
Linux flavors and derivatives tree - jacquesm
http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/uploads/11.10/gldt1110.svg
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exDM69
Very cool image. My uni computer lab has a poster that has a family tree of
Unix derivatives, starting from the Bell labs that is similar to this. Like
the unix tree, this tree is also (naturally) incomplete because anyone can
create their own linux distro or unix clone, and many do.

One particular omission that caught my eye was OpenWRT descendants, there was
quite a number of them a few years ago. OpenWRT is huge in the wireless router
market.

Many people see the large number of Linux distributions as a negative thing. I
don't agree. The rich diversity of Linux distributions is what fuels constant
development and makes it possible to run on pretty much any piece of hardware
out there and handle any computing task you can throw at it.

There are even separate Windows distributions out there, in addition to the
ones sold to regular customers, they have specialized distributions for e.g.
point of sale computers. And of course, there are some custom hacked pirate
Windows distros.

~~~
sciurus
The most impressive unix family tree I've seen is
<http://www.levenez.com/unix/>. Despite being simplified, when printed it's
about 20 feet long.

~~~
burgerbrain
I think "simplified" is a bit of a stretch. That thing lists minor version
number releases for iOS as separate nodes!

~~~
sciurus
Agreed, but the creator claims "This is a simplified diagram of unix history.
There are numerous derivative systems not listed in this chart, maybe 10 times
more!"

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eykanal
Pretty naive question here, but how large is the difference between base
versions (i.e., debian vs. redhat)? I'm not a linux user so I have no
experience with this stuff... can you run the same software on each?

If this is too broad of a question to answer, if someone could provide a link
explaining this sort of basic stuff, I'd appreciate it.

~~~
effigies
In general, the main differences between distros consist of:

    
    
        - Versions of software included
        - Whether any "non-free" software is included
        - How the directory structure is used (for instance, do you use /opt or /usr/local)
        - Is there a package manager / ports system, or do you compile everything on your own?
        - In the event of multiple solutions to the same problem (common), the distro often makes a default choice
        - The GUI often has custom features, such as configuration applets
        - The support culture around each
    

But if a piece of software can be compiled and installed on one distribution
of Linux, though I'm sure there exists an exception, you can generally count
on being able to get it to work on another, though it may take some work.

~~~
dspillett
Another key difference is the startup/shutdown process (and service management
generally). Some use sysv stile init setup, some use the style more common
with BSD.

Several distributions (such as Ubuntu and its derivatives) are moving towards
replacing init and related scripts and tools completely with upstart or
similar options (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Init#Replacements_for_init>).

~~~
burgerbrain
Notably Fedora has switched to systemd, which probably means we'll see it or
maybe something like it in RHEL sometime in the future.

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peterwwillis
Heh, the distro I made was so short-lived it didn't make it to the list. After
you build the basic system it becomes incredibly tedious to maintain and
update the thing. But great experience if you want to learn about the guts of
GNU/Linux systems or like stripping things down (10MB distros with GUI web
browsers are still possible).

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TeMPOraL
Wow, I didn't know you can make clickable links in SVG.

Also, it's interesting how many different flavors of Linux are there, suited
for a single goal or for specific groups of users. Interesting examples of
Ubuntu versions: <http://ubuntuce.com/>,
<http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=sabily> and
<http://www.planetwatt.com/>.

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bhrgunatha
What is it about Debian that caused the proliferation of derivatives?

~~~
lftl
I would say the key reasons are:

1) They nailed package management early on. Apt doesn't feel revolutionary
today, but in the 90s it was WAY better than what Redhat was using as it's
package management core.

2) Debian's staunch adherence to their free software guidelines drives forks
in two ways. First, you can fork without any worry you're violating a license
on some component. Secondly, it encourages people to fork because some people
will want to include some of those missing components in out of the box
installs, and that simply won't happen with Debian.

3) Ubuntu. If you look at derivatives, about half of them forked off of
Ubuntu, so Debian gets to count them as descendants because Ubuntu is based
off Debian.

~~~
dredmorbius
Debian Policy. It makes for an _exceptionally_ predictable system. A bunch of
other bits and pieces which derive from this, open BTS among them.

And APT (with policy) still blows RPM out of the water. Lack of policy is a
big part. I'd like to play with Mandriva, which uses APT tools but the RPM
format just for comparison, but the fact that I can pull apart archives using
ar, tar, and gzip, as opposed to relying on an inconstant binary format, has
proven invaluable more than once.

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moe
Unrelated: Why on earth does Chrome not scale the huge SVG down to my browser
size?

Every raster-image under the sun gets auto-scaled - and then it fails on the
one format that was made for scaling...

~~~
peterwwillis
View Source. Looks like the item sizes/positions are hard-coded.

