LINUX
Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel,[10] an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds.[11][12][13] Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution.
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.[14][15]
Popular Linux distributions[16][17][18] include Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu. Commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Desktop Linux distributions include a windowing system such as X11 or Wayland, and a desktop environment such as GNOME or KDE Plasma. Distributions intended for servers may omit graphics altogether, or include a solution stack such as LAMP. Because Linux is freely redistributable, anyone may create a distribution for any purpose.[19]
Linux was originally developed for personal computers based on the Intel x86 architecture, but has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system.[20] Because of the dominance of the Linux-based Android on smartphones, Linux also has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems.[21][22][23][24] Although it is used by only around 2.3 percent of desktop computers,[25][26] the Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based Chrome OS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20 percent of sub-$300 notebook sales in the US.[27] Linux is the leading operating system on servers (over 96.4% of the top 1 million web servers' operating systems are Linux),[28] leads other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and is the only OS used on TOP500 supercomputers (since November 2017, having gradually eliminated all competitors).[29][30][31]
Linux also runs on embedded systems, i.e. devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes routers, automation controls, smart home technology (like Google Nest),[32] televisions (Samsung and LG Smart TVs use Tizen and WebOS, respectively),[33][34][35] automobiles (for example, Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Toyota all rely on Linux),[36] digital video recorders, video game consoles, and smartwatches.[37] The Falcon 9's and the Dragon 2's avionics use a customized version of Linux.[38]
Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. The source code may be used, modified and distributed commercially or non-commercially by anyone under the terms of its respective licenses, such as the GNU General Public License.[19]
90% of all cloud infrastructure is powered by Linux including supercomputers and cloud providers.[39] 74% of smartphones in the world are Linux-based.[40]
History[edit]
Main article: History of Linux
Precursors[edit]
Linus Torvalds, principal author of the Linux kernel
The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in 1969, at AT&T's Bell Labs, in the United States by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna.[41] First released in 1971, Unix was written entirely in assembly language, as was common practice at the time. In 1973 in a key, pioneering approach, it was rewritten in the C programming language by Dennis Ritchie (with the exception of some hardware and I/O routines). The availability of a high-level language implementation of Unix made its porting to different computer platforms easier.[42]
Due to an earlier antitrust case forbidding it from entering the computer business, AT&T was required to license the operating system's source code to anyone who asked. As a result, Unix grew quickly and became widely adopted by academic institutions and businesses. In 1984, AT&T divested itself of Bell Labs; freed of the legal obligation requiring free licensing, Bell Labs began selling Unix as a proprietary product, where users were not legally allowed to modify Unix. The GNU Project, started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, had the goal of creating a "complete Unix-compatible software system" composed entirely of free software. Work began in 1984.[43] Later, in 1985, Stallman started the Free Software Foundation and wrote the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) in 1989. By the early 1990s, many of the programs required in an operating system (such as libraries, compilers, text editors, a command-line shell, and a windowing system) were completed, although low-level elements such as device drivers, daemons, and the kernel, called GNU Hurd, were stalled and incomplete.[44]
Linus Torvalds has stated that if the GNU kernel had been available at the time (1991), he would not have decided to write his own.[45] Although not released until 1992, due to legal complications, development of 386BSD, from which NetBSD, OpenBSD and FreeBSD descended, predated that of Linux. Torvalds has also stated that if 386BSD had been available at the time, he probably would not have created Linux.[46]
MINIX was created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, a computer science professor, and released in 1987 as a minimal Unix-like operating system targeted at students and others who wanted to learn operating system principles. Although the complete source code of MINIX was freely available, the licensing terms prevented it from being free software until the licensing changed in April 2000.[47]
Creation[edit]
In 1991, while attending the University of Helsinki, Torvalds became curious about operating systems.[48] Frustrated by the licensing of MINIX, which at the time limited it to educational use only,[47] he began to work on his own operating system kernel, which eventually became the Linux kernel.
