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An Overview of Linux Distributions © 2002 Dave Markowitz People seeking to migrate to Linux from another operating system are often confused as to which distribution to pick. I therefore put together this article to help such people choose a distribution, or "distro." This will not be an in-depth review of the distros I discuss, but more of a brief 30,000 foot view. My aim here is to provide you with enough information to start researching which distro to pick, rather than recommending that you use distro X. Since my experience is strictly with Linux running on x86 hardware, I will confine the article to that platform. (Sorry, Mac users.) Let's first decide which distributions to look at. I've chosen the following:
This is nowhere near a complete list of Linux distros. You can find a more complete listing at the Linux Weekly News and download links as Linuxiso.org. Red Hat Red Hat, currently in version 7.2, is probably the most famous Linux distribution around, largely due to its marketing efforts. RH's focus is on the corporate market, and one of the company's top executives recently stated that he believed Linux's real market niche was a server OS, rather than a desktop OS. That aside, Red Hat can make a fine desktop OS, since it can use the same desktop environments as other distros. One advantage Red Hat has is many Linux books use Red Hat in their examples, so excellent documentation abounds. The Red Hat installation is pretty straightforward and can be done in either a text-based or graphical mode. It offers pre-selected classes of installation, e.g., Workstation or Server. Red Hat originated the widely-adopted RPM, or Red Hat Package Manager tool. Although you can download programs in source code format, then compile and install them, RPM provides a (usually) easy way to download pre-compiled binaries. Red Hat offers the Red Hat Network, and automated software updating tool. This is a subscription-based service, however. For those users who want a journalling file system, Red Hat includes support for ext3fs. SGI also makes available a patch to allow you to run its XFS journalled file system, ported over from IRIX. The default desktop in Red Hat is GNOME. This is pretty nice, but dated when compared with KDE. Hopefully, GNOME 2.0 will be out shortly. Mandrake Mandrake hails from France, and started out as a derivative of Red Hat. It is as popular in the US as Red Hat, possibly even more so, due to intensive marketing. One difference from RH is that Mandrake comes out of the box with the kernel and applications compiled for use on Pentium processors and above. This gives it a performance boost compared with RH, which will work on i386 and above. Mandrake has moved beyond the Pentium optimizations to add a number of unique features which make it its own distro, rather than a RH clone, however. Its GUI utilities are some of the easiest to use, and it has a good automated update system, DrakUpdate. This allows you to automatically go out onto the Internet, search for updates to the packages to your system, download, and install them. This facilitates system administration for non-gurus. (NOTE: Do NOT use DrakUpdate to upgrade your Linux kernel, unless you want to hose your system. This is a known issue that has yet to be resolved.) Mandrake uses the RPM package format, and is almost 100% compatible with Red Hat RPMs. The default desktop in Mandrake is KDE, which allows Windows converts to have a familiar graphical environment in which to learn Linux. Unlike Red Hat, Mandrake is actively courting desktop users, and also markets its products for use on servers. Mandrake makes available three basic versions of the distro: Standard Edition, PowerPack Edition, and ProSuite Edition. Aside from ext2fs, Mandrake supports ext3fs, XFS, and ReiserFS. As of May 2002, the current version of Mandrake is 8.2. SuSE For a fine example of German engineering, check out SuSE. SuSE generally releases a few updates each year; the current version is 8.0. SuSE started out as a Slackware-derivative, but like Red Hat and Mandrake, SuSE uses the RPM package management system. There has also been a significant change in version 8.0 in the way the startup scripts are setup. Previously, SuSE used one large rc.config file to hold the majority of system configuration information, but this has been broken up in version 8.0 to a more conventional group of rc.whatever files. Like Mandrake, SuSE targets both desktop and server use. However, SuSE doesn't restrict itself to smaller boxes, having a port available for the IBM Z-series (S/390) mainframe! For x86 users, the basic versions are SuSE Personal and Professional. While Mandrake often has bleeding-edge software included, SuSE tends to take a more conservative approach. This results in a more stable system, in my experience. SuSE's graphical administration utility is called YaST2, for "Yet Another Setup Tool." This is a full-featured GUI interface to system administration tasks, including downloading and applying software patches. The latter feature is SuSE YOU, or YaST Online Update. One area in which SuSE is better than any other distro, in my experience, is configuring X. SuSE works closely with the Xfree86 developers, and includes a killer configuration tool called SaX2 which allows you to setup and tweak your X configuration with a few mouse clicks. SuSE often has support for new graphics cards before any other distribution. Journalling filesystems are supported in SuSE, including ext3fs, ReiserFS (SuSE was a leader with this one), and IBM's JFS. SuSE's default desktop is KDE, but it also includes a pile of others, including GNOME, Windowmaker, XFCE, and IceWM. I have to disclose that I've been a user of SuSE for some time now. I first tried it out with