The natural extension of the “Etymology of a Distro” blog would be delving deeper into Open Source project’s etymologies. Indeed many readers already suggested that. Here are 20 Open Source applications and the interesting (and not so interesting) stories behind their names...

Debian? Ubuntu? Sidux? Pardus? Mepis? Gentoo? Whoa! Why are these Linux distros so strangely named? Why not name a OS simply - door, room or window? Although, Linux distros have very strange names but it is interesting to know, why they are called so?

Many fully fledged distros have drawn praise for bringing something new to the linux arena, while relying on the solid foundation of a mother distro. There has been much comment in the community about these new distros taking the mother distros work, adding to it and pushing out releases without passing those additions back to the mother distro.

With so many distros out there, how do you choose the right one? Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mint, Mandriva, Puppy, Arch and more are covered in this mega-test of Linux distros that aims to help everyone find the perfect distro for them no matter what kind of user they are. Don't miss it!

The open source survives and thrives by the sheer number of distros available. Proprietary software is just a small pond compared to the enormous number of distros available for open source. Again, distros are qualitatively superior and robust give developers the powerful tools that inspire their creativity, which they crave. One of the most popular distros ever is the Debian distro.

Brian Proffitt recently tackled the topic of distro-hopping over on LinuxPlanet. Proffitt wonders whether the practice might be passe or something to be discouraged, but it's here to stay and should be encouraged rather than looked at askew. Distro-hopping, if you're not familiar with the term, is the practice of switching Linux distributions.

There have been large distros, tiny ones, bleeding edge and rock-solid stable distros. Easy for the newbie to install, or downright impenetrable to the uninitiated. Created exclusively with free software as a badge of pride, or so proprietary in attitude that not even the toolchain was fully GNU (hello Red Flag Server 4.1, built with the Intel compiler in 2004).

Is GNU/Linux RedHat Linux? Is it Ubuntu Linux? Mandriva? If one visits one of many a Linux distro community forum, you will hear countless accolades for that distros version or presentation of Linux and you will see many derisions of other distros in the forums.

I have used more than eight distros — AntiX, Debian, Fedora, Fluxbuntu, gNewSense, Linux Mint, Wolvix and Xubuntu — but these eight are the ones that I use most, talk about most and would recommend to those looking for a distro.