Torvalds began the development of the Linux kernel on MINIX and applications written for MINIX were also used on Linux. Later, Linux matured and further Linux kernel development took place on Linux systems.[49] GNU applications also replaced all MINIX components, because it was advantageous to use the freely available code from the GNU Project with the fledgling operating system; code licensed under the GNU GPL can be reused in other computer programs as long as they also are released under the same or a compatible license. Torvalds initiated a switch from his original license, which prohibited commercial redistribution, to the GNU GPL.[50] Developers worked to integrate GNU components with the Linux kernel, making a fully functional and free operating system.[51]
Naming[edit]
5.25-inch floppy disks holding a very early version of Linux
Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention "Freax", a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, some of the project's makefiles included the name "Freax" for about half a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.[52]
In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke, Torvalds' coworker at the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name, so he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds.[52] Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".
According to a newsgroup post by Torvalds,[9] the word "Linux" should be pronounced (/ˈlɪnʊks/ (listen) LIN-uuks) with a short ‘i’ as in ‘print’ and ‘u’ as in ‘put’. To further demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced, he included an audio guide (listen (help·info)) with the kernel source code.[53] Contradictory, in this recording, he pronounces ‘Linux’ (/ˈlinʊks/ (listen) LEEN-uuks with a short but close unrounded front vowel.
Commercial and popular uptake[edit]
Main article: Linux adoption
Ubuntu, a popular Linux distribution
Adoption of Linux in production environments, rather than being used only by hobbyists, started to take off first in the mid-1990s in the supercomputing community, where organizations such as NASA started to replace their increasingly expensive machines with clusters of inexpensive commodity computers running Linux. Commercial use began when Dell and IBM, followed by Hewlett-Packard, started offering Linux support to escape Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop operating system market.[54]
Today, Linux systems are used throughout computing, from embedded systems to virtually all supercomputers,[31][55] and have secured a place in server installations such as the popular LAMP application stack. Use of Linux distributions in home and enterprise desktops has been growing.[56][57][58][59][60][61][62] Linux distributions have also become popular in the netbook market, with many devices shipping with customized Linux distributions installed, and Google releasing their own Chrome OS designed for netbooks.
Linux's greatest success in the consumer market is perhaps the mobile device market, with Android being one of the most dominant operating systems on smartphones and very popular on tablets and, more recently, on wearables. Linux gaming is also on the rise with Valve showing its support for Linux and rolling out SteamOS, its own gaming-oriented Linux distribution. Linux distributions have also gained popularity with various local and national governments, such as the federal government of Brazil.[63]
Current development[edit]
In-flight entertainment system booting up displaying the Linux logo
Greg Kroah-Hartman is the lead maintainer for the Linux kernel and guides its development.[64] William John Sullivan is the executive director of the Free Software Foundation,[65] which in turn supports the GNU components.[66] Finally, individuals and corporations develop third-party non-GNU components. These third-party components comprise a vast body of work and may include both kernel modules and user applications and libraries.
Linux vendors and communities combine and distribute the kernel, GNU components, and non-GNU components, with additional package management software in the form of Linux distributions.
Uses[edit]
See also: Linux range of use
Besides the Linux distributions designed for general-purpose use on desktops and servers, distributions may be specialized for different purposes including: computer architecture support, embedded systems, stability, security, localization to a specific region or language, targeting of specific user groups, support for real-time applications, or commitment to a given desktop environment. Furthermore, some distributions deliberately include only free software. As of 2015, over four hundred Linux distributions are actively developed, with about a dozen distributions being most popular for general-purpose use.[96]
Desktop[edit]
Visible software components of the Linux desktop stack include the display server, widget engines, and some of the more widespread widget toolkits. There are also components not directly visible to end-users, including D-Bus and PulseAudio.
See also: Desktop environment, Linux adoption: Measuring desktop adoption, and Criticism of desktop Linux
The popularity of Linux on standard desktop computers and laptops has been increasing over the years.[97] Most modern distributions include a graphical user environment, with, as of February 2015, the two most popular environments being the KDE Plasma Desktop and Xfce.[98][better source needed]
No single official Linux desktop exists: rather desktop environments and Linux distributions select components from a pool of free and open-source software with which they construct a GUI implementing some more or less strict design guide. GNOME, for example, has its human interface guidelines as a design guide, which gives the human–machine interface an important role, not just when doing the graphical design, but also when considering people with disabilities, and even when focusing on security.[99]
The collaborative nature of free software development allows distributed teams to perform language localization of some Linux distributions for use in locales where localizing proprietary systems would not be cost-effective. For example, the Sinhalese language version of the Knoppix distribution became available significantly before Microsoft translated Windows XP into Sinhalese.[100] In this case the Lanka Linux User Group played a major part in developing the localized system by combining the knowledge of university professors, linguists, and local developers.
