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I have only used ubuntu (with unit and gnome as DE). I have heard people saying that ubuntu are for beginners and advanced users use fedora, open suse or arch. But all the difference i have seen is that the desktop environments are different and the package managers are different(ubuntu using apt, fedora using yum and arch using packman).

so my question is how are these distributions different if we fix the above lying DE(which interacts with the user) to gnome? What is the actual difference apart from the desktop environment between different distributions of linux?

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Distributions usually start with a philosophy: to provide the most stable desktop, to provide the newest packages, to be the best Do-It-Yourself distribution, to fix the problems in another distribution, to be the best long-term-supported server distribution and so on. The packages, their versions, and any distro-specific behaviors (like the package manager) all fall out from that basic philosophy.

If you're looking for the right distribution for you, you should look for the one whose philosophy matches your own requirements or desires. Detailed comparisons of the specific differences between individual releases of distributions tend to be short-lived as each distro rolls to a new version (and therefore a bad fit for Stack Exchange answers).

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  • Can you give any example?I didnt understand what you meant by different philosophy. Apr 5, 2017 at 7:32
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    @shrijit: Mint -> A relatively stable, familiar environment with a low barrier of entry. Arch -> a BYO (build your own), bleeding edge rolling release distro for experienced users. Mainly used by people with a need for development and operations tools/skills. Slackware -> Robust, conservative, predictable, minimalist (KISS from a system viewpoint), backwards compatible... Tails: Designed for live boots, equipped with tons of tools focused on security. Some examples of distro's with different philosophy's Apr 5, 2017 at 9:03
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    Tl;DR: A philosophy behind a distro is the reasoning behind its creation. Some distro's aim to be used as the OS running on servers that will have a long life. Others are meant to be used as desktop environments, and within that category, it depends on what you do with your system. If you are a domestic user, Mint/Ubuntu will be a decent fit (ease of use). If you need instant access to the most recent releases of things, and are willing to sacrifice some reliability: bleeding edge distro's like Arch and Gentoo are a good fit, but they assume a lot more knowledge up front (harder to set up) Apr 5, 2017 at 9:09
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Package manager, startup scripts, installer, policy of updates and packages. In some cases different paths for installed apps. Different community support, sometimes they are differ in patches which were applied to kernel, and default kernel configuration. Try several different distros (fedora, debian, slack, arch) and you will see differences.

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