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It seems that the time is ripe to reconsider what it means to be a distribution. I'm not equipped to take a stab at an answer, so let me provoke a wishlist. Wha

It seems that the time is ripe to reconsider what it means to be a distribution. I'm not equipped to take a stab at an answer, so let me provoke a wishlist. What if... - One could compose together (arbitrary) combinations of a kernel of choice and userspace of choice? - In "userspace" one could cobble together dependencies as needed for any project, and run sandboxed applications, which can only share information through common parent packages. - No single package version for the "system". (This is already being done, in many examples) - Maybe the kernel is just another package to be managed. Just something that starts when the computer boots, and lets you invoke the package manager to change state. - Distributions would then just become snapshots of how different pieces are combined together. Sort of like what Docker images are created from dockerfiles today. It would be enlightening to understand which aspects are possible today or in the foreseeable future, and what are the impediments to doing this. Or reasons why one might not actually want such a structure.

nine_k 9y ago
Distribution is a set if programs that are known to work together. It is also a dependency graph. Making it work together is a lot of work, testing, and tweaking.
- jcelerier 9y ago
  > Distribution is a set if programs that are known to work together this is only relevant for core utilities though. It does not mean anything for my mail client to work "together" with my music production application. Apps in appstores do not work "together" yet they are wildly successful.
  - matheusmoreira 9y ago
    Those applications may not work together with each other, but they do work together with user space libraries such as glibc. Linux distributions aim to provide binary compatibility with those applications. It's tricky because these libraries simply don't take binary interfaces as seriously as the Linux kernel developers do. While you can upgrade the kernel and expect programs to work afterwards and if they don't it's a kernel bug, the same is not true for user space libraries. The distributions themselves are also a source of binary incompatibility. For example, one distribution may use symbol versioning while another may not, and this means users cannot download a random binary meant for one distribution and expect it to run on another one even if the versions of dependencies are the same. Compiling from source ensures the resulting software is binary compatible but the source is not guaranteed to be available since programs may be proprietary.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    > It does not mean anything for my mail client to work "together" with my music production application. Correct, but they both might use pulseaudio, xorg, desktop notifications and much more. A lot of stuff is "core". > Apps in appstores do not work "together" yet they are wildly successful Only because of the ubiquitous hardware. appstores did not invent anything new.
foo101 9y ago
> Maybe the kernel is just another package to be managed. Isn't this already so in most Linux distributions like Debian and its derivatives, RHEL and its derivatives, etc.?

nine_k 9y ago

Distribution is a set if programs that are known to work together. It is also a dependency graph. Making it work together is a lot of work, testing, and tweaking.

jcelerier 9y ago
> Distribution is a set if programs that are known to work together this is only relevant for core utilities though. It does not mean anything for my mail client to work "together" with my music production application. Apps in appstores do not work "together" yet they are wildly successful.
- matheusmoreira 9y ago
  Those applications may not work together with each other, but they do work together with user space libraries such as glibc. Linux distributions aim to provide binary compatibility with those applications. It's tricky because these libraries simply don't take binary interfaces as seriously as the Linux kernel developers do. While you can upgrade the kernel and expect programs to work afterwards and if they don't it's a kernel bug, the same is not true for user space libraries. The distributions themselves are also a source of binary incompatibility. For example, one distribution may use symbol versioning while another may not, and this means users cannot download a random binary meant for one distribution and expect it to run on another one even if the versions of dependencies are the same. Compiling from source ensures the resulting software is binary compatible but the source is not guaranteed to be available since programs may be proprietary.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > It does not mean anything for my mail client to work "together" with my music production application. Correct, but they both might use pulseaudio, xorg, desktop notifications and much more. A lot of stuff is "core". > Apps in appstores do not work "together" yet they are wildly successful Only because of the ubiquitous hardware. appstores did not invent anything new.

foo101 9y ago

> Maybe the kernel is just another package to be managed. Isn't this already so in most Linux distributions like Debian and its derivatives, RHEL and its derivatives, etc.?