Richard stallman which distro

Feel free to download or mirror the distributions from there, preferably using rsync. Free distribution maintainers can request a mirror for their project by mailing the FSF sysadmins.

Individual GNU packages most of which are included in the free distributions here are described separately. Do you know about a distribution that you expected to find on our list, but didn't? First, check our page about why we don't endorse some common distributions. That page explains the reasons why several well-known distributions don't meet our guidelines.

If the distribution isn't listed there either, and you think it qualifies for a listing under our guidelines, then please let the distribution's maintainers know about this page and encourage them to get in touch—we'd like to hear from them.

When you do, we'll explain more about our evaluation process to you, and get started on it quickly. We look forward to hearing from you! Manjaro includes nonfree software through its normal channels, and ships nonfree blobs with its kernel, Linux. It includes a proprietary office suite and proprietary games with DRM.

The distro also recommends the installation of nonfree drivers. Mint does not have a policy against including nonfree software, it includes nonfree binary blobs in drivers packaged with the kernel, and it includes nonfree programs in its repositories. It even includes proprietary codecs. Red Hat's enterprise distribution primarily follows the same licensing policies as Fedora, with one exception. Thus, we don't endorse it for the same reasons. In addition to those, Red Hat has no policy against making nonfree software available for the system through supplementary distribution channels.

Slackware has the two usual problems: there's no clear policy about what software can be included, and nonfree blobs are included in Linux, the kernel. It also ships with the nonfree image-viewing program xv. Of course, with no firm policy against them, more nonfree programs could get in at any time.

There is an unofficial list of nonfree software in Slackware. It contains proprietary software, including the Steam client and proprietary drivers. Steam uses Digital Restrictions Management DRM to impose restrictions on the software it distributes, as well as on the proprietary software it promotes via the Steam store. Ubuntu maintains specific repositories of nonfree software, and Canonical expressly promotes and recommends nonfree software under the Ubuntu name in some of their distribution channels.

Ubuntu offers the option to install only free packages, which means it also offers the option to install nonfree packages too. In addition, the version of Linux, the kernel, included in Ubuntu contains firmware blobs.

As soon as you open the browser, you should be browsing anonymously. Tails includes many other tools to help with security and privacy. LUKS, for example, can encrypt your storage. Your email, instant messaging and standard browsing can all be protected using a variety of other plugins, safeguarding you from potential changes in the local configuration, and because Tails is a live CD, as soon as you reboot or shut down your machine, all traces of your session are removed.

This makes it the perfect choice when travelling, or for those times when you need to use an insecure network to transfer some secure data or access your banking details. From the boot menu, you get to choose from a selection of desktop configurations, from bare bones to a design for netbooks, as well as an overall theme. Less than a second later, everything is configured.

This speed and minimalism come from a desktop called Enlightenment. Bodhi is one of a new breed of distributions that opt for its efficiency and minimalism over the perceived bloat of KDE and Gnome.

As a result, Bodhi has modest system requirements without sacrificing features. This even works from the live CD. In this article we try to de-mystify those choices. Fortunately the distributions all share a lot of common functionality. They mostly differ in presentation and focus. When you look over this list of distributions bear in mind what kind of server you want to build. Any of the distributions will run most software you need. Finally, consider your level of Linux administration expertise.

The distributions near the beginning of this list tend to be more friendly to new admins than those later in the list. Not coincidentally this mirrors the general popularity of each distribution as a server OS. Ubuntu focuses on being user-friendly and offering newer software versions. CentOS emphasizes stability and enterprise software compatibility above cutting-edge features.

Debian is similarly conservative with a focus on tested and stable software, but with easier access to a repository of newer but potentially less stable packages. Red Hat is the best choice when you absolutely need the maximum level of enterprise software compatibility but it costs an extra license fee. Fedora is laid out similar to CentOS but offers a newer and broader variety of software packages. Gentoo gives you obsessive control over every aspect of the system and how the software it runs is compiled, making it good for people learning to program for Linux.

Some of these distributions are based off some of the others. There are, in short, a lot of interrelations in the Linux world. Whatever you pick you should be fine. Ubuntu has a reputation for ease of use, which helps explain its popularity on desktops and servers. Ubuntu also helps users keep up with the latest software versions by releasing updates on a regular schedule. The LTS version uses package versions that are considered more stable than cutting-edge, making it more suitable for use on a production server than the interim Ubuntu releases.

