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.
It doesn’t warrant it to your taste, but people like it. I don’t get your point beyond saying that people shouldn’t prefer it because you don’t.
So they’re “very useful”, but shouldn’t exist?
I get that it would be nice if Ubuntu etc had installation options for DEs, but they don’t. That would take time and effort the maintainers could use on other priorities. So, other interested people fill the gap with offshoot distros.
Never said that they shouldn’t exist. I only said that they must be distributed as packages instead.
I think we’re mostly on the same page, but verbiage like “must be distributed as packages instead” is pretty hard to interpret any other way than saying DE-distros shouldn’t exist.