Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux distribution. In its early years, Patrick Volkerdin rolled up a kernel, init, libraries, desktop, and applications to make Linux easier for users. And that’s still what he is doing today. He doesn’t change anything, he doesn’t customize anything. Every component is exactly how the original developers intended. For example, users get a vanilla kernel and default desktop configuration.

Version 13.1 was released May 25 with Linux 2.6.33.4 and KDE 4.4.3. Slackware ships with other desktop options, such as Xfce 4.6.1, and lots of handy software. As expected, it comes with Web browsers, office applications, multimedia software, personal communication tools, image management, and more. Slack usually includes Java, but most other browser plugins and multimedia codecs are left to the user to install. 13.1 still uses HAL and udev in order to grant users access to removable media without root privileges or sudo. Along those same lines, this release also brings ConsoleKit and PolicyKit to allow even more convenience in running the system without elevated permissions. This release should be easy to use for users of any experience.

Slackware’s original package management system – or software installer and uninstaller – neither resolves dependencies nor downloads from online repositories. However, some third-party attempts came along to address this and one, slackpkg, has recently been added to Slackware to bring the same capabilities as APT on Debian and Debian-based distributions. However, if you install the full range of packages on the Slackware install DVD, there isn’t much extra on official mirrors. That’s why some recommend the community repository hosted by slackbuilds.org. Between slackpkg and slackbuilds, Slackware has moved into the 21st century of software management.

Once upon a time Slackware was a favorite because of its hardware configuration method. In the tradition of keeping it simple, it had one file that users needed to edit (for most purposes). Most drivers were listed and users just uncommented whichever was used by their hardware. But even that isn’t necessary anymore. Just like any other distro today, most hardware is automagically detected and configured.

Finally, the installer is another area of Slackware that gets some negative comments from time to time. It isn’t very pretty by today’s standards and it is keyboard driven, but it isn’t difficult to use. It asks a few questions during the process in a similar manner as other Linux installers. Perhaps the most difficult aspect is the need to partition your disk prior to beginning the install setup. The installer disk comes with fdisk and cfdisk for this purpose.

So, all in all, besides the partitioning requirement and the lack of multimedia support, Slackware is just as up-to-date and easy-to-use as any Linux distribution. Like a split personality, today’s Slackware is steeped in tradition yet surprisingly modern.

Advantages:
1. True Linux experience
2. High Performance
3. Extremely stable

Disadvantages:
1. Off-putting partitioning and installer
2. No live CD/DVD
3. Still uses Lilo for boot management
4. Lacks multimedia codecs

From Wikipedia:

Slackware is a free and open source operating system. It was one of the earliest operating systems to be built on top of the Linux kernel and is the oldest currently being maintained. Slackware was created by Patrick Volkerding of Slackware Linux, Inc. in 1993. The current stable version is 13.1, released on May 24, 2010.
Slackware aims for design stability and simplicity, and to be the most “Unix-like” Linux distribution, using plain text files for configuration and making as few modifications to software packages as possible from upstream.

Slackware has been around a long time, it is stable, reliable and secure.
User Friendly

One of the most common statements about Slackware is that, it is difficult to maintain, and not user friendly. This is only partially true and depends on what is easy for you. If you know nothing about Linux then it may be complicated to start with Slackware, but if you know a little bit about Linux, then it could actually be easier to have a server on Slackware than for example Fedora or Ubuntu. Why?. Well mainly because it is more difficult to break things in Slackware than in others, the lack of a dependency resolution official tool, makes installing and maintaining software more time consuming, but at the same time, more stable. So if easy for you means less time finding and installing software, then Slackware is not easy, but if on the other hand easy for you, means less problems and down times, then Slackware may be your solution.

So, Slackware is not for experienced users only, but it certainly doesn’t do everything for you like Ubuntu, Fedora, PCLinuxOS or others.
Packages

Introduction

All packages in slackware are vanilla, it does not have the huge number of packages available as in Debian, but you can always compile them by yourself. To compile the software not officially available in Slackware repository we have the great help of slackbuilds.org. This is a community driven project, where you can find scripts to create the Slackware binaries from the original sources.

This is the way all official Slackware’s packages are made, therefore is the more secure way to install software in your Slackware powered computer. One more time, keep in mind that the dependencies should be managed by the administrator, in other words, you, and it is really easy to build slackware’s binaries. Using this tool, you will be able to de-install, upgrade, etc the package.

If have worked with Arch Linux or Gentoo before, you will be more comfortable with this way of packages management.

Package manager

The official Slackware’s package manager is pkgtool, it lets you install, upgrade, remove applications really easy, once you have the package binaries.

From: Slackbook

There’s a myth that’s been going around ever since RedHat debuted RedHat Package Manager, that Slackware has no package management tool. This simply couldn’t be further from the truth. Slackware has always included a package manager, even before RedHat existed. While not as full-featured or as ubiquitous as rpm (or for that matter deb), pkgtool and its associated programs are every bit as good at installing packages as rpm. The truth about pkgtool is not that it doesn’t exist, but that it doesn’t do any dependency checking.

If you want dependency management you may want to try the no official slapt-get, which work more or less like Debian’s apt-get, which actually does not provide full dependency resolution, but some form of it:

From WikiPedia:

slapt-get does not provide dependency resolution for packages included within the Slackware distribution. It does, however, provide a framework for dependency resolution Slackware compatible packages similar in fashion to the hand-tuned method APT utilizes. Several package sources and Slackware based distributions take advantage of this functionality. Hard, soft, and conditional dependencies along with package conflicts and complementary package suggestions can be expressed using the slapt-get framework.

