Chapter

1
WHAT IS LINUX?
Content
Unix Origins and Design Principles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Unix Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
FSF and GNU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
GPL General Public License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Linux Kernel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Linux Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Components of a Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Slackware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
SUSE Linux Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Debian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Ubuntu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Red Hat Linux Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Oracle Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Mandriva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1-2
Unix Origins and Design Principles
Inherits features from Multics such as the hierarchical lesystem
Everything is a le
Small single-purpose programs
Ability to pipe small programs together to accomplish more complex
tasks
The kernel makes minimum policy decisions, leaving things up to
easily modiable userland programs
All conguration data stored as text, (e.g. ASCII, UTF-8)
Unix Origins
The original batch processing systems of the 1950s were limited to
processing only one job at a time. Batch processing systems were
replaced with time sharing systems, such as the Compatible Time
Sharing System. In 1964, AT&T began discussions with MIT and GE to
create a second generation time sharing system, Multics. Work
started at BTL in 1965. Over the next four years, cutting-edge
research was done by the academics at MIT, and the computer
scientists at GE and AT&T, changing the mind set of how computers
should operate, such as the view that computing should be an
interactive and multi-user experience.
AT&T pulled out of the Multics project in 1969. The Multics project
had been ambitious, and each party had differing visions that were
hard to reconcile. Bell Labs researcher Ken Thompson started
working on an alternative to Multics, later nick named Unics by Brian
Kernighan, to distinguish it from the complexity of Multics. It was
originally written in machine language for the DEC PDP-7 and 9, but
ran primarily on the PDP-11 through Edition 7. Dennis Ritchie created
the C programming language (based on B by Thompson) and Unix
was rewritten in C.
Unix Design Principles
The researchers, led by Doug McIlroy, developed a set of principles
to guide their work. Among these principles were:
1. Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build
afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new
features.
2. Expect the output of every program to become the input to
another, as yet unknown, program. Don't clutter output with
extraneous information. Avoid stringently columnar or binary
input formats. Don't insist on interactive input.
3. Design and build software, even operating systems, to be tried
early, ideally within weeks. Don't hesitate to throw away the
clumsy parts and rebuild them.
4. Use tools in preference to unskilled help to lighten a
programming task, even if you have to detour to build the tools
and expect to throw some of them out after you've nished
using them.
(From M.D. McIlroy, E.N.Pinson, and B.A. Tague, Unix Time-Sharing
System Forward, The Bell System Technical Journal, July -Aug. 1978
vol 57, number 6 part 2, pg. 1902.)
Small programs and pipes are exible, and build simple, fast solutions
to otherwise complex tasks.
Plain text cong data facilitates remote administration. The ANSI text
originally used is limited by the 127 characters available on US
keyboards. UTF-8 (Unicode), the Plan 9 character set developed by
Thompson, is now used by many Unix systems, offering an
international character set while remaining backwards compatible to
ANSI text. The file command (covered later) will report most text
les as ASCII text, as it is rare to see characters used outside Latin-1
(extended ASCII), though not as rare as it used to be.
1-3
Unix Timeline
1965 GE, MIT, and AT&T begin work on MULTICS
1969 MULTICS dropped by AT&T, and replace it with UNICS
1973 Unix rewritten in C, making it portable
1975 Sixth Edition released; source licensed at low cost
1979 Seventh Edition released, foundation of future Unix systems
1985 Eighth Edition, based on 4.1BSD
1988 4.3BSD Net/1: rst free software release
1989 Tenth Edition, never released publicly; Plan9 First Edition
replaces it in 1992 (open sourced in 2002)
1990 AT&T Unix System V Release 4.
1991 Minix 1.5 released.
1992 Linus Torvalds releases 0.12 Linux under the GPL.
The Unix family
In February 1973, the third edition of Unix was released. The preface
of the UNIX PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL claimed an increase from 10
installations to 16, but what was more important was reected in this
statement under "Writing a program": "The three principal languages
in Unix are assembly language (see as(1)), FORTRAN (see fc(1)),
and C (see cc(1)) . . . " The new C language was a modication of
Thompson's B interpreter, adding types, and a compiler. C's simplicity
led to the fourth edition Unix being rewritten in C, and to its dominant
use in the Unix family of operating systems.
