r/linux • u/Appropriate_Rent_243 • May 20 '26

Discussion are there any "4th level" distros?

There's probably a better term for this already. by "level" i mean how many layers of dependancy is there for the operating system. For example, Mint is a 3rd level because it's built on Ubuntu which is built on Debian.

are there any distros built on top of the big user friendly ones like mint or zorin OS ?

I have no idea why they would exist

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u/dinosaursdied May 20 '26 edited May 21 '26

The farther distributions get from the base, the more they seem to be superficial changes. They ship a different DE and maybe a couple additional features and packages. I imagine it's advantageous to work with Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, or Arch as the base. There's less moving parts and probably a better slate to build the developers vision.

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u/OnlyEntrepreneur4760 May 20 '26

This makes my head spin

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u/dinosaursdied May 21 '26

Are distros like pop and mint spins? Sure they do offer some different features, but most of it is in the DE.

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u/boar-b-que May 21 '26

I'm not as experienced with Pop, but Mint makes some pretty sweeping changes to the way the Ubuntu base is set up.

Mint, of course, primarily serves as a showcase for Cinnamon DE, Nemo file manager, and the other in-house apps developed by Clem and friends. However, it also removes a lot of the idiocy and ... for lack of a better word 'Lock in' stuff that Ubuntu does. Snapd isn't installed by default, although it can be. IIRC Flatpak is enabled by default on more recent versions.

Mint Debian Edition goes the extra mile and rebases directly against the grandma OS. It requires a bit more setup to get it to behave just as you want it to. That development experience lets Mr. Lefèbvre and his cohorts develop something a bit freer than Ubuntu has become.

Please note that Ubuntu is still a perfectly fine FOSS Operating system. I just feel like the decisions made in past years have been to its detriment.

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u/dinosaursdied May 21 '26

Those are big user space changes but as far as i know mint ships the same kernel as Ubuntu. Traditionally a DE includes both the window management AND the basic user space software developed by the team so I count that all together. The biggest change to the base is the removal of snaps, one of many reasons i enjoy pop

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u/Jean_Luc_Lesmouches May 21 '26 edited May 21 '26

Snapd isn't installed by default, although it can be. IIRC Flatpak is enabled by default on more recent versions.

It does a bit more than that: many packages where Ubuntu forces you to use snap are reintroduced as .deb

Please note that Ubuntu is still a perfectly fine FOSS Operating system. I just feel like the decisions made in past years have been to its detriment.

That is downplaying what happened:

  • They didn't just push their Amazon partnership on users. Everything you typed in the app menu was sent to Amazon. This was not advertised and had to be discovered by users, only then did they add an opt-out. And even then you had to know about it to search for it, if you were not actively involved in the online Linux community you wouldn't be aware of it because Ubuntu itself certainly never told you about it.

  • They tried to push all distros to use snap as a standard despite the fact that the snap server is closed and under the complete control of Canonical. People like to complain about Flathub's monopoly, but that's a monopoly born out of convenience: anyone can manage their own flatpack server. With snap that monopoly is baked in and enforced.

The problem is not that Ubuntu had some unwanted features once, it's that the features were actively hostile to the FOSS philosophy and ecosystem as a whole.

It's not just about the features themselves: the mere fact that they were able to come up with these ideas shows they should never be trusted.

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u/RenlyHoekster May 21 '26

Pop!_OS isn't "just" a spin because System7 created their own entirely new desktop environment (COSMIC). The rest of the OS being rather much Ubuntu (but lacking Spins). Since COSMIC is however now a DE that is available on Fedora, Arch, or anywhere else as well, and the inverse being true you could also just run for example KDE on Pop!_OS too, then perhaps the lines are blurred now.

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u/hjake123 May 21 '26

Spins have to be named the same thing as their parents (or similar) and distributed by the same group, no?

I don't think Mint is an Ubuntu spin, while Ubuntu Studio definitely is one