A flock of Linux distros of late

[kpkeerthi]

Seems like the interest in Linux is constantly increasing or is it something that I'm just imagining? gOS, OzOS, geubuntu and the many different LinuxMint/Ubuntu flavors and the list is growing. 18 months back when I tried my hands on Linux (Dapper) there weren't these many. This is something and for some reason I feel really happy about. Do you?

[banewman]

Muddy's the water a bit in my view. A person wants to get away from the exorbitant price of windows and looks at linux and finds one hundred choices? - where do they start?

[derby007]

I just tried out Dreamlinux (via VMWare Player) and its definitley a breath of fresh air. I know Ubuntu can be transformedinto anything you like, ie. desktop tweaks etc, but Dreamlinux works out of the box & is impressive (from an eye-candy point of view).
Back to your point: Hundreds of choices: isn't that what the public wants/likes/loves/craves
Or.....has the line been crossed as regards too much choice? Not at the moment....

[ericartman]

I don't know, the only thing so many distros has done is help me burn through a stack of cd's and firm up my choice of Ubuntu as my favorite. The exposure was fun and time wasting, but I learned a lot and the flavors of Linux is truly amazing. Some people could be put off with so many choices I guess, but it didn't work that way with me.

Cart

[Dragonbite]

I look at the number of Linux distros in light of cars:

There are many makes, models, trim lines and years of cars out on the road.

For some people a Mini Cooper is just right for them, others need a minivan.

When you install Linux it drops you off at some point. Depending on what you want the system to do will determine which distro you decide to go with.

Just as any car will get you from point A to point B, any Linux distro can be made to do what you want. The difference is how much extra work do you have to do!

Also, each car maker, trim, and body type rides different and you have to pick which ones are comfortable for you. Some people like Ford, others think Caddilacs are the best-of-the-best and everything else is crap.

For example, a van would have made moving into my house easier, but every time I went to the house I took some furniture with me and I drive a convertible. Not the best tool for the job but was able to take some big pieces of furniture (with the top down and hoping it doesn't rain on the way)

So overall, I think it is a good thing where it covers a lot of special interests or special needs. It just makes it confusing for a newcomer to know which distro to go with. That's where experienced Linux users need to step in and help provide an experienced point of view.

I usually suggest people to start with the major distors (Ubuntu, openSuse, Fedora ), because when they are ready they will look at some of the other distros on their own and have an idea of what they are getting into.

[dnvikram]

In a way I am very happy and on the dark side,like banewman said,"It muddys the water" .I agree with it.

But,the +ves are more than the -ve(s) .There are zillion types of hardware(s) out there on the planet and the number of people itching or motivated people switching to Linux is increasing in large numbers every day.A single distro hasnt yet gained the ability to get installed in truly out of the box sense on all the hardware(s) available out there.One distro may be out of the box on Hardware A and one may be the opposite on Hardware B.Upon that,the hardware specs keep getting better every second and not all distros can catch up with that pace and that in a way muddys the waters.

So,it ultimately boils down to these few factors:
a)Type of hardware availabe@hand with you.
b)What purpose do you want to use the distro for?

For example,in My case;I have a Desktop running PCLinux 2007 in which I run a Windows XP VM.Its almost 4years old hardware with 768Mb ram and PCLOS runs truly out of the box on it when compared to other distros including Gutsy Gibbon or Fedora 8 or Linux Mint.

Its the opposite on My Dell Inspiron 1420 notebook.The only distro which is truly out of the box on this hardware is Ubuntu 7.x and 70% of the other distros I tried installing on this machine failed during the live cd phase only.

Similarly,I have a 3 year old Acer Travelmate series laptop with 40gb drive and mere 256MB ram and it runs Fedora 7 flawlessly and with blistering speed after disabling unwanted services.

Then I have this CentOS 4.5(x86-64bit) running on My 64bit Dual Core processor based Dell Optiplex 745 like a charm and have been using it as a ftp server and a db server running Oracle 10g R2 with almost 0 downtime in the last 2months.

In short if you ask me,am I happy?

YES! I more happy than worried as users have more choice(s) and best of the breed or best of the hybrid of the linux distros out there.

[jeffus_il]

Ubuntu is a good distribution, would it have been realized had there not been so many previous attempts? I see it in a Darwinian way, a process of evolution, the weaker mutations fall by the wayside and maybe disappear, the stronger ones survive giving us in the end a good product ...

[zoe-scutterbug]

To me Linux is like a vibrant living tree, heavy with bountiful ever sprouting branches and flowers...whereas the other two larger OS are plants with fat single stems and solitary blossoms.


I like the phrase ...variety is the spice of life ...only through variety I was able to find the desktops that really pleases me. Once it was BeOS, then it was Ubuntu, now its a little independent branch & flower called GEubuntu.

Happy Festive Season folks

zoe

[EdThaSlayer]

It's just a sign that many linux users are moving to Ubuntu, or that a lot of "immigrants" have arrived.

[Polygon]

even windows doesnt have 100% out of the box capability for hardware. All of my hardware works out of the box 100%, but in windows i have to install drivers for my

video card
wireless card
sound card

so yeah, windows only gets by because when you buy hardware, it comes with windows drivers