This post and comments create a whirlwind of emotion. What do I believe!?
Nah. Push them out like rabbits do with their babies. Let them fight and see which ones prevail!
I mean, bait aside, creating a new distro with an existing package manager allows you to set up a different set of default packages and even add your own new/updated ones. That’s the value of it there.
Eh I guess, but really just define your own meta packages and use arch 😄
btw
(it was implied 😜)
Take it a step further and declaratively configure your entire installation with nixos
Literally tons of distros could be some
lib.mkDefaultnixos configs. And they would get a package manager improvement.
This should be in c/ControversialOpinions.
But that doesn’t deserve to count as a separate distro. At best it’s just a variant, like the relationship between Kubuntu and Ubuntu.
Ship of Theseus.
How much do you need to change to make a new distro? Is Linux Mint still Ubuntu? Or is Ubuntu still Debian?
Cat on a table.jpg says:
“I’m going to create a new distro by changing the name of Debian”
Do you have a minute to talk about GNU Guix?
May I introduce you to left parenthesis and right parenthesis? May I further introduce you to millions of parentheses?
FU I won’t do what you tell me!
But what if… I took Debian, and disguised it as my own distro? Ho ho ho! Delightfuly devilish, Seymore!
Mmm, systemd clams.
Daring today, aren’t we
I daily Debian because I realized all of the distros I tried and liked were Debian based. That was 20 years ago.
Ubuntu, Knoppix and MEPIS? I first used Ubuntu in 2006, but it was still very immature then. I didn’t really know much about any other Debian derivatives.
The other big one that was popular was Mandrake but that was rpm based, and a bit later PClinuxOS which was Mandrake based. I didn’t think Debian derivatives were much of a thing then aside from Ubuntu.
There are at least a couple of distros that are based on Ubuntu. Mint is a popular example. I’d say that based on Ubuntu means it is also a Debian derivative.
Mint didn’t really see any sort of popularity until around 2010 as I remember.
I’m aware it’s initial release was earlier (surprised it was exist in 06!), but the reality of those times is that Ubuntu was still building itself up let alone Mint getting traction yet.
I mean Linux wouldn’t be as it is actually without Hannah Montana Linux and Justin Bieber Linux
Actually, create as many distros as you like and can!
Except for distros like Apartheid Linux … maybe uncreate those.
Musk has a distro???
Don’t give him any ideas…
“Distro of Gaming Excellence”
- Comes with a Fiverr account for paying someone else to level up your character!
- Built-in GrokAI to provide tips on what to say in game chat. “Hello, fellow gaming kids.”
- Preconfigured X (Twitter) + OBS Studio, so your followers can watch your livestream fail! Repeatedly!
I don’t want to search this… Wth is it?
nazi distro
How? Why? I can’t even
Hannah Montana 2: Electric Boogaloo Distro Incoming!!!
featuring Dante from Devil May Cry!
And Knuckles!
New distros get a lot of crap, but often they are solving a need for someone.
Take Windowmaker Live: ostensibly it’s just Debian + Windowmaker. I have seen comments saying why not just install WM on Debian? By asking that question, it’s clear the asker hasnt tried recently. There is a lot to configure, and there are lots of usability papercuts.
A custom distro allows someone to fix those problems for themself, and share those fixes with others. It’s not fragmentation, it’s just FOSS.
+1, kubuntu was a lot simpler than installing KDE on Ubuntu and still having grub applications
It would help more people to improve the installer for difficult-to-install software rather than creating an entire operating system around that software. Using the entire operating system as an installer is over the top
Yeah I’m reading what they said and that kind of solution wouldn’t be acceptable in any industry…
Imagine if you wanted to add AC to your central heating system and they told you they need to add a second furnace in parallel to the one you already have because it’s possible to add AC to your current setup, but it’s very complicated to do so…
If you improve the installer to the point it can install any combination of software together (including incompatible versions of deps) you end up with NixOS again
Much like how crustaceans have repeatedly evolved into pseudo-crabs, Linux distros tend to evolve into pseudo-nix
Maybe a script or deployment tool config would suffice
You’re re-inventing the Nix tool which is exactly a script that sets up all the programs and services you want to install
Except no one really uses Nix outside of Nix OS. It is slow and complicated for little reason.
