XPost: alt.comp.os.windows-11, comp.os.linux.advocacy, comp.sys.mac.advocacy   
   From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Fri, 11/21/2025 3:33 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:   
   > On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 20:11:08 +0000, David B. wrote:   
   >   
   >> You're right that no single human can reasonably evaluate all those   
   >> tradeoffs in the timeline diagram - but that's precisely the problem   
   >> Brock identified. The fact that the choice space is "totally   
   >> unmanageable" even for knowledgeable users is exactly why newcomers   
   >> struggle.   
   >   
   > As I pointed out before, the car market works in exactly the same way.   
   > Yet nobody claims that this bewildering variety of car makes and   
   > models, shapes, sizes, numbers of seats and doors, and all the rest of   
   > it, means that the car market will never succeed -- it already has,   
   > precisely because of all that choice.   
   >   
      
   When I bought my first car, I got a copy of Phil Edmonstons "Lemon Aid".   
   And one of the things that had at the time, was headroom listed.   
   I could go through the various things and noted that I would only   
   fit in about roughly 50% of the popular cars of the day. That   
   was useful information, that may not have been prominently   
   displayed in pamphlets.   
      
   There is no particular reason for the Linux community to carry out   
   such an analysis. There is no "organized" effort to quantify anything.   
   Promotional articles are mostly disingenuous. You might have to visit   
   a site like Phoronix to get measurements of things.   
      
   There are two aspects to the problem, listed from most to least important.   
      
   1) Number of distros   
   2) Willingness of proponents to list the distros by important characteristics.   
      
   You might have (2), there might be members of the audience willing to do this.   
   Just not for 500 distros. It is (1) that serves as a disincentive.   
      
   We're lucky to have the Linux Map, and you'll notice that the Linux Map has   
   had multiple authors, as the baton is handed from one person to the next.   
   You can tell just listing them and de-listing them, is a chore. Some distros   
   are   
   one-trick-ponies, that never see a second release, and quite frequently   
   we never discover how the decision was made to stop. Just finding bandwidth for   
   hosting a distro is a challenge. Even with mirror sites and torrents, it may   
   not   
   be enough to promote a distro.   
      
   *******   
      
   The user is expected to "test distros".   
      
   That means, the user is savvy enough about computers, to know how to   
   do that, intuitively and with little experience doing it.   
      
   The four hundred million destitute Windows 10 machine owners,   
   aren't going to know how to do that, or even why they should   
   do that. That's why I was recommending a WUBI approach to the   
   problem. So they could have one distro to play with, they could   
   see how it works (or doesn't work). If their temperament is not   
   meant for Linux, WUBI is easier to remove than some other things.   
      
   When the community (including me) recommends that ("go test a distro"),   
   it means we don't think any review articles contain the kind of information   
   where an informed choice is possible. And the user has to "wing it"   
   to find something.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)