For many people, the #Linux vs #Windows vs #Mac debate is a privilege — it assumes you can choose.

[grauzone@social.tchncs.de]

@desantis
If you want to try and download different linux distros you don't need to write each image to an USB stick to run one distro.
Just install #Ventoy on it, put the images on that stick and select the one to test after booting from the #Ventoy stick.

@thegardendude @codemonkeymike

[grauzone@social.tchncs.de]

@linuxuser42
As long as your computer has standard, out-of-the-box supported HW that will work.
But if you need special drivers for your HW I wouldn't recommend basic #debian for a beginner. I had trouble installing SW for a Wifi chipset but succeeded in the end.
@thegardendude @codemonkeymike

[grauzone@social.tchncs.de]

@Sylkykat
And rumour has it that Windows 12 requires new HW with NPUs on the chip. @codemonkeymike

[linuxuser42@mastodon.social]

@grauzone @thegardendude @codemonkeymike

Good point. Pick the fat 'dvd version' with all the non free drivers.

[dodothedev@front-end.social]

@codemonkeymike
I don't think we have that here. I'm in the UK, and they don't give tax rightoffs for much (that I'm aware of).

But yes, its heartbreaking. Its taken 3 years to get them to agree to give away monitors. So were getting there. In the meantime, I've thrown out hundreds of monitors (laptops, iPads, phones, desktops, servers) over the last 3 years as we just don't have the space to store it. I get it's about data safety, but were literally throwing money away.

[codemonkeymike@fosstodon.org]

@DodoTheDev its so silly though because there are absolutely ways to properly sanitize those drives so they could be used again.. or if you're REALLY conconcerned, you can pull the drives.. still better than trashing the whole computer.

I'll never understand it!

[dodothedev@front-end.social]

@codemonkeymike
My dude, this is coming from an organisation who wanted use to stop reusing RAM sticks and shred them because "they could hold data between reboots"

Once they got the quote of £2500 to shred all the RAM we'd saved, they quickly changed their tune.

Seriously, why do senior IT managers know naff all about IT basics?!

[codemonkeymike@fosstodon.org]

@DodoTheDev omg that's horrible!!! What data could possibly even be THAT sensitive lol

[dodothedev@front-end.social]

@codemonkeymike
Patient data (I work for an ambulance service), so I get it. But we overwrite SSD's numerous times.

[jdebp@mastodonapp.uk]

@cross

I likewise was going to point out 'Of course it runs #NetBSD.'.

Modern #FreeBSD has dropped 32-bit support and various older non-IA processors such as PowerPC, so is not the best fit for repurposed old machines.

@codemonkeymike

[desantis@mastodon.bida.im]

@grauzone @thegardendude @codemonkeymike Thanks for the reminder!! I think my old boss had this, as he carried out a USB key with several distros at his disposal.

[cross@discuss.systems]

@codemonkeymike that sort of reinforces my thesis. The Linux ecosystem _is_ remarkably diverse, but that no one else is wondering what one might want beyond it shows that the questions aren't being asked: it's just not considered. What might one want? Perhaps a different development model (illumos is a good example here), or other community norms (the BSDs: the mailing lists have rather different norms across projects, but also than, say, the LKML).

Broadly speaking, operating systems have devolved into two main categories: Windows, and Unix-like (including Linux and macOS, the BSDs, and illumos).

Discounting purely research systems, some others exist, but they're so niche as to be negligible (Haiku, Plan 9/9front, a few retro-ish hobby things) or controlled by a single corporate entity (Fuchsia, OpenVMS) or tied to expensive, proprietary hardware (various mainframe systems, and a few minicomputer systems that are quietly hanging on). No one explores new models, though, because Linux has become more or less a commodity and is the default.

Vis older hardware, another poster mentioned NetBSD, which actively works to support older architectures and will often serve to keep machines from becoming e-waste in landfills. For upcycle types of machines, I imagine that many of them will also run FreeBSD (commodity 64-bit CPUs have been common for the last 15 or so years), or OpenBSD. Would Haiku run? Possibly! Perhaps even ReactOS?

Anyway, I don't mean to detract from your otherwise excellent point by ratholing on random technical goo, but I think that the point is that there _are_ alternatives to Linux that are neither macOS nor Windows, but as you said, the question often isn't even asked. I personally find that disappointing, because it really does mean that we're converging on a monoculture, and I don't think that's a good thing overall. We have open source alternatives, we should be encouraging their growth in addition to support Linux.

[cross@discuss.systems]

@fasnix @codemonkeymike

It's difficult to give a succinct answer, because it naturally depends on your use cases. For me, personally, I find BSD a lot more manageable than Linux on servers of various kinds; I find Linux more useful on workstation and development class machines.

With respect to the larger point, there's an interesting (to me) dichotomy here: because the BSDs have not been given nearly as much energy as Linux over the years, they're correspondingly less developed: a lot of Open Source software is "Linux First", for instance, with other systems being given token consideration, if any, and so they tend to lag behind the leader. So there's less incentive to use alternatives. But because there's less incentive, those alternatives don't get better at the same rate as Linux.

It is undeniable that there _are_ powerful network effects that one takes advantage of when one uses Linux that are not available on other systems, but again: that leads towards a monoculture, which as with biological systems, isn't super awesome for the overall health of the ecosystem.