Starting with the sixth edition of Unix, AT&T licensed the source code
at low cost; however, Bell Labs kept the UNIX name trademarked,
and closely held. After AT&T sold UNIX to Novell, the UNIX trademark
was sold to the Open Group, and the source code licensed to the
Santa Cruz Operation. Each licensee had to come up with their own
name, (hence groups that used names like USENIX). Though UNIX is
a trademark, in common usage the capitalization "Unix" is used. See
the preface to A Quarter Century of UNIX (Peter H. Salus ISBN-13:
9780201547771) and
http://www.opengroup.org/tm-guidelines.htm.
There are two main branches in the Unix family tree, the System V
branch and the BSD branch. The System V branch was maintained by
AT&T and the BSD branch by the University of California at Berkeley.
There was lots of cross-pollination of features between the two
branches, and System V Release 4 is essentially a merger of these
two branches. However, there are still distinct System V and BSD
branches today, such as Oracle Solaris and Mac OS X. Several clones
are available including Minix and Linux. See
http://levenez.com/unix/ for a graphical chart of Unix and its
derivatives.
Growth of Unix
As the DEC series systems gave way to Sun workstations, mail order
computer kits, and the PC era of home computers, it was realized by
Thompson, Pike, and others that a redesign was needed to take
advantage of these new, cheaper technologies. Plan 9 succeeded
Unix as a from scratch rewrite, incorporating a distributed lesystem
and applications, and rethinking computing in terms of multiple
systems, not single time-sharing systems communicating with each
other. Though Plan 9 brings along many tools from later editions of
Unix (especially 8-10), it is a new system. Plan 9 is an open-source
operating system carrying the Unix philosophy to its pinacle.
" . . . it looks like Plan 9 failed simply because it fell short of being a
compelling enough improvement on Unix to displace its ancestor.
Compared to Plan 9, Unix creaks and clanks and has obvious rust
spots, but it gets the job done well enough to hold its position."
Eric S. Raymond
Plan 9's most signicant inuence on Linux was UTF-8. Though Linux
was intended as a free System V replacement, it has become a
bridge system, incorporating ideas from Unix and Plan 9, and
interoperating with other systems, such as Microsoft Windows.
1-4
FSF and GNU
Richard Stallman "The man, the myth, the legend..."
1983 GNU (GNU's not Unix)
goal: create the free GNU Operating System
rst programs: emacs and gcc
1985 Free Software Foundation
nonprot organization for promotion of free software
manages the GNU project
By 1991 the GNU system was almost complete
only crucial component missing was a kernel
FSF and GNU
The GNU project was announced in September 1983 by Richard
Stallman with the goal of creating a free software operating system:
GNU. In addition to dening the guiding philosophy for the GNU
project, Richard Stallman contributed code, and is the principal author
of several important software components such as GCC (the GNU
Compiler Collection), GDB (the GNU Symbolic Debugger), and the
popular GNU Emacs text editor.
Stallman graduated from Harvard with a degree in Physics. For
several years, he worked in the Articial Intelligence lab at MIT,
resigning to work on GNU. He has been granted honorary PhDs from
several universities, and won numerous prestigious awards for his
continuing efforts to advance the ideals of free software as
advocated by the FSF.
The GNU project started work on the Alix kernel in 1990. The kernel is
now called the Hurd, and runs on top of GNU Mach, a Mach 4
micro-kernel. Although a micro-kernel architecture is theoretically a
superior kernel design, in practice the Mach design has proven
cumbersome. The Debian project provides the ofcial release of
GNU/Hurd.
1-5
GPL General Public License
Guarantees that free software remains free
All software under the GPL make source available to the end user
Changes to a GPL'd software package must also be licensed under the
GPL
Source code from one GPL'd software package can be incorporated
into other GPL'd software
Other Licenses:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html
Free Software
In the Linux community you will often hear the term "free software."
What is meant by this term? What follows is an excerpt from the
GNU website: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html "'Free
software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept,
you should think of 'free speech', not 'free beer'."
'Free software' refers to the users' freedomto run, copy, distribute,
study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers
to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
The freedomto study howthe programworks, and adapt it to your
needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition
for this.
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
(freedom 2).
The freedom to improve the program, and release your
improvements to the public, so that the whole community
benets. (freedom3). Access to the source code is a precondition
for this.
