Linux

Annoying boot messages

2008-10-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

When recompiling your kernel, you might end up seeing strange messages on bootup like:

modprobe: cannot find net-pf-5
modprobe: cannot find char-major-14

These are messages from the modules loader telling you that he can't find specific modules. This usually happens when you compile modules, but modprobe tries to load modules that were not compiled and it can't find them. The way to remove those messages is to set the modules to off. In the file /etc/conf.modules you may want to add:

alias net-pf-5 off
alias char-major-14 off

This will stop modprobe from trying to load them. Of course you could also try to resove the problem by compiling the modules and make sure modprobe knows where they are.

Allowing users to run root programs

2008-10-22T04:15:00.000-07:00

When a user starts a command, it runs with the permissions of that user. What if you want to allow them to run some commands with root permissions? You can, and that's called suid.

You can set a command to be suid root with the chmod command. This will make it run as root even if a user starts it. Here is how to set mybin suid root:

chmod +s mybin

Note that you must be very careful with this option. If the command has any security hole, or allows the user to access other files or programs, the user could take over the root account and the whole system.

Allowing users to mount drives

2008-10-22T04:10:00.000-07:00

By default, Linux will not allow users to mount drives. Only root can do it, and making the mount binary suid root is not a good idea. With a special command in the /etc/fstab file, you can change that.

This is a typical line for the fd0 (A:) drive in /etc/fstab:

/dev/fd0 /mnt auto noauto,user 1 1

The keywords here are noauto and user. Noauto tells mount not the try to mount a diskette on boot, and userallows any user to mount the drive into /mnt. The auto keyword is also interesting. It tells mount to try to find out which file system is on the diskette. You could also use msdos or ext2.

LILO can't find a kernel on a big drive

2008-10-17T06:59:00.000-07:00

On some big hard drives, LILO can have problems loading your kernel. The problem is because the hard drive has more then 1024 cylinders.

The trick is to make sure your kernel is in the first 1024 cylinders so LILO can find it. The way to do this is to make a small /boot partition at the begining of the drive, and make sure the kernel is in the /boot directory.You can set the partitions in fdisk, and select the right path for the kernel in /etc/lilo.conf so LILO knows where it is. When you compile your kernel, simply move the new kernel in that directory so LILO can load it.

Master boot record and LILO

2008-10-17T06:57:00.000-07:00

What is the master boot record (MBR) and why does LILO erase the old boot loader? Every hard drive has a top space called the MBR where the BIOS will try to load an operating system. Every system has its own loader. DOS has DOS-MBR, Windows NT has the NTLDR and Linux has LILO.

When you install LILO, you can install it in the MBR or in a boot record for the Linux partition. If you want to keep your current boot loader, you can select the Linux partition, and make sure it is the active partition in fdisk. This way you will be able to boot to LILO, and then boot the old loader from the MBR.

If you plan on only using Linux on your system, you can tell LILO to boot right into Linux and not display a "boot:" prompt, and you can install it in the MBR.

Wrong memory size found

2008-10-15T04:32:00.000-07:00

The Linux kernel will detect various settings from your computer configuration. This includes the size of memory you have. In some cases, it will find the wrong size. For example, it could find only 64 megs of memory when in fact you have 128 megs.

The trick here is to specify the amount of RAM memory you have with the "mem=" parameter. Here is what you would type when your system boots if you have 128 megs of memory:

LILO boot: linux mem=128M

This will tell LILO to load the linux kernel with 128 megs of memory.

The boot prompt

2008-10-15T04:30:00.000-07:00

The Linux system uses a program called LILO to boot itself. This is the LInux LOader, and will load a kernel and can pass various parameters. This is what the "boot:" prompt is for.

At the "boot:" prompt, you can enter a lot of parameters. You can send parameters to drivers like the ethernet driver, telling it at which IRQ the ethernet card is located, or you can pass parameters to the kernel, like memory size or what to do in a panic. Reading the LILO manual will tell you all of the nice things LILO can be used for.

Note that for device drivers compiled as modules, you need to pass values when you load these drivers, and not on the "boot:" prompt.

Kernel size and modules

2008-10-15T04:28:00.000-07:00

To configure Linux to detect a new hardware part, especially on a new kernel, you may need to recompile the kernel. If you add too many devices in the kernel configuration, you may get an error message telling you that the kernel is too big. The trick is to enable modules.

The kernel itself must be a certain size because it needs to be loaded in a fixed memory size. This is one reason why modules can be very handy. If you enable modules, you will need to make them:

make modules

and install them:

make modules_install

Then using the modprobe utility you can load selected modules on bootup. This way the kernel will be smaller and will compile with no error.

More swap with a swap file

2008-10-11T05:23:00.000-07:00

You installed a new Linux system, but forgot to set enough swap space for your needs. Do you need to repartition and reinstall? No, the swap utilities on Linux allow you to make a real file and use it as swap space.

The trick is to make a file and then tell the swapon program to use it. Here's how to create, for example, a 64 megs swap file on your root partition (of course make sure you have at least 64 megs free):

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=65536

This will make a 64 megs (about 67 millions bytes) file on your hard drive. You now need to initialize it:

mkswap /swapfile 65536
sync

And you can then add it to your swap pool:

swapon /swapfile

With that you have 64 megs of swap added. Don't forget to add the swapon command to your startup files so the command will be repeated at each reboot.

Swap and memory

2008-10-11T05:21:00.000-07:00

One important setting in any protected mode operating system like Linux is the swap space. In the installation, you will need to create a swap partition. A common question is what size should the partition be?

The proper size depends on 2 things: The size of your hard drive and the size of your RAM memory. The less RAM you have, the more swap you will need. Usually you will want to set your swap space size to be twice the RAM size, with a maximum of 128 megs. This of course requires you to have a hard drive with enough free space to create such a partition.

If you have 16 megs of RAM, making the swap space 32 megs or even 64 megs is very important. You will need it. If you have 128 megs of RAM on the other hand, you won't need much swap because the system will already have 128 megs to fill before using swap space. So a swap partition of 128 megs or even 32 megs could be enough.

If you don't select enough swap, you may add more later.

Installing Linux with no CD-ROM drive or modem

2008-10-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

Most Linux distributions come on a CD-ROM. You can also download them from an FTP site, but that requires an Internet connection. What if you have a system with no CD-ROM drive or Internet connection,like an old 486 laptop? The trick here is to have another desktop system with a CD-ROM drive, and a null-modem serial cable.

I will show you how to do it with Slackware. It is also possible with most other Linux distributions. Insert the Linux CD-ROM in the drive on the desktop and copy the A (base) and N (networking) packages on diskettes.You need at least those in order to use a serial cable to transfer the rest of the packages.

Now you need to enable NFS networking on the desktop, and allow the laptop to connect. You can give a temporary IP address to the laptop, like 192.168.1.11 that you need to add to your /etc/exports file on your desktop.

To link the two systems together, this is what you need to type on the laptop:

/usr/sbin/pppd -detach crtscts lock 192.168.1.11:192.168.1.10 /dev/ttyS1 115200

And this on the PC:

/usr/sbin/pppd -detach crtscts lock 192.168.1.10:192.168.1.11 /dev/ttyS1 115200

This is assuming the cable is linked to ttyS1 (COM2) on both systems.

With NFS, you can mount the CD-ROM drive remotely and tell the installation program to use a specific path to install the remaining packages. Mount the CD-ROM with a command like this:

mount -tnfs 192.168.1.10:/cdrom /mnt

Then run the installation program:

setup

and enter the new path for the packages files.

Multiple operating systems

2008-10-11T03:44:00.000-07:00

A computer only needs one operating system to work. But what if you just want to try out a new system? Do you need to forget about the old one and erase your hard drive? No, you can have as many operating systems on your computer as you wish.

Linux requires 2 partitions to work. Partitions are sections of the hard drive. When you install Linux, it will provide a program called fdisk or disk druid allowing you to create the needed partitions. The main problems people have is that they don't have empty partitions to use for Linux, and they don't want to erase the current Windows or DOS partition. The trick is to resize your current partition to create empty space. Then you will be able to make the partitions needed by Linux to install properly.

Fdisk doesn't allow you to resize a partition. You will need to use another program to do the job, before using fdisk to create the Linux partitions.

Let's see step by step what is needed to resize an existing partition to allow the creation of a new one for Linux:

Get any other tool that can safely resize partitions.

Make sure you have at least 150 megs free on your main partition, the required amount forLinux.

Resize the partitions so you have at least 150 megs free, outside of any current partition.

Reboot and launch the Linux installation.

Run fdisk or any partitioning program that comes with the Linux distribution, and follow the installation instructions to make the required Linux partitions.

