5 ms·

The whole point of a distribution is that this job is done by the distributors, not the authors.

alkonaut 4y ago
Is there a distribution (or whatever one would call it - a Linux) where the aim is to not be managing the whole end-user system of OS+Apps, but just the OS. E.g. similar to Windows, or Android?
- drbig 4y ago
  There are operating systems - like FreeBSD - which have a very strong and clear distinction between the Operating System base and third-party software.
- dikei 4y ago
  For server there's Flatcar Container Linux, which only provide just enough to run containers. Everything else is provided by the container packager.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  Arch Linux is pretty faithful to shipping software exactly or as close as possible to as the upstream authors intended. It's on a rolling release which means you kind of get a firehose of nonstop major version updates though, whether you want them or not.
  - geokon 4y ago
    how does that work in practice？ upstream didn't build with all the dependencies at the same version as the latest in the arch repo. Nor are most upstream developers bumping all their dependency versions constantly if you're a big player like ubuntu/debian you can go to the authors/upstream and ask them to fix the program to work with their dependency versions (in say.. an LTS release). most would be glad to bc it's just something upstream needs to do once every couple years and doesn't need maintenance. If even thats too much and yyou want esomething even more handsoff/timeless then you make an Appimage. It'll work for ever With Arch youd need to constantly monitor the thing doesn't break？Are they just #yolo'ing dependency versions most of the time ？ (itd prolly work 99% of the time..)
    - creshal 4y ago
      In practice it works because GP is exaggerating. Arch does hold back library and/or program updates until they work together, or simply ships multiple major releases of libraries, and have a separate testing branch. Right now e.g. there's openssl (still at version 3.0.x, because nobody supports 3.1.x yet) and openssl-1.1 (1.1.x-y) to handle the rather slow migration of upstreams to the new major release.
- viraptor 4y ago
  Fedora Silverblue https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/ https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/ You're expected to run most apps as flatpaks.
  - curt15 4y ago
    I stopped distro-hopping a few years ago after landing on Silverblue a few years ago (back when it was still called Fedora Atomic Workstation). While it doesn't satisfy all use cases, I view it as a boring (in a good way) 80-percent solution that normally just works.
  - pch00 4y ago
    Silverblue doesn't get a lot of press but it makes a really solid desktop OS.
    - PlutoIsAPlanet 4y ago
      Fedora has always been quite bad at branding and making their distro appealing. It's probably one of the most solid Linux distros at the moment and their website makes it seem.. boring.. No screenshots, features, mentions of whats available (like apps), that Fedora uses newer graphics/drivers kernels, that you can run Steam, that apps are sandboxed etc. Stark contrast to something like https://vanillaos.org/ https://vanillaos.org/
- creshal 4y ago
  No distribution forces you to use package managers for everything. Even before flatpak/snap, distributing (especially commercial) software as just archives or executable installers was/is perfectly possible. The caveat is, there's no common baseline for libraries. Graphics libraries, the libc itself, GUI widget libraries etc. will appear in different version combinations in different distributions, since they have different release schedules. So if you want to go the Windows/MacOS route and ship a readily compiled program for Linux, you have to vendor in a loooot more libraries, and they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Flatpaks/snaps try to solve this (poorly) by vendoring the entire kitchen sink and then some, which just creates more bloat and a worse DLL hell than Windows could ever have dreamed of. So using it for everything isn't really feasible still.
  - account42 4y ago
    > they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Simply don't vendor glibc and graphics drivers and you will be fine. Vendoring drivers doesn't make sense anyway as your application will be obsolete by the next HW cycle.
    - creshal 4y ago
      glibc breaks regularly, as does mesa occasionally, so it would realistically be required if you wanted win32-style 20+ years of backwards compatibility. And there is a lot of more obscure examples: fontconfig e.g. at some point changed their config file format in a not backwards compatible way, and now some Steam games crash on startup because the developers earlier vendored it to get around its ABI breaking repeatedly. And that sort of software doesn't really obsolete. Steam and GoG allow games to have a 10+ years long tail of slow but steady sales that don't really justify constant maintenance releases but still both let people enjoy good games (those don't really obsolete), and serve as advertisement for the developers' newer games.