There are also other options and third party package managers, like slackpkg

Slackpkg is a tool for installing or upgrading packages through a network. You can make a minimal installation of Slackware Linux and then install additional packages from a Slackware mirror.

You don’t need to setup NFS or make dozens of CDs for all of your computers. Just type “slackpkg” and all packages in the Official Slackware Linux mirrors will be in your hands.

To me the best combination is to use slackpkg to install official packages, and slackbuilds.org to get the packages not officially included.
KISS

Slackware just like Arch Linux is simple, but not simple as in easy, actually simple because of its design. There is no customization made by the developers, just like I said before Slackware is a vanilla Linux, no other flavors added.

Another characteristic of Slackware is that it uses BSD style scripts, once again, like Arch Linux (or Arch Linux like Slackware). Debian, Ubuntu and others use the system V style scripts. This doesn’t mean it is better or worse, just different, but, BSD style is simpler.
Installation

There are different ways to install Slackware Linux, but the easiest one is to download the DVD iso, and use it to install all packages, it will take 3+ Gigs, of your hard disk, and you will have the complete package installed, that is if you want to use it as a Desktop, if you need a server disable the X and Desktop sections in the installer menu.

Installing Slackware is actually not difficult, Gentoo and Arch Linux require more knowledge, but Slackware is actually easy, if you have the DVD iso.
Usage scenarios

You can use Slackware for the Desktop or Server, but the first might not be a good scenario for Slackware at least in my opinion, because you usually need to install too much software, like media players, codecs, social networks applications, etc. Applications not officially supported, and therefore, applications that demand time to install and keep them up to date.

On the other hand, Slackware could be a great option as a server, it is stable, secure, and easy to maintain, in this scenario, having a very vanilla server is always a good idea, as you can refer to the developer documentation, and all will apply to your configuration.
Preferred GUI

Slackware comes with KDE, fluxbox, OpenBox, XFCE, and some others to choose at the installation time, you may choose the one you prefer in that time, but you can always change it with the xwmconfig command, Gnome is not by default supported.

You can go the GnomeSlackBuild.org, if you need to install Gnome on Slackware, of course this is just one option to have Gnome running, I have FluxBox installed on my Slackware Desktop.
Community and Documentation

The official forums for Slackware are at Linux Questions, they are great people, with a lot of experience not only in Slackware but in Linux, but anyway newbies are always welcome, and they are prone to help the newcomers.

The SlackBook, is also a great source of info, and a must read for all people trying to be a Slacker.
Release cycle

Like Debian, Slackware releases a new version when it is ready, but usually one per year, sometimes two per year, but only when everything is ready, if you are brave, you can try the current branch and stay in the bleeding edge, but do not do this in a production server.
Conclusion

Slackware is a great Linux Distribution, and often called the one you need to work with if you want to learn Linux, people usually say:

If you learn RHEL, you know RHEL, if you learn Slackware you know Linux.

Debian is known for its broad architecture support, lengthy development cycles, and strong ideological commitment to software freedom. Debian provides the foundation for many popular derivatives, including Ubuntu and Knoppix. The Debian project has attracted an enormous community of free software enthusiasts and has become one of the largest community-driven distributions in existence. Despite its declining relevance on the desktop, it is an essential part of the Linux software ecosystem and continues to serve an important function for its downstream partners.

Debian 5, which has been under development for almost two years, includes over 23,000 software packages and is supported on 12 architectures including x86, AMD64, Sparc, PowerPC, and MIPS. Version 5 introduces a new ARM port that is designed to take advantage of modern ARM processors.

“The Debian project’s key strengths are its volunteer base, its dedication to the Debian Social Contract, and its commitment to provide the best operating system possible,” wrote Debian spokesperson Alexander Reichle-Schmehl in an announcement on the Debian mailing list. “Debian 5.0 is another important step in that direction.”

The Debian project maintains three separate streams of packages. The official releases consist of the “stable” package set, but users who want the latest software often use the “testing” or “unstable” streams which are maintained through a rolling release model. Official releases, which occur roughly every two or three years, are created by freezing the packages in the testing stream and ironing out the bugs so that they meet the requisite level of robustness.

Reliability is considered a very high priority for official Debian releases, so the most current software is generally not included. Debian 5 ships with version 2.6.26 of the Linux kernel, GNOME 2.22, XOrg 7.3, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, GIMP 2.4.7, KDE 3.5.10, and Iceweasel (Firefox with alternate branding) 3.0.6. Several of these components posed challenges for the Debian community.

GNOME 2.22, which was released in March 2008, was a transitional release with several technical weaknesses. GNOME’s new virtual filesystem layer was still under heavy development and was not fully integrated until GNOME 2.24. To address this issue, the Debian developers have reverted to gnome-vfs, which is the desktop’s previous virtual filesystem layer.

The KDE project’s transition from version 3 to version 4 also created some thorny issues for Debian. KDE 4.2, which is the first solidly usable release in the KDE 4 series, unfortunately arrived too late for inclusion in Debian 5. Instead, it ships with KDE 3.5.10, which is the last update in the KDE 3.5.x series.

Although Debian’s emphasis on stability at the expense of recency often works against it on the desktop, it makes a very good server distro. As companies gain greater internal Linux expertise, they are increasingly turning towards non-commercial Linux distributions in order to cut support costs. This has had a positive impact on Debian adoption in enterprise computing environments. Debian 5 adds some nice security improvements that will be beneficial for sever installs.

I tested Debian 5.0 by installing the desktop package set from the lightweight “netinst” CD image. The graphical installation wizard walks the user through the process of configuring and installing the system. The default desktop installation provides a complete GNOME desktop environment, the OpenOffice.org suite, and several additional applications such as Inkscape, Pidgin, and IceWeasel.

