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There is no such thing as a vanilla Linux you can run, you can only install one or another of all the distros that have varying degrees of incompabilities and i

There is no such thing as a vanilla Linux you can run, you can only install one or another of all the distros that have varying degrees of incompabilities and infelicities between each other. And every now and then some figure who knows which political strings to pull uses that clout to load your favorite distro with pre-beta crapware.

chimeracoder 14y ago
Okay, really, GP asks a genuine question, and you respond with this kind of misinformation? On the off chance that you're actually this confused - or on the likelier chance that someone else comes by and takes your comment seriously - let me make some corrections for you. > There is no such thing as a vanilla Linux you can run The phrase "vanilla Linux" doesn't even make sense. Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. If you're talking about the entire GNU/Linux operating system, it doesn't make sense to talk about a "vanilla" version, because there are thousands of different utilities that can comprise a GNU/Linux-based operating system, and there are combinatorially many ways to create a Linux distribution. That's like saying that there's no "vanilla" BSD - only [Open|Free|Net]BSD - except worse, because some of the Linux "distributions" are really no more different than adding an extra package (eg, KDE) to an existing distribution and giving it a different name. It's as if you called BSD by two different names depending on whether or not you pre-installed Emacs. > All the distros that have varying degrees of incompabilities and infelicities between each other. This is vastly exaggerated. A properly compiled binary or a compatible source file should run on any distro - not just any modern distro, but any older one as well (assuming that it has the correct dependencies installed, etc.). > And every now and then some figure who knows which political strings to pull uses that clout to load your favorite distro with pre-beta crapware. If I wanted to get really snarky here, I'd say that the same thing could happen to BSD too and point to OS X. This is just ridiculous - Linux is open source and free-as-in-freedom, so just because somebody else packages your favorite distro with some stuff you don't like doesn't mean that anybody else has to as well - you can just as easily remove it and create your own "distro" as a fork.
- beagle3 14y ago
  I disagree that the GGP asked a genuine question (I've posted about this earlier), but just wanted to point out that the "genuine" question was about FreeBSD in particular, not BSD, and you're replying about BSD vs. Linux, rather than FreeBSD vs. Linux, so a bit of your answer is misdirected. That said: > If you're talking about the entire GNU/Linux operating system, it doesn't make sense to talk about a "vanilla" version, because there are thousands of different utilities that can comprise a GNU/Linux-based operating system, and there are combinatorially many ways to create a Linux distribution. That exactly WAS the GP's point about the difference, I think, and exactly what he said: There's no "vanilla Linux" you can run. There is a "vanilla FreeBSD" you can run. That's a huge difference. > > All the distros that have varying degrees of incompabilities and infelicities between each other. > This is vastly exaggerated. A properly compiled binary or a compatible source file should run on any distro That's NOT vastly exaggerated. While it is usually possible to do so, it is usually painful unless you start from a source package. If you have a binary rpm or deb and want to install it on a distro it was not intended for (not easy even if its the same format, often hard if it's a different format), you have to be very familiar with both package standards to make it work. "alien" helps, but if your package has lots of dependencies, you really need to know what you are doing.
  - gillianseed 14y ago
    >That exactly WAS the GP's point about the difference, I think, and exactly what he said: There's no "vanilla Linux" you can run. There is a "vanilla FreeBSD" you can run. That's a huge difference. Linux is the kernel, vanilla Linux would be the Linux mainline. >That's NOT vastly exaggerated. While it is usually possible to do so, it is usually painful unless you start from a source package. If you have a binary rpm or deb and want to install it on a distro it was not intended for The one you are responding to was talking about binaries, why are you conflating that with rpm/deb package formats? Like the aforementioned poster said, as long as dependancies are met there would be no problem running binaries across Linux distributions.
    - Locke1689 14y ago

chimeracoder 14y ago

Okay, really, GP asks a genuine question, and you respond with this kind of misinformation? On the off chance that you're actually this confused - or on the likelier chance that someone else comes by and takes your comment seriously - let me make some corrections for you. > There is no such thing as a vanilla Linux you can run The phrase "vanilla Linux" doesn't even make sense. Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. If you're talking about the entire GNU/Linux operating system, it doesn't make sense to talk about a "vanilla" version, because there are thousands of different utilities that can comprise a GNU/Linux-based operating system, and there are combinatorially many ways to create a Linux distribution. That's like saying that there's no "vanilla" BSD - only [Open|Free|Net]BSD - except worse, because some of the Linux "distributions" are really no more different than adding an extra package (eg, KDE) to an existing distribution and giving it a different name. It's as if you called BSD by two different names depending on whether or not you pre-installed Emacs. > All the distros that have varying degrees of incompabilities and infelicities between each other. This is vastly exaggerated. A properly compiled binary or a compatible source file should run on any distro - not just any modern distro, but any older one as well (assuming that it has the correct dependencies installed, etc.). > And every now and then some figure who knows which political strings to pull uses that clout to load your favorite distro with pre-beta crapware. If I wanted to get really snarky here, I'd say that the same thing could happen to BSD too and point to OS X. This is just ridiculous - Linux is open source and free-as-in-freedom, so just because somebody else packages your favorite distro with some stuff you don't like doesn't mean that anybody else has to as well - you can just as easily remove it and create your own "distro" as a fork.

beagle3 14y ago
I disagree that the GGP asked a genuine question (I've posted about this earlier), but just wanted to point out that the "genuine" question was about FreeBSD in particular, not BSD, and you're replying about BSD vs. Linux, rather than FreeBSD vs. Linux, so a bit of your answer is misdirected. That said: > If you're talking about the entire GNU/Linux operating system, it doesn't make sense to talk about a "vanilla" version, because there are thousands of different utilities that can comprise a GNU/Linux-based operating system, and there are combinatorially many ways to create a Linux distribution. That exactly WAS the GP's point about the difference, I think, and exactly what he said: There's no "vanilla Linux" you can run. There is a "vanilla FreeBSD" you can run. That's a huge difference. > > All the distros that have varying degrees of incompabilities and infelicities between each other. > This is vastly exaggerated. A properly compiled binary or a compatible source file should run on any distro That's NOT vastly exaggerated. While it is usually possible to do so, it is usually painful unless you start from a source package. If you have a binary rpm or deb and want to install it on a distro it was not intended for (not easy even if its the same format, often hard if it's a different format), you have to be very familiar with both package standards to make it work. "alien" helps, but if your package has lots of dependencies, you really need to know what you are doing.
- gillianseed 14y ago
  >That exactly WAS the GP's point about the difference, I think, and exactly what he said: There's no "vanilla Linux" you can run. There is a "vanilla FreeBSD" you can run. That's a huge difference. Linux is the kernel, vanilla Linux would be the Linux mainline. >That's NOT vastly exaggerated. While it is usually possible to do so, it is usually painful unless you start from a source package. If you have a binary rpm or deb and want to install it on a distro it was not intended for The one you are responding to was talking about binaries, why are you conflating that with rpm/deb package formats? Like the aforementioned poster said, as long as dependancies are met there would be no problem running binaries across Linux distributions.
  - Locke1689 14y ago