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus,
you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without
modications, either gratis, or charging a fee for distribution to
anyone, anywhere.
Copyleft
To help guarantee that all software remains free, with the rst GNU
release of Emacs, Stallman wrote a copyright license so that GNU
software cannot be hidden in proprietary, "non-free" code. He called
this copyleft. See
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#WhatIsCopyleft
"Copyleft is a general method for making a program free software
and requiring all modied and extended versions of the program
to be free software as well...To copyleft a program, we rst state
that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a
legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and
redistribute the program's code or any programderived fromit but
only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and
the freedoms become legally inseparable. Proprietary software
developers use copyright to take away the users' freedom; we
use copyright to guarantee their freedom. That's why we reverse
the name, changing 'copyright' into 'copyleft'."
Licenses
While the GPL license is arguably the most important of the free
software licenses. Many other licenses exist.
1-6
The Linux Kernel
Linus Torvalds Finnish college student
wanted to replace Minix, a UNIX-like feature-limited teaching OS
The Linux kernel
fresh re-implementation of the UNIX APIs
under the GPL license
The Linux kernel together with GNU and other programs forms a
complete free operating system
The Linux Kernel
Linus Torvalds made the now famous rst post about Linux in the
comp.os.minix newsgroup in August of 1991. It is reproduced here:
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug. 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Hello everybody out there using minix -
Im doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, wont
be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
This has been brewing since april, and is starting to get
ready. Id like any feedback on things people like/dislike
in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat (same physical
layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons) among
other things).
Ive currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things
seem to work. This implies that Ill get something practical
within a few months, and Id like to know what features most
people would want. Any suggestions are welcome, but I wont
promise Ill implement them :-)
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes - its free of any minix code, and it has a
multi-threaded fs. It is NOT portable (uses 386 task switching
etc.), and it probably never will support anything other
than AT-harddisks, as thats all I have :-(.
1-7
Linux Timeline
1991 Linus Torvalds releases 0.1 Linux
1993 AT&T sells UNIX to Novell
1994 Linux kernel 1.0 released
1995 Novell licenses UNIX to SCO
1996 Linux kernel 2.0 released
1999 Linux kernel 2.2 released
2000 SCO sells UNIX code to Caldera, at the time a Linux company
2001 Linux kernel 2.4 released
2002 Caldera makes original Unix and BSD sources available
2003 Linux kernel 2.6 released (17 December)
2003 Novell acquires Ximian and SuSE
2011 Attachmate acquires Novell, including SUSE.
Linux Kernel Versioning
The Linux kernel is maintained by a large group of developers headed
by Linus Torvalds. Linus acts as a "benevolent dictator" and has nal
say over what changes are introduced into the ofcial kernel. Linus is
sponsored by the Linux Foundation, a merger of the Open Source
Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group. See
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/FAQ.
The Linux kernel version is designated by a major and minor number,
a release number, and optionally a patch level. Linux distributors may
add an additional component, the EXTRAVERSION. For example, an
errata kernel for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is version 2.6.32-71.
Originally, Linux kernels with an even minor number (e.g. 1.2.x, 2.0.x,
2.2.x, 2.4.x) were considered stable production kernels. Only bug
xes and isolated features, such as new drivers, were added to the
stable kernel tree, indicated by a third number, the patch level. Linux
kernels with an odd minor number (e.g. 1.1.x, 2.1.x, 2.3.x) were
development kernels, not to be used on production systems.
The odd-numbered development kernel was where new features
were introduced. When all the slated features were added, then the
development kernel went into a feature freeze where only bug xes
were allowed. After the development kernels became stable, the
version number was bumped so that the minor number was even. If
the number or importance of features is large enough, the major
number is incremented.
In 2004, Linus Torvalds decided that it was not necessary to create a
2.7 development branch, as the overall structure and key components
of the 2.6 kernel were sufcient for future development. Instead,
further development kernels would be built within the 2.6 tree. Stable
kernels typically now have a fourth version number. The rst such
release was 2.6.8.1. Kernels with such a fourth digit are stable patch
versions. Newly incremented third digit versions are made to signify
the completion of sets of new and revised features. For further
details, see the Documentation/HOWTO le in the kernel source
documentation.
