Why there are so many Linux distros? It is hard to make decisions! Is this a Existential Question?
There are too many Linux distributions, dazzling to the eyes, considered as an existentialist philosophical reflection.
I am surely not the only one who feels this way: why does Linux have so many distributions, and why can they not be unified? This is messier than the Balkans. How is anyone supposed to choose?
This is due to the inertia of open source culture. Let us first not discuss the causes of this phenomenon, or how to solve this problem. We can instead try to think about what meaning this current state brings to people.
Choosing a Linux distribution has never been merely a technical decision. We can think of it this way: in essence, it is a profound existentialist crisis. The moment you bid farewell to the closed greenhouse carefully built for you by Microsoft or Apple and step into the open source world, you become a technical “existentialist.”
This is a philosophical metaphor, from an existentialist perspective, for the distribution choices faced by Linux users.
1. “Existence Precedes Essence”#
Self-construction beginning from a blank terminal.
In the world of Windows or macOS, the “essence” of the operating system is a priori: Apple and Microsoft have already decided for you what the system should look like and how it should operate. You are only a “user.”
But in Linux, especially systems like Arch, Gentoo, or Linux From Scratch (LFS), existence precedes essence. When you finish installing the base system, what you face is only a black terminal interface with a blinking cursor. This is pure existence. It is still nothing, until you make choices: do you want to install GNOME or KDE Plasma? Do you want to use Systemd or OpenRC? Every time you type sudo apt install or pacman -S, you give this computer its “essence.”
You are not using the system. You are creating it, defining what your system means.
2. “Thrownness”#
The dizziness of facing freedom.
“Man is condemned to be free. Because once thrown into this world, he is responsible for everything he does.” – Sartre
When a beginner opens the DistroWatch website and sees hundreds of Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, Debian, Arch Linux…), he deeply experiences what Heidegger called “thrownness.” He is thrown defenselessly into an open source universe with no standard answer.
There is no Apple Genius Bar here to tell you what to do. This absolute freedom of choice inevitably brings the “Vertigo” and anxiety described by Sartre. Because freedom means absolute responsibility: if you add the wrong PPA repository or update the wrong graphics driver and cause the system to fail to boot (Kernel Panic), you cannot blame Cook or Bill Gates. You can only face the crashing code on the screen and take full responsibility for your choice.
3. “Bad Faith”#
There is a contempt chain among distributions.
To escape the anxiety brought by this enormous freedom, Linux users easily fall into what Sartre called “Bad Faith” (Mauvaise Foi). Bad faith has two common forms:
Bad faith through blind following: close your eyes and blindly obey the dogma on forums that “beginners should use Ubuntu,” giving up the freedom to explore what suits your own workflow and handing your right to choose over to public opinion.
Bad faith through superiority: force yourself to use a high-barrier system for vanity, and proclaim everywhere, “I use Arch, btw.” At this moment, the user reduces their existence to the label of an “Arch user” (objectifying themselves), forgetting that an operating system is ultimately only a tool for realizing self-value. This is likewise a betrayal of sincere freedom.
4. “Sisyphus”#
The happy debugging of rebellion and absurdity.
In daily Linux maintenance, you may spend an entire weekend solving a bug where the sound card has no sound, or struggle in endless “dependency hell.” Sometimes, the perfect desktop you finally configured collapses completely because of one sudo pacman -Syu system update, and everything has to start over.
This perfectly echoes Sisyphus in Camus: that absurd hero punished by the gods, who can only continuously push a boulder to the mountaintop, watch it roll down, and push it again.
Why do Linux users continue tinkering? Because in the process of typing on the keyboard, reading the Arch Wiki, and repairing the system, users confirm their own subjectivity. Facing the absurdity of commercially closed systems, tinkering itself is a form of rebellion.
As Camus said:
“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. We must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Conclusion#
Facing this dizzying sea of freedom, how should people define their own freedom?
An existentialist leftist should not use Macbook or Windows; using Linux is a further “awakening.” However, awakening does not necessarily have to be tightly bound to the left, or to being woke. The right is also welcome to pursue freedom.
By the way, someone has written simonxix: existentialism and free and open-source software: an attempted synthesis. What similarities are there between existentialism and free/open source software? As a non-engineer, why abandon the comfortable Windows and macOS systems and switch to GNU/Linux? (This does not include Android and ChromeOS; only things like Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch Linux count as GNU/Linux.) Besides reviving potato PCs, what other value does Linux have worth pursuing? This article on “the relationship between existentialism and free/open source software” is convincing enough, right? Even I, a humanities person, believed it. After reading a series of articles on free software philosophy written by Richard Stallman on the Free Software Foundation official website, you can approach the subject from this article’s new angle. That is: people must take responsibility for their own freedom. Using GNU/Linux is the first step in defending your resolve.
This article originally began from a simple idea: “There are too many Linux distributions and I do not know how to choose. Is this an existentialist philosophical problem about freedom and responsibility?” The detailed philosophical content was expanded with assistance from Gemini.
