Let's make our own distro!

[Muser]

Rather than taking my usual approach of speak first think after. I thought about this one for at least several hundred milli seconds.

The truth is that there is already way too many distro's. What is desperately needed is a Development Forum to make the existing distro's more noob friendly. This is serious, there are many posts on the subject of linux gaining acceptance in the wider community. The truth is that this will not really happen untill my mother can boot up Linux and not have to swear at a command line editor.

This community not only has the experience, the expertise and evidently the man hours to make this project work. It has probably the most immportant ingredient A database which is absolutely full of noob questions.

I of course would be prepared to offer my vast expertise gained from being a noob.

In other words, the focus souldn't be diversifying, it shouldn't be simplifying.

[gorgeous lucky luke]

Muser wrote

In other words, the focus souldn't be diversifying, it shouldn't be simplifying.

Exactly. Only 5% of the computer using public use Linux. So having a couple of thousand diferent flavours, each one more and more specialized is, well, Noob-ish

I agree it would be fun to be another Torvald, but unfortunately the world moves on, you do not get any kudo's for re-inventing the wheel, to get the kudo's, you have to take the wheel to the next level. For example everybody has heard of Messer's Rolls and Royce.

Probably the most Noob-ish point about writing your own distro, is the fact that Linux is supposed to be a general purpose Os offering competition to the consumer market. Part of the fundemental design philosophy is the ability to customize what is already there. If you are going to go off and re-write from scratch every time you find something you don't like, well......

Remmember, the greatest success is alway's achieved by using what you have got, to the greatest advantage. What we, as members of Linux Forum, have got is possibly the largest database of noob questions in the world. I know, because I askerd some of these questions.

[lakerdonald]

So I'm a noob?

[gorgeous lucky luke]

So I'm a noob?

In the land of Os there are many times more sheep than people, If the sentiment's expresssed in this thread are indicative of the linux community, there is a distinct danger of there being more linux distros than there are linux users.

As a student I did in fact write code for the Bios and can understand the fascination with writing your own Os, Around the time Torvald wrote his Kernel I was actualy thinking it might be pretty cool to write a kernel myself, I wish you nothing but the best in your endeavours and I hope you get a great deal of pleasure from the project. But as I say it is not where the kudo's lie

Now after spending twenty years living in a tepee wihout electric, this little red indian can see the world from a noob's perspective, What I see is a project with a great deal of potential, that is heading in the direction of : "death from a thousand disto's."

[the0r3tic]

So I'm a noob?

In the land of Os there are many times more sheep than people, If the sentiment's expresssed in this thread are indicative of the linux community, there is a distinct danger of there being more linux distros than there are linux users.

As a student I did in fact write code for the Bios and can understand the fascination with writing your own Os, Around the time Torvald wrote his Kernel I was actualy thinking it might be pretty cool to write a kernel myself, I wish you nothing but the best in your endeavours and I hope you get a great deal of pleasure from the project. But as I say it is not where the kudo's lie

Now after spending twenty years living in a tepee wihout electric, this little red indian can see the world from a noob's perspective, What I see is a project with a great deal of potential, that is heading in the direction of : "death from a thousand disto's."

I have to kind of agree with this guy, I think if they put all the effort into let's say: 3-5 of the best distros, Linux would be even greater than it is now.

[jaboua]

I have to kind of agree with this guy, I think if they put all the effort into let's say: 3-5 of the best distros, Linux would be even greater than it is now.

In that case, peaple would still argue if those distros should be bloated/hardcore, which package manager, stable/bleeding edge, what software to choose between as default; dhclient, dhcpcd, pump..., to be KDE-centric or GNOME-centric or not integrating anything, to aim at new hardware or old hardware, using GTK or QT or ncurses for their config tools, or no config tools at all... And so forth. There would be a more centralized linux, yes, but the conflicts between the different users and the different developers....

[gorgeous lucky luke]

jaboua wrote

In that case, peaple would still argue if those distros should be bloated/hardcore..........

That is part of human nature, however the fundemental point about Linux as an Os is that it is eminatly customizable Individual users have the choice of how they configure their boxes, what software they use etc etc

One of the repeated themes amongst the Linux community is : "When will the rest of the human race see the light" The short answer to that is they will never see the light as long as people like my mother can't just plug and play.

I think the most telling point is that in a way, some Linux developers are actualy starting to recoghise this. We are starting to see standards like RPM, the various daemons and the GUI's that help the newbies.

The problem is that at the moment, whether a newbie (or a guru) can actualy find somehing is suitable to his needs and distro is pretty much a hit and miss affair.

It is ironic, but one of the great strengths of Xp is that from a newbies point of view it is an integrated enviroment. For example if you hit help in Xp, you can go directly to the help package you need regardless of where you actualy are in the system.

In Fedora I hit help, I get Gnome Help, what I realy want is help to launch Mplayer. It is just an ilustration but I think it says it all.

This is probably summed up best in the Suc-o-Meter. { http://srom.zgp.org/ }I find the most interesting figure not to be the number of people that hate Xp, but the number of people that thinks Linux suc's. Most of these were probably potential converts that found practical Linux just to geek-ish

[lakerdonald]

As a student I did in fact write code for the Bios and can understand the fascination with writing your own Os, Around the time Torvald wrote his Kernel I was actualy thinking it might be pretty cool to write a kernel myself, I wish you nothing but the best in your endeavours and I hope you get a great deal of pleasure from the project. But as I say it is not where the kudo's lie

Now this is where you show that you do not know what you're talking about.
Rolling your own distro does not entail writing your own kernel or really doing anything to the kernel ( except for a few minor patches ).
I don't see how rolling my own distribution because I'm unhappy with anything out there is wrong/bad/evil.
In fact, that is the spirit of F/OSS:
Don't like something? Don't ***** about it, write your own/make it better.

[gorgeous lucky luke]

don't see how rolling my own distribution because I'm unhappy with anything out there is wrong/bad/evil.

Neve said it was and I wish you nothing but the best.

Now this is where you show that you do not know what you're talking about.

I have already admitted this, the computing world has changed so much since I last saw a light bulb, I am having problems deciding which area to look at next.

Don't like something? Don't b***h about it, write your own/make it better

I am not trying to b***h anything, I am making, what I hope is constructive comment in an open debate with the intention of trying to make something better