[lotuseclat79]

Article here.

An excellent article explaining the issues surrounding Linux and how Linux needs more standardization to compete with the main stream Operating Systems.

-- Tom

[Elvandil]

I agree. Linux would have made great advances by now if there were some benevolent dictator guiding it. That cursèd "democracy" has confused and stalemated the whole OS, or rather all the 1000+ OS's.

[tomdkat]

I disagree with two points in the article:

1. I think he makes an excellent point! Even the package systems are too diversified. As I said before, choice is good, but not on the core system, and packages are part of the core system.

2. So if Linux ever wants to truly become mainstream, some level of standardization needs to occur.

Point #1: "Packages" are something distribution creators came up with to help end users get applications installed without having to deal with building from source. This concept is certainly not at the "core" of any Linux OS but certainly is at the core of most distributions. We have a HP-UX server in my office and commercial apps I've installed have come in one of two forms:

• A tarball (which is very common)
• A HP-UX "disk image" that gets mounted and then the app can be installed.

I think sticking with tarballs or source distributions of apps is the best way to achieve consistency across distributions.

Point #2: "Linux" doesn't "want" anything. Linux users have positioned Linux in the manner it's becomed positioned in various markets. The kernel hackers want to make Linux a rock solid, well performing kernel. People (e.g. end users) who use Linux to get away from Windows "position" Linux against Windows. So, if Linux users want Linux to go mainstream, some kind of distribution standardization consortium needs to be created to define what a "standard" Linux distribution would be.

Peace...

[John A]

I agree with the article, although Linux standardization is never going to happen. The whole spirit of Linux is open source, and that everyone should be able to modify it for their own needs and uses. What this essentially means is that creating a standard that distros must adhere to would be impossible, because each developer has their own ideas about how Linux should be.

It should also be worth noting that were Linux to take over, it would be a single distro that gains majority rather than the entire shebang. Why? Because Linux itself isn't really an operating system. All it really is is a kernel, and various GNU software is used to create the operating system. A 'distro' is actually a complete operating system, so what we should really be looking for is a single distro that meets the average user's needs well, if there's going to be any hope of a Linux distro gaining a majority in the consumer operating system market.

Of course, I often find that the spirit of Linux is wrong for some of my needs, and in many cases I've gone to Unix-based operating systems (such as FreeBSD) which actually adhere, for the most part, to the Unix standards.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by John A

It should also be worth noting that were Linux to take over, it would be a single distro that gains majority rather than the entire shebang. Why? Because Linux itself isn't really an operating system. All it really is is a kernel, and various GNU software is used to create the operating system. A 'distro' is actually a complete operating system, so what we should really be looking for is a single distro that meets the average user's needs well, if there's going to be any hope of a Linux distro gaining a majority in the consumer operating system market.

I do agree that a single distro would represent "Linux" if Linux were to be dominant but I disagree that Linux, itself, isn't an operating system. An operating system doesn't need to come with tons of applications or applications that make it easier to use to be considered an operating system. Linux is a much of an operating system as any other Unix operating system or MS-DOS or OS/390 or z/OS.

A 'distro' is the Linux operating system bundled with lots of third party apps and organized in a manner which makes the OS easier for end users to use. People don't "need" GNOME or KDE to use Linux. People don't even "need" X to use Linux. The fact modern distros come with both means modern distros are designed to cater to those not willing or able to install those things themselves.

Peace...

[simpswr]

I bet Microsoft could breing some standardizztion to Linux!!

[killah]

Simply making a standard packaging system for installing applications, would be a huge jump.
The idea that anyone doing a application that will work on any distribution, would be incredible.

[RobLinux]

NVidia seem to manage to support rather a lot of distro's despite the handicap of releasing a binary kernel module.

You'ld also find a surprising degree of binary compatability if you have kept old executables around, which were compiled statically.


There is Linux Standardisation, it's called LSB, it was carefully designed to solve application install issues, provides recommended methods for handling problems, and yet seems to struggle for mindshare on the net.

FOSS progress is made by a confederation, this includes the BSD's where multiple developers may implement features or try new approaches, without their innovation being held back by need to agree on a "Right way of doing it" in advance.

There are several commercial companies, Redhat/Fedora, Novell/OpenSuSE for example, competing to satisfy business distro needs, as well as the hardware companies like IBM & Intel.

The article is confused as it's examples are based on the end-user difficulties when migrating from one distro to another, and are in general administration functions rather than API.

Distro tools cannot become 100% similar, as then you leave no room for Ubuntu/Redhat/Novell/Mandriva to compete.

The benevolent dicatator model fails, for the same reason that Monarchy fails eventually, despite it's superficial attraction to large segments of populations.

Noone is sufficiently well informed, nor has the decision making capacity to satisfactorily guide such a complicated project. It would collapse, as incompetent decisions mount up, and a skewed form of stagnation occurs where needs of hot areas were not anticipated.

Linus speaks quite clearly on this, one example is on the kernel virtualisation area, which he has never been intrested in, but has become quite important to those integrating and consolidating server farms.

[RootbeaR]

I disagree with the article.

I like to think of the distro as a UI. Some come with packages designed to do a special purpose. Forensics? The kernel is the OS.

Some distros are specialized for a reason. 50 MB zip drive portable OS anyone?

These distros and their installed packages work together without conflict. Some apps don't play nice with other apps installed at same time. MS runs into this problem as well.

Do you want to start with a 40GB OS? Then have to strip it down?

Do you always want a 50 MB potable OS? Then have to build it up?

Most of what the article talks about is apps. To compare it to MS, it would only come with X, then you install from there. Is every MS system set-up the same way? Do you have the exact same apps and set-up on XP as me? Not likely. The only similarity is the window environment.

What would be more helpful are better descriptions of each distros purpose.
Or a short questionnaire which asks what you want to do and then suggests the appropriate distro(s) for you.

How many OSs' doze MS have? 9 or 12 versions for Vista alone isn't it?

Why don't we just have one OS period then? So long as it isn't any of the Vista flavours.