What is the most "standard" linux distro

[Sureshot324]

Basically I want just plain, minimal linux without any distro specific stuff. I know there's probably no distro completely like this because they all want to stand out from the rest of the distros, but what comes closest?

 

[P0ldy]

I would imagine Gentoo and Slackware, though I haven't used either.

 

[GoodOmens]

Heh this is where people will start listing their favorites. Redhat fedora core is really good as its sorta the "test bed" for their enterprise version.

 

[drag]

Almost all Distros have distro-specific stuff. There is a lot that is left up to the distro makers to decide, and often they make different decisions.

Probably get started with Slackware.

Slackware is a no-frills, just what you need and nothing more, style distro.

It has a couple small things, like the init scripts are in a different style from other distros and (at least the versions I used) didn't have PAM (plugable authentication modules) support (not that you'd tell much of a difference anyways).

But Slackware is very good if what you want to do is 'learn linux'. It's much simiplier then the 'easier to use' style distros like Mandrake, Redhat, Suse. Much easier to figure out and modify.

Personally I use Debian testing and sid, though. It's more complex then Slackware, but is very nice if you want a Linux distro that you can practically use and keep running well in the long term. If you get the hang of apt-get then it's not unusual for the OS to outlast the computer its installed on.

 

[Nothinman]

Debian.

 

[xcript]

Slackware.

 

[phisrow]

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Edit: Come to think of it, if you really want "standard" linux, distros are for wimps. Just use any liveCD to boot the system, then download the source for the kernel and apps. Any decent general purpose liveCD should give you the tools you need to build a fully functional Linux system entirely from source, without any distro at all. Of course, you'd need to have a gluttonous lust for pain to do that.

 

[cleverhandle]

Slackware

 

[Sureshot324]

Probably a dumb question, but do yum and apt-get work with any distro?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: phisrow
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Edit: Come to think of it, if you really want "standard" linux, distros are for wimps. Just use any liveCD to boot the system, then download the source for the kernel and apps. Any decent general purpose liveCD should give you the tools you need to build a fully functional Linux system entirely from source, without any distro at all. Of course, you'd need to have a gluttonous lust for pain to do that.

That won't necessarily follow the linux standards.

 

[Brent of Liquid5th]

There's no real 'standard' for linux. However, if you want to operate in an environment that is most like what enterprise Linux looks like, you will want to use Redhat or SUSE.

Personally, I love Slackware and have heard great things about Ubuntu.

 

[Nothinman]

Probably a dumb question, but do yum and apt-get work with any distro?

Yes and no. Theoretically, yes they can be ported to anything you want. Practically no, a repository for that distro would need setup and maintained and that's not likely to happen for distros that have other setups already.

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: Brent of Liquid5th
There's no real 'standard' for linux. However, if you want to operate in an environment that is most like what enterprise Linux looks like, you will want to use Redhat or SUSE.

Personally, I love Slackware and have heard great things about Ubuntu.

I guess what I mean is a distro that uses the most common software packages for everything, and doesn't use any package that has been created by the maker of the distro.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Sureshot324

Originally posted by: Brent of Liquid5th
There's no real 'standard' for linux. However, if you want to operate in an environment that is most like what enterprise Linux looks like, you will want to use Redhat or SUSE.

Personally, I love Slackware and have heard great things about Ubuntu.

I guess what I mean is a distro that uses the most common software packages for everything, and doesn't use any package that has been created by the maker of the distro.

Unless you count artwork(logos, themes, etc), that's pretty much every distro.
The only ones that really try to differentiate themselves by means of the software offer are the enterprise geared distros, Redhat Enterprise, SuSE Enterprise, etc.

Fedora - Comes with Gnome, Gnome Office, Firefox, etc.
Debian - Lets you pick whatever you want, including all of the above.
SuSE - Comes with KDE, KOffice, etc

Basically, for "desktop distros", you'll get:
KDE or Gnome
KOffice, Gnome Office, or Open Office
Mozilla or Firefox(possibly only Konqueror, KDE's browser)

So in the end, there is indeed no standard, but there is a portfolio of commonly used applications, including everything I've written above, and a whole lot more.

 

[Nothinman]

I guess what I mean is a distro that uses the most common software packages for everything, and doesn't use any package that has been created by the maker of the distro.

Huh? All packages are created by the distro maintainer, it's the only way to get good integration and QA. If all distro maintainers did was download RPMs and put them on a CD we'd be back in 1992.

Just download a few and try them, they're free.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Brent of Liquid5th
There's no real 'standard' for linux. However, if you want to operate in an environment that is most like what enterprise Linux looks like, you will want to use Redhat or SUSE.

