A Linux distribution is when different companies and developers take a kernel and add on top of it a set of programs: shells, compilers, drivers, and everything else. This becomes a complete operating system and each of these builds has its own name.
The number of Linux distributions is enormous: about 500 more or less known ones and countless different builds for different tasks.
Anyone can put together their own Linux distribution after reading the documentation for half a day and formulating their task-for example, for an old computer, for learning, stuffed with games or for web development.
Why are there so many distributions?
Because every company considers something different to be important:
- some want to make an operating system with a nice interface;
- Some focus on security and encryption;
- some want advanced support for networking protocols;
- Some want support for certain hardware;
- Five want stability and fault tolerance;
- sixth want the system to work in the alarm key fob;
- and someone else wants the system to work on a low-power processor.
Encryption and encryption – what’s the difference?
Depending on what is important to them, companies put together their distributions from different components.
So Linux is free?
Basically yes, Linux is free. There are also commercial Linux distributions: you pay for the software and user support.
This is the first power of Linux: it is free and available. The second superpower is the flexibility and the variety of settings and special programs.