The Top Ten Distributions
A Beginner's Guide to Choosing a (Linux) Distribution
- Distrowatch.com | January 2006

Introduction

The bewildering choice and the ever increasing number of Linux distributions can be confusing for those of you who are new to Linux. This is why this page was created. It lists 10 distributions (plus an honourable mention of FreeBSD, by far the most popular of all of the BSDs), which are generally considered as most widely used by Linux users around the world.

There are no figures to back it up and there are many other distributions that might suit your particular purpose better, but as a general rule, all of these are popular and have very active forums or mailing lists where you can ask questions if you get stuck.

MEPIS and Xandros are considered the best for new Linux users who want to get productive in Linux as soon as possible without having to master all its complexities.

On the other end of the spectrum, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware and FreeBSD are more advanced distributions that require plenty of learning before they can be used effectively.

Mandriva, Fedora, Ubuntu and SUSE can be classified as good "middle-road" distributions. Knoppix is a so-called live CD - it is great for trying out Linux without getting your hands dirty as it runs directly from a CD, no installation required.

These distributions are loosely listed in order of popularity on DistroWatch, which is NOT an indication of their market share or quality. As always, comments and suggestions are most welcome.


Ubuntu Linux has stormed the Linux distribution scene like no other Linux project before. It has done so in a fashion resembling a highly sophisticated player: it seems to have first observed all other major distributions, learnt from their mistakes and combined the best features of all of them into one superior product. A six-month's release cycle, up-to-date package set, a clearly set product lifetime (at 18 months), fast download mirrors, great documentation, even free CDs and free shipment of CDs anywhere in the world to those interested in the distribution. That's Ubuntu.

The project is funded by Mark Shuttleworth. Those who have never heard the name, Mark is a South African entrepreneur who made a fortune when he sold his company, Thawte Consulting, to Verisign, for US$575 million in late 1999. He appears to be a generous person: after the sale, he reportedly paid bonuses of one million Rand each (about US$163,000 at the time) to every one of his employees. He also founded several educational and open source initiatives around South Africa, including Go Open Source. While it is not yet clear how Mark's Canonical Limited intends to make money from Ubuntu, the distribution is certainly off to a good start, at least in terms of getting the name into public consciousness and offering a solid alternative to more established Linux distributions.

On the technical side of things, Ubuntu is based on Debian Sid (unstable branch), but with more up-to-date packages, inclusive of the latest GNOME packages. The distribution is designed to be used on desktops and servers, with a supported upgrade path from Debian 3.0 (Woody). One of its more interesting features is the fact that the "root" account is disabled by default; the first registered user after installation is granted superuser privileges through the "sudo" command. This measure, while it might sound like an inconvenience at first, has to be applauded since it encourages good security practices.

Pros: Great community of developers and users; fixed release cycle and support period; upgrade path from stable Debian provided
Cons: Ubuntu's backers have not yet built a viable business model around the distribution
Software package management: APT (DEB)
Free download: Yes


Mandriva Linux (formerly Mandrakelinux), started by Gaël Duval, is a distribution that has experienced enormous rise in popularity since its first release in July 1998. The developers took the Red Hat distribution, changed the default desktop to KDE and added an easy-to-use installer, breaking the myth that Linux is hard to install. Mandrake's hardware detection features and disk partitioning utilities are considered by many to be the best in the industry and many users found themselves running Mandrake where other distributions failed to provide the required usability.

Mandriva Linux has since matured to become a popular distribution among those new to Linux and among home users looking for an alternative operating system. The Mandriva development is completely open and transparent with new packages appearing in the so-called "cooker" directory on a daily basis. When a new release is entering a beta stage, a cooker snapshot is accepted as the first beta. The beta testing process used to be short and intensive, but starting with version 9.0, it has become longer and more thorough. The beta mailing lists are extremely busy, but you are still likely to receive a very fast response to any bug or concern that you report.

The result of this type of development is a cutting edge release - a highly up-to-date Linux distribution. As a trade-off, the users are likely to notice more bugs and perhaps less stability than with other distributions. Many people find this trade-off acceptable on their desktops - they get the very latest software and the occasional application crash is something they can live with.

