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Customized and derived distributions

By Rebecca Sobol
December 5, 2007

Not too long ago I ran across the GNU/Linux distro timeline version 7.6 (updated November 2007). Looking at the graphic it seems like most Linux distributions today have their roots in Slackware, Debian and Red Hat Linux. Slackware, of course, sprang from SLS which died out years ago. Debian and Red Hat were originals, not based on some other existing distribution.

A long time ago while studying computer science, many of my professors would repeat the old adage, "Don't reinvent the wheel". It's generally good advice, but some programmers would prefer to produce a cleaner implementation that doesn't have the cruft leftover from a previous implementation. Working with free software gives one the choice to reuse existing code or to start from scratch and maybe make a better wheel.

Some original distributions that are alive today are EnGarde, Puppy, SmoothWall and Yoper. None of these were around before 2000, though. There are only four distributions with origins in the early 1990s that are still alive today; Slackware, SUSE (a Slackware derivative), Debian and Red Hat Linux. Of those only Red Hat Linux and Debian succeeded in reinventing the wheel. What those four have in common is they evolved and remained relevant in an ever changing world of technology.

Red Hat Linux and SUSE (once S.u.S.E and then SuSE) have changed the most. Both have forked into dual Enterprise Linux with a community distribution base (Fedora and openSUSE). In the days of Red Hat Linux 5.2 through 7.3, RHL was the most common base for a derived distribution. The combined appeal of Fedora and RHEL, while substantial, do not match the popularity of the old RHL Many of the distributions inspired by RHL have taken their own path, forked the code, and remain popular distributions today. Mandrake and Conectiva were both based on RHL. Now combined and renamed, Mandriva is a notable example.

SUSE has never inspired many derivatives. Some of this may have been the proprietary nature of YaST, which is now free software. openSUSE would seem to be a good base, but it's also quite new. Perhaps we will see more openSUSE based distributions in the future.

Slackware has, perhaps, changed the least over the years. The packages change and Slackware evolves to use newer kernels and newer userspace applications, but otherwise remains much the same. Slackware derived distributions include Vector Linux, Zenwalk, SLAX, BlueWhite64, and several others.

Debian is now the most popular base for derived distributions. This is especially true when you consider that Knoppix and Ubuntu (both Debian based) have spawned many more distributions on their own. Debian's enormous package repository probably helps with that. Those who want to make a customized distribution have plenty of packages to chose from.

Making a customized Linux distribution has always been a popular pastime, at least among a subset of geeks. Linux From Scratch was developed to "scratch that itch". Source based distributions such as Rock Linux, Source Mage and Gentoo have always been about building the distribution of your dreams.

These days the tools that are available have become much more sophisticated. Fedora has an ever-growing suite of tools for creating custom spins. Ubuntu's Launchpad wraps up version control, bug tracking, translation tools and more, so that customizing and maintaining spin-offs is as easy as possible.

Open source/free software being what it is, the source code is out there. If you can build a better wheel then by all means do so. If not, start with a wheel you like and then customize to fit.

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