Distribution

distro - short for distribution

Which distro am I on?

$ cat /etc/os-release # config file contains distro info
$ lsb_release -a # display distro name and version
$ hostnamectl # display distro name and version

Why are there so many different distros? Some contextual history and philosophy may help.

• Linux is derived from UNIX. It is described as “Unix-like”.
• Linux brings together a kernel developed by Linus Torvalds, and utilities originally developed by Richard Stallman.
• Linux is the progenitor of the open source software movement.

Because Linux is open source, it is easy to make a unique version. Get a copy, modify it, and make your own version. Therefore, there are dozens of versions. They are derived from one another. Each derivation has its own personality and purpose, or maybe it just wants to be different. Most distros are free of charge but a few are commercial and have a price tag.

An MBA-type would say the market is fragmented.

Personality characteristics of each distro:

• Monolithic vs modular
• Centralized vs Distributed
• Open vs proprietary
• Commercial vs free of charge
• software license
  • copyright
  • copyleft
  • permissive

Commercial companies can sponsor open source projects, and sometimes release a commercial version.

• Red Hat (owned by IBM) sponsors Fedora and CentOS.
• Canonical sponsors Ubuntu.
• SUSE Software Germany sponsors openSUSE, and also distributes a commercial version named SUSE Enterprise.

The most widely-used distros are commercial and proprietary.

• iOS owned by Apple
• macOS owned by Apple
• Android owned by Google

• 1964 Multics, a time-sharing operating system, a cooperative project led by MIT, plus GE and Bell Labs
• 1970 AT&T Unix, created at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, both of whom had worked on Multics
• Late 1970s AT&T licensed Unix to
  • U. Berkeley (BSD)
  • Microsoft (Xenix)
  • Sun (SunOS/Solaris)
  • HP (HP-UX)
  • IBM (AIX)
• 1983 System V versions 1,2,3,4, commercial version
• 1983 GNU and free software movement are created by Richard Stallman writing the GNU Manifesto
• 1985 POSIX becomes an IEEE standard spec for interoperable operating systems. Richard Stallman coined the term.
• 1990 AT&T sold Unix to Novell
• 1991 Linux kernel created by Linux Torvalds
• 1993 FreeBSD created
• 1995 Novell sold Unix to SCO
• 1996 SCO passed Unix to The Open Group
• 2010 court case confirms Novell still owns the copyrights to Unix
• As of 2020, the AT&T-derived Unix market is divided between three System V variants: AIX, HP-UX, Solaris. Linux and FreeBSD are both described as “Unix-like” systems.

In 1983, Richard Stallman coined the concept “free software”, started the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and started development of a free Unix-like OS named GNU. The gcc compiler and many other components were completed, but the kernel proved to be difficult, so development “stalled”.

In 1991, Linus Torvalds released the Linux kernel for use on his personal IBM AT 386, and a following developed around it.

From then, Linux developers adopted many GNU components, and GNU adopted the the Linux kernel.i

Each Linux distro uses the linux kernel, and some variation of the GNU or BSD or AT&T utilities.

Debian (1991), perhaps the original GNU/Linux, originally sponsored by Stallman’s FSF

• Debian 8 (Jessie) April 2015
• Debian 9 (Stretch) June 2017
• Debian 10 (Buster) July 2019

Debian → Ubuntu (2004) sponsored by Canonical, now with Gnome 3 Debian → Ubuntu → kubuntu () - Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome Debian → Ubuntu → Mint (2006) - choice of GUI: mate, xfce, or cinnamon Debian → Ubuntu → elementary OS (2011) - looks like MacOS

Fedora (2002) - sponsored by Red Hat, uses Gnome, designed for desktops and laptops Fedora → Red Hat (1994) - Commercial, owned by IBM Fedora → Centos (2003) - often used by hosting companies arch - difficult to install arch → manjaro - easy to install. right amount of included software

openSUSE (1994) - sponsored by SUSE Software openSUSE → SUSE Enterprise a commercial version of openSUSE

Gentoo - source code distribution only, designed for high performance

WSL2 (2020), leading to “Microsoft Proprietary Linux”

Bottom line: Linus Torvalds evidently uses Fedora on his home computers for him and his family. He specifically says he does NOT use Debian because it is too difficult to install.