Its widespread adoption means there are several forums and sites on the Internet that provide help resources for Ubuntu users. CentOS is a distribution that emphasizes reliability. It replicates Red Hat Enterprise Linux as much as possible, omitting only the non-free components of that distribution. That means CentOS is a very stable distribution and is well-suited to production environments. The price of stability is that the software versions included with CentOS are rarely the latest and greatest.

The packages included with CentOS have been tuned over time to work out as many bugs and security flaws as possible. Debian focuses on stability and security in its official releases.

In that respect it can be similar to CentOS, using older packages with proven track records. The reliability of Debian is such that several other distributions such as Ubuntu build on top of Debian releases.

The price for reliability is, in this case, a literal one. RHEL requires an additional license fee to Red Hat to access their non-free software components and updates. This usually means enterprise software — heavy-duty stuff aimed at larger businesses.

RHEL is worth the extra cost when it gets you vendor support or if you want to be able to take advantage of support from Red Hat itself. Use another distribution for now and you can switch later if you decide to migrate to software that requires RHEL.

The release cycle for Fedora is a short one as they continually update to newer software packages. Fedora is a good choice if you want to have easy access to new software versions soon after release. Gentoo is an unusual distribution in that its default behavior is to compile installed software itself instead of grabbing precompiled packages.

This means that Gentoo can be intimidating for new system administrators and can take a while to set up compiling takes time. That should give you a general idea of what distinguishes one Linux distribution from another. You can get more information from their respective web sites. Fortunately all these distributions are still Linux, so all have a baseline of performance.

You might even have fun — tinkering with an instance you know you can rebuild at any time is surprisingly liberating. Which is the best Linux distribution for your desktop? Linux today comes in several different flavors or distros as they are known in Linux circles.

A Linux Live CD can also be used in situations when your windows has crashed and you want to save your existing data on another media before reinstalling windows. The only problem is that such distributions tend to run slower than fully installed Linux distributions.

Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu on your computer just like any Windows application. As compared to other Linux distributions, Ubuntu has got a fixed release cycle and support period and a wealth of both official and user contributed online documentation. Linux Mint is is based on Ubuntu which itself is based on Debian so users have a large collection of software programs and packages to choose from.

Linux Mint CD comes with a utility called mint4win that will let you install Linux on your Windows computer on other partition without touching any of your existing setup. Ubuntu Desktop edition is also a great choice for Linux users who are beginners. Among the commercial distros, Xandros Home Edition is perhaps the most useful Linux desktop operating system for newbies. Xubuntu , a variant of Ubuntu is also a possibility.

Xubuntu uses xfce, a desktop environment that uses less system resources than GNOME that comes with the Ubuntu distribution.

Xubuntu versions are released twice a year, coinciding with Ubuntu releases. Damn Small Linux and Zenwalk are other variations that have minimal hardware requirements.

Traditionally though, Redhat has concentrated more on the server market than the desktop market. Xandros Desktop is another choice except that Xandros is a small company and most business organizations would prefer to deal with large stable vendors.

Some factors that go in favor of Red Hat are extensive security updates schedule 7 years , large number of new packages included in the distro and a strong training and certification program which is very useful for organizations that do not have in house skills.

Netbooks are like your regular notebook computers but with small screens, they consume less power but also have less powerful hardware. Linux distros that are suitable for running on netbooks include Ubuntu Netbook, Moblin and Jolicloud. Ubuntu Netbook requires an Intel Atom processor. If you already have a Ubuntu installer, you can install the desktop version of Ubuntu on your netbook, change the default repository to point to Ubuntu Network Editor repository and then install the relevant packages.

The interface of Jolicloud is gorgeous and different from all other Linux distros. It is based on Ubuntu so any app that works with Ubuntu will run on Jolicloud as well. Moblin , another Linux distro from netbooks, was initially a project of Intel but is now part of the Linux Foundation.

Arch Linux is a recommended distro for power experienced users as it allows them to create a customized Linux installation built from the ground up. It does not have a graphical install interface. Once the Arch Linux installation is done, there is no post-install account creation or login manager screen.