1-8
Kernels now have long term service releases. The rst such release
was 2.6.16, released 20 March 2006, and last patched 21 July 2008
with release 2.6.16.62. Though the 2.2 series has not ofcially been
made end-of-life, it has not received a patch update in years.
2.4.37.11 was released 18 December 2010, and is scheduled for
end-of-life in September 2011. Even though a kernel is declared
end-of-life, i.e. it will receive no further updates, kernels are
considered stable for 6 months from release. Other longterm
supported kernels include 2.6.27, 2.6.33, 2.6.34, and 2.6.35. The
mainline kernel is the kernel in development for the next release, e.g.
2.6.39-rc6.
1-9
Components of a Distribution
Typical Linux distributions provide
collection of applications along with the Linux kernel
installation program
documentation
support
some are very specialized (e.g. Linux Router Project)
POSIX and Single Unix Specication compliance
Most Linux distributions provide the same basic software:
GNU software
GNU Coding Standards
BSD and Linux utilities
X.Org, GNOME, KDE, and other GUI components
Linux Distributions
Most Linux companies producing distributions have teams of
developers working full time to produce free software. The
companies earn money from services related to their distribution
including support, consulting, and selling boxed copies.
Most distributions are available for download off of the Internet.
Since 1999, most distributions have also made ISO CD-ROM images
available for download. If you have a fast Internet connection and a
CD/DVD writer, you can download an ISO image and create your own
installation media.
Linux Standards
There are hundreds of different Linux distributions. At the API/ABI
level, all Linux distributions share a common kernel, which conforms
to the POSIX/IEEE 2003 interface specications and the Single Unix
Specication. The GNU Project follows the design standards of the
GNU Operating System, which inuence the userland, and other
tools, provided by the GNU Project. This is documented in the
standards info manual, found at
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/
Components of Distributions
With the plethora of Linux distributions on the market, it might at rst
seem that Linux is repeating the same Balkanization that has
hampered the Unix world for the past two decades. It's important to
realize that, in spite of their brand differences, all main-stream Linux
distributions are compatible with each other at the API and binary
levels, because they all consist of the same core software: GNU and
BSD libraries and utilities, the X Window System as implemented by
the X.Org Project, the GNOME and KDE desktops, etc.
In spite of this basic compatibility, distributions are still
distinguishable because their developers tailor them for various
markets. Some distributions, for example, will include advanced
software packaging functions, or commercial support, or automatic
updating capabilities, while others may include value-added features
like commercial word-processing software, or additional free software
targeted for more specialized audiences.
Locating Linux Software
Software for Linux is available for download all over the Internet.
Most software projects have their own sites. In addition, there are
several sites that maintain listings of many programs with links for
downloading and more information.
These sources are excellent starting places when looking for Linux
software:
http://kernel.org/pub/linux
http://www.rpmfind.net
http://www.freshmeat.net
http://www.sourceforge.net
http://directory.fsf.org
1-10
Slackware
Oldest active distribution
Fork of Softlanding Linux System (SLS)
Added simple package management
Uses compressed tarballs
Became extremely popular and continues to have a wide following
SLS
The SLS distribution was an early distribution, making it possible for
non-berhackers to install a Linux system on their computer. Before
Linux distributions, if you wanted to install Linux, you would rst
download and install Minix, or a 386BSD derivative, then after
building the GNU toolkit (binutils, glibc, and perhaps gcc), you
could begin the process of downloading, conguring, and compiling
the Linux kernel, and a boot loader (e.g. LILO). This gave you a
kernel, but no commands. Now you could begin downloading the
GNU userland, and other source code.
Slackware
First released in April 1993, and a derivative of SLS, Slackware has
long sought to be the most Unix-like of all the Linux distributions. In
addition, Slackware primarily targets Intel-compatible architectures;
few ports to other architectures have been completed and released.
Slackware tends to be popular among those who prefer a
minimalistic approach to Linux installation and conguration.
Additional information about how to Get Slack can be found at
http://www.slackware.com. The name Slackware is derived from the
teachings of the Church of the SubGenius,
http://www.subgenius.com.
