hi all

as you can see, i am still a linux newbie. i'm trying to study the features of the different LINUX distros through installing ubuntu,debian,redhat,centos and fedora as Virtual Machines in VirtualBox.

As i've figured out, they look different somehow, they have diffirent managers ,i.e. for downloading or updating their components.

BUT MY QUESTION: are these distros internally compatible ?

Do any commands exist in one distro but not in the others?

ARE ALL Distros compatible on the CLI-basis ?


many thanks in advance
cedkhader

They all share the same kernel but slightly modified with components opted in and out.

If you work in CLI all distros will be the same to you except the choice of desktops. The variation in the CLI is not usually significant until you hit the small-footprint distros that go for the smallest size by removing as much components as possible.

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Couldn't understand what u r asking for "internally compatible". If you are talking about kernel then note that there are different versions of kernel.

There are many such commands which works on one but not in other. However this doesn't means that there is no command to perform the same task in some other distro.

Again be more specific about what are the parameters which you have in mind while talking about CLI compatibility. Be more verbose.

Good Day cedkhader.

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Yes -- a small number.

No -- there are a few small differences: commands that are present on some distros but not on others and commands that behave differently, perhaps in options accepted or format of output.

This is most noticeable on "small" distro's such as BusyBox which are cut back to the essentials.

Distros are Linux (= kernel) plus whatever the distro designers chose to add. Some of the added stuff is very common such as GNU utilities (but even then versions and build details can vary), others -- especially end-user applications -- vary a lot.

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many thanks ...

Yes -- for a human user capable of adapting to minor variations but not for shell scripts dependent on commands being in particular directories or having exact outputs for parsing.