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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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What are the differences between the 'base' of various Linux distributions? (self.linux)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by Sunny to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I've been using linux desktop for a year or so now. One noteable thing i keep seeing is that one person will say I dont like XYZ distrobution because of its base. But I am still a little unsure what is meant by it. I am assuming the main difference between each base is the choice of package management(?). But what other factors/aspects that are important for the average user to know about each 'base'? This is probably quite a broad question to a rather technical answer, but appriciate any answers, and i'll try my best to understand and read up :)

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[–] Guenther_Amanita 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

There are a few "grandfather"-distros out there, for example Debian and Arch. They've been around for a few decades now.

Then, they got kinds, because some people said "I don't like xy, I will do it better", but granddaddy disagreed, so they split apart.
That's what Ubuntu is to Debian for example, that's why Ubuntu is Debian-based. They are related to each other (e.g. the same package manager), but differ in some things (e.g. update cycle).

This cycle of forking continues, that's how Mint got there for example. Mint is based on Ubuntu, and Ubuntu is based on Debian.

But nowadays, the gap between distros gets smaller, with things like Distrobox, Nix, Flatpaks, and more. I wouldn't mind working with a PC that has Mint on it instead of Fedora. Sure, there are reasons why I prefer one over the other, but in the end, they're all the same.

One example I can think of where the base matters, and not the package manager, is when adding an user to the sudo group. RedHat distros need another promt than Debian for example.

But other than that, the thing that defines a distro are the packages, they make a distro unique.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The base tarball between Debian and Arch (locked to the same glibc) differ only very slightly in software composition stratified mostly by filesystem organization. One could actually make the case then, that the package manager is what differentiates the OS -- in which case, Arch's source code could be conflated to being pacman's source code