ubuntu ( http://www.ubuntu.com/ )
Super-fast and great-looking, Ubuntu is a secure, intuitive operating system that powers desktops, servers, netbooks and laptops. Ubuntu is, and always will be, absolutely free.
is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.
Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 25000 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
is a Linux-based operating system, a collection of software that makes your computer run. You can use Fedora in addition to, or instead of, other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows™ or Mac OS X™. The Fedora operating system is completely free of cost for you to enjoy and share.
The Fedora Project is the name of a worldwide community of people who love, use, and build free software from around the globe. We want to lead in the creation and spread of free code and content by working together as a community. Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat, the world's most trusted provider of open source technology. Red Hat invests in Fedora to encourage collaboration and incubate innovative new free software technologies.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is an enterprise platform well-suited for a broad range of applications across the IT infrastructure. The latest release, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, represents a new standard for Red Hat by offering greater flexibility, efficiency, and control. It works across a broad range of hardware architectures, hypervisors, and clouds. Corporations and agencies that standardize on Red Hat Enterprise Linux are free to focus on building their businesses, knowing they have a platform that delivers more of what they need.
is an Enterprise-class Linux Distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policy and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork.) CentOS is free.
CentOS is developed by a small but growing team of core developers. In turn the core developers are supported by an active user community including system administrators, network administrators, enterprise users, managers, core Linux contributors and Linux enthusiasts from around the world.
The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.
Started in 2006, Linux Mint is now the 4th most widely used home operating system behind Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS and Canonical's Ubuntu.
Some of the reasons for the success of Linux Mint are:
* It works out of the box, with full multimedia support and is extremely easy to use.
* It's both free of cost and open source.
* It's community-driven. Users are encouraged to send feedback to the project so that their ideas can be used to improve Linux Mint.
* Based on Debian and Ubuntu, it provides about 30,000 packages and one of the best software managers.
* It's safe and reliable. Thanks to a conservative approach to software updates, a unique Update Manager and the robustness of its Linux architecture, Linux Mint requires very little maintenance (no regressions, no antivirus, no anti-spyware...etc).
