Re: New releases query

On 03/31/08 13:47, ray wrote:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:06:34 -0400, Douglas O'Neal wrote:

On 03/31/08 11:52, ray wrote:
On Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:09:54 +0530, Artnut wrote:

<snip>
BTW - I understand Linux distributions, I don't understand Linux
'flavors'.
'flavors' is a term that has been around for a couple of decades that
was used to describe the different Unix distributions. Applying the
same term to Linux is a natural progression of the language. It's not a
difficult concept to grasp.

"flavor" to me, would imply something I could appreciate - I could see rpm as opposed to debian package management as a 'flavor' - I could see the desktop environment approaching a 'flavor' - but to speak of distributions as 'flavors' seems nonsensical to me.

The differences between the default installs of Redhat ES5 and Debian 4
are on the same order as the differences between SunOS 4.x and SGI Irix V4.x. For the CLI user they are almost identical as both were BSD-based. However, the desktop environments were generally different
and the administration tools were quite different. "Flavor" was the
terminology adopted at the time to encompass the differences between
the large number of Unix variants. The differences in flavors could
be dramatic (DEC Ultrix vs. AT&T SVR4) or subtle (RiscOS/Motif vs.
SGI Irix), just as in sensory taste.
.