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GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

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Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#51

Post by matt__rose »

pjmlp wrote: post #18
microtonal wrote: post #16

The chart clearly shows that there is a lot of proliferation, which is confusing to a lot of new users. Imagine what would be possible if all these fine developers would focus on two or three distributions. Ps. I am proud that I was a paid co-developer of the very first distribution listed ;).

Well, for any of us old enough, this is the revival of UNIX wars.

Not quite. The UNIX wars were basically "Hardware" wars. Basically, you bought your workstation from Sun, or HP, or SGI, or IBM or whoever, and you got the version of UNIX that was shipped for that hardware. You could compile your own BSD (/usr/ucb) or GNU (/usr/local) utils if you didn't want to pay a king's ransom for a compiler, but basically, the idea of running any type of software on any hardware, a la Linux or OpenBSD, hadn't really caught on.

I know it's cool to be all blase about this, but this is different.

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#52

Post by pjmlp »

matt__rose wrote: post #51
pjmlp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for any of us old enough, this is the revival of UNIX wars.

Not quite. The UNIX wars were basically "Hardware" wars. Basically, you bought your workstation from Sun, or HP, or SGI, or IBM or whoever, and you got the version of UNIX that was shipped for that hardware. You could compile your own BSD (/usr/ucb) or GNU (/usr/local) utils if you didn't want to pay a king's ransom for a compiler, but basically, the idea of running any type of software on any hardware, a la Linux or…

That is only part of the picture.

Many of us bear scars from trying to write portable software across commercial UNIX systems, while discovering that POSIX only covered part of the required features, and even the POSIX ones had implementation defined behaviours.

Not to mention the wonders of each system having their own UI toolkits, besides each XWindows flavour.

I did it between AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Xenix, DG/UX.

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#53

Post by Gormo »

nailer wrote: post #50
Gormo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the most popular platform for mobile devices; the most popular consumer computing platform is still Windows.

Got any links for that? Everything I've read for the last couple of years says mobile/tablet has overtaken desktop dramatically.

What have you been looking at: sales figures or install base numbers?

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#55

Post by donniezazen »

jbeja wrote: post #30
donniezazen wrote: post #28

Such a waste of time and manpower creating all these forks. I wish folks spent time scratching their itch by writing great software for Linux instead of trying to reinvent the same wheel. And yet folks will continue to fork platform trying to solve problem that doesn't exist.

Like is not happening in every other platform.

Yeah, I don't know if Mac or Windows have 1000 forks. Do they?

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#56

Post by donniezazen »

bvk wrote: post #43
donniezazen wrote: post #28

Such a waste of time and manpower creating all these forks. I wish folks spent time scratching their itch by writing great software for Linux instead of trying to reinvent the same wheel. And yet folks will continue to fork platform trying to solve problem that doesn't exist.

A distro with enough options to satisfy the creators of every fork would be an unholy mess. 1,000 separate contributors are very good at adding every option under the sun to a piece of software. But reducing choices to the point where you can just burn a CD and "install Debian" is anti-parallelizable.

I think 10 different distributions are fine. 1000 distributions are not. Fedora is good for Gnome, Ubuntu is good for Unity, OpenSUSE is good for KDE, Arch Linux is good for minimalism, etc. All these distributions are good at something radically different which is fine but I want to use a different theme, let's create a new distribution or some driver didn't work on my system, so I am going to create a new distribution is hardly a valid reason.

For me freedom means two things (1) contribute to up stream project (2) write free software.

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#57

Post by nailer »

Gormo wrote: post #53
nailer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got any links for that? Everything I've read for the last couple of years says mobile/tablet has overtaken desktop dramatically.

What have you been looking at: sales figures or install base numbers?

Usage on consumer web.

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#58

Post by Gormo »

nailer wrote: post #57
Gormo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What have you been looking at: sales figures or install base numbers?

Usage on consumer web.

Link? Stats linked elsewhere in this thread show Windows ash having about a 45% share of useragents visiting Wikipedia, with iOS having less than half that.

Re: GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

#59

Post by jojoo »

lamby wrote: post #23
jojoo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great. Made me go back to to my early debian days with Potato CDs from the bookstore and a translation of "Debian GNU/Linux: Guide to Installation and Usage". I Could'nt update to woody because it was too costly over the dialup line, so i bought the Woody CD set together with a Friend. Every time i had to install something i had to walk to his house and get the CDs, or pay lots of money (for me as a teenager a…

> Maybe you could add another Frame with Versions of Popular Packages? I'm Thinking KDE, Gnome, GCC, mayor scripting Languages Browsers and Editors? That's interesting - to give more context to particular eras? I can certainly "place" myself in life when using GNOME 2.8 :)

yeah, to give more context. icons of the programs at that time would also be great.
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