A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

made from a software collection that includes the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ...

and, often, a

package management system A package manager or package-management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals w ...

. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices (for example,

OpenWrt OpenWrt (from ''open wireless router'') is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All ...

) and

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...

s (for example, Linux Mint) to powerful

supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructio ...

s (for example,

Rocks Cluster Distribution Rocks Cluster Distribution (originally NPACI Rocks) is a Linux distribution intended for high-performance computing (HPC) clusters. It was started by National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure and the San Diego Supercompute ...

). A typical Linux distribution comprises a Linux kernel,

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

tools and libraries, additional software, documentation, a

window system In computing, a windowing system (or window system) is software that manages separately different parts of display screens. It is a type of graphical user interface (GUI) which implements the WIMP (windows, icons, menus, pointer) paradigm fo ...

(the most common being the

X Window System The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

, or, more recently, Wayland), a

window manager A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunctio ...

, and a

desktop environment In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a grap ...

. Most of the included software is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

made available both as compiled binaries and in

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...

form, allowing modifications to the original software. Usually, Linux distributions optionally include some

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and i ...

that may not be available in source code form, such as

binary blob In the context of free and open-source software, proprietary software only available as a binary executable is referred to as a blob or binary blob. The term usually refers to a device driver module loaded into the kernel of an open-source ope ...

s required for some

device driver In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer or automaton. A driver provides a software interface to hardware devices, enabling operating systems and o ...

s. A Linux distribution may also be described as a particular assortment of application and utility software (various GNU tools and libraries, for example), packaged with the Linux kernel in such a way that its capabilities meet many users' needs. The software is usually adapted to the distribution and then combined into software packages by the distribution's maintainers. The software packages are available online in repositories, which are storage locations usually distributed around the world. Beside "glue" components, such as the distribution installers (for example, Debian-Installer and

Anaconda Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus '' Eunectes''. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized. Description Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used t ...

) and the package management systems, very few packages are actually written by a distribution's maintainers. Almost one thousand Linux distributions exist. Because of the huge availability of software, distributions have taken a wide variety of forms, including those suitable for use on desktops, servers, laptops,

netbooks Netbook was a commonly used term that identified a product class of small and inexpensive laptops which were sold from 2007 to around 2013. These machines were designed primarily as cost-effective tools for consumers to access the Inte ...

, mobile phones and tablets, as well as in minimal environments typically for use in embedded systems. There are commercially backed distributions, such as

Fedora Linux Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the Fedora Project. Fedora contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to be on the leading edge of open-source technologies. Fedora is the upstream source ...

(

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become a ...

openSUSE openSUSE () is a free and open source RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Additionally the project creates a variety of tools, s ...

(

SUSE SUSE ( , ) is a German-based multinational open-source software company that develops and sells Linux products to business customers. Founded in 1992, it was the first company to market Linux for enterprise. It is the developer of SUSE Linux Ent ...

) and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

(

Canonical Ltd. Canonical Ltd. is a UK-based privately held computer software company founded and funded by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth to market commercial support and related services for Ubuntu and related projects. Canonical employs staff ...

); and entirely community-driven distributions, such as

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System, Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributio ...

, Gentoo and

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

. Most distributions come ready-to-use and precompiled for a specific

instruction set In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ...

, while some (such as Gentoo) are distributed mostly in

form and must be compiled locally for installation.

History

Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds ( , ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the lead developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android. He also ...

developed the

and distributed its first version, 0.01, in 1991. Linux was initially distributed as

only, and later as a pair of downloadable

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined ...

images: one bootable and containing the Linux kernel itself, and the other with a set of

utilities and tools for setting up a file system. Since the installation procedure was complicated, especially in the face of growing amounts of available software, distributions sprang up to simplify it. Early distributions included: * H. J. Lu's "Boot-root", the aforementioned disk image pair with the kernel and the absolute minimal tools to get started (late 1991) *

MCC Interim Linux MCC Interim Linux was a Linux distribution first released in February 1992 by Owen Le Blanc of the Manchester Computing Centre (MCC), part of the University of Manchester. It was the first Linux distribution created for computer users who were n ...

(February 1992) * Softlanding Linux System (SLS) which included the X Window System and was the most comprehensive distribution for a short time (1992) * Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X, a commercial distribution (December 1992) The two oldest, still active distribution projects started in 1993. The SLS distribution was not well maintained, so in July 1993 a new SLS-based distribution,

, was released by Patrick Volkerding. Also dissatisfied with SLS,

Ian Murdock Ian Ashley Murdock (April28, 1973 – December 28, 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. Life and career Although Murdock's parents ...

set to create a free distribution by founding

, first released in December 1993. Users were attracted to Linux distributions as alternatives to the

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

operating systems on

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones ...

computers,

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

on the

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...

, and

proprietary {{Short pages monitor The current Microsoft Windows license lets the manufacturer determine the refund policy. With previous versions of Windows, it was possible to obtain a refund if the manufacturer failed to provide the refund by litigation in the small claims courts. On February 15, 1999, a group of Linux users in

Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, ...

held a "Windows Refund Day" protest in an attempt to pressure Microsoft into issuing them refunds. In France, the Linuxfrench and AFUL (French speaking Libre Software Users' Association) organizations along with free software activist

Roberto Di Cosmo Roberto Di Cosmo is an italian computer scientist and director of IRILL, the Innovation and research initiative for free software (). He graduated from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and obtained a PhD from the University of Pisa, before b ...

started a "Windows Detax" movement,Detaxe.org
Say no to bundled software - Say yes to informed consumers which led to a 2006 petition against "racketiciels" (translation: Racketware) with 39,415 signatories and the DGCCRF branch of the French government filing several complaints against bundled software. On March 24, 2014, a new international petition was launched by AFUL on the Avaaz platform, translated into several languages and supported by many organizations around the world.

Statistics

There are no official figures on popularity, adoption, downloads or

installed base Installed base (also install base, install ''ed'' user base or just user base) is a measure of the number of units of a product or service that are actually in use, as opposed to market share, which only reflects sales over a particular period. ...

of Linux distributions. There are also no official figures for the total number of Linux systems, partly due to the difficulty of quantifying the number of

PCs A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...

running Linux (see Desktop Linux adoption), since many users

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

Linux distributions. Hence, the sales figures for Linux systems and commercial Linux distributions indicate a much lower number of Linux systems and level of

Linux adoption Linux adoption is the adoption of Linux computer operating systems (OS) by households, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and governments. Many factors have resulted in the expanded use of Linux systems by traditional desktop users as well as ...

than is the case; this is mainly due to Linux being

that can be downloaded free of charge. A Linux Counter Project had kept track of a running guesstimate of the number of Linux systems, but did not distinguish between rolling release and standard release distributions. It ceased operation in August 2018, though a few related blog posts were created through October 2018. Desktop usage statistical reports for particular Linux distributions have been collected and published since July 2014 by the Linux Hardware Project.

Notes

References

External links

The LWN.net Linux Distribution List
nbsp;– a categorized list with information about each entry

* Google's approach to a large-scale live upgrading between two widely different Linux distributions
presentation
an
text version
LinuxCon 2013, by Marc Merlin
Rolling release vs. fixed release Linux

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. H ...

, February 3, 2015, by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols {{DEFAULTSORT:Linux Distribution Linus Torvalds

History

Statistics

See also

Notes

References

External links