Why is Linux so fragmented?

Why is Linux so fragmented?
What does fedora, arch, centos, or the many thousands of distros offer over Ubuntu with your choice of DE?

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because freedom.

it's a good thing

Ubuntu is shit and Apt is the root of it's cancer.

ROSA [Mandriva] master race!

Why is automobile so fragments?
What do the many thousands of different types of car offer over Toyota with your choice of colour?

This
/Thread

Various niches, the freedom of choice, and not being Amazon Ubotnet (TM)

cars have an actual market and make money dumbass.

whereas linux barely makes cash in the server world.

furthermore there are 2 distinct use scenarios for a sedan or a truck.

whereas the only difference between ubuntu and arch is one requires autism and an addiction to the taste of dick.

What you perceive as weakness is actually it's strength.

No not only is it a weakness but it may very well be the greatest and perhaps even only true killer weakness linux has.

Fragmentation keeps the users away...which keeps the software and money away. Fragmentation is the reason linux has failed for 2 decades. And the reason it will continue to fail.

>make money
What difference does it make?
Different models exist that do the same thing. Paid or free.

>which keeps the software and money away
Good. Money usually leads to monopoly.

>whereas the only difference between ubuntu and arch is one requires autism and an addiction to the taste of dick

seems like someone here cannot dedicate 30min of his precious time to install something that isnt bloated

Linux has not failed it's the most popular Kernel in the world. Android is an incredibly successful operating system.

Also tons of Large corporations like intel, Google, Microsoft and IBM poor millions of dollars into the Kernel every year.

Linux is also not fragmented it's one Kernel.

>millions of dollars
That might be a bit of an overestimation.

Agreed, but only for desktop

Linux is fragmented for the following reason.

PRIDE>intelligence.

You see rather than work collectively on software to make a better overall product PRIDE steps in and convinces them to work separately on competing products that will never fully work correctly due to an inherent lack of direction and manpower which resulted from PRIDE making them go their separate ways in the first place.

This is done primarily due to massive egos and unwarranted self importance. See Stallman for an example.

more examples would be as follows.

weyland vs mir.
.DEB vs .rpm vs all the other bullshit all the way to .pup. pointless competing standards when 1 good one would change everything.
600+ goddamned distros including such gems as 'Hannah Montana linux'...yes its real.

Hence OP your answer...is PRIDE, EGO AND UNWARRANTED SELF IMPORTANCE.

The classic too many chiefs and not enough indians analogy explains all of the failings of linux.

But not as much as your mom is addicted to the taste of my dick.

true. but android and chrome have one single thing desktop linux lacks.

Direction.

get a real knife. A fairburn-sykes.

one made for murder.

>work on a project
>find out someone else is working on similar project independently
>you must discard everything you did and start working under that other guy or else it's
>PRIDE, EGO AND UNWARRANTED SELF IMPORTANCE.

Fuck off user. You created nothing. You have no qualifications to make such evaluation. You're free to say you don't like it, but what you're doing is another thing entirely.

>You see rather than work collectively on software to make a better overall product
>The classic too many chiefs and not enough indians
Ah, the calling card of someone who hasn't contributed anything to distribution development. Here's a tip: when it's the chief doing most of the work (which is why he's the fucking chief), adding another five chiefs isn't going to help. If anything you end up with multiple competing internal solutions which is no better than multiple external projects. The only place raw manpower is actually of use is with package maintainers.

one million dollars is 6-12 engineer-years, it's a lot more than a million dollars

Actually you are correct.

And then your PRIDE EGO AND UNWARRANTED SELF IMPORTANCE makes you continue your work instead of collaborating with another likely fine mind attempting to solve a similar problem.

And then when someone calls you out on your bullshit your wounded PRIDE makes you insult and curse them. It makes you tell them they create nothing (as if you'd know, but hey PRIDE's talking here), and then you PRIDEFULLY must defend your sense of creation.

When in reality your creation doesn't solve as many problems as it creates due to your bullheaded and PRIDEFUL decision not to collaborate with other minds.

Because you're important right? and that other project you could collaborate on isn't right? And i'm a terrible person for telling you this, because HOW DARE I QUESTION YOUR EGO?

Thank you user...you've done more to help my argument that any other statement possibly could.

You've proven me right.

>You've proven me right.
I'll say it again: you, having no experience in software development, have no idea how it works, and your evaluation of other people's workflow is inane.

you're describing Sup Forums in general, most people who post here are in their 30s and proud that they've never graduated college or held a job for more than two months

Yes so instead of attempting to tackle another project lets instead make a competing one and wonder how things got worse.

