Linux is fragmented, and that's GOOD
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00:00 Intro
00:40 Sponsor: Get 100$ free credit for your Linux or gaming server
01:52 Fragmenta-what?
02:51 Fragmentation makes Linux hard to support?
04:50 Fragmentation = waste of time?
07:01 Fragmentation hurts mass market adoption?
08:28 Fragmentation makes our desktops better
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10:28 Support the channel
So let's start with ""Fragmentation makes Linux impossible to support"
That might have been true once. Many different packaging formats, many different distributions, and the way they shipped shared system libraries, which ones they had, which ones they hadn't, the necessity to package for multiple releases of the same distro, it was all a nightmare.
We now have plenty of packaging formats that work on ALL distributions, with one single package per architecture. You don't target Ubuntu version 22.04, for 64 bit x86 CPUs, you target Linux for x86 CPUs. Flatpak, Snap, Appimages: they all allow you to just make one package, that runs on all versions of all distros that share an architecture.
Fragmentation can also mean duplication of efforts, and the implied waste of time that this entails.
Except that here again, it's a generalization that really doesn't apply. Sure, Linux has plenty of "duplicate projects", if you use that word to its loosest sense. GNOME is a duplication of KDE. Pantheon is a duplication of GNOME. Krita is a duplication of GIMP. Shotcut duplicates the work that Kdenlive is doing. Hell, Fedora silverblue duplicates Fedora workstation, Arch duplicates Linux From Scratch.
What people call fragmentation, I call meaningful choice. The fact that developers work on projects that have the same aim, but not the same way to reach their goal is NOT a bad thing.
Developers working on open source projects that have the same goal aren't wasting their time, because if they didn't work on their own project, they also wouldn't work on the competing one, because if they shared goals, there wouldn't be 2 projects in the first place.
But fragmentation also hurts Linux adoption by the mass market, or so I hear.
That's kinda true, but also it's the wrong way to look at the problem.
First, I'd argue that Fragmentation isn't what makes Linux not exist in the minds of the general public when they want to buy a computer. In my opinion, it's the lack of buyable computers running Linux that has hurt the purchase of computers running Linux.
But still, having too many choices can be pretty complex for newcomers to navigate. People can currently choose between hundreds of smartphone models. They still manage to make a choice in the end, and if they need help, they go to various websites to compare, read reviews, and decide.
Our problem isn't that we have too many choices. It's that we have no good way of helping users decide between these choices, because Linux and operating systems aren't as familiar a choice to people as picking between different cars.
I'll also conclude by saying that what people perceive as fragmentation is a huge strength of Linux, IMO. Because we have so many choices, so many options, and so many projects, we have competition. And competition brings innovation, and makes new ideas pop up way faster.
The Linux desktop space is incredibly diverse in terms of what it offers, the workflows, the way to manage your computer, the solidity of the base, the ergonomics of the graphical desktop, the install experience.