How to find a Linux CD-ROM at low cost

2008-10-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

The Linux market started from a few distributions available only from FTP servers, to full feature commercial distributions available in stores and online including a printed manual and phone support.

Here are the main choices you have when looking for a Linux distribution:

You can download any Linux distribution from its FTP server. To take a few examples,RedHat can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.redhat.com, Slackware from ftp://ftp.cdrom.com and Debian from ftp://ftp.debian.org. That method is free, but requires you to have a fast Internet connection. Downloading a full Linux distribution over a 56Kbps modem will take you quite a few hours.

An other way is to buy a full distribution. RedHat, for example, can be bought online for about $50. This will include a box, a CD-ROM, a boot diskette, a manual and support from RedHat.

The last way is to buy only the CD-ROM. There are a few places selling CD-ROMs of various distributions for $2. One of them is http://www.cheapbytes.com. You will only get the CD-ROM, but this is all you need to install Linux if you are comfortable with the fact that you don't get a printed manual or free support. You can find the manual and other documentation on the CD-ROM.

Will Linux die in 2018?

2008-10-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

If we look at the future, Linux seems to be doomed to a slow death in a dozen years: DRM, proprietary hardware, technologic innovations and political choices are behind this forecast.

I really appreciate Linux, and Open Source in general: a common base, open and free, foster freedom of individuals and better distribute richness. In the last few months I took interest in Linux and Open Source in a long-term perspective. What I see in the future is terrible: Linux's death. It's just a forecast, I know: it's up to you, after reading this document, to decide if it is reliable or not.

Proprietary Hardware and DRM

In the last few years there is a silent (for the mass) and struggling battle between big corporation on one side, and Open Source movements and activists on the other side. The battle is for a plunder of 237 billion dollars (global revenues for semiconductors manufacturers), led by the three leaders Intel, Samsung and Texas Instruments, to which you can add about a thousand billion dollars for cinema industry and few other dozens of billions of dollars for music and entertainment industry. The stake is obviously if those revenues are going to plummet or not.

Once consumers are used to enjoy multimedia contents, in order to not lose that privilege they are willing to pay... or to use illegal methods, like some peer-to-peer habits, or cracked decoders, or else.

Those huge revenues are then in danger: with their doblons, industries started some sort of a witch hunt, with the result that software piracy is comparable to rape (there was a famous aggressive cinema ad here in Italy few months ago). I don't agree with this judgement, but I don't want to go off-topic. To maintain those revenues, industries started lots of initiatives to cage users' hardware, and make their PC less and less independent.

In few years, thank to the extended world network, computers will become more like terminals, without an inner "conscience", pillored to play media content using proprietary hardware, various protections, apparently-open or distinclty closed software, but... How can I enjoy open software, if the underlying hardware constrict me in well-defined (by Corporations) boundaries?

They'll become much like actual mobile phones, where the user can't operate important modifications or personalizations. I hope Apple users will not blame me for this, but also Mac OS X is moving toward this direction (much faster than Windows, actually): a surely stable and functional system, much more strict for its users.

Now the question is: what will be of Linux? What sense will an open source software have, when the hardware will block almost all my actions? Linux, with a nanoscopic economic power compared to the other already mentioned, will be probably relegated to a tiny set of geek users, but a very big percentage of common users will surrender to those new contraints.

Technological innovations

Those same technological innovations will closet Linux in obscure and specific fields: within the next ten years a new programming language will appear on the planet, maybe based on a new programming paradigm, that probably will take the throne now held by C++. This forecast derives from a simple analysis of past innovations: think about 1996, when Java and Python were still in their early stage. Today they are becoming THE main tools for programming.

Linux itself will become obsolete, substituted by a new kernel written from scratch; in the transformation the main software companies will have a big advantage, able to afford hundreds of programmers and almost illimited funds for marketing.

If you take a look at Google, considered one of the most innovative companies in the world, you can see that their initiatives regard essentially the translation of most-used computer functions and programs to the web: word processing, online purchases, photo editing, content publishing, spreadsheets, and many others arriving. This fact, together with the already mentioned tendency to transform PCs into terminals, convinces me that in few years we'll have some beautiful PCs to work, and many small wristle computers with mobile phone, handheld and laptop functions (like the "giwiki" in a modest novel of mine: www.nonovvio.it).

It seems clear that in this game software will lose importance: only the ones who manage users and media will matter. In few words: Linux out. Users will need a system easy to use, with which communicate seamlessly and transparently in respect to the technology used.

Political choices

Soon the source code of almost everything will be released: don't you agree? Microsoft, Sun and others have no other choice: governments need open formats and softwares. Some things has been already opened and, once the transformation toward an invasive hardware will be complete, there will be no more reasons not to open the code.

One of the strongest critic moved against those companies from the digital freedom fans will fall, and their number will fall also.

What still surprise me, instead, is the fact that a nation allows the existence and commercialization of proprietary hardware, of which usually nobody knows the hidden functionalities. It is not a secret, for instance, that in the past phone lines were controlled by CIA and others: Skype itself could be the new echelon of the third millenium (it's a proprietary software, remember?).

If I were the leader of a nation, I would adopt computing devices of which I know every function; also, I would also like to buy (or manufact) processors with the functions that I like, and without the ones that I consider dangerous for people's freedom, or the nation's itself.

A simple comparison: it is like my army buys guns abroad, guns potentially supplied with a mechanism that block the gun if put under a certain wireless signal: in such a case, I would not be so bold in facing an enemy, being afraid of such mechanism.

I don't think, however, that our political representatives give importance to those facts: for the average Joe, much a user and less a connoisseur of technology, those seem to be marginal facts, subordinate to taxes or security. Consequently, the politician is less interested in such things.

Why 2018?

According to numerous sources, the passage to mobile terminals in substitution to personal PCs, mobile phones and handhelds could occur in ten years, due to the inertia of existing machines and to the availability of light and long-lasting batteries, that will invade the market around 2012. The years between 2016 and 2018 will be necessary to the definitive shift to new technology... granted that there will not occur events or choices able to modify the actual tendency.

Until now I depicted a rather pessimistic scenario: now I want to concentrate on positive turning points.

Political change (and therefore technological change)

Making people aware of things could bring to a general political awareness elected by them, causing politicians to be interested in the topic: this would push toward the usage (and production) of open source hardware, deprived of useless protections (DRM) or hidden favours to big corporations, hopefully paying also attention to environmental impacts of such production (see Motorola).

Linux alone can't free itself from physical confinement: I hope that its diffusion among developing countries will prompt them to adopt an "hardware emancipation" that will eventually spread worldwide. Like the Internet is free, so the technological basis for communications must be.

Licences and mentality change

Another positive turning point is represented by "light licences" content: I adore, for example, musical groups that let you freely listen their music, earning only with concerts and other related stuff.

It is a poor earning, I know, but those earnings could be integrated with music sales if there will be available a platform able to join music with commercial ads when that music is listened online. It could be good to have also a honest price policy: if a song would cost 30 cents, I would buy it rather than pirate it, and musicians would earn fair amounts of money.

The same could be applied to other media as well, including video: a movie producer should learn to spend less and better for his movies, considering that the Cinema experience will always be more entertaining than a domestic TV, and so there would always be a reason to produce a movie.

Everything could become less profitable, and content producers will be naturally selected. In this moment there is a feature film at the Movie Show in Venezia, Italy, produced with 500 euros. Yes, you've read it right: 500 euros.

It must also be considered that, with the recent advances in instruments and computers, making content is much less expensive than before: this money save must be deposited in the users' wallets.

I can understand musicians' and producers' point of view: they are enjoying a consolidated privilege, and changing it can lead to a war. Only users, and their economical choices, can trigger this revolution. We will see.

Why do I pose so much attention to the media? Because the real Hi-tech market is dominated by media: Linux, and Open Source, can survive only if they will guarantee to users the ability to use and play and listen and watch them. Not casually, in a recent home-made survey, on 50 new Linux Ubuntu users, 33 moan problems regarding multimedia content fruition (quicktime, flash, DVD, mp3, videos).

This suggests that Linux, and the freedom and openness principle on which it is based, could survive only if people will be able to understand the importance of open and standard protocols, devices and hardware, consequently influencing political and economic choices.

I can be wrong, I know: this is only my thought, written after reading so much stuff on the net, but not for this reason necessarily right. I invite you to share with me your thoughts on this topic.

Source:http://www.articleonramp.com/Article.cfm?ID=24564

gOS

2008-09-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Developer: Good OS LLC

Languages: English

Categories:Mainstream/General Public, Power user

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description:

gOS 3 Gadgets instantly launches Google Gadgets for Linux on startup, introducing over 100,000 possible iGoogle and Google Gadgets to the desktop.

Google Documents, Calendar, and Mail launch in Mozilla Prism windows to closer resemble desktop applications.

