So between Linux distros like Ubuntu, Manjaro, and Fedora the only difference in the Terminal is the package manager right?

Like Ubuntu uses apt-get, Manjaro uses pacman and I think Fedora uses yum (that’s what I’ve been told I could be wrong) but other than that is there any other big difference in the terminal?

Where packages are installed on your system

@EngineerCoding any command changes? Or are the commands for linux typically universal for all distros

@Bubbles
Stuff that belongs to the Coreutils should follow the POSIX-standard.
If you want a reference implementation of what needs to be implemented at minimum, take a look at busybox.

The terminal itself is often quite different. I use terminator and zsh. The debian default is xterm (which is awful, btw).

If you're referring to the environment and "experience," it can differ greatly between distros. Different utilities, filesystem, etc. Ofc you can customize all of them so they're the same if you prefer.

The major difference for me comes in the sense of condescension and superiority complex that I get from telling people that I use Arch.

Btw I use Arch.

@AleCx04 hm teach me more about this feeling I must know. I’ve only ever heard of the legends.

@Bubbles i just followed a tutorial online for installing it while reading their install guide and landed myself a really nice desktop environment that was custom made for me. That was about one of the coolest experiences since i was forced to learn how and where everything goes. There wasn't really anything out of the ordinary in it and if you know how to maintain it it can be surprisingly stable man. I would recommend doing a virtualbox install and see if you dig it. Might be worth if anything for just academic learning.

big difference.
Some distros are based on others like the debian based stuff (ubuntu), and redhat/fedora. others like you to build stuff from scratch like gentoo, and arch.
Others have thier own use - like alpine, or maybe centos.
But using a distro as basis is kinda weird for me - the coreutils/gnu is the same for all, and you can install any graphic interface/window manager you want.

the shell you use is your own preference - some use sh, others use bash, some use zsh - and you can choose...

@AleCx04 last time I tried to install it I wasn’t really as good with computers as I am now. I wasn’t computer illiterate or anything but it was when I was starting to learn a lot more. So I’ll have to try to make a arch vm again

@Bubbles One difference is how permissions and ownership work. For example in Debian derivatives there is no root user and instead you use sudo for all privilege elevation. That isn’t how it works is RHEL/Centos. You may notice a bunch of variations on command line tasks that are distro specific like drive mounting or bringing up network interfaces. Or which system controls scheduled tasks. They all have a bash shell but the tools vary widely.

@irene of course there is a root user.

sudo -i
-> you are root now
passwd
-> give it a password

Now you can login on any tty as root.

That you should not log into a DE as root is common everywhere.

@Yamakuzure This thread is about differences in commands in bash. You could enable root login in Debian family. What configuration can’t you change?

Root account is disabled on debian by default. The strategy is that root user doesn’t log in. Each sudo gets a log entry in /var/log/auth.log. Using sudo instead su - changes also strategy surrounding redirection commands. That seems like an important difference to know. Do you disagree @Yamakuzure?

@irene We are talking about different things.

root is generally available as an account, but not for the DE. That's normal.

And I really meant "sudo - i" 😉

Talking about differences, Debian based distros link /bin/sh to /bin/dash, while most of the others link to /bin/bash.

@Yamakuzure "sudo -i" in debian family doesn't log you into a root user account or even enable the root account. The user account gets elevated privileges and is initialized with environment variables and configs from the disabled root account. The root user account still isn't unlocked and it has no password.

If you use a root account on RHEL you are using the root user account, with admin privilege, root user's home directory, and root environment..

@irene that's not what I witness on dozens of Debian servers and VMs I setup and maintain since Sarge. ;-)
Stretch is the latest we use.

However, we never install a DE, so that might be the difference causing this dissonance.

Most of my experience is headless as well. So when you type “su -“ as a standard user you can type in the root password and log in as the root user?

@irene when I type in "sudo -i" as is, I am root.

It's the same as typing "sudo - su", only shorter.

However, normally you should only do that if you really need prolonged root access.

From: https://wiki.debian.org/sudo
"For the reasons above, switching to root using sudo -i (or sudo su) is usually deprecated because it cancels the above features."