What is a Linux distribution? - Linux Tutorial

- [Instructor] A Linux distribution is a combination of the Linux kernel, a variety of core tools and other software, specific configurations, and a set of choice or philosophies about how a Linux system should operate. There are many Linux distributions out there, and they were all developed with a particular audience in mind and with different choices that their maintainers think are best. There are distributions intended to be used by a broad group of people, from novices to professionals and anyone in between. These are sometimes further divided into more specialized distributions which focus on people who use audio visual production tools, or who are software developers or scientists or security enthusiasts. Some distributions are designed to be used on servers, and some are intended for old computers. There are distributions intended to be used in embedded devices, the kinds of computers that we find in smart home devices, cars, networking equipment, and so on. And some Linux distributions are designed to be used by people working for a specific company or for a particular government or branch of government. So we can think of a Linux distribution as a kind of starter kit, or even a predesigned template of an operating system that starts out in a known state with a specific set of software and a specific way of being managed. This is important because in the Linux world, there are many tools that can accomplish the same or similar tasks. Early on in the history of using Linux, in order to get a system up and running, we'd compile the kernel from source code, use software to tell the system how to get booted up, and we'd copy over or compile tools we needed to run the system. As Linux systems became more complex and widespread, a variety of software tools were developed to handle tasks like installing software, managing system settings and services, and configuring different aspects of the system, like networking. A highly motivated person could put this all together themselves, but it was time-consuming to do so, and the results were often inconsistent. So people and companies began developing distributions, taking it upon themselves to make choices about the system and the included software and shipping that whole experience, that whole predefined operating system, in a way that end users could install it on their computers with less effort and less frustration. You could order disks or CD-ROMs with a distribution and additional software through the mail. And in most cases, the software itself was free. You'd usually only pay for shipping costs or include a small donation to help the maintainers cover administrative costs. And unlike most other software at the time, you were actively encouraged to share the software with your friends, once you had finished using the installation disks. Then instead of spending hours or days doing very technical work to get a Linux system running, you could pop in a disk or 12 and have a fully functional system pretty quickly. Distributions help to kickstart broad adoption of Linux and help to standardize the operation of Linux systems. Distributions also made it a lot easier to get started using and learning about Linux. If you had a newly installed Debian system, for example, you could reach out to the Linux community and find others using Debian and know that your software, settings, and system were the same as theirs. And that was useful in the case of asking for help with a problem or for using or distributing software. And companies that created distributions, like Red Hat, could offer paid support to users that chose to use their distribution, in such a way that the support people could focus on what needed fixing, not on figuring out what software and what settings were being used on a bunch of random homemade Linux installations. From a few distributions at the beginning to many nowadays, selecting the right one for you can seem intimidating. Yes, all the Linux distributions are Linux, but they're each tuned or intended or designed for slightly different use cases. They each make a set of decisions about the system informed by what the intended use of the distribution is. Those decisions result in choices about what software is used on a given distribution and how settings are managed. These are important factors to consider when we explore which distro is right for us. Next, we'll take a look at some history behind some of the most widely used distributions. And then throughout the rest of this chapter, we'll take a look at some of these major choices that distribution maintainers make for us, and why they do so.