~~~
moe
Ok, in that case I'll have to blame the author of that image...

~~~
peterwwillis
Heh... well instead of blaming, wanna help fix their code?
<https://launchpad.net/gnuclad>

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xd
If the author is reading this.

AtheOS wasn't a linux distro. It was written from scratch as a hobby OS based
on POSIX.

Archlinux was based on Linux from scratch and took some inspiration from crux
to keep things simple (I was one of the first volunteers that helped with
arch).

~~~
sciurus
Good point about AtheOS. Confusingly, the successor project Syllable did
release a linux distribution in "Syllable Server".

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brokentone
Very nice graphic. If there were some way to zoom this a little (I know I can
browser zoom, but then the text is unreadable) and some way to distinguish the
more popular flavors, that would be pretty awesome. For instance, CentOS is
one of the most popular distros at this point, and it's really tough to find
(purple branch under the main RedHat line, halfway to the right)

~~~
figital
Maybe with the font size dictated by something like a 6-month distrowatch
ranking (or something based on harder metrics).

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roqetman
I wonder how Google's Android would fit into this?

~~~
rmc
It uses Linux kernel, but none of the userspace stuff, so none of the distro
stuff.

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figital
Crunchbang ditched the Ubuntu layer about a year ago and is now just on top of
Debian using Openbox.

~~~
hello_moto
Have you use/are you using CrunchBang? If yes, would you mind to share your
experience? I'm looking for a minimalist Linux that can boot to console by
default but comes with Xorg pre-installed with one command away to invoke some
sort of Windows Manager in case I want to browse using Chrome.

~~~
sciurus
Crunchbang is probably a good choice, but if you want to be really minimal

1) Install debian, but don't choose to install the desktop environment 2)
Install the programs you want, e.g. 'sudo apt-get install xorg openbox
chromium' 3) When you want to browse the web, run 'startx'

I've switched to running my personal laptop and work desktop this way. Granted
I'm not a typical user, but it's surprised me how much of the modern linux
desktop I can strip away and still have a pleasant experience.

~~~
hello_moto
NICE!. Thank you very very much for the info! I'm looking for something
similar to this setup (and expand as you go).

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lordlarm
Here is a interesting SVG image[1] from Wikipedia [2], comparing the
development of different Unix-like systems.

[1]:
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_hist...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Unix_history-
simple.svg) [2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like>

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cleaver
The first thing I did was to see if there were any distros I could remember
that weren't listed... The first is Finn linux (or was it Fynn or Flynn?) that
was an early attempt at a commercial distribution. I recall some ads in
computer mags around '94 or '95 and it was fairly expensive (several hundred).
Obviously it never went anywhere.

The other is the Linux Router Project which was a router/firewall distro that
would fit on a 3.5" floppy disc.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Router_Project>) I actually used it and
was disappointed that it didn't really go anywhere. It was nice to be able to
back up your firewall by copying a floppy disk :)

~~~
Avshalom
There was also the short lived Rubix distro, which used Pacman but was based
on a hardened Slackware if I remember.

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resnamen
I'd like to know what this "Muslim edition" of Ubuntu is about. Green color
scheme? Call-to-prayer apps?

I'm not being facetious here, I really am curious.

~~~
bru
The answer is both on the Distrowatch page [1] and their website [2]:

> What are the main features of Sabily?

> The main software are: Zekr and Mus-haf Othman (Quran study tools), Minbar
> and Firefox-praytimes (prayer times applications), Monajat (application that
> popups prayers every predetermined time), Hijra (islamic calendar) and Nanny
> (parental control tool). Arabic language is also well supported. And of
> course the graphic design is also customized (see screenshots).

[1] <http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=sabily>

[2] <http://www.sabily.org/website/en/sabily/what-is-sabily.html>

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leakybucket
I'd always believed that Slackware was the first Linux distribution - this
claims that "MCC Interim" was actually first?

~~~
adestefan
I think that SLS was the first "complete" distribution. Things like MCC and
TAMU were nothing more than a set of bootdisks that would get you a kernel, a
simple init, and some basic utilities up and running.

Slackware and Yggdrasil soon followed as a way to cleanup and remove bugs from
SLS.

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deathwarmedover
I looked at this and thought "Oh cool! I wonder where Gentoo fits into this."

It took me a while to think how to find it, but I eventually got there by
looking up what year it was first released and scrolling down that column.

~~~
cskau
Since it's SVG you can actually use your browser's Ctrl+f to find text in the
illustration. It does however not do text highlighting, so you still have to
do manual searching from the point on the "page" it finds.

~~~
jlarocco
Not highlighting is a browser bug. Searching in SVG highlights the results for
me.

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jerhewet
Original link has gone to link heaven. Alternative is
<http://ompldr.org/vYmV5bQ>

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bprater
Cool. Browser search sucks, though. Can type in distros -- but good luck
finding them!

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davvid
How did they create these beautiful graphs?

