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Review: GoboLinux 017.01
Quoting: DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD. —
The release announcement for GoboLinux 017.01 made it sounds as though the project had reawakened after a long nap, feeling refreshed, and with key packages updated. While this is (somewhat) accurate, I feel as though the announcement and release of this ISO image refresh were premature. Most of the recipe repository hasn't been updated, there are (almost) no binary packages, Gobo has trouble working in (some) virtual environments and struggled with my laptop's hardware. The project currently resembles a zombie more than a rebirth.
Perhaps this isn't surprising. While there are some fresh hands working on the project, the developers have a lot of catching up to do. The project's previous major release (before the stalled 017 series) was published in 2016, nine years ago. Only one major upgrade in nine years is an unusually slow pace, even by Slackware's conservative standards. The project's team has a lot of work ahead of them.
And, not to discourage developers from crafting their vision of an ideal operating system, but I wonder if GoboLinux and its unique filesystem still make sense? Around 20-25 years ago when it was common for users to work from the command line and it was common to hear beginners complain about Linux's filesystem layout and short directory names, something like Gobo felt like a breath of fresh air. Gobo, in its early days, was solving a clear and present issues - confusing filesystem layout, confusing directory naming, and files scattered all over the filesystem.
These days Linux is a different beast. Most users never need to touch a command line, or look at files outside of their home directory. Modern package managers and containers make it easy to install software, even different versions of the same software, and remove it without causing any problems. Portable packages have their own, self-contained filesystems that can be wiped clean from the system. In short, the main problems Gobo was trying to solve 20+ years ago have mostly been solved by mainstream Linux distributions - in different, but fairly effective ways.
In short: if we now have portable, self-contained packages and we have containers and most users never need to look at the underlying filesystem then are there any problems left for GoboLinux to solve? Gobo used to be a suitable answer to a series of difficult problems, but I wonder if Gobo awake into a world that no longer needs its vision?