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Coming soon, a more up-to-date list of distributions, and reviews!
Also check out the list of Linux Vendors.
Some other useful distribution indexes:
Mainstream Distributions
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Caldera OpenLinux
Ports: Intel
Languages: English, German
A popular commercially-distributed Linux distribution - featuring
LISA (Linux Installation System Administration), COAS (Caldera Open
Administration System) + several proprietary value-added
programs (such as StarOffice and BRU).
Caldera is based in Orem, Utah - and is funded by Ray Noorda (the
founder of Novell). LST (a German Linux distribution) merged with
them in 1997. Caldera folks have contributed several things to the
kernel (IPX, PPP modularization, network drivers, etc.).
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Debian
Ports: Intel, m68k (Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc, UltraSparc, ARM and GNU Hurd under development)
Languages: English, with some support for French, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Swedish, Chinese
Debian GNU/Linux is the largest Linux distribution - developed
entirely by unpaid volunteers on the Internet - over 300 at last
count. (Bias alert: I am one of the Debian developers!)
Unlike most other
distributions, there is no single company funding development and
marketing. As a result, the only marketing it gets is "word-of-mouth".
Even so, it is very popular, especially with professional Unix sysadmins.
It is based on the "dpkg" package manager - which has evolved to be the
most sophisticated packaging system. It is the easiest distribution to
upgrade and keep up-to-date. A rigorous set of policies and a well-used
bug system means that it is remarkably well integrated, given the
size.
Debian is very sophisticated - as it has been developed to meet the needs
of it's developers, who are very experienced. Unfortunately, it can be quite
intimidating to new users. Fortunately, there is plenty of documentation
and support (online and commercial) available.
There is also a separate Debian JP project which produces
a Japanese version of the distribution.
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Linux Antarctica
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
A Linux distribution that includes its own configuration tool as well as the
mainstream applications found in the other major distributions. Includes KDE
and Netscape as well as the Apache web server.
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Linux by LibraNet
Ports: Intel, m68k (Alpha, PowerPC, Sparc, UltraSparc, ARM and GNU Hurd under development)
Languages: English, with some support for French, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Swedish, Chinese
Built from Debian GNU/Linux this distribution provides all of the
benefits of a Debian system. By packaging the best and most commonly
used applications into a simple to install CD, you can have a complete
desktop up and running in a short time. All the power of Debian is now
available to users with little or no Linux experience. The Libranet
distribution is backed by solid support and online documentation.
Software upgrades are available free to download, or on a CD. Debian's
unique package manager takes care of software updates automatically.
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Mandrake
Ports: Intel, Sparc, Alpha (and soon PPC)
Languages: 50 different languages including English, French and Spanish
Linux-Mandrake is a friendly Linux Operating System which comes
with KDE, Gnome and 7 other graphical interfaces. It provides ease of use
for both home/office and servers. It is freely available in many languages,
all over the world.
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PHT TurboLinux (see also: www.turbolinux.com)
Ports: Intel, PowerPC
Languages: English, Japanese, Chinese
TurboLinux is an RPM-based Linux distribution. There is also a Japanese variant, which is reported to be the most popular variant of Linux in Japan.
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Project Independence
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
A volunteer built distribution based on Red Hat.
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Red Hat
Ports: Intel, Alpha, Sparc (many other platforms are supported by other distributions based on Red Hat, see below)
Languages: English, Czech, French, German, Norwegian, Romanian, Turkish (there are many localized international distributions based on Red Hat, see below)
Red Hat is currently the most popular Linux distribution. It is very
popular among Linux developers.
It is maintained by Red Hat Software, which is the most successful
Linux company (privately owned). It counts a large number of high
profile free software authors and veteran kernel hackers (ie.
Alan Cox,
Michael Johnson,
Stephen Tweedie)
among their 40+ staff members.
Their Red Hat Advanced Development
Labs division consists of several talented programmers who work
exclusively writing free software for projects such as
Gnome.
It is based around the RPM
packaging system, which makes installing and upgrading easy. The
core distribution is supplemented by hundreds of "contrib" packages,
which are contributed by volunteers.
