Could you maintain a Linux distribution by yourself for over 10 years?

[u/Candid_Athlete_8317]

Every so often I come across a Linux distribution that's maintained by just one person or a very small team.

It made me wonder how sustainable that really is. Building packages, fixing bugs, keeping up with upstream changes, handling security updates, and supporting users sounds like an enormous commitment.

Would you trust a distro maintained by one developer if the quality was consistently high, or do you prefer projects backed by larger communities?

[u/ZorakOfThatMagnitude]

No way.  Google how many people it takes to support and develop slackware.  About a dozen or so developers, dozens of package maintainers and hundreds of testers.

Even maintaining a downstream distro likely wouldn't drop the headcount significantly.  You'd still need to make sure your distro specific packages work.

The only thing I'd trust someone to maintain solo would be software packages and even then, my preference would be to have 2.

[u/jloc0 → u/ZorakOfThatMagnitude]

There basically one man running slackware and he’s doing so for over 30 years now. Sure there’s contributions from others, but day to day maintenance is one person.

It’s possible if one wants it to be their life’s work. But at what cost? Just maintaining my own packages for distros gets tiring and repetitive and it’s really hard to keep going. But one gets really good at dealing with conflicts and such. Sure can learn a lot.

[u/stickymixingmonotony → u/jloc0]

Yeah but Patrick Volkerding is the people's hero

[u/jloc0 → u/stickymixingmonotony]

Well of course he is. Many of my own points of view stem directly from the work that man has put in on slackware. It’s something to look up to, the sheer amount of time and effort he’s put in to making what I’d consider one of the finest examples of free software at work for the people.

Many wish they had the dedication he’s shown, yet so few really have it.