Instead, there is a screen full of configuration files that have to be tweaked to suit the network and system configuration. Slackware is another distro that deserves mention in this context. As compared to Arch Linux, Slackware Linux provides more stable packages and is thus more conservative. However, Arch Linux provides a more usable package management system that takes care of dependencies. Slackware third party packagers on the other hand, have to ensure that everything is included in the package or available for download from the same web page.

It is the oldest surviving Linux distribution. Since Slackware philosophy is to use vanilla packages, it tends to run faster than other distros. What is Linux? Linux is an operating system that evolved from a kernel created by Linus Torvalds when he was a student at the University of Helsinki.

Generally, it is obvious to most people what Linux is. However, both for political and practical reasons, it needs to be explained further. So if you have never learned to program, and you want to start, start with Lisp.

If you learn to edit with Emacs, you can learn Lisp by writing editing commands for Emacs. You can use the Introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp to learn with: it is free as in freedom , and you can order printed copies from the FSF. You can learn Scheme and a lot of deep ideas about programming from Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. Please don't buy books or anything from Amazon!

My favorite programming languages are Lisp and C. However, since around I have worked mainly on free software activism, which means I am too busy to do much programming. Around I stopped doing programming projects. I read a book about Java, and found it an elegant further development from C.

But I have never used it. I did write some code in Java once, but the code was in C and Lisp I simply happened to be in Java at the time ;-. However, in that case, abstract objects are equivalent to a naming convention for functions to call. The case where abstract objects add real power to a language is when the type is not known until run time. I suspect that I would find plenty of ugliness in the template library, but I don't know.

I skimmed documentation of Python after people told me it was fundamentally similar to Lisp. My conclusion is that that is not so. How to learn programming First, read a textbook about programming in some language, then manuals for several programming languages including Lisp. If this makes natural intuitive sense to you, that indicates your mind is well-adapted towards programming. If they don't make intuitive sense to you, I suggest you do something other than programming.

You might be able to do programming to some degree with a struggle, but if you find it a struggle you won't be very good at it. What's the point of programming if it is a struggle instead of a fascination? After that, you need to read the source code of real programs or parts of them and figure out what they do. Then start writing changes in them, to add features, or fix bugs if you can find out about specific bugs to fix.

Ask some good programmers who are familiar with the code of those programs to read and critique your changes. If you fix a bug in a free program that people are developing, the developers are likely to be glad to get fixes from you and will tell you the way to write them to make them good to install.

Look at their TODO list for features you would like to implement. You will find it is a great satisfaction when the developers incorporate your changes. Do this over and over and you will become good at developing software.

Please use your programming capability only for good, not for evil. Don't develop nonfree software, or service as a software substitute. Design systems not to collect personal information, and to allow anonymous use.

Non-free software issues I firmly refuse to install non-free software or tolerate its installed presence on my computer or on computers set up for me. However, if I am visiting somewhere and the machines available nearby happen to contain non-free software, through no doing of mine, I don't refuse to touch them. I will use them briefly for tasks such as browsing. This limited usage doesn't give my assent to the software's license, or make me responsible its being present in the computer, or make me the possessor of a copy of it, so I don't see an ethical obligation to refrain from this.

Of course, I explain to the local people why they should migrate the machines to free software, but I don't push them hard, because annoying them is not the way to convince them. Likewise, I don't need to worry about what software is in a kiosk, pay phone, or ATM that I am using. I hope their owners migrate them to free software, for their sake, but there's no need for me to refuse to touch them until then. I do consider what those machines and their owners might do with my personal data, but that's a different issue, which would arise just the same even if they did use free software.

My response to that issue is to minimize those activities which give them any data about me. That's my policy about using a machine once in a while. If I were to use it for an hour every day, that would no longer be "once in a while" — it would be regular use. At that point, I would start to feel the heavy hand of any nonfree software in that computer, and feel the duty to arrange to use a liberated computer instead.

Likewise, if I were to ask or lead someone to set up a computer for me to use, that would make me ethically responsible for its software load. In such a case I insist on free software, just as if the machine were my own property. As for microwave ovens and other appliances, if updating software is not a normal part of use of the device, then it is not a computer.

In that case, I think the user need not take cognizance of whether the device contains a processor and software, or is built some other way. However, if it has an "update firmware" button, that means installing different software is a normal part of use, so it is a computer.

Skype or any nonfree noninteroperable communication program is a special case because of its network effect. Using Skype to talk with someone else who is using Skype is encouraging the other to use nonfree software.