Software distro

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Software distro" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (December 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

A distro is a collection of software components built, assembled and configured so that it can essentially be used "as is". It is often the closest thing to turnkey form of free software. A distro may take the form of a binary distribution, with an executable installer which can be downloaded from the Internet. Examples range from whole operating system distributions to server and interpreter distributions (for example WAMP installers). Software distribution can also refer to careware and donateware.

In recent years, the term has come to refer to nearly any "finished" software (i.e. something that is more or less ready for its intended use, whether as a complete system or a component of a larger system) that is assembled primarily from open source components.

Examples of software distributions include BSD-based distro descendants (such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and DragonflyBSD),^[1] Linux-based distros (such as openSUSE, Debian, and Fedora), Illumos-based distros (such as OpenIndiana) and Android-based distros (such as Android TV, Fire OS, and LineageOS).

Technical support is a key issue for end-users of distributions, since the distribution itself is typically free and may not be "owned" in a commercial sense by a vendor. Depending on the distribution, support may be provided by a commercial support vendor, the developers who created the distribution or by the user community itself.