Unlike Ubuntu, Debian doesn’t strive to deliver a plug-and-play user experience–many popular proprietary and encumbered components are omitted in conformance with Debian’s high standards for software freedom. Proprietary binary drivers are not offered automatically, for example, and it ships with the open source Gnash implementation of Flash instead of Adobe’s proprietary version. Some concessions are still made for practicality, however, such as the decision to tolerate the presence of binary blobs in the 5.0 release.

For the average Linux user who wants the latest desktop software, greater ease of use, and a more refined experience, Ubuntu is probably a better choice. For users who want a (mostly) unbreakable server platform, it’s a pretty great option.

All things considered, this is a pretty good Debian release. It seems to live up to the distro’s long-standing tradition of delivering solid reliability, and it introduces some nice improvements that will be appreciated by Debian aficionados. Check out the official release notes for more details. You can download Debian 5.0 from the project’s website.

Some will argue that Ubuntu and the rest that try to make life easier for desktop users don’t give that fine-grained control over the way you set up your system. Why should a distro try to make choices on your behalf? By configuring your system from the bottom up, you’d ultimately learn the internals.

Does it help? Yes, it does. Immensely! Does everyone have the time and inclination? NO!

Whatever said and done, the majority of those who use computers want to get on with their work—most don’t have the time to peek into the innards of an OS. So, if you belong to this category, you’re probably better off without Slackware.

However, Slackware 13 has one surprise in its bag—the desktop somehow looks pretty modern, and works out-of-the-box. Yes, KDE4 has finally infected the conservative Slackware developer(s). Pat Volkerding writes in the release notes, “I’m using it on all my own machines (including an Intel Atom with compositing enabled), and I’ve really fallen in love with it once I got used to it. The tools are integrated better with the desktop, Qt4 seems to be a faster and more stable platform, and nearly everything that was available for KDE3 has been ported to KDE4 and works great.”

Now, Pat doesn’t put anything inside Slackware unless and until he’s completely satisfied with the piece of code. He’ll still make you use LiLo instead of Grub, by default! So, all this praise coming from him could only mean how impressive KDE4 is and what lies ahead in the coming years.
Installation and configuration

I think the first Slackware version I had tried was 9.1—that was in 2003. As far as I can remember, things pretty much look the same, even today. It’s the same old ncurses-based wizard that’s fool-proof and stable.

Anyway, for the uninitiated, I’ll try to walk you through the Slackware path. After booting the CD, you’re prompted on whether you wish to use a US English keymap (for your keyboard) or not. We Indians do, so simply hit Enter. This brings you to the login screen.

Log in as the root, and type setup to start the installation. Note that if you need to configure your partitions, the installer won’t offer you anything. So, do your partitioning tid-bits using the cfdisk utility and then proceed with setup.

This will bring you to an ncurses-based menu. Read what the Help option offers if you like, or jump straight to the addswap option. Follow the instructions from there on, and you should be up and running.
A few things I noticed:

* Now that the kernel version is upped to 2.6.29, Slackware offers ext4 as the default filesystem. Of course, other choices like ext3, XFS, JFS, etc, are still available.
* It’s better if you choose the recommended package installation sections. Although this will install everything available in the DVD, it won’t bug you with all those prompts.
* The package installation on my C2D 1.6GHz HP 550 laptop with 1GB of RAM took only 15 minutes. Considering that the total install size is more than 4 GB, that’s pretty fast.

General configuration and desktop

Slackware still boots you to init level 3—that is the command line interface with networking enabled. You need to start X with either startx or by launching the display manager—for example, kdm. This setting is nice if I were to run a server on it, but I’d rather have the desktop show up by default. So, it’s time to open /etc/inittab and set the default runlevel to 4—yes, it’s not 5, like other distros.

You’ll also need to set up a normal user account, manually. Unfortunately, that was not a part of the installer’s job. Anyway, run the following command to create one:

useradd -m slacky

Replace slacky with whatever user name you prefer.

Logging into the KDE4 desktop made me realise that Slackware has finally bought into the idea of desktop effects—KWin effects work out-of-the-box if your VGA supports 3D. It could also be because Slackware has a strict policy of not customising the defaults offered by upstream software projects and here KDE offers desktop effects by default.

Apart from that, the desktop is plain—with only a panel at the bottom, and no extra icons (nor Folder View) on the desktop. Although Slackware has the Intel Wi-Fi drivers for my wireless Ethernet card, it offers no NetworkManager for seamless wireless access point switching. In fact, you’d need to edit files manually or use command line tools like ifconfig and iwconfig to set up the network.

For a while, I searched online to find a Slackware NetworkManager package, but unfortunately, none of the third-party Slackware software repos (like linuxpackages.net or slacky.eu) had any software available for version 13 as I write this. Hopefully, things would have changed by the time you install it.

Anyway, the /extras/ section of the DVD has a GTK tool called Wicd, which is a drop-in replacement for NetworkManager. While we’re on the subject of GTK tools, they all look ugly due to the absence of the gtk-qt theme engines.

Firing up Wicd gave me a permission-denied error message. The good thing is that the error message also gave a tip on how to fix it. And while we’re on the subject of error messages, here’re a couple more:

* KMix doesn’t load because the user doesn’t have rights to the sound device.
* Clicking on an unmounted volume in Dolphin displays error messages.

So, I fired up Konsole to fix things. Adding your user name against the following group names in /etc/group fixes the aforementioned issues:

* audio – this fixes the sound issue.
* video – although video worked, I still added my user name here for the heck of it.
* cdrom – looked like this solved the CD/DVD mounting issue—though I’m not sure.
* plugdev – this was to enable the user to mount other volumes (which probably includes optical discs as well; so maybe adding the user name to the cdrom group wasn’t required).
* netdev – well, this fixed the issue with Wicd permissions.

