Why care about choosing a distribution!?

There are literally hundreds of different distributions available. All claim they are better, faster, smarter and more secure than the rest. You know they all are basically the same. So… Here is my little how to pick the right distribution and why even care about it rant.

I say it really does not matter. I have looked on many distributions over the last two months, and I must say… There are only three major differences: whether they run KDE, Gnome, or something else. Other than that they are all the same!

Sure! Maybe they do a thing or two a little different. Maybe they use some applications where others use some other application… But when it really comes down to it; there is nothing special about any of them!

It just makes me angry to see all these distributions! Just look at all the derivatives of Ubuntu (which is a derivative of Debian!) Last time I counted there where over ten different of them! Is that really necessary!?

I remember that the thing that kept me from even trying Linux was that I where afraid to pick the wrong distribution (which I did too, by the way) and having to configure and install anther distribution (which I also had to do) all over. I think, and know first hand, that it is scares potential switchers away from Linux. There is way too much diversity.

I hope Linux developers could focus their energy on creating new applications, making sure that all devices and hardware, experimenting with user interfaces, … That they could do something other than recreating and diverting Linux by creating jet another new distribution!

That where just my late night rant, sorry folks. I know there are more too the different distributions than the desktop environment. But right now that did not matter as they all looked the same anyways.

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6 comments

Which is why I just stick to the good old Mac.

Comment by Magnus Damli at 2007-02-09 @304.

I'm not sure i understand the point of this article, I am a newbie and i was far more worried about not knowing the commands or not understanding something rather than choosing the wrong distro. I just picked one that looked most like OSX.

Comment by James Bamkin (Subscribed) at 2007-02-09 @554.

This is one of the important issues that prevents or confuses Windows users from switching from Windows to Linux.

Comment by Arun at 2007-02-09 @727.

Having a ton of different distributions creates uncertainty. People start questioning what the difference between them are and get uncertain about which one to pick.

Comment by Daniel Aleksandersen at 2007-02-09 @762.

Totally agree, Daniel. All of these distros are driving me nuts.

I've been using Linux since 96, and absolutely think that the community could do so much better if we took a BSD-like approach and focused on building a complete system and making it work properly.

Comment by Michael Gorsuch at 2007-02-09 @870.

Am I the only one that actually enjoy the diversity of GNU/linux?
That is, I wouldn't mind having just 10 distros, but still, every distro has a different feel, a different approach, even a different package management.
Gentoo has Emerge, I love it, but I wouldn't install Gentoo on my laptop and waste about one week in compiling when I can get about the same result from OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Debian etc.

Comment by Kent Vegard Evjen at 2007-02-10 @783.