Bridging the Linux chasm

Most people will agree on what a commercial distro is. it is fairly obvious. A distro that is funded and backed by a company.

Examples would be Suse, RedHat, Mandriva, and others. Some of these making more money than others.

Then there is the wild west world of "Community" distros.

It is an interesting place this Community world. It contains distros that stretch the very boundaries on either end of the scale.

For example, on one end, there is Ubuntu. It pushes itself as a community distro although it is financially backed by a company, Canonical, and does pay some developers to contribute and maintain it. it is not sold to the public in any form and does not generate revenue, unlike the 'full' commercial distros mentioned above.

Ubuntu is released on fixed schedules and the repos are available to support those releases for a fixed time.

Ubuntu is based on another distro, that ironically, perhaps best encompasses the entire opposite end of the spectrum that is Community. Debian.

Debian is about as "Community" as it gets. Leaders are elected by the general community and development is done largely on consensus.

Debian tries hard to release on schedule, but with such a large group of people involved in development, the consensus and coordination side of the operation can take unexpected turns and stalls at times waiting for everything to come together.

What is the results of these two ends of the Community spectrum?

Well, Ubuntu enjoys popularity with more releases throughout the year and because of it's increased financial support from Canonical, has an advertising budget that no other 'Community" distro can match.

Debian on the other hand has garnered the respect of the overall Linux community by it's continued longevity and it's commitment to stability. People tend to be patient waiting for the next release of Debian because when it is ready, it is almost always capital "G" Good.

What about those distros that fall somewhere in between?

OpenSuse and Fedora also enjoy limited financial backing from companies and operate in a semi-formal organizational structure.

They have leaders elected by the community to act as representatives in development. Even so, the community 'temperature' is monitored heavily to see that they are moving along lines most likely to be widely accepted.

Some of the distros Have entirely no company backing and survive on volunteerism and donations from the community.

The organizational structure of these other distros range between benevolent dictatorships to being led by committee.

Some distros start as one man shows and benevolent dictatorships and evolve over time into something mixed. Almost like having a parliament and prime minister of the distro, the former benevolent dictator becoming the PM and the community stepping up to form the parliament.

I can think of two such "parliament" distros, or distros evolving to become such. Both share incredible popularity although both have no commercial support or backing.

Both distro started as 'one man shows' and have grown in community and scope to require evolution or stall and perish as a distro. Luckily for us, they have both continued to evolve and though experiencing growing pains, both are showing signs of longevity and continued support.

The distros being discussed here are PCLinuxOS and Linux Mint.

A fella named Clem started Linux Mint and another guy referred to as Texstar started PCLinuxOS.

Both used other distros as their foundations and while keeping close to those foundations, haven't been afraid to do their own thing at the same time.

Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu and follows the Ubuntu release schedule as closely as is feasible.

PCLinuxOS is originally based on Mandriva and will 'rebase' off of it from time to time but by and large takes the primary snapshot and then follows it's own path from there.

There are so many parallels between the two distros it is uncanny. At the same time, they are entirely unique in their own rights.

If one visits each of the distro forums, one will find a wide variety of users from outright 'newbies' to highly experienced and seasoned 'pros' co-existing peacefully. Giving lie to the idea of Linux Elitism prohibiting community adoption.

Also, one will find so called 'fan boys' in each community. Called so because their enthusiasm for that particular distro knows no bounds and is approximate to a soccer or football teams fans. They can sometimes be annoying and permanently bound to their rose colored glasses in regard to their distro of choice, but are by and large harmless.

Both distros are in the process of evolution, moving away from the 'one man show' or ' benevolent dictatorship' depending on any one persons interpretation. to the style I like to call 'parliamentary'.

Both distros have felt the heat of the community in putting out new releases in what the general Linux community might think of as 'timely'.

Linux Mint receives a bit less attention in that regard because it follows the Ubuntu release schedule as closely as it can, which is at least twice a year.

PCLinuxOS takes a bit of a different approach to the release cycle and prefers to release on a roughly annual cycle, given that a set of standards imposed by the development team, headed up by Texstar have been met. If the expectations are not met, then the release will be prolonged until they are.

No matter what distro or type of community structure it employs, all Linux distros face the same wants and expectations from users. Some users are hobbyists and demand the newest, latest/greatest apps and pkgs regardless of stability. They want to play and can often be the noisiest group of users out there.

