Linux Distribution Timeline

perishthethought@lemm.ee to Linux@lemmy.ml – 112 points –
upload.wikimedia.org

A really neat graphic I randomly stumbled across on Wikipedia.

No idea if this is accurate but it's fascinating to see all these distros laid out this way.

Seems to live here now: https://github.com/FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline/tree/main

Where do you live in this family tree?

33

When I was first hearing about linux, it was via Knoppix. Seems like a past life now, so long ago.

I installed Slackware in 1994 or so. Floppy. Disks.

Fast forward almost 30 years and I'm still trying new (to me) distros. Proxmox VE this time.

Proxmox isn't a "distro" as most would colloquially think of one. It's a hypervisor.

Am I taking crazy pills?

Do you mean you are using it to use your setup in a VM or container?

Proxmox VE is a packaging of Linux as an operating system. It is a distribution. Straight from the wikipedia page:

It is a Debian-based Linux distribution with a modified Ubuntu LTS kernel[7] and allows deployment and management of virtual machines and containers.[8][9]

Cool way to respond to a comment btw:

Am I taking crazy pills?

The VMs I'm running in Proxmox are also Linux, but that's less interesting to me.

I gotcha. I meant no offense. I was halfway hoping you'd tell me there was a spin of proxmox that was meant for desktop use that containerized everything or something.

It's Debian-based so can install all the same desktop and window environments available there.

The real hero here is the 75 line shell script, generating the very cool SVG image from a CSV file.

failed to install Debian Woody and SUSE in early naughts – finally succeeded with a Stage 1 Gentoo install (yay for me?) – a long sabbatical from Linux, back into the groove with Pop!_OS for a while, and recently replaced with Debian stable (successfully this time ;p ) – getting old enough that “bleeding edge” doesn’t hold any appeal any more, “boring” is far more interesting

Debian stable with some stuff installed in containers and some as flatpak is a sleeper. It may just be the best most Rick solid combination out there.

I cut my teeth on Mandrake 7.0.

There are many names on that list that I have tried over the years, but use Debian and openSUSE normally

Yggdrasil, Mandrake, Slackware (on floppy!) that takes me back...

My first flavour was Red Hat back in the late 90s. It's a shame I didn't give it more of a go back then. Then Mint for a couple of years in the earlyish 2010s before finally settling on Arch where I've been for almost a decade now.

Started on Ubuntu in 09. - got the CD in the mail On kubuntu now

Ive bounced around all over arch, Manjaro, fedora, pop_os, mint but I always come back to kubuntu.

It just works for me.

Pssht they don't even have AmogOS

A parody OS inspired by Among Us ඞ

Oh, I see. Yes, serious omission

I can't believe they'd miss such a cornerstone of Linux history

I started with Slackware around 1997 because I needed a free C compiler plus all I had were junk, hand-me-down computers. Stopped programming & using linux around 2000 and had switched back to Windows on a newly built, decent computer. From about 2000 until about 2016 I rarely used linux besides a couple routers. Raspberry pi 3 came out with built-in wifi & my dislike of Windows 10 got me back into linux for more use cases. Valve's work on proton finally made it so I could switch to linux for most gaming & my Windows usage dropped to almost nothing. Currently using Manjaro on primary desktop and Fedora 38 on tablet with mix of distros in LXC & VMs on mini-PC w/ Proxmox VE & Synology NAS. SteamVR on linux been getting decent amount of work on it lately so once it gets stable I'll have one less reason to need Windows.

I just noticed Christian Edition and Muslim edition, and was puzzled...this is the best article I could find on them. I think its interesting that religious distros keep showing up, rather than just religious packages being available on package managers.