version 6.1. I went to other distros for awhile, but wound up back with SuSE on version 7.2. I currently run my workstation, Gondor and my server, Mail, on SuSE 7.3. Debian Debian is probably the purest expression of the free software movement. It is a non-commercial distro, maintained by a far-flung network of volunteers. Unlike the distributions discussed previously, Debian does not use the RPM package management system. Rather, it has a "ports" system of applications which includes a vast amount of software, all free. To manage this ports system, Debian uses a tool called apt-get. The strength of apt-get is that once you have a working system, you can downloading a package through one command at a shell prompt, and the system will automatically track down and install any dependencies that are required to make it work. This makes Debian very friendly to system administrators. The same cannot be said of Debian's installer, in my opinion. It is strictly a text-based operation, which isn't necessarily bad, but I don't find it very user friendly. And configuring X can be a bitch. Debian takes a very conservative approach to development. Of the distros discussed in this article, it is the only one which still relies on the 2.2 kernel. Lag time between major Debian releases is measured in years. On the other hand, Debian gives you a rock-solid system that will run and run. It excels for servers, and if you can get it installed to your tastes, it makes a very reliable workstation, as well. The current version of Debian is 2.2, with the next release slated for Real Soon Now. Slackware Real men run Slackware, or that's what the voices in my head tell me anyway. My first experience with Linux, four years ago this month, was with Slackware 3.4. I soon exchanged it for Red Hat 5.0 but I eventually came back to Slack a couple of years later. Slackware is designed to provide the most UNIX-like experience possible. Unlike most Linux distros, it uses BSD-style init scripts, instead of System V-style. Like Debian, it has its own package management system, pkgtool. Slackware packages are simple .tgz files, although RPM support was added a few years ago. There are no GUI admin tools in Slackware. Rather, system administration is handled by running scripts or editing text files directly. While this may scare off Linux newbies, it does make you learn the OS by forcing you to get right into the guts of the system. I learned more about Linux in the six months I ran Slackware than in a couple of years running Red Hat. New releases of Slackware, currently in version 8.0, come out about once a year. There have recently been a lot of updates to Slackware-Current, so hopefully 8.1 will be out soon. Slackware's installation is text-based, but I find that if you pay attention it's not hard. The most difficult part will be configuring X. Like Debian, there's no pretty GUI tool to use, but I was able to get a usable desktop with Slackware, unlike with Debian. (Note: Troubles with configuring X are usually due to the particular graphics card you have.) I eventually wound up getting Metro-X, a commercial X server, to really get my desktop to look good, however. During the time I ran Slack 7.1 exclusively I found it to be just about bomb-proof. It was completely stable and probably the fastest OS I've even used, even though it is not Pentium-optimized the way Mandrake is. Slack installs a nice clean system that UNIX users will like and Linux gurus will love. Up until recently, I had one system running Slackware. That box is now my wife's machine, running Windows, but I would like to setup another Slackware machine in the not too distant future. Slackware now includes support for ext3fs, ReiserFS, JFS, and XFS. Lycoris Formerly known as Redmond Linux, Lycoris is meant as a desktop OS to replace Windows. Brian Bilbrey has done a rather nice review over at his new Linuxmuse sight, here. I haven't really played around with Lycoris myself, so check out his review for more details. Unlike the other distributions discussed in this article, Lycoris is aimed squarely at being a replacement for Windows on the desktop, rather than a server OS. To that end, it includes a relatively limited number of applications and a simplified version of KDE. One important app is a browser for MS Windows networks, which should ease integrating a Lycoris machine into a Microsoft shop. Lycoris uses the journalling ext3fs file system as its standard, and apparently only option. For its intended audience, desktop users migrating from Windows, this is a pretty good choice. It offers stability and the quick recovery time of a journalling filesystem, but without some of the fancier features as included with, say, XFS or JFS. Installation and system administration in Lycoris is handled through the use of well-developed graphical tools, although of course the command line remains an option. Included in the GUI tools is one that allows you to automatically download and apply updates. Conclusion This article is by no means the complete guide to Linux distributions. As I stated at the outset, my goal here is to help you get your feet wet in Linux by getting some of the initial research into which distro to choose out of the way. If you have the opportunity, I suggest that you try more than one Linux distribution. If you don't have a broadband connection and a CD burner, the easiest way to do so is to get a multi-pack of CDs from an online vendors, such as Linux Central or Cheapbytes. Going this route, you can pick up several distributions for under $20, including shipping. And if you're starting out with Linux, there are a wealth of online resources to check for advice, including Linuxmuse, the Linux Documentation Project, and Linux Newbie. And of course, feel free to email me if you have any questions. |
