I've been lurking Jow Forums the past few weeks.. So what exactly is Linux...

But it looks like an operating system. There's a bunch of versions like ubuntu and kali and arch. I don't really understand that yet though. Why have 3 different versions of Linux like that?

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Linux is a kernel, the program in your operating system that talks to the hardware and makes sure all the other programs are running correctly and don't crash the whole computer.

Ubuntu, Kali and Arch are OS distributions that include Linux along with a lot of other programs, some of which is shared between them, some of which aren't, but generally you can get the same programs to work on most Linux-based OSes with minimal effort. They all are made by different companies who maintain them for different use cases, so there is no one newest and best version, if you want to use it you need to pick a version that will work for you.

Open source doesn't have anything to do with making money or not making money, as it's only a philosophy on how people should run their development process. The companies that develop and use open source still make a lot of money. In the past Microsoft and Apple disagreed with this philosophy, but lately they have been using it more and more.

What you're referring to as versions are actually "distributions." You see, there are a lot of moving parts that make the Linux OS tick (Linux kernel, GNU coreutils, systemd, bash, X11, GTK+, GNOME, Qt, glibc, gcc, etc.), and each of these moving parts has a team of "upstream maintainers." These maintainers update these parts constantly, and they don't synchronize their development the way Apple does with macOS X and iOS. Thus, some sets of teams called "distribution maintainers" take the source code of these various moving parts and compile them together in a way that they all fit and form the full Linux OS. These distro maintainers have their own schedules for distribution releases (Arch has a rolling release cycle, Ubuntu has a new release every 6 months, Slackware can go up 3 years between releases), as well as their own policies for including software in the distro (Debian packages have to be old and stable enough to be packages into the stable release, Slackware pulls its sources directly from upstream, Fedora packages their software to make it fit for Red Hat). These distributions are available free of charge, as the distro maintainers decided to release their software that way, even though they have the right to charge money.

Install gentoo.

Hmm, I see. How come there aren't Windows or macOS distributions? How come Linux is the only one to have it? Also which distribution of Linux is the best and newest?

Very interesting. So a lot of these Linux's are different from each other but also the same.

Actually...
4 major versions, hundreds of minor versions, thousands of revisions and uncountable variants. Ubuntu, Arch and Kali are neither, they're distributions (and they also have their own versioning schemes and release cycles). Since Linux (and GNU stuff) are Open Source, anyone can build it's own arrangement of packages (usually with a specific role/target audience in mind) and distribute it. There are also commercial, proprietary and non-free distros like Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE. Most distros are based on other distros: Backbox and Linux Mint are built over Ubuntu, Kali and Ubuntu are built over Debian, Fedora is a bleeding-edge testing platform for packages to be released in RHEL when deemed stable (same thing with SUSE + openSUSE).

It's a server operating system that NEETs and useless people allsorts use on their desktops to create an illusion of being productive and intelligent.

I use arch :)

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>How come there aren't Windows or macOS distributions?
Because Windows and macOS X are closed-source OSs, and only the team of programmers hired by Microsoft/Apple are allowed to edit the source code and make changes to the OS. With Linux, all the parts are open source, meaning that anyone can change the OS and release their own version to share with others. All these distributions of Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Arch) are just modified versions of the same upstream packages.

>which distribution of Linux is the best and newest?
If you want an answer for "newest", I would have to go with either Arch Linux, Debian Sid, or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Those are rolling-release distros, meaning that their packages are always updating, and there is no static release cycle like with Ubuntu, Debian Stable, or CentOS.
If you want an answer for "best," there is no real answer for that. All the distros use the same upstream packages, so 99.99% of what you can do on one distro, you can do on another. You can look up distrowatch.org and choose a popular distribution to get started (Ubuntu, Debian stable, and Fedora are my personal recommendations), but once you install the OS, you can try out bash and see how Linux differs from Windows.

Technically there are distributions of Windows, most OEMs (Dell, HP, etc) ship Windows with custom programs and enhancements. However Microsoft only allows them to bundle those versions with PCs, they can't sell them separately.

There are also other distributions of Darwin (the open source Unix-based OS underneath MacOS), but Apple does not open source the GUI components or allow other companies to ship them on their own computers.

The reason there are many OS distributions that are based on Linux is because it isn't owned by any one company, it's made by many companies all collaborating together. There is no best and newest distribution, you need to do your research and find which one works for you.

Well, if they're able to get it properly installed and working at all without simply giving up during/after the process, either they're really special (probably 80%) or they're NEETs in academy, FOSS/hardware/application-specific R&D, and all other sorts of cool that get piggybacked on by companies interested only in extracting their ideas and discoveries for self-profit.

Well, Darwin IS open source, but then it's useless without Apple's closed-source proprietary crap made to work specifically with it...

>>How come there aren't Windows or macOS distributions?
>Because Windows and macOS X are closed-source OSs
There are different distributions of windows and macos. However, if you don't need to know there is a student/home/pro/business version of windows, or what "macos server" is, then you're unlikely to notice a difference between those distributions.

>Well, if they're able to get it properly installed and working
Installing an OOB distro takes 5 minutes of clicking OK in graphical installer. Installing an autistic distro takes 30 minutes of careful copypasting from wikis/guides/handbooks. There's literally nothing hard or special about installing or using another OS. Most people don't learn to do it, because practical RoI for them is close to zero. Stop sniffing your own sharts.

Yeah, XNU exists and is the open-source kernel for macOS X, but it's really just a forked BSD 4.4 kernel. There was an openDarwin project to try to stitch together Apple's open source components with software from other projects like FreeBSD and the GNU Project, but it fell apart and went nowhere.

Yes, the Home, Pro, Enterprise, and Server editions of Windows all exist, and Microsoft charges different prices for the different versions, but they're all maintained by the same company. They have different feature sets, which Microsoft locks behind an activation paywall. The difference with the Linux distributions is that they all have different teams working on them and giving them their own updates. The team that pushes updates for Arch isn't the same team that pushes updates for Fedora. Also, macOS X Server hasn't been a separate distribution since Lion in 2011. Nowadays, the server functions of macOS X are sold as an "app" on the Mac App Store for $20. Apple has also neglected maintaining the server app over the years, and it includes less and less features every year. Apple probably realized that people don't buy Macs for servers.

>steal someone else's opensource code
>"""release""" it with a different name
>look how open we are!

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