I sometimes wonder what all the different distributions are for. When I was new to Linux I would have wanted a list with the purpose of every distribution described concisely with a few (preferably one) keywords. So here's a thread for that. The distributions are grouped by the relations they have to each other.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't researched everything thoroughly; I'm just writing from memory.

When replying, maybe copy the original list and add / change whatever you want so the last post always contains the full list?

__Linux__

Debian GNU/Linux: Free software
Alpine Linux (based on Debian): Security
TAILS (based on Debian): Privacy
Ubuntu Linux (based on Debian): Beginner friendly
Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu): Beginner friendly

Gentoo Linux: Performance

RHEL: Paid enterprise
CentOS Linux (based on RHEL): Free enterprise
Fedora Linux (based on RHEL): RHEL testbed

Slackware Linux: Unix philosophy
SUSE Linux (based on Slackware): Paid enterprise
openSUSE Linux (based on SUSE): SUSE testbed

Arch Linux: Bleeding edge

Mageia (based on Mandriva): Beginner friendly

__BSD__

FreeBSD: Performance
PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD): Beginner friendly

NetBSD: Portability
OpenBSD (based on NetBSD): Security

Distrowatch has a good search facility which enables you to use categories like "rolling-release", "Trinity desktop", "Arch-based", "Japanese". Wouldn't this thread be re-inventing the wheel, but with less functionality?
http://distrowatch.com/search.php

Yes, I wasn't aware of that.

SUSE and OpenSUSE are all in a group all by them selves

a rpm based OS that is SO different from RHEL and Fedora that you can NOT use any other rpm based distro guides
you have to use the suse guides

even Nvidia has a separate SUSE set of instructions


and fedora is more "bleeding edge" than Arch
but Arch is a rolling release and fedora never will be

Fedora Rawhide is rolling release (updated daily).

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Rawhide

Well..

Technically it is a rolling release, but they don't care much about stability. The last time I tried it, it broke in a day or two

^ Ditto

While some people go to Gentoo (or other source based distributions) to get the least bit of performance, the main point for many Gentoo users is not performance, but extreme configurability. In a sense Gentoo is not a distribution, but a meta-distribution, a framework to build your own distribution exactly like you want it to be

A little like LFS then?
I think the "compile it yourself for better speed" myth needs to die as it is based upon so many assumptions and so few facts it is no longer even slightly relevant.

Wikipedia's article on rolling release makes the point that there's a difference between a distro that's intended to be used in rolling-release mode and one that can be. Arch falls in the former category, so it's quite reliable. Fedora is not: the documentation says "Most users should still stick to stable Fedora releases, but Rawhide is a viable option for enthusiasts to experiment with."

Try this http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/u...0/gldt1210.png