Multiple distributions of RISC OS

The joy of multiple distributions. What happens when Cloverleaf throws theirs into the mix?

What happens when Cloverleaf throws theirs into the mix?

IMHO, absolutely nothing.

ROOL ePic, ROD Direct, RISC OS “Vanilla” and Cloverleaf RISC OS are all essencially just RISC OS Vanilla + a bundle of apps and tools.

There are no structural and/or API differences between them all. They are the exact same OS (Kernel, WIMP, and all the APIs).

There might be some exception to the above statement in the future, for instance ROD may decide to include their new Network Stack by default on Direct and that would indeed “kickstart” the existance of an effective new RISC OS distro. However, it seems that ROOL and ROD will put an effort in maintaining the two compatible.

Right now they are not actual distros (or distributions as the term is intended on other OSes), they are just RISC OS Vanilla + a bundle of apps and tools, a user can chose the bundle they prefer or find more useful for their own use.

The only effect that more “commercial” distributions (I would call them bundles, as it’s the most appropriate term at the moment), is that they fragment the extremely small RISC OS 5 “commercial market”, they have no impact whatsoever in the RISC OS 5 OpenSource community. But, given that RISC OS 5 market is not financially viable for anyone sane, then IMHO, there are no effects even in such regard.

Hope this helps.

> a bundle of apps and tools

Which arent in the same location as !PackMan would put them, and might be out of date. I’ve been using the Direct version, but slowly removing Apps and replacing them with the !PackMan versions so they are easier to update

Which arent in the same location as !PackMan would put them

!PackMan does allow to install Apps in different places than default. However, if the packager (aka the guy who packaged the app) does not allow that, then yes there is only the default place usable. This comment is just to make sure that the story of “the fixed installation path in !PackMan” doesn’t keep proliferating :)

…and might be out of date. I’ve been using the Direct version, but slowly removing Apps and replacing them with the !PackMan versions so they are easier to update

Yes the lack of !PackMan’s adoption is quite bad across all the various bundles :(

However, ROOL does support !PackMan (althought if the default config seems to be still over HTTP and not HTTPS, AFAIK) JFYI. While, for what concerns the commercial apps provided in each of the buddles, they are obviously not provided through !PackMan anyway.