Performance and applications[edit]
The performance of Linux on the desktop has been a controversial topic;[101] for example in 2007 Con Kolivas accused the Linux community of favoring performance on servers. He quit Linux kernel development out of frustration with this lack of focus on the desktop, and then gave a "tell all" interview on the topic.[102] Since then a significant amount of development has focused on improving the desktop experience. Projects such as systemd and Upstart (deprecated in 2014) aim for a faster boot time; the Wayland and Mir projects aim at replacing X11 while enhancing desktop performance, security and appearance.[103]
Many popular applications are available for a wide variety of operating systems. For example, Mozilla Firefox, OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice and Blender have downloadable versions for all major operating systems. Furthermore, some applications initially developed for Linux, such as Pidgin, and GIMP, were ported to other operating systems (including Windows and macOS) due to their popularity. In addition, a growing number of proprietary desktop applications are also supported on Linux,[104] such as Autodesk Maya and The Foundry's Nuke in the high-end field of animation and visual effects; see the list of proprietary software for Linux for more details. There are also several companies that have ported their own or other companies' games to Linux, with Linux also being a supported platform on both the popular Steam and Desura digital-distribution services.[105]
Many other types of applications available for Microsoft Windows and macOS also run on Linux. Commonly, either a free software application will exist which does the functions of an application found on another operating system, or that application will have a version that works on Linux, such as with Skype and some video games like Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2. Furthermore, the Wine project provides a Windows compatibility layer to run unmodified Windows applications on Linux. It is sponsored by commercial interests including CodeWeavers, which produces a commercial version of the software. Since 2009, Google has also provided funding to the Wine project.[106][107] CrossOver, a proprietary solution based on the open-source Wine project, supports running Windows versions of Microsoft Office, Intuit applications such as Quicken and QuickBooks, Adobe Photoshop versions through CS2, and many popular games such as World of Warcraft. In other cases, where there is no Linux port of some software in areas such as desktop publishing[108] and professional audio,[109][110][111] there is equivalent software available on Linux. It is also possible to run applications written for Android on other versions of Linux using Anbox.
Components and installation[edit]
Besides externally visible components, such as X window managers, a non-obvious but quite central role is played by the programs hosted by freedesktop.org, such as D-Bus or PulseAudio; both major desktop environments (GNOME and KDE) include them, each offering graphical front-ends written using the corresponding toolkit (GTK or Qt). A display server is another component, which for the longest time has been communicating in the X11 display server protocol with its clients; prominent software talking X11 includes the X.Org Server and Xlib. Frustration over the cumbersome X11 core protocol, and especially over its numerous extensions, has led to the creation of a new display server protocol, Wayland.
Installing, updating and removing software in Linux is typically done through the use of package managers such as the Synaptic Package Manager, PackageKit, and Yum Extender. While most major Linux distributions have extensive repositories, often containing tens of thousands of packages, not all the software that can run on Linux is available from the official repositories. Alternatively, users can install packages from unofficial repositories, download pre-compiled packages directly from websites, or compile the source code by themselves. All these methods come with different degrees of difficulty; compiling the source code is in general considered a challenging process for new Linux users, but it is hardly needed in modern distributions and is not a method specific to Linux.
