Linux Community Magazine

Originally written in 1991, Linux took the world by storm. From out of left field, there developed an operating system that was free and stayed free. It was stable and it was secure. Geeks flocked to it and it became the OS used by many servers, programmers and hobbyists.

However, there is no such thing as a Linux operating system. Linux is simply the name of the kernel. An OS is composed of more than that. The kernel interacts with the machines hardware but it doesn't interact with the user. A complete OS requires a userspace for a person to interact with. The task of completing the OS has been with the various Linux distributions or distros. Each distro has a unique philosophy that guides their choices. It can be simplicity or it can be adherence to Free Software principles or aesthetics.

There are many distros. It can be very confusing but you have to realize that all of them are related. They will be subtly or obviously different from each other but in their heart they are Linux. From this heart, they begin to diverge, not through the GUI but through their package manager. A package manager is the installer for Linux. The GUI, the different shells and the various userland applications are added through the package manager. In the early days of Linux, the distros were divided by their package managers. You'll find that distro families are best organized by that too.

Slackware is the oldest Linux distro. It began in 1992 and it has the most primitive package manager, pkgtool. Pkgtool manipulates compressed data in tar files that are comparable to zip files. While it is not easy to use, it has also never been known to cause crashes in applications or in the OS through a misplaced dependency upgrade. The Slackware philosophy adheres to the principles of stability, cleanliness and adherence to the UNIX principles.

Debian is almost as old as Slackware. Born in 1993, it uses APT (Advanced Package Tool) to install and uninstall its applications. APT relies on repositories or places where it can search for software and resolve dependencies. Repositories can be found in a local storage or in a network, including the web. The Debian philosophy is complete adherence to the guidelines of free and open software. Not one drop of propriety code finds it way into the Debian repositories. Debian's philosophy and APT spawned other great distros like Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

Red Hat is the corporate Linux. It was founded in 1994 and it developed the Red Hat Package Manager or RPM. Linux Standard Base, which attempts to provide a standard that all distros must adhere to, uses RPM as its default package manager. Other distros that use RPM are Fedora, OpenSuse, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS and CentOS.

Gentoo is the distro for the ultimate tweaker. It uses portage to compile, not just the userspace applications, but also the kernel itself. It is unparalleled in customization. It is also incredibly complicated. The Gentoo tweaker's philosophy can be found in other distros like Linux From Scratch.

Almost every Linux distro can be related to these four through their package manager or philosophy. There are some exceptions but the vast majority will be derived from these four especially Debian and Red Hat.