Every so often you'll here people complain that we have too many Linux distros so I thought why don't I try to defend the other position, we actually need ev...
There's good and bad diversity, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
We have three-ish package managers that basically do the same thing but slightly different, around which we have three-ish bases. What's the difference between them? None of importance, really, it's just that the packages from one don't work on another. Great.
Before that, we had the zoo of init systems. There were differences between them enough to make them incompatible, not enough to justify separation.
This is not good diversity, it doesn't add to the experience, it just creates confusion.
And then, there's the problem of choice paralysis. The more diverse choice you have, the harder it is to choose, the more cognitive load on the chooser. Let's say, I'm new to Linux. Which distro do I choose? What if I choose wrong? I don't know, let's spin the wheel!
I'm really interested in projects like silverblue but I doubt I could daily drive it for a decent length of time. I also like the idea of vanilla OS, but I'd likely run out of storage quickly with it. Of course there other cool distros as well and I agree we need more of them.
I'm really excited to see what new stuff will come out. I feel like a huge tidal wave of improvements and new has been coming to linux in recent years and I'm glad to be a part of it.
Dr. Quadragon ❌
in reply to Brodie Robertson • • •There's good and bad diversity, and they are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
We have three-ish package managers that basically do the same thing but slightly different, around which we have three-ish bases. What's the difference between them? None of importance, really, it's just that the packages from one don't work on another. Great.
Before that, we had the zoo of init systems. There were differences between them enough to make them incompatible, not enough to justify separation.
This is not good diversity, it doesn't add to the experience, it just creates confusion.
And then, there's the problem of choice paralysis. The more diverse choice you have, the harder it is to choose, the more cognitive load on the chooser. Let's say, I'm new to Linux. Which distro do I choose? What if I choose wrong? I don't know, let's spin the wheel!
mrscientific
in reply to Brodie Robertson • • •I'm really excited to see what new stuff will come out. I feel like a huge tidal wave of improvements and new has been coming to linux in recent years and I'm glad to be a part of it.