Not another ''what distro'' thread...''all distro''?

Originally Posted by rsulli55 Look at FreeBSD there is no coporation running it but it is unified to make the best OS possible.

Yeah, but *BSD's are based around a license interpreted as "acknowledge me, I am the software author".

Conversly, Linux distributions are based around a license founded on maintaining "freedom". (See my signature.)

Besides that, you may wish to ponder why *BSD's have so few users since they are so unifiedly-delicious. Linux is simply able to appeal to more people.

Originally Posted by Sepero Ever heard the expression, "The devil is in the details"? That's the way it is with different Distributions. You can't just install it for a day and say "Oh yeah, I tried that, it's just like XYZ distro". I assure you, there are MANY MANY differences. These differences are mostly 'under the hood of the engine' so to speak. Like the shoe analogy, a car analogy can be used too. Mepis might be a Chevy Cavalier, and Suse might be a Honda Accord. Both might be 4 door, automatic shift, compact cars. But underneath, there are a great great many differences. In my view, the best indicator of a good distro is having to only be installed once. From there, upgrade to infinity. (or until my harddrive goes bad, which actually happened to me recently ). I can garauntee you that anyone that thinks there aren't many differences between distros has never worked with one.

Maybe that's true, maybe I'm just an ignorant fool about how a distro actually works. Its just my experience with different distros has led me to believe that they do things differently, but in the end, the outcome is similar. For example, when working with initscripts its different on Gentoo, Arch, and Debian, but in the end, you are just trying to have something start up while booting. And then on distros like PCLinuxOS or SUSE you have a GUI to configure your system, but they look and act differently, but try to do the same thing. I think that's unnecessary and makes it harder for new users to switch to Linux. Its true, I have never developed a distro, nor have I helped, so I maybe I am completely wrong with my assumptions. But I have used many different distros, and not just for a day either. It just seems to the user that they are trying to do similar things, but they do it different ways.

My rant earlier should not be taken seriously, I know it would never be possible to have just one mother distro. I was just angry because I can't find that "perfect distro". I like parts of this one, and then something else on that one. Its just infuriating knowing that I might not ever find that "perfect distro", because there are so many of them. I mean there are 500 distros, why can't we condense that down to 50 so there are not so many distros trying to do the same thing?

I can't find that "perfect distro".

There is, of course, a perfect distro; but for various reasons some people have valid reasons for using a different one. Being associated with perfection is not always the best thing. Just ask my wife.

There is no use finding the "perfect" distro. Even if you did find it, next year there would be another distro that was more "perfect".

Just find a distro that works really well for "you", and then forget about the rest. If the distro you picked ever starts giving you serious headaches, then that is the perfect time to start trying/checking out other distros.

That is the beauty of Linux, no vendor lockin. You are free to ome and go as you please.

(Oh, and if it helps you sleep better at night, you can just limit yourself to the top 10-50 on www.distrowatch.com.)