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I'm looking for an overview of binary compatible linux derivates to enterprise Linux versions.
A usable definition of this compatibility is given on Wikipedia.

I already know candidates for this:

I think there are for sure many more. Who can help? Maybe this will grow into a fine overview... I'd like to edit the question to complete it with the data from answers.

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well, any software, assuming the distros use the same versions of libraries (notably libc/glibc), and on the same architecture should be binary compatable - i could compile a staticly compiled software on say, debian, and there's a good chance it'll run on RHEL. Packages on the other hand do not translate well. – Journeyman Geek Jun 29 '11 at 10:53
@Journeyman is as close as you're going to get to an answer. Do you mean that their package management systems are compatable? – new123456 Jun 29 '11 at 14:16
@peth Thanks you for your hint - do you think, this question might fit better in server fault? – Bastian Ebeling Jun 30 '11 at 5:21

1 Answer

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Lets see if i can answer this, without answering this.

Now, every OS has two sets of interfaces for a program to talk to the OS - the ABI, or Application Binary Interface and the API, the Application Programming Interface -in this case, the more interesting part is the ABI

All modern linux based OSes have the same ABI - the LSB - any linux distribution that supports the LSB should be able to run the same software - as such all modern linux distributions are, in theory binary compatable, though there's some issues.

On the other hand, if you're talking about package compatability, its a whole different kettle of fish. Centos and Scientific linux ARE RHEL with the copyrighted art bits removed. There's also debian -> ubuntu -> mint , where you shouldn't mix repos but you can borrow packages at a pinch.

Its pretty much a university thesis worth of information.

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