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Post #42203
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My hot take: most distros would actually be better as lightweight configurable install script wizards. It could drastically improve the ecosystem.
I've had a thought for a while now that I think could actually really improve the distro ecosystem, both in terms of user freedom and technical merits: most distros should really just be tiny highly modular install script wizards (preferably with a TUI or GUI available) that just build upon the root distro that the would-be "distro" would have been derived from, or even target multiple distros by detecting what base distro the script is running on.
Optionally, it would also be good if they provide a way to save out a corresponding shell script that repeats the selected options from the TUI/GUI wizard, thereby making it very easy to later concatenate multiple such scripts afterwards however one desires. That (not giant monolithic distros ISOs) should be the norm. It would be far more modular and expressive for users and would waste far less time.
Doing so wouldn't even be that hard to implement and in fact I'd say it would probably actually be easier from a first principles standpoint than what is currently the norm in the distro ecosystem.
The idea comes from the observation I've had over time (as I've gradually used Linux/Unix more as I've migrated away from Windows and have become more familiar with the distros by trying out so many of them) that generally it seems best to actually base one's system off of whatever is the most ancestral actively maintained real underlying root/parent distro (such as Debian, Arch, Fedora, OpenSuse, Slackware, Gentoo, Void, etc) and to alter it from there.
In contrast, many derivative distros that are not really root distros have a bad tendency to make a bunch of ill-conceived adjustments and "monkey patches" to the base distros upon which they build, and those adjustments have a tendency to result in more hindrance than help over time and to greatly increase the chances of instabilities and desynchronization with the root/parent distro. Many distros also waste a great deal of time by installing a bunch of changes to the system that are unwanted right alongside the changes that the user wants. Everyone has had the experience of loving some aspect(s) of a distro but utterly hating other aspect(s) of it. That problem would be greatly lessened if lightweight install script wizards (not monolithic distros) were the most common variants being distributed.
It would also be far more transparent, far easier for users to learn from (just read the scripts), and would encourage scripts to be written in ways that decrease the odds of breakages (forcing "distros" to be more portable and more well-grounded on their bases).
Granted, some of the biggest derivative distros such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint have some justification for this, but even there I am increasingly finding using them seems to often create a tower of dependencies that greatly increases the chances of subtle (hence hard to fix or tedious) problems building up in the system. In fact, that's why I'm coincidentally planning on moving away from Linux Mint soon: even though I've enjoyed my time with Mint as my first daily driver distro (replacing Windows), such derivative distros (I've increasingly realized over time) seem to constantly patch upstream distros in shortsighted and unwittingly harmful ways. It's "death by a thousand needles" of myriad subtle dependency entanglements.
Imagine if instead of distributing monolithic distros the community distributed a variety of specialized installer scripts that simply provide the necessary shell commands to customize one or more root/parent/base distros to suit what the user desires and have that all wrapped up in a TUI and/or GUI and/or command-line script that the user can easily select what they want and what they don't want from.
If that were the world we lived in, then users could just take whatever parts of each "distro" they want and apply it to their install and leave the parts they don't want behind. That would make
I've had a thought for a while now that I think could actually really improve the distro ecosystem, both in terms of user freedom and technical merits: most distros should really just be tiny highly modular install script wizards (preferably with a TUI or GUI available) that just build upon the root distro that the would-be "distro" would have been derived from, or even target multiple distros by detecting what base distro the script is running on.
Optionally, it would also be good if they provide a way to save out a corresponding shell script that repeats the selected options from the TUI/GUI wizard, thereby making it very easy to later concatenate multiple such scripts afterwards however one desires. That (not giant monolithic distros ISOs) should be the norm. It would be far more modular and expressive for users and would waste far less time.
Doing so wouldn't even be that hard to implement and in fact I'd say it would probably actually be easier from a first principles standpoint than what is currently the norm in the distro ecosystem.
The idea comes from the observation I've had over time (as I've gradually used Linux/Unix more as I've migrated away from Windows and have become more familiar with the distros by trying out so many of them) that generally it seems best to actually base one's system off of whatever is the most ancestral actively maintained real underlying root/parent distro (such as Debian, Arch, Fedora, OpenSuse, Slackware, Gentoo, Void, etc) and to alter it from there.
In contrast, many derivative distros that are not really root distros have a bad tendency to make a bunch of ill-conceived adjustments and "monkey patches" to the base distros upon which they build, and those adjustments have a tendency to result in more hindrance than help over time and to greatly increase the chances of instabilities and desynchronization with the root/parent distro. Many distros also waste a great deal of time by installing a bunch of changes to the system that are unwanted right alongside the changes that the user wants. Everyone has had the experience of loving some aspect(s) of a distro but utterly hating other aspect(s) of it. That problem would be greatly lessened if lightweight install script wizards (not monolithic distros) were the most common variants being distributed.
It would also be far more transparent, far easier for users to learn from (just read the scripts), and would encourage scripts to be written in ways that decrease the odds of breakages (forcing "distros" to be more portable and more well-grounded on their bases).
Granted, some of the biggest derivative distros such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint have some justification for this, but even there I am increasingly finding using them seems to often create a tower of dependencies that greatly increases the chances of subtle (hence hard to fix or tedious) problems building up in the system. In fact, that's why I'm coincidentally planning on moving away from Linux Mint soon: even though I've enjoyed my time with Mint as my first daily driver distro (replacing Windows), such derivative distros (I've increasingly realized over time) seem to constantly patch upstream distros in shortsighted and unwittingly harmful ways. It's "death by a thousand needles" of myriad subtle dependency entanglements.
Imagine if instead of distributing monolithic distros the community distributed a variety of specialized installer scripts that simply provide the necessary shell commands to customize one or more root/parent/base distros to suit what the user desires and have that all wrapped up in a TUI and/or GUI and/or command-line script that the user can easily select what they want and what they don't want from.
If that were the world we lived in, then users could just take whatever parts of each "distro" they want and apply it to their install and leave the parts they don't want behind. That would make
