Can It Go Away?

Other Linux distributions have tried to move in new directions to alter features they don't like. Worth mentioning is GoboLinux [48], which seeks to use the filesystem as a database for the package manager and throw the known filesystem hierarchy (FSH) overboard. The developers are expecting "a clean system." GoboLinux uses Enlightenment as its desktop. The latest release was May 2014, although DistroWatch labels the distribution still active.

Another group of makers on a mission are the developers behind the Static Linux distro [49], or stali (not Stalin). Like the GoboLinux developers, the Stali team ignores the official filesystem hierarchy and avoids using systemd. At the same time – and this is probably the most important point – they only offer software as statically linked binary files for performance reasons. Where possible, musl libc is deployed to reduce the sizes of statically linked binaries. Stali should achieve a more effective footprint in the memory, since it dispenses with dynamic linking. At the same time, the project follows its own "suckless" philosophy, a system of principles designed to create "software that sucks less" [50].

Summary

As Justin Bieber Linux illustrates, any joker can build their own Linux distro without great hassle, in the simplest case, by changing background images. Critics have found fault with that repeatedly, but some positive effects emerge from it.

In this evolutionary process, many useful programs and innovative features are also created, whether they be new package managers, desktops, or init systems. It may be true, to stick with the evolutionary imagery, that you get a dodo from time to time. However, the particularly amazing thing is the sheer mass of Linux-based distributions that have seen the light of day in recent decades. And more are still appearing.

Also worth noting is that many of the existing systems do not want to address a wide mass of users at all. Instead, they are optimized to accomplish a specific purpose, fully within the spirit of the Unix philosophy: "Do one thing and do it well."