After saving the file with the changes, and a reboot, Wicd and KMix started as soon as I logged in to KDE, and now I could also mount volumes (hard disk partitions and media devices) using Dolphin. What a relief!
Apps and tools

Finally, coming to productivity and entertainment applications, there’re a lot—more than what I needed, at least. And because I went for a full installation, I had more choices for each category of tasks than I’d consider healthy. Anyway, various audio and video file formats worked just fine—even in default KDE apps like JuK and Dragon Player. Yes, there’s Amarok and MPlayer (as well as Xine UI) for power users—I missed SMPlayer though. Only thing you’d have to do manually is get the Flash Player from Adobe, Gnash, or elsewhere.

Talk about an office productivity suite and this is where Slackware is a BIG let down. It only offers KOffice version 2, instead of OpenOffice.org 3. I’d like to report here that I never really had issues with the earlier versions of KOffice. But ever since version 2 is out, I find its font rendering capabilities absolutely pathetic—the characters/alphabets look ‘fat’ with a reddish tinge on black fonts.

Anyway, the good thing is that the accompanying LFY CD has OpenOffice.org 3.1, and you can install it by following this guide.

It works like a charm, but the OOo application icons in the menu and run dialogue boxes will be missing. And since UK and US dictionaries don’t get installed—you can make use of the OOo Extension Manager (utility located under the Tools menu) to find and install them.

Thankfully, the version of Firefox is 3.5, and I also have Ktorrent, Kget and other assorted Internet apps that I require. The GIMP is also available; however, DigiKam is missing.

Well, that basically completes my requirement factors. If you care about programming languages, server-type software, games et al, updated versions of most are available when you go for the default installation. There’s even the XFCE desktop for those who like GTKish stuff—sorry, no GNOME here.

As for bugs, the only one I came across was that sometimes, after logging in, pressing Alt+F2 launched the XFCE run dialogue instead of KRunner. A re-login solved this issue. I have no clue why this happens, but it’s pretty annoying.
At the end of the day…

I think Slackware scores because of its stability and a lower dependency on memory compared to the rest of the distros. However, it requires plenty of manual configurations before one can be productive. If you can get along fine with that, I guess you won’t have much to worry about.

This week Gentoo Foundation joined Open Invention Network as a licensee. OIN is an organization which helps protect the Linux ecosystem by building a variety of defenses against patent attacks. These defenses include both traditional mechanisms, like defensive patent pools, and more innovative approaches, like the Linux Defenders project, which uses a variety of methods to pro actively prevent the publication of particularly egregious patents. As a licensee, we’ll have access to OIN resources in case we’re threatened by operating entities with patents, and over time we’ll likely become more involved in providing our own ideas and resources to OIN projects.

Patents owned by Open Invention Network are available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System. By joining, Gentoo receives cross-licenses from other OIN licensees, but more importantly, for the long term, it affords us a chance to work with OIN in reducing IP threats to open source development and innovation. This may include a defensive publications program that would make it harder for others to patent work created by Gentoo contributors, sharing defensive tactics, and cooperation to minimize patent threats.

We believe that by becoming an Open Invention Network licensee, we encourage continued open source development and foster innovation in a technical community that benefits everyone. We recognize the importance of participating in a substantial community of Linux supporters and leveraging the Open Invention Network to further spur open source innovation.

GNU/Linux is different. A GNU/Linux operating system is made of a Linux kernel, a set of GNU tools, an installation program, a package management system and a lot of other software components. Because all these components are free to use and to distribute, anybody can assemble and configure them according to their needs and create their very own GNU/Linux operating system. Since 1993, a lot of people and companies have been distributing Linux operating systems. These distributions made it easy for people to get and to install a working GNU/Linux system on their personal computer.

At first only a few distributions were available. Nowadays there are so many, that it would be pointless to compare all of them. The website http://www.distrowatch.com lists more than 350 active distributions and reports new releases almost every day. Of course, some distributions are quite similar, although some others are very different to each others. Depending on your needs you’ll prefer some more than others.

All distributions include the Linux kernel developed by Linus Torvalds and the GNU tools developed by Richard Stallman but they don’t necessarily use their latest versions. Some distributions even make their own changes to the kernel. Distributions usually differ in the choice of software applications they offer, in the way these software applications are configured and in the way they are installed and upgraded. Distributions also differ in many aspects such as their philosophy towards proprietary software, their priorities between ease of use and efficiency or between stability and latest technology. In fact, every distribution is different and this means you have more than 350 ways to run GNU/Linux!

Of course some distributions are more popular than others. This article is dedicated to the 10 most famous and popular: Debian, Slackware, Fedora, Mandriva, Suse, Ubuntu, Knoppix, Gentoo, Mepis and Xandros.
Debian

Debian is one of the oldest GNU/Linux distributions. It was created in 1993 by Ian Murdock who named it after the combination of his own name and the one of his then-girlfriend (now wife) Debra. The Debian project is non-commercial and gathers more than a thousand developers throughout the world. A strict organization and clear guidelines made its releases famous for their stability and reliability. The project is very ambitious and supports more than 15,000 packages on 11 architectures: m68k, SPARC, Alpha, PowerPC, x86, IA-64, PA-RISC, MIPS (big and little endian), ARM and S/390. AMD64 is also supported although it is not officially included in the distribution. Debian is known for its strong adherence to the Unix and free software philosophies, its stability and its huge community. It is also very well documented and translated in many languages. Its software package management is extremely powerful and was adopted by many other distributions. Although it is meant to be a general-purpose distribution, the quality of its releases made Debian a distribution of choice for servers.

