4 ms·

Distro is synonymous with OS at this point. No one is using it as a derogatory term for OSes that aren't different enough to give them the denotation of "OS".

by roninb 10y ago

Distro is synonymous with OS at this point. No one is using it as a derogatory term for OSes that aren't different enough to give them the denotation of "OS". That said, you're going to have to come up with an argument stronger than "this was forked ages ago" to suggest Dragonfly and FreeBSD are different enough to warrant thought. Ubuntu forked before 2004 and you don't see anyone being called out for comparing it to Debian.

rincebrain 10y ago
DFBSD has substantial kernel differences from FreeBSD (IIRC the original reason for the fork was that the author disagreed about how to implement multiprocessor scheduling and went off to do it his way), such that the diff between the FBSD tree and the DFBSD tree would be enormous at this point. Drivers sometimes make their way between the two, I believe, but it isn't just a copy-paste operation. Ubuntu and Debian's kernels, on the other hand, are kept as itemized patchsets against the same kernel, and it would be hard (but probably not impossible) to find drivers that build+work on a Debian kernel and break on an Ubuntu kernel of similar age.
laumars 10y ago
> Distro is synonymous with OS at this point. Possibly to the layman but the term "distro" (short for "distribution") deliberately exists to differentiate between different OS's and different distributions of the same OS but with a different software stack and default configurations. While you do sometimes get differences between the Linuxes in terms of init daemons and slightly patched kernels etc, they are all generally GNU/Linux - ie generally share the same common Linux OS fundamentals (eg GNU coreutils). There will be exceptions to this rule (isn't there always?!) but we're talking about the common desktop / server platforms people automatically talk about when discussing "Linux". However many of the BSDs are developed in insolation. While they may have a shared heritage, the kernels have matured into something quite different from one another. Often the core utilities and init daemons et al can vary noticeably as well. So in essence, FreeBSD and Dragonfly are different but similar OSs, whereas Linux distributions are the same OS but differently configured. This is why we make the distinction between "distro" and "OS".
- _delirium 10y ago
  I've been experimenting with Debian/kFreeBSD lately, and one funny aspect it's had is making me realize that the kernel is not really all that important to the userland experience, at least for what I do. It still feels like Debian, even though they swapped out the Linux kernel for the FreeBSD kernel. That's one reason I think of Debian as an OS, rather than a Linux distro. Debian itself then has several distros, such as Debian/Linux and Debian/kFreeBSD.
  - gpvos 10y ago
    It might be more useful to see distro as orthogonal to OS. Is Debian/Darwin a thing yet? :)
  - laumars 10y ago
    I get your point, but aside the package manager and associated tools, most of what you've described are GNU packages / cross platform user land. ie stuff that even in the most limited sense was never Debian specific to begin with; but often was designed to run on most Unix-like platforms anyway. Because of this I've read some people describe kFreeBSD as GNU/kFreeBSD (ie GNU user land with the FreeBSD kernel) and I think that makes some sense if you're following the GNU/Linux naming convention (which I think makes sense in the context of this discussion because it also takes the Hurd kernel into account - GNU/Hurd). But this is one of those edge cases I was thinking of when I talked about exceptions to the rule in my grandparent post. As for whether it's classified as a separate OS from Debian (Linux) or FreeBSD - there's definitely some room for interpretation so I'll hold off from passing my own personal judgement :) Talking about rule exceptions, another good example would be Android. Largely the same kernel as GNU/Linux and some of the user land too but equally it's a very different platform to "desktop / server Linux"
    - acdha 10y ago
      One big difference is that Debian has invested a huge amount of work over the years cleaning up the software they package to make it easier to customize, maintain configuration across updates, etc. That's much broader than the percentage of GNU utilities in Debian's userland.
feld 10y ago
An OS is a kernel and userland developed together in its entirety. All the code shipped is maintained by a single responsible entity: an open source team or a company. External code is imported into the source tree and treated as if it is owned by the team. Any patches required for it to integrate cleanly are the responsibility of the OS maintainers. A distro is a Linux kernel and a collection of open source software, typically GNU, which fulfills the needs of the userland environment. The distro maintainers are responsible for packaging and distribution. They are not responsible for maintaining the kernel or any of the userland software unless it was internally developed such as a custom installer or various glue code, maintenance scripts, etc. They do not own the libc, the kernel, the shell, any drivers, responsibility for writing security patches, or bug fixes for any code they did not originally write, etc. The distro volunteers or employees of the company in charge of producing the distro may be involved in kernel or other open source softeare development, but it is not required. This may be an unpopular statement, but a Linux distro is not an OS. It is a collection of open source software that tries to be compatible with all of its components. Subject matter experts of all components are usually not involved in its creation. Instead they exist spread out across the entire Linux distro ecosystem. Does Arch Linux have an expert in the virtual memory subsystem of the kernels they ship? Does Gentoo have an expert in the kernel random code? Does Debian have an expert in the glibc codebase? Does Ubuntu have an expert in the bootloader? Does Mint Linux have an expert in the BASH code they ship? I can say with confidence that Suse and Redhat employ experts of many areas of the kernel, glibc, systemd, filesystems, and other components, but not everything. Does FreeBSD/Dragonfly/OpenBSD have an expert or designated owner of the filesystems they ship? Bootloaders? Libc? Kernel timekeeping code? Random? Crypto? VFS? Network stack? NIC drivers? CPU schedulers? Shells and userland utilities? Yes they do. They're OSes, entirely maintained in-project. Just like Windows, OSX, Solaris, etc. OpenBSD is most aggressive here, but unmaintained code usually means nobody is using it and it will be removed. Everything has an owner and is constantly being looked after. In the BSD world it would not be common for a major component to exist long term without an SME joining the project and maintaining it or replacing it. BSDs are OSes, and are mostly independent. You cannot easily port kernel code between them because they have diverged significantly.
- elros 10y ago
  > An OS is a kernel and userland developed together in its entirety. [citation needed]? How is a Linux distro not an OS? Isn't it the Operating System on whatever machine it's running? If I run Ubuntu or Arch, what OS am I using?

