Server Software
Linux
It is the most common open source platform. It is the basis for other systems called “Home Server” software such as Fedora and Red Hat. It is also the foundation of Ubuntu, an open source desktop operating system with a huge following.
Debian
Debian is linux operating system that has over twenty five thousand unique configurations. The Debian operating system supports 12 unique hardware architectures. The Ubuntu operating system is a Debian derivative called GNOME.
This flexible operating system to do nearly anything imaginable, from serving media and remote backups to running a web server with a wiki or a mail server. Debian does not have to have a GUI and can be remotely administered. Along with FreeNAS, Debian is a prime candidate for turning an aging computer into a quiet, tucked-in-the-basement server.
Gentoo
Gentoo is one of the most flexible systems available. Gentoo can be customized to any type of system, from building a desktop system on which there is no need to run a Web or mail server, to using GNOME, KDE, or the plain Free86 windowing system with twm. Portage is the distribution foundation of Gentoo.
Conveniently the Gentoo provides ISO images with software precompiled using compiler directives for the specific branches of processor families (for example, Athlon/Duron, Pentium 4, Athlon-XP). These offer the optimization without the hassle of the waiting for compilation. The Gentoo community has over 4,000 applications in the Portage/ebuild format (from completely free software such as Ximian's Evolution to proprietary software such as VMware). They have collaborated over the years to create a growing library.
Easy Peasy
Easy Peasy is designed for netbooks. Easy Peasy also works well on laptop systems. It is a very easy system to work with and Easy Peasy comes with several multimedia plug-ins and codecs installed by default.
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a GNOME base platform. Ubuntu’s main distributions for use as an operating system are complete and well thought out. There are a lot of supporting systems for Ubuntu and it is customizable.
Red Hat, Fedora, Slackware, Centos, and Opensuse
Red Hat, Fedora, Slackware, Centos, and Opensuse are all open source systems that are customizable. The demands of programmers and soft ware designers vary widely. In that vein, there are many types of Linux based systems available for unique customization to a project.
Conclusion
The best part of having so many different platforms to look at gives the web designer, programming hobbyist time to see what is best for their particular needs. Consider each of these systems as books ready for discovery and investigation. They should not be considered intimidating.