1-11
SUSE Linux Products
SUSE Linux Enterprise Family
Server and Desktop releases
2 year release cycle
7-10 year maintenance life cycle
Highly scalable, mature technology
Five platforms: x86, Amd64/Intel64, ia64, ppc64, S390x(zSeries)
ISV certications
The openSUSE Project
Cutting edge
8 month release cycle
Limited security updates for 1.5-2 years
SUSE Linux Enterprise Family
There are two SUSE Linux Enterprise products available from SUSE
Linux Products GmbH: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED). SUSE Linux Enterprise has a
10 year life cycle. Customers can deploy SLES and SLED and have
security and bug xes available for the entire duration. The extended
18-24 month release cycle coupled with the 10 year life cycle allows
ISVs time to certify their products on a stable Linux platform.
Life Cycle Considerations
The SUSE Linux Enterprise family has three stages of support:
general support, extended support, and self-support. The general
support period is for the rst 5 years of life, and is supported within
periodic service pack releases. Each service pack has the option for
long term support. Feature additions are only within the rst 4 years
of the general support life cycle. The extended support period
provides 2 years of extended long term support for server editions,
and with SLED11 for desktop editions, with critical bug maintence
(such as security patches) for a subset of packages. The self-support
period is for the remaining period of the 10 year life cycle. End-of-life,
the end of the extended support cycle, is as follows:
ySLES8: 31 October 2007. (Self support through October 2012.
The extended support period was for x86/z series server only)
ySLES9: 31 August 2011
ySLES10: 31 July 2013
ySLES11: 31 March 2016
Some of the features included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are as
follows. For a full list of features, see http://www.opensuse.org/.
yScalability
yScales up to 4096 CPUs
ySupports up to 64 TiB of RAM
yClustering and High Availability (HA)
ySupport for load balance clustering and HA congurations
yPlatform Availability
yx86, Amd64/Intel64, Itanium 2, ppc64, IBM zSeries s/390x and
s/390
The openSUSE Project
The openSUSE project was founded by Novell to build and maintain
an open-source Linux distribution. Focused on the most current and
cutting edge open source technologies, openSUSE provides early
access to future SUSE Linux Enterprise features. openSUSE life cycle
is 8 months between releases, and supported 2 months after the
next release (effectively 18 months). Versions previous to 11.2 were
supported for 2 years.
For more information on the openSUSE project see:
http://www.opensuse.org/
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Debian
Second oldest active distribution
Initially sponsored by the FSF
Authored and Controlled by the Debian community
Very committed to free software
Uses own package management, DPKG
Innovated with in-place, no reboot upgradability
Easy to keep your system current
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Debian
Begun the same year, shortly before Red Hat Linux, the
non-commercial Debian project sought to develop a package-based
approach to GNU/Linux installation. Since that time, Debian has
become popular for its dedication to free software principles and for
its huge variety of packaged software. It is also the most widely
ported GNU/Linux distribution, with ports to over a dozen
architectures, completed or in progress. It has even begun to support
non-Linux kernels from the Hurd project, to various BSD projects.
Much like Linux itself, Debian is developed and maintained by a cadre
of thousands of volunteers from all over the world, working together
over the Internet.
Additional information about Debian can be found at
http://www.debian.org/.
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Ubuntu
Founded by Mark Shuttleworth
Licensed by Canonical
Based closely on Debian
Committed to free software
Uses Debian's package management, DPKG
Easy to keep your system current
aptitude update
aptitude upgrade
Ubuntu
Ubuntu was rst released in October 2004 with the 4.10 release.
Since that time Ubuntu has stuck to a strict six-month release cycle
using a "Year.Month" versioning scheme. 4.10, 5.04, 6.06, 6.10, 7.04,
7.10, 8.04.
The LTS (Long Term Support) release is given additional preparation.
Ubuntu supports each six month released version with
eighteen-months of free security and errata updates. Each two years,
beginning with 6.06, Ubuntu releases the LTS version, which is
supported for three years on the desktop and ve years on the
server. Ubuntu also promises that they will never have an "Enterprise"
release, meaning that the entire community--business or personal--will
benet from the same product.
