Ask HN: Is there a need for a new Linux distro?

[roschdal]

[theandrewbailey]

I guess that depends on what one is looking for. I think that the current selection covers at least 99% of people's needs and wants.

[controversial97]

It sometimes makes sense to made a distro that is specifically for new or unusual hardware.

I point to Asahi Linux, supporting Apple computers based on their M1, M2 and M3 ARM cpus is a load of work that is still in progress and sometimes issues are only found when a load of people use it. Eventually the source code that has been written or modified to support Apples relatively-new hardware will reach mainstream distros so people can run Debian, Ubuntu, Redhat etc on an M1 mac with working sound, gpu etc.

If some new RISC-V single board computer reaches the market it might make sense for someone to make a distro specifically for it.

A distro for specific hardware may get better performance by being compiled to use the specific instruction set and cpu features.

[simonblack]

Old distros fade away, new distros come in to replace them.

It's a dynamic universe, not a static one.

There's also a smattering of Darwinism there, the good distros survive, the not so good ones die off.

[calrain]

Solutions first need problems.

[axiologist]

The wheel can't be reinvented often enough...