An exploration of the various options that users have with distributions of Linux

– Linux Kernel – Supporting features and programs Usually tailored to a particular purpose – With so many options, it is easy to find the perfect solution.

First, check compatibility. – Try Knoppix Pick a distribution – Install and go!

Red Hat: One of the earliest players in the game, Red Hat now position itself strongly in the business market. It has created a community- supported distribution, Fedora Core, which is the choice of many for desktop use. Debian: The most popular community-created distribution. Debian is an excellent choice for server environments. Debian has also been used as the base for many specialist distributions. Ubuntu: Desktop usability, out of the box. Taglined "Linux for human beings,” Based on Debian. SUSE: Novell's answer to Red Hat, comes in “enterprise” and a community-based OpenSUSE All Distributions have their respective strengths.

List Major Distributions

Focuses on usability. Offered by Dell on many of their products Offers Firefox, Openoffice, Games Variations of Ubuntu: – Edubuntu, a distribution designed for classrooms using GNOME – Kubuntu, a desktop distribution using KDE rather than GNOME – Xubuntu, a "lightweight" distribution based on the Xfce desktop environment instead of GNOME – Mythbuntu, a distribution that is tied heavily to MythTV – Ubuntu Studio, a multimedia-creation flavor of Ubuntu

Owned by Novell, Inc. Several desktop environments such as KDE and GNOME and window managers like Window Maker and Blackbox are included Some multimedia features Openoffice.org and Realplayer Designed for Business/commercial use and networking

RH Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is targeted toward the commercial market, including mainframes. Includes software for database management: – Linux – Apache – MySQL – PHP – PostgreSQL – GNOME 2.16 – KDE 3.5.4

Specialization for Power Architecture processors (IBM Power, PowerPC, Cell) Supports accelerated graphics and audio hardware out-of-the-box. Includes: – Firefox – Openoffice – Instant Messaging – Media Players Is the first supported alternative OS for Sony’s Playstation 3 (Cell)

Wikipedia ion%29 DistroWatch