The newest release of WINE 1.0 is included to now support thousands of Windows software for our advanced users.

gOS 3 Gadgets is based on the solid Linux distribution base of Ubuntu 8.04.1.

Download: list of download locations here

Relax Linux

2008-09-18T07:57:00.001-07:00

Developer: Nehal Mistry

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Runs on MS Windows, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Relax Linux is a distribution aimed at the desktop market. It lists as its advantages ease of install and small size (less than 350 mb installed). It comes with standard desktop applications (Netscape, audio software, chat clients, etc.). Relax Linux can be installed in a windows partition or on an ext2 partition of its own.

Download: list of download locations here

Ark Linux

2008-09-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

Developer: Ark Linux Project

Website: http://www.arklinux.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Red Hat based

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: The Ark Linux distribution is based on Red Hat Linux and geared toward the newcomer to Linux. The developers claim it can be installed in 4 mouse clicks.

Ark Linux is a Linux distribution for everyone - designed to be easy to install and learn for users without prior Linux (or computer) experience, while powerful enough for longtime Linux users.

The primary goals of Ark Linux are:

Being easy to install and learn.

Including all tools and applications a typical desktop user will need.

Including only tools and applications a typical desktop user will need -- avoid becoming "bloated".

Making installation of additional software as easy and fast as possible.

Being a technically sane development environment.

Remaining 100% Free Software.

Download: list of download locations here

Stampede LInux

2008-08-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Developer: Stampede

Website: http://www.stampede.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Power user, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Stampede is a distribution that is fast and easy to use for the new user, yet versatile for the power user

Stampede Linux is an innovative new approach to Linux distributions. Distribution that was fast and easy to use for the new user, yet versatile for the power user. So, to create Stampede. Consumers: Those who demand a fast, stable and secure environment for any reason. Goals: There are 4 major goals for Stampede Linux: High Performance and Quality; Stability and Compatibility; Expandability and Very Updated; Security. Stampede Linux was created on December 4th 1997. This date is special because it's the birthdate of Matt Wood, the founder of Stampede Linux. The distribution was named after Matt's personal domain, which he created 6 months before he began work on Stampede Linux. The creation of Stampede Linux was out of his frustration with the present distributions as none of them could fulfill his needs.

Download: list of download locations here

Status: This distribution has been discontinued.

Xbox Linux

2008-08-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

Developer: Xbox Linux Project

Website: http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Main_Page

Languages: English

Categories: Power user, Personal, Game Console, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: The project aims to create a full Linux distribution with X-Window and KDE/Gnome to turn Microsoft's Xbox into a desktop computer running Linux. The developers would like to point out that the project is completely legal.

Xbox Linux is a project that ported the Linux computer operating system to the Microsoft Xbox, a video game console. There is also a newer project for the Xbox 360, Free60. Because the Xbox uses a digital signature system to prevent the public from running unsigned code, one must either use a modchip, or find an alternative system for running unsigned code. Originally, modchips were the only option.

An Xbox with Linux can be a full desktop computer with mouse and keyboard, a web/email box connected to a TV, a server, router or a node in a cluster. One can either dual-boot or use Linux only; in the latter case, one can replace both IDE devices. One can also connect the Xbox to a VGA monitor. A converter may be needed to use keyboards/mice in the controller ports, however this is fairly easy to achieve because the Xbox uses the standard USB bus.

Download: list of download locations here

Plamo Linux

2008-08-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Website: www.linet.gr.jp/~kojima/Plamo/

Languages: Japanese

Categories: Mainstream/General Public

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Plamo Linux is a Japanese Linux distribution based on Slackware Linux. The installer, and many text-based and graphical tools have been updated to include Japanese language support.

Download: list of download locations here

aLinux

2008-08-01T04:16:00.000-07:00

Developer: aLinux Software

Website: http://alinux.tv

Languages: English

Categories: Minimalist, Mainstream/General Public

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Distribution aimed at the desktop user. Comes with all of the major packages (KDE, The GIMP, KOffice) for the end user, as well as the developer (PHP, MySQL)

aLinux is a Linux distribution created and maintained by Jay Klepacs. It uses KDE as its default window system and can use Enlightenment with an add-on pack. It is designed to have a Windows XP-style "look".

aLinux is an advanced Office/Multimedia RPM based GNU/Linux distribution.
Installing new programs, applications and updating your system from time-to-time has never been easier using our Synaptic Package Management System.

aLinux is a Professional Linux Operating System already designed to surpass both Microsoft Windows XP/Vista and Apple Mac OS X.

Download: list of download locations here

MuLinux

2008-08-01T04:05:00.000-07:00

Developer: muLinux

Website: http://mulinux.dotsrc.org

Languages: English

Categories: Minimalist, Runs on MS Windows, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: muLinux (µLinux, really) is a full-configured, minimalistic, almost complete,application-centric tiny distribution of Linux (2.0.36 modular kernel) made in Italy. muLinuxresides on a single 1722K floppy. Works on PC 386-4M + swap space, and installs in RAM, UMSDOS,EXT2 & LOOP-EXT2.

muLinux is an distribution maintained by Michele Andreoli with a purpose to make it possible to use very old computers as servers or workstations. Mulinux can be started from floppies, installed to hard disk from floppies and unpacked by self unpacking archive on DOS/Window system.

The "mu" stands for a Greek letter (see Unicode Latin-1 char 0x0b5) frequently used for indicating the millionth part of something. for example: "mu meter" (µm) stands for micro meter and is the one millionth part of a meter. So, the reason for the name "muLinux" is its tiny size.

Download: list of download locations here

Roku OS

2008-07-15T06:24:00.000-07:00

Developer: Roku LLC

Website: http://www.rokulabs.com

Languages: English

Categories: Embedded

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Custom-developed embedded Linux distribution specifically designed for the Roku high-definition digital media player. It includes the Linux kernel plus Roku's media APIs. It is designed to be developer friendly.

Download: list of download locations here

Lunatix GNU/Linux

2008-07-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

Developer: Kees Meijs

Website: http://www.lunatix-linux.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Minimalist, Power user, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Lunatix GNU/Linux is an expert Linux distribution designed for i586 architectures and above.

Download: list of download locations here

Status:This distribution has been discontinued

Yoper

2008-07-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Developer: Yoper Ltd

Website: http://www.yoper.com/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Power user

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Yoper is a full-featured distribution that is designed to run on high-end CPUs (Pentium II and IV, AMD Athon, Duron and other similar chips). The developers have provided for easy install of packages from other major distributions (RPM, DEB, TGZ)

Yoper Linux—Your Operating System—is a Linux distribution for PCs with i686 (Pentium Pro) or higher processor types. It can be used for both desktop and server use and uses hardware recognition tools known from Knoppix. The defining feature of the distribution is a set of custom optimizations intended to make it the "fastest out-of-the-box distribution.

The project was originally founded by Andreas Girardet and is currently maintained by Tobias Gerschner.The distribution is scratch-built as opposed to modifying one of the more popular distributions to create a new distribution.

Download: list of download locations here

yellow dog linux

2008-07-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

Developer: Terra Soft Solutions

Website: http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/

Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Game Console

Platforms: PPC

Description: Yellow Dog Linux is a distribution for the PowerPC architecture. There are two versions: YDL Champion Server, which is the version designed for internet, intranet, development, and other mission-critical environments that require the most out of their operating system. The second is YDLGone Home, which is the version for the home or small office.

Yellow Dog Linux, also YDL, is a free-software, open-source GNU/Linux distribution for the Sony PlayStation 3, PowerPC 970- and POWER5-based IBM System p workstations and servers (including IBM 510/520/540 and IBM JS20/21), and PowerPC G4- and G5-based Apple Macintosh computers. Developed by Loveland, Colorado (USA)-based Terra Soft Solutions, Yellow Dog Linux was first released in 1999 for the Apple Macintosh. The most recent version, version 6.0 ‘Pyxis,’ was released on 5 February 2008.

Features:

Yellow Dog Linux is based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux/CentOS core and relies on the RPM package manager. Like other mainstream Linux distributions, Yellow Dog Linux includes common free-software user applications such as Ekiga (a voice-over-IP and videoconferencing application).

Enlightenment has been the default window manager in Yellow Dog Linux, although GNOME and KDE are also included.

About Terra Soft Solutions:

Terra Soft Solutions is the Loveland, Colorado–based producer of Yellow Dog Linux, cluster construction tools, and bioinformatics software. The company’s clients include NASA, Boeing, California Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. Terra Soft provides software and services for the Power Architecture and Linux OS platform. As a Mercury, Apple, and Genesi value-added reseller, and IBM Business Partner, Terra Soft provides turnkey and build-to-order desktop workstations, servers, and High Performance Computing clusters.

