Linux is all around us. From phones to firewalls, from Macs to PCs, it’s getting hard to find electronics that don’t run Linux. Over the years, there have been many distributions (normally called distros) of Linux. Some are full-featured, others are very small, some are general purpose, and others are designed for specific tasks. Love it or hate it, Linux is here to stay.
Below is a list of 6 distros that were milestones for Linux adoption. Enjoy.
1. Debian (1993-present): Back in 1993, only hardcore IT geeks knew what Linux was or where to find it. Released alongside distros like Slackware and SuSE, Debian introduced a new concept… a universal OS that YOU customize. The user would install the Debian core OS and then have access to thousands of repositories containing software installation files. Debian is still available today, in fact… there are many other popular distributions which are based on it.
2. Red Hat (1995-2004): Nowadays, the term Red Hat refers to one of two distributions, Fedora or RHEL.Years ago however, the distribution was simply called Red Hat. This was the first distro to have massive adoption on both the enterprise and hobbyist fronts. Marking a major milestone, Red Hat has become almost as iconic as Linux itself. Even Windows System Administrators have heard of it… and most of them have probably used it. Red Hat is everywhere!
3. Yellow Dog (1999-present): As Red Hat gained popularity, more and more people started to notice Linux. There were several distros available, but almost all were written for X86 architecture, leaving Mac users out in the cold. Along came Yellow Dog (YDL), and PowerPC users could finally get a taste of the Linux experience. Ironically… just a few years later, Apple released Free-BSD based Mac OS X, and YDL became scarce. Still, it was an important milestone.
4. SmoothWall GPL (2000-present, now distributed as SmoothWall Express): From its inception, Linux was praised for its security features. It wasn’t long until people started using Linux as a firewall/router. SmoothWall GPL was not the only Linux-based firewall distro, but it was certainly one of the most popular. It introduced many people to the idea of using a Linux server as a network appliance, another important milestone. SmoothWall GPL became SmoothWall Express in 2002. This distro is still quite popular and distributed worldwide.
5. Ubuntu (2004-present): During the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Linux became widely adopted by server administrators and uber geeks. Linux was seen as a capable server OS, but had much slower adoption as a desktop operating system. Distros like Linux Mandrake (now called Mandriva) were marketed as “Linux for everyday people”, but it was Ubuntu that really brought user-friendly Linux to the desktop. Ubuntu proved Linux was a viable option to Windows.
6. Android (2008-present): In 2005, Google purchased a start-up called Android. The firm was busy creating a mobile OS based on Linux to battle the ever-popular Symbian OS used on most phones. At the time, nobody had heard of Android or knew what it was capable of. Today, Android has become the most popular mobile OS in circulation. It is offered on phones by every major carrier, and has even had limited netbook adoption. It has become the Linux distro of the mobile age.
KALE: A geek who works in the IT Security field and lives in Omaha, NE. He is also a music geek who has played in several local bands. Previous to his IT career, Kale worked as a photojournalist. He brings technical advice and artistic counterpoint to the podcast. 
I would just like to comment and correct the authors statement about smoothwall.. It’s not “dead”.. It is still GPL, Open-source. It’s in Revision 3.0 and just released SP2 , Aka Update 7. Others have created dozens of modifications and have published them for use, There is even an effort to update the kernel in the package to support some extra goodies. I Highly suggest you check it out! Go to the forum and see for your self! http://community.smoothwall.org/forum/
I hope you will make a correction on your article and bring us up to date..
For your Information:
As of today, the number of networks protected by SmoothWall Express 3
208601
If ALL the SmoothWall Express 3 machines were combined into one…
…it would have a CPU speed of 350552.9 Ghz, 104597.9 Gb of memory and 4370357.5 Gb of storage
Regards,
Gabriel J. Dungan
Kale Reply:
October 20th, 2010 at 6:53 AM
Hello Gabriel. Thank you for stopping by the site. We certainly appreciate your feedback. However, I do mention SmoothWall Express in the article, and the forum link you posted references SmoothWall GPL as “legacy support.”
The statement was not made to indicate that the SmoothWall distro was “dead”, just that SmoothWall Express replaced SmoothWall GPL. Sorry for any confusion around that. SmoothWall Express is very much alive and well as your statistics indicated. Again… thanks for stopping by.
Ralf Reply:
October 20th, 2010 at 5:11 PM
Sorry Kale, but it is simply not correct that “Smoothwall Express” replaced “Smoothwall GPL”. At the time of the official release of version 2.0 (or with the last beta release, can’t remember for sure right now), all that happened was that the name has changed. For all technical purposes, it was the identical product.
When you look closely at our forum site, you will see that the “GPL Legacy support” refers to version 1.0 and older (0.96 was the first publicly released one), as 2.0 had evolved in various areas over the <=1.0 release. But when you look at the screenshot of the 2.0Beta5 you posted, you will see that this is there still called "GPL", through the final release was called "Express".
Calling 1.0 and older (and soon 2.0) "Legacy" is not one bit different then for example Ubuntu has declared all version <=8.10 "End-of-life".
Though when you now present the timeframe for Smoothwall GPL/Express as "2000-2002", this give the impression that the project is dead, while a proper "2000-present", similar to your statement for example for Ubuntu, would properly show that there is a constant and ongoing evolution…
Ralf
Please remember that Linux is only the kernel and the correct designation of the basis of any Distro is GNU/Linux. All the time and effort that has gone into, and continues to go into, the GNU project is surely worthy of this recognition. It is an insult to those involved not to acknowledge their work.
Might I also nominate Arch with its rolling upgrades as having shown that you really don’t need to have aperiodic big jump upgrade. This offers users a smooth incremental translation rather than successive jumps.
David
Thanks for all the comments folks. I made a small edit. Hopefully that will clear up an misunderstandings. Again, thanks for visiting our site.
I’m missing Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X, the first distributon on CD. The first distribution which could run life from CD. The first distribution that would install into a ready to run state system.
In short, the first modern distribution.