Friday, April 4, 2008

What is Linux Distro?

So you are keen to explore Linux, but where to start and what is this distro thingy people are talking about?

Distro is short for Distribution, make more sense now?

There is a humorous article on bbspot.com that makes fun of the number of Linux distributions surpassed the number of Linux users. While one can brush it off as humour relief, there is a some truth to it, that is, there are really many different Linux distributions.

When you cross over to the light, you will find that you are suddenly overwhelmed by the vast variety of choices; you will also find that there is no Linux Operating System per se, but a whole full list of the variants (or we call it distributions, in short, distros). You can do a Google search or visit Wikipedia for more detailed history of Linux or the GNU/Linux. Here's a brief:

Linux, like Mac OSX, is an UNIX like operating system. It was originally created by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Most worked done by Linus and gang at that time was limited to the kernel (you can view kernel as the engine of the operating system). Almost parallel to the Linux development, there was another free software movement started by Richard Stallman on another free UNIX OS called GNU, which had already completed many of the UNIX utilities and applications, but without a kernel. The two projects decided to merge and thus forming the framework of today's GNU/Linux.

Due to Linux's Open Source nature, it attracted many developers, and some packaged it with more applications and distribute the new "packages" under different names. Some early distibutions include Red Hat (commercial release), Debian, and SLS. These distributions in turn spawned many other distributions. Eg., Debian Linux spawned some popular distributions such as Ubuntu and Knoppix; and Ubuntu in turn acted as a spring board for many other distributions such as the gOS and Linux Mint. You can create your own distribution if you want to, and no one is going to stop you :)

Let me use an analogy to help you understand Linux and the various distributions:

Imagine GNU/Linux as a car engine maker such as Honda, BMW, Mercedes, Ford & etc. The distribution such as Redhat is a car maker who designs the car, and use the engine from Linux --> some Protons use Mitsubishi engines. There are other distributions that are built ontop of another distribution, example, Ubuntu is based on Debian. You can consider Ubuntu as AMG who tunes and modifies Mercedes Benz or Mugen who tunes Honda cars.

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