On Tue, Aug 29, 2017 at 12:01:52PM -0500, Walsh, Ryan wrote: > My name is Ryan Walsh and I am a gifted student from Saint Charles MO. I am > researching why Linux Mint is more popular than other operating systems. I > am really enjoying researching this topic and I have some questions about > Debian for research: > > 1. What was Debian mainly built towards accomplishing on servers?
Debian is the second oldest Linux distribution after Slackware. It runs on many machine types and is intended as "the universal operating system" Not just for servers, but for desktops, supercomputers, small ARM based boards ... > > 2. What about Debian separates it from other operating systems like Ubuntu, > Mint, or Red Hat? Non commercial. Debian is the ancestor distribution for Ubuntu and therefore for all other Ubuntu-derived distributions like Mint. Red Hat is a commercial distribution based on RPM package format. Debian policy and packaging guidelines make Debian more consistent > > 3. What inspired Debian (a.k.a why did you create Debian instead of just > using another operating system?) It preceded most other Linux distributions. Linux kernel is 26 years old, Debian is 24. > > 4. Why is Debian only on version 9 while Mint is on version 18? > Version numbering is a whole other question :) You'll find that each distribution does things slightly differently - Ubuntu is date based, for example. > > Thank you for your time! No problem - but these sorts of questions would be better asked on debian-user as a mailing list. Debian-project is usually used for project wide announcements and similar [I used to co-maintain one of the Distributions HOWTO documents for the Linux Documentation Project] All the very best Andrew Cater