Flavours

The open nature of Linux has produced an array of different distributions (distros) from different providers, all of similar  character but with nuances of technical variation. All are predominantly free with the vast majority built on one of three bases (flavours) – RedHat, Slackware or Debian.

Base flavours are entities in themselves and invariably used in a server environment, however to expand the concept of Linux as a developed operating system we can use them as the first stage in a three level step to the desktop. The second step is the distribution or “distro”, and finally comes the actual desktop environment. Mid ground at distro level is where it gets really fun as there are over a 100 different releases available to cater for every conceivable end solution, more than enough choice, however for simplicity I’ll match the flow with a (very) concise list of three mainstream players, just so you get the idea -

• Fedora – This is Red hat’s more commercial push for the freedom of open source and is apparently favoured by the man himself, Linux creator Linus Torvalds.
• Suse – Suited for the enterprise business, now owned by legacy network pioneering giants Novell (Microsoft’s Active Directory model is based on Novells Netware/Open Directory, I have a huge soft spot for Novell). Suse is (was) built on Slackware.
• Ubuntu – My favourite, user friendly in the extreme and quite happy in either camp (Server or Desktop), built on Debian and available in a most accommodating range of enhanced derivatives. I wear the hat (literally).

Let’s move on to the desktop.

The Linux desktop environment, the ‘Window Manager’ (WM) or ‘Graphical User Interface’ (GUI), presents its face to us in one of three three guises, KDE, GNOME or XFCE (XFCE is a lighter release for lower spec computers, you can literally install it on almost anything). All provide a large degree of application crossover (e.g they all run Sun Microsystems wonderful Open Office, also free) but also come with their own bespoke offerings ‘out of the box’, for example KDE comes with the comprehensive and groovy Kontact personal information manager and groupware client whilst GNOME provides the enterprise ready Evolution comms suite, KDE uses Konqueror as it’s default web browser as oppose to Epiphany in GNOME (although both come with Firefox as an option). Suse favours KDE whilst Fedora favours GNOME, and Ubuntu, although predominantly GNOME based, offers both KDE & XFCE versions, namely Kubuntu & Xubuntu respectively.

As previously mentioned, and alongside it’s excellent server release, Ubuntu also promotes an accommodating range of enhanced derivatives tailored for other areas of computing -

• Edubuntu – For Education
• Ubuntu Studio – For Multi Media editing & creation
• Mythbuntu – A home theatre PC/TV platform

A range of sub-derivatives are also available from spin off companies such as Linux MINT who produce an elegantly enhanced GNOME based desktop release aimed at the media hungry home user, to ease installation it comes ready to roll with a fully loaded arsenal of media codecs and is both stylish and  comprehensive. There’s also eeebuntu, a bespoke netbook version of Ubuntu aimed at eeepc’s and similar units, again most excellent although not as recently prominent due to the latest release of Ubuntu’s own highly rated Netbook Remix.

And that’s basically it, the reality of freedom and stability through the Linux operating system. If you would like more information about re-enabling your existing I.T through Linux and open source we would advise contacting Leeds based Ubuntu specialists MEBBI™ Solutions who offer a full range of consultancy and platform integration services.