Pros: User-friendly, graphical configuration utilities, enormous community support, NTFS partition resizing.
Cons: Some releases are buggy, the releases are initially made available to MandrivaClub members only.
Software package management: urpmi (RPM)
Free download: FTP installation available immediately after release, ISO images only after a delay lasting several weeks


SUSE (formerly SuSE or "Software und System Entwicklung") was established by a group of German developers in 1992. In the early days, the company sold sets of floppy disks containing a German edition of Slackware Linux, but it wasn't long before SUSE became an independent Linux distribution with the launch of version 4.2 in May 1996. In the following years, SUSE adopted the RPM package management format and developed YaST, an easy-to-use graphical system administration tool. Frequent releases, excellent documentation, and easy availability of SUSE Linux in stores across Europe and North America resulted in growing popularity of SUSE Linux.

SUSE was acquired by Novell in late 2003. Major changes in the development and availability of SUSE Linux followed shortly afterwards - YaST was released under the General Public License, the ISO images were freely distributed from dozens of public download servers, and, most significantly, the development of SUSE Linux was opened to public participation for the first time ever. Since the launch of the openSUSE project and the release of version 10.0 in October 2005, SUSE Linux has become a completely free distribution in both senses of the word.

Starting from version 10.0, SUSE Linux comes in several editions: the 5-CD "OSS" (Open Source Software) edition contains exclusively Free Software, while the 5-CD (or 1-DVD) "Eval" edition adds some proprietary, but freely-distributable packages. The retail edition of SUSE Linux includes extra commercial software, documentation, and installation support. A bootable "Live DVD" edition is provided for those who wish to test-drive SUSE Linux without the need to install it on their computers.

Pros: Professional attention to detail, easy-to-use YaST configuration tools.
Cons:
Software package management: YaST (RPM), third-party APT (RPM) repositories available
Free download: Yes


For many, the name Red Hat epitomises Linux, as it is probably the best-known Linux company in the world. Founded in 1995 by Bob Young and Marc Ewing, Red Hat, Inc. has only recently started showing signs of profitability, due to services and its Red Hat Enterprise Linux product line. However, Red Hat Linux 9 was the last version in the Red Hat Linux product line, which was replaced by Fedora Core in late 2003. While Fedora is officially sponsored by Red Hat, it is developed with community participation, has a short life-span and serves mainly as a testing base for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

What is so special about Red Hat Linux and Fedora Core? It is a curious mix of conservative and leading-edge packages put together on top of many knowledge-intensive utilities developed in-house. The packages are not the most up-to-date; once a new beta version is announced, the package versions are frozen, except for security updates. The result is a well-tested and stable distribution, the beta program and bug reporting facility are open to the public and there are several mailing lists. Red Hat Linux has become a dominant Linux distribution on servers around the world.

One other reason for Red Hat's success is the variety of popular services the company offers. The software packages are easy to update via Red Hat Network, a free repository of software and valuable information. A vast range of support services and enterprise Linux products are available from the company and, while not always cheap, you are virtually assured of an excellent support by highly skilled support personnel. The company has even developed a certification program to further popularise its distribution - the RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) training and examinations are now available in most parts of the world. All these factors have contributed to the fact that Red Hat is now a recognised brand name in the IT industry.

Pros: Widely used, excellent community support, lots of innovation.
Cons: Limited product life-span of the free edition, poor multimedia support, concerns over the Red Hat to Fedora transition
Software package management: up2date (RPM), YUM (RPM)
Free download: Yes


Debian GNU/Linux, started by Ian Murdock in 1993, is a completely non-commercial project; perhaps the purest form of the ideals that started the free software movement. Hundreds of volunteer developers from all over the world contribute to the project, which is well managed and strict, assuring a quality distribution known as Debian.

At any time during the development process, there are three branches in the main directory tree - "stable", "testing" and "unstable" (also known as "sid"). When a new version of a package appears, it is placed in the unstable branch for early testing. If it passes, the package moves to the testing branch, which undergoes rigorous testing lasting many months. This branch is only declared stable after a very thorough testing. As a result of this, the distribution is possibly the most stable and reliable, albeit not the most up-to-date. While the stable branch is perfect for use on mission critical servers, many users prefer to run the more up-to-date testing or unstable branches on their personal computers.

One of the most pleasant aspect of Debian is its "apt-get" utility, a convenient front-end for the "dpkg" software installation and management tool. Although packages managers of other distributions have caught up with Debian in terms of convenience, dpkg and apt-get, together with the traditionally high standards of Debian packaging and quality control, remain the most advance package management utilities available today.

