“Distro” is short for “Distribution”. In the computer field, it usually refers to a particular variant of a piece of software. The most common use of the term “distro” is referring to the many variations of the Linux Operating System. There are dozens of different distributions of Linux. A small handful are:
- Ubuntu
- Red Had
- TurboLinux
- Suse
Each one of these are provided by a different group or organization. Each one is said to be a different “distro”. As you can see, “Linux” is not a single operating system. There are many flavors of it distributed by different groups. No one company “owns” Linux.