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Vidalinux Desktop OS 1.1 Screenshot Tour
linuxbeta writes "An update to Vidalinux Desktop OS has been released. This release sports many new updates including the 2.6.9 kernel, improvements in many different areas including reiser4 support, wireless drivers, scalability, performance, and support for NPTL. Also included is the Fedora Core 3 Anaconda installer, Udev and hald for hardware autodetection, GNOME 2.8, KDE-3.3.1, and the OSX styled kicker Gdesklets 0.3.1." An interesting combination of Gentoo Linux with Red Hat's Anaconda installer; OSDir.com has a screenshot tour.
Gentoo with Fedora's installer. Nice! I've always been intrigued by Gentoo (not a fanboy! :P) but the installation process was too time-consuming to justify toying with it much. It looks like Vidalinux solves that problem.
maybe it's simply beyond my understanding why there seem to be dozens and dozens of distros when there is only one linux kernel
Yes, there is only one kernel (that I know of). There are many distros - some have totally different architectures, some are just slightly different ideas, some have different ideals, some are designed for a specific purpose or fill a niche, others are almost identical and have no reason for existing besides that someone made one of them. The real answer here is choice and freedom - people have the freedom to create a distro if they want, and theres lots of choice to use to decide on one.
It provides a strange situation. On one hand, as an experienced user, theres lots of choice. If there's something you don't like about a distro, then likely someone else has already created a distro that fixes it and you can use that one. On the other hand, as a new user with no experience, it's overwhelming. Pretty much you just need to pick a mainstream one (easy to find help that way) and try it.
Also beyond me is the schism between KDE/Gnome, XFree86/X.org, etc. It seems to me that if the Linux community would just bury the hatchet and agree on a best of breed cross section of all the various options in building a system y'all would have the boys in Redmond over a barrel
This is exactly what each distro (in most cases, anyways) thinks they're doing - picking the best tools and putting them all together. Different people have different ideas of what's best, hence the number of distros.
As far as having two big projects working on the same task - ie, Gnome/KDE - there's a lot of issues with that. You can't expect a bunch of developers to suddenly decide to give up on all their code and start working on something else. You also can't just expect them to integrate - in fact I believe they're coded in different languages - the time required to port code would probably be more than just rewriting from scratch.
The big thing here is - no one is competing with Microsoft. There is not some broad community trying to compete with any company or market. It's all individual developers working on projects that are useful to them (maybe sometimes this means financially) and developing tools they need. Often this happens collectively, as many people need the same thing.
Another way to look at it again is having choice. With proprietary software, all the same arguments about architecture and design decisions take place, you just don't see it. They make a decision earlier on, the losing side doesn't actually get to develop much (or any) code, and as a user, you're forced into using the solution the manager liked best (or the solution that had the best presentation). With open source, you get to decide for yourself which is best.
Eventually, one solution will draw more users than the other, and developers will start moving, and eventually you'll get a dead project if enough people switch over. KDE and Gnome are at basically an even split right now, but eventually one will be more predomanant than the other.
Until then, use and/or contribute to the one you like best, and enjoy that you are free to make that choice.
Speak before you think
I agree 100000%.
:)
While we're on the subject, how about we fix the following?:
1) There are way too many different attractive females walking around. They should all look the same to avoid confusion.
2) I HATE going to a restaurant and having to spend all that time browsing through the menus. They should just give me meatloat and tell me to shutup.
3) Ferrari or Kia? Nah, just make them all Kia's. They both do the same exact damn thing after all!
4) All of these companies, LIKE MICROSOFT, are producing competing products. That seems so silly! Communism has it right! Everything should be owned and produced by a single entity! The choice is so confusing, and obviously competition leads to inferior products!
Okay, I'm kidding. No offense, but your comment has been posted so many times in varying forms in so many different forums that I really should be yawning right now rather than replying. But ah, I'm bored, and I'm on a roll when it comes to getting my posts modded as flamebait!
Distrowatch.com proves that yes, there are too many distros to keep track of. If 'keeping track' of distros is your thing. This variety does not make a single distro less usable; rather all the distros tend to benefit from the competition and *open-source* innovations created by the others.
KDE/Gnome wouldn't be improving at nearly the same pace if one or the other was the only game in town. While we're on it, kick-ass Window Managers like XFCE and WindowMaker wouldn't even exist if everyone settled on the one, true, final, and perfect solution. Only religions imply one perfect answer for everything. Choice is good, competition is even cooler.
"their pants are around their ankles for the next few years until Longhorn comes out anyway..."
Yep, all of use Linux users are trembling at the thought of Microsoft releasing the much delayed, super hyped, unable to include their cool new filesystem Longhorn.
Maybe most of us don't even care if Microsoft is destroyed. We're too busy using / developing stuff that is way cooler.
The whole "gentoo sucks, (insert distro name here) rules!" thing is silly, and clearly illustrates you have no knowledge whatsoever of the Linux community other than some interaction with thirteen year olds. There's more cooperative development in Linux distros than petty name calling a zillion times over.