from their Parent Distros or are they Modified is some some way and what in particular is changed?

Thanks in advance!

The only answer to a question like this is a resounding "it depends."

I do know that SalixOS warns that Salix packages might now work out-of-the box on Slackware.

I have read that, in Red Hat world, the major individual distros may have significantly different packages--a Fedora package might not work on a Mandriva/Mageia distro, for example.

At the same time, when I was using Ubuntu, I do not recall having a generic *.deb downloaded from a reputable source fail to install on Ubuntu.

I fear that there really is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question

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All of the RPM Distros have their own individual RPM File available for a said Application which seams to be contradictory of the Idea behind RPMs. Fedora would most likely impair other RPM based distros from merely redirecting a download to a Fedora Mirror I would imagine. I know that Mandriva uses different Directory Locations for some Applications. Maybe there is no technical reason.

[QUOTE=theKbStockpiler;4649717Maybe there is no technical reason.[/QUOTE]

I agree. If there is a technical reason, it is that some of the motivation for forking a distro led to structural changes in the distro which in turn required changes in package structure. but that's just a guess from someone who's little more than an intermediate-level user.

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Bad choice of words. SalixOS states that Salix packages do work out-of-the box on Slackware.

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It really does just depend distro to distro as others have said.

the long and short of it is
you can pretty much count on a package for another distro to fail on your distro

the best way around this is to install from source

Thanks for straightening me out.