{"slug": "gobolinux", "name": "GoboLinux", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 8, "warners": 0, "score": 4.253, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2026-01-01", "latest": "2026-09-13", "why": "see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 2, "compare": 3, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 3, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "gobolinux.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://gobolinux.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["GoboLinux"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 759682416, "item_id": 47480151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480151", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend taking a look at Gobolinux", "excerpt": "Gobolinux comes to mind. If you don't mind a very limited set of software, the way tinycorelinux is setup can also allow multiple different tcz installed These two Linux distros essentially allow two different versions of same software/libraries (glibc/python whatever) installed (Gobolinux explicitly states that whereas I find it to be an unintended but elegant consequence for tinycorelinux but I recommend taking a l", "context": "", "use_case": "Side-by-side software versions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I love NixOS"}, {"id": 755541473, "item_id": 47221342, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47221342", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Re Gobo -- yes please. I love that little distro.", "excerpt": "> Yawn. You again. Yep, me again. You know that line from the James Bond books? \u201cOnce is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.\u201d I saw Btrfs die so many times, I know what to suspect. The official internal guidance was: give it all your disk space. Make the volumes so big that they will never fill up. Well, if I could trust it, I might, but I know I can't trust it, so I want my data safe som", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bootc and OSTree: Modernizing Linux System Deployment"}, {"id": 743956400, "item_id": 46497275, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497275", "by": "xattt", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs.", "excerpt": "> There's no reason Linux should be like this. e.g., see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs. And I thought we just got over the systemd drama\u2026", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"}, {"id": 743390032, "item_id": 46461877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46461877", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-01-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GoboLinux solved that already", "excerpt": "Well. GoboLinux solved that already. Back in 2005. I never understood the real need for chruby rvm etc... - I manage everything, all programs, in a versioned AppDir manner. (Note: I am not using GoboLinux; I use a modified variant. GoboLinux gave the correct idea though.)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can Bundler Be as Fast as Uv?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 747386080, "item_id": 46711630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711630", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "GoboLinux unfortunately lacks documentation", "excerpt": "I used versioned AppDirs for that, e. g. /Programs/Python/3.13/. If I don't need it anymore, the directory is removed and a script runs. Similar to GoboLinux. I do however had not use GoboLinux right now; GoboLinux unfortunately lacks documentation, LFS/BLFS has better documentation. Finding information these days is hard - google search has become sooooo bad ...", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux from Scratch"}]}], "who": [{"by": "busterarm", "context": "former GoboLinux package maintainer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465878", "date": "2026-01-02"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["versioned app directories", "side-by-side software versions"], "compared": [{"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nixos", "name": "NixOS", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nix", "name": "Nix", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46487921", "title": "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46835612", "title": "Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46458302", "title": "Can Bundler Be as Fast as Uv?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49675902", "title": "Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47690977", "title": "Microsoft Abruptly Terminates VeraCrypt Account, Halting Windows Updates", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47479751", "title": "Why I love NixOS", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 2}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {"compare": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 794909712, "item_id": 49681857, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49681857", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "GoboLinux did this years ago via ViewFS", "excerpt": "How so? If you can break out of a sandbox then by definition it is not a sandbox. There are ways to force sandbox jail. For instance, giving processes only a partial view of the computer system. GoboLinux did this years ago via ViewFS (https://linuxphilia.blogspot.com/2009/07/gobolinux-is-linux-distribution-i-heard.html search for ViewFS). There are many other similar solutions, some probably better.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux Zoom client proactively reading everything written to X11 clipboard"}, {"id": 763093698, "item_id": 47693356, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47693356", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "compare", "quote": "similar as to how GoboLinux does, but in a more free form", "excerpt": "Yeah. I felt in a similar manner when I moved to Linux. Microsoft seemed to make people dumber. I do actually use both Linux and Windows (Win10 only), largely for testing various things, including java-related software. But every time I use Windows, I am annoyed at how slow everything is compared to Linux. (I should mention that I compile almost everything from source on Linux, so most of the default Linux stack I do", "context": "", "use_case": "Versioned app directories", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Abruptly Terminates VeraCrypt Account, Halting Windows Updates"}, {"id": 759682416, "item_id": 