Portal:Linux
Wikipedia portal for content related to Linux operating systems / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Linux Portal
Linux (/ˈlɪnʊks/ LIN-uuks) is both a open-source Unix-like kernel and generic name for a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses and recommends the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the use and importance of GNU software in many distributions, causing 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 Linux-based Android on smartphones, Linux, including Android, has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems . Linux is, , used by around 4 percent of desktop computers. The Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based ChromeOS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20 percent of sub-$300 notebook sales in the US. Linux is the leading operating system on servers (over 96.4% of the top one million web servers' operating systems are Linux), leads other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and is used on all of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers (, having gradually displaced all competitors).
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 routers, automation controls, smart home devices, video game consoles, televisions (Samsung and LG Smart TVs), automobiles (Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Toyota), and spacecraft (Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon crew capsule, and the Perseverance rover). (Full article...)
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Linux Mint is a community-driven Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (which is in turn based on Debian), bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. It can provide full out-of-the-box multimedia support for those who choose to include proprietary software such as multimedia codecs. Compared to standard Ubuntu, it uses the Cinnamon interface in the most popular edition, using a different, more traditional layout that can be customized by dragging the applets and creating panels. New applets can also be downloaded.
The Linux Mint project was created by Clément Lefèbvre and is actively maintained by the Linux Mint Team and community. (Full article...) - Image 2
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux and CentOS Stream serve as its upstream sources. All of Red Hat's official support and training, together with the Red Hat Certification Program, focuses on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform.
The first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to bear the name originally came onto the market as "Red Hat Linux Advanced Server". In 2003, Red Hat rebranded Red Hat Linux Advanced Server to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS" and added two more variants, Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES and Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS. (Full article...) - Image 3Linux began in 1991 as a personal project by Finnish student Linus Torvalds to create a new free operating system kernel. The resulting Linux kernel has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. Since the initial release of its source code in 1991, it has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to the 4.15 version in 2018 with more than 23.3 million lines of source code, not counting comments, under the GNU General Public License v2 with a syscall exception meaning anything that uses the kernel via system calls are not subject to the GNU GPL. (Full article...)
- Image 4In a series of legal disputes between SCO Group and Linux vendors and users, SCO alleged that its license agreements with IBM meant that source code IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rights. Members of the Linux community disagreed with SCO's claims; IBM, Novell, and Red Hat filed claims against SCO.
On August 10, 2007, a federal district court judge in SCO v. Novell ruled on summary judgment that Novell, not the SCO Group, was the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". After the ruling, Novell announced they had no interest in suing people over Unix and stated "We don't believe there is Unix in Linux". The final district court ruling, on November 20, 2008, affirmed the summary judgment, and added interest payments and a constructive trust. (Full article...) - Image 5Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. , over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use. (Full article...)
- Image 6Tux Racer is a 2000 open-source winter sports racing video game starring the Linux mascot, Tux the penguin. It was originally developed by Jasmin Patry as a computer graphics project at the University of Waterloo. Later on, Patry and the newly founded Sunspire Studios, composed of several former students of the university, expanded it. In the game, the player controls Tux as he slides down a course of snow and ice collecting herrings.
Tux Racer was officially downloaded over one million times as of 2001. It also was well received, often being acclaimed for the graphics, fast-paced gameplay, and replayability, and was a fan favorite among Linux users and the free software community. The game's popularity secured the development of a proprietized release that included enhanced graphics and multiplayer, and it also became the first GPL-licensed game to receive an arcade adaptation. It is the only product that Sunspire Studios developed and released, after which the company liquidated. (Full article...) - Image 7
Arch Linux (/ɑːrtʃ/) is an independently developed x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is intentionally minimal so that users can add only the packages they require.
pacman, a package manager written specifically for Arch Linux, is used to install, remove and update software packages. (Full article...) - Image 8
Rocky Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, which is a privately owned benefit corporation that describes itself as a "self-imposed not-for-profit". It is intended to be a downstream, complete binary-compatible release using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system source code. The project's aim is to provide a community-supported, production-grade enterprise operating system. Rocky Linux, along with RHEL and SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), has become popular for enterprise operating system use.
