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Time for a Linux Consolidation?
An anonymous reader writes "Are there too many Linux distributions currently available? Can there be too many? This article explores the effect of the large number of distros out right now and suggests that progress could possibly be made through a consolidation. The article is more focused on Linux on the desktop but the ideas presented would impact the entire community, especially as it is seen as a rival to Windows." From the article: "One of the less widely recognized reasons why Linux has not yet toppled Windows, despite it many advantages, is how divided the resources available to Linux are. With dozen of different distributions the Linux community is so diffuse that the power or significance of any specific entity is severally limited."
... the success called "United Linux"??
Meh.
We should form a committee to consolidate and leverage synergy for our information technology solutions in the marketplace!
THIS IS A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY FOR BUREAUCRACY!!1
Linux is never going to reduce the number of available distributions, even if it's what's good for Linux, because the people making these distributions aren't doing it for the benefit of "Linux". They're doing it for the benefit of themselves.
It's all very well and good to be some kind of columnist, standing outside of Linux and going "well, Linux would be better if Slackware and Gentoo would combine". That's easy to say. But this doesn't help you much if you're a Slackware user; it might be better for Linux if that happened but it wouldn't be better for Slackware and to the Slackware developer, what's better for Slackware is what matters because Slackware is what they want to use. If it wasn't, they'd be using Gentoo instead in the first place.
Linux development, as an open source process, is fueled by self-interest. This is its greatest strength. That it indirectly produces weaknesses is unavoidable.
DEs are freely interchangeable between distros, and even package manager GUIs are fairly universal - There may be hundreds of distros, but how many are there that don't use RPMs, apt-get or source code?
The amount of community time spent on distro-specific stuff is miniscule compared to the time spent on projects that can be used on a wide variety of distros. The number of distros is therefore largely irrelevant, rather than some community-draining problem like TFA says.
After all, that's the whole point of Open Source, isn't it. . ? Sharing code amongst projects. . ?
So.. it has come to this
First, the hyperlinks in the articles are actually advertisement links. Second, you cannot consolidate distributions when I can start my own distribution tomorrow.
Dear editors, can we please mod articles? Recently there have been numerous articles that are just thinly disguised advertisements and click-through magnets. Slashdot as a community deserves better.
In Soviet Russia, articles before post read *you*!
Perhaps, but as long as they exist we have to waste our time resolving them over and over and over again.
The question is more like: how much time do you spend working on installing/configuring/repairing the Linux (or BSD or whatever *nix) box of your choice, versus how much time you spend installing/configuring/repairing Windows?
For me, it's easy:
1 - Installing Linux: maybe twice as much time as Windows, due mainly to the lack of prepackaged drivers for this or that
2 - Configuring Unix: 10 times as much time as Windows, because I want to have everything neat and well installed, and KDE can be non-obvious at times.
3 - Maintaining Unix: 0. Maintaining Windows: it's an endless pain in the butt (patching, running Norton, de-spyware-ing, de-virusing, renewing licenses, etc etc...)
So, in terms of time, I spend a lot more time installing and configuring Unix, but then after that I'm done for good.
So even with the minor differences in distros as they are, I'm winning over using Windows anyway. And I'm not even talking about the hard-dollar price of Windows and Windows software, so that's why I'm saying that, for moderately technically-savvy people, Linux is already a better choice than Windows, even with its flaws.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Meanwhile, busses carry 95% of the traffic, even though they are uncomfortable and smell bad and break down a lot. To switch to driving yourself requires developing too many new skills that you don't need to ride the bus, and those do not carry over to the different models.
So it's not necessarily that the number of choices is, in itself, a bad thing; it is that each choice locks you in to that model, so that even though there are 100 choices, once you pick one, you are stuck with it. That makes the cost of picking wrong so high that it just isn't worth getting off the bus.
People should not fear their government. Governments should fear their people.
Which should they use to do what? To:
1) Create a development workstation
2) Run a small home server
3) Run a large multiprocessor corporate server
4) Use for children
5) Use for a keyboardless sales demo on a plasma screen
6) Use for a cash register
7) Use for an embedded system with no user interface at all
etc... Why would you expect one product to be all of those things. The car industry works fine with having a range of products from small compact cars to large trucks. People in grocery stores can shop for steak or cereal fine. Its Microsoft that has pushed a "one size fits all" approach.
No. I don;t think it was a reference to UnitedLinux. From the article:
"With dozen of different distributions the Linux community is so diffuse that the power or significance of any specific entity is severally limited."
