If someone refers to Windows then everyone understands that as a generic reference to covers any or all versions of Windows. As for Macs, I have very little personal experience but I assume that MacOS is sufficient to do the same.However, when referring to other OS' (see 'UNIX tree') how should someone make reference to be understood? For example, I'm most familiar with Ubuntu but also am familiar with Mint and Fedora. As I understand it: Ubuntu is a 'flavour' of DebianDebian is 'UNIX-like'UNIX is the 'grandfather' of a whole family of OS':
What is the correct way to refer to LINUX/UNIX generically?
linux;debian;ubuntu;linux mint
Terminology is complicated because there are several Unix-like OS kernels and some flavours of non-kernel (user-space) OS software.Unix-like or *nix  anything derived from original Unix and vaguely resembling it.Linux, GNU/Linux, a Linux distribution  systems based on the Linux kernel.GNU  a collection of open-source Unix-like software, excluding the kernel, otherwise sufficient to build an OS. Can run on Linux and other Unix-like kernels.Debian  a distribution of open-source operating systems, based on GNU, united by its package management system. Variants with Linux, arguably the most important Debian, are called Debian GNU/Linux. Not all Debian OS variants are Linux.Ubuntu technically is a modification of Debian, not its flavour.Additional tips:POSIX-oriented (narrower) and POSIX-compliant (broader)  encompasses virtually all modern Unix-likes, but includes also some systems that are not Unixes internally but can run some Unix-like applications.