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Re: [News] 14 New Distributions Released in One Week


In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Ezekiel
<Zeke@xxxxx>
 wrote
on Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:59:38 -0500
<gig2bc$lfg$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> "The Ghost In The Machine" <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message 
> news:ne8r16-dh5.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> [Urls put on same line to allow a certain poster to count
>> the lines more quickly. :-)  You know who you are...]
>>
>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
>> <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote
>> on Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:14:00 +0000
>> <1282470.6B5Usfxlf2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>
>>> More than Microsoft and Apple have released in a whole decade:
>>>
>>> EnGarde 3.0.22 http://www.engardelinux.org/
>>> TinyMe 2008.1 http://tinymelinux.com/
>>> PC-BSD 7.0.2 http://www.pcbsd.org/
>>> ASPLinux 14 http://www.asplinux.ru/
>>> Slax 6.0.9 http://www.slax.org/
>>> K-DEMar 4.7 http://www.k-demar.org/
>>> Bluewhite64 12.2 http://www.bluewhite64.com/
>>> Magic 2.1 http://www.magiclinux.org/
>>> Webconverger 4.1 http://webconverger.com/
>>> Parted Magic 3.3 http://partedmagic.com/
>>> Litrix 9.0 http://www.litrixlinux.org/
>>> Absolute 12.2.0 http://www.absolutelinux.org/
>>> Kiwi 8.12 http://kiwilinux.org/
>>> BankOn 4.1 http://blankonlinux.or.id/
>>
>> Oh the horror.  Oh the calamity.  Oh the humanity.
>> Oh when will we ever stop creating additional distros
>> confusing the hell out of the Wintrolls?  :-)
>
> Is releasing 14 distros/week supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?

A very bad thing.  After all, operating systems should
only be released once every 5 years, right?

>
> It's taking an existing bad situation and making it worse. Ever try to 
> search for help on how to do something. Let's use a hypothetical example of 
> someone wanting to connect to a existing network printer that's connected 
> to a Windows machine. (ie - \\SomeMachine\LaserJet ).

Ok.  Did you want me to walk through CUPS or just refer
you to their website at www.cups.org?  My main difficulty
therewith is requiring a username/password
(smb://user:pass@SomeMachine/LaserJet) during the setup;
the password changes every 3 months here at $EMPLOYER,
a minor annoyance, but otherwise it works fine.

>
> It's bad enough right now when looking for answers on the web. The user 
> finds some instructions but it doesn't seem to work. Oh wait, those 
> instructions only work with distro X. So the user searches some more and 
> finds another set of directions. They don't seem to work either and all of 
> the dialogs and apps are completely different. Those instructions are for 
> distro Y.
>
> Eventually the user finds some instructions for the Distro-A that he's 
> using. But those instructions don't work either. It turns out that the 
> instructions were posted a little over a year ago and the distro has 
> changed 3-4 times since then.
>
> Having 100's

Oh please.  There are at least 1,000 distros currently in the wild.
We may never have an exact count as many are tweaks.

> of distros and dozens of new ones released weekly is a 
> double-edged sword. One can claim that it provides choice, customization 
> and etc.

To some extent, yes; it's a very democratic process.
It can also *freeze* choice to a turgid mess, as an
upstream change or change proposal brings blogospheric
howling from everyone thus affected.

> But along with that comes the baggage of inconsistency across 
> distros and versions of the same distro. It is difficult enough now finding 
> a solution on the web that works with what "you have now." What's usually 
> found are dozens and dozens of solutions to something that doesn't actually 
> work with what someone is using.
>

So OK then.  Who enforces the consistency?

-- 
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
GNU and improved.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

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