Debian provides three branches: “Stable” which corresponds to the latest release, “Unstable”, which is in perpetual evolution and “Testing” which represents the next release to-be. Although it is possible to use “Testing” and to stay up to date, a lot of people are unhappy with the slow release cycle, which makes the “Stable” branch quickly outdated. For this reason Debian is seen as a serious and stable distribution but not as a cutting-edge and reactive one. This “outdated” reputation combined with the absence of graphical installation or configuration tools made Debian look hard to use and slow to evolve. When it comes to desktop, a lot of people prefer fast release cycle, eye-candy configuration tools, graphical installers and ease of use.. and this is not what Debian is.

Official website: http://www.debian.org

Pros: Open-Source philosophy, non-commercial project, strong community, huge selection of packages and supported architectures, one of the best package management, excellent documentation, extremely stable and well-tested releases, modular, fast.

Cons: Slow release cycle, text-based installer, lack of configuration tools
Slackware

Founded in 1992 by Patrick Volkerding, Slackware is the oldest surviving GNU/Linux distribution. It is very secure, stable and it is often recommended for server installations. The package management is minimal and doesn’t deal with dependencies, the installer and configuration tools are text-based and almost everything is done through configuration files. Slackware doesn’t offer graphical frontends nor eye-candy configuration tools. When Patrick was asked why Slackware releases do not have code names, he simply replied that there was no need. In fact the distribution focuses on stability and is well known for being bug-free. System administrators usually say that Slackware is the most Unix-Like GNU/Linux distribution. Most packages are used in their pristine form without any Slackware made improvements. Slackware is usually not recommended to novice users although it is easy to configure and probably one of the most formative distributions. What a user learns while configuring Slackware usually applies to any distribution. Rather than using distribution-specific configuration tools, the user has to modify settings in configuration files and so he has to learn about Linux internals which are common to all distributions. For these reason the Slackware distribution is usually used by system administrators, eager to learn novice users or simply Slackware fans

Official website: http://www.slackware.com

Pros: Stability, security, strong adherence to Unix principles, speed and performance.

Cons: Minimal package management, infrequent releases, limited hardware detection.
Fedora

One of the best known Linux company in the world is Red Hat, founded in 1995 by Bob Young and Marc Ewing. In 2003, Red Hat decided to focus on business and stopped releasing its public distribution. The company chose to sponsor a community driven project called Fedora. Red Hat Linux 9 was the last version in the Red Hat product line and was replaced by Fedora Core. This distribution is quite unique and mixes leading edge features and conservatism. The result is a stable and secure system with frequent releases and up to date packages which suits both server and desktop installations. The package management is based on RPM, invented by Red Hat, and it is enhanced by a set of tools like Yum, which bring additional features similar to the Debian package management. Because of its close relationship with Red Hat this distribution is very popular among companies. Efforts were also made to make it attractive to the public and Fedora is full of graphical configuration and administration tools. The installation is also graphical and special attention was put to the look and feel of the distribution. As a result Fedora is a popular choice for both desktop and servers among Linux users.

Official website: http://fedora.redhat.com

Pros: Widely used, good support, innovation, good-looking desktop, configuration tools.

Cons: Not as stable as Debian or Slackware for server use, not as easy and up to date as Suse or Mandrake for desktop use. Fedora is truly a general-purpose distribution.
Mandriva

Originally called Mandrake and created by Gael Duval in 1998, Mandriva is based on Red Hat. It uses a RPM-based package management, which is enhanced with a tool called urpmi. Mandriva became famous and popular since its first release thanks to an efficient and powerful graphical installer, which is still considered the best nowadays. The default Gnome desktop environment used in Red Hat was replaced in favor of KDE and some good looking configuration tools were added. Also, Mandriva tends to include new versions of software applications as soon as possible and to stay up to date as much as possible, relying on the users to report bugs a posteriori. As a result, Mandriva is highly up-to-date and even though some of its releases are buggy it remains the best distribution for people who are new to Linux or people who find it acceptable to experience some crashes if this means benefiting from the latest versions of applications.

Official website: http://www.mandriva.com

Pros: Highly up-to-date, easy to use, good looking desktop, good community support.

Cons: Unstable, releases are initially reserved to mandrivaClub members and then made public after several weeks.
Suse

Since its creation, Suse has always been seen as a distribution of choice for desktop installations. It benefits from a powerful installer and configuration tool called YaST. Professional attention is made to detail, the default KDE desktop environment, the boot process, everything is tailored to make Suse pleasant to the eyes and a serious choice for professional desktops. In 2003, Novell acquired the company and made ISOs of Suse releases freely available on the Internet. Novell also opened the development to public participation and released YaST under the General Public License. Since the launch of OpenSuse, the distribution is now completely free. Suse is stable, polished and pleasant to use. It is probably one of the best desktop solutions.

Official website: http://www.suse.com , http://www.opensuse.org

Pros: Up-to-date, easy to use, good looking, stable.

Cons: Speed and performance.
Ubuntu

In 2004 a distribution which was never heard of before, quickly became the most popular and famous of all distributions: Ubuntu. Based on the “Unstable” branch of Debian, Ubuntu features a fast release cycle, up to date and numerous packages, fast download mirrors, great documentation and even free shipment of CDs. Even though the installer is text-based and the configuration tools are not as good looking or integrated as those found in Fedora, Suse or Mandriva, this distribution quickly became the most used for desktop use. Ubuntu was created by Mark Shuttleworth and is distributed by his company Canonical Ltd. It is not clear whether or not Ubuntu is profitable to Canonical Ltd, but according to the multi-millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, this is not the main priority nor purpose of the distribution. Instead, Ubuntu aims to be an innovative and dynamic general purpose distribution which tackles issues that were not addressed by other distributions. Since its creation, Ubuntu has been the most popular GNU/Linux distribution and every single release is better than the previous one.

