I'm in my cups so give me some legroom here...
My brother (20) and I (35) were discussing some issues between dnf apt and flatpak when he mentioned that it would be nice if there was a universally official linux distro. I supposed that to mean a linux distro that isn't a distro, but rather a "standard" Linux body coming from one particular source, I suppose from Linus himself or something. And more specifically, he's talking about making Linux an OS with the desktop tools provided so that it worked in perfect parity as an operating system. I tried explaining that this is not how things work, we have distros because we have forks. We have forks because we have different approaches at things, and a distro is simply someone picking one of those things for you so you can keep using Linux as a desktop and pretend youre a programmer. But I tend to be the high and mighty Linux dude who's spent two decades playing with and then working with Linux, and I am listening him out, as he's getting frustrated.
His argument, as such, is this:
It is to be made by some "official" source. I mentioned canonical could be considered that these days but no he means Linux as its own object, instead of the collection of objects it really is. No choice on desktop manager, no choice on compositor etc. Just like "this is default desktop Linux and if you want anything more specific move on to distros". I couldn't quite get him to understand that Linux is a living organism of many parts. When we say Linux, we're referring to the kernel. Everything after that library, package, or bin that do things, the system itself. The defining difference between distros often comes down to the package manager they do or do not use. So I wasn't sure how to tell him, Linux is a kernel, and we run everything up from there. He wants to make Linux like Mac, where it has a default distribution that people wanting Linux as their desktop OS could use. I try to explain that the modular nature of Linux (kernel pun) is what makes it amazing. You can't really tie Linux down like that but this is coming from a guy who has never had to do a .configure, make, make install, in his life. He's really into projects like Flatpak and such and automatize some of the bin and lib storage for every program.
I am at no doubt at your wits end with my drunken rambling so I'll get to the fucking point:
Is Linux an ever-evolving collection of constantly changing sources, producing the best lump sum, in as so far Desktops are concerned.
Or should there be a Linux MASTER, lets call it LinuxOS, and it comes with all the desktop features streamlined into one idea, and all the service features committed to one group of systems. I didn't want him to get frustrated so I met him half way, but really, am I the crazy one here or is he?
Edit: Ok, thank you for reinforcing what I already knew to be true. I wont mention it to him, he got really defensive the first time I disagreed.
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