Portal:Linux
The Linux Portal
Linux (/ˈlɪnʊks/, LIN-uuks) is 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—most of which are provided by third parties—to create a complete operating system, designed as a clone of Unix and released under the copyleft GPL license.
Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. While originally developed for x86 based personal computers, it has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system, and is used on a wide variety of devices including PCs, workstations, mainframes and embedded systems. Linux is the predominant operating system for servers and is also used on all of the world's 500 fastest supercomputers. When combined with Android, which is Linux-based and designed for smartphones, they have the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems. (Full article...)
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Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the Fedora Project. It was originally developed in 2003 as a continuation of the Red Hat Linux project. It contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to be on the leading edge of open-source technologies. It is now the upstream source for CentOS Stream and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Since the release of Fedora 21 in December 2014, three editions have been made available: personal computer, server and cloud computing. This was expanded to five editions for containerization and Internet of Things (IoT) as of the release of Fedora 37 in November 2022. A new version of Fedora Linux is released every six months. (Full article...) -
GoboLinux is a Linux distribution whose most prominent feature is a reorganization of the traditional Linux file system. Rather than following the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard like most Unix-like systems, each program in a GoboLinux system has its own subdirectory tree, where all of its files (including settings specific for that program) may be found. Thus, a program "Foo" has all of its specific files and libraries in
/Programs/Foo, under the corresponding version of this program at hand. For example, the commonly known GCC compiler suite version 8.1.0, would reside under the directory/Programs/GCC/8.1.0.
According to the GoboLinux developers, this results in a cleaner system. (Full article...) -
Linux 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...)
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Ubuntu, one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions
A Linux distribution (often abbreviated as distro) is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro, if distributed on its own, is often obtained via a website intended specifically for the purpose. Distros have been designed for a wide variety of systems ranging from personal computers (for example, Linux Mint) to servers (for example, Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and from embedded devices (for example, OpenWrt) to supercomputers (for example, Rocks Cluster Distribution).
A distro typically includes many components in addition to the Linux kernel. Commonly, it includes a package manager, an init system (such as systemd, OpenRC, or runit), GNU tools and libraries, documentation, IP network configuration utilities, the getty TTY setup program, and many more. To provide a desktop experience (most commonly the Mesa userspace graphics drivers) a display server (the most common being the X.org Server, or, more recently, a Wayland compositor such as Sway, KDE's KWin, or GNOME's Mutter), a desktop environment (most commonly GNOME, KDE Plasma, or Xfce), a sound server (usually either PulseAudio or more recently PipeWire), and other related programs may be included or installed by the user. (Full article...) -
The Linux Foundation (LF) is a non-profit organization established in 2000 to support Linux development and open-source software projects. (Full article...) -
Linux Mint is a community-developed Linux distribution. It is based on Ubuntu and designed for x86-64 based computers; another variant is based on Debian which is named Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) and has both 64-bit and IA-32 support. The Linux Mint project started in 2006 and it has since become one of the most popular Linux operating systems for desktop PCs.
It comes bundled with a variety of free and open-source applications. Linux Mint has its own desktop environment, called Cinnamon, although it also offers Xfce and MATE as alternatives by default. The latest release is Linux Mint 22 "Wilma", released on July 25, 2024; as an LTS release, it will be supported until 2029. (Full article...) -
Linux malware includes viruses, Trojans, worms and other types of malware that affect the Linux family of operating systems. Linux, Unix and other Unix-like computer operating systems are generally regarded as very well-protected against, but not immune to, computer viruses. (Full article...)
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The GNU/Linux naming controversy is a controversy regarding whether computer operating systems that use GNU software and the Linux kernel should be referred to as "GNU/Linux" or "Linux" systems.
Proponents of the term Linux argue that it is far more commonly used by the public and media and that it serves as a generic term for systems that combine that kernel with software from multiple other sources, while proponents of the term GNU/Linux note that GNU alone would be just as good a name for GNU variants which combine the GNU operating system software with software from other sources. (Full article...) -
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...) -
Linaro is an engineering organization that works on free and open-source software such as the Linux kernel, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), QEMU, power management, graphics and multimedia interfaces for the ARM family of instruction sets and implementations thereof as well as for the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA). The company provides a collaborative engineering forum for companies to share engineering resources and funding to solve common problems on ARM software. In addition to Linaro's collaborative engineering forum, Linaro also works with companies on a one-to-one basis through its Services division.
