Re:Fedora 24 was released
by mindcrime on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @12:58PM
(#11947222)
A couple of big things:
1. package manager. Historically you could make something of a divide between "Red Hat derived distros" that used RPM/Yum (and now DNF) for package management, and the "Debian derived distros" that used apt for package management. Other distros like Gentoo, Slack, etc. were characterized by their own unique approaches to managing packages.
2. Locations of important files. Different distros sometimes vary in terms of where the put "stuff". Is a given thing under /opt, or /usr, or /var, etc? And once you get used to a certain layout, you tend to want to stick with what you already know.
On point (1) above, there was a long period of time when apt was widely held up as being objectively better than rpm/yum, and it probably was. But I think many (most) people would argue that that time is far in the past, and that now the distinction between apt and rpm/yum/dnf is purely a subjective matter of taste. Yeah, a few diehards will argue that point one way or the other, but realistically, either approach is fine.
Debian and Fedora are also characterized by their focus on including only Free software, although their are some distinctions between exactly what either will/will not ship. Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) was famous early on for making it easy to install non-free things, like codecs for playing back mp3 files, etc.
I don't really know much about Arch (never used it), but those are some of the things that define the different threads in the "distro wars".
1. package manager. Historically you could make something of a divide between "Red Hat derived distros" that used RPM/Yum (and now DNF) for package management, and the "Debian derived distros" that used apt for package management. Other distros like Gentoo, Slack, etc. were characterized by their own unique approaches to managing packages.
2. Locations of important files. Different distros sometimes vary in terms of where the put "stuff". Is a given thing under /opt, or /usr, or /var, etc? And once you get used to a certain layout, you tend to want to stick with what you already know.
On point (1) above, there was a long period of time when apt was widely held up as being objectively better than rpm/yum, and it probably was. But I think many (most) people would argue that that time is far in the past, and that now the distinction between apt and rpm/yum/dnf is purely a subjective matter of taste. Yeah, a few diehards will argue that point one way or the other, but realistically, either approach is fine.
Debian and Fedora are also characterized by their focus on including only Free software, although their are some distinctions between exactly what either will/will not ship. Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) was famous early on for making it easy to install non-free things, like codecs for playing back mp3 files, etc.
I don't really know much about Arch (never used it), but those are some of the things that define the different threads in the "distro wars".