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Redmond Linux
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
Description: Redmond Linux (yes, as in Redmond, Washington) is a Linux distribution that, at the time of this writing, is still in the Beta stage. It is based on Caldera and is designed to be attractive to people migrating from non-unix platforms. Mr. Cheek, the developer, states: ".. this product will be something so easy to use that even my mother would use (and want to use) it." Redmond Linux is in the beta phase at this time. The final version is due on November 11, 2000.
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Slackware
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
Patrick Volkerding's famous Slackware distribution. It was once the
most popular Linux distribution (now Red Hat is). It is sold commercially
through Walnut
Creek CDROM.
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Stampede
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
A new volunteer-run distribution. They are developing a new packaging format
(similar in nature to the Slackware format) and the whole distribution is
compiled with Pentium optimizations.
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S.u.S.E.
Ports: Intel
Languages: German, English
SuSE is quite possibly the most popular distribution in Germany and Europe, and is now being marketed in the U.S. and Internationally. It is based on a variant of RPM and their own setup tool (YaST). SuSE also writes X Servers (video drivers) for the XFree86 project.
Non-Downloadable Distributions
These distributions are not available on-line, either because they
contain proprietary non-redistributable content, or the manufacturer
has not made them available.
Alternative-Platform and Specialized Distributions
Some alternative platforms are supported by the mainstream distributions listed above.
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ARM Linux
A Linux distribution for Acorn systems. Based on Red Hat.
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NetWinder.org
A volunteer-built distribution for for the StrongARM-based Corel NetWinder.
Based on Red Hat.
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Carleton University NetWinder Linux
Yet another distribution for the StrongARM-based Corel NetWinder. Based on Red Hat.
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ELKS - The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset
A variant of Linux for 8086 and 80286 class PCs. :-)
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MkLinux
A Linux distribution for Power Macs (supported by Apple). It is based on
a variant of the Linux kernel which uses the Mach microkernel.
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LinuxPPC
Another Linux distribution for PowerMac and PReP machines - based on the
regular monolithic Linux kernel from Linus. RPM based.
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Yellow Dog Linux
A Linux distribution for Apple Macintosh G3 computers - based on the
regular monolithic Linux kernel from Linus (from LinuxPPC). RPM based.
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Apokalypse
Linux distribution for the PowerMac - uses MkLinux kernel. RPM based.
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Linux/m68k (not really a distribution)
There is much work being done to get the Linux kernel to work on Motorola m68k-based systems, such as the old Macs, Amigas, Ataris, MVME boards, old HP 9000/300 workstations, black NeXT hardware, and Sun 3 workstations.
The Debian project is putting together an m68k distribution. And there is a collection of m68k RPMs on ftp.redhat.com/pub/m68k/.
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Schatztruhe Amiga Linux
Red Hat based, by Jes Sorenson.
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Linux/MIPS
A Linux kernel and beginnings of a distribution for MIPS-based machines (including non-SGI, ARC machines).
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Mipsel
RPMS and SRPMS for the Little Endian MIPS architecture machines, such as the Cobalt Qube.
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Linux/SGI
A Linux distribution for Silicon Graphics MIPS-based machines. Red Hat based.
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UltraPenguin
A Linux distribution for Sun UltraSPARC machines. Based on Red Hat.
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Extreme Linux
A Linux distribution for Beowulf class machines (many machines tied together via networking that act as a single supercomputer). Based on Red Hat.
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Guardian Networks Secure Linux
A specialized Linux distribution with a modified "hardened" Linux kernel
and other security enhancements.
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Immunix StackGuard Linux
A Red Hat-derived distribution compiled with the
"StackGuard" compiler. This is intended to detect and prevent
stack smashing/buffer overrun attacks.
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Zentropix RTLinux
Red Hat-based with a real time kernel and tools.
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e-smith
A "server and gateway" distribution. Red Hat-based.
International Distributions
Note: Many of the "mainstream" distributions also have localization built into them.
Brazilian
Chinese
Finnish
French
German
Italian
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Prosa Debian
Ports: i386
A commercial distribution based on Debian. Alessandro Rubini (author of "Linux Device
Drivers", as well as the Kernel Corner column for the Linux Journal) is the President. Several Debian developers are employees. MondoLinux sells the Athena Linux distribution, which is based on Prosa, and comes with a book.
