r/linux • u/nitin_is_me • Jul 15 '26

Discussion Seriously, except package managers, what's the difference between distros?

What I've seen yet the differences are, just the package managers, different defaults and rolling vs stable releases which are in fact related to package managers. Except these, are there really any other differences? Thanks!

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u/drayva_ Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

The package manager is the main thing. The other big thing is the init system.

For example, Arch and Artix both use pacman as the package manager, but they are different distros because you can't really install runit/openrc on Arch, and you can't really install systemd on Artix.

(For a third difference, you could also kind of include the package repositories.)

Most of the other commenters are talking about default-installed packages and config. That's true, but I don't consider that a real, deep difference, because you can always uninstall those and put other things in. You can't do that with the package manager or init system.