LinuxPlanet: .comment: Separated By a Common Operating System
Jun 27, 2001, 13:43 (59 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Dennis E. Powell)
When Dennis Powell's Caldera installation died, he decided to
use the occasion to look at two other Linux distributions: Progeny
Linux and SuSE Linux. While he likes both of them, he realized that
there's really no such thing as a generic Linux distribution, as
both distros -- as well as most other Linux distros -- are set up
to box users into relationships with manufacturers, as knowledge of
one distribution has little to do with any other distribution. If
Microsoft were to cook up a plan to cause Linux to disappear in a
virtual Tower of Babel it could scarcely be more effective than
that which has been adopted by distributions on their own,
voluntarily.
" This column started out in the hope of comparing Progeny with
SuSE; that fell apart when I realized that Progeny's take on
things, inherited from the Debian to which I understand it remains
true, is just too different from the RPM-based-distributions' way
of doing things for me to learn it in a short time. What I went on
to discover, though, is that the lumping together of RPM-based
distros really can't be done, either. They are beset by
incompatibilities such that they might as well be different
operating systems (with some exceptions for people who compile
their own stuff, presuming that they remember to install the -devel
version of everything, which is also ridiculous). Knowledge of one
distribution has little to do with any other distribution. This
sort of thing occasionally results in indignant howls, as when Red
Hat shipped gcc-2.96. Usually, though, it goes largely unnoticed.
But it has its effect, and that is confusion among prospective
users. Not long ago, if you got a Linux distribution you got
Debian, Slackware, or something else, and the something elses were
largely interchangeable as to what they installed -- the
differences were in installation and configuration tools, the
newness of the stuff included, and what applications were provided.
Upgrading was fairly simple, because an RPM for one would probably
work for all. And Linux desktop use grew."
"Now incompatibilities are being introduced hand over fist, as
distributions fight for a bigger and bigger piece of a diminishing
pie, until oneday one will own all of nothing. Does this do
anything useful for the distributions, users, Linux, anybody? Well,
no. And while I've singled SuSE out because it's the one where I've
most recently encountered this nonsense, no distribution is exempt.
If Microsoft were to cook up a plan to cause Linux to disappear in
a virtual Tower of Babel it could scarcely be more effective than
that which has been adopted by distributions on their own,
voluntarily."
Complete
Story
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