This is for those who claim Linux should standardize into one distro.
Posted on 12/30/2024 9:04:17 AM PST by ShadowAce
This is for those who claim Linux should standardize into one distro.
I think a PC hardware company needs to offer complete consumer market products.
At a business level, Sun with BSD 4.2(?) did quite well for a time.
[Yup, I’m old.]
Thanks SA.
The Captain Kangaroo of tech videos is similarly circumspect and restrained:
The 7 Desktop OS I Run Every Week (& why!)
15:42
ExplainingComputers
1.07M subscribers
82,433 views
December 29, 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iimFH68AE8
https://www.youtube.com/@ExplainingComputers/videos
It is standardized! The linux kernel is pretty much the same in all distros of the same architecture! The only differences are the apps they are boxed with and the window dressing! And because it is yours you can even make your own custom distro the way you like!
The reason Linux has not caught on with the masses is that there are too many distros. Confusing as hell!
If there was one or two well supported and easy to install versions, I’m sure it would get a lot wider play.
What gripes me is, I’ve found several nice distros - one being Mint Cinnamon - yet they don’t come out of the box with what I consider to be essential stuff like ssh. Sure I can add them but it’s a pain to have to configure a console just to do that on systems that will run headless.
I am, by no means an expert, but the “best” distribution is the one that still fits on my machine. It is NOT from 2024. :-(
Like System76
Exactly so. Moreover, I was very disappointed that the article author neglected to mention GNU. I know, I know, nobody knows or cares who Stallman is or did, but the fact is that there's another part of Linux OS -- utterly essential and without which the kernel and the apps are useless -- which is the GNU command set that everybody takes for granted.
Yes, all hail the Linux kernel and Linus. But he has always acknowledged that without the GNU tools and commands, a kernel is pretty much impossible to do anything with.
Yeah, the apps are nice for the desktop installations. I spend most of my work time with headless servers in datacenters, and work exclusively from a Bash shell, so those nice fancy GUI apps aren't in my environment. I use them at home on my personal systems, of course, and I do have one desktop environment for work use (gotta have a browser after all).
As for window dressing, I'm a Luddite who uses the plain, quiet, Gnome Flashback Metacity desktop. I don't play video games.
My personal favorite distros are Ubuntu and CentOS, but I guess that also makes me a Luddite, eh?
I appreciate you sharing that about GNU. I suppose we just take it for granted.
As an engineer in the late 70's and 80's, working mostly with MSDOS and Unix, the development of the GNU tools was a monumental breakthrough for those of us who couldn't afford AT&T UNIX. The GNU folks couldn't wrap their heads around how to do a kernel, but Torvalds took care of that missing piece.
Articles about Linux desktop environments are fun, I don't begrudge them, but from my POV the comparisons miss the point of what Linux is:
I would love to see Linux own the desktop market, I've looked forward to it for a decade or two, but I realize that it won't happen in my lifetime (I'm 73). I'm content that Linux owns the internet and a sizable share of the enterprise market.
Yep, I’m hip to it. Some countries even run their whole government system on Linux.
I think Linux would do MUCH better in the market if MS didn’t make deals with the computer manufacturers to do every thing they can to prevent users from installing or loading an alternative OS of any kind. It really needs some attention as antitrust tactics.
I mean right from the get go the boot order is wrong on purpose. Booting an OS from USB should be the FIRST option every computer looks for first. Folks get discouraged and scared when they have to go play with the bios.
And they have now done everything can can to make the bios proprietary to only their OS, Some machine bios have anything else locked out completely. and it is no longer just resetting the boot order, some require bios setting in three or four different places and in the correct combination through trial and error to boot and use an alternative OS.
They have made it nearly impossible for the average user to even try Linux from a USB. Fortunately some now recently added a boot menu. But even then by design of the bios some still won’t boot Linux even then. You still have to go into the bios and make a bunch of risky changes to do it.
I think if these bios issues were honest and not so proprietary to MS and if the bios did not need to be adjusted the desktop market would finally take off. MS has purposely made it just too hard for the average user to do easily. Every time I install Linux for someone they are immediately impressed. But they could not have done it on their own without me picking that MS bios combination lock for them.
This really needs to be addressed legally. As it is MS forever owns the machine, not the customer who paid good money for it. It should belong to the customer not MS... Same thing needs to happen that happened with cell phones when they locked out other carriers. While I hate any new laws, that law forcing them to let their customers unlock their phones easily to use another with carrier was absolutely needed. It is the customer’s phone not perpetually the carriers. Same needs to happen with computers...
"It's a big club and you ain't in it." -- George CarlinCarlin's observation doesn't just apply to politics...
Yeah I know. But there isn’t even any noise made about that issue. folks have to make noise first to expose the problem... :)
You sound techy, you might like this then. I real like the concept myself. Comes boxed with both terminal SSH and a GUI SSH client. No install. just down load the image file and move over to a bootable stick and boot into it. Less than one gig with all the apps included.
https://bkhome.org/news/202412/easyos-daedalus-series-version-653-released.html
My personal favorite distros are Ubuntu and CentOS, but I guess that also makes me a Luddite, eh?
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I prefer Dinosaur.
What no Zorin?
> I prefer Dinosaur.
Early Adopter I take it.
Just about every “Best” list published on the Internet is based on lies and/or false assumptions and/or is just plain click-bait, so this one, at least, is refreshing.
FWIW, there are more than 400 actively maintained flavors of Linux, each one owned and operated my someone who created what he believed would be the best for a certain application or situation. There isn’t a Chinaman’s chance of convincing the 399 that the 400th one is the best and they all should re-engineer theirs accordingly.
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