Why are there so many different linux distributions and how do they really differ from the users perspective?
In: Technology
There are many components to an operating system, the part that contains the drivers and other programs to fully integrate the software to the hardware it is installed on is what Linux is.
The absolute vast majority of Linux distros are essentially the same operating system as a whole (GNU + Linux) and they change a few features, mostly, how much open source code is used in drivers, how the system boots up, audio and video processing, different package managers that control what is installed and how it’s installed and organized, and the surface level stuff like the desktop environment.
For the average user all of the surface level stuff is what is most noticeable provided the hardware setup allows it, otherwise, there’s some extra tweaking needed deeper in the Linux kernel.
Development of the Linux kernel and all the other stacks of software that make up the operating system has made it so that the user experience can be 99.9 percent the same across two seemingly different distros yet change only in how often the system is updated, and that’s enough to make the user pick one over the other.
Also, the reason there are so many distros is simply because anyone with basic skills can reuse an existing distro, change one little thing like the wallpaper selection it comes with and what web browser it comes by default and call it its own.
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