What's the difference: Many distros based on Debian-Ubuntu?
 

I've been doing some research lately about some 20+ distros that I want to try ranging from beginner-friendly distros up to medium'ish difficulty distros like Gentoo and Slackware if these can be classified as medium difficulty distros.

I have two aims from my discussion here:

1- I want to save time: 20+ isn't a small number.

2- I see a large number of distros having the same base (deb/ubuntu mix), the same DE, the same Package Manager. And the difference is only in the motto or the logo. What's the point of this difference of flavors yet it is still almost the same at the heart of it. Am I seeing this correctly or Am I wrong?

Please share your thoughts and insights about this so I can see better. Your help will be much appreciated. I need to be more proficient/professional in linux asap because I really like the idea.

I have to apologize that my mother tongue isn't English. I might have expressed myself in a non-standard way to the English-speaking cultures. I hope you forgive the difference in culture. :)

P.S. About my skill as a user:
-I'm 29. I used to play games on DOS. I'm not afraid of a black and white screen.
-I'm familiar with basic commands like sudo apt-get and make install and the difference between sudo and not sudo.
-I know the difference between Desktop Environments/Window Managers.
-I've installed Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, OpenSUSE, Debian, dsl, lubuntu, Kali, Fedora, Mint, and Arch. Some tried for a few days and some used for months.

Gentlemen, Let's make this topic a fruitful one! Please do share your insights and I'm all ears.

Hint: /usr/local/bin

Don't ask me to explain.
Some things just need to be experienced.

Distros have a focus set by their authors. The software they choose to include is based on personal preference and may not be what you or I choose to use. There are distros over 4GB in size that include everything imaginable and try to be all things to all people. The one consistency is all use a kernel.

The different spins either add to or subtract from the base they are built from to meet the goals of the author. Debian can be a pain for a noob as a lot of hardware may not be supported without adding non-free repositories. A lot of spins add a lot of extra hardware support so it runs on more types of computers out of the box. You can do it yourself if you have the time and knowledge but many folks don't have either and like it when the work is done for them.

Basically you can start from a "pure" base and build what you want IF you want to invest the time and effort. Or you can find a spin that is close to what you want and fine tune it. I started with a very small Lubuntu spin and built it into a system I like and does what I want it to do. It includes remastersys so I can create a bootable ISO from it and install it on other computers (did that tonight actually)...

The purpose of a spin or derivative is to suit a certain demographic of users, but many are pointless. In some cases "spins" are the base system with a few minor modifications.

I cannot remember names, but there are one or two distributions geared toward audio-visual usage, Scientific Linux is optimised for laboratory and other research use, Kali is configured with security tools for professional use, etc. A skilled user can do the same things the derivatives do with a base Debian, Red Hat or Slackware system, but the derivatives provide a pre-configured version.

Other "spins" are no more than the base system with a different default GUI or have proprietary software not included in the base system.

The best thing to do is read the "About" section on a distribution's web site. It will give you an idea of the target user demographic and what changes in software have been made.

Slackware could be considered a medium level system, because of the manual partitioning during installation and the lack of an automated package manager. Other than that it is easy enough for a beginner to use. I have never used Gentoo, but it strikes me as an advanced distribution.

It is, mostly. If you do a stage1 install, it's pretty advanced, but you could always do a stage 3 install which isn't THAT much more difficult than installing Debian or Slackware (ok, it is harder, but honestly I can do it, so it's not hard). The problem (IMO) with Gentoo is waiting for updates to compile. While once upon a time I could tell the difference in how it ran on my systems (this is like 8 years ago when 32-bit software on 64-bit hardware was starting to be common), nowadays with everything 64-bit native, the compile times just isn't worth the work or the wait. Obviously, others disagree and that's the reason Gentoo is still around.

As for the question of the OP's as to why, the first response was pretty spot-on. Most "respins" are just the base OS with a different default package selection. Such as on one of my machines, I have Sparky Linux which is just Debian "testing" with LXQT environment. As base Debian doesn't offer LXQT (yet), I use Sparky to save the time of having to manually install & update LXQT.

Some would think that your post is too short. But No! It isn't. It has a lot in it. "Some things just need to be experienced" you're so right in this. That's how I came to linux, erased the whole hard-disk by mistake twice to learn how to format & partition partitions properly! xD and by the way I've already downloaded the FHS pdf.

Thank you, sir, for showing me one way to be more knowledgeable. :)

First of all Congrats on your project! :) I really hope I do that some day :) I loved Lubuntu when I used it. Very light and simplistic. :) keep it up! :)

Secondly, about our topic here, Thanks for explaining. It makes me more confident and sure of myself. I didn't know this "hardware support" bit. I don't think I would've understood that on my own, you saved me a lot of time. Thanks again and good luck with your spin project! :)

Thanks for your post. But I have a question:

What do you mean by lack of an automated package manager?

About Gentoo, Please tell me more about it. Is it an Old-style distro? This is the 2nd post I read about Gentoo as an old-fashioned/ somewhat "dying" distro...or at least this is the impression I got from another topic here on the forums. Is the support/popularity getting weaker for Gentoo?

It does not have a package managing tool like apt and yum, where the package manager downloads and installs everything with a single short command. (apt-get install name_of_package or yum install name_of_package) Adding packages is done by installing from source code. Luckily 1) The installation disc has a fully functional system that will meet most peoples' needs. 2) There is a collection of pre-configured packages called SlackBuilds that simplifies process. It is reasonably easy, but takes a little time, since installation is done with a series of commands and dependencies must be installed before the desired package. (Sounds worse than it is.)

Wow great. Thanks a lot for your simple explanation! :) Not many people know how to simplify things like this! haha :)

I am simple-minded. :D

I wouldn't say it's dying. It's not incredibly popular, but it's got a VERY loyal following.

Gentoo is a "build from scratch" distro. You do the install yourself, there's no installer, just a guide (much like Arch).

Once you've got it installed, you set "build flags" and emerge your system. Emerge is the Gentoo package manager (like yum or apt). It will actually download source code, and compile each and every application from the source code with the build flags that you specify. The downside to that is your initial installation (even on a stage III) can take DAYS on a lower end system as each program compiles, and even on a high end system will still take many an hour.

The upside to Gentoo is that in theory you get a system that will be absolutely optimized for YOUR system. It will support any of the advanced features your processor does. This was really nice in the latter stages of 32-bit days, because most distro's were still optimized for 486 or early pentium (586), some even still only optimized for 386's, but if you had a PIII, you could do 686 + SSE + whatever else so that your programs would take advantage of all the advances of your processor. With modern 64-bit processors, I feel that you don't see the massive advantage anymore, and there's such a small advantage in performance it's not worth the fact that it can take such a long time to update your system.

Still, Gentoo is one of the nicer systems if you want a truly personalized system, as it is kinda fun trying out some of the build flag optimizations that you're not sure what they do and see if it helps or not.

That makes two of us now! haha :D I wish I could be as simple-minded as you are! haha. be blessed

Yeah I am interested to try it out hehe..

Is my machine low-end? here are the specs:

Acer-aspire 5750G

Intel core i5-2450M

Nvidia Gefore 610M

4GB DDR3 RAM

500 GB HDD