Re: Linux, over hyped by the Linux community, discuss.


I'm not sure how many version of Linux there are, I did here here were in
excess of thirty six. Why we need so many dam versions is beyond me. If
you had thirty six different versions of XP it would become almost
unsupportable, so why do it with Linux? I think if the Linux community
were to 'champion' one or possibly two versions that they could really be
honed to make them virtually bug free. What is more if you have a stable
and reliable platform then I think the hardware vendors might possibly be
willing to write drivers that fully work like the Windows versions.

According to distrowatch.com, there are currently 376 active Linux
distributions. Why so many? Because it's not terribly difficult to do. A
lot of these are a couple of guys in someone's garage thinking - 'gee, it
sure would be cool to start a new Linux distribution'. There is very good
rationale for a number of versions - some folks love RPM, others abhore
it. Some folks love DEB packages, others abhore it. Some folks want a
ready to go out-of-the box experience, others want to build EVERYTHING
from scratch. Some really really want a one CD distribution, others are
content with a DVD or 7 CDs. It's going to be impossible to make everyone
happy. Case in point: I actively use four different distributions on a
daily basis. I have installed Gentoo (stage one install) on my mini-itx
because it's not overwhelmed with horsepower and a fully customized,
compiled from scratch distro runs MUCH more efficiently than any
'out-of-the-box' solution. I use (K)Ubuntu on most of my systems - it's
relatively painless to install, maintain and upgrade. I use Elive on a
couple of low powered systems because it runs briskly there - it seems
they have the best implementation of Enlightenment around. I'm still
running Mandrake on several public access internet computers at a local
library. It has proved to be rock solid and I haven't had the time to
reinstall anything else. The library will soon be getting a four head
turnkey system running RHEL. Does this cause me great consternation? No.
At some level, a Linux installation is a Linux installation. Much of what
you learn is applicable across the line. Would it be good if there were
only a dozen or so distros? Maybe - who's going to hold the gun to force
the other 350 distros to shut down?

In the final analysis, Linux is about choice. Freedom of choice. It's
difficult to make a compelling argument that too much choice is bad.

.

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