difference between linux distros
I know this is cplusplus.com but this is also the lounge:P. I could ask this on some linux forum but i really like this forum and really didn't want another username & password to remember. Anyway, i know my way around linux(know a few terminal commands, compiling source,etc) up until this point i've used debian based distros(ubuntu and Mint) recently i got Fedora 20 which i hear is based on the commericial verision of linux Red Hat which is supposed to be completely different from debian. It doesn't really seem all that different...the only difference is the way the desktop works and you use yum instead of apt-get. So, what is the difference?
There's generally not much difference. Main differences tend to be:
1) How things are packaged.
2) Packaging software used.
3) Default software installed.
and 4) Morals and goals.
Red Hat often is way behind in bleeding edge technology. Arch Linux on the other hand is a rolling distribution and often has packages out for new technology with a weeks time (while often immediately in the [testing] repository).
It's not always easy to tell the difference either.
For instance, the difference between Linux Mint and Linux Ubuntu is very small. It's main goal is to be sexy and easy to use. Doesn't Ubuntu try to do the same thing? Well... I mean... I dunno. You could probably make Ubuntu look exactly like Mint does by default. It's just less hassle. The release cycle is also slightly different.
Fedora is like other RPM-based distributions except it has a moral of not accepting royalty-based software into its software repositories by default. I personally don't think you should use Fedora if you want proprietary and royalty-licensed software... but people install it anyways via 3rd party repositories like RPMFusion, making it like most other RPM-based distributions.
Red Hat and Fedora aren't quite that similar really. Fedora is kinda more like a testing bed that Red Hat cherry picks from later on. To be technical, Red Hat Linux doesn't exist anymore. It is now Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The only commercial thing about it is the fact that it costs money for their support and that you can't redistribute unless you strip their source code of trademark... which is exactly what CentOS and Scientific Linux has done.
Anyways... there's not much difference between Fedora and Ubuntu outside of how things are packaged and the minor software quirks each one tends to use. Ubuntu is Debian-based so it likes to destroy multimedia applications by allowing only the use of libav which isn't compatible with the original FFmpeg. Fedora doesn't allow immediate use of any FFmpeg variation at all because it contains royalty-based codecs.
1) How things are packaged.
2) Packaging software used.
3) Default software installed.
and 4) Morals and goals.
Red Hat often is way behind in bleeding edge technology. Arch Linux on the other hand is a rolling distribution and often has packages out for new technology with a weeks time (while often immediately in the [testing] repository).
It's not always easy to tell the difference either.
For instance, the difference between Linux Mint and Linux Ubuntu is very small. It's main goal is to be sexy and easy to use. Doesn't Ubuntu try to do the same thing? Well... I mean... I dunno. You could probably make Ubuntu look exactly like Mint does by default. It's just less hassle. The release cycle is also slightly different.
Fedora is like other RPM-based distributions except it has a moral of not accepting royalty-based software into its software repositories by default. I personally don't think you should use Fedora if you want proprietary and royalty-licensed software... but people install it anyways via 3rd party repositories like RPMFusion, making it like most other RPM-based distributions.
Red Hat and Fedora aren't quite that similar really. Fedora is kinda more like a testing bed that Red Hat cherry picks from later on. To be technical, Red Hat Linux doesn't exist anymore. It is now Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The only commercial thing about it is the fact that it costs money for their support and that you can't redistribute unless you strip their source code of trademark... which is exactly what CentOS and Scientific Linux has done.
Anyways... there's not much difference between Fedora and Ubuntu outside of how things are packaged and the minor software quirks each one tends to use. Ubuntu is Debian-based so it likes to destroy multimedia applications by allowing only the use of libav which isn't compatible with the original FFmpeg. Fedora doesn't allow immediate use of any FFmpeg variation at all because it contains royalty-based codecs.
| For instance, the difference between Linux Mint and Linux Ubuntu is very small. |
That's because Linux Mint is Ubuntu. Someone just customizes the look, adds some packaged software, and distributes it under the name Mint.
Last edited on
@supperpiccle: This is the perfect place for a discussion like this, pretty much anything goes in the lounge.
| 1) How things are packaged. 2) Packaging software used. 3) Default software installed. 4) Morals and goals. |
IMHO 1 and 2 are one point. Thus, my version:
1) Morals and goals. This affects the selection of packages that are available by default. Goal like "minimal" affects point 2.
2) Default software installed. Sure, its simple to call a red Ferrari a different distro than white Ferrari, even though a repaint is trivial.
3) Package management. Package file format (rpm, deb, etc), tools (yum, apt, etc), repositories.
4) Tree. The data and configuration files can be in different place and have differing format. Management tools are then different too.
Its a matter of perception. One can either see differences ("A button is 5 mm to the left on this one. Panic.") or not ("So? All Desktop Managers are Desktop Managers; GUI crap all the same. telinit 3").
| IMHO 1 and 2 are one point. |
not really. for example: there are deb packages and rpm (is that the red hat one? i cant remember) packages. those are two seperate package types. apt-get will get deb packages and i think pacman (if that is wrong im sorry i dont use redhat distros) reads rpms. i could a) make a third or b) make my own packaging software that uses one of those two. ie package types and the software that reads them are two different ideas, like protocols and implementations
| linux mint is also meant to be a more light weight ubuntu distro. |
This doesn't sound correct to me. Mint is meant to be an Ubuntu Distribution with a customized desktop interface and additional software.
I would say, if anything, Mint is a heavier weight distribution.
If you want a lightweight Ubuntu distro, there is lununtu.
| IMHO 1 and 2 are one point. |
| not really. |
Semantics and clustering.
It is clear-cut that packages have a format. That divides distros into families (RH-based, Debian-based, etc). That is one point.
There can be more than one tool to create/install one format (e.g. apt-get, synaptics) but you could include that selection within the "Default software" or "Management tools" points, while I sort of kept it within the package-point.
Each distribution has its own style of placing things into a system and a different way to manage those things that are independent of the package manager itself. That's why we're able to have package managers that span across all distributions... albeit it's not very common.
Topic archived. No new replies allowed.