Comment Re:Interesting (Score 1) 860
I couldn't possibly agree less. One thing I like especially about linux is freedom of choice. I positively *love* having dozens of browsers available. I like having a gazillion of different toolkits at my command, also as a developer. I like being able to chose from a plethora of window managers.
And even more important: I like being able to chose from a wealth of linux distributions, each one taylored to different needs, so that I can choose the right one for me without having to flame about that stupid thing being designed for n00bs/geeks/servers/games/whatever. Instead I get what I need and ignore the rest. That is what I hate about Window$. It is made to fit the needs of one specific group: The people who just want to Run That Damn Thing (tm). This is the lowest common denominator. If I want to go beyond that in Windows I suddenly find myself doing things of a crypticality-level far greater than anything I ever did to my linux system.
Imagine if Bruce Perens' UserLinux came with nvidia and ati's binary drivers and automatically installed them during the distro installation. Currently no distro that I know of does this, the drivers must be manually installed.
Okay, so what if I don't want them stinkin' nvidia and ati binary drivers? I severely dislike my computer forcing anything on me (except perhaps basics such as glibc or XFree).
One could argue that in most cases you have to do the same thing in Windows, but in Windows all that requires is double clicking an install file. In Linux you have to usually exit X, check dependencies, and all kinds of other cryptic stuff.
The downside to this is when it doesn't work. When I last installed windows on my box, I spent several hours installing seven different versions of the nvidia graphics drivers. No logs, no error messages, the stupid thing just hung in the middle of boot. I had to dig out an installation disk from once upon a time and install an obscure, old (prob'ly buggy) version until it worked. I still don't know what went wrong. With linux I could have resorted to the open-source nvidia-without-3d driver. Doesn't accelerate well, but actually works.
Finally, the one thing that we most need that a standardized distro can provide, is a standardized directory layout. None of this/usr/bin or /bin or /var/usr/bin confusion. If one distro took over by having all the features that desktop Linux needed, which in my view is basically Fedora to unify toolkit look across gtk, gtk2, and qt, but with better hardware detection (ala binary non OSS drivers) and better package management (ala automatically installed apt-get), the standardized directory layout would encourage more Linux ports of games.
I'm curious. What is
As for one distro having all the features users need, what users? Newbies will have different needs than die-hard geeks have. My first linux distribution was SuSE. As long as I left the system under YaST's control, everything was bliss. Then I developed some courage and tried to update the thing online. Half of the update RPMs failed for some obscure reason (often involving dependencies).
So I switched to Debian, which is generally seen as having better dependancy handling than SuSE, but is less comfortable. Updates with Debian were smooooth. The installation procedure reminded me of FreeBSD, though. Definitely not ready for the desktop. Plus, Debian's stable packages are old. So I tried the move to unstable. Suddenly I was left with a system that was somehow broken in new and interesting ways.
So my next move was to Gentoo. The first time I tried it, the installation procedure seemed to come straight out of hell. Then I realised that here I had a system that didn't get into my way most of the time. Packages install just as if you compile them manually (which you do, only you don't
So now I have a system which does exactly fit my needs. I can live on the cutting edge, without missing the comfort of automated installation. Dependency hell is a thing of the past. (What, you don't have that dependency? Wait, I'll quickly get it. Don't bother watching) I can update every single package on my system to its current stable (or unstable, if I want) version with one single command - reliably. But "Would I even show it to my grandpa?" Not before hell freezes. Monocultures are cool for games but shitty for users (at least once they know the alternative).
Bottom line: It is all there. Look for it and you will find it. There's absolutely no reason why you can't have beautiful self-extracting graphical installers, just because it's linux. A unified directory layout exists. Unified look and feel is entirely possible. Hardware detection is there (see Knoppix). Package management is good already (ports systems rock).
As a software author, most authors only release their software as source when dealing with Linux, because it's the only way to ensure that it will work in every distro. But if there was a standardized directory layout and package management system, every dependency could always be found in the same spot and there'd be no need for third party package management and binary compilation.
I *love* binary compilation. All my software is optimized with -march=athlon and -O3. You won't get that with RedHat. Plus, source vs. binary is not necessarily all there is. What if you distributed your application as one big object file, pulled together with ld -r and linked in all library dependencies on the target system. Of course that would generate problems of its own, but the general idea is valid, I think. That would give you the benefits of binary distribution and the flexibility to allow for different library versions in different places.
This may seem like nitpicking, but many companies don't port their games to Linux on the sole basis that they 1. don't want to release source and 2. don't want to take the time to write an installer which can accomodate every distro's different package management, directory layout, and dependency tree.
What fscker told them they have to release their sources just to port to linux? And considering the installer: Most commercial games I know of don't pull in that many external dependencies. Or does the windows installer tell you "No, my friend. Install libfoo, libbar and baz >= 1.2.6pl12 and come again" (always keeping in mind that Windows doesn't do external dependency resolving at all - at least last time I checked)? About integration with the package manager, checkinstall will do that just fine, registering your software with your local package manager. It's there. They just have to use it.