      - 4y ago
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Slackware, perhaps? Honestly, if you just want the naked OS, you don't need a distro at all. Or just don't use the package manager.
  - alkonaut 4y ago
    I'm curious what a Linux would look like that behaved more like windows or android in the sense that there isn't such a blurry line between the OS and its applications. For example, installing a C# or Go compiler on Linux is great with a package manager. But doing the same with a C or Python is different? This is basically the Unix "I'm not just an OS, I'm a platform for building and running C programs" heritage that isn't properly hidden I think.
    - creshal 4y ago
      We've reached the point where the C ecosystem has so given up on having a package manager that isn't Linux distributions that Microsoft added WSL and Docker(-compatible) Linux images are the most widespread distribution format. I don't think we can still figure out a way to decouple the two again, and without that, we can't really create a Linux environment that isn't a package manager with an email client. And to a degree, the line is blurry with Windows as well, what with how deep MSVC/win32 is integrated into the system. .NET took decades to dis-entangle itself from Windows and become a proper standalone platform, and Microsoft's attempts at getting people to use UWP instead of win32 is ongoing and not very successful so far.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > in the sense that there isn't such a blurry line between the OS and its applications. Interesting. It never occurred to me that there's a blurry line between the two. It seems to me that there's a very hard line between the two. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. > For example, installing a C# or Go compiler on Linux is great with a package manager. But doing the same with a C or Python is different? I'm confused by this question, so forgive me if this answer isn't really addressing it. A package manager is a convenience, nothing more. Using one means makes your life easier in a number of ways. But not using one isn't really that much more difficult. Package managers are 100% optional.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Hot take: package distributors are 'fake jobs' that don't need to exist, or exist only for the make-work of packaging. Tools like flatpak, snap, appimage, containerization, etc. have made the need for adapting software to different distributions unnecessary.
- bombolo 4y ago
  I don't want debian to be like the android app store, where there are thousands apps that work badly and overflow me with ads. I much prefer the f-droid model, of having curated repositories to keep crap outside. Also, I can't understand why people on the internet think that upstream developers are omniscient. They make lots of mistakes and errors. Distribute maintainers fix a lot of things, and send the fixes to the authors.
  - qbasic_forever 4y ago
    There's nothing stopping someone from making a flatpak or other similar tech feed or 'store' that's only the curated apps they deem appropriate for users. Bugs should be fixed upstream, not kept in distro specific silos. There's no reason why only a packager can fix some upstream issues or become a contributor. On the contrary shipping your app as a universal tech like flatpak means Redhat, Debian, Arch or any other user can use it, develop for it, and send fixes upstream.
    - creshal 4y ago
      The strawman sounds compelling on the surface, but that's not what happens in practice: Bug fixes are sent upstream by all relevant distributions, and they regularly cooperate with each other directly, as well as upstream. The "new world" of users of all distributions working together has been reality for the past 20+ years.
    - noirscape 4y ago
      > Bugs should be fixed upstream, not kept in distro specific silos. This is mostly a Debian issue fwiw. Debian is literally notable because they're obsessed with making sure that any package in their repositories is kept with the same "API"[0], no matter how old the software is. The result is that Debian packages can end up hugely derivative compared to the equivalent of upstream and other distros, but it's usually also because the software in question is half a decade old. With other distros, packaging changes to upstream usually just reflect the preference to match a certain style of configuration (to pull another example from Debian: nginx ships with sites-{enabled,available} folders and is configured to load from sites-enabled by default. This is to match the same configuration style that's used for apache2 and that it's associated tools assume you configure apache2 with, even though nginx just uses a conf.d folder and has no extra tools to facilitate anything fancy with sites-{enabled,available}). The extreme end is nix, which actively requires you to have the upstream written with nix in mind because nix will basically demand you configure the source code in ways to accommodate for it. [0]: This includes actual software-intended interfaces and the ones hacked together by users by ie. reading out logfiles.

