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How Many Linux Distros Are On the Top Ten?

Posted by brideoflinux on · 13 comments
FOSS Force; By Christine Hall 		Mail this story
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Most distros are based on other distros, basically making them modifications of their parent distros. In most important ways, these child distros behave like their parent distros. They mostly use the same package management and packages can usually be easily installed from the parent distros repository. Configuration is also usually the same, or nearly so, among these derivatives.

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Comments (13)

mbaehrlxer ·
sorry, could not resist!

christine makes a great point though, she is actually asking how many unique distributions there are.

it would also be interesting to look at how much further down the ranking the next unique distribution appears.

greetings, eMBee. (goes back into hiding)
the_doctor ·


Sorry, I couldn't resist. ;)
kikinovak ·
As far as I'm concerned, there's only two Linux distributions.

1. Slackware 2. not Slackware

:o)
BernardSwiss ·
Quoting: As far as I'm concerned, there's only two Linux distributions.

1. Slackware 2. not Slackware

:o)


I'm afraid you're behind the times -- the two Linux distributions are now

1. Systemd 2. not Systemd

:-P

- - - - - - -

Actually, I figure there's, effectively, five types of Linux:

1. Apt (deb) ... 2. RPM ... 3. TGZ ... 4. Source ... 5. odd-ball (ie. everything else)

(though, the way things are going, I may have to revise my scheme as indicated...)
mbaehrlxer ·
maybe we need to look at biological classification, you know, class, order, family, species...

class could be the package format: rpm, deb, tgz, source...

family, the package manager: yum, yast, apt, emerge, ports, etc...

species, the actual distribution...

greetings, eMBee.
number6x ·
Don't forget the hybrids. For example, SuSE is Slackware with RPM.
Bob_Robertson ·
And Ubuntu is ego with apt.
seatex ·
Only one distro that matters, if you drink the Kool-Aid.

jdixon ·
> As far as I'm concerned, there's only two Linux distributions. ... 1. Slackware 2. not Slackware

The four main family trees of Linux seem to be Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, and source based (Gentoo, for example), There are a few others out there, but these four seem to cover something like 95+% of all distributions.
gus3 ·
Let's not forget live-image (Knoppix et al.).
jdixon ·
> Let's not forget live-image (Knoppix et al.).

I thought Knoppix used a Debian base?
Bob_Robertson ·
> I thought Knoppix used a Debian base?

Yep.
devnet ·
Quoting:Actually, I figure there's, effectively, five types of Linux:

1. Apt (deb) ... 2. RPM ... 3. TGZ ... 4. Source ... 5. odd-ball (ie. everything else)

(though, the way things are going, I may have to revise my scheme as indicated...)


You forgot Arch Linux...which is none of the above and I'd say it's too much a part of mainstream to be an odd-ball now.

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