Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Sun 19th Mar 2006 02:24 UTC
"The recent emphasis of the Linux community has been on desktop distros that make it easy to install and configure the system without venturing beyond the GUI. Despite the success of these beginner-friendly systems, a significant segment of the Linux population prefers a simpler approach. These back-to-basics users want clarity, stability, and speed, and they do not care about the proliferation of redundant tools and glossy configuration helpers that populate the GUI-based systems. In the past, no-frills Linux users gravitated to systems such as Slackware, Gentoo, or Debian, but another back-to-basics distro is gaining favor among the Linux
faithful: Arch Linux."
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Member since:
2005-10-06
"What do you have against GUIs? It's the logical evolution of Linux, the lack of GUIs is what has left Linux behind all these years. People don't want to type text to install or configure stuff."
I won't pretend to speak for Arch users in general, let alone for the devs. I personally have nothing against GUIs, I'm all for GUIs existing and for distros that use them heavily for installation and configuration existing. I used a distro like that, Fedora to be exact, when I first started using Linux extensively. However after about a year on Fedora I looked at some other distros and found I could now also do what I wanted just editing the configuration files by hand. I often find that this is at least as simple since I don't have to figure where the GUI has put the option I want.
"Back to basics? Then why not just removing the desktop environment and use Links to surf the net? Now this is "back to basics", but only a handfull of users will use your system."
Reductio ad absurdum works both ways. Why not stick a GUI on your fridge with a point and click interface to open or close the door? Why not put a GUI on your faucet to select hot and cold and the force of the stream? That would really be embracing the GUI but only a handful of people would use it because for the vast majorty of people the simpler interfaces are actually superior.
"Figures don't lie: These are the 5 most used distros according to Distrowatch:
1 Ubuntu
2 SUSE
3 Mandriva
4 Fedora
5 MEPIS
What do they have in common? They are easy to use, and they have GUIs to manage and install everything. FYI, Arch is #21 on Distrowatch. Got the picture?"
Is distrowatch ranking the ultimate goal of making a distro? Should it be? Also Gentoo & Slackware, 9 and 10 respectively, are not known for their extensive GUI configuration tools. Neither for that matter is Debian number 7.
Different people have different distros that are most suited to them. For me Arch was that distro. I was testing it along with 2 other distros, at one point I just found I hadn't booted either of the other two in several weeks.
The mere fact that different distros exist is about having a choice. For me the choice between a GUI heavy and a GUI light distro is just one of those choices, and neither option is more generally valid than the other.