Too Many Linux Distributions?

[TangoEchoAlpha]

Once you narrow by budget and utility, you won't be choosing from 300 cars. Maybe 5 or 6.

A lot of Linux distros are just reinventing the wheel, for real discernible reason.

Whilst it's true that you might be served well by any of 50-60 distros, you basically just have to pick one, probably the most popular one.

I don't really know why people keep choosing to create new distros, that aren't even fundamentally different to existing ones.


This too. What's the point in rolling your own distro that maybe 10 people will download and use?

We have a different opinion

You could apply your view to almost anything created. Art, music, books, films? But arguably culture/the world is better off with all of those different works. Or at least I think so, unless it involves Peter Andre, in which case I always think of that scene from Human Traffic.

Maybe someone just fancied doing it as a challenge. Maybe someone just wanted their own 'perfect for me' distro. Whatever the motivation, I personally think choice is good. If it's too much choice, go onto a forum or internet search and you can narrow down the selection.

 

[El Pew]

A problem a lot of people have when they try to move from Windows to Linux is fundamentally misunderstanding what a "distribution" is, so they tend to think of them as completely separate operating systems. You should really think of a distribution as "Linux kernel + a bunch of apps". Imagine if people could resell Windows with other software pre-installed or unneccessary stuff removed. People create distros because they see the need to package a bunch of apps together for a specific purpose in one relatively simple bundle.

The major distros (Debian/Ubuntu, Red Hat, SUSE) can be thought of as general purpose operating systems, similar to Windows. They have enough software to cover most general use cases, then you can add your own software for your specific purposes. So for the general users, these distros shoud be fine.

Then you have a bunch of niche distros that are designed for more specific purposes. For example, the Scientific Linux project uses Red Hat as their base, then they add a bunch of packages required by scientists and researchers. Kali took Debian and added a load of packages for security research and/or hacking. The Raspbian team took Debian and optimised it for running on an ARM-based Raspberry Pi. Container Linux and Flatcar Linux are stripped-down distros designed purely for running containers. Mint took Debian and aimed to make it as easy to use as possible. And so on and so forth.

So if you come across a distro and you can't see why you would ever use it, then it's not aimed for you.

 

[Cromulent]

I am thinking of Manjaro, just the bleeding edge packages are a bit scary. Not wanting to get a buggy package..

OpenSUSE Tumbleweed sounds perfect for you. Rolling release packages that are up to date but are tested for a little while so you are probably a maximum of a week behind the latest version of everything. I moved over to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed after being an Arch Linux user and then a Manjaro user and now I won't use any other distribution on the desktop (I still use Ubuntu LTS on servers).