Linaro works on software that is close to the silicon such as kernel, multimedia, power management, graphics and security. The company aims to provide stable, tested tools and code for multiple software distributions to use to reduce low-level fragmentation of embedded Linux software. It also provides engineering and investment in upstream open source projects and support to silicon companies in upstreaming code to be used with their systems-on-a-chip (SoC). Since the 3.10 Linux kernel release, Linaro has consistently been listed in the top ten contributors to the Linux kernel. (Full article...) -
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...) -
Asahi Linux is a project that ports the Linux kernel and related software to Apple Silicon-powered Macs, started and led by Hector Martin. It does so by reverse-engineering the SoCs which lack documentation from Apple. (Full article...) -
Mandriva Linux (a fusion of the French distribution Mandrake Linux and the Brazilian distribution Conectiva Linux) is a discontinued Linux distribution developed by Mandriva S.A.
Each release lifetime was 18 months for base updates (Linux, system software, etc.) and 12 months for desktop updates (window managers, desktop environments, web browsers, etc.). Server products received full updates for at least five years after their release. (Full article...) -
Loki Software, Inc. (Loki Entertainment) was an American video game developer based in Tustin, California, that ported several video games from Microsoft Windows to Linux. It took its name from the Norse deity Loki. Although successful in its goal of bringing games to the Linux platform, the company folded in January 2002 after filing for bankruptcy. (Full article...)
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Knoppix, stylized KNOPPIX (/ˈknɒpɪks/ KNOP-iks), is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD or DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB). It was first released in 2000 by German Linux consultant Klaus Knopper, and was one of the first popular live distributions. Knoppix is loaded from the removable medium and decompressed into a RAM drive. The decompression is transparent and on-the-fly.
There are two main editions, available in both English and German: the traditional compact-disc (700 megabytes) edition and the DVD (4.7 gigabytes) "Maxi" edition. (Full article...)
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Release news
- 2024-11-17 Linux kernel 6.12 released.
- 2024-10-29 Fedora Linux 41 released.
- 2024-10-10 Ubuntu 24.10 "Oracular Oriole" released.
- 2024-09-18 GNOME 47 released. (announcement)
- 2024-09-15 Linux kernel 6.11 released.
- 2024-07-14 Linux kernel 6.10 released.
- 2024-05-12 Linux kernel 6.9 released.
- 2024-04-25 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat" released.
- 2024-04-23 Fedora Linux 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 Linux 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 Linux 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 Linux 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 Linux 35 released.
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LAMP: Linux, Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and PHP, is a solution stack for high-availability heavy-duty dynamic web sites.
Related portals
Selected biographies -
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Daniel 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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Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book The Cathedral and the Bazaar. He wrote a guidebook for the Roguelike game NetHack. In the 1990s, he edited and updated the Jargon File, published as The New Hacker's Dictionary. (Full article...) -
Con Kolivas is a Greek-Australian anaesthetist. He has worked as a computer programmer on the Linux kernel and on the development of the cryptographic currency mining software CGMiner. His Linux contributions include patches for the kernel to improve its desktop performance, particularly reducing I/O impact. (Full article...)
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Bradley M. Kuhn (born 1973) is a free software activist from the United States.
Kuhn is currently Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence of the Software Freedom Conservancy, having previously been executive director. Until 2010 he was the FLOSS Community Liaison and Technology Director of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). He previously served as the Executive Director of Free Software Foundation (FSF) from 2001 until March 2005. He served on the FSF's board of directors from March 2010 until October 2019. (Full article...) -
Hans Thomas Reiser (born December 19, 1963) is an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, and convicted murderer. In April 2008, Reiser was convicted of the first-degree murder of his wife, Nina Reiser, who disappeared in September 2006. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder, as part of a settlement agreement that included disclosing the location of Nina Reiser's body, which he revealed to be in a shallow grave near the couple's home.
Prior to his incarceration, Reiser created the ReiserFS computer file system, which may be used by the Linux kernel but which is now removed, as well as its attempted successor, Reiser4. In 2004, he founded Namesys, a corporation meant to coordinate the development of both file systems. (Full article...) -
Mary Gardiner is an Australian Linux programmer who was director of operations at the Ada Initiative, described as a "non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture". She was a council member of Linux Australia until September 2011. In 2012, Gardiner and Ada Initiative co-founder Valerie Aurora were named two of the most influential people in computer security by SC Magazine. (Full article...) -
Andrew Morton may refer to:
- Andrew Morton (computer programmer) (born 1959), Linux kernel programmer/coordinator
- Andrew Morton (painter) (1802–1845), English portrait artist
- Andrew Morton (writer) (born 1953), biographer of Diana, Princess of Wales, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, amongst others
- Andy Morton, Australian rugby league footballer for North Sydney Bears
- Andrew Morton (1812–1881), pioneering doctor and coroner of Weetangera, Australian Capital Territory
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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...) -
Sage 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 they/them pronouns.