Official website: http://www.ubuntu.com

Pros: Great community of users and developers, great documentation, up to date packages, fast release cycle.

Cons: The business model doesn’t seem to be viable.
Knoppix

Created in 2003 by Klaus Knopper, Knoppix is a live-CD distribution, which means the user can run it directly from the CD without having to install it on the hard drive. Thanks to an efficient compression mechanism, the Knoppix CD features a huge selection of software. Knoppix also provides a great automatic hardware detection, which is far better than those of other distributions. The CD can be used as a recovery or administration tool, as a Linux demonstration, as a hardware test tool or even as a full GNU/Linux desktop distribution since it is possible to install it on the hard drive once booted from the CD. Releases are frequent and packages, based on Debian’s “Unstable” branch are quite up-to-date.

Official website: http://www.knoppix.com

Pros: Live-CD, excellent hardware detection, good and up to date package selection.

Cons: Slow if run from the CD.
Gentoo

Created in 2002 by Daniel Robbins, Gentoo comes from the idea of adding the FreeBSD autobuild feature, “ports” into GNU/Linux. Gentoo is a source-distribution, which means that its packages are not binary but source packages. Each package is meant to be compiled on the user’s computer in order to get the best performance and speed out of the resulting compiled binary software. Because repositories use source-packages, they are also very quick to get new software releases as soon as they come out. This results in a very fast and highly up-to-date distribution. The package management is also very efficient and easy to use. On the other hand, the installation of the system and of big packages can be very long and tedious, even with a fast processor.

Official website: http://www.gentoo.org

Pros: Highly up-to-date, very fast, good documentation.

Cons: Long and tedious installation, can be unstable.
Mepis

Created in 2003 by Warren Woodford, Mepis is a mix between Debian “Unstable” and Knoppix. It is a live-CD which, once booted, features a graphical installation program. Users can simply boot on the CD, try the distribution, and if they like it.. run the graphical installation program. Also, the distribution chose a different path regarding the use of proprietary software, arguing that the user’s comfort was more important than the adherence to open-source philosophy. By default, Mepis includes NVIDIA drivers, Flash and Java plugins, Java runtime, multimedia codecs, and other non-free software. The hardware automatic detection is very good and even detects some winmodems. In-house configuration utilities are also provided.

Official website: http://www.mepis.com

Pros: Installable Live-CD, pre-configured with latest plugins and codecs.

Cons: Not yet well-established, poor adherence to open-source principles.
Xandros

In 2001 Xandros acquired Corel Linux. The distribution was based on Debian and aimed at making it easy for novice users to use GNU/Linux. Nowadays Xandros Desktop is the most user-friendly distribution on the market and is recommended to first time Linux users. In its Deluxe edition Xandros Desktop also includes a NTFS resizing tool and a Windows compatibility layer called CrossOver, which makes it possible to run some Windows applications.

Official website: http://www.xandros.com

Pros: Designed for beginners, easy to use, very stable.

Cons: Small package selection, includes proprietary components, only free for personal use.
Conclusion

People often ask “so which distribution is right for me?”. The answer is very simple: “It depends!”. It depends on your needs, it depends on your experience, on your philosophy or your tastes. It depends on a lot of things, and even if you found the one you preferred among these 10 majors distributions, don’t forget that there are about 340 other distributions available, which could potentially suit your needs. If you’re ready for the adventure, go and explore. Read reviews, try as many as you can and make your own mind. Otherwise, if you just need something good without the hassle, stick to these 10 major distributions. If you’re running a server, consider Debian or Slackware. If you want to install Linux on your home computer for desktop use, consider them all. If you’re new to Linux you could try Xandros, Mepis, Suse or Mandriva. Different people have different tastes and this is exactly why GNU/Linux comes in so many flavors…

Gentoo is often said to be not a distribution so much as a philosophy. If so, that philosophy may be that of FreeBSD, from which it originally developed its emphasis on security and optimization. First released in 2002, it quickly gained a reputation as a geek’s distro, largely because it required all packages to be compiled for maximum optimization for each system. This process could take days to complete, and could mean many wasted hours if you made a mistake.

Perhaps in response, Gentoo developed one of the comprehensive sets of documentation available in free software. Moreover, Gentoo has evolved over the years. It now features a Live CD and a graphical installer, while retaining a high degree of customization. In addition, probably only Debian supports a greater number of hardware architectures.

Since the departure of Daniel Robbins in 2004 to work at Microsoft, Gentoo seems to have lost direction. Robbins’s recent blog suggesting that the governance of the distribution was in such disarray that control of it might as well pass to him, while not altogether serious, serves only to emphasize the lack of organization and direction in the distribution. Yet, while Gentoo itself may have lost much of its prominence, it remains the source of several other distributions, such as Sabayon and Ututo.

Mandriva

Originally known as Mandrake, Mandriva was founded in 1998 and was originally based on Red Hat. Its current name combines elements of Mandrake with Conectiva, a Brazilian distro it acquired in 2005.

Early in its history, Mandriva developed a strong reputation for its emphasis on desktop usability. Its innovations included urpmi, one of the first RPM-based package systems to resolve dependencies, as well as DrakConf (AKA the Mandriva Control Center), one of the most thorough collection of graphical administration tools available for GNU/Linux. Its installation program is reasonably comprehensive while still being user-friendly.

