I am a Linux newbie and was wondering what the big difference was between all of the different Kernals and Manfacturers. Red Hat, SuSe, Slackware?

Extremely generalized but:

The different kernels have different levels of support for different hardwares and functions.

The different distros have their own versions of the kernel with different patches applied to make their distro work better on more systems for more people.

The different distros also have their own sets of tools they've created to ease the process of doing things in linux. They also include different documentation tailored to the way they have things setup.

Cool

Hi Phantom87s

On a brief general level you can look at two categories.

The Major distributions such as

• Red Hat
  
• Mandrake
  
• SUSE

Are easy to install
Easy to use
Tailored to the needs of ordinary users (the personal versions)


The Specialist distributions such as

• Slackware
  
• Gentoo
  
• Debian

Are more difficult to install
More involved when your using theml
Are more powerful
more rewarding


Different distributions come out at different times so have different Kernels.

Newer Kernels have a greater scope than older ones and provide better hardware support

This is probably the best site on the Internet for checking out the various Linux ditributions.


www.distrowatch.com


Enjoy computing again!