There is too much to choose from in the world of Linux
In case you have read our articles, you know that I’ve been doing plenty of distro hopping recently. The freedom of choice is one thing that Linux fans often boast about – you can choose in between hundreds of Linux distributions, a number of desktop environments and so on. Initially this freedom seems appealing and interesting, but after a number of hops from a distro to another I have started wondering about the meaningfulness of the huge variety of distributions. And then I happened to read an article at the Linux Hater’s Blog, who makes an interesting statement:“This “choice”, as loudly as it is trumpeted, is a key reason that Linux has not made it on the desktop.” - and he is damn right about it!
The website DistroWatch.com currently lists 570 Linux distributions in their database. A majority of distros are something that you or I have never heard of, while the top of their list features corporate backed Linux distributions like Ubuntu, openSUSE, RedHat and Mandriva, but also some smaller spin-off projects such as the PCLinuxOS (my current favorite) and LinuxMint. But as we go down the list I really have to wonder what do we need all these distributions for? Do they actually contribute something for the common good? Last time I checked it was the mega distributions contributing most to the up-stream. Due to the enormous number of distributions the talent and effort needed for developing free and open-source software is fragmented, and inefficiently utilized.
And the excess freedom of choice is not limited in the distributions itself, obviously, and it actually gets even crazier under the hood. Why does every distro want to introduce their own package management system? Based on my experience the Synaptic / apt-get damn right works. RPM-based distributions on the other hand love to use their own package managements. OpenSUSE’s old ZMD plain right sucked, so they decided to make a new one called Zypper. Zyp sucks less, but still seems to be outperformed by apt-get (atleast in terms of performance). At the same time Mandriva is using their own urpmi, which has worked nice and fast for me. RedHat of course has their own package management as well – why there is no joint effort in between these RPM based distributions? I read somewhere that Conary (Foresight Linux) would be somehow revolutionary – all exceptional I found in Conary was the amazingly slow system updates. And if we go outside the package management and discuss the configuration features that the dsitros offer, it doesn’t make much more sense. Various ‘Control Panel’ -kind of graphical configuration interfaces also seem to be something that every distribution has to make them selves. Mandriva has the excellent Control Center, while openSUSE’s YaST is extremely powerful, so why they arenot utilizied by other distros?
And I don’t even want to start about the various desktop environments. KDE (3.5x) is the better desktop, and no doubt about that, but thanks to this awesome freedom of choice the killer applications seem to coming from the GTK/Gnome neighborhood, so I am either stuck with the Gnome desktop or running GTK apps on my KDE desktop.
Lets jump back to the distributions and talk more about these ‘one man shows’ that are common, but also perhaps a dying breed in the Linux world. It seems that every now and then a talented developer decides to start his own distribution. And with any luck and hard effor he may actually succeed in building a very good one, which typically gathers a small but fanatic crowd of users. The problem however is that these ‘one man shows’ tend to be developed behind closed doors, and problems arise when the one man army runs out of human resource. Mepis is an great example – several excellent releases but now the project is quickly going downhill as the developer was forced to re-enter working life. At least in Mepis they are trying to increase community involvement. PCLinuxOS, a wonderful distribution. However, just a while ago an upgrade to Pidgin upgrade was required in order to continue using the ICQ instant messaging network – I have not yet seen the updated package for PCLOS, and neither can I make one myself. The developer(s) of PCLOS have done amazing job in forking Mandriva and providing the rolling update model, but at some point the resources are going to give in and cause issues.
The total freedom of choice is a problem and the Linux bandwagon is being pulled to various directions. Unfortunately the average user does not want choices – he want’s a reliable system that “just works”. Linux Hater’s makes an excellent comparison to the web server world, where Linux is de facto standard, due to the fact that the choice almost exclusively is the so called LAMP environment – Linux Apache MySQL and PHP. Nobody seems to want an alternative to Apache, MySQL and PHP because these things just work! Why cant we have a LAMP for the desktop? Should we all just shut up and use Ubuntu’s long term supported release to for the common good?