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...) -
Stephen 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...) -
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...) -
Fundación Vía Libre of Córdoba, Argentina, is an NGO working on the social implications of information and communication technologies throughout Latin America, with very strong ties to the region's digital rights and software libre community, to academia, to other civil society organizations, and to the global Free Software movement. It was founded in 2000.
Via Libre's work on the role of software libre for the public administration has led to numerous legislative projects demanding the use of free software for all public administration work. The template "free software bill" that Vía Libre together with lawmakers and a large international group of software supporters helped to create, introduce and promote in several Latin American countries was mentioned in the FLOSS report as recommended legislation for all European Union member countries. (Full article...) -
Linus Benedict Torvalds (/ˈliːnəs ˈtɔːrvɔːldz/ LEE-nəs TOR-vawldz, Finland Swedish: [ˈliːnʉs ˈtuːrvɑlds] ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of the Linux kernel. He also created the distributed version control system Git.
He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel". He is also the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award and the 2018 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award. (Full article...) -
Alan or Allan Cox may refer to:
- Alan Cox (computer programmer) (born 1968), British computer programmer and Linux developer
- Alan Cox (actor) (born 1970), English actor
- Alan Cox (footballer) (1920–1993), footballer for Tranmere Rovers
- Alan Cox (radio personality) (born 1971), radio host
- Allan Cox (author) (1937–2016), American consultant and author
- Allan Cox (cricketer) (1873–1896), Barbadian cricketer
- Allan Leslie Cox (1927–1996), Canadian politician in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
- Allan V. Cox (1926–1987), American geophysicist
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Benjamin Mako Hill is a free software activist, hacker, author, and professor. He is a contributor and free software developer as part of the Debian and Ubuntu projects as well as the co-author of three technical manuals on the subject, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 Bible, The Official Ubuntu Server Book, and The Official Ubuntu Book.
Hill is an associate professor in Communication at the University of Washington. (Full article...)
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General images -
The following are images from various Linux-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Debian 4 (Etch), 2007 (from Debian) -
Fedora 21, a version that brought experimental Wayland and HiDPI support (2014-12) (from Fedora Linux) -
Logo of GNU Hurd (from Debian) -
Xfce is default on CD images and non-Linux ports. (from Debian) -
Four interfaces are distinguished: two internal to the kernel, and two between the kernel and userspace. (from Linux kernel) -
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Screenshot of GDebi Package installer (from Debian) -
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Eucalyptus interface (from Ubuntu) -
Logo of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (from Debian) -
The Linux Storage Stack Diagram (from Linux kernel) -
Ubuntu - Version History - Visual Timeline - 20231019 (from Ubuntu) -
The official logo (also known as open use logo) that contains the well-known Debian swirl (from Debian) -
Deepin logo (from Ubuntu) -
Package installed with Aptitude (from Debian) -
Text version of the Debian Installer (from Debian) -
Debian 10 installation menu (BIOS Mode) (from Debian) -
Debian 6 (Squeeze), 2011 (from Debian) -
At 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) -
Debian 10 console login and welcome message (from Debian) -
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The Linux kernel supports various hardware architectures, providing a common platform for software, including proprietary software. (from Linux kernel) -
A Debian 10 Buster box cover (from Debian) -
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Graphical version of the Debian Installer (from Debian) -
Cloud Ubuntu Orange Box -
Fedora Workstation 35 installation summary (from Fedora Linux) -
Boot messages of a Linux kernel 2.6.25.17 (from Linux kernel) -
Linux kernel panic output (from Linux kernel) -
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Sankey diagram of Linux Kernel Source Lines of Code (from Linux kernel) -
Map of the Linux kernel (from Linux kernel) -
The core values of the Fedora community (from Fedora Linux) -
Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop, one of the several official Fedora Spins (from Fedora Linux) -
![Image 38Ubuntu family tree[dubious – discuss] (from Ubuntu)](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/UbuntuFamilyTree1210.svg/108px-UbuntuFamilyTree1210.svg.png)
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Redevelopment costs of Linux kernel (from Linux kernel)
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![Image 38Ubuntu family tree[dubious – discuss] (from Ubuntu)](/wiki/File:UbuntuFamilyTree1210.svg)
Did you know?
- ... 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?
- ... that it is now possible to run Linux on an Apple-silicon Mac?
- ... that Shuah Khan, the first woman fellow of the Linux Foundation, "signed off" on a patch recommending the use of inclusive terminology in the Linux kernel?
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