by roninb 10y ago

rincebrain 10y ago

DFBSD has substantial kernel differences from FreeBSD (IIRC the original reason for the fork was that the author disagreed about how to implement multiprocessor scheduling and went off to do it his way), such that the diff between the FBSD tree and the DFBSD tree would be enormous at this point. Drivers sometimes make their way between the two, I believe, but it isn't just a copy-paste operation. Ubuntu and Debian's kernels, on the other hand, are kept as itemized patchsets against the same kernel, and it would be hard (but probably not impossible) to find drivers that build+work on a Debian kernel and break on an Ubuntu kernel of similar age.

laumars 10y ago

> Distro is synonymous with OS at this point. Possibly to the layman but the term "distro" (short for "distribution") deliberately exists to differentiate between different OS's and different distributions of the same OS but with a different software stack and default configurations. While you do sometimes get differences between the Linuxes in terms of init daemons and slightly patched kernels etc, they are all generally GNU/Linux - ie generally share the same common Linux OS fundamentals (eg GNU coreutils). There will be exceptions to this rule (isn't there always?!) but we're talking about the common desktop / server platforms people automatically talk about when discussing "Linux". However many of the BSDs are developed in insolation. While they may have a shared heritage, the kernels have matured into something quite different from one another. Often the core utilities and init daemons et al can vary noticeably as well. So in essence, FreeBSD and Dragonfly are different but similar OSs, whereas Linux distributions are the same OS but differently configured. This is why we make the distinction between "distro" and "OS".