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Spanish
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COX-Linux
Based on Eurielec (below).
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Esware Linux
A Linux distribution developed in Spain and oriented toward Spanish-speaking users. Installation, command lines, documentation and user's manual are all in Spanish (Castellano).
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Eurielec Linux
Based on Red Hat.
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HispaFuentes
HispaFuentes is a Linux distribution in Spanish based on the Deluxe version of Red Hat.
Comes with all of the documentation translated into Spanish. Includes software packages like StarOffice, Netscape and many others.
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Linux MX
Mexican distribution based on Red Hat.
Swedish
Turkish
Hobby/Hacker Distributions
These are distributions that are built by their creators for personal enjoyment, mostly.
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jurix Linux
Ports: Intel
Languages: English, German
A "hacker" distribution put together by Florian La Roche. More information is available in the README.txt file.
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Mastodon
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
David Parson's variant of Slackware.
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NoMad Linux
Ports: Intel
Languages: English
A volunteer-run distribution based on a the "encap" package manager,
which installs each package into it's own directory, and uses symlinks
to tie everything together.
Small Distributions
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Brutalware
A Czech floppy-based distribution with networking.
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cLIeNUX
"Client-use-oriented Linux" - Approximately 25MB, it is designed to
be installed on a DOS FAT or FAT32 partition.
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Coyote Linux
An embedded devices distribution, also available as a
single floppy general use distribution.
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DLite (Debian Lite)
A subset distribution of Debian targetted at ISPs.
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DLX
A single floppy distribution.
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DosLinux
This is a small Linux operating system that can be installed on an existing Dos system i.e. msdos,
pcdos, opendos, and win95 in dos mode.
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DragonLinux
A 25MB UMSDOS distribution designed to be installed on top of DOS.
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floppyfw
A single floppy distribution for building firewalls.
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Floppix
A two floppy distribution derived from Debian.
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Fluf
A Czech single floppy distribution.
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hal91
A single floppy distribution.
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Linux On A Floppy (LOAF)
A single floppy distribution. It's meant to be used on
computers with ethernet adapters. It comes with Lynx, ftp, telnet and
ssh clients.
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Linux Router Project
A small distribution for building routers.
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Linux and Squid on a Diskette (LSD)
A single floppy distribution with the Squid http proxy.
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LinuxPPC Live
A special version of LinuxPPC that can be booted from the Mac OS
without repartioning.
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MicroLinux
A 14 MB Croatian Linux distribution.
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Monkey Linux
A Czech distribution on 5 diskettes.
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muLinux
A single floppy distribution. NFS Boot, swap, ethernet, PPP, email,
NFS, ftp, finger, telnet, tcpdump, traceroute, SMBfs, IP masquerading,
IRC, Lynx, remote access via modem (miterm), editing and printing,
play & record WAV, CD listening, Sound Blaster and PC speaker support,
fax recieving, sending and printing. Wow. A second floppy comes
with X windows.
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One Disk Linux HOWTO (ODL)
A HOWTO written in Spanish about how to build a single floppy Linux distribution. It also comes with an example disk image.
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Pocket Linux
A single floppy system with networking and ssh.
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Pygmy Linux
A UMSDOS based small distribution (25 MB). From the Czech republic (notice a pattern here ;-)
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The SPARC-Linux Xterminal package (SLXT)
Turn SPARCstations (possibly diskless) into X Terminals running Linux.
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Small Linux
Less the 2MB. Uses kernel 1.0.9 (ELF).
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tomsrtbt
A single floppy distribution for system rescue and system administration.
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Traveller's Linux
A single floppy distribution.
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Trinux
A small security distribution. This comes with a wide variety of the coolest
security/hacker tools.
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Xdenu
Comes in several flavours:
- FloppyX - Linux + XFree in two floppies
- HdX - umsdos based
- HdX Alpha - test version
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ZipSlack
A subset of Slackware. UMSDOS based. About 100MB - will fit on
an Iomega Zip disk.
Distributions "Under Development"
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