More about ‘choice’: There is plenty to be found via Google
February 18th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
First off, I am a Linux fan, but I have also moved from distro to distro to check them out. There is something good in just about all of them. I’ve been in IT since 1976 and love to stay current with what’s going on, and I have to say that Linux will continue to stay on the outside regarding the desktop as long as all these distros continue to push their own packaging, updates, and administration features. This stuff is not rocket science, nor are these items why nearly anyone wants a computer! People want computers for one of about two reasons: 1) they want to play around with software, concepts, new techniques, or 2) they want to get some work done and they just want it to work without too much fuss. Currently Linux give the second group too much fuss.
As far as the second group (Mr. & Mrs. 2.5 kids) are concerned they want application choice, not OS choice, and application won’t happen until the OS choice is made and this drives non-techies crazy.
What’s wrong with this:
1) a standard base Linux
2) a flexible GUI that can have either a full featured KDE look-and-feel or a stream-lined Gnome or XFCE look-and-feel? Hasn’t anyone ever heard of themes? Just get over the religious wars here, create a good infrastructure for GUIs that combines the “real benefits” of these GUIs, make sure applications don’t have to care either way about which theme is being used, and get on with your lives.
3) combine the best features of Synaptic/apt-get/Zypper/DEB/one-click, etc. I think each distro team should care more about developing something that will make their distro perhaps more attractive than others on some level, but not at the expense of compatibility.
We need a single desktop distro, 2-3 enterprise distros, and the rest can simply play with these to their hearts content. The best new stuff gets incorporated into the standard and the techies can continue innovating all they want.
August 30th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Carlos,
You are a total idiot. Sorry, but that’s the true.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Your article is great and right.
But… Linux is a trash.
Sorry, but is the true!
August 9th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Basically, the wide range of distributions is a necessary consequence of Free Software. Good thing, bad thing, whatever; it’s inevitable when every technically skilled user can customize and redistribute the software he’s using.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
ljpp,
I certainly am not trying to shift this topic towards a theology discussion. But since the scope of your arguments remain within mere opinion, I simply gave mine- That God indeed exists and OSS is a manifestation of divine intervention.
As for YaST being much more than apt-get, well, that’s your opinion. As for my own personal experience, apt-get gets the job done with flying colors; Yast is O.K. but you should backup your claims with (technical) facts if you want to convince anyone that it’s better.
July 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Al,
YaST is much more than APT. Zypper is the package management of openSUSE and actually has features beyond APT.
And come back to me about the God stuff when he has written a few lines of code and/or his mere existense is proven.
July 25th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
And now, for my own bit of opinion:
I really believe that God himself has blessed the OSS community to develop superior technological systems for the benefit of humankind and counteract the “Evil Empire” and its efforts to take over the universe.
Ubuntu means “Humanity”
Google’s corporate motto is “Do no evil”
That’s enough evidence for me.
July 25th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
ljpp,
I strongly disagree that there is “a lot work” to be done in order to make Linux “suitable” for everyone:
1) Hardware- a non issue since Linux runs in more hardware (including embedded applications) than XP or that joke, Vista. Even Dell is now pre-installing Ubutnu.
2) Usability and the Desktop are just fine by me. I find that KDE is so much better to understand and navigate than Vista or OSX.
3) Applications have definitely matured to a high grade. GIMP is excellent and has all the features of a professional-grade application, that you found it confusing is because you did not buy the book (Try Beginning GIMP, by Akkana Peck, Apress). Which brings me to point 4.
4) Everything that you are debating is mere opinion on your part. For instance, many people, including myself, believe that apt-get is superior than YAST: It works all of the time, is much faster, and much easier to use. (Yes, I have used both).
Your last thought- to combine Ubuntu, Suse, and Mandriva does not take into account that these are individual and autonomous companies with their respective OSS supporting communities (scattered throughout the universe).
You can’t say that Ferrari, Mercedes, and Toyota should all meld to create the ultimate racing hybrid, with all the features that you may want. It’s just not going to happen.
You need to understand how the Linux phenomena has succeeded in creating perfection: Natural selection. See, you have a community that focuses solely on the kernel and do not care about the desktop or applications. Then you have a community that focuses on the Desktop and nothing else. Finally, you have individual communities of developers pumping out applications.
For each of these communities, all of mankind is grateful/thankful for their dedication and genius in creating something truly astonishing: A way to run our computers.