Is there a distribution (or whatever one would call it - a Linux) where the aim is to not be managing the whole end-user system of OS+Apps, but just the OS. E.g. similar to Windows, or Android?

drbig 4y ago
There are operating systems - like FreeBSD - which have a very strong and clear distinction between the Operating System base and third-party software.
dikei 4y ago
For server there's Flatcar Container Linux, which only provide just enough to run containers. Everything else is provided by the container packager.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
Arch Linux is pretty faithful to shipping software exactly or as close as possible to as the upstream authors intended. It's on a rolling release which means you kind of get a firehose of nonstop major version updates though, whether you want them or not.
- geokon 4y ago
  how does that work in practice？ upstream didn't build with all the dependencies at the same version as the latest in the arch repo. Nor are most upstream developers bumping all their dependency versions constantly if you're a big player like ubuntu/debian you can go to the authors/upstream and ask them to fix the program to work with their dependency versions (in say.. an LTS release). most would be glad to bc it's just something upstream needs to do once every couple years and doesn't need maintenance. If even thats too much and yyou want esomething even more handsoff/timeless then you make an Appimage. It'll work for ever With Arch youd need to constantly monitor the thing doesn't break？Are they just #yolo'ing dependency versions most of the time ？ (itd prolly work 99% of the time..)
  - creshal 4y ago
    In practice it works because GP is exaggerating. Arch does hold back library and/or program updates until they work together, or simply ships multiple major releases of libraries, and have a separate testing branch. Right now e.g. there's openssl (still at version 3.0.x, because nobody supports 3.1.x yet) and openssl-1.1 (1.1.x-y) to handle the rather slow migration of upstreams to the new major release.
viraptor 4y ago
Fedora Silverblue https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/ https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/ You're expected to run most apps as flatpaks.
- curt15 4y ago
  I stopped distro-hopping a few years ago after landing on Silverblue a few years ago (back when it was still called Fedora Atomic Workstation). While it doesn't satisfy all use cases, I view it as a boring (in a good way) 80-percent solution that normally just works.
- pch00 4y ago
  Silverblue doesn't get a lot of press but it makes a really solid desktop OS.
  - PlutoIsAPlanet 4y ago
    Fedora has always been quite bad at branding and making their distro appealing. It's probably one of the most solid Linux distros at the moment and their website makes it seem.. boring.. No screenshots, features, mentions of whats available (like apps), that Fedora uses newer graphics/drivers kernels, that you can run Steam, that apps are sandboxed etc. Stark contrast to something like https://vanillaos.org/ https://vanillaos.org/
creshal 4y ago
No distribution forces you to use package managers for everything. Even before flatpak/snap, distributing (especially commercial) software as just archives or executable installers was/is perfectly possible. The caveat is, there's no common baseline for libraries. Graphics libraries, the libc itself, GUI widget libraries etc. will appear in different version combinations in different distributions, since they have different release schedules. So if you want to go the Windows/MacOS route and ship a readily compiled program for Linux, you have to vendor in a loooot more libraries, and they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Flatpaks/snaps try to solve this (poorly) by vendoring the entire kitchen sink and then some, which just creates more bloat and a worse DLL hell than Windows could ever have dreamed of. So using it for everything isn't really feasible still.
- account42 4y ago
  > they have a higher risk of breaking due to incompatibilities (kernel interface for your graphics driver changed, configuration file syntax for your font renderer changed, etc.) Simply don't vendor glibc and graphics drivers and you will be fine. Vendoring drivers doesn't make sense anyway as your application will be obsolete by the next HW cycle.
  - creshal 4y ago
    glibc breaks regularly, as does mesa occasionally, so it would realistically be required if you wanted win32-style 20+ years of backwards compatibility. And there is a lot of more obscure examples: fontconfig e.g. at some point changed their config file format in a not backwards compatible way, and now some Steam games crash on startup because the developers earlier vendored it to get around its ABI breaking repeatedly. And that sort of software doesn't really obsolete. Steam and GoG allow games to have a 10+ years long tail of slow but steady sales that don't really justify constant maintenance releases but still both let people enjoy good games (those don't really obsolete), and serve as advertisement for the developers' newer games.
    - 4y ago
JohnFen 4y ago
Slackware, perhaps? Honestly, if you just want the naked OS, you don't need a distro at all. Or just don't use the package manager.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  I'm curious what a Linux would look like that behaved more like windows or android in the sense that there isn't such a blurry line between the OS and its applications. For example, installing a C# or Go compiler on Linux is great with a package manager. But doing the same with a C or Python is different? This is basically the Unix "I'm not just an OS, I'm a platform for building and running C programs" heritage that isn't properly hidden I think.
  - creshal 4y ago
    We've reached the point where the C ecosystem has so given up on having a package manager that isn't Linux distributions that Microsoft added WSL and Docker(-compatible) Linux images are the most widespread distribution format. I don't think we can still figure out a way to decouple the two again, and without that, we can't really create a Linux environment that isn't a package manager with an email client. And to a degree, the line is blurry with Windows as well, what with how deep MSVC/win32 is integrated into the system. .NET took decades to dis-entangle itself from Windows and become a proper standalone platform, and Microsoft's attempts at getting people to use UWP instead of win32 is ongoing and not very successful so far.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > in the sense that there isn't such a blurry line between the OS and its applications. Interesting. It never occurred to me that there's a blurry line between the two. It seems to me that there's a very hard line between the two. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. > For example, installing a C# or Go compiler on Linux is great with a package manager. But doing the same with a C or Python is different? I'm confused by this question, so forgive me if this answer isn't really addressing it. A package manager is a convenience, nothing more. Using one means makes your life easier in a number of ways. But not using one isn't really that much more difficult. Package managers are 100% optional.