Personally, I love Slackware and have heard great things about Ubuntu.

Linux standards.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I guess what I mean is a distro that uses the most common software packages for everything, and doesn't use any package that has been created by the maker of the distro.

Huh? All packages are created by the distro maintainer, it's the only way to get good integration and QA. If all distro maintainers did was download RPMs and put them on a CD we'd be back in 1992.

Just download a few and try them, they're free.

I think he means that RedHat uses apache, instead of RedHat httpd. Packages as in programs in general, instead of as in packages like debs or rpms.

But that's kind of wrong. I wonder who he thinks writes the software. Some F/OSS authors are Debian people, some work for redhat, some work for Mandrake, some use OpenBSD...

 

[Brent of Liquid5th]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: Brent of Liquid5th
There's no real 'standard' for linux. However, if you want to operate in an environment that is most like what enterprise Linux looks like, you will want to use Redhat or SUSE.

Personally, I love Slackware and have heard great things about Ubuntu.

Linux standards.

So every Linux distro listed here will look, feel, and act the same? They all have the same filesystem layouts and identical binary/library/config locations?

 

[Nothinman]

So every Linux distro listed here will look, feel, and act the same? They all have the same filesystem layouts and identical binary/library/config locations?

If they did, they would be the same product and that would be stupid. They're LSB-compliant, meaning they follow a number of standards, sort of like Win2K and WinXP are compatible but still not exactly the same.

 

[bob4432]

i installed fedora, mandrake 10.1 and the newest mepis and found that i like mepis the most. i am an extreme noob when it comes to linux but mepis has been nice so far. and it runs decent even on a 533MHz celeron w/ 192MB ram and integrated video on a 5400rpm hdd. nice os

 

[Brent of Liquid5th]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

So every Linux distro listed here will look, feel, and act the same? They all have the same filesystem layouts and identical binary/library/config locations?

If they did, they would be the same product and that would be stupid. They're LSB-compliant, meaning they follow a number of standards, sort of like Win2K and WinXP are compatible but still not exactly the same.

Your lack of knowledge is spreading to other threads now. Having the same filesystem layout and binary/library/config locations does not mean that the product is the same in any way. It only means the products are highly compatible with each other. Which is the point of wanting a standard in the first place. You should really think before you click Reply.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Brent of Liquid5th

Originally posted by: Nothinman

So every Linux distro listed here will look, feel, and act the same? They all have the same filesystem layouts and identical binary/library/config locations?

If they did, they would be the same product and that would be stupid. They're LSB-compliant, meaning they follow a number of standards, sort of like Win2K and WinXP are compatible but still not exactly the same.

Your lack of knowledge is spreading to other threads now. Having the same filesystem layout and binary/library/config locations does not mean that the product is the same in any way. It only means the products are highly compatible with each other. Which is the point of wanting a standard in the first place. You should really think before you click Reply.

Your nuts.

The LSB is a standard and those distros listed do conform to a certain part of it. This does mean a measure of binary compatability.

And for your information distros that have the certain file layout can be dramaticly incompatable with distros with the _exactly_ same file system layout. Were as distros with different layouts can be much more compatable.

Were you put the files matter much less then some other things. Such as library versions, or wether or not a system has most of it's programs compiled with PAM support or not. What sort of allowances does a distro make for it's init scripts. Weither or not you can expect that Gnome or KDE installed and a hundred other variables.

I can take any random library file and stick it in /usr/local/lib, or /usr/lib/ or /lib/ or any other number of library file locations. Just as long as ldconfig knows to look in there to build the cache for the run-time linker, then it would work just fine.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: Brent of Liquid5th

Originally posted by: Nothinman

So every Linux distro listed here will look, feel, and act the same? They all have the same filesystem layouts and identical binary/library/config locations?

If they did, they would be the same product and that would be stupid. They're LSB-compliant, meaning they follow a number of standards, sort of like Win2K and WinXP are compatible but still not exactly the same.

Your lack of knowledge is spreading to other threads now. Having the same filesystem layout and binary/library/config locations does not mean that the product is the same in any way. It only means the products are highly compatible with each other. Which is the point of wanting a standard in the first place.

It seemed pretty clear that Nothinman's reply related to the first of the two questions. As in... if they were exactly alike in function, look, and feel then there would be no product differentiation. You're looking for arguments where they don't exist.

You should really think before you click Reply.

As should you.

 

[KB]

To me the most standard distro is the distro that most other distros borrow the most from. That would be debian. All of the RPM distros are just too different from each other. All of the deb distros are still fairly compatible.