 So I was watching DistraTube's latest video and Derek said something kind of off the cuff that really kind of stuck in my brain and he said something about how the Calamari's installer is the installer that most Linux distributions use and I think he's right about that I think that if you did a poll of the most used Linux distributions the vast majority of them use Calamari's or a fork of Calamari's and And it got me thinking wouldn't it be better for Linux in general if every Linux distribution used the same installer and Furthermore, it got me thinking Why isn't that the case like I could understand 10 years ago when Calamari's wasn't a thing that every distribution had to Do their own installer that may would make sense, but Calamari's is here. It's really good It's extensible and it has been widely adopted So why are there still distributions that insist on doing their own thing when it comes to installers and specifically distributions like Fedora and Ubuntu they continue to develop their own installers and both of these Distra maintainers have decided to redo their installers. They're going to write brand new installers for their distributions so Ubuntu is going to write something in Flutter and Fedora is redoing the Anaconda installer Although that's really in early stages. The Ubuntu one will probably see that in the next release of Ubuntu So the question remains why is this something that they continue to do? Why not use Calamari's and unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a really good answer to this question because They obviously are more interested in spending their development time Making their own installer. I've tried to think of a benefit that having their own installer actually gives them so what does having their own installer provide them that using Calamari's would Prevent them from doing like what what what benefit is there for them to do their own thing? And I can't really come up with one because it doesn't seem like Using Calamari's would prevent them from doing basically anything. I've seen some Crazy stuff done with the Calamari's installer. Look what Arco Linux does with it Look what other ArchBase distributions do with the Calamari's installer It can literally be anything from the most simple installer you'll ever see Similar to what Ubuntu already has to something that is horribly complex like Arco has There doesn't seem to be a limit to what you could do with it now Maybe there's some technological Barrier that I don't know about it's 100% possible. I'm not a developer of any kind anyone who's watched my Stream tonight when I was talking about or when I was scripting for my rice thing script knows that I'm not a developer whatsoever So maybe there's a technological reason for Ubuntu or Canonical in this case and Fedora to not use the Calamari's installer Maybe there's something there that they can't do if they were to use that and I would like to know because I really do think That Linux would be better if every distribution used the same installer because then the process of installing Linux no matter what Distribution you use as long as it's using a GUI installer So this doesn't really apply to like Arch Linux or Gen2 or something like that But I'm really talking about the distributions that use GUI So if you choose a distribution that uses a GUI installer Your experience is going to be exactly the same to install it It doesn't mean that those distributions can't differentiate themselves in other ways like using their own package manager and Doing all the stuff that distributions have always done but when a new user approaches a distribution and Installs it for the first time if they've installed Linux before they'll have the exact same experience that they've had in every other Distribution they've ever tried that sounds like a good thing to me Like if they go to a distribution and it is just the Calamari's installer even if the distribution has done extra things to it like add package selection to it or whatever it's still basically the same Experience and again, I think that that would go a long ways towards diluting the problem of Fragmentation like we have a lot of distributions in the Linux world Whether you think there's too many distributions or there's not enough distributions or there, you know, it's just right whatever That idea that Linux is fragmented is an old one and a true one There is definitely a lot of choice and for a new user that choice can be very overwhelming Removing the barrier of always trying to figure out how a Linux distribution is installed You know how the installer works. I think can only be a good thing So I really do think that every Linux distribution should just use Calamari's It seems to be the standard that as district tube said a vast majority of Linux distributions have settled on now Maybe it's not the popular distributions that have settled on because the most popular distributions are still doing their own things But more and more these days if you install a distribution, you're going to encounter Calamari's the problem is of course that the Linux community doesn't do a very good job with standards Like it never really has when there's a standard that's a lot of people follow There's always going to be at least a small part of the community that Rebels against the idea of something being standard. The biggest example of this probably is system D System D is standard almost every single Linux distribution uses it but there's a small portion and a very Vocal portion of the Linux community that can't stand system D they have created other in its systems that are really great and You know good for them. That's the freedom of open source but this feels kind of like that like the reason why Ubuntu and Fedora and Top OS and elementary as the reason why they continue to do their own thing when it comes to installers Isn't really for any good reason. It's more just to be contrary And I don't think that that is always a good thing. It's not a fantastic trait to have in every situation So bottom line, I think that Calamari's Should be the standard and I think it is flexible enough for people or for distributions to do their own thing To make their installation process unique enough But also that it will feel the same across the board and I think that that is a good thing So I really hope that as we move forward Calamari's continues to be the thing that we settle on and I hope that Canonical and Fedora at least consider Just using the Calamari's installer because not only will it make it easier for Everyone to just have the same installer But it will make Calamari's better because they'll have more contributors and more resources behind it But also for Canonical and Fedora It will remove one thing that they won't have to maintain fully by themselves and that means that those developers can Go work on something else like making snaps faster or fixing pipe wire. Whatever, you know, they have options They could definitely put those resources in other places rather than Continually supporting their own installer So that is it for this video if you have thoughts on this you can leave those in the comment section below You can follow me on Twitter at the Linuxcast you can follow me on Mastodon and all my other social media networks You can find those links in the video description below You can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash the Linuxcast I'd like to thank my current patrons Robert Sid Devon Patrick Fred Cramer tri-devil Antoine uncle bonehead KB griff's lounge maiglin jackson and tools devious every Linux Derek Samuel PGB Keith Andy Gary Ross Mitchell J. Doug carbon data Jeremy Sean Odin martin Eduardo archner Elliot miss law merit cam Dutch will a Peter a crucible dark rented six primus him our like one in Philip Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time