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How is fragmentation hindering your usage ? This page is more for casual users and they don't have to worry about fragmentation. My company sells software on a

by pavanky 14y ago

How is fragmentation hindering your usage ? This page is more for casual users and they don't have to worry about fragmentation. My company sells software on all platforms. Our linux installer has never been a problem. Not only that Valve released their software just for one distribution. Within hours you had people working out how to get it to work on the distribution of their choice. So the fragmentation is not a problem, but more of a benefit where users do the work for you.

jiggy2011 14y ago
Fragmentation is a problem for casual users. Granted less than it used to be , since the casual user is probably on Ubuntu where there is likely a pre-packaged version of most stuff they might want to install. You still do run into problems with stuff that was packaged for only Ubuntu 10.10 and it doesn't install on 12.04 for example. In the days before there was one dominant distro it was a nightmare installing everything you wanted without browsing forums because you had Suse version X and the website only offered you a package for RedHat version Y.
- pavanky 14y ago
  Again, that is a problem from ages ago. Not now.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    It's still an issue for anybody who wants to ship software for more than one distro. Not to mention WM fragmentation. It's also quite disingenuous to say "Use Linux you get a choice of Distros!" and then say "stick to Ubuntu if you want stuff to actually work".
    - zanny 14y ago
      > Our linux installer has never been a problem. Not only that Valve released their software just for one distribution. Within hours you had people working out how to get it to work on the distribution of their choice. So the fragmentation is not a problem, but more of a benefit where users do the work for you. Direct quote from the guy you are in the thread with. If you put it on one distro, the others will port it for you.
      - jiggy2011 14y ago
        Unless it's you know not open source or something. Even with open source , you get version lag between distros.
        pavanky 14y ago
        Steam is not open source.
        jiggy2011 14y ago
        And they were lucky enough to have valve's blessing to redistribute it for Arch. If I release some small program for one distro I certainly cannot count on all of the other distros bending over backwards to repackage it for me.

by pavanky 14y ago

jiggy2011 14y ago

Fragmentation is a problem for casual users. Granted less than it used to be , since the casual user is probably on Ubuntu where there is likely a pre-packaged version of most stuff they might want to install. You still do run into problems with stuff that was packaged for only Ubuntu 10.10 and it doesn't install on 12.04 for example. In the days before there was one dominant distro it was a nightmare installing everything you wanted without browsing forums because you had Suse version X and the website only offered you a package for RedHat version Y.

pavanky 14y ago
Again, that is a problem from ages ago. Not now.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  It's still an issue for anybody who wants to ship software for more than one distro. Not to mention WM fragmentation. It's also quite disingenuous to say "Use Linux you get a choice of Distros!" and then say "stick to Ubuntu if you want stuff to actually work".
  - zanny 14y ago
    > Our linux installer has never been a problem. Not only that Valve released their software just for one distribution. Within hours you had people working out how to get it to work on the distribution of their choice. So the fragmentation is not a problem, but more of a benefit where users do the work for you. Direct quote from the guy you are in the thread with. If you put it on one distro, the others will port it for you.
    - jiggy2011 14y ago
      Unless it's you know not open source or something. Even with open source , you get version lag between distros.
      - pavanky 14y ago
        Steam is not open source.
        jiggy2011 14y ago
        And they were lucky enough to have valve's blessing to redistribute it for Arch. If I release some small program for one distro I certainly cannot count on all of the other distros bending over backwards to repackage it for me.