LINUX OS

LINUX

Linux is a family of free and open-source software operating systems built around the Linux kernel. Typically, Linux is packaged in a form known as a Linux distribution (or distro for short) for both desktop and server use. The defining component of a Linux distribution is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. 

Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name. The Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to refer to the operating system family, as well as specific distributions, to emphasize that most Linux distributions are not just the Linux kernel, and that they have in common not only the kernel, but also numerous utilities and libraries, a large proportion of which are from the GNU project. This has led to some controversy.

Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system. Because of the dominance of the Linux kernel-based Android OS on smartphones, Linux has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems. 

Linux is also the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and the only OS used on TOP500 supercomputers (since November 2017, having before gradually eliminated all competitors). It is used by around 2.3% of desktop computers. The Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based Chrome OS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20% of the sub-$300 notebook sales in the US. 

Linux also runs on embedded systems, i.e. devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes TiVo and similar DVR devices, network routers, facility automation controls, televisions, video game consoles and smartwatches.[26] Many smartphones and tablet computers run Android and other Linux derivatives.

The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. The underlying source code may be used, modified and distributed—commercially or non-commercially—by anyone under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License.

Some of the most popular and mainstream Linux distributions are Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, Linux Mint, Mageia, openSUSE and Ubuntu, together with commercial distributions such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Distributions include the Linux kernel, supporting utilities and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project, and usually a large amount of application software to fulfill the distribution's intended use. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system, such as X11, Mir or a Wayland implementation, and an accompanying desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma; some distributions may also include a less resource-intensive desktop, such as LXDE or Xfce. Distributions intended to run on servers may omit all graphical environments from the standard install, and instead include other software to set up and operate a solution stack such as LAMP. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any intended use.

ARCH LINUX

Arch Linux is composed predominantly of free and open-source software, and supports community involvement. Arch Linux  is a Linux distribution for computers based on x86-64 architectures.

The design approach of the development team follows the KISS principle ("keep it simple, stupid") as the general guideline, and focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism and simplicity, and expects the user to be willing to make some effort to understand the system's operation. A package manager written specifically for Arch Linux, pacman, is used to install, remove and update software packages.

Arch Linux uses a rolling release model, such that a regular system update is all that is needed to obtain the latest Arch software; the installation images released by the Arch team are simply up-to-date snapshots of the main system components.

Inspired by CRUX, another minimalist distribution, Judd Vinet started the Arch Linux project in March 2002. Originally only for 32-bit x86 CPUs, the first x86_64 installation ISO was released in April 2006.

Vinet led Arch Linux until 1 October 2007, when he stepped down due to lack of time, transferring control of the project to Aaron Griffin.

The end of i686 support was announced in January 2017, with the February 2017 ISO being the last one including i686 and making the architecture unsupported in November 2017.

Pacman

To facilitate regular package changes, pacman (The Arch Package Manager, acronym over "package manager") was developed by Judd Vinet to provide Arch with its own package manager able to track dependencies. It is written in C.

All packages are managed using the pacman package manager. Pacman handles package installation, upgrades, removal, and downgrades, and features automatic dependency resolution. The packages for Arch Linux are obtained from the Arch Linux package tree and are compiled for the x86-64 architecture. It uses binary packages in the tar.xzformat, with .pkg placed before this to indicate that it is a pacman package (giving .pkg.tar.xz).

CentOS (from Community Enterprise Operating System) is a Linux distribution that provides a free, enterprise-class, community-supported computing platform functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat Enterprise Linux(RHEL). In January 2014, CentOS announced the official joining with Red Hat while staying independent from RHEL, under a new CentOS governing board.

The first CentOS release in May 2004, numbered as CentOS version 2, was forked from RHEL version 2.1AS. Since the release of version 7.0, CentOS officially supports only the x86-64 architecture, while versions older than 7.0-1406 also support IA-32 with Physical Address Extension (PAE). As of December 2015, AltArch releases of CentOS 7 are available for the IA-32 architecture, Power architecture, and for the ARMv7hl and AArch64 variants of the ARM architecture.

Debian is a Unix-like computer operating system that is composed entirely of free software, and packaged by a group of individuals participating in the Debian Project. The Debian Project was first announced on August 16, 1993 by Ian Murdock. Debian 0.01 was released on September 15, 1993, and the first stable release was made in 1996. The Debian stable release branch is the most popular Debian edition for personal computers and network servers, and has been used as a base for many other distributions.

The project's work is carried out over the Internet by a team of volunteers guided by the Debian Project Leader and three foundational documents: the Debian Social Contract, the Debian Constitution, and the Debian Free Software Guidelines. New distributions are updated continually, and the next candidate is released after a time-based freeze.

As one of the earliest operating systems based on the Linux kernel, it was decided that Debian was to be developed openly and freely distributed in the spirit of the GNU Project. This decision drew the attention and support of the Free Software Foundation, which sponsored the project for one year from November 1994 to November 1995. Upon the ending of the sponsorship, the Debian Project formed the non-profit organisation Software in the Public Interest.