qbasic_forever 4y ago

Hot take: package distributors are 'fake jobs' that don't need to exist, or exist only for the make-work of packaging. Tools like flatpak, snap, appimage, containerization, etc. have made the need for adapting software to different distributions unnecessary.

bombolo 4y ago
I don't want debian to be like the android app store, where there are thousands apps that work badly and overflow me with ads. I much prefer the f-droid model, of having curated repositories to keep crap outside. Also, I can't understand why people on the internet think that upstream developers are omniscient. They make lots of mistakes and errors. Distribute maintainers fix a lot of things, and send the fixes to the authors.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  There's nothing stopping someone from making a flatpak or other similar tech feed or 'store' that's only the curated apps they deem appropriate for users. Bugs should be fixed upstream, not kept in distro specific silos. There's no reason why only a packager can fix some upstream issues or become a contributor. On the contrary shipping your app as a universal tech like flatpak means Redhat, Debian, Arch or any other user can use it, develop for it, and send fixes upstream.
  - creshal 4y ago
    The strawman sounds compelling on the surface, but that's not what happens in practice: Bug fixes are sent upstream by all relevant distributions, and they regularly cooperate with each other directly, as well as upstream. The "new world" of users of all distributions working together has been reality for the past 20+ years.
  - noirscape 4y ago
    > Bugs should be fixed upstream, not kept in distro specific silos. This is mostly a Debian issue fwiw. Debian is literally notable because they're obsessed with making sure that any package in their repositories is kept with the same "API"[0], no matter how old the software is. The result is that Debian packages can end up hugely derivative compared to the equivalent of upstream and other distros, but it's usually also because the software in question is half a decade old. With other distros, packaging changes to upstream usually just reflect the preference to match a certain style of configuration (to pull another example from Debian: nginx ships with sites-{enabled,available} folders and is configured to load from sites-enabled by default. This is to match the same configuration style that's used for apache2 and that it's associated tools assume you configure apache2 with, even though nginx just uses a conf.d folder and has no extra tools to facilitate anything fancy with sites-{enabled,available}). The extreme end is nix, which actively requires you to have the upstream written with nix in mind because nix will basically demand you configure the source code in ways to accommodate for it. [0]: This includes actual software-intended interfaces and the ones hacked together by users by ie. reading out logfiles.