Why doesn't Gentoo have more distros based on him?

WebWizard@links.hackliberty.org to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 47 points –

What's the reason for Gentoo having so few distros based on him compared to other distro families?

21

There are hundreds of Gentoo-based distos out there.

None of them have finished compiling yet.

Why are you defining the gender of a Linux distro lmao

Well, it's computer software, so it can't be non-binary.

If Ternary computers take off we might have a non-binary linux distro.

Probably because english isn't their native language.

I guess kinda the same reason why there are not many distros based on Slackware.

And what's that?

signed filthy debian user

Both of them is about customization. Hard. I don't think there's two similar Slack or gentoo installation. So, for me, at least, it feels there's really no need distributions of those. Maybe it's just by definition, though.

Idk man, just wanted to look smart.

Because Genthree Genfour Genfive Gensix, etc. would get confused with other products on a Google search.

I think it's somewhere around 15 derivates for Gentoo. 1 2

It's about the same number as lots of other distros?! I don't see any substancial difference there. Except when you compare it to something like Debian. There are some hugely popular distros.

People make new distros based on existing distros to alter the software stack in the original distro. Gentoo allows you to use essentially whatever software stack you feel like, it's less of a traditional distro and more of a general-purpose Linux package manager and dependency resolver. It's not very opinionated at all.