Pros: 100% free, excellent documentation and community resources, well-tested, painless software installation with apt-get.
Cons: Slow release cycle, the stable version tends to be out-dated.
Software package management: APT (DEB)
Free download: Yes


Gentoo Linux was created by Daniel Robbins, a former Stampede Linux and FreeBSD developer. It was the author's exposure to FreeBSD and its autobuild feature called "ports", which inspired him to incorporate ports into Gentoo under the name of "portage". A detailed account of these beginnings of Gentoo can be found in this three-part series called Making The Distribution. Gentoo's first stable release was announced in March 2002.

Gentoo Linux is a source-based distribution. While the installation media provide various levels of pre-compiled binary packages to get a basic Linux system up and running, the idea behind Gentoo is to compile all source packages on the user's computer. The main advantage of this is that all software is highly optimised for the computer architecture it is built on. Also, updating the installed software to newer version is a matter of typing a simple command. Many Gentoo users enjoy the fact the software packages kept in a central repository are usually kept highly up-to-date and available within days (sometimes even within hours) since their release by the upstream developers. On the other hand, installing Gentoo and turning it into a full-blown distribution with the latest graphical desktops, multimedia and development tools is tedious and long - count on several days even on a computer with a fast processor.

Pros: Painless installation of individual software packages, highly up-to-date, superb documentation, the "geek feeling" of building a distribution tailored to user's needs.
Cons: Long and tedious system installation, occasional instability and risk of breakdown.
Software package management: Portage (SRC)
Free download: Yes


Slackware Linux, created by Patrick Volkerding in 1992, is the oldest surviving Linux distribution. It offers no bells and whistles, sticking with a text-based installer and no graphical configuration tools. Where other distributions tried hard to develop easy-to-use front ends for many common utilities, Slackware offers no hand-holding and everything is still done through configuration files. Because of this, Slackware is only recommended to those novice users who intend to spend some time on learning about Linux.

Nevertheless, Slackware has a magic appeal to many users. It is extremely stable and secure - very suitable for server deployment. Experienced Linux administrators find that the distribution is less buggy as it uses most packages in their pristine forms and without too many in-house enhancements which have a potential to introduce new bugs. Releases are infrequent (about once a year), although up-to-date packages are always available for download after the official release. Slackware is a fine distribution for those who are interested in deeper knowledge of Linux internals.

Perhaps the best characteristic of this distribution I have heard is this: if you need help with your Linux box, find a Slackware user. A Slackware user is more likely to fix the problem than a user familiar with any other distribution.

Pros: Highly stable and bug-free, strong adherence to UNIX principles.
Cons: All configuration is done by editing text files, limited hardware auto-detection.
Software package management: Slackware Package Management (TGZ)
Free download: Yes


Developed by Klaus Knopper in Germany, it is safe to say that Debian-based Knoppix has raised the bar of standards to a new level, especially with its automatic hardware detection that puts many well established commercial Linux distributions to shame. Its hands-free booting, enormous selection of software, its on-the-fly decompression technique and the ability to install it on a hard disk have turned Knoppix into an indispensable tool. It can be used as a rescue disk, a tool to demonstrate Linux to those who haven't seen it or a tool to test a new computer before purchase. It can even be used as a full-blown Linux distribution for every-day tasks.

New versions of Knoppix used to be released frequently, on average about one new release each 2 - 6 weeks, but the release cycle has slowed down considerably recently. Updates include bug fixes as well as the latest software packages from Debian's unstable branch.

Knoppix has been covered extensively in Linux media. See our Interview with Klaus Knopper, as well as our contributions to LWN.net: Knoppix - the Great Linux Advocate and Knoppix 3.4 Has Landed.

Pros: Excellent hardware auto-detection, runs directly from CD without hard disk installation, can be used as a recovery tool.
Cons: Low speed and performance if run directly from the CD.
Software package management: APT (DEB)
Free download: Yes


MEPIS Linux was launched by Warren Woodford in July 2003, which makes it one of the youngest distributions on this list. Despite being late for the party, MEPIS has succeeded in generating much positive feedback from users and reviewers right from the start. MEPIS Linux is a successful merge between Debian Sid and Knoppix, a new kind of Linux distribution that can be used both as a live CD, and as a full distribution with a graphical hard disk installer. This way, users can try the product by simply booting from the MEPIS CD, and install it on hard disk only if they like what they see. Many other distributions copied this idea later, but it was MEPIS that pioneered the concept of a live CD + a full graphical installer launched from the booted MEPIS CD.

