So been using Linux at work allot and something thats really bugged me is how every distro puts files. some distros will throw it somewhere in /etc/ others will throw it in /usr/ and its a complete mess.
So why not establish a "linux standard" that in order for distros to be given it, they must adhear to certain things, such as putting x in this dir etc.
I feel like this would improve compatibility between distros immensely and make it easier for admins since we don't have to go hunting for where ever that distro felt like placing an item.
Fragmentation is the double edged blade of Linux. The ability to fork and port projects is amazing, the resulting segmented platform is horrible. Sadly correcting this would take away one of the things that makes FOSS as amazing as it is.
You're not wrong, I've been saying Linux needs to adopt one standard for FS structure as well as packaging for a long time.
RHEL for example: Widely used and accepted industry standard in the enterprise world. Stable, secure, top class development. And I absolutely hate it.
Despite the fact that I cannot stand it, if they packed the entire Linux world onto one development platform we might be able to actually make a difference with it. It might actually feel like a unified system that is able to meet the demands of the user.
Instead we have 26 different versions of shit that barely work, and only then if you go balls deep into fixing trivial errors in almost every project.
Like a user should NEVER see a big black screen of text and cli stuff showing up ever, yet thats how Ubuntu boots since the splash screen rarely loads for me.
But different distros have different ideas of how things should work, and some package maintainers might have different ideas too. (This is a reason why I can't use Ubuntu...)
We have an x amount of standards to choose from. Every party chooses one that befits them. The result is a turmoil of different systems all working a bit differently causing confusion
But I think that this is somewhat more favourable than having a closed-system like our favourite Apple.
I don't mind distros doing stuff differently, but from a developer and user standpoint their needs to be more consistency on file structure, repeating example from above, same program, different distros, shouldn't be in two completely different locations.
I feel with standards if we could get Ubuntu, redhat and debian on the same page, the rest of the community will follow along.