In recent years, Mandriva has struggled to overcome what appears to be an over-expansion, bankruptcy, and a copyright struggle with the Hearst Corporation, which owns the rights to the Mandrake the Magician comic. Even worse, the firing of founder Gael Duval created a controversy in the free software community in 2006. Nor have users warmed to the Mandriva Club, which seems to have degenerated into no more than a way to support the distribution, rather than the nucleus of a community that it was evidently intended as.

Despite these setbacks, Mandriva remains one of the top three commercial distributions, and recent years have seen it starting to recover some of its reputation.

Slackware

Founded by Patrick Volkerding in 1993, Slackware beats out Debian for the title of the oldest still-active distribution by a matter of weeks. It has a long, well-deserved philosophy as a stone geek’s distribution.

This reputation is based on its use of a command-line installer and utilities and an avoidance of anything that could be considered bloated software — including GNOME and OpenOffice.org. Instead of providing graphical interfaces, Slackware requires direct editing of GNU/Linux’s text-based configuration files. And, instead of providing a package system, Slackware continues to rely on compressed tar files, with no mechanism for resolving dependencies.

The trade off for these demands is a fast-running system that rivals or exceeds Debian stable for its reliability. Moreover, much of what a desktop user would see as deficiencies are provided by unofficial projects surrounding software.

Slackware is impressive to see in operation, yet it will never be a popular distribution. However, it remains the basis for countless other distributions, including SLAX, NimbleX, and VectorLinux. Most of these distributions try to add some user-friendliness to Slackware without losing its stability and speed.

Debian

Named for founder Ian Murdock and his wife Debra, Debian may be the most influential GNU/Linux distribution yet. From Ubuntu, Knoppix, and MEPIS through to Xandros and Linspire, many of the best-known distributions today are based on Debian, and the percentage holds roughly true in any listing of distributions. Moreover, with over 1,000 developers and some 20,000 packages, as well as support for 11 different hardware architectures, Debian has a strong claim to being one of the largest free software projects in existence.

Debian is distinguished by its repository system. Each new package enters the unstable repository, then passes through testing to stable status as it meets quality assurance standards. Each of these repositories is further subdivided into three sections: Main,which contains only free software; contrib, which contains free software that requires non-free software to use, and non-free, which contains software not released under a free license. This system allows users to choose the high dependability of official releases, or to choose the balance between cutting edge software and dependability that they prefer. Similarly, the subdivisions allow users to choose the level of software freedom on their systems.

Debian has a reputation for being hard to install and use, neither of which is true today. The new Debian installer released a couple of years ago has taken the pain out of installation, while the prevailing ethos today seems to be to accommodate all levels of users from newbie to expert. Similarly, the frequent complaint that official releases are slow to emerge is largely irrelevant, since most users can get the latest software simply by installing from the appropriate repository.

What is true is that much of Debian’s business is conducted publicly via mailing lists and votes, and with a minimum of politeness. This free-for-all is constantly luring outsiders to believe that Debian is about to fragment, yet somehow it never does. Still, the bluntness in the community can be intimidating at times.
Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

One of the oldest and most successful commercial distributions, these days, Red Hat is divided in two, with Fedora the community face and RHEL the corporate face. Although Red Hat is no longer as influential as in the days when its Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) was the norm, the two distributions remain among the most influential.

Fedora’s main reputation is for being the first distro to include new innovations. For instance, Fedora was the first distribution to include tools that allowed average users to work with SELinux’s detailed security options. In the same way, Fedora 7 was the first to include Smolt, a program for collecting hardware information about users; Revisor, a program for creating custom install disks, and the Liberation typefaces that provide the metrical equivalents of Arial, Helvetica, and Times Roman in free fonts. Although some users on Fedora mailing lists suggest that this innovation makes Fedora unsuitable for servers and mission-critical operations, an increased attention to testing is starting to make that generality obsolete. After a slow couple of years, Fedora is also well on the way to realizing its goal of creating a thriving community in which Red Hat is important, but no longer completely dominates decision-making.

For its part, RHEL remains one of the most successful commercial distributions. Since RHEL is released every 18-24 months, compared to Fedora’s six-month schedule, it benefits from patches to Fedora to make a stable release. Much of RHEL’s commercial success may be due to the Red Hat Certification Program, which is widely regarded as one of the most rigorous — and, therefore, most desirable — in the business.

SUSE Linux Enterprise / OpenSUSE

Founded in Germany in 1996, today SUSE Linux Enterprise is one of the top two commercial distributions, fighting Red Hat Enterprise Linux for predominance. openSUSE is its community version. Traditionally, SUSE had the reputation of being most popular in Europe, although it also has a large North American following.

If a single feature defines both versions of SUSE, that feature is YaST2, its centralized distribution tool that resembles the KDE Control Center on steroids. In fact, in openSUSE’s version of KDE, YaST2 replaces the Control Center. Besides its comprehensive collection of configuration tools, one of the most useful features of YaST is that it is available in both graphical and text-based versions. That means that users who log in to their systems in single-user mode to repair their system can use the same tool set as when they are running the X Window System.

While still prominent, SUSE has fallen under some criticism lately. Many long-time users have never forgiven Novell’s purchase of the distribution, nor the change from KDE to GNOME as the default desktop. Such users tend to regard openSUSE as the natural successor to early versions of the distributions.

Even more seriously, Novell’s development and distribution deal with Microsoft in November 2006 has resulted in efforts to boycott the distribution. This deal caused two major clauses to be added to the third version of the GNU General Public License, and provoked many calls to punish Novell by making it unable to use the license in some way. Novell also lost prominent employees such as Jeremy Allison, leader of the Samba project, because of the deal. This hostility may also have hampered the growth of openSUSE into a strong community.

