The majority of Linux distributions out there seem to be over-engineering their method of distribution. They are not giving us a new distribution of Linux. They are giving us an existing distribution of Linux, but with a different distribution of non-system software (like a different desktop environment or configuration of it)
In many cases, turning an installation of the base distribution used to the one they’re shipping is a matter of installing certain packages and setting some configurations. Why should the user be required to reinstall their whole OS for this?
It would be way more practical if those distributions are available as packages, preferably managed by the package manager itself. This is much easier for both the user and the developer.
Some developers may find it less satisfying to do this, and I don’t mean to force my opinion on anyone, but only suggesting that there’s an easier way to do this. Distributions should be changing things that aren’t easily doable without a system reinstall.
Debian server minimal, is kind of a “core Debian”. There are netinst versions that can be even smaller. The Debian base image for Docker is even smaller than all that.
There is also an Ubuntu minimal install that you could call “core Ubuntu”.
But more importantly, and I can’t stress this enough: YOU CAN SWITCH DISTROS WITHOUT REINSTALLING. Might need to do some cleanup afterwards, but it’s perfectly doable, more so between Debian based ones.
How do you do that? First time hearing this
Replace Debian apt sources with Ubuntu ones, do system upgrade and install the Ubuntu-Desktop package, now you have Ubuntu.
It’s been a while since I have done this, but it’s totally possible.
We did this transition from Ubuntu to Debian at Work with thousands of workstations.
It requires a bit of time and testing but it’s possible.