Seriously, how many Linux distributions do we need? Linux has a long way to go before becoming a decent desktop alternative.
The open-source community needs to pool their efforts instead of forking.

You're welcome to leave linux to those that do get it and use whatever makes *you* happy.
It's called choice, and I'm all for it.

You have that completely back-assward. Linux is easy to customize therefore it has many distros. The demands of different functions do conflict. A realtime recording studio OS isn't going to be well-suited to run on a LAMP server-farm. A server-tuned OS is going to have crap 3d game performance. Each use implies at least a different kernel build, perhaps a whole tuned userland as well - a custom distro, in other words. It's precisely because Linux is not merely configurable, but rebuildable, that multiple distros become a practical necessity.

Seriously, how many Linux distributions do we need? Linux has a long way to go before becoming a decent desktop alternative.The open-source community needs to pool their efforts instead of forking.

Funny, for linux apparently being a non-viable desktop alternative OS, I've never had any issues. I've used Mandrake, Redhat (and fedora), a couple debian-based distros, and most recently settled onto Gentoo because it fits my needs. That's kind of my point, though, is that for anyone who has researched what they want in an OS, they can choose the distribution that meets their needs instead of their OS telling them what they want and need. That, honestly, is my sole reason for running linux instead of Windows.

I hate seeing posts like this because it just shows the ignorance of the average computer user. Linux is indeed a very strong desktop alternative to Windows, but unless the user knows exactly what he/she wants out of it, they probably won't be happy with it.

Oh, and in response to the post that said "Which is simpler, typing apt-get or emerge, or double clicking an icon that says 'Setup'?" I would like to say that for me, and for more than a few people I know of, a command like 'emerge' or 'apt-get' makes a lot more sense to us than double-clicking an icon that for all we know could be installing a trojan horse along with the software we want.

Well you seem to forget that most of the distros are really a selective collection of software (along with some other things) and if you would have only one distribution, with one variation, the distro would be around 20GiB or so, or the installer would have to download the stuff you want during installation, which well is a bit problem phrone for big installations, and of course the installer would be insanely complex. If it ain't broke... improve it

It's worth noting that programs like apt-get are more than just an installer. They also do intelligent selection of dependencies and retrieve, install, and configure the whole set. They can also be used to keep everything up to date. A simple 'setup.exe' doesn't compare AT ALL to this.

Obligatory car analogy: This is like a waterhose at the gas station compared to a free, always-available travelling car-detailer.

For those that feel the need to a single file install like that, Slackware, Debian and others all have user-provided 1-file installs for the most popular programs.

In short: You can have your 1-file install and apt-get too, but not on Windows.

This Medialinux thing is better than fedora/CCRMA [stanford.edu] how?

        I don't object in the least to anyone making a new distribution of BSD or Linux, but realistically if you're going to do so... differentiate yourself somehow. At the very least, don't be a bad imitation of another setup.

        I have to wonder if these people even bothered to research existing resources.

Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core.

This is sadly all true, I guess, although I haven't tried it. Quake is an old game, and linux isn't as binary backwards compatible as windows.

Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in /tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start.

Would you want to tell your windows users how to install the latest graphics drivers when installing quake too? This section is just added to make it sound more complicated than it really is.

OK, run the Quake 3 installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on quake3.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound in Quake 3. That's all there is to it!"

And in my opinion the right people to blame for all this mess is the people behind quake, not the people behind linux. It shouldn't be that hard to create a binary that doesn't need a HOWTO in order to get sound. And I see no reason why a game need to be setuid <something>

User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Windows?" Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install Quake 3 in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"

Well, if you need to get a CD and reboot your computer, just to play a simple old game, that's a pretty big hurdle for me. Much easier to just "apt-get install quake3" or "emerge quake3". Of course, quake3 isn't open source software, so it will never happen that you can just apt-get or emerge it. The problem with linux, if you agree that it's a problem, is that it doesn't make it easy for people to package non-free software. Many people view that as a strength, and those are the ones we call zealots.

Now I am not a Linux expert, far from it. More like a novice, I was/am a longtime windows user, infact I can do pretty much everything on windows including analyzing BSOD crap. I was very dissapointed in Kubuntu. I had to do text file hacking, install various packages just to be able to do three things:
- Browse web.
- Play my MP3s.
- Play my ripped DVDs (video files).


Now, I believe you. Because we refurbish pc's, load
new licencesed copies of Windows, and give them to
deserving people. It is very rare to have
an installation of Windows work completely correctly
without making changes, downloading something, or
hacking something, because each of these used pc's
is different and very seldom does everything work as it's supposed to. Linux isn't much better.

IMO, Linux is not ready for desktop.

IMIO*, neither is Windows.

(*My Informed Opinion)

First, I have to say that I totally disagree that Linux have a long way to go before becoming a decent desktop alternative. Distros like Mandriva and Suse are quite good in this respect (its the two that I've used). One thing is that the installation is way easier and better at detecting hardware than Windows (and this is indisputable to someone who has done both lately). They are also quite a bit ahead at doing several things like desktop search and cd-burning, file-management (konqueror) and a lot of other things. Yes, there are some areas where it is still lagging, as with media capabilities (which can be fixes with some messing around). But in general they are at least on par with Windows as desktop systems. I have installed Mandriva for my parents and my sister. They both have dual-boot with windows, but they always use Linux, without problems.

Second, the specialisation of distros like this is really the beauty of Linux distros / liveCDs. Having one CD you can boot into without having to fiddle around with installing specialised software is great. CDs that lets you make media, play games, develop with eclipse and so on is great for trying out stuff. You can test out different software and find out which is the best or if you find it interesting, and then go on an install it if it suits you. This is not a general desktop, it's for a certain group which. It lets you tune the system for one thing, so everything works better. I think this is one of the strenghts of Linux, having niche distros that do certain things really good.

-TN