How Different Are Linux Distributions
from One Another?
While different Linux systems will add different logos, choose some different software components
to include, and have different ways of installing and configuring Linux, most people who become
used to Linux can move pretty easily from one Linux to another. There are a few reasons for this:
Linux Standard Base??”There is an effort called the Linux Standard Base (www
.linuxbase.org) to which most major Linux systems subscribe. The Linux Standard
Base Specification (available from this site) has as one of its primary goals to ensure that
applications written for one Linux system will work on other systems. To that end, the
LSB will define what libraries need to be available, how software packages can be formatted,
commands and utilities that must be available, and, to some extent, how the
30
Linux First Steps Part I
file system should be arranged. In other words, you can rely on many components of
Linux being in the same place on LSB-certified Linux systems.
Open source projects??”Many Linux distributions include the same open source projects.
So, for example, the most basic command and configuration files for an Apache
Web server, Samba file/print server, and sendmail mail server will be the same whether
you use Red Hat, Debian, or many other Linux systems.
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