While all Debian releases are derived from the GNU Operating System and use the GNU userland and the GNU C Library(glibc), other kernels aside from the Linux kernel are also available, such as those based on BSD kernels and the GNU Hurdmicrokernel.

Fedora is a Linux distribution developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to be on the leading edge of such technologies. Fedora is the upstream source of the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution.

Since the release of Fedora 21, three different editions are currently available: Workstation, focused on the personal computer, Server for servers, and Atomic focused on cloud computing.

As of February 2016, Fedora has an estimated 1.2 million users, including Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel.

Gentoo Linux is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary software distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for the specific type of computer. Pre-compiled binaries are available for some larger packages or those with no available source code.

Gentoo Linux is named after the fast-swimming gentoo penguin. The name was chosen to reflect the potential speed improvements of machine-specific optimization, which is a major feature of Gentoo. Gentoo package management is designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, and flexible. Gentoo describes itself as a meta-distribution because of its adaptability, in that the majority of users have configurations and sets of installed programs which are unique to the system and the applications they use.

Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Debian and Ubuntu that strives to be a "modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use." Linux Mint provides full out-of-the-box multimedia support by including some proprietary software and comes bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications.

The project was conceived by Clément Lefèbvre and is being actively developed by the Linux Mint Team and community.

Mageia is a Linux-based operating system, distributed as free and open source software. It is forked from the Mandriva Linux distribution. The Greek term mageía (μαγεία) means enchantment, fascination, glamour, wizardry.

The first release of the software distribution, Mageia 1, took place in June 2011. Mageia was created in 2010 as a fork of Mandriva Linux, by a group of former employees of Mandriva S.A. and several other developers and users and supporters of the Mandriva community. On September 2, 2010, Edge IT, one of the subsidiaries of Mandriva, was placed under liquidation process by the Tribunal de commerce in Paris; effective by September 17, all assets were liquidated and employees were let go. The next day, on September 18, 2010, some of these former employees, who were mostly responsible for the development and maintenance of the Mandriva Linux distribution, and several community members announced the creation of Mageia, with the support of many members of the community of developers, users and employees of Mandriva Linux.

Mageia is planned to be released on a 9-month release cycle, with each release to be supported for 18 months.

The latest stable version is Mageia 6, released in July 2017.

openSUSE formerly SUSE Linux and SuSE Linux Professional, is a Linux-based project and distribution sponsored by SUSE Linux GmbH and other companies. It is widely used throughout the world. The focus of its development is creating usable open-source tools for software developers and system administrators, while providing a user-friendly desktop and feature-rich server environment.

The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. The current stable release is openSUSE Leap 15.0. The community project offers a rolling release version called openSUSE Tumbleweed, which is continuously updated with tested, stable packages. This is based on the rolling development code base called "Factory". Other tools and applications associated with the openSUSE project are YaST, Open Build Service, openQA, Snapper, Machinery, Portus and Kiwi.

Novell created openSUSE after purchasing SuSE Linux AG for US$210 million on 4 November 2003. The Attachmate Group acquired Novell and split Novell and SUSE into two autonomous subsidiary companies. After The Attachmate Group merged with Micro Focus in November 2014, SUSE became its own business unit. On 4 July 2018, EQT Partners purchased SUSE for 2.5 billion USD.

Ubuntu is a free and open source operating system and Linux distribution based on Debian. Ubuntu is offered in three official editions: Ubuntu Desktop for personal computers, Ubuntu Server for servers and the cloud, and Ubuntu Core for Internet of things devices and robots. New releases of Ubuntu occur every six months, while long-term support (LTS) releases occur every two years.

Ubuntu is produced by Canonical and the community in a meritocratic governance model. Canonical provides free guaranteed security updates and support for each Ubuntu release, starting from the release date and until the release reaches its predesignated end-of-life (EOL) date. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of premium services related to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is named after the Southern African philosophy of ubuntu (literally, 'human-ness'), which Canonical suggests can be loosely translated as "humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of who we all are".

Ubuntu is the most popular operating system for the cloud, and is the reference operating system for OpenStack.

Ubuntu's goal is to be secure "out-of-the box". By default, the user's programs run with low privileges and cannot corrupt the operating system or other users' files. For increased security, the sudo tool is used to assign temporary privileges for performing administrative tasks, which allows the root account to remain locked and helps prevent inexperienced users from inadvertently making catastrophic system changes or opening security holes. PolicyKit is also being widely implemented into the desktop. Most network ports are closed by default to prevent hacking. A built-in firewall allows end-users who install network servers to control access. A GUI (GUI for Uncomplicated Firewall) is available to configure it. Ubuntu compiles its packages using GCC features such as PIE and buffer overflow protection to harden its software. These extra features greatly increase security at the performance expense of 1% in 32-bit and 0.01% in 64-bit.

Ubuntu also supports full disk encryption as well as encryption of the home and Private directories.

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