47480151, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47480151", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-03-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend taking a look at Gobolinux", "excerpt": "Gobolinux comes to mind. If you don't mind a very limited set of software, the way tinycorelinux is setup can also allow multiple different tcz installed These two Linux distros essentially allow two different versions of same software/libraries (glibc/python whatever) installed (Gobolinux explicitly states that whereas I find it to be an unintended but elegant consequence for tinycorelinux but I recommend taking a l", "context": "", "use_case": "Side-by-side software versions", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why I love NixOS"}, {"id": 755541473, "item_id": 47221342, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47221342", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Re Gobo -- yes please. I love that little distro.", "excerpt": "> Yawn. You again. Yep, me again. You know that line from the James Bond books? \u201cOnce is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.\u201d I saw Btrfs die so many times, I know what to suspect. The official internal guidance was: give it all your disk space. Make the volumes so big that they will never fill up. Well, if I could trust it, I might, but I know I can't trust it, so I want my data safe som", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Bootc and OSTree: Modernizing Linux System Deployment"}, {"id": 749435266, "item_id": 46839704, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46839704", "by": "microtonal", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "compare", "quote": "This approach was already done by GoboLinux in 2005.", "excerpt": "This approach was already done by GoboLinux in 2005. And even GoboLinux was by far not the first - versioned AppDirs existed for a long time before; even perl stow enabled that. NixOS just uses a modified variant e. g. via hashed directory names. But I already adopted a similar scheme as GoboLinux did soon after I switched to Linux in 2005 (well 2004 but mostly 2005 as I was still a big noob in 2004 really). Nix alre", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User"}, {"id": 749423874, "item_id": 46838992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46838992", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "compare", "quote": "This approach was already done by GoboLinux in 2005.", "excerpt": "I understand his enthusiasm with NixOS but: > With Nix, however, it was a matter of just describing a few packages in a shell and boom, Ruby in one folder, no Ruby (and thus no mess) everywhere else. This approach was already done by GoboLinux in 2005. And even GoboLinux was by far not the first - versioned AppDirs existed for a long time before; even perl stow enabled that. NixOS just uses a modified variant e. g. v", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Guix System First Impressions as a Nix User"}, {"id": 747386080, "item_id": 46711630, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711630", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "GoboLinux unfortunately lacks documentation", "excerpt": "I used versioned AppDirs for that, e. g. /Programs/Python/3.13/. If I don't need it anymore, the directory is removed and a script runs. Similar to GoboLinux. I do however had not use GoboLinux right now; GoboLinux unfortunately lacks documentation, LFS/BLFS has better documentation. Finding information these days is hard - google search has become sooooo bad ...", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux from Scratch"}, {"id": 743956400, "item_id": 46497275, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46497275", "by": "xattt", "date": "2026-01-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs.", "excerpt": "> There's no reason Linux should be like this. e.g., see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs. And I thought we just got over the systemd drama\u2026", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"}, {"id": 743835888, "item_id": 46489743, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46489743", "by": "markstos", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Linux does not use this split any more. Many of these dirs were merged back together. The \"/usr merge\" was adopted by Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Red Hat, Arch Linux, openSUSE and other major distros: https://itsfoss.gitlab.io/post/understanding-the-linux--usr-merge/ `man file-hierarcy` defines modern Linux filesystem layout. https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/file-hierarchy.7.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"}, {"id": 743829168, "item_id": 46489323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46489323", "by": "behnamoh", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "There's no reason Linux should be like this. e.g., see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs.", "excerpt": "This is what happens when a system is designed by multiple people and companies over a long period of time. An amalgam of ideas which are there just because. There's no reason Linux should be like this. e.g., see https://gobolinux.org/ which has more sane dirs.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Understanding the bin, sbin, usr/bin, usr/sbin split (2010)"}, {"id": 743454048, "item_id": 46465878, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46465878", "by": "busterarm", "date": "2026-01-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I haven't used GoboLinux since maybe 2007ish but I used to maintain several packages for it.", "excerpt": "That takes me back. I haven't used GoboLinux since maybe 2007ish but I used to maintain several packages for it. It's not really that easy being really different in the Linux packaging world.", "context": "former GoboLinux package maintainer", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can Bundler Be as Fast as Uv?"}, {"id": 743390032, "item_id": 46461877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46461877", "by": "shevy-java", "date": "2026-01-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "GoboLinux solved that already", "excerpt": "Well. GoboLinux solved that already. Back in 2005. I never understood the real need for chruby rvm etc... - I manage everything, all programs, in a versioned AppDir manner. (Note: I am not using GoboLinux; I use a modified variant. GoboLinux gave the correct idea though.)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can Bundler Be as Fast as Uv?"}]}