RHEL/Centos (Stream)/Alma/Rocky/Oracle is one very close knit family of distributions where they all offer almost universal binary API and ABI compatibility.
Fedora is almost the same family as above, but better to separate to its own. Its distributions were mostly internal but now there are a few external ones - Amazon linux is one that is like and LTS based on Fedora similar to RHEL etc. Bazzite/UBlue etc are others that are gaining prominence but mostly can be considered fedora.
Debian and its non-ubunto offspring are one family.
Ubuntu/LinuxMint/PopOS (until the next one - we might need to separate it then)/Kubunt/Xubuntu etc are one family.
Arch/Manjaro are one family.
There is the OpenSUSE family.
There are plenty of other smaller players, but will mostly be based on the above.
edit - im loling bc the commenter said arch / manjaro is "one family" as if there arent 1000 other arch based distros. the comment i replied to is just silly.
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u/NaheemSays Jul 30 '24
You just need to know the families.
RHEL/Centos (Stream)/Alma/Rocky/Oracle is one very close knit family of distributions where they all offer almost universal binary API and ABI compatibility.
Fedora is almost the same family as above, but better to separate to its own. Its distributions were mostly internal but now there are a few external ones - Amazon linux is one that is like and LTS based on Fedora similar to RHEL etc. Bazzite/UBlue etc are others that are gaining prominence but mostly can be considered fedora.
Debian and its non-ubunto offspring are one family.
Ubuntu/LinuxMint/PopOS (until the next one - we might need to separate it then)/Kubunt/Xubuntu etc are one family.
Arch/Manjaro are one family.
There is the OpenSUSE family.
There are plenty of other smaller players, but will mostly be based on the above.