Stop doing this shit and get shit done. LINUX DOES NOT HAVE TO SUCK.

Keep saying that while android with it's solid goals direction and leadership dominate the fuck out of everything else linux based save the server market.

I'm sure you're principles will work while the ones I described will miraculously begin to fail.

Keep strokin that ego.

>cars have an actual market and make money dumbass.
>whereas linux barely makes cash in the server world.

Linux reduces expensive thus helps generate more profit.
>paying license fee for windblows

>whereas the only difference between ubuntu and arch is one requires autism and an addiction to the taste of dick.

>people who have never installed arch say

Android, supported by Google's connections and millions, that came into mobile market when that was empty? That Android?

As opposed to canonical with its millions who came into the linux world when that was considered insane?

And yet Ubuntu is the only linux normies will trust outside of google...imagine that...Seems like leadership and direction might just mean something huh?

>leadership and direction
or could it be just
>millions
Really Makes You Think Huh?

shit nigga, you know that redhat made 1.5 billion in revenue last year right.

it's almost as if large organizations pouring money into providing support and making things user-friendly is required for normal people products

Also lets talk about the other successful linux...Redhat. One more example of clear goals and targets getting shit done in the linux world. Redhat isn't exactly broke or unconnected.

As you see and the point im still making is...LINUX NEITHER HAS TO SUCK OR BE BROKEN. But PRIDE, EGO and all that...keeps it a nightmare for the general population.

Drop the competing standards. They are not helping.

>choices are bad

And i was just bringing up redhat as you posted that.

You are asking that people who are doing independent projects to drop them and start working under others for free. That's insanity. Refusing to do that is not pride.
Your imaginary COLLABORATION where everyone is equal is impossible in software development. One has to work under other's orders.

It's not about choice. it's about useability and stability.

If every distros worked great out of the box, then sure bring on more choice.

But a box of assorted chocolates with a shit filling won't be better just because you can choose cashews and shit vs coconut and shit.

I'm not saying dont make things for linux. I'm saying do not divide it needlessly. You're scaring off the money and bigger developers with your crazy bullshit AND THAT HURTS EVERYONE.

Been open source anyone can copy the code and make their own distro.

As far as direction goes. Anything truly note worthy makes its way into the kernel.

It's not that fragmented. Enterprise is basically all RHEL/CentOS or Ubuntu at this point. Individual users are mostly Ubuntu/Debian. Honorable mention for Fedora and Suse.

That's still basically 2-3 "families" of LInux-based OS. It's not nearly the hundreds of distros nightmare people say.

Then develop something else thats needed.

Is a conversation asking too much? If someone else is doing the same shit and you're both working for nothing find out if they either can use input or direction or if they are just plain doing better.

I'M TELLING YOU TO STOP BICKERING AND FOCUS.

I want linux to succeed. Sadly I know as an end user why it isn't And I do not think it has to be this way.

>Then develop something else thats needed.
>drop your project

I already told you that's insanity.
You just keep demonstrating how deluded you are.

>Discussion about linux on desktop
>cntrl+f "preinstall"
>no replies

99.99999% have never installed an operating system in their lives, nor have they built a PC. They buy a premade and use whatever is already installed on it. Thats why Linux isnt more popular on Desktop.

He has a point, though. The segmentation is too big, you can't deny that.

The segmentation is natural. By destroying alternatives you won't improve existing projects.

linux distros ive tried to get normies to use (the same normies who can easily use OSX, Android, Chrome OS and windows with zero problem so understanding different systems is not the issue).

Ubuntu
Mandriva (yeah im fuckin old)
Fedora.
Mint. (the fluxbox edition was quite nice in its day)
Manjaro.
CentOS.
SUSE.
And even puppy.
And here are the Linux OS'es anyone has ever expressed interest in using again or simply didn't give up because shit didn't work, dependency hell, lack of software or the software they wanted had the wrong 3 letter abbreviation at the end so they gave up when they realized it wasn't going to install on their specific linux without extra effort.

Does android count? because the only linux anyone ever wants is the one on their phone.

So ya know that's why im here...making these arguments. Making appeals to reason. Because the end user's current choice in operating systems is Windows (botnet that hates you), OSX (walled garden of bullshit that also hates you and overcharges while having shit support) Google (just botnet my asshole til im goatse...and shit hardware and net apps are just the solution the EVERYTHING) Or finally linux (pray it works or you have time/ability to figure it out)

There simply isn't a good choice right now. BUT THERE COULD BE.