- Samples of graphical desktop interfaces
- GNOME
- KDE Plasma 5
- Cinnamon
- Mate
- Pantheon
- Budgie
- Xfce
- Unity (discontinued; forked by UBPorts for Unity 8 (Now Lomiri) desktop; still used in various remixes and forks of Ubuntu)
- LXDE
- LXQt
- i3-gaps
- Enlightenment
- Fluxbox
- Sugar
- Trinity
Netbooks[edit]
Linux distributions have also become popular in the netbook market, with many devices such as the Asus Eee PC and Acer Aspire One shipping with customized Linux distributions installed.[112]
In 2009, Google announced its Chrome OS as a minimal Linux-based operating system, using the Chrome browser as the main user interface. Chrome OS initially did not run any non-web applications, except for the bundled file manager and media player. A certain level of support for Android applications was added in later versions.[113] As of 2018, Google added the ability to install any Linux software in a container,[114] enabling Chrome OS to be used like any other Linux distribution. Netbooks that shipped with the operating system, termed Chromebooks, started appearing on the market in June 2011.[115]
Servers, mainframes and supercomputers[edit]
Broad overview of the LAMP software bundle, displayed here together with Squid. A high-performance and high-availability web server solution providing security in a hostile environment.
Linux distributions have long been used as server operating systems, and have risen to prominence in that area; Netcraft reported in September 2006, that eight of the ten (other two with "unknown" OS) most reliable internet hosting companies ran Linux distributions on their web servers,[116] with Linux in the top position. In June 2008, Linux distributions represented five of the top ten, FreeBSD three of ten, and Microsoft two of ten;[117] since February 2010, Linux distributions represented six of the top ten, FreeBSD three of ten, and Microsoft one of ten,[118] with Linux in the top position.
Linux distributions are the cornerstone of the LAMP server-software combination (Linux, Apache, MariaDB/MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) which has achieved popularity among developers, and which is one of the more common platforms for website hosting.[119]
Linux distributions have become increasingly popular on mainframes, partly due to pricing and the open-source model.[120] In December 2009, computer giant IBM reported that it would predominantly market and sell mainframe-based Enterprise Linux Server.[121] At LinuxCon North America 2015, IBM announced LinuxONE, a series of mainframes specifically designed to run Linux and open-source software.[122][123]
Linux distributions are also dominant as operating systems for supercomputers.[31] As of November 2017, all supercomputers on the 500 list run some variant of Linux.[124]
Smart devices[edit]
Android smartphones
In-car entertainment system of the Tesla Model S is based on Ubuntu[125][126]
Several operating systems for smart devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, home automation (like Google Nest),[32] smart TVs (Samsung and LG Smart TVs use Tizen and WebOS, respectively),[33] and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems[36] (for example Automotive Grade Linux), are based on Linux. Major platforms for such systems include Android, Firefox OS, Mer and Tizen.
Android has become the dominant mobile operating system for smartphones, running on 79.3% of units sold worldwide during the second quarter of 2013.[127] Android is also a popular operating system for tablets, and Android smart TVs and in-vehicle navigation systems have also appeared in the market.
Although Android is based on a modified version of the Linux kernel, commentators disagree on whether the term "Linux distribution" applies to it, and whether it is "Linux" according to the common usage of the term. Android is a Linux distribution according to the Linux Foundation,[128] Google's open-source chief Chris DiBona,[129] and several journalists.[130][131] Others, such as Google engineer Patrick Brady, say that Android is not Linux in the traditional Unix-like Linux distribution sense; Android does not include the GNU C Library (it uses Bionic as an alternative C library) and some of other components typically found in Linux distributions.[132] Ars Technica wrote that "Although Android is built on top of the Linux kernel, the platform has very little in common with the conventional desktop Linux stack".[132]
Cellphones and PDAs running Linux on open-source platforms became more common from 2007; examples include the Nokia N810, Openmoko's Neo1973, and the Motorola ROKR E8. Continuing the trend, Palm (later acquired by HP) produced a new Linux-derived operating system, webOS, which is built into its line of Palm Pre smartphones.
Nokia's Maemo, one of the earliest mobile operating systems, was based on Debian.[133] It was later merged with Intel's Moblin, another Linux-based operating system, to form MeeGo.[134] The project was later terminated in favor of Tizen, an operating system targeted at mobile devices as well as IVI. Tizen is a project within The Linux Foundation. Several Samsung products are already running Tizen, Samsung Gear 2 being the most significant example.[135] Samsung Z smartphones will use Tizen instead of Android.[136]
As a result of MeeGo's termination, the Mer project forked the MeeGo codebase to create a basis for mobile-oriented operating systems.[137] In July 2012, Jolla announced Sailfish OS, their own mobile operating system built upon Mer technology.