Evidently, they are suggesting that centralized control over the operating system is what is required for Linux to spread. This is not like United Linux because no single entity controlled United Linux. This is instead the Microsoft model, which is why they are wrong.
Clearly there are a lot of areas that need improvement on unifying the base platform for Linux-based systems. And clearly the fragmentation has caused problems (was that Runlevle 2 or 3? Was that runlevel 3 or 5 in this distro?) but these areas are being worked on. The answer comes in many forms, from FreeDesktop.org to the LSB project.
The average Linux user should not have to worry about the holy wars regarding KDE v. GNOME. They should be able to get KDE apps and GTK apps running on the same system and integrating seamlessly without any problems. This is happening.
The average Linux admin should not have to worry about which utilities are on a system, which runlevel is which, what the device name for the serial port is, and half a dozen other annoyances that have at one time or another plagued the Linux world. These things should be standardized. And it is happening.
In short, consolidation is not the answer. Standardization is the answer. Interoperability is the answer. On top of that, each vendor should be encouraged to extend the standard as a way of trying out new things. Eventually new ideas will make their way in, just like other standards (POSIX, SQL, etc).
And just to mention this, there may be cases where the standard does not apply. I for one don't think that TiVo's need to be LSB compliant...
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
4) Use for children
Good job. You managed to pick ONE thing the average home user would actually use a computer for. I guess you just don't realize that the average home user doesn't know the difference between spyware and a virus, has no interest in networking their coffemaker and their fridge (with encryption, of course), and certainly doesn't care for a server.
Here's what they want:
1) so easy to use, even they can do it
2) check their spam daily
3) all of the programs they already know how to use already work on it.
4) easy transition (minimize lost settings, files, etc.) This includes things such as iTunes playlists.
5) the same hardware support they have in windows. That is, everything worked with windows when they bought that computer from Dell/Compaq/HP/Fujitsu, whatever. They didn't have to go hunt down drivers, troubleshoot anything, or settle irq conflicts. In fact, they're not quite sure what a driver is, but are pretty certain about putters.
6) multimedia support out of the box. They don't want to install their Line-Ux CD just to find out that the media player can't even play their porn or their mp3s. They need codecs? "What are those? Where can they buy them? RTFA? Where can I buy an RTFA? Oh, you mean check the interweb? Google said I should download winamp!"
I really have no idea why I haven't run into a single linux distro that supports my porn and mp3s without extra codec downloads. I'm not sure why most STILL don't include read-only support for my NTFS partitions. To be honest, I'm amazed they don't have it fully figured out such that I can WRITE to my NTFS partitions as well. Especially since I've got some nifty 300GB external hard drives for my windows laptop. Why is it a windows laptop? See the above issues.
I realize most of the problems are really caused by crappy licensing agreements by the "owners" of whatever licenses or code, and a lot of the other problems are caused by hardware manufacturers refusing to release drivers or help us to write them, but the end user doesn't really care. The average 50 year old jet mechanic couldn't give a damn if it's because the software author's daughter died yesterday. He wants his shit to work to do the stuff HE does. And most people do the EXACT same thing and little else.
As for me, I'll switch entirely, and get the rest of my family running it, as soon as all the porn that windows media player plays is playable under linux, red alert 2 works perfectly, and gaim has caught up with trillian. The browser is about the same, evolution and thunderbird are great for email, the hardware support appears half-assed at best,
To bring back to your point: "The car industry works fine with having a range of products from small compact cars to large trucks" This is a valid point, but also completely off. The true analogy would be going into a car dealership and telling them:
Buyer: "I just want a car. It has to have A/C, working lights and brakes, and get me to and from work."
Dealer: "Will you be hauling sand or rocks. What kind of towing capacity do you need?"
Buyer repeats: "just a car. For transportation. To and from work. And maybe the movies occasionally. I'd like to be able to get it on in the back seat too".
Dealer: "Oooooh. Ok, yeah, we have that. Here's what we can do for you. We've got this great frame out back, it's really happening. Then you can go across the street and buy the interior. We'll even tow it down the street to the corner for you to get the engine put in. You can repaint it whatever color you want (fully customizable!), but nobody has lights for it, so you'll have to find those before you drive it at night. Oh, and it needs 100 octane, so you'll have to go to one of these special petrol stations."
Linux's problem is your idea of "why would you expect one product to be all of those things." The truth is, the majo
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