We Have Too Many Linux Distros!! Or Do We??

We have an absolutely insane number of distros out there and it seems like we're only ever getting more but how many of those distros are actually active and is more than it used to be.

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#linux #linuxdesktop #distro #linuxdistro #foss #opensource

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[Neucher]

I never quiet understood how the number of disros means anything. Half of them are just personal projects that nobody recommends. And if nobody recommends them why is it an issue they exist in the first place. The number of disros could literally multiply by three by tomorrow and nothing would change.

[nevoyu]

I literally made a distro called YaFAD Linux "Yet Another Freakin Arch Distro" as a joke. Never published an iso, but it's actually kinda silly easy to make one.

[kvngn]

Out of the 500-odd distros, I wonder how many of them have an independent software repository. It's all well and good to talk about "derivatives, " but there's a real difference between something like Ubuntu (which does have its own repos) and "ThemePack OS" or "Frankendebian of the Week."

[cypher]

There's only really 18-20 Linux distros that are actually relevant and the rest have features that you can just add into said 18-20 distros.

[supremesonicbrazil]

I'm not that much worried about so many distros existing and/or being dead. I'm actually worried about the devs of said distros not moving their work to the half-dozen more established distros instead. Imagine what a breath of fresh air it would be for Debian, Arch, Mint, etc. to have more people working on it.

[Miltiadis_Vouzounaras]

This is a result of the freedom free software gives. Everyone can do whatever he wants, and this is the bright side. In the opposite side, hours of programming and maintaining a whole linux distribution, instead of improving the existing ones, and be full of bugs or discontinued some time after.

Maybe the best route, is like the BlackArch, they give you an installation script to transform your existing ArchLinux install in a BlackArch.

[CMDRSweeper]

The best analogy for what a distro is food related.
Linux is like a massive buffet with a lot of food choices representing the various packages and choices you make.
A distro is basically somebody have gone through the buffet and preselected a few things and put them on a plate for you to consume.
If you dislike X on the plate, you can replace that one at the buffet if you like for something else, just hope they are compatible ingredients.

[josh]

After distrohopping one or two times, it felt redundant. They all basically accomplish the same thing for me, they are just set up differently initially, with different desktop environments and whatever other default programs come with it.

I feel like the distro you choose might be more important if you're brand new to Linux and still have a lot to learn because then yes, you really should stick with a beginner distro that does more things for you, but once you have it all figured out, the extra distros become redundant, as they all basically do the same thing and operate the same way if you know how to install and configure things.

[thingsiplay]

That is fully normal. The graph is misunderstood, because it does not show an increase in rate of discontinued distros compared to how many there are. These are just "hard numbers". Obviously the number of discontinued distros will go higher and higher and at the same time new distros will appear. If 10 distros appear and are evenly spread out into the other 3 categories and 10 distros will be discontinued, than obviously the one yellow line will have 3 times more data than all other lines individually.

[nerdydrow]

I like to think about distros in terms of what package manager they use, and with the rise of flathub that lines is getting even more blured.

[voxelfusion]

This reminds me, I saw such an article recommending peppermint recently lol. No updates since the end of 2019...

[nycbearff]

I've only used one primary distro, Red Hat/Fedora, long ago. But the other distros I've used have been only one step away from an established primary distro - Mandrake/Mandriva, forked from Fedora, Mint LXDE and MX, both based on Debian, and Manjaro, based on Arch. I've played with a few others - but distros that are the last in a string of derivative distros seem to have too many potential points of failure, to me.

I started using Linux when there weren't many distros - and there are still just a small number of substantial distributions. The rest are pretty much hobby re-spins, like Garuda, which is very pretty and very buggy and currently fashionable - but not likely to survive for long.

[brianhayes]

I am always an advocate for more choice, but truthfully the base distros on which most forks are established are the best choices (yes, even for new users imho).

These include essentially just Arch, Fedora, and Debian.

Notable exceptions that are worth exploring are Void and Gentoo, but that is after becoming familiar with at least Arch, Fedora, or Debian.

Now that isn’t to say certain forks don’t have their use cases and will stand the rest of time (Ubuntu and Mint are great examples of this), but generally I recommend sticking with one of these base distros if you want to be sure you won’t have to up and reinstall one day when your random niche distro goes under.

That said, I use Artix, a niche distro that realistically could go under in the near future, but I’m simply betting that won’t happen.

[lawrencedoliveiro]

1:00 Interesting to see one of their advertisers was 3CX. They sell a proprietary PBX product which I think was originally Windows-only. They now advertise it for Linux as well. I suspect they were forced into that because their business has been severely undercut by Free Software offerings based on Asterisk and the like.

[isaiahj]

After distro hopping for awhile I just stick to the roots. You can make Arch, Redhat or Debian behave like any fork you want in 20 minutes. It’s a good starting point for people new to Linux though.

[FengLengshun]

I don't think the number of distro are a problem, we just need to make sure they all have good on-boarding for new users and that the community can champion the best ones among the existing ones. So long as Linux Mint remains reliable, I don't think any of the other distro are a problem because even if I strongly prefer Garuda and Feren OS, I could always say "and there's always Mint if these choices doesn't work for you." I personally prefer Pop_OS, but Mint is just so inoffensive that it's comfortable to recommend, and users can discover what they like and don't like on their own a year or so down the line.

[kmg]

Having an infinite number of distros demonstrates the beauty, robustness and vitality of humanity. I love the fact that there are so called autistic dudes (and maybe some dudetts) doing what makes them happy and productive. God bless humanity, you do you.

[jkghusngfyhwrythgvj]

I think that between 10 and 20 distributions is more than enough, and they must be mostly focused in new users and business.
tjhree or four for package manager. why more?
all the extra workforce will be more than welcome in software development.

[xrafter]

We also have distros for different languages. Yeah some distro support multiple languages, but I am talking about distros with a name in a different language and only have 1 language.

[afelias]

We will never have enough distros until we at least have one distro for every user.

And even then some users might want multiple to have for a work machine or VM, so probably more.