Until then I guess just shitpost on Sup Forums and keep an eye on distro watch for something to take hold. About a decade ago I would tell ya that next year is the year. But every new distro Where excitement at the new choices and creativity reigned...it just became a game of 'let's see what catastrophic failure we get this time'.

>linux distros ive tried to get normies to use
Fool's errand.
Linux is not ready for desktop.
And, again, destroying software alternatives (which seems to be your ultimate even though unachievable solution to the problem) will not make the situation better.

If people redirect their efforts, then yes, it will improve. Take, for example, the compilers. The only relevant compilers in *nix world are Clang and GCC. They both have concrete goals. As for another example, Linux kernel itself is managed by a team with a vision.

I'm (and, I presume, the other poster) not talking about projects a one person can make over a year or so, but large ones that require real planning and cooperation between dozens of people.

You're destroying both the project and the potential user base. And without user's you can kiss those millions from the developers goodbye.

Ya know...the millions you said were Important AND GAME CHANGING.

Something's gotta give and it's not gonna be the user. IT HAS TO BE YOU.

By your logic, either GCC or Clang needs to be destroyed as soon as possible to make Linux better. Is that what you strive for?

>Something's gotta give and it's not gonna be the user. IT HAS TO BE YOU.
You have completely lost it.

"Everything linux related is shit" is your opinion.
There is two reasons to make a distro and you are lumbing them together as one.

One reason would be to provide a unique experience, that would be the "out of the box" thing you are talking about.
Linux distros does this better than any other OS.
There is a lot of those because different people want different things.
You can argue the reason arch is so popular is it replaces all these distros and becomes a distro that anyone can maintain themselves.

Then there is distros that exist because they want to manage software.
They have different ideas of how software should be compiled and sent to people, but that is their main goal.
We need a lot of those so we can test new ideas in a free market and see what people prefer.
There could be a million different distros in that category and I would still be okay with that.
In reality though, people stick with debian, ubuntu, fedora, opensuse and arch.
But you can find something that is more diverse if you want to.

That is like saying democracy is not ready for use because it is hard to implement.

And that's where the pride thing comes in. In ANY endeavour you have to be able to not mess up the deal with the next guy down who has to deal with this...your user's...your customers...your collaborators...whatever.

If you don't have any regard for anyone else's problems save your own it's gonna fail. You can't tell someone 'you have completely lost it' if they are telling you this. This is basic common sense in any endeavour. You cannot expect success if you don't give a shit about everyone else who has to work with what you've done.

If you can't do this then this is what happens...an incoherent mess pulled in too many directions. And lo and behold desktop linux has the same success as always...little to none.

Linux is not the problem. The attitude is.

Debatable. Could easily be claimed both that comparison makes little sense and that people are really not ready for democracy.

the world would happily trade all this diversity for just one good choice.

I do not strive to convince you - just to demonstrate to reader that your approach is based on ignorance.

As well as many people who work independently on Linux projects do not strive to make Linux more popular - just to make live easier for people who already use Linux.

...

I like arch for the AUR and how pacman works
and for their wiki

apt and rpm are like the same fucking thing.

>please make my decisions for me and cater specifically to my particular preferences which are also everyone else's for some reason

Just fucking buy a Mac, faggot.

Because autism.

>Direction.
Wut?

it's the same packages on every distro, it's just which ones are installed

it's not fragmented at all. There is mesa and cairo and xrandr and gnutls etc. on every distro

Why do you care? Just use one and be happy about it. If you don't like any of them build your own distro, if that doesn't suit you then buy a Mac

Have you seen the xkcd cartoon about there being 14 competing distros and how we need one to unite them?
We wind up with 15 competing distros.

RHEL/CentOS is THE standard server Linux distro for a reason.

This one is bullshit. There are so many types of cars because competition. Companies fighting to reach other, making better cars everytime in order to attract consumers.

In the Open Source world, there is no competition (besides Red Hat and Novell, for example). There's shouldn't be nessesary to reinvent the wheel, but yet we have more than 300 Distros and 10 DE, not because competition, but because everybody wants to be a fucking leader and doesn't wants to work together with others.

Because autists cant agree on anything. Just like now with systemd, Any form of standardization kills the autist.

>implying many distros don't fill niches
nigga you retarded

Just as there are numerous kinds of cars to suit different niches, there are also different flavors of distributions that serve different niches. If you don't care to bother with the niche distros, you choose one of the most popular ones: Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Fedora/Redhat. Feel free to ignore all the other flavors.