Just use Ansible and an answers file
Then how come we have more packages than the AUR?
And don’t say it’s because we packaged Python and Haskell stuff since we have more non-unique packages too
Maybe one you could just download and pipe to bash. /s
ansible-pull and kickstart was what I had in mind
I figured, I was playing on the number of github repos with instructions for curl pipe bash combos.
You’re both right
Don’t know the case for this - but there are absolutely cases where the merger is blocked for some reason, and why not just fix it yourself with a distro? It hurts nobody.
ALSO BRING BACK HANNAH MONTANA
Cybersecurity engineers and pentesters don’t need Kali or Parrot. You don’t need Proxmox to use LXC and KVM. You don’t need OpenMediaVault to have Samba and NFS shares. You don’t need Clonezilla to make use of the OCS toolkit. You don’t need LMDE to have a Debian OS with Cinnamon and nonfree drivers installed, or Endeavour to have Arch with KDE Plasma.
But it’s sure as shit good to have everything packed together and preconfigured by professionals.
Maybe the existence of these distros (appliances) is a sign of the state of Linux.
May the next distro win.
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I’m not sure I’d go to the lengths of using OMV just to have a samba share.
Or if not professionals at least someone who knows more about it than yourself.
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And even if they don’t, they know enough to do it to a level I am happy to not bother doing it myself.
Or at least willing to push whatever barely working bullshit they forgot to test.
Sounds like a perfect application for Nix, IMO. Either ship a flake or a NixOS config module, and you’re set.
The only disadvantage I can see is the unusual directory structure of NixOS.
Clonezilla is more like an app that comes with an OS on a liveCD for convenience, as it’s troublesome to use the very OS you’re cloning.
Yeah its a program that has a minimal OS. Its more about the program than the operating system.
Sorry, the best I can do is busybox as init.
Every project eventually makes their own package manager. Its pretty insane if you stop and think about how routinely the package manager is re-invented.
For real. I don’t mind the million distributions, but can we agree on one single package manager?
There are only two options that fix dependency hell. Nix and Guix
Back in 2000 I started using Linux with RedHat (That’s what they were teaching us in college then.) and got to know RPMs before the automatic package dependency resolution tools. Then I moved to Ubuntu in 2004 and have been using that since, and even had a job where I built custom Linux distros based on Debian where I had to build DEB packages, so I got to know that system pretty well.
But, honestly, if there are better package managers out there I wouldn’t mind changing if it means we all use the same thing.
I’ve broken both Fedora and Ubuntu already, so I had to find better solutions. With NixOS I can roll back to a previous revision easily on boot
How do you break Ubuntu?
Upgrade 22 LTS upgrade to Ubuntu 24 LTS failed and I forgot the upgrade didn’t succeed when I rebooted. Unlike NixOS, it doesn’t roll all the changes back when the upgrade is unsuccessful
Aaah I see. Ok. I can see why Nix appeals so much to you.
As I said, I need to try it out. I’m gonna download it right now and try it in a VM.
Every time someone complains, another package manager is created
the number of package managers went up by 1
Sure! As long as its nixpkgs.
Apt+snap
No
I’m mildly impressed no-ones downvoted me to hell yet.
Your “no-ones” just caused me great internal confusion.
I just googled noone…
Flatpak it is.
I don’t know if Flatpak can cover all the scenarios. It seems to be mostly for Desktop apps. I know Ubuntu was able to have system tools installed with Snaps though. However, having apps installed with their dependencies in one package is neat, but it takes a ton more in storage.
Flatpak is a great extra layer to have on top of a regular package manager, but I wouldn’t use it as a sole package management system.
I think an immutable system package manager like Nix is perfect to supplement Flatpak.
Where is that comic about standards now that we need it? The one where they create a new standard that is going to solve all the problems, except for now there is just one more standard??
Edit: https://xkcd.com/927
We don’t even need a new standard. Let’s just settle for one of the existing ones.
I’m okay with this, as long as it’s the one I’m using
And which one is that?
Nix, if it’s not obvious from my other posts
I have to check it out.
Not really
There are only a few mainstream package formats and ultimately you are going to probably be using distro packages or portable formats like Flatpak.
