linux distributions

We collected some of the most popular Linux distributions and a couple of descriptions for them. If you are more interested in details please visit LwN.Net

 

debian gnu/linux
http://www.debian.org

The Debian Project is one of the oldest distributions and is currently the largest volunteer based distribution provider. The distribution supports many languages and hardware platforms, for example the lenny release supports i386, amd64, powerpc, alpha, arm, arm64, hppa, ia64, mips/mipsel, sparc and s390. The old stable version 4.0 (etch) was released April 8, 2007 - now at revision 8 released April 8, 2009.

The current stable version 5.0 (lenny) was released February 14, 2009 - the third revision, v5.0.4 was released January 31, 2010. Debian users who want a more current desktop distribution are encouraged to use the testing branch, which is where the next stable release (currently codenamed Squeeze) is prepared and which should normally be quite stable. Debian Developers and users who want to live on the bleeding edge can run the unstable branch (Sid) or even try packages from experimental.

fedora
http://fedoraproject.org

The Fedora Project is Red Hat's community distribution. It is intended to be a fast-paced distribution for those that like to stay on the leading edge of technology. It is also a test-bed for Red Hat's Enterprise Linux products. The Fedora contains all the packages necessary to run a functional desktop or small server. The first Fedora Core release was dated November 5, 2003.

Fedora strives for a new release every 6 months and releases will be supported for 13 months. Still supported: Fedora 11, released June 9, 2009, and Fedora 12, released November 17, 2009. Fedora 13 Beta was released April 13, 2010.

gentoo
http://www.gentoo.org

Gentoo Linux is a source-based distribution that can be optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Gentoo offers extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community. Users keep their systems up-to-date using Portage, which is based on BSD Ports. Gentoo is a meta-distribution with a large number of packages available (nearly 11,000 as of April 2006).

Gentoo Linux 2005.1 was available for Alpha, AMD64, PPC, PPC64, SPARC, X86, IA64 and SPARC32. Gentoo Linux 2008.0 was released July 6, 2008. Gentoo 2008.0-r1 was release soon after, with fixes for some live CD issues. Sets of weekly stage3 tarballs and minimal CDs were released December 20, 2008. Gentoo Ten LiveDVD 10.1 was released October 23, 2009.

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

The Slackware project is headed by Patrick J. Volkerding, with a cast of volunteers and a loyal following. It is the oldest active Linux distribution with the first release dated July 16, 1993. For a very long time the official Slackware project only supported x86 platforms, however others have made ports to other platforms. In 2009 the x86_64 port and the ARM port were offically accepted into Slackware. Slackware 12.2 was released December 11, 2008. Slackware 13.0 was released August 28, 2009.

openSuSE
http://www.opensuse.org

Nuremberg based SuSE Linux AG is one of the older Linux distributions. It became the the European UnitedLinux partner, and supplied much of the code base for UnitedLinux and for Sun's Java Desktop System (both now unsupported). SuSE was later acquired by US company Novell (finalized January 12, 2004). SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) supports x86, x86-64, IPF (ia64), POWER (32 & 64bit, ppc & ppc64) and Mainframes (32 & 64bit, s390 & s390x). OpenSUSE is the community distribution beginning with SUSE Linux 10.0, released October 6, 2005. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) are available for enterprise customers. SLES/SLED 10 became generally available July 17, 2006, now at Service Pack 2, released May 21, 2008. openSUSE 10.3 was released October 4, 2007.

The 10.3 Live edition is also available. SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time 10 was released November 27, 2007. openSUSE 11.0 was released June 19, 2008. openSUSE 11.1 was released December 18, 2008. SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 (SLES/SLED/JeOS) was released February 28, 2009, generally available March 24, 2009. openSUSE 11.1 KDE4 remix, released September 10, 2009, comes with KDE 4.3.1 and all online updates. openSUSE 11.2 was released November 12, 2009. openSUSE-Edu Li-f-e: Linux for Education based on openSUSE 11.2 was released November 17, 2009. openSUSE 11.3 Milestone5 was released April 14, 2010.

Ubuntu
http://www.ubuntu.com

Ubuntu and its close cousins are freely available distributions, supported by Canonical Ltd. Ubuntu takes a snapshot of Debian unstable and then creates a small fork, recompiling and stabilizing the code to get a final stable release. It usually takes 6 months between the snapshot and the release. Ubuntu comes with the GNOME desktop, Kubuntu with the KDE desktop, Xubuntu features XFCE and Edubuntu comes with educational packages.

Mythbuntu integrates the MythTV package. Ubuntu Studio integrates packages for multimedia creation. The first Ubuntu release (4.10 Preview released September 15, 2004) supported Intel x86 (IBM-compatible PC), AMD64 (Hammer) and PowerPC (Apple iBook and Powerbook, G4 and G5) architectures. SPARC64 support was added for v6.06 LTS. Supported versions: 6.06 LTS Server "Dapper Drake", 8.04 LTS "Hardy Heron", 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" and 9.10 "Karmic Koala". V6.06.2 LTS (the second maintenance release) was made available January 21, 2008. "Hardy Heron" aka v8.04 LTS was released April 24, 2008, available in desktop and server editions. Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS was released January 29, 2010. Kubuntu 8.04 is available with KDE 3 or KDE 4. Kubuntu 8.04.2 was released February 21, 2009. Other available 8.04 variants include Xubuntu, UbuntuStudio and Mythbuntu. Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" was released October 30, 2008. Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) was released April 23, 2009.

Additional Jaunty varients include Netbook Remix, MID and ARM. Karmic Koala (9.10) was released October 26, 2009. Currently in development: Lucid Lynx (10.04), Beta 2 was released April 8, 2010.

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org

Puppy Linux is a very small, yet quite fully featured distribution. Up to and including version 0.6, all applications in Puppy were written in C and used only the Athena/neXtaw or GTK+ v1.2 widget libraries. From version 0.7 onwards C++ applications and the Qt library v2.3 (for Konqueror and Scribus) were also used. Puppy 0.7.6 was released May 11, 2003. Chubby Puppy version 1.0.5 was released September 29, 2005. Puppy Linux 1.09 Community Edition was released May 15, 2006. BareBones Puppy v2.00 was released June 2, 2006. OneBone Puppy (no X/GUI applications) version 2.00rev.1 was released June 9, 2006. Puppy Linux 2.15 Community Edition was released April 6, 2007. Puppy Linux v4.00 was released May 5, 2008. Puppy 4.1.2 was released December 8, 2008. Barry Kauler, creator of Puppy has started a new project called Woof.

Woof 0.0.0 was released December 9, 2008. Standard and Retro versions of Puppy Linux 4.2 (Final) were released March 27, 2009. TEENpup 2009 Legacy, based on Puppy 2.14 for better support of old hardware, was released June 8, 2009. Puppy 4.3.1 was released October 16, 2009.