There Are Too Many Linux Distributions and I Do Not Know How to Choose as an Existentialist Philosophical Reflection

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 01:00:00 +0800

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”
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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”
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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.

Existentialism on Ivon's Blog

There Are Too Many Linux Distributions and I Do Not Know How to Choose as an Existentialist Philosophical Reflection

1. “Existence Precedes Essence” #

2. “Thrownness” #

1. “Existence Precedes Essence”
#

2. “Thrownness”
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