OUR EXPERT
Matt Holder has tried so many alternative OSes and kernels, that we think he may have slipped into an alternate universe.
Debian is a super-stable operating system that is incredibly well tested and can be used for both desktop and server purposes. The Debian software repositories contain an enormous number of packages and Debian serves as the upstream for a number of distributions, including Ubuntu. Meanwhile, Ubuntu itself also serves as the base of a number of other distributions, which means you could see Debian as the grandparent. The number of hardware platforms Debian supports is staggering and includes MIPS, PowerPC, ARM64/HF, s390x and AMD64.
Hurd, on the other hand, is a distribution of software tools with the Mach kernel, and Hurd is the name of a set of daemons (services) and protocols that are designed to communicate with the Mach microkernel. Working together, these components can behave in the same way as the Linux kernel and can form part of a working operating system.
Whenever we boot our Android smartphones, Ubuntu laptops or Fedora desktops (does anybody actually still use a desktop at home?), we are using the Linux kernel. If we had turned left instead of turning right at some point, perhaps we would now be using the Mach kernel and Hurd services instead.
At this point, it’s important to discuss some of the terminology involved. Beginning in 1991, a young Finnish student called Linus Torvalds began working on a hobby project, which he named Linux. This was the humble beginnings of what we now use to interact with the hardware in our computers. Most people
