The majority of Linux distributions out there seem to be over-engineering their method of distribution. They are not giving us a new distribution of Linux. They are giving us an existing distribution of Linux, but with a different distribution of non-system software (like a different desktop environment or configuration of it)
In many cases, turning an installation of the base distribution used to the one they’re shipping is a matter of installing certain packages and setting some configurations. Why should the user be required to reinstall their whole OS for this?
It would be way more practical if those distributions are available as packages, preferably managed by the package manager itself. This is much easier for both the user and the developer.
Some developers may find it less satisfying to do this, and I don’t mean to force my opinion on anyone, but only suggesting that there’s an easier way to do this. Distributions should be changing things that aren’t easily doable without a system reinstall.
If what you proposed was put into practice, we wouldn’t have hundreds of distributions. I think the amount of distributions that exist may actually be overwhelming to a new user. If there were only a few distributions to choose from, you wouldn’t have so many people distro hopping, which is a waste of time (in most cases). You don’t like the desktop environment? Install something else. You don’t like floating windows? Use a tiling window manager.
Excellent argument. I’m on board.
I think it’s about controlling others. Not in an evil or conniving way, but rather that a lot of devs “don’t want other people forcing design decisions on them” when in reality they’re just replacing one set of design decisions with another.
I think your focus is on ease for distributors rather than ease for users. Unless they had a series of checkboxes to choose your flavour, most won’t like it and it won’t gain traction.
It’s a bit like “why cannot people cook food in a restaurant to their liking rather than a chef doing all these meals and variations?”. People just wanna eat.
I don’t see how this is more difficult on the user. It is running a simple command, and for a GUI package manager it would be a single button click, just like you’d do it in a graphical installer. It would indeed be almost like a series of check boxes.
As a user, it is much easier to check a box than reinstall my entire OS
I do agree with you that it’s a cool option. It would require a distro to prioritise that and architect that in a way that seamlessly switches. Maybe there is a gap for something like that if the UI is nice.
Actually, on reflection, I think Mint did have an option from login screen to use KDE or Cinnamon.
It wouldn’t require from the distro any more work than they do on their current package repository. A DE and it’d configuration could be debian packages just like any other.
If you’re basing your distro on another distro, you’ll need to modify your dependencies to fit the existing packages anyway. It seems like the only difference is which repo the additional packages are being fetched from.
Well there are/were systems like that, Crunchbang bring the one that pops into my mind most immediately, but there are others. I think they’re the minority though, even something like MX which you might say is just Debian with a nice xfce has the option of not using systemd, pop and mint don’t ship with snaps…so a bit more than just themeing…where to draw the line?
where to draw the line?
Just taking whatever is easier. If your changes are easily packageable, then it should be a package. Changing systemd is probably not easily packageable. It’s probably possible, but it’s something where its not worth the effort.
Removing snaps? I feel like I’d prefer Mint to package its stuff as a package and leave removing snaps up to the user. But I vaguely remember that mint changes some repos too?
As an OpenSuSE user I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I’d love to clarify if you tell me which part of the post you didn’t understand.
They do understand, they’re just saying that OpenSUSE doesn’t have this problem since you can choose your DE in the installer.
