this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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The way I understand it is like this:
The grand theory of classic package managers is the idea that lots of programs all need the same core libraries to function. An analogy would be like noticing most construction jobs need
nails. So instead of making everyone bring their own copy ofnails, resulting in dozens of redundant copies of it lying around, they have a singlenailspackage that everyone can use.But there are different versions of
nailsout there. Each version picks up unique new features, and drops legacy ones. Recent builds may incorporate and thus require the new features, making them incompatible with old versions ofnailsthat don't have them. On the other hand, some builds may still use and rely on legacy features ofnails, and are thus incompatible with the new versions. You may run into a scenario where you want Software A that needsnailsversion 14+, but also Software B that can only run onnailsv <13, and you just can't, because they don't overlap.Additionally, there may just be a totally different competing package out there,
screws, that does largely the same job asnails, but in a completely different way that is totally incompatible with projects that expectnails. So if you need Software C that relies onnails, but also Software D that relies onscrews, you might cause problems by installing both.What a distro is is essentially a group of devs declaring that they are putting together some specific list of libraries (like, say,
nailsv14), and then sculpting up a bundle of software around those specific libraries. Can't cope withnailsv14? That sucks. No package for you, then.In that sense, distros are differentiated by what libraries and other low-level system softwares are available to the programs you wish to install on them. If you want your program to be available natively on every distro, it needs to be compatible with every competing set of libraries each distro has elected to use.
It is possible to just say "fuck it" to the distro's built-in libraries, and instead bundling the specific version of
nailsorscrewsor whatever you project needs directly with it. Build your own with blackjack and hookers, as it were. That's exactly what Flatpak does, among others. But it's trading flexibility for redundancy. In the age of cheap and plentiful storage memory, many people think this trade is well worth it. But it makes many formalists cringe.