Distros / OSs

Android

Linux

http://www.slashgeek.net/2012/12/27/10-single-purpose-linux-distributions/

Arch

Arch Linux
- Arch Linux news - lists major upgrade changes
- Arch Linux wiki
- AUR - Arch User Repository

Arch vs. Slackware, a friendly comparison - Dec 30, 2009

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=UBfD8aWK - heh

10Gb is NOT enough for the root partition (where packages are stored).

Debian

http://static.debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/

http://wiki.debian.org/AptPreferences

not in backports (as of oct 2012): vim 7.3, atop 1.26/1.27-3

Ubuntu

http://www.osnews.com/story/26192/How_to_Undo_Unity

http://askubuntu.com/questions/100925/unity-links-to-usb-drives-do-not-open-nautilus

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-terminal/+bug/1055766

CentOS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available only through a paid subscription service that provides access to software updates and varying levels of technical support."

"Since Red Hat Enterprise Linux is based completely on free and open source software, Red Hat makes available the complete source code to its enterprise distribution through its FTP site to anybody who wants it. Accordingly, several groups have taken this source code and compiled their own versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, typically with the only changes being the removal of any references to Red Hat's trademarks and pointing the update systems to non-Red Hat servers. Groups which have undertaken this include CentOS (the 8th most popular Linux distribution as of November 2011), Oracle Linux, Scientific Linux, White Box Enterprise Linux, StartCom Enterprise Linux, Pie Box Enterprise Linux, X/OS, Lineox, and Bull's XBAS for high-performance computing. All provide a free mechanism for applying updates without paying a service fee to the distributor.""

If going down the based-on-RHEL route, consideration needs to be paid towards the update delay of the distros when a new RHEL release comes out.

Fedora

Fedora is an RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and owned by Red Hat.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system)

Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (or EPEL) is a Fedora Special Interest Group that creates, maintains, and manages a high quality set of additional packages for Enterprise Linux, including, but not limited to, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL),CentOS and Scientific Linux (SL). EPEL packages are usually based on their Fedora counterparts and will never conflict with or replace packages in the base Enterprise Linux distributions. EPEL uses much of the same infrastructure as Fedora, including buildsystem, bugzilla instance, updates manager, mirror manager and more.

Scientific Linux (SL)

http://www.scientificlinux.org/

Oracle Linux

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Linux

Quicker to release was FUD? corperate atmosphere of Oracle has a baaad relationship with the open source world in general [1]

Gentoo

http://www.gentoo.org/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux

http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened_Gentoo
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardened_Gentoo

Sugar

http://sugarlabs.org/

Slackware

http://www.slackware.com/

http://www.slax.org/

Other

Pardus
- Pardus is a Linux distribution developed with support from the Turkish government. Pardus’ main focus is office-related work, including the use in Turkish government agencies.[1] Despite that, Pardus ships in several languages. Its ease of use[2] and availability free of charge spawned numerous communities throughout the world.

Zentyal Server is a Linux small business server, that can act as a Gateway, Infrastructure Manager, Unified Threat Manager, Office Server, Unified Communication Server or a combination of them. These functionalities are tightly integrated, automating most tasks, avoiding mistakes and saving time for system administrators.

SME Server is a leading Open Source distribution for small and medium enterprises. It is a simple, powerful, secure Linux server for networking and communicating, used by thousands of individuals, companies and organizations all over the world. SME Server provides a friendly, free alternative to expensive proprietary software, standing apart from the competition by shipping with most common functionality preconfigured, and features a number of popular additional enhancements in the form of downloadable Contributions.

pfSense includes most all the features in expensive commercial firewalls, and more in many cases. The following is a list of features currently available in the pfSense 2.0 release. All of these things are possible in the web interface, without touching anything at the command line.