A few of the key things that separate Ubuntu from other distributions
are:
yCommunity rst
yUbuntu Code of Conduct
yNo "Enterprise" release
yUbuntu will always be free of charge
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Red Hat Linux Products
Invented the RPM Package Manager
Easy-to-use installer integrates partitioning and leverages RPM
Loyal to free software ideals: only ships open-source software with
few exceptions
Fedora
Cutting edge, community oriented project
Provides new technology for future RHEL releases
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Enterprise targeted distribution with commercial support
CentOS: community maintained, enterprise targeted, distribution
Oracle Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
First released in 1994, Red Hat Linux (RHL) quickly became the most
popular Linux distribution in the United States. Red Hat introduced a
variety of tools which simplify system management, such as RPM
and Kickstart, and has been ported to several architectures. The fast
pace of RHL releases lead ISVs to ask Red Hat for a long-term option
to allow product certication on a stable platform. The result was the
introduction of what became Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), a
stability branch of RHL/Fedora. See http://www.redhat.com/.
ySource code freely available and accessible
yBinaries only bundled with purchased support contract
ySeven-ten year life cycle for bug and security xes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux comes in several variants, including:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Server The primary Enterprise Linux
release, but requires a key to unlock add-on software (at install),
and in some cases extra media. Not all packages built from
source RPMs are included on the installation media, but instead
are only available from RHN. These packages are labeled optional,
and are not covered by the ABI compatibility guarantees, or errata
support (though errata may extend from related updates), similar
to supplementary packages
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for HPC Head/Compute Node Ships with
the Server package set, but includes increased support options
(more RAM, CPUs, SAN, etc.) intended for High Performance
Computing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Business Applications Ships
with the Server component, plus SAP Business Applications
support
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Client Desktop oriented, with more
add-ons, but less server, software.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation The same as Client, but
with development add-ons.
For a complete breakdown of the differences between RHEL variants,
and other options, such as support for IBM System Z and POWER
systems, see http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/.
Fedora
With the release of RHEL3, Red Hat decided to rename RHL to
eliminate confusion with RHEL. What would have been called Red
Hat Linux 10 became Fedora Core 1. The name change to Fedora
Core wasn't only about the name. Fedora is a community project,
open to the public. The Fedora Core and Fedora Extras repositories
were merged for the release of Fedora 7. The word "Core" has,
therefore, been dropped.
yRelease cycle of 6 months
y9-13 month life cycle for security and bug xes
yCommercial support is not available from Red Hat
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CentOS
CentOS is a community release based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
sources. It removes trademarked components to allow legal
redistribution of "an enterprise class OS without the cost or support
of the prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor." See
http://centos.org.
1-16
Oracle Linux
Oracle Linux
Matched release cycles with RHEL
Binary and Source compatible with RHEL
Highly scalable, mature technology
Three platforms: x86, AMD64, and Itanium
ISV certications
Oracle Linux
Oracle Linux is an Oracle provided Linux distribution that is source
and binary compatible to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Oracle uses the
publicly available source code from Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the
core of its distribution. While Oracle does incorporate additional
patches and updates, they maintain compatibility with both Red Hat
Enterprise Linux, and the certied ISV products which run on it.
Patches and modications to Oracle Linux are released to the Linux
community under the GPL license and are available for anyone,
including Red Hat, to use and incorporate into their products.
Some of the features of Oracle Linux include:
yUnlimited CPU support
ySupports large amounts of ram
y16GB on x86
y1TB on Itanium
y256GB on AMD64
yClustering
yOCFS2, GFS and Cluster suite available with OL
yPlatform Availability
yx86, AMD64 and Itanium
yComplete Software Stack
yLinux Standards Base (LSB) Certied
For a complete list of features refer to:
http://www.oracle.com/linux/
Oracle Linux is available free of charge from
http://linux.oracle.com.
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Mandriva
Formerly Mandrake
Mandrake bought Connectiva, renamed Mandriva
"User-Friendly" distribution
Powerful installation program (able to resize NTFS and FAT partitions)
Mandriva Online update tool
Drax conguration tool
Uses RPM
Mandriva
Mandrake Linux was created in 1998 with the goal of being an "easy
to use" distribution. In 2005, Mandrakesoft purchased Linux
distributor Connectiva; the combined company was named Mandriva.
A fork of Mandriva, employing many of the Mandriva developers is
called mageia. Updates are for one year, with 18 months for the base
system, and 24 months for server.
Mandriva has been the distro of choice for those trying to migrate
from a Windows or MacOS environment. Mandriva has a very
impressive installation program that allows you to resize NTFS and
FAT partitions to enable a dual-boot system. Updates and
dependency problems are all but eliminated by using the
MandrivaUpdate software. Mandriva is a good choice for a rst Linux
distribution.