The first release candidate version of Rocky Linux was released on April 30, 2021, and its first general availability version was released on June 21, 2021. Rocky Linux 8 will be supported through May 2029 and Rocky Linux 9 through May 2032. (Full article...) - Image 9
CentOS (/ˈsɛntɒs/, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a discontinued Linux distribution that provided a free and open-source 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 version 8, CentOS officially supports the x86-64, ARM64, and POWER8 architectures, and releases up to version 6 also supported the IA-32 architecture. , AltArch releases of CentOS 7 are available for the IA-32 architecture, Power ISA, and for the ARMv7hl and AArch64 variants of the ARM architecture. CentOS 8 was released on 24 September 2019. (Full article...) - Image 10
Ubuntu (/ʊˈbʊntuː/ uu-BUUN-too) is a Linux distribution derived from Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in multiple editions: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of things devices and robots. The operating system is developed by the British company Canonical, and a community of other developers, under a meritocratic governance model. , the most-recent long-term support release is 24.04 ("Noble Numbat").
As with other Linux distributions, all of the editions can run on a computer alone, or in a virtual machine. An upgrade to Ubuntu is released every six months, with long-term support (LTS) releases every two years. Canonical provides security updates and support for each Ubuntu release, starting from the release date until the release reaches its designated end-of-life (EOL) date. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of premium services related to Ubuntu and donations from those who download the Ubuntu software. (Full article...) - Image 11This article documents the version history of the Linux kernel.
Each major version – identified by the first two numbers of a release version – is designated one of the following levels of support: (Full article...) - Image 12
The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit organization established in 2000 to support Linux development and open-source software projects. (Full article...) - Image 13
Smack (full name: Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel) is a Linux kernel security module that protects data and process interaction from malicious manipulation using a set of custom mandatory access control (MAC) rules, with simplicity as its main design goal. It has been officially merged since the Linux 2.6.25 release, it was the main access control mechanism for the MeeGo mobile Operating System. It is also used to sandbox HTML5 web applications in the Tizen architecture, in the commercial Wind River Linux solutions for embedded device development, in Philips Digital TV products., and in Intel's Ostro OS for IoT devices.
Since 2016, Smack is required in all Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) implementations where it provides in association with other Linux facilities the base for the AGL security framework. (Full article...) - Image 14
The Fedora Project is an independent project to co-ordinate the development of Fedora Linux, a Linux-based operating system, operating with the vision of "a world where everyone benefits from free and open source software built by inclusive, welcoming, and open-minded communities." The project's mission statement is to create "an innovative platform for hardware, clouds, and containers that enables software developers and community members to build tailored solutions for their users". The project also oversees Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux, a special interest group which maintains the eponymous packages. The project was founded in 2003 as a result of a merger between the Red Hat Linux (RHL) and Fedora Linux projects. It is sponsored by Red Hat (an IBM subsidiary) primarily, but its employees make up only 35% of project contributors, and most of the over 2,000 contributors are unaffiliated members of the community. (Full article...) - Image 15
The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, UNIX-like kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and soon after was adopted as the kernel for the GNU operating system (OS) which was created to be a free replacement for Unix.
Since the late 1990s, it has been included in many operating system distributions, many of which are called Linux. A notable Linux kernel operating system is Android which is used in many mobile and embedded devices. (Full article...)
Release news
- 2024-05-12 Linux kernel 6.9 released.
- 2024-04-25 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat" released.
- 2024-04-23 Fedora 40 released.
- 2024-03-20 GNOME 46 released. (announcement)
- 2024-03-10 Linux kernel 6.8 released.
- 2024-02-28 KDE Plasma 6 released.
- 2024-01-07 Linux kernel 6.7 released.
- 2023-11-20 Rocky Linux 9.3 released
- 2023-11-07 Fedora 39 released.
- 2023-10-30 Linux kernel 6.6 released.
- 2023-10-12 Ubuntu 23.10 "Mantic Minotaur" released.
- 2023-09-20 GNOME 45 released.
- 2023-08-27 Linux kernel 6.5 released.
- 2023-06-26 Linux kernel 6.4 released.
- 2023-06-10 Debian 12 "bookworm" released.
- 2023-05-16 Rocky Linux 9.2 released.
- 2023-05-10 AlmaLinux 9.2 "Turquoise Kodkod" released.
- 2023-04-23 Linux kernel 6.3 released.
- 2023-04-20 Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster" released.
- 2023-03-22 GNOME 44 released.
- 2023-02-19 Linux kernel 6.2 released.
- 2022-12-11 Linux kernel 6.1 released.
- 2022-11-16 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 and AlmaLinux 9.1 released.
- 2022-11-15 Fedora 37 released.
- 2022-10-20 Ubuntu 22.10 "Kinetic Kudu" released.
- 2022-10-02 Linux kernel 6.0 released.
- 2022-09-21 GNOME 43 released-
- 2022-07-31 Linux kernel 5.19 released.
- 2022-05-26 AlmaLinux 9 released.