Download: list of download locations here

White Glove Linux

2008-07-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

Developer: Fred Cohen & Associates

Website: http://all.net/WG/index.html

Languages: English

Categories: Security enchanced, Minimalist

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: When you boot your computer from the White Glove CD, it instantly becomes a Linux powerhouse. It comes complete with firewall software, drivers for most Ethernet cards and Disks, a wide range of networking and other amazing tools, and even complete and secure web and DNS servers. It includes an on-CD manual and tutorial, menu-based services from the X11 graphical user interface, and a set of tools that meet or exceed those you are used to today. It's easy to use, easily fits in your shirt pocket, fast to boot and run, reliable, secure, and inexpensive.

Download: list of download locations here

Lycoris Desktop/LX

2008-07-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

Developer: Lycoris

Website: http://www.lycoris.com

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Formerly known as Redmond Linux, Lycoris is a Linux distribution that's aiming to be the ultimate user-friendly Linux.

Lycoris is located in Maple Valley, Washington. The corporation was founded in 2000 by Joseph Cheek with a vision of making Linux simple enough for everyone and pioneered the Linux based home-user desktop by offering. Lycoris packages Open Source applications for the consumer market and integrates them into Desktop/LX, its simple, robust operating system. Lycoris has enjoyed amazingly positive press coverage in Time Magazine and other publications. Lycoris is positioning itself as the leading provider of the best Linux based operating system specifically targeted for the desktop market, whether purchased separately or pre-installed on Desktop/LX PCs.

Download: list of download locations here

Status: Lycoris ceased to be an independent distribution after it was acquired by Mandriva in June 2005.

Core Linux

2008-07-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

Developer: jd (a.k.a. duhzine)

Website: http://coredistro.sourceforge.net/

Languages: English

Categories: Power user, Minimalist, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Designed around one simple philosophy: to be the absolute minimum of what is required for a Linux operating system, Core Linux is a bare-bones distribution aimed at the experienced Linux user tired of the excess of the "popular" distributions. Core is designed to be the basis for a larger, more complete operating system constructed by the end user.

Core is a minimal distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system designed to be the basis for a complete system constructed by the end user. A fresh installation of Core will boot into a console and provide the user with the tools needed to download, compile and install other applications. Core contains nothing beyond what is required to perform these tasks.

Core is primarily designed for experienced Linux users, though it has found an audience with those looking to learn about the internals and operation of a Linux system. Core requires the user to manually configure, compile and install applications and expects the user to consult man pages and other documentation.

Download: list of download locations here

BioBrew Linux

2008-07-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

Developer: Bioinformatics.Org

Website: http://biobrew.bioinformatics.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Power user

Platforms: Intel compatible, Other

Description: Linux distribution designed to be run on a cluster and enhanced for bioinformaticists and life scientists.

BioBrew is a collection of open-source applications for life scientists and an in-house project at Bioinformatics.Org. The BioBrew Roll for Rocks can be used to create Rocks/BioBrew Linux, a distribution customized for both cluster and bioinformatics computing: it automates cluster installation, includes all the HPC software a cluster enthusiast needs, and contains popular bioinformatics applications.

Download: list of download locations here

Arabbix

2008-07-08T06:32:00.000-07:00

Developer: Arabeyes Project

Website: http://www.arabeyes.org

Languages: Arabic

Categories: Live CD, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Live CD distribution with full Arabic support.

Download: list of download locations here,

Status:This distribution is no longer in development.

Annvix

2008-07-08T06:25:00.000-07:00

Developer: Annvix Development Team

Website: http://annvix.org

Languages: English

Categories: Security enchanced, Mandriva based

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Annvix is a secure Linux server operating system based on Mandriva Linux. It features a number of security enhancements, such as SELinux, GCC patched with SSP stack protection, supervise-controlled services, and other features.

The Annvix project aims to provide a secure, stable, and fast Linux distribution specifically tailored to servers that provide reliable services such as Email, Web, DNS, FTP, File sharing, and more.

The Annvix install ISO also makes an excellent lightweight live CD (in fact, the installer is just another program on the image itself), making the ISO a good Linux recovery system.

Download: list of download locations here

BEERnix

2008-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

Developer: BEERnix Project

Website: http://beernix.berlios.de/

Languages: English

Categories: Live CD, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Live CD distribution based on Knoppix. Features many major packages for multimedia and development. Reportedly developed while drinking beer.

Download: list of download locations here

Status:This distribution appears to be no longer in development.

Bayanihan Linux

2008-07-06T06:24:00.000-07:00

Developer: Advanced Science and Technology Institute

Website: http://www.bayanihan.gov.ph/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: The Bayanihan project was initiated by the Open Source Group in Advanced Science and Technology Institute last October 2001. This was the first initiative of the group in Open Source Technology. Its goal was to provide the best alternative desktop solution to Filipinos. In details, it aims to provide a better hardware support, operation simplicity, speed, efficiency, stability and Windows portability.

Download: list of download locations here

SENTINIX

2008-07-04T04:10:00.000-07:00

Developer: Michel Blomgren

Website: http://sentinix.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Security enchanced, Minimalist, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: SENTINIX is a security-oriented distribution. It comes with the necessary tools to carry out tasks like intrusion detection, spam filtering and network monitoring.

Download: list of download locations here

status: This distribution has been discontinued.

Ziif Linux

2008-07-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

Developer: Zion Interface Co. LTD

Website: http://www.ziif.com/

Languages: Thai

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: ZiiF Linux is a distribution from Thailand.

Download: unfortunatly no information about where you could download

Kaladix Linux

2008-07-03T08:39:00.000-07:00

Developer: Kaladis

Website: http://www.kaladix.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Security enchanced, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Kaladix Linux is designed to be a hyper-secure Linux distribution. It comes shipped with Mandatory Access Control and Access Control Lists (RSBAC), extensive logging facilities (Syslog-NG), protection against format string vulnerabilities, buffer overflows, and /tmp race condition vulnerabilities (Openwall, Formatguard, Libsafe 2). Nearly all daemons are chrooted by default, cryptography support is integrated, encryption of partitions is supported, strong firewall and intrusion detection systems are included, both the stack and the heap are non-executable, and very tight permissions are set by default.

Kaladix Linux Professional Firewall is a seurity hardened Gentoo Linux based firewall distribution with features such as policy routing, traffic shaping, layer 2, 3 and 7 filtering, proxy server, VPN services and much more.

Coming soon: Kaladix Blueshield, a high level tool for configuring packet filtering, policy routing and traffic shaping under GNU/Linux

Download: list of download locations here

Vine Linux

2008-07-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

Developer: Project Vine

Website: http://www.vinelinux.org/

Languages: Japanese

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Red Hat based

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Vine Linux is a distribution based on Red Hat that comes with a highly customized Japanese environment.

Vine Linux is a compact and lightweight Japanese Linux distribution for desktop PCs and notebooks. The whole Vine Linux distribution consists of one CD install media (Vine Linux main), as well as additional package collections (Vine Plus). Vine Linux is an rpm-based distribution with apt-rpm powered, which helps easy and straight ahead package managements.

Versions:

Vine releases are typically done once a year,

Vine Linux 4.2 was released on December 2007.

Vine Linux 4.1 was released on February 2007.

Vine Linux 4.0 was released on November 2006, and is based on the 2.6.16 kernel.

Vine Linux 3.2 was released on September 2005, and is based on the 2.4.31 kernel.

Vine Linux 3.1 was released on September 2004, and is based on the 2.4.27 kernel.

Download: list of download locations here

ASP Linux

2008-07-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

Developer: ASPLinux

Website: http://www.asplinux.ru/en/

Languages: English, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Ukranian, Bulgarian

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Red Hat based, Security enchanced

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: ASPLinux is 100% RedHat compatible multipurpose GNU/Linux distribution which includes all includes all necessary components for installing high performance Internet/Intranet server or powerful multimedia workstation. The installation program featuring graphical and text modes includes ASPDiskManager - an utility which let users edit a hard drive partitions data manually during the installation. It allows copying, moving, and resizing partitions with FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Ext2, Ext3, XFS and ReiserFS file systems preserving existent data. ASPLinux has also it's own graphical easy-to-use boot manager ASPLoader. Comes in Deluxe, Standard and Express editions along with OEM-edition which is distributed with new PCs

Download: list of download locations here

Lute Linux

2008-07-02T02:54:00.000-07:00

Developer: LuteLinux

Website: http://www.lutelinux.com

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: LuteLinux combines the Linux kernel with application programs such as Netscape Communicator, games and utilities. It also includes an easy-to-use installer and step by step booklet to guide users through the installation and configuration process of Linux and the X Window system.

