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That's Linux Desktop distributions in a nutshell though isn't it? None of them are really different enough from Ubuntu to be noteworthy.

Personally, I think the fact that so many minor-variant distros exist is all the evidence you need that Linux is a terrible platform for customization, because if it were simple to customize everyone would just use Ubuntu and make their own changes, but instead you get all these distros.

It's proof that Ubuntu is a terrible platform for customization.

Most other distros don't have that split - whether it is ArchLinux, Fedora, CentOS, NixOS, and what have you.

Well Fedora and CentOS are both more or less RedHat splits surely.

Not exactly. Fedora is more like a non-LTS version of RHEL, if we oversimplify it a bit. CentOS is more like a split, but their goal is to be functionally identical to RHEL.

CentOS isn't even a split. CentOS is RHEL with different distribution without the trademarks - it's binary-compatible and documentation-compatible, and matches versions patch-for-patch.

Fedora is more like a split - it's the people who like RHEL but want a faster release cycle.

That might be because a lot fewer people actually use them as a Desktop.

Fedora has spins which are distributions of Fedora with differing desktop environments. The Fedora Spins website currently lists spins for 7 alternative desktop environments.

I respectfully disagree with that. In my opinion the point of the different *buntus is convenience for beginners rather than solving hard problems. To that end I have taken Ubuntu machines at work and installed KDE and the whole process took no more than a few minutes and was pretty painless. But that's not necessarily something that a Linux n00b might realise they could do (nor even want to try)

If you look at any of the more "hands on" distros then you might find a couple of themed variations, but generally users will just recommend you install the base distro and change your personalisations yourself. As an aside I went through a phase of running a different DE/WM each week on ArchLinux. Never had any issues there.

Apart from a few philosophical design decisions (e.g. packet manager, update cycles) the main point of distros is how they are preconfigured, which default tools are installed for what job, etc. Sure I can just deinstall a couple dozen apps and then reinstall new ones doing the same job, but why should I do that when another distro directly ships what I want?

Same about being up to date. always want bleeding edge stuff that might be unstable at times, or change its GUI ever so slightly all the time? Go for arch Linux. Don't mind running a somewhat older version of most tools for some time but have it more stable? Pick Debian. Etc ..

Yep that's a great point, maybe they are not communicating what the unique benefits of Lubuntu will be in the future, or maybe they don't actually know what they'll be.

Right now Lubuntu's niche is really clear for me, if I want a lightweight, general purpose distro I use Xubuntu. If I want a really lightweight, general purpose distro I use Lubuntu. (A step beyond that if I wanted "so damn light there are probably a lot of things I don't be able to do, I would think of Puppy or Damn Small or something, neither of which I've needed to touch in a long time, not sure they're even still maintained.)

So if Lubuntu is no longer my super-light distro, erm, what is it. A competitor to Xubuntu?

(Total side note, I really love the space of light, clean, functional desktop operating systems. The most exciting development in computing for me personally would be if someone figured out how to commercialize one as a competitor to Windows and Mac. If I thought there was a good business model I'd start that company myself.)

In my experience such "lightweight" distros, over time, accumulate expanded functionality/compatibility/surface area and inevitably/gradually become "heavier".

Then the community complains "X" is too heavy, we need a lightweight system! and the cycle repeats itself.

Which is why ArchLinux is so nice that it doesn't suffer from this type of growth by nature of its design. You can very easily layer lightweight frontends on a very reliable core.

Putting Arch and reliable in vicinity to each other is stretching it a little.

Re: Puppy and Damn Small: the former's still maintained, while the latter (last I checked) is not.

Another one to add to your list of tiny Linux distros is Tiny Core Linux, which is indeed tiny while being fully graphical.

Great to hear Puppy is still being developed. I'm downloading it now!

I see Puppy's shifted their idea of "lightweight" too, I recall the ISO being 4-5x smaller last time (2007ish).

I think it's becoming the Qt (via LXQt) competitor to the GTK3 (via Xfce) Xubuntu.

In my opinion, if you like tiny distros (as do I), you might want to look at Alpine Linux. It has a good number of up to date packages and has a very tiny footprint. The installation process could use some help to improve adoption, but it is otherwise a fun and tiny distribution of Linux.

> But none of these seem to be different enough from the other great choices available as Ubuntu flavors

Yep. "Gets out of the users way" is what a lot of Ubuntu's goals are about already.

Was that sarcasm?

Even at its worst (with Unity), I'd say Ubuntu does do a reasonably good job of staying out of users' way. Maybe not compared to other distros with lighter environments, but certainly compared to, say, Windows 10.

Not at all. It wasn't a comment on how well they manage it but both Mint and Ubuntu seek to work "out of the box" to the greatest extent possible. In my opinion, they do it much better than any other distro.

"Modern, Qt-based technologies?" Qt is 27 years old. It came out for Windows 3.1.

It did not stop improving since then. "Modern" describes the current status, not when it came out initially.

Windows is 32 years old and people still develop for it, sometimes even for profit.

And wait until you hear about Unix.

> Qt is 27 years old. It came out for Windows 3.1.

Same as NTFS file system then

NTFS was NT 3.1 -- in 1993.

Win 3.1 (1992) used only FAT.