- 2022-05-22 Linux kernel 5.18 released.
- 2022-05-18 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 released.
- 2022-05-10 Fedora 36 released.
- 2022-04-21 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" released.
- 2022-03-23 GNOME 42 released.
- 2022-03-20 Linux kernel 5.17 released.
- 2022-02-02 Slackware 15.0 released.
- 2022-01-09 Linux kernel 5.16 released.
- 2021-11-02 Fedora 35 released.
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- Image 1Andries Evert Brouwer (born 1951) is a Dutch mathematician and computer programmer, Professor Emeritus at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). He is known as the creator of the greatly expanded 1984 to 1985 versions of the roguelike computer game Hack that formed the basis for NetHack. He is also a Linux kernel hacker. He is sometimes referred to by the handle aeb. (Full article...)
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Sage Weil (born March 17, 1978) is the founder and chief architect of Ceph, a distributed storage platform. He also was the creator of WebRing, a co-founder of Los Angeles–based hosting company DreamHost, and the founder and CTO of Inktank. Weil now works for Red Hat as the chief architect of the Ceph project.
Weil earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science from Harvey Mudd College in 2000 and completed his PhD in 2007 at the University of California, Santa Cruz working with Prof. Scott Brandt on consistency protocols, data distribution (CRUSH), and the metadata manager in the Ceph distributed file system. In 2014, he won an O'Reilly Open Source Award. (Full article...) - Image 3
Alexander Peslyak (Александр Песляк) (born 1977), better known as Solar Designer, is a security specialist from Russia. He is best known for his publications on exploitation techniques, including the return-to-libc attack and the first generic heap-based buffer overflow exploitation technique, as well as computer security protection techniques such as privilege separation for daemon processes.
Peslyak is the author of the widely popular password cracking tool John the Ripper. His code has also been used in various third-party operating systems, such as OpenBSD and Debian. (Full article...) - Image 4
Jon "maddog" Hall (born 7 August 1950) is the board chair for the Linux Professional Institute. (Full article...) - Image 5
Patrick Volkerding (born October 20, 1966) is the founder and maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution. Volkerding is Slackware's "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (BDFL), and is also known informally as "The Man". (Full article...) - Image 6
Hans Peter Anvin (12 January 1972), also known as hpa, is a Swedish-American computer programmer who has contributed to free and open-source software projects. Anvin is the originator of SYSLINUX, Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority (LANANA), and various Linux kernel features. (Full article...) - Image 7Daniel Robbins is a computer programmer who founded the Gentoo Linux project and was its former chief architect. In 2008, he launched the Funtoo project, a free Linux distribution based on Gentoo, and he became the project's lead developer and organizer. He works in Albuquerque, New Mexico at Zenoss, and as president for Funtoo Technologies. (Full article...)
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Theodore Yue Tak Ts'o (Chinese: 曹子德; born 1968) is an American software engineer mainly known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, in particular his contributions to file systems. He is the secondary developer and maintainer of e2fsprogs, the userspace utilities for the ext2, ext3, and ext4 filesystems, and is a maintainer for the ext4 file system. (Full article...) - Image 9Peter MacDonald is a Canadian software engineer, best known as the creator of Softlanding Linux System (SLS), widely regarded as the first complete Linux distribution. Some of his work served as a foundation of Wine. He also created the Tcl web browser BrowseX, and the PDQI suite of Tcl utilities.
Current projects include Jsish, an embeddable javascript interpreter with builtin type-checking. (Full article...) - Image 10Sage Sharp (formerly Sarah Sharp) is an American software engineer who has worked on the Linux kernel, including serving on the Linux Foundation's Technical Advisory Board for two years. Sharp is non-binary and uses the pronouns "they" and "them".
Sharp began working on the kernel in 2006 as an undergraduate at Portland State University, and later through an Intel undergraduate research grant. Sharp's contributions to the kernel include writing and acting as a maintainer for its USB 3.0 driver. In 2015, Sharp recommended that the Linux project adopt a code of conduct for Linux developers; Linus Torvalds adopted a "code of conflict" instead. Sharp stepped down from direct work on the kernel on 5 October 2015, citing the abrasive communication style and "abusive commentary [on submitted patches]" of the maintainer community. (Full article...) - Image 11Stephen C. Tweedie is a Scottish software developer who is known for his work on the Linux kernel, in particular his work on filesystems.