_delirium 10y ago
I've been experimenting with Debian/kFreeBSD lately, and one funny aspect it's had is making me realize that the kernel is not really all that important to the userland experience, at least for what I do. It still feels like Debian, even though they swapped out the Linux kernel for the FreeBSD kernel. That's one reason I think of Debian as an OS, rather than a Linux distro. Debian itself then has several distros, such as Debian/Linux and Debian/kFreeBSD.
- gpvos 10y ago
  It might be more useful to see distro as orthogonal to OS. Is Debian/Darwin a thing yet? :)
- laumars 10y ago
  I get your point, but aside the package manager and associated tools, most of what you've described are GNU packages / cross platform user land. ie stuff that even in the most limited sense was never Debian specific to begin with; but often was designed to run on most Unix-like platforms anyway. Because of this I've read some people describe kFreeBSD as GNU/kFreeBSD (ie GNU user land with the FreeBSD kernel) and I think that makes some sense if you're following the GNU/Linux naming convention (which I think makes sense in the context of this discussion because it also takes the Hurd kernel into account - GNU/Hurd). But this is one of those edge cases I was thinking of when I talked about exceptions to the rule in my grandparent post. As for whether it's classified as a separate OS from Debian (Linux) or FreeBSD - there's definitely some room for interpretation so I'll hold off from passing my own personal judgement :) Talking about rule exceptions, another good example would be Android. Largely the same kernel as GNU/Linux and some of the user land too but equally it's a very different platform to "desktop / server Linux"
  - acdha 10y ago
    One big difference is that Debian has invested a huge amount of work over the years cleaning up the software they package to make it easier to customize, maintain configuration across updates, etc. That's much broader than the percentage of GNU utilities in Debian's userland.

feld 10y ago

An OS is a kernel and userland developed together in its entirety. All the code shipped is maintained by a single responsible entity: an open source team or a company. External code is imported into the source tree and treated as if it is owned by the team. Any patches required for it to integrate cleanly are the responsibility of the OS maintainers. A distro is a Linux kernel and a collection of open source software, typically GNU, which fulfills the needs of the userland environment. The distro maintainers are responsible for packaging and distribution. They are not responsible for maintaining the kernel or any of the userland software unless it was internally developed such as a custom installer or various glue code, maintenance scripts, etc. They do not own the libc, the kernel, the shell, any drivers, responsibility for writing security patches, or bug fixes for any code they did not originally write, etc. The distro volunteers or employees of the company in charge of producing the distro may be involved in kernel or other open source softeare development, but it is not required. This may be an unpopular statement, but a Linux distro is not an OS. It is a collection of open source software that tries to be compatible with all of its components. Subject matter experts of all components are usually not involved in its creation. Instead they exist spread out across the entire Linux distro ecosystem. Does Arch Linux have an expert in the virtual memory subsystem of the kernels they ship? Does Gentoo have an expert in the kernel random code? Does Debian have an expert in the glibc codebase? Does Ubuntu have an expert in the bootloader? Does Mint Linux have an expert in the BASH code they ship? I can say with confidence that Suse and Redhat employ experts of many areas of the kernel, glibc, systemd, filesystems, and other components, but not everything. Does FreeBSD/Dragonfly/OpenBSD have an expert or designated owner of the filesystems they ship? Bootloaders? Libc? Kernel timekeeping code? Random? Crypto? VFS? Network stack? NIC drivers? CPU schedulers? Shells and userland utilities? Yes they do. They're OSes, entirely maintained in-project. Just like Windows, OSX, Solaris, etc. OpenBSD is most aggressive here, but unmaintained code usually means nobody is using it and it will be removed. Everything has an owner and is constantly being looked after. In the BSD world it would not be common for a major component to exist long term without an SME joining the project and maintaining it or replacing it. BSDs are OSes, and are mostly independent. You cannot easily port kernel code between them because they have diverged significantly.

elros 10y ago
> An OS is a kernel and userland developed together in its entirety. [citation needed]? How is a Linux distro not an OS? Isn't it the Operating System on whatever machine it's running? If I run Ubuntu or Arch, what OS am I using?