Download: list of download locations here

Status:This distribution has been discontinued

Mandriva Linux

2008-07-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

Developer: Mandriva

Website: http://mandriva.com/

Languages: English, Swedish, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Russian, Estonian, Finnish, Portuguese, Turkish, Thai

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Red Hat based, Mandriva based

Platforms: Intel compatible, PPC, 64 bit

Description: Mandriva Linux is a powerful operating system that is available for many platforms: 32 bit processors such as Intel Pentium®, AMD Athlon®, PowerPC®; and 64 bit processors such as Intel Itanium® and AMD Opteron®. Mandriva Linux includes many graphical administration assistants & wizards that make it intuitive and fun to use while providing all the power and robustness of other Linux systems. Hundreds of included applications make it an ideal solution for both professional and home users.

Table of versions

Year	Number	Name
1998	5.1	Venice
1998	5.2	Leeloo
1999	5.3	Festen
1999	6.0	Venus
1999	6.1	Helios
2000	7.0	Air
2000	7.1	Helium
2000	7.2	Odyssey (called Ulysses during beta)
2001	8.0	Traktopel
2001	8.1	Vitamin
2002	8.2	Bluebird
2002	9.0	Dolphin
2003	9.1	Bamboo
2003	9.2	FiveStar
2004	10.0	Community and Official
2004	10.1	Community
2004	10.1	Official
2005	10.2	Limited Edition 2005
2005	2006.0	Mandriva Linux 2006
2006	2007	Mandriva Linux 2007
2007	2007.1	Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring
2007	2008.0	Mandriva Linux 2008
2008	2008.1	Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring

About Mandriva:

Mandriva S.A. is a publicly tradedLinux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A. is the creator and maintainer of Mandriva Linux, describing itself as a "project initiator and a skills organizer in the Open Source arena", and a founding member of the Desktop Linux Consortium.

Download:List of download here

Icepack Linux

2008-07-02T02:35:00.000-07:00

Developer: icepack linux

Website: http://www.icepack-linux.com

Languages: English, German

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Full-featured Linux distribution for home and beginners to Linux. User-friendly graphical installation manager, icepack config manager for an easy configuration of your hardware settings, pre-configured software, unlimited support for individuals, manual with comprehensive installation guide.Version 1.0 comes with the graphical icepack boot manager and the following software: Office (including Star Office), Multimedia, Graphics(with Gimp), Internet (with Netscape), Games (plus Loki demos) and more.Updates. Available in English and German.

Icepack linux is an independent Linux distribution built from scratch. Our objective is to offer you a user-friendly full-featured operating system, pre-configured, well structured and easy to work with, and filled with the latest stable versions of great Linux applications.

Download: list of download locations here

Status:This distribution has been discontinued.

Symphony OS

2008-07-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

Developer: Symphony OS Project

Website: http://symphonyos.com/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Debian based

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Distribution based on Debian and Knoppix that offers a new kind of desktop experience called the Mezzo Desktop Environment.

Symphony OS, SymphonyOne or Symphony Linux, is a Live CD Linux distribution, developed by Ryan Quinn, Jason Spisak, and Alexander Drummond. It is under active development.

When it started, Symphony OS was based on Knoppix. Since its May 2006 release it is no longer based on Knoppix, but rather on Debian unstable, and features a functional hard drive installer. Symphony OS 2007 Preview, was based on Ubuntu 7.04. SymphonyOne was released April 2008. The release of Version 2008.01 is based on Ubuntu 7.10.

The primary difference between Symphony OS and other distributions is the addition of the Mezzo desktop environment. This environment, like other aspects of Symphony, was designed with an eye towards extreme simplicity and usability. Symphony also includes its own Mozilla-driven application environment, called Orchestra.

Symphony OS uses a custom packaging system utilizing the *.sym package format; through a simple GUI interface a user may install any application in the Symphony library without dealing with "dependency hell". Because Symphony is Debian-based, it also supports the Debian package format.

Download: list of download locations here

Foresight Linux

2008-07-01T04:59:00.000-07:00

Developer: The Foresight Linux Project

Website: http://www.foresightlinux.com/

Languages: English

Categories: Power user

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Forsight Linux is a distribution based around the GNOME desktop. Mono is also featured prominently. The package system is based on Conary.

Linux distribution comprising free and non-free software with the stated goal of showcasing the latest in Linux desktop technologies. Foresight is developed by the Foresight community. Foresight's goal is to offer an easy to use desktop featuring the latest desktop technologies. Foresight follows a rolling release cycle, instead of a time based release schedule.

Foresight focuses on delivering the latest in desktop technologies. Projects such as GNOME-Do, Banshee and PackageKit are delivered in the default Foresight installation. Currently Foresight features GNOME desktop but a Xfce and KDE Edition are under development. The Xfce edition has a released alpha and the KDE edition is in pre-alpha development. These two editions will have the same focus of delivering the latest desktop technologies for the respective desktop environments.

Foresight uses the Conary package management system. This system only updates those specific files in packages which need to be updated, in contrast to other formats, such as the RPM and DEB formats, which download whole packages.

Download: list of download locations here

Pingo Linux

2008-06-27T05:25:00.000-07:00

Developer: Pingo Team

Website: http://www.pingo.org/

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Red Hat based, Fedora Core based, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Pingo is Slovenian general purpose Linux operating system, with free multimedia packages compliant with Slovenian legislation and patents. The intention is to have solid based distribution, that can be used by newcomers, schools and general public.

Pingo Linux is a Slovenian Linux distribution intended for a complete home desktop, including office tools, system administration utilities and full multimedia support. The packaging is RPM based. Historically, it started as an offspring of Red Hat Linux and is currently based on Fedora Core. The distribution is intensively localized in the Slovenian language and provides the KDE desktop as the default environment. Pingo is installed as second boot system on computers provided by the Ministry of education in Slovenian schools, giving it a base of over 12,000 users. The distribution is accompanied with printed books aimed at the novice user. From its beginnings in 1999, this free distribution regularly releases one to two upgrades per year. Pingo activists are organizing well attended Install Fests all over Slovenia. Pingo v3.1 was released December 30, 2004.

Pingo Linux is a Slovenian distribution based on Fedora Core, but enhanced with multimedia applications and codecs, and fully translated into Slovenian. Pingo Linux 4.1 was released a couple of days ago; this is mostly a bug fix release with several package upgrades (including Firefox 1.0.7, Mozilla 1.7.12 and OpenSSH 4.2p1), translation updates, and other minor enhancements.

Download: list of download locations here

BlackRhino Linux

2008-06-25T05:36:00.000-07:00

Developer: xRhino

Website: http://blackrhino.xrhino.com/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Debian based, Game Console

Platforms: Other

Description: BlackRhino is a free Linux distribution based on Debian and is aimed at those wishing to use Sony PlayStation 2 Linux kit and create programs for it.

BlackRhino Linux for Sony PlayStation 2 released:

BlackRhino GNU/Linux is a port of Debian GNU/Linux to the Sony PlayStation 2 game console. It contains over 1200 software packages; simple games, text editors, compilers, web servers, windowing systems, database systems, graphics packages, mail servers and a variety of other development tools and utilities comprise the extensive toolset.

Download: list of download locations here

Elfstone Linux

2008-06-25T05:25:00.000-07:00

Developer: Elfstone Software

Website: http://www.elflinux.com/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Red Hat based, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Elfstone Linux is a highly stable Linux distribution specifically designed for programmers, engineers, and network administrators. As a real working network OS and, perhaps, the most Unix-like of all commercial distributions, Elfstone Linux is built around the OSF Motif 2.1 API with a universal package management feature. This distribution currently based on the .RPM format easily allows for the installation of both RPMs and Tar/Tar.gz packages.

Elfstone Linux is a highly stable Linux distribution designed specifically for programmers,
engineers, and network administrators. As a real network OS and perhaps the most Unix-like of all commercial distributions, Elfstone Linux is built around the OSF Motif 2.1 API with a universal package management feature. This distribution currently based on the .RPM format easily allows for the installation of both RPMs and Tar/Tar.gz packages.

Unlike other commercial distributions, Elfstone Linux was not designed from the installation perspective to share disk partitions with other operating systems. Elfstone Linux is among the first distributions to provide USB support as well as the highly intuitive, and extremely fast, interface that is a Motif/Athena hybrid.
Click for screen shots

The key to the outstanding performance of Elfstone Linux is really very simple. When servers are called upon to perform specific tasks, potential points of failure are created when the software includes more than what is required to perform these functions.

Keeping it simple, is the common sense principal and basis for the development of all Elfstone products. Elfstone Linux contains only the software that is necessary to operate your network each and every day without fail. Each app has been chosen strictly on the basis of functionalityand reliability. While Linux has many fine applications available, we believe there is no need to load working servers with unnecessary software.

