My professor assigned us to investigate "the 32 official distributions of GNU/Linux" and write a sentence or two about what each one is used for. However, every source I find says there is no universally recognized set of official GNU/Linux distributions. I've found lists of popular distributions and GNU's list of recommended free distributions, but neither contains exactly 32 official versions. My professor also compared Windows having one distribution with GNU/Linux having 32, and may have suggested that Apple belongs on the list, which doesn't seem right since Apple's operating systems are proprietary. Am I misunderstanding the assignment, or is the premise incorrect?
4 Answers
GNU does publish a list of distributions that meet its free-software guidelines, but those are recommended free distributions, not “the 32 official distributions.” Other sites publish lists of popular distributions, and companies maintain their own products such as Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, or SUSE. Those different categories may be what caused the confusion.
The closest interpretation might be a list of major distribution families rather than 32 official releases. Examples include Debian, Red Hat/Fedora, SUSE, Arch, Slackware, Gentoo, Void, and Alpine. Many other systems are derived from one of these—for example, Ubuntu from Debian and Linux Mint from Ubuntu—but that does not make them official members of a fixed set.
There is no universally accepted list of “32 official GNU/Linux distributions.” Linux is primarily a kernel, and a distribution is a collection of the kernel, system libraries, utilities, applications, and often a desktop environment. Anyone can assemble and maintain one, so there is no central authority that approves official distributions. I’d ask your professor which source or definition they expect you to use before starting the report.
That makes sense. I’ll ask for a specific source or list, since the assignment also seems to confuse distributions with operating systems in general.
The comparison with Windows is misleading. Windows is a proprietary operating system produced by one company, while GNU/Linux systems are assembled by many independent projects under open-source licenses. Apple’s operating systems are also not GNU/Linux distributions. This sounds like either a trick assignment intended to test critical thinking or an assignment based on an inaccurate explanation. Ask for clarification and state clearly in your report that no authoritative list of 32 official distributions exists.
A company-backed distribution can be official to that company, but it still isn’t an official GNU/Linux distribution in the universal sense.