Why Linux Appears Fragmented:

[ethana2]

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/5/22/129190627850293860.png

..and then game publishers use 'fragmentation' as an excuse to give us .run, .bin, .tar.gz, .sh, .tar.bz2 and .py files instead of actual proper .deb's, which irritates me to no end.

I want this question answered with hard statistical facts, and the only way to do it is to file bugs on every browser package in every linux based desktop that doesn't identify itself and its host correctly and with sufficient detail. I'm not going to set about doing that without help. Who's with me?

[ethana2]

Initial stats derived from

http://statowl.com/operating_system_...fltr_cn=&limit[]=linux

and supported in a roundabout way by

http://www.google.com/trends?q=ubuntu,+fedora,+suse,+debian,+mandrake

[ethana2]

first link broken, http://bit.ly/6T2dcY

[ethana2]

And seeing as Mandriva/Mandrake recently went under, the remaining 'competitors' consist of platforms that:

are ubuntu derivatives (Mint)
specifically discourage use of proprietary software (Fedora)
are designed for people who can't leave their OS well enough alone (slackware, gentoo)
are intended for use on servers (RHEL/SLED/CentOS)
or are intended primarily or secondarily to turn users into free testing for a commercially sold and supported platform (opensuse)

I would submit that none of them constitute targets that are both binarily distinct from ubuntu (require separate packaging) AND are worthwhile targets for commercial games and game platforms.

Game platform requirements and their reasonableness for ObscuDist users:

Windows: a couple hundred $ or piracy, and a wipe of your MBR
Mac: a thousand $ or hackintoshing
Ubuntu: 30 minutes download, 30 minutes install, 5 GB HDD space.

[nanonyme]

Windows: a couple hundred $ or piracy, and a wipe of your MBR

This is misleading. End-users don't buy Windows separately but with a computer where it hardly costs anything. It kinda goes to the same category as OSX here, really. Buy a new computer, get Windows.

[nanonyme]

..and then game publishers use 'fragmentation' as an excuse to give us .run, .bin, .tar.gz, .sh, .tar.bz2 and .py files instead of actual proper .deb's, which irritates me to no end.

But but... what about us people who want .rpm's instead?

[nanonyme]

Bah, curse the edit timeout. Anyway, sarcasm aside, upstream should only ever distribute as .tar.gz or preferably .tar.bz2. It's the responsibility of distro packagers to turn them into package management packages if necessary. (eg Gentoo doesn't even touch the original upstream files directly but instead has ebuilds and then patches for the upstream files)
Binary installers are completely ridiculous.

[ethana2]

This is misleading. End-users don't buy Windows separately but with a computer where it hardly costs anything. It kinda goes to the same category as OSX here, really. Buy a new computer, get Windows.

I said for people who use obscure distros.

[ethana2]

Bah, curse the edit timeout. Anyway, sarcasm aside, upstream should only ever distribute as .tar.gz or preferably .tar.bz2. It's the responsibility of distro packagers to turn them into package management packages if necessary. (eg Gentoo doesn't even touch the original upstream files directly but instead has ebuilds and then patches for the upstream files)
Binary installers are completely ridiculous.

Curse the edit timeout indeed. Should be like 5 minutes, as it is on Digg.

I'm not talking upstreams, if it's open source it should be in repos. I'm talking third party proprietary software, like the Humble Indie Bundle I just bought. World of Goo is the only one with a .deb package, so it's the only one I've actually played.

[ethana2]

But but... what about us people who want .rpm's instead?

You should switch to Ubuntu, use Alien to convert the .deb files provided by vendors, or, like I've been doing with Windows software, boycott.

I think they'd lose less money from your boycotting them than they would testing on Suse, because half an hour later you'd be like 'screw it, I'll dual boot'.

And if you use Fedora, you're unlikely to purchase proprietary software anyways. Either way, you're 1/20 of the linux deskop market.