Here is a quick list of what's included with Elfstone Linux

* The Linux 2.2.6 kernel with supporting libraries.
* The Xfree86 windowing system with supporting libraries.
* The GNU gcc compiler and supporting tools.
* The Elfstone RTX Runtime libraries based on OSF Motif 2.1.
* An excellent collection of handpicked system administration tools.
* An efficient universal package management system tool.

Download: list of download locations here

Gentoo Linux

2008-06-24T05:12:00.000-07:00

Developer: Gentoo Technologies, Inc.

Website: http://www.gentoo.org

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Power user

Platforms: Intel compatible, PPC, Alpha, Sparc, 64 bit

Description: Gentoo Linux is designed for the developer, power user and enthusiast.It incorporates the latest sources and technologies (such as ReiserFS and the Portage system).

The Gentoo Linux operating system is a Linux distribution based on the Portage package management system. The development project and its products are named after the Gentoo penguin. Gentoo package management is designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, flexible, and optimized for the user's machine. Packages are normally built from source code, continuing the tradition of the ports collection, although for convenience, some large software packages are also available as precompiled binaries for various architectures.

Gentoo is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme configurability, performance and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience.

Thanks to a technology called Portage, Gentoo can become an ideal secure server, development workstation, professional desktop, gaming system, embedded solution or something else -- whatever you need it to be. Because of its near-unlimited adaptability, we call Gentoo a meta distribution.

Portage:

Portage is the heart of Gentoo, and performs many key functions. For one, Portage is the software distribution system for Gentoo.

Portage is also a package building and installation system.

Portage also keeps your system up-to-date.

Download: list of download locations here

CentOS

2008-06-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

Developer: Lance Davis

Website: http://www.centos.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Red Hat based, Power user

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Enterprise Linux system based on freely available Red Hat sources.CentOS is a freely-available Linux distribution that is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This rebuild project strives to be 100% binary compatible with the upstream product and, within its mainline and updates, not to vary from that goal. Additional software archives hold later versions of such packages, along with other Free and Open Source Software RPM-based packages. CentOS stands for Community ENTerprise Operating System.

CentOS is developed by a small but growing team of core developers. In turn the core developers are supported by an active user community including system administrators, network administrators, enterprise users, managers, core Linux contributors and Linux enthusiasts from around the world.

CentOS has numerous advantages over some of the other clone projects including: an active and growing user community, quickly rebuilt, tested, and QA'ed errata packages, an extensive mirror network, developers who are contactable and responsive, multiple free support avenues including IRC Chat, Mailing Lists, Forums, a dynamic FAQ. Commercial support is offered via a number of vendors.

Download: list of download locations here

Dragon Linux

2008-06-18T04:19:00.000-07:00

Developer: DragonLinux

Website: http://dragonlinux.sf.net

Languages: English

Categories: Minimalist, Runs on MS Windows, Slackware based, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Now Linux can co-exist with Windows on the same partition and take up less space than your word processor! DragonLinux is a tiny Internet-ready distribution of Linux.At only 20MB installed, it is a fully functional UMSDOS Linux installation complete with networking tools and documentation.

Download: list of download locations here

Status:This distribution has been discontinued

Hard Hat Linux

2008-06-17T03:41:00.000-07:00

Developer: MontaVista Software, Inc

Website: http://www.mvista.com/

Languages: English

Categories: Embedded

Platforms: Other

Description: Hard Hat Linux and the Hard Hat Linux CDK are built from 100% pure Linux components and are maintained and distributed as an open source tool kit. MontaVista ships both source and easy-to-use pre-built binary packages on the same media. Hard Hat Linux includes no hidden proprietary components, and is always completely royalty-free.

The MontaVista Software Hard Hat Linux Cross Development Kit (CDK), version1.2, targets the broadest array of CPU architectures and board and system-level platforms of any embedded Linux development solution available today. Whether you are building Internet appliances, portable devices,networking equipment, telephony interfaces, or other embedded and pervasive applications, you can count on MontaVista Hard Hat Linux to provide robust Linux kernel ports, device drivers, middleware, and development tools to streamline your development effort. These MontaVista products are available for download at: http://www.mvista.com/download/library.php

About MontaVista Software:

MontaVista Software, Inc. is the leader in embedded Linux commercialization. MontaVista helps embedded developers get the most from open source by adding commercial quality, integration, hardware enablement, expert support, and the resources of the MontaVista development community. Because MontaVista customers enjoy faster time to market, more competitive device functionality, and lower total cost, more devices have been deployed with MontaVista than with any other Linux.

Download: list of download locations here

SOT Linux

2008-06-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

Developer: SOT Finnish Software Engineering Ltd.

Distribution: LBA-Linux (formerly SOT Linux, Best Linux)

Website: http://www.sot.com/en/

Languages: English, Swedish, Russian, Finnish

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: SOT Linux is perfectly suited for use in the home, as a workstation or an internet server. The Best Linux operating system is easy to install with no complicated options. Graphical installation goes smoothly, either on a new computer or beside another operating system. Selecting which operating system to start is simple thanks to an advanced graphical boot menu. Best Linux starts straight into a graphical Windows-like KDE-desktop which includes almost all of the software that might you use daily. The multilingual desktop consist of multiple workspaces to help you group your tasks. You can use one workspace for work matters, another to surf the internet and a third for writing a book. All this is possible due to Best Linux's superior multi-tasking.

Download: list of download locations here

Status:This distribution has been discontinued

Debian GNU/Linux

2008-06-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Developer: Debian

Website: http://www.debian.org/

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Debian based

Platforms: Intel compatible, PPC, Alpha, Sparc, Itanium, Mainframe, m68k, Other, 64 bit

Description: Debian GNU/Linux is a free distribution of the Linux based operating system.It is maintained and updated through the work of many users who volunteer their time and effort. Along with its large selection of prepackaged software is contains advanced package management tools that allow for easy installation and maintenance on individual systems and workstation clusters. Extensive pre-release testing is done to ensure the highest degree of reliability possible, and a publicly accessible bug tracking system provides an easy way to monitor customer feedback.

Architectures:

* i386 – x86-32 architecture designed for Intel/AMD 32-bit PCs and various other systems
* amd64 – x86-64 architecture designed for Intel/AMD 64-bit PCs and various other systems
* alpha – DEC Alpha architecture
* sparc – Sun SPARC architecture on Sun-4m, Sun-4u, and Sun-4v systems
* arm – ARM architecture on Risc PC and various embedded systems (little-endian)
* powerpc – PowerPC architecture
* hppa – HP PA-RISC architecture
* ia64 – Intel Itanium (IA-64) architecture
* mips, mipsel – MIPS architecture (big-endian and little-endian)
* s390 – IBM ESA/390 architecture and z/Architecture

The m68k port was the second official port in Debian, and has been part of five stable Debian releases. Due to its failure to meet the release criteria, it has been dropped before the release of etch. Still, it continues to be available as part of the unstable distribution:

* m68k – Motorola 68k architecture on Amiga, Atari, Macintosh, and various embedded VME systems

Ongoing efforts include ports to Hitachi SuperH (sh) and Renesas M32R (m32r) architectures, big-endian ARM port (armeb), little-endian EABI ARM port (armel), and 64-bit-only PowerPC port (ppc64).

Kernels:

The Project describes itself as creating a "Universal Operating System" and several ports of all userland software to various operating system kernels are under development:[42]

* Debian GNU/Linux, on the Linux kernel — the original, officially released port
* Debian GNU/Hurd, on GNU Hurd
* Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, on the FreeBSD kernel
* Debian GNU/NetBSD, on the NetBSD kernel

Although these are official Debian projects, there have been no official releases of the non-Linux ports yet, so currently Debian is exclusively a Linux distribution.

Distrubution release:

• 2008-02-17: Distribution Release: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r3
• 2007-12-29: Distribution Release: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r7
• 2007-12-27: Distribution Release: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r2
• 2007-08-16: Distribution Release: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0r1
• 2007-04-08: Distribution Release: Debian GNU/Linux 4.0
• 2007-04-07: Distribution Release: Debian GNU/Linux 3.1r6

Download: Click here to download

Amazon.com Widgets

Corel Linux

2008-05-29T06:27:00.000-07:00

Developer: Corel

Website: http://linux.corel.com/

Languages: English, French, German

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, Debian based, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Full-featured distribution from the makers of the famous WordPerfect word processor and CorelDraw programs. Corel sold off its Linux division in 2001 and this distribution is no longer maintained by them.

About Corel Linux: Corel Linux, also called Corel LinuxOS, was a Debian-based Linux distribution made by Corel that was released in late 1999. Corel later discontinued the distribution, but did not remove the former Corel Open Source Development website until March 2002.

