What is a Distro?
Because the Linux kernel is incredibly modular, organizations package the kernel with specific software, package managers, and default configurations to create Distributions (or Distros).
The Major Families
- Debian/Ubuntu Family: Uses the
apt(Advanced Package Tool) package manager. Extremely popular for web servers, desktop environments, and beginner-friendly cloud instances. - Red Hat Family (RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, Rocky Linux): Uses the
yumordnfpackage manager. Known for stability, long-term support, and is the enterprise standard in massive corporations. - Alpine: Uses
apk. A security-oriented, extremely lightweight distribution built around musl libc and busybox. It is often less than 5MB in size, making it the undisputed king of Docker container base images.
When writing Dockerfiles, always use Alpine (
FROM node:alpine) unless your application requires specific C or GNU libraries that Alpine does not support natively.