Further to what estiedi said, the way I see it is:
A distribution is a collection of normally precompiled packages of a lot of different software, comming with an installer helping you set up which packages end up on your system as well as helping you set up your hardware. Some really focus on selecting packages (e.g. slackware) while some seem to do everything for you (e.g. mandrake)
Some distros do modify the source code, especially of the kernel (e.g. gentoo), but for the most part, the packages are decided by the creators and the community who use them.
But I ain't complaining, if we had to do LFS everytime we reinstalled it'd be a hastle, thank god for Patrick @ slackware.org, he's maintained a good distro for a very long period of time (over 10 years!)
Steve
|