However, what the long-term effect will be on either SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE is still unknown. It may be that, with Novell’s strong support and certification programs, that the company will manage to weather the controversy, especially if it makes some effort at reconciliation with the free software community.

Ubuntu

Based on Debian, Ubuntu has confounded those who believed there was no longer room for a major new distro by becoming the most widely known and used distro in less than four years.

This rapid growth is due in large part to the energy and investment of Mark Shuttleworth, the South African multi-millionaire who was also one of the first space tourists. Self-appointed dictator of Ubuntu, Shuttleworth also heads Canonical, the commercial arm of Ubuntu.

However, credit must also go to Ubuntu’s success in learning from the real and perceived problems of Debian. Not only is the basic Ubuntu desktop more organized than Debian’s, but the Ubuntu community, with its code of conduct to enforce civility, is generally a much less intimidating place than Debian’s — so much so that Debian has suffered a number of defections of prominent developers to Ubuntu. In addition, Ubuntu’s six month release cycle is much shorter than the periods between official Debian releases.

Another notable feature of Ubuntu is its encouragement of sub-communities. Although the basic Ubuntu distribution uses the GNOME desktop, Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop, and Xubuntu the Xfce desktop. Other variations are Edubuntu, which features educational tools, and the upcoming Gobuntu, which uses only free software.

Until recently, Ubuntu has faced little criticism. However, in the last year, some free software users have complained about the use of non-free drivers in one or two releases, while others have voiced concerns about the increasing move towards commercialization of the distribution. As well, after a promising start, Ubuntu’s rate of innovation seems to be slowing in recent releases. Yet, overall, Ubuntu remains a widely used distribution. In the last year, it has even become the source of its own spinoff distributions, including Linspire, and, for one release, MEPIS.
Conclusion

This list could easily continue, with mention of such distros as Damn Small Linux, Frugalware, K12LTSP, Knoppix, and others. Each of these distributions has its own claim for being influential, but, beyond the seven detailed, agreement about which ones ought to be included would be less unanimous.

However, if you wanted a summary of GNU/Linux’s to this point, then the development of these seven distributions would be a better starting point than most. Only some of the earliest history concerning such extinct distros such as Yggdrasil, would be missing.

As for the future — who can say? Already, several of these seven are important less for themselves than for the traditions they have started. And, just in case anyone starts thinking that the selection of distributions is becoming settled, remember that nobody predicted the rise of Ubuntu. Admittedly, Ubuntu had several advantages from the start, but, given the unpredictability of free software, perhaps a new distribution with an influential new philosophy and toolbox is being readied as you read.

I’ve used different distributions over the years. Right now I happen to use Fedora 9 on most of the computers I have, which really boils down to the fact that Fedora had fairly good support for PowerPC back when I used that, so I grew used to it. But I actually don’t care too much about the distribution, as long as it makes it easy to install and keep reasonably up-to-date. I care about the kernel and a few programs, and the set of programs I really care about is actually fairly small.

And when it comes to distributions, ease of installation has actually been one of my main issues – I’m a technical person, but I have a very specific area of interest, and I don’t want to fight the rest. So the only distributions I have actively avoided are the ones that are known to be “overly technical” – like the ones that encourage you to compile your own programs etc.

Yeah, I can do it, but it kind of defeats the whole point of a distribution for me. So I like the ones that have a name of being easy to use. I’ve never used plain Debian, for example, but I like Ubuntu. And before Debian people attack me – yeah, I know, I know, it’s supposedly much simpler and easier to install these days. But it certainly didn’t use to be, so I never had any reason to go for it.

When I reviewed Slackware last month three of my four main criticisms all boil down to ease of use. I drew the ire of some Slackware users for stating that, in my opinion, Slackware isn’t user friendly due to it’s lack of graphical administration tools, lack of a package manager with dependency checking, and lack of a decent repository of additional software packages. Some even took issue with my using a conventional definition of user friendly, specifically that a distribution be intuitive and relatively easy for even a non-technical user to install, configure, and maintain.

Ease of use isn’t just for newcomers. Nobody would question Linus Torvalds’ expertise when it comes to Linux or his technical skills yet he stresses ease of installation and ease of keeping a distro up to date. In that context his preference for Fedora and Ubuntu over what he calls “overly technical” distributions makes a lot of sense. While he only names Debian I think we can safely assume that Gentoo and Slackware would fit into this category.

The reason Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, and SUSE are leading desktop distributions is that they all try, and to a great degree succeed, in allowing users to concentrate on something other than the OS, like the work they want to do with their computer in the first place. All of these distributions allow you to get under the hood to customize and tweak to whatever extent you might want or need. What they don’t do is force you to get under the hood just to get configuration done. A large repository means that you aren’t forced to compile from source on a regular basis. Linus Torvalds’ comments on distributions are in line with what the majority of Linux users I’ve worked with and talked with over the years prefer, even highly technically competent users.

Linus makes one other point which is worth noting:

Me personally, I’m a believer in choice. Yes, it can be confusing, and yes, it can cause the market to look more fragmented, but on the other hand, it also begets competition. And competition is good – and it’s good even within a project. It’s what makes people try different things, and it ends up being very motivational.

So I don’t personally think we’d have gotten anywhere without all those wild-and-wacky distributions. I’d rather have a bit of spirited discussion and even infighting than a staid landscape with a single vendor (or a couple of vendors who carve out the market)

The freedom of choice that the plethora of Linux distributions offer pretty much guarantees that Linux users will always be able to choose a distribution that suits them best. It’s clear that for a sizable number of Linux uses that choice will be a Linux distribution like Debian, Gentoo, or Slackware.