What made MEPIS Linux successful? Unlike most of the major Linux distributions, MEPIS comes with many non-free, but highly useful applications, all pre-configured and ready to use, out of the box. These include the NVIDIA accelerated driver, Macromedia Flash plugin, Java, various multimedia codecs for playing popular audio and video files and other applications. With MEPIS Linux, there is no need to hunt for Java Runtime Environment, then search for the documentation to find out how to enable Java support in your browsers - it is all available right after installation. This simple idea proved tremendously popular, not only with users new to Linux, but also with the more experienced ones who found it convenient not having to spend hours of post-install configuration and tweaking just to set up a complete working desktop.

Beside standard Debian applications and the above mentioned non-free software, MEPIS Linux has excellent hardware auto-detection (including the auto-detection of some "winmodems"), and it includes several configuration utilities developed in-house.

Pros: Full distribution and live CD in one package, comes pre-configured with NVIDIA, Flash, Java, multimedia codecs and other non-free applications, excellent hardware auto-detection
Cons: Not yet a well-established distribution, the developers should consider employing a graphics artist to improve the distribution's default look and feel.
Software package management: APT (DEB)
Free download: Yes


Xandros was created from the ashes of Corel Linux, a fairly successful attempt to bring Linux to the masses back in 1999, but abandoned shortly afterwards when the company ran into financial difficulties. Xandros bought the distribution in August 2001 and released version 1.0 in October 2002.

Xandros Desktop is without a doubt the most user-friendly distribution on the market and highly recommended to first-time Linux users. While the number of applications included with the distribution is limited, the developers have made sure that they work perfectly. Xandros provides a number of unique enhancements as well as its own file manager and other proprietary components. Two editions are available - Deluxe (US$99) and Standard (US$40), the only differences between the two are missing CrossOver Office and Plugin (a compatibility layer enabling to run Microsoft Office and other Windows products on Linux) and NTFS partition resizing tool (for WindowsXP users) from the cheaper edition.

Pros: Designed for beginners, works out of the box, excellent file manager, CD-burning tools, and other useful utilities.
Cons: Includes proprietary components, which prevents re-distribution.
Software package management: Xandros Networks (DEB), APT (DEB) available, but not supported
Free download: Yes, a limited Open Circulation Edition for personal use only


Since the beginnings of DistroWatch, we were inundated with requests to add BSD projects to the site and track them in the same manner as we track Linux distributions. Eventually, we gave in. Although BSD (a direct descendent from UNIX) is not Linux (a clone of UNIX), the two operating systems have a lot in common: they are free in both senses of the word, they use many of the same open source applications, and they are highly addictive. This is the reason why the most popular BSD-based OS is included in this list, alongside the top 10 Linux distributions.

FreeBSD has a long and turbulent history dating back to version 1.0, which was released in November 1993. Its development process takes place in two concurrent branches: stable (production branch) and current (new technology branch); these can be roughly compared to Debian's stable and unstable branches. However, unlike Debian, the developers of FreeBSD make regular full releases of both branches, which they tag as "RELEASE". Thus, you might see FreeBSD releases such as 4.9-RELEASE and 5.2-RELEASE, released within a short period of each other, but it doesn't mean that FreeBSD 5.2 is newer than FreeBSD 4.9; it just means that the release with a higher version number is a development release with some experimental features, not recommended for production use. The FreeBSD 5.x branch was only declared "production release" with version 5.3-RELEASE. At the same time, a new current branch, tagged as FreeBSD 6.x, was opened.

Although FreeBSD has a well-deserved reputation for being a fast, high-performance and extremely stable server, it can be used as a desktop system just as well. Installation is not difficult, certainly no more difficult than the installation of Slackware Linux. If you come from the Linux world, you will be pleased to learn that the vast majority of open source applications you've come to know and enjoy (e.g. X.Org, KDE, GNOME, Apache, and even some non-free software, such as the NVIDIA accelerated driver or the Opera browser) also work on FreeBSD. Besides binary packages, FreeBSD (like most other BSDs) has an extensive collection of "ports" providing users with an easy way of compiling every package on a host system. This is probably the main reason why many users prefer FreeBSD over Linux.

Pros: Fast and very stable; has excellent documentation, availability of "ports" for compiling software applications locally
Cons: Tends to be behind Linux when it comes to support for newer hardware, limited availability of commercial applications
Software package management: Binary packages and source-based "ports" (TBZ)
Free download: Yes