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Why are there so many of these "specialized" hobby project Linux distros that people are using as daily drivers? Are people too lazy to use an operating system

Why are there so many of these "specialized" hobby project Linux distros that people are using as daily drivers? Are people too lazy to use an operating system that they have to do even a minor amount of configuration to use? Do people really need every program built in? Projects like this fit all the criteria of what I've nicknamed "Mastodon projects", because they always have either (or both) Mastodon and Discord links on their websites and are primarily developed by people with "alternative" social media accounts. They always implode within a few years due to some form of ridiculous community drama that other FOSS projects don't suffer from (because other open source projects usually have a somewhat serious "community", or lack of a cohesive one altogether).

gethly 11mo ago
as far as i understand, it is about specific game and performance related tweaks in the kernel. so it goes beyond just a distribution where you just string together few programs, desktop environment and some config files and call it a day. this is why linux, after all, is still where it was 20 years ago. all those endless distributions and fragmentation make it non-competitive against the mainstream desktop operating systems. ubuntu was doing good work by becoming the de facto desktop linux by sheer branding. but they dropped the ball really hard and that opportunity to make linux desktop a serious competition is gone. now games are leading the way so maybe steam os or one of these gaming-tuned distros might pick up the momentum.
alfanick 11mo ago
This. We could be good buddies. I'm not understanding this OS and I'm extremely confused that this post got so much traction on HN. Gosh, either I'm too young, or too old, or too nerdy. I'm not critiquing the project itself, more like, I'm surprised [very surprised], that it got so much traction on HN, not usual news
- Underphil 11mo ago
  Same feeling here. Realistically, what is this distro doing that couldn't just be done with a quick bash script on whatever the current 'new user distro' is? The wording is weird too : "Comes with Lutris preinstalled!". Would Windows users switch to a different hypothetical "Windows Distro" that was optimised for gaming? None of this makes any sense to me.
  - GaryBluto 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - alfanick 11mo ago
      [flagged]
      - GaryBluto 11mo ago
        Why would I be an LLM?
    - Underphil 11mo ago
      No project needs to justify its existence. I'm wondering why people would use it.
      - GaryBluto 11mo ago
        I doubt many people think about the long-term implications of using a small Linux distro like this. They see something "cool", so they use it.
        JackMorgan 11mo ago
        I don't really care about long term implications of the OS for my standalone gaming rig in my living room. If it works, it works. Bazzite works, so I'm happily using it. If it stops working, I'll just install another distro. Easy as
haizhung 11mo ago
I use bazzite. I am a software developer at day, working on Unix exclusively. Let me try to give my reason. I don’t WANT to fiddle around with some random bullshit when all I have in the evening are 1-2 hours. I want to boot the system and just get cracking with a game. Even the 1-2 hours of installation time are already a hard sell to me. It’s ~20% of my weekly gaming time. And it’s never usually just „a minor amount of configuration“, is it? Depending on what game you are playing, what hardware you have, you can easily spend hours getting a game to work properly, and that’s with bazzite. I want something that just works, I don’t want to spend hours figuring out magic incantations. Though admittedly, with AI it’s gotten easier to figure out magic incantations.

gethly 11mo ago

as far as i understand, it is about specific game and performance related tweaks in the kernel. so it goes beyond just a distribution where you just string together few programs, desktop environment and some config files and call it a day. this is why linux, after all, is still where it was 20 years ago. all those endless distributions and fragmentation make it non-competitive against the mainstream desktop operating systems. ubuntu was doing good work by becoming the de facto desktop linux by sheer branding. but they dropped the ball really hard and that opportunity to make linux desktop a serious competition is gone. now games are leading the way so maybe steam os or one of these gaming-tuned distros might pick up the momentum.

alfanick 11mo ago

This. We could be good buddies. I'm not understanding this OS and I'm extremely confused that this post got so much traction on HN. Gosh, either I'm too young, or too old, or too nerdy. I'm not critiquing the project itself, more like, I'm surprised [very surprised], that it got so much traction on HN, not usual news

Underphil 11mo ago
Same feeling here. Realistically, what is this distro doing that couldn't just be done with a quick bash script on whatever the current 'new user distro' is? The wording is weird too : "Comes with Lutris preinstalled!". Would Windows users switch to a different hypothetical "Windows Distro" that was optimised for gaming? None of this makes any sense to me.
- GaryBluto 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - alfanick 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - GaryBluto 11mo ago
      Why would I be an LLM?
  - Underphil 11mo ago
    No project needs to justify its existence. I'm wondering why people would use it.
    - GaryBluto 11mo ago
      I doubt many people think about the long-term implications of using a small Linux distro like this. They see something "cool", so they use it.
      - JackMorgan 11mo ago
        I don't really care about long term implications of the OS for my standalone gaming rig in my living room. If it works, it works. Bazzite works, so I'm happily using it. If it stops working, I'll just install another distro. Easy as

haizhung 11mo ago

I use bazzite. I am a software developer at day, working on Unix exclusively. Let me try to give my reason. I don’t WANT to fiddle around with some random bullshit when all I have in the evening are 1-2 hours. I want to boot the system and just get cracking with a game. Even the 1-2 hours of installation time are already a hard sell to me. It’s ~20% of my weekly gaming time. And it’s never usually just „a minor amount of configuration“, is it? Depending on what game you are playing, what hardware you have, you can easily spend hours getting a game to work properly, and that’s with bazzite. I want something that just works, I don’t want to spend hours figuring out magic incantations. Though admittedly, with AI it’s gotten easier to figure out magic incantations.