, such as family or a more time consuming job), it has nothing to do with Darwinian selection among distros. |
| jdixon Dec 18, 2014 8:23 AM EDT |
> Again you haven't understood how the FOSS world works... Based on the following argument I'd say I understand it far better than you do. > ...the limit you mention is theoretical... Really? There are an infinite number of developers with an infinite amount of time to spend? > ...in practice it's very elastic... Elastic does not equate to unlimited. > ...if somebody gets bored with making his own distro that doesn't mean that he will join a larger distro... No one said he would. > And that is the number one reason why distros cease to exist (because the main or only dev needs time for something completely unrelated, such as family or a more time consuming job), Which is exactly the point. Developer time is a limited resource. > ...it has nothing to do with Darwinian selection among distros. It has everything to do with the struggle for limited resources, which is the basis of natural selection. |
| linux4567 Dec 18, 2014 9:51 AM EDT |
@jdixon: I think you need to read Darwin's theory to understand what he means by 'natural selection'. There is no natural selection between 95% of the distros because there is no competition factor. 95% of all distros are not competing for each others' users or stop being produced because they don't have enough users or money. The reasons why a distro is no longer made are usually external to the Linux world, so this is in no way 'natural selection' as defined by Darwin. I think I have been clear enough by now, if you still don't get it then unfortunately I can't help you further. |
| seatex Dec 18, 2014 10:20 AM EDT |
> I think I have been clear enough by now, if you still don't get it then unfortunately I can't help you further. The strong survive and the weak die. If someone develops a new distro spin, and nobody else uses it or helps develop for it, it often dies. There are limited developer resources, and many or most developers are going to pick projects they see as having longevity to invest their precious time and resources. jdixon explained the relation to Darwin's theory quite thoroughly. Perhaps you are the one who doesn't get it? |
| lcafiero Dec 18, 2014 8:43 PM EDT |
There is so much wrong with this laughable article, but let's put aside for a moment the fact that it's a "crisis" that there are only 280-something distros instead of 320-something. It's not Darwin so much as Adam Smith - with a couple of glaring exceptions (Wolvix, Fuduntu and SolusOS come immediately to mind) - at play in this situation. Simply put, it's the "invisible hand of the market," in nearly each case, that dictates whether a distro thrives or atrophies. [Again, in the three distros mentioned above, each had a situation where the lead developer, for various reasons, had to step down and no one picked up the slack. Each of those distros was a very good one and will be missed.] As for the number of distros -- inaccurate because distrowatch.com also counts *BSD systems as well as Linux distros -- the fact that there are about 40 less is akin to a plane flying at 30,000 feet and then dropping to 25,000 feet -- regardless that it's flying at a lower altitude, it's still flying. |
| skelband Dec 19, 2014 10:20 PM EDT |
> There is no natural selection between 95% of the distros because there is no competition factor. Humans are in this category if you're looking for an analogy and we have no natural competitors yet we are undoubtedly a product of evolution. Ubuntu, Debian, Mint emerged and have become popular. If no-one used them, visited their web pages and therefore paid through advertising or no-one was interested enough to donate money then they would die out. The evolutionary angle is not intended to be a direct analogy, but it does fit well enough to be useful. |
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