Linux Distros for Everyone: Community, Desktop, Hardcore Geek...

July 10, 2007
By

Bruce Byfield

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Browse the full list of Linux distributions, or jump to the category based on the following list: Commercial, Community, Compact, Desktop, Graphics and Music, Hardcore Geek, Hardware Oriented, Live, Education, Philosophically Free, Security, Miscellaneous.

Community-based Distros

Community is at the heart of most distributions. However, for a handful, a transparent, partly consensus-driven decision-making process is as important as the software that is shipped. The largest of these community-based distros provide an interesting contrast to the traditional corporate structure.

CentOS: Centos bills itself as "the community enterprise operating system." With a reputation for stability, it is particularly suitable for small- to medium-sized businesses or non-profit organizations that can support GNU/Linux in-house. Using the same source code as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS also features a growing and active community.

Debian: By far the largest community built around a distro, Debian is a model for other free software communities. The Debian constitution spells out the leadership roles and their duties -- and even how to impeach office-holders, while the Debian Free Software Guidelines have often resulted in decisions more radical than those of the Free Software Foundation's. Policy discussion in Debian is public, heated, and too often drawn out at excruciating length, but the result is one of the democratic organizations you could ask for. Debian is also known for the stability of its official releases, its support of multiple hardware architectures, and its broad selection of packages, as well as the distribution from which many other popular distros derive, including Ubuntu, Knoppix, and Linspire.

Fedora: Fedora's inclusion here may seem surprising to those who consider it an off-shoot of Red Hat. However, in the last couple of years, Fedora has managed to set up a thriving community, with public decision-making and dozens of sub-projects. With Debian, Fedora is one of the two or three main sources for other distributions.

OpenSUSE: Sponsored by Novell, OpenSUSE is the community version of Novell's Suse distribution. A relatively recent community, its declared goals -- widespread distribution, collaboration,and improved package management -- are still generic, but the community itself is characterized by organization into teams and projects.