• Digit@lemmy.wtf
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    4 days ago

    There are a few gaps. Seems it’s not being as diligently updated as once was.

    There are even some old distros I failed to find on it.

    … Didn’t there used to be a text-searchable svg version of it?

    • tyler@programming.dev
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      4 days ago

      Idk. I was making a joke though. A history of Linux chart is functionally useless for actually choosing a distro.

      • Digit@lemmy.wtf
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        4 days ago

        A history of Linux chart is functionally useless for actually choosing a distro.

        I’ve used that many times to help me go distro surfing. Very handy for discovery.

        • tyler@programming.dev
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          4 days ago

          For a new person it’s useless. For anyone distro surfing why wouldn’t you just use distro Watch?

          • Digit@lemmy.wtf
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            3 days ago

            For a new person it’s useless. For anyone distro surfing why wouldn’t you just use distro Watch?

            I disagree. Not useless. Shows the lineage of distros. Facilitates broader awareness. Handy education. Very well accompanies the likes of distrowatch, at a long glance showing the forest past being lost in the trees and slowly trying to work it out. Expedites the new (or soon to be) user to better know their way around, and perhaps help them go towards whichever branch they prefer or away from any they garner a dislike for, saving time. See past the whataboutism false-dichotomy? Why not both?

            • tyler@programming.dev
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              3 days ago

              Huh? A new user is going to have trouble understanding the base difference between gnome and kde. Flooding them with information about the history of all these operating systems will do nothing except to scare them off even more.

              • Digit@lemmy.wtf
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                3 days ago

                You have experience of people being scared off? [Or mere hypothesis?]

                I have experience of people being helped.

                I wonder what’s the extra nuance and criteria that decides which way that bifurcates.

                • tyler@programming.dev
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                  3 days ago

                  I mean I know how to choose a distro and there’s no way in hell I’d ever use that chart to choose one. In addition I don’t really need to ask my wife because I can guarantee she wouldn’t read a single line of it.

                  It’s not a hypothesis that the reason people don’t switch to Linux is because it’s too difficult for the layperson. If you give them a flowchart that’s larger than any flowchart they’ve ever seen before, before they even touch the operating system, there’s no way in hell they’re gonna use Linux.