Corel did not use KFM, the standard KDE file manager. It instead used its own file manager, CFM. This, along with other modifications Corel made, meant that Corel Linux suffered at being incompatible with other versions of Linux much more so than other competitors in the industry. At a time when there was relatively little Linux software available, this was a serious hurdle for Corel and its users.

Corel LinuxOS Second Edition was released in download, regular and deluxe editions, the latter of which bundled Corel WordPerfect Office for Linux.

Xandros purchased the Corel Linux source code and development team when Corel scrapped its Linux business in August 2001. However, the Corel Corporation is a stockholder of Xandros.

Features:

Corel Linux featured a file manager that was very close in look and feel to Windows Explorer. The file manager provided an integrated Windows SMB network browser.

Corel SmartMove was a part of the Corel Linux. This application used to provide the following:

Migrate Microsoft Windows settings to Corel Linux.
Automate restoring settings that are changed by SmartMove.
Provide an easy way to access network folders through Corel Linux.

SmartMove was built around the Wine libraries in order to be able to read the Windows registry settings for the Windows applications and thus be able to migrate them. SmartMove core libraries created a wrapper for the Windows registry to easily lookup the settings.

SmartMove looks for existing Microsoft Windows installations on the machine, looks a little further for individual users, and offers to transfer application settings to analogous programs under Linux. It understands how to deal with Internet Explorer and Netscape cookies and bookmarks, Outlook, mIRC, and ICQ settings, and a variety of desktop preferences, including wallpaper, color scheme, and even mouse "handedness". We tried it out with a few settings, but since our Windows installation was fairly new, we didn't have much to check against

With the death of Corel Linux, this application faded away and is no longer maintained, however similar functionality is now available on at least Ubuntu when installing a dual-boot configuration on a machine that already has Windows on it.

About COREL:

Corel was founded by Michael Cowpland in 1985, who intended it to be a research laboratory ("Corel" is an abbreviation of "Cowpland Research Laboratory"). The company saw great success early in the high-tech boom of the nineties with the product CorelDraw, and became, for a time, the biggest software company in Canada. Corel made many early investors very wealthy, but its strong growth did not last. It attempted to compete with Microsoft after acquiring the WordPerfect software in 1996, but it failed badly.

COREL PRODUCTS:

Corel Designer
CorelDRAW
CorelDream3D
Corel Graphics Suite
Corel KnockOut
Corel Painter
Paint Shop Pro
Paradox
Corel Photo Album
Quattro Pro
Corel PHOTO-PAINT
Corel SnapFire
Corel Ventura
WordPerfect
WinZip
iGrafx

Status:

This distribution has been discontinued.

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BlueCat Embedded Linux

2008-05-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

Developer: LynuxWorks

Website: http://www.lynuxworks.com

Languages: English

Categories: Embedded

Platforms: Other

Description: BlueCat is LynuxWorks' distribution of open source Linux, enhanced to meet the requirements of embedded developers. BlueCat includes a royalty-free, open source Linux distribution and is compatible with the LynxOS RTOS, an industry leader in hard, real-time embedded software. With its heritage of reliability, availability, and serviceability, BlueCat has a common source base and development tools for multiple embedded targets.

About Lynuxworks: LynuxWorks, Inc. is a software company based in San Jose, California, that produces embedded operating systems and tools for embedded systems development. LynuxWorks began in 1988 as Lynx Real-Time Systems creating the LynxOS real-time operating system (RTOS), which has been used particularly in industrial, networking and military and aerospace applications.

LynuxWorks' competitors include Wind River Systems, QNX, MontaVista, TimeSys and Green Hills Software.

Download:list of download locations here

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Beehive Linux

2008-05-27T03:08:00.000-07:00

Languages: English

Categories: Minimalist, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Scaled down distribution "without all the clutter" that promises to be "tighter and cleaner" than mainstream distributions. Beehive is geared toward the experienced Linux user.

About Beehive:Beehive Linux is a distribution made by system administrators, for system administrator.

Its intent is to provide fast and clean setup of workhorse servers and workstations.

Versions:
• 2002-09-15: Distribution Release: Beehive Linux 0.6.0
• 2002-04-17: Distribution Release: Beehive 0.5.0
• 2002-01-21: Distribution Release: Beehive 0.4.6
• 2002-01-10: Distribution Review: Beehive 0.4.4
• 2001-12-08: Distribution Release: Beehive 0.4.4
• 2001-11-27: Distribution Release: Beehive 0.4.3

Status:

This distribution has been discontinued.

SCO/Caldera OpenLinux

2008-05-27T00:10:00.000-07:00

Developer: SCO - Caldera International

Website: http://www.sco.com

Languages: English

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: The Caldera OpenLinux Product line is a multi-tasking, multi-user operating system that gives you the power and reliability of UNIX on a personal computer. OpenLinux is Caldera's "distribution" or package of Linux and is surrounded with utilities, graphical interfaces, installation procedures, third party applications, and much more. OpenLinux is ideal for small, medium, and large companies who must optimize their investment in existing systems, hardware & training. Several versions are available.

Download: list of download locations here

About SCO: Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) was a software company based in Santa Cruz, California which was best known for selling three UNIX variants for Intel x86 processors: Xenix, SCO UNIX (later known as SCO OpenServer), and UnixWare. Eric Raymond, in his book The Art of UNIX Programming, calls SCO the "first UNIX company". Prior to this UNIX vendors were either computer hardware manufacturers or telephone companies.

In 1993, SCO acquired two smaller companies and developed the product line that was named Tarantella. In 2001, SCO sold its rights to UNIX and the related divisions to Caldera Systems. After that the corporation retained only its Tarantella product line, and changed its name to Tarantella, Inc.

Caldera subsequently changed its name to SCO then to The SCO Group (NASDAQ: SCOX; now delisted: SCOXQ.PK), which has created some confusion between the two companies. The company described here is the follow-on company now referred to as The SCO Group. Although generally referred to simply as "SCO" up to 2001, the parent company is sometimes referred to as "old SCO" or "Santa Cruz" to distinguish it from "The SCO Group" to whom the U.S. trademark "SCO" was transferred

Shortly after changing its name, SCO began to claim that Linux "contained SCO's UNIX System V source code and that Linux was an unauthorized derivative of UNIX". SCO filed suit against IBM for an unprecedented US$1 billion and demanded that Linux end-users pay license fees. Microsoft bolstered SCO's financial situation in 2003 by purchasing a license to UNIX technology and by helping to arrange funding. A new division called SCOsource was created to license the company's intellectual property (IP). These claims provoked outrage among Linux users, who denied that Linux had copied SCO's intellectual property. Linux distributor Red Hat filed suit against SCO in Delaware. Novell, from whom SCO claimed to have acquired its UNIX IP, announced that it had not sold the copyrights to SCO and that it retained them. In response, SCO sued Novell for slander of title in Utah, home state of both SCO and Novell.

Products:

* SCO UnixWare, a modern UNIX operating system. UnixWare 2.x and below were direct descendants of Unix System V Release 4.2 and was originally developed by AT&T, Univel, Novell and later on The Santa Cruz Operation. UnixWare 7 was sold as a "best of breed" UNIX OS combining UnixWare 2 and OpenServer 5 and was based on System V Release 5. UnixWare 7.1.2 was branded OpenUNIX 8, but later releases returned to the UnixWare 7.1.x name and version numbering.

* SCO OpenServer, another UNIX operating system, which was originally developed by The Santa Cruz Operation. SCO OpenServer 5 was a descendant of SCO UNIX, which is in turn a descendent of XENIX. OpenServer 6 is, in fact, an OpenServer compatibility environment running on a modern SVR5 based UNIX kernel.

* Smallfoot, an operating system and GUI created specifically for point of sale applications.

* SCOx Web Services Substrate, a web services-based framework for modernizing legacy applications.

* WebFace, a development environment for rich-UI browser-based Internet applications.

* SCOoffice Server, an e-mail and collaboration solution, based on a mixture of open-source and closed-source software.

* Caldera WebSpyder, a web browser for DOS. Code from Arachne was purchased and used.

* In late 2004, SCO announced the launch of the SCO Marketplace Initiative , in which it offers pay-per-project development opportunities.

* In early 2006, SCO publicly released Me, Inc, a mobile services platform.

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Conectiva Linux

2008-05-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Developer: Conectiva

Website: http://en.conectiva.com

Languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese

Categories: Mainstream/General Public, No longer maintained

Platforms: Intel compatible

Description: Mainstream distribution developed in Brazil. Offers all of the major advantages of a mainstream distribution including ease of installation and setup. The edition for workstations and clients comes with major software packages including StarOffice, Netscape (in native languages), games, image manipulation applications and other utilities. The Server Edition comes with software for network administration, e-commerce and support for RAID and clusters.

