 One of the most often asked questions is what is the best Linux? Well, the answer to this question is obvious, but first I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux is in fact GNU slash Linux or as I've recently taken to calling it GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU core libraries, the shell utilities, and vital system components comprising a full operating system as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU, which is widely used today is often called quote, Linux, unquote. And many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system developed by the GNU project. There really is a Linux and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel, the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources in the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but it's useless by itself. It can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in conjunction with the GNU operating system. The whole system is basically GNU with Linux added or GNU slash Linux. All the so-called, quote, Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU slash Linux. Many users do not understand the difference between the kernel, which is Linux, and the whole system, which they also call, quote, Linux. The ambiguous use of the name doesn't help people understand. There are users that often think that Linus Torvalds developed the whole operating system back in 1991 with a bit of help. Programmers generally know that Linux is just the kernel, but since they have generally heard the whole system called, quote, Linux, they often envision a history that would justify naming the whole system after the kernel. For example, many believe that once Linus Torvalds finished writing Linux, the kernel, its users looked around for other free software to go with it and found that for no particular reason, most everything necessary to make a Unix-like operating system was already available. But this was not the case. What they found was no accident. It was the not-quite-complete GNU system. The available free software added up to a complete system because the GNU project had been working since 1984 to make one. In the GNU manifesto, they set forth the goal of developing a free Unix-like system called GNU. The initial announcement of the GNU project also outlined some of the original plans for the GNU system. By the time Linux was started, GNU was almost finished. Most free software projects have the goal of developing a particular program for a particular job. For example, Linus Torvalds set out to write a Unix-like kernel, Linux. Donald Knuth set out to write a text formatter, tech. Bob Scheifler set out to develop a Windows system, the X-Windows system. It's natural to measure the contribution of this kind of project by specific programs that came from the project. If we tried to measure the GNU project's contribution in this way, what would we conclude? Several years ago, when CD-ROM vendor found that in their quote, Linux distribution, GNU software was the largest single contingent, around 28% of the total source code. And this included some of the essential major components without which there could be no system. Linux itself was only about 3%. So if you were going to pick a name for the system based on who wrote the programs in the system, the most appropriate single choice would be GNU. But that is not the deepest way to consider this question. The GNU project was not, and is not, a project to develop specific software packages. It was not a project to develop a C compiler, although they did that, and it was not a project to develop a text editor, although they developed one. The GNU project set out to develop a complete free Unix-like system, GNU. Many people have made major contributions to the free software in this system, and they all deserve credit for their software. But the reason it is an integrated system and not just a collection of useful programs is because the GNU project set out to make it one. They made a list of the programs needed to make a complete free system, and they systematically found, wrote, or found people to write everything on that list. They wrote essential but unexciting components because you can't have a system without them. Some of the system components, the programming tools, became popular on their own among programmers, but they wrote many components that are not tools. For example, they even developed a chess game, GNU chess, because a complete system needs games, too. By the early 90s, the GNU project had put together the whole system aside from the kernel. They had also started their own kernel, the GNU Herd, which runs on top of Mock. Developing the Herd kernel was a bit harder than they expected, though. The GNU Herd only started working reliably in 2001, but even then, it was a long way from being ready for people to use in general. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait for the Herd kernel because of Linux. Once Linus Torvalds freed Linux in 1992, it fit into that last major gap in the GNU system. People could combine Linux with the GNU system to make this complete free system, a version of the GNU system, which also contained the Linux, the GNU slash Linux system, in other words. Making them work well together was not a trivial job. Some GNU components needed substantial change to work with Linux. Integrating a complete system as a distribution that would work out of the box was a big job, too. It required addressing the issue of how to install and boot the system. A problem the GNU team had not tackled because they hadn't yet reached that point. Thus, the people who developed the various system distributions did a lot of the essential work. But it was work that, in the nature of things, was surely going to be done by someone. The GNU project supports GNU slash Linux systems as well as the GNU system. The Free Software Foundation funded the rewriting of the Linux related extensions to the GNU C library so that they are well integrated and the newest GNU slash Linux systems use the current library release with no changes. The Free Software Foundation also funded an early stage of the development of Debian GNU slash Linux. Today, there are many different variants of the GNU slash Linux system, often simply called distros. Most of them include non-free programs, though, because their developers follow the open source philosophy associated with Linux rather than the Free Software philosophy as adopted by GNU. But there are also completely free GNU slash Linux distributions. The Free Software Foundation supports computer facilities for a few of these free distributions. Making a free GNU slash Linux distribution is not just a matter of eliminating various non-free programs. Nowadays, the usual version of Linux contains non-free programs as well. These programs are intended to be loaded into IO devices when the system starts and they are included as a long series of numbers in the source code of Linux. Thus, maintaining free GNU slash Linux distributions now entails maintaining a free version of Linux as well. So, whether you use GNU slash Linux or not, please don't confuse the public by using the name Linux ambiguously. Linux is the kernel, one of the essential major components of the system. The system as a whole is basically the GNU system with Linux added. When you're talking about this combination, please call it GNU slash Linux.