Best way to reach as many popular distros for one piece of software?

A

Arnaud

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Hello all. I have a quite extensive question that I could not resolve by searching the Internet, so I figured I'd ask here.


As a little bit of background info, I am creating an exclusively Linux-related, alternate petition website with the goal to get current, relevant, commercial software (such as PhotoShop) and videogames to be supported on Linux. In order to complete my concept, I need to know what kind of info to include with the petitions that will be set up, this info including the distro it should appear on. Many companies use the "scattered landscape of Linux" excuse as a reason not to consider a native port on Linux. Including a specific distro in the petition should omit this excuse. (This is not the full concept of the petition site, it's just the relevant information for my question ;) )

For this "specific distro", I have decided to go with (at least) Ubuntu as I feel they are the closest to the mainstream operating systems and have been making tremendous progress in the last couple of months. Choosing Ubuntu should also allow all Ubuntu derivatives (such as Mint) to take advantage of the software built for Ubuntu.

However, I've been given to understand that Ubuntu reaches far, but not as far as the usual top 5 most popular distributions. This top 5 usually includes Ubuntu and Mint, but also Fedora, Redhat and others. After a bit of research I have found that Fedora functions as some sort of a parent distro for others like RedHat and CentOS. I am assuming that Fedora is kind of "the Ubuntu of the RPM-family"? Is this correct, or am I wrong with this comparison?


Now, for my question, I am wondering whether I should expand my concept to both Ubuntu and Fedora in order to reach as many popular distros possible. Is it true that any piece of software written for Fedora also runs on its derivatives such as RedHat? Are Ubuntu and Fedora a good starting point combination to reach alot of distros?

Looking forward to your insights,

Arnaud
 


A bit offtopic, but ok I'll try to explain myself. :)

Because Linux is more powerful than Windows or Mac. It's faster, more reliable, and has an immensive community offering support and solutions in contrast to a specific set of engineers who code for a paycheck. I feel an open source platform holds more future potential compared to a closed one.

I agree that it might seem counterintuitive to allow commercial software on a free platform, but I feel that the freedom of Linux should also extend to "the freedom to use whichever program you want, commercial or freeware". Besides, there already is commercial software for Linux that is not a port from Windows or Mac, so I see it as a logical step to draw users towards Linux. I'm not saying all software should be/go commercial, but the adaptation of Linux by certain key software entities might also draw the attention of their clients towards the freeware counterparts, attention those counterparts might have never gotten without the adaptation.

Besides that, you have provided a set of alternatives, however I personally feel that Gimp (at this moment) does not reach the same level of professionalism of Photoshop, but my opinion is irrelevant. What is relevant, is that the imaging industry considers Photoshop as the standard. There are tons of artists out there that would love to migrate to Linux, but are tied to Windows by Adobe. Their next, ahem, "best" option would be a Mac, with all disadvantages that those systems bring with them.

On the topic of videogames I meant the ones along the lines of Assassins Creed, GTA, Bioshock, etc... Valve's research has shown that OpenGL is more powerful than Windows D3D language which results in a noticable FPS increase. If Linux can make the same machine more suitable for videogames compared to windows, I feel it's a good thing if these videogames got adopted.

Also, the link you provided on why Linux is better: 3 scrolls down and you'll see a quick summary of what I'm trying to change :)

I hope you don't feel offended by me disagreeing with you, but I guess we just seek different things in a Linux system. :)

Arnaud
 
I agree with both points. I think Linux represents more then Free software. It represents CHOICES. It would be nice for companies like Adobe, Valve, Microsoft(Office software only), etc would at least offer basic versions of their software for Linux. I personally won't pay for it, there are very good free alternatives, but for the people who want to use familiar software this would be nice. The issue with Linux is that so few people either don't know about it or don't understand it. If more companies decided to support Linux then at least more people would know about and might choose to use it. Which is why many companies won't support Linux.

As for the main question. The real question is which package management system to focus on. Debian/Ubuntu .deb, Red hat/fedora .rpm, Arch PKGBUILD, etc. The top 10 Linux distributions tend to use similar systems. So what I am saying is focus on the BASE DISTRIBUTIONS. e.g. Debian, Red Hat, Slackware. The rest will follow. If I was going to try to sell Linux to developers(As if I would) I would show them the chart HERE
 

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