What do you know about Linux distros?

Linux has existed for nearly 30 years, this is a historic journey. If you are interested in the history of some of the major Linux distributions, here is a summary of the various Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Fedora, REHL, Linux Mint, Slackware, etc., to help you better understand Linux.

Note : Because there are so many distributions, in this article we only mention the main and popular distributions.

History of Linux

Before going into the history of Linux distributions, we'll talk about Linux's development history. In 1991, a computer science student named Linus Torvald created an operating system kernel for entertainment purposes. Linus originally called it Freax (meaning 'free' and 'x' to indicate it belongs to the UNIX line) but was later renamed to Linux.

The first release is just a kernel, need to include shells, compilers, libraries, etc. to make the system work. A year later, in 1992, the first Linux distribution was released.

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History of some major Linux distributions

Debian Linux

Debian is one of the first Linux distributions. It was first announced by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993, but it wasn't until 1996 that its first stable version was released. Basically, developers want to create a stable distribution so people can download and use it for free, instead of having to collect each application and compile it themselves.

Debian uses the .deb package system - the dpkg package manager and its fontendes like apt-get or synaptic. It comes with a huge archive of applications so users can download and install easily. Debian is also one of the first Linux distributions to offer a live CD.

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Ubuntu

Debian is an ambitious project, of great importance to the Linux operating system, but it is a heavy distribution with many applications that users do not need. Therefore, there is a need to use a lighter and more user-friendly distribution and thus lead to the introduction of Ubuntu.

The first version of Ubuntu (Ubuntu 4.10 - Warty Warthog) was released in 2004. In ancient Zulu and Xhosa languages, Ubuntu means "human kindness." It is based on the final distribution of Debian and still uses the .deb package system but not all Debian packages can be installed on Ubuntu. Ubuntu will release a new version every 6 months and a long-term version every two years.

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Linux Mint

Linux Mint is a relatively new distribution in Debian's "family". It was developed by Clément Lefèbvre in 2006 and based on Ubuntu. Mint is designed to be user friendly and especially suitable for new people. Linux Mint has a lot of applications, multimedia functions. Although in recent distributions, developers no longer support multimedia / codecs anymore.

One of the things that makes Linux Mint different from other distributions is that it has proprietary software. Because developers want to provide an easy-to-use distro to users so they don't need to install all these applications themselves. Similar to Ubuntu, you can also install Debian software on Linux Mint if needed.

1. 10 reasons you can't not "love" Linux Mint

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the legacy version of Red Hat Linux, one of the oldest Linux versions. The original version was released in 1995 and was replaced by Red Hat Enterprise Linux in 2003. This is a paid distribution for business users.

Fedora is an alternate free version, for home users. It has many features of RHEL and some experimental features have not been implemented in RHEL. Both versions use the .rmp package format, so software from other distributions like Debian cannot run on this distro.

Slackware

Released by Patrick Volkerding in 1992, Slackware is the oldest existing Linux distribution and by the mid-1990s, it accounted for about 80% of all distributions used. But everything changed when Red Hat Linux appeared and today Slackware is no longer as famous as it used to be. The reason is not because it is not good, on the contrary it is still one of the top Linux distros but Slackware is highly customizable and powerful, not user friendly. It is this that affects its popularity. Slackware uses pkgtools package system, there is no official package repository and many configurations have to be done manually.

Arch Linux

Arch Linux was developed by Judd Vinet in 2002. This is a Rolling release release, which means you only need to install it once and it will update itself to the latest version.

Arch Linux's design is very simple, instead of pre-installing a variety of applications in the distribution, it only allows minimal and necessary applications to operate and users can install other applications they need. Arch Linux uses binary packages that need to be compiled before installation. It may sound complicated but you don't need to worry because Pacman and AUR will simplify this process.

See more:

1. 8 easy tools to create your own Linux Distro
2. 10 Linux distributions you may not know yet
3. 8 main differences between Windows and Linux
4. Introducing Kali Linux operating system