Just saw a post of a novice user asking why are there so many package managers.

At first I was about to copy and paste the good old “The OS is yours if you want to make a different package manager you can, and many did”.

But then I though

Damn how does Linux have standards !?

And reached a somewhat of conclusion that many of the established standards were established at the early stages of the project, there are of course those who change like the transition from X11 to Wayland the upcoming desktop portals and such.

And here is my hipotesis if the GNU project came up with a good and easy to work package manager in the early days of Linux, do you think we would have so many different ones? Maybe even win the desktop war (OS not DEs)?

Edit: replace package manager with packaging format

  • cerement@slrpnk.net
    3·
    1 year ago

    had to doublecheck myself …

    • yes, Guix uses the Guix package manager
    • but apparently the Guix package manager is built off (at least the concept) of Stow ?
    • [and then some people also seem to like using Stow and Guix together (similar to using Home Manager with Nix package manager)]
    • toothbrush
      1·
      1 year ago

      Interresting. I didnt know it was using stow somewhere! Btw there is a guix home since last year, that works similar to nix home manager.