Apt is OK but Canonical has its own agenda.

-Syu 4life

Ego tripping at the gates of hell

I like black dicks the most because their curvature to length ratio is so low.

too many cooks.

good software needs to have some sort of visionary leader that knows where shit is heading.

Up until about last year I was so ingrained in me apt ways that I wouldn't even try another distro with any other package manager, then Manjaro happened and the rest is history, pacman why did it take me so long to find you.

*my (sorry Sup Forumsuys)

/thread

What does arch offer over Ubuntu with your choice of DE?

A package manager that isn't ass, and AUR

>a package manager that isn't ass
>and AUR

And an autistic community.

But Android is also incredibly fragmented. Every phone manufacturer has their own bullshit ugly UI theme and app suite they tack on.

But Ubuntu and Redhat are two competing standards with different direction.

haha yes yes yes

It's not about pride of ego, its about philosophy. The community has the freedom to do whatever they want and they end up choosing to start their own projects with their own ideas/views and that freedom is the most important thing for the linux community.

You don't get it because you're the kind of user that switched to linux because its "free as in free beer" or just wanted to be part of the group of autistic posers that plague this board.

Shit thread, btw.

>pride or ego
fix'd

>you are free to choose how you'd like your shit to not work
fuck off

>delete all distros, leave Ubuntu and Red Hat
>delete all DEs, leave Gnome
>focus all the freetard community workload on those
>???
>year of linux desktop

I can't be a special snowflake with ubuntu

youtu.be/5Qj8p-PEwbI

>fragmented
New marketing meme.

Go buy a Mac, asshole.

The only distro I've used where random shit breaks on updates and installing various apps or plugins causes the entire system to potato is ubuntu.
And I've tried dozens of distros over several years.

gnome and ubuntu.
you really want linux to die, don't you?
>projectile vomiting.jpg

You realize you'd just end up back in the same boat, right?

Eventually people would disagree on what Gnome should look like/do, and then it'd branch into two different versions. And then these would branch, and then on and on.

Fragmentation means options. Asking why different linux distros exist is the same as asking why Linux, Windows and OSX exist. They fill different needs.

Absolutely this. The fragmentation is all here on Sup Forums where every faggot hipster distro in the universe is periodically mentioned or shilled for from time to time.

I work in the real work servicing linux clusters in three countries. Literally everything is RHEL,CentOS, Ubuntu. That's it. Nothing else. There are billions of dollars going into Linux for essentially the sole purpose of keeping Redhat and Canonical in business improving their product and a non-trivial amount also makes its way up-stream to Debian and the Linux Kernel in general. But don't be confused, that's not because people want to support Debian, it's beacause they needs the Debqueens to keep their pants on so Ubuntu can continue to function as required.

I think in ten years if anything happens to the global economy, the consolidation is going to center around RHEL/Cent and Debian/Ubuntu will be the ones who fall out and go into small time community mode.

So realistically if you want to be using the least fragmented most likely to be the standard for the rest of your lifetime distro then go learn how to use Fedora/Cent and stop wasting your time pretending misc. distros are relevant.

>inb4 NSA RedHack doesn't respect your freedoms
Of course they don't, but with freedom distros you are at the mercy of the unpaid shills who are lazily developing at a glacial pace and nobody cares if they finish or do a good job. If that's OK with you be my guest, but don't expect upstream or hardware to care about catering to the needs of someone who can't put up a dime to encourage the devs and engineers to work.

>at the mercy of the unpaid shills

Don't you talk shit about Hannah Montana Linux

>If that's OK with you be my guest, but don't expect upstream or hardware to care about catering to the needs of someone who can't put up a dime to encourage the devs and engineers to work.

You aren't wrong. I work in the corporate side of open source. We are essentially the money men between the linux kernel and downstream taking advantage of what our bosses pay for with their own interests in mind.

There's this bizzare notion out there that Linux is some kind of hippie commune where free devs just do 90% of the work and corporations come in and scoop up the rewards. Realistically it's the other way around. If people want to see something they like come out of Linux they need to pay devs to make it happen. That's really all there is to it.

Isn't Fedora basically RHEL for desktop usage?

>And an autistic community.
Sup Forums don't know whatis autism.

>Fragmentation keeps the users away...
Bullshit.New users have no idea how "fragmented" Linux is.Difficulty is what scares new users away. But, if you can't be bothered to learn Linux, then you most likely have no use for it.