Thursday, April 26, 2007

Is the search for the perfect distro over?

My peers (in person... yes, I do have a life outside my computer) has asked me whether I my quest for the perfect distro has come to an end. To answer that question, is Hell No! I have to explain over and over again that Linux is that flexible and has a lot to offer no matter what distro you choose. That boggled them since they thought that all distros uses the same base, the same source codes, the same applications... that is true! But the distro is not defined by what applications are installed and offered, but by how active and accomodating a community is. It's always the community... Softwares and Operating Systems evolve, including Microsoft Windows, but you don't see me using Windows... Community on the other hand are a bunch of humans driven by their passion and emotions. Let's face it, it's not always their brains that's working.

Fact: there is no end for my quest. Softwares will move forward, but a community may regress (almost 100% caused by emotions). And that is the reason why I won't stop downloading and installing new distros.

3rd Quarter last year, I migrated from Gentoo due to petty quarrells. Their package manager is  the best in the world. I have to admit that it has superseded Apt when it comes to dependencies and functionality, but it's not all that. What's the use of a perfect application if the people you're working with keeps on pushing you around. Don't get me wrong, I still love Gentoo, and their new Code of Conduct has  forced me to reconsider my thoughts. As for Fedora, well the most recent (at least for me, I've been out of touch lately) reason why I still haven't tried Zod (FC6) was because of this (complete). ESR may be at fault here, but a professional (and a representative of Red Hat) isn't supposed to act like that. It's all about respect, it always is and will always be. Community, always driven by emotions and almost always the cause of their success or downfall.

Now I'm into Ubuntu... who knows, maybe next year I'm back to Gentoo or Fedora. Well, let's just see...

Additional Note: No, I'm not starting a flame war here, this is my opinion and you have to accept it as that.


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