Depth versus breadth

[dgoodma]

I have used several distros, all have their advantages, and differences; but they all seem to share the same unsolved issues. Things like full laptop, hardware, printer support, dual monitors, drivers, drivers, and drivers.

If there were less effort in creating and supporting all of the distros, and more effort in making fewer (1 or 2) distros deeper in their support, would that not be good? Seems like a lot of developer talent, time and energy would available to solve those really natty issues that are remaining, and always fall somewhat short in inevitable comparisons to Windows and MAC.

Or, can the different distros come together and in common solve some of these issues, and hold off on new distros as frequently?

[dca]

Has nothing to do w/ how many distros there are... More the merrier. It has everything to do w/ the hardware vendors: nVidia, Broadcom, etc, etc...

[forrestcupp]

Has nothing to do w/ how many distros there are... More the merrier. It has everything to do w/ the hardware vendors: nVidia, Broadcom, etc, etc...

That's not necessarily true. Right now a lot of developers are working toward reverse engineering drivers because we aren't being supported by the manufacturers.

So theoretically, if all of these people who develop the plethora of distros out there stopped doing that and pitched in on reverse engineering drivers, we could get a lot done much faster.

But in reality, it's a lot easier to throw a distro together and maintain it, than it is to reverse engineer drivers. I'll bet the majority of distro maintainers and devs probably don't know enough about it to be a help. So that's why they're doing what they're doing.

[dca]

That's not necessarily true. Right now a lot of developers are working toward reverse engineering drivers because we aren't being supported by the manufacturers.

So theoretically, if all of these people who develop the plethora of distros out there stopped doing that and pitched in on reverse engineering drivers, we could get a lot done much faster.

But in reality, it's a lot easier to throw a distro together and maintain it, than it is to reverse engineer drivers. I'll bet the majority of distro maintainers and devs probably don't know enough about it to be a help. So that's why they're doing what they're doing.

...they're having to reverse engineer because the hardware vendors won't open the specs or some even won't let them sign a confidentiality agreement to let them see the specs.... I vote for compiling and supporting a new Linux distro...

[fwojciec]

I have used several distros, all have their advantages, and differences; but they all seem to share the same unsolved issues. Things like full laptop, hardware, printer support, dual monitors, drivers, drivers, and drivers.

If there were less effort in creating and supporting all of the distros, and more effort in making fewer (1 or 2) distros deeper in their support, would that not be good? Seems like a lot of developer talent, time and energy would available to solve those really natty issues that are remaining, and always fall somewhat short in inevitable comparisons to Windows and MAC.

Or, can the different distros come together and in common solve some of these issues, and hold off on new distros as frequently?

And how do you propose to realize the change you're envisioning -- make a law to this effect? Put developers in jail if they decide to roll out their own distro? Or just persuade the entire open source community by posting about in on Ubuntu forums? :confused:

[23meg]

but they all seem to share the same unsolved issues. Things like full laptop, hardware, printer support, dual monitors, drivers, drivers, and drivers.

That's because they all share the same kernel, namely Linux.

If there were less effort in creating and supporting all of the distros, and more effort in making fewer (1 or 2) distros deeper in their support, would that not be good? Seems like a lot of developer talent, time and energy would available to solve those really natty issues that are remaining, and always fall somewhat short in inevitable comparisons to Windows and MAC.

Distros don't reinvent the kernel; they share it, with small modifications. See the post #3.

[DoctorMO]

Nah, people do what people want to do, we don't tell people what they must and must not do; this isn't how the free software world works.

However the various support for various things is a problem. but how many of you are paying me to develop some of these features? anwser: 0, thus all you cheap skates who complain about lacking features have a bit of a cheek when you could group together and pay for some developer time instead of wishing, hoping and begging developers who were forced to get real jobs away from the FOSS world in order to feed themselves.

Perhaps we need a website that organises such mass developer hiring.

[dgoodma]

Seems like a big business opportunity for someone, I think people would pay to have things that work, rather than buying new hardware that is supported currently.

If free doesn't cut it, then people buy.

Organizing seems to be the big issue, computing has always been somewhat akin to herding cats.

There must be somewhat more than just base Linux to the Distros, because they do seem to do varying levels of "just working" with the PCs and laptops I have loaded. Some understand the video, others do not as well. One printed to my printer, others have not.

[23meg]

Perhaps we need a website that organises such mass developer hiring.

http://cofundos.org/ is close.

[aysiu]

I think you should read the Unified Linux Thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=328824).