After becoming involved with the development of the ext2 filesystem working on performance issues, he led the development of the ext3 filesystem which involved adding a journaling layer (JBD) to the ext2 filesystem. For his work on the journaling layer, he has been described by fellow Linux developer Andrew Morton as "a true artisan". (Full article...) - Image 12
Greg Kroah-Hartman is a major Linux kernel developer. , he is the Linux kernel maintainer for the -stable branch, the staging subsystem, USB, driver core, debugfs, kref, kobject, and the sysfs kernel subsystems, Userspace I/O (with Hans J. Koch), and TTY layer. He also created linux-hotplug, the udev project, and the Linux Driver Project. He worked for Novell in the SUSE Labs division and, , works at the Linux Foundation. (Full article...) - Image 13
Bruce Perens (born around 1958) is an American computer programmer and advocate in the free software movement. He created The Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI) with Eric S. Raymond.
In 2005, Perens represented Open Source at the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, at the invitation of the United Nations Development Programme. He has appeared before national legislatures and is often quoted in the press, advocating for open source and the reform of national and international technology policy. (Full article...) - Image 14
Ian Ashley Murdock (April 28, 1973 – December 28, 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. (Full article...) - Image 15
Jane Silber is a board member of Canonical Ltd. and was its chief executive officer from 2010 to 2017.
Silber is also the chair of the board of The Sensible Code Company (whose products include QuickCode.) and Diffblue (whose products include Cover, an AI-driven unit test-writing tool).
Silber joined Canonical in July 2004, where her work has included leading the Ubuntu One project and ensuring that large organizations find Ubuntu "enterprise-ready".
She partially attributes the increasing attention to user research and design in open source since 2009 to Canonical's leadership in this area.
Silber announced her transition out of the CEO role in April 2017, with Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth resuming the position from July 2017. (Full article...)
General images - load new batch
- Image 3Package installed with Aptitude (from Debian)
- Image 4Fedora Core 1.0, a continuation of Red Hat Linux with GNOME 2.4 (2003-11) (from Fedora Linux)
- Image 5The official logo (also known as open use logo) that contains the well-known Debian swirl (from Debian)
- Image 7Redevelopment costs of Linux kernel (from Linux kernel)
- Image 9Logo of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (from Debian)
- Image 10Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop, one of the several official Fedora Spins (from Fedora Linux)
- Image 13Eucalyptus interface (from Ubuntu)
- Image 14A Debian 10.0 Buster box cover (from Debian)
- Image 15Fedora Workstation 35 installation summary (from Fedora Linux)
- Image 16Debian 10 console login and welcome message (from Debian)
- Image 17The Linux Storage Stack Diagram (from Linux kernel)
- Image 18The Linux kernel supports various hardware architectures, providing a common platform for software, including proprietary software. (from Linux kernel)
- Image 19Debian 10 installation menu (BIOS Mode) (from Debian)
- Image 20Xfce is default on CD images and non-Linux ports. (from Debian)
- Image 21Map of the Linux kernel (from Linux kernel)
- Image 22Four interfaces are distinguished: two internal to the kernel, and two between the kernel and userspace. (from Linux kernel)
- Image 23Fedora 15 (Lovelock), the first release with GNOME 3 and GNOME Shell. (2011-05) (from Fedora Linux)
- Image 24Debian 4 (Etch), 2007 (from Debian)
- Image 25Linux kernel panic output (from Linux kernel)
- Image 27Debian 6 (Squeeze), 2011 (from Debian)
- Image 28At XDC2014, Alex Deucher from AMD announced the unified kernel-mode driver. The proprietary Linux graphic driver, libGL-fglrx-glx, will share the same DRM infrastructure with Mesa 3D. As there is no stable in-kernel ABI, AMD had to constantly adapt the former binary blob used by Catalyst. (from Linux kernel)
- Image 30Fedora 21, a version that brought experimental Wayland and HiDPI support (2014-12) (from Fedora Linux)
- Image 31Deepin logo (from Ubuntu)
- Image 32Cloud Ubuntu Orange Box
- Image 33Boot messages of a Linux kernel 2.6.25.17 (from Linux kernel)
- Image 34Screenshot of GDebi Package installer (from Debian)
- Image 35Ubuntu - Version History - Visual Timeline - 20231019 (from Ubuntu)
- Image 36Logo of GNU Hurd (from Debian)
- Image 39Graphical version of the Debian Installer (from Debian)
- Image 40The core values of the Fedora community (from Fedora Linux)
Did you know?
- ... that it is now possible to run Linux on an Apple-silicon Mac?
- ... that researchers submitting to the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy intentionally introduced security bugs into Linux?
- ... that Leafpad is a text editor for Linux that is comparable to Notepad for Windows?
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