As usual, the noisiest group is usually the smallest and most polls and studies show that by and large, most users want a stable distro and are willing to be patient in getting the newest apps available so as to get increased stability.

The type of structure a distro takes is done in large part to produce the distro in as timely and reliable fashion as they can. The need to respond to users in the community increases as the popularity of the given distro grows. some might say it is an enviable problem. For if it seems the entire world is demanding more and more of the distro, that means the distro is gaining in popularity and enjoying more people using it.

The more popularity a distro gets, the more it will be required to grow and evolve to respond to that community of users. That which made you, can also break you.

Any distro team needs to be able to respond to that while at the same time maintaining a structure that will still allow it to do the type and quality of work they intend to do.

It's a hard line to walk. Decisions aren't easy and the fun can be lost in a heartbeat if one doesn't allow others to step up and help. How many cooks will spoil the soup though? So much to balance.

I tip my hat to all the various and sundry Linux Distro development teams and communities. It can be a lot of fun and it can be a lot of stress. Overall, you make it what you want it to be.

Ain't Linux great?

Linux Distro "User Levels"

I'm sure you've seen the reviews that proclaim Distro A is perfect for new users or Distro B is ideal for recent Windows Migrants. Perhaps Distro C is for "advanced" users. Saw one just today that proclaimed Distro Q as perfect for "intermediate" users.


To be honest. There are Linux distros that are made for out of the box productivity and then there are those designed for high customize-ability.

Beyond that, Linux is simply Linux and once a user has gained some experience with the apps and controls of various distros ( or simply the one distro they have chosen or been given to work with ) one will find themselves able to transition themselves between distros without too much trouble overall.

True, each distro has its own "personality". Those special scripts and apps that they feel will make them stand out for attention. Each of those nuances will have to be learned for each distro one spends any amount of time in. Still, the basics are the basics. Once one has a feel for Linux in general, it isn't a great stretch to adapt to other distros.

Perhaps the biggest difficulty in transitioning between distros is in documentation. Linux documentation, depending on distro and it's team and community can differ greatly. If you want to learn how to do something specifically in that distro or in Linux in general, you will look to that distros wiki pages and forums for direction. Some distros have volumes of great information, but if you don't know exactly what you are looking for, it can be a bit daunting trying to figure out how to find what you're looking for.

No matter what "user level" you fit in, remember to be patient. Ask clear, specific questions and be prepared to wait for an answer. After a while, after one gains some idea of terminology and concept, searches become easier to do and you don't find yourself waiting long, if at all, for the answer you seek.

I personally don't subscribe to the "user level" idea. I look instead for how productive is the distro. if it can be installed and used for the intended and expected purpose in a reasonable amount of time, the more I like it.

Even the most experienced techs and admins can appreciate a distro that is ready to go and usable in as short amount of time possible. It makes the task and job of getting and keeping user systems up and running while at the same time keeping users doing things, being productive an almost enjoyable job.

Yes, it is nice to get hold of a Linux distro that, speaking in "techie" terms, can provide an opportunity to really get your hands dirty fine tuning and customizing every possible part of the OS to that particular machines capabilities and the users intents. It is educational and even "fun" if the person is in the particular frame of mind.

I would venture to say though, that 95% of all computer users just want to perform certain tasks, they want to use the computer and not see it crash or falter or simply, stubbornly, not work.

For the home user, productivity can be even more important. The "average" computer user is mostly looking for a computer to do certain things. Browse the internet, download files, play games, play multi-media, use email and so on.

They don't want so much to tweak and configure things, although the home user will do that more likely than an office user will, it's more important to just turn the PC on and get to doing what thye set out to do.

Productivity knows no "user level" though. It is either usable and productive or it isn't. The more time one spends trying to find fixes or hacks to do something, that takes away from productive time in actually using that machine. That's not fun or helping one to get their job done.

There are some distros that even go too far in trying to make a distro "newbie" friendly and in the interest of making a few things super easy to find or do, actually remove some of the capability or productiveness overall. That isn't productive either.

So, remember, when you are looking for a Linux distro that will get what you want done, don't focus on what "user level" someone thinks it best fits. Instead, look for descriptions and keywords that tell you how little time it took to get everything up and running with as few post-install issues as possible.

Remember, when Linus Torvalds started working on the Linux kernel, his goal wasn't to make a new OS that was super easy or intricately ultra complicated.

He wanted to simply make an OS that would just work. Linux can do that. It can be productive for you no matter what "user level" someone thinks you might be. You just have to know what you're looking for.