Download: list of download locations here

About Conectvia: Conectiva was a company founded on August 28, 1995, by a group of friends, among them Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo, that was a pioneer in the distribution of Linux and open source software in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and English for all of Latin America. Besides a customized Linux distribution for the Latin American market, Conectiva developed a series of products and additional services directed to meet the market demand for open source tools, including books, manuals, additional software like Linux Tools and embedded systems, OEM programs, applications port, training kits and the "Revista do Linux" Linux magazine. In addition, the company provided consulting services, training and technical support in all of Latin America through its own service centers and certified partners.

Conectiva was a private company, located in Curitiba, Paraná in Brazil.

Conectiva also provided development, customization and professional services on a worldwide basis through its team of open source software engineers. Conectiva's development team had expertise in, amongst others, the following areas: Linux kernel development, high availability, device drivers, XFree86, network protocols, firewalling, clustering, performance analysis and optimisation, filesystems and resource management.

On 24 January 2005 it was announced that Mandrakesoft had acquired Conectiva for 1.79 million euro (2.3 million U.S. dollars at the time). On 7 April 2005 Mandrakesoft announced the decision to change the name of the parent company to Mandriva and their distribution name to Mandriva Linux, although the Brazilian operation would not change its name from Conectiva immediately.

Releases

* Conectiva Red Hat Linux Parolin 1.0 - October/1997
* Conectiva Red Hat Linux Marumbi 2.0 - May/1998
* Conectiva Linux Guarani 3.0 - December/1998
* Conectiva Linux Server (Intel) 1.0 - April/1999
* Conectiva Linux Server (Compaq Alpha) - May/1999
* Conectiva Linux 4.0 - July/1999
* Conectiva Linux 4.2 Server - October/1999
* Conectiva Linux 5.0 - February/2000
* Conectiva Linux 5.1 Server - June/2000
* Conectiva Linux 6.0 Desktop - November/2000
* Conectiva Linux 6.0 Server - November/2000
* Conectiva Linux 7.0 Desktop - July/2001
* Conectiva Linux 7.0 Server - July/2001
* Conectiva Linux 8.0 Desktop - April/2002
* Conectiva Linux 8.0 Server - April/2002
* Conectiva Linux Enterprise Edition (UL) - November/2002
* Conectiva Linux 9 Professional - April/2003
* Conectiva Linux 9 Standard - April/2003
* Conectiva Linux 10 Desktop - July/2004
* Conectiva Linux 10 Professional - July/2004

Linux Live CD

* Conectiva Linux Live CD 0.5 - August 11, 2004
* Conectiva Linux Live CD 0.7 Beta 2 - September 10, 2004

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Why Linus Chose a Penguin?

2008-05-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

The following is a quote from Linus Torvalds:

Somebody had a logo competition announcement, maybe people can send their ideas to a web-site..

Anyway, this one looks like the poor penguin is not really strong enough to hold up the world, and it's going to get squashed. Not a good, positive logo, in that respect..

Now, when you think about penguins, first take a deep calming breath, and then think "cuddly". Take another breath, and think "cute". Go back to "cuddly" for a while (and go on breathing), then think "contented".

With me so far? Good..

Now, with penguins, (cuddly such), "contented" means it has either just gotten laid, or it's stuffed on herring. Take it from me, I'm an expert on penguins, those are really the only two options.

Now, working on that angle, we don't really want to be associated with a randy penguin (well, we do, but it's not politic, so we won't), so we should be looking at the "stuffed to its brim with herring" angle here.

So when you think "penguin", you should be imagining a slighly overweight penguin (*), sitting down after having gorged itself, and having just burped. It's sitting there with a beatific smile - the world is a good place to be when you have just eaten a few gallons of raw fish and you can feel another "burp" coming.

(*) Not FAT, but you should be able to see that it's sitting down because it's really too stuffed to stand up. Think "bean bag" here.

Now, if you have problems associating yourself with something that gets off by eating raw fish, think "chocolate" or something, but you get the idea.

Ok, so we should be thinking of a lovable, cuddly, stuffed penguin sitting down after having gorged itself on herring. Still with me?

NOW comes the hard part. With this image firmly etched on your eyeballs, you then scetch a stylizied version of it. Not a lot of detail - just a black brush-type outline (you know the effect you get with a brush where the thickness of the line varies). THAT requires talent. Give people the outline, and they should say [ sickly sweet voice, babytalk almost ]"Ooh, what a cuddly penguin, I bet he is just _stuffed_ with herring", and small children will jump up and down and scream "mommy mommy, can I have one too?".

Then we can do a larger version with some more detail (maybe leaning against a globe of the world, but I don't think we really want to give any "macho penguin" image here about Atlas or anything). That more detailed version can spank billy-boy to tears for all I care, or play ice-hockey with the FreeBSD demon. But the simple, single penguin would be the logo, and the others would just be that cuddly penguin being used as an actor in some tableau.

The second quote is from when Linus announced Linux v2.0 on Usenet:

Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.

-- Linus Torvalds

for more info http://www.linux.org

History of UNIX & LINUX

2008-05-21T08:29:00.000-07:00

History of UNIX

In 1969-1970, Kenneth Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others at AT&T Bell Labs began developing a small operating system on a little-used PDP-7. The operating system was soon christened Unix, a pun on an earlier operating system project called MULTICS

In 1972-1973 the system was rewritten in the programming language C, an unusual step that was visionary: due to this decision, Unix was the first widely-used operating system that could switch from and outlive its original hardware. Other innovations were added to Unix as well, in part due to synergies between Bell Labs and the academic community.

In 1979, the ``seventh edition'' (V7) version of Unix was released, the grandfather of all extant Unix systems.After this point, the history of Unix becomes somewhat convoluted. The academic community, led by Berkeley, developed a variant called the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), while AT&T continued developing Unix under the names ``System III'' and later ``System V''.

In the late 1980's through early 1990's the ``wars'' between these two major strains raged. After many years each variant adopted many of the key features of the other. Commercially, System V won the ``standards wars'' (getting most of its interfaces into the formal standards), and most hardware vendors switched to AT&T's System V. However, System V ended up incorporating many BSD innovations, so the resulting system was more a merger of the two branches. The BSD branch did not die, but instead became widely used for research, for PC hardware, and for single-purpose servers (e.g., many web sites use a BSD derivative).

The result was many different versions of Unix, all based on the original seventh edition. Most versions of Unix were proprietary and maintained by their respective hardware vendor, for example, Sun Solaris is a variant of System V. Three versions of the BSD branch of Unix ended up as open source: FreeBSD (concentrating on ease-of-installation for PC-type hardware), NetBSD (concentrating on many different CPU architectures), and a variant of NetBSD, OpenBSD (concentrating on security)

History of LINUX

Linux is the first truly free Unix-like operating system. The underlying GNU Project was launched in 1983 by Richard Stallman originally to develop a Unix-compatible operating system called GNU, intended to be entirely free software. Many programs and utilities were contributed by developers around the world, and by 1991 most of the components of the system were ready. Still missing was the kernel.

In 1991, a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland named Linus Torvalds who had been using Minix, a non-free Unix-like system, began writing his own kernel. He started by developing device drivers and hard-drive access, and by September had a basic design that he called Version 0.01. This kernel, which is called Linux, was afterwards combined with the GNU system to produce a complete free operating system.

On October 5th, 1991, Torvalds sent a posting to the comp.os.minix newsgroup announcing the release of Version 0.02, a basic version that still needed Minix to operate, but which attracted considerable interest nevertheless. The kernel was then rapidly improved by Torvalds and a growing number of volunteers communicating over the Internet, and by December 19th a functional, stand-alone Unix-like Linux system was released as Version 0.11.

On January 5, 1992, Linux Version 0.12 was released, an improved, stable kernel. The next release was called Version 0.95, to reflect the fact that it was becoming a full-featured system. After that Linux became an underground phenomenon, with a growing group of distributed programmers that continue to debug, develop, and enhance the source code baseline to this day.

Torvalds released Version 0.11 under a freeware license of his own devising, but then released Version 0.12 under the well established GNU General Public License. More and more free software was developed for Linux over the next several years.

Linux continued to be improved through the 1990's, and started to be used in large-scale applications like web hosting, networking, and database serving, proving ready for production use. Version 2.2, a major update to the Linux kernel, was officially released in January 1999. By the year 2000, most computer companies supported Linux in one way or another, recognizing a common standard that could finally reunify the fractured world of the Unix Wars. The next major release was V2.4 in January 2001, providing (among other improvements) compatibility with the upcoming generations of Intel's 64-bit Itanium computer processors.

Although Torvalds continued to function as the Linux kernel release manager, he avoided work at any of the many companies involved with Linux in order to avoid showing favoritism to any particular organization, and instead went to work for a company called Transmeta and helped develop mobile computing solutions, and made his home at the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL).