Since the day Linus Torvalds first announced his pet project in the Minix newsgroup (Minix was an earlier open-source operating system developed by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Linux has been a truly customizable system. Everything from the web browser right down to the pure kernel can be hacked and compiled to each individual's preference and need. For those of us who haven't the knowledge or time to compile our own custom system from scratch, the open-source community has provided many excellent alternatives to bring the average individual the raw power of the rebel Unix alternative, with the ease of a standard desktop environment. Today we will be discussing the pros and cons of each of the world's most prominent Linux distributions. Join us in this race to the top alternative OS!