hi guys,

I've been wondering which distro has the most typical filesystem (hierarchical structure of files). What I mean is e.g I know that in Centos /etc/X11/xorg.conf is responsible for X settings, obviously in Debian some other file is responsible for it. Are the differences between e.g. slackware - debian -rhel very big, or is it just a few configuration files?
My concern is that I haven't been using linux for a long time, so I am not an expert. If I use only one distro e.g slackware (I like that one) I will probably have problems doing some stuff on any other distro. I gather there is no other way of knowing it than to learn mzjor distros? Am I right?

thanks

The current Linux distributions (SUSE, Fedora/Red Hat, Debian with "Etch") use the FHS (Filesystem Heirarchy Specification), and ship the same software (2.6 kernel, X.org etc.) so are mostly similar.

Variations occur for specific technologies where the implementation can differ by distribution. For example, service management is not standardized between distributions. Unfortunately, you do have to use a couple of distros to be familiar with those areas - if you've used Debian and Fedora you'll be fine.

I don't actually know whether Slackware complies with the FHS.

Edit: amended to answer the question on learning variations.