The PinePhone running Plasma Mobile on PostmarketOS.
Mozilla's Firefox OS consists of the Linux kernel, a hardware abstraction layer, a web-standards-based runtime environment and user interface, and an integrated web browser.[138]
Canonical has released Ubuntu Touch, aiming to bring convergence to the user experience on this mobile operating system and its desktop counterpart, Ubuntu. The operating system also provides a full Ubuntu desktop when connected to an external monitor.[139]
The Librem 5 is a smartphone developed by Purism. By default, it runs the company-made Linux-based PureOS, but it can also run other Linux distributions.[140] Like Ubuntu Touch, PureOS is designed with convergence in mind, allowing desktop programs to run on the smartphone. An example of this is the desktop version of Mozilla Firefox.[141]
Another smartphone is the PinePhone, made by the computer manufacturer Pine64. The PinePhone can run a variety of Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu Touch and PostmarketOS.[142]
Embedded devices[edit]
See also: Embedded Linux and Linux devices
A ubiquitous router running on the Linux kernel.
Due to its low cost and ease of customization, Linux is often used in embedded systems. In the non-mobile telecommunications equipment sector, the majority of customer-premises equipment (CPE) hardware runs some Linux-based operating system. OpenWrt is a community-driven example upon which many of the OEM firmware releases are based.
For example, the popular TiVo digital video recorder also uses a customized Linux,[143] as do several network firewalls and routers from such makers as Cisco/Linksys. The Korg OASYS, the Korg KRONOS, the Yamaha Motif XS/Motif XF music workstations,[144] Yamaha S90XS/S70XS, Yamaha MOX6/MOX8 synthesizers, Yamaha Motif-Rack XS tone generator module, and Roland RD-700GX digital piano also run Linux. Linux is also used in stage lighting control systems, such as the WholeHogIII console.[145]
Gaming[edit]
Main article: Linux gaming
In the past, there were few games available for Linux. In recent years, more games have been released with support for Linux (especially Indie games), with the exception of a few AAA title games. Android, a popular mobile platform which uses the Linux kernel, has gained much developer interest and is one of the main platforms for mobile game development along with iOS operating system by Apple for iPhone and iPad devices.
On February 14, 2013, Valve released a Linux version of Steam, a popular game distribution platform on PC.[146] Many Steam games were ported to Linux.[147] On December 13, 2013, Valve released SteamOS, a gaming-oriented OS based on Debian, for beta testing, and has plans to ship Steam Machines as a gaming and entertainment platform.[148] Valve has also developed VOGL, an OpenGL debugger intended to aid video game development,[149] as well as porting its Source game engine to desktop Linux.[150] As a result of Valve's effort, several prominent games such as DotA 2, Team Fortress 2, Portal, Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 are now natively available on desktop Linux.
On July 31, 2013, Nvidia released Shield as an attempt to use Android as a specialized gaming platform.[151]
Some Linux users play Windows-based games using Wine or CrossOver Linux.
On August 22, 2018, Valve released their own fork of Wine called Proton, aimed at gaming. It features some improvements over the vanilla Wine such as Vulkan-based DirectX 11 and 12 implementations, Steam integration, better full screen and game controller support and improved performance for multi-threaded games.[152]
In 2021, database website ProtonDB stated that 78% of the top thousand games on Steam were able to run on Linux using either Proton or a native port.[153]
Specialized uses[edit]
Due to the flexibility, customizability and free and open-source nature of Linux, it becomes possible to highly tailor Linux towards a specific purpose. There are two main methods to assemble a specialized Linux distribution: building from scratch or from a general-purpose distribution as a base. The distributions often used for this purpose include Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu (which is itself based on Debian), Arch Linux, Gentoo, and Slackware. In contrast, Linux distributions built from scratch do not have general-purpose bases; instead, they focus on the JeOS philosophy by including only necessary components and avoiding resource overhead caused by components considered redundant in the distribution's use cases.
Home theater PC[edit]
A home theater PC (HTPC) is a PC that is mainly used as an entertainment system, especially a home theater system. It is normally connected to a television, and often an additional audio system.
OpenELEC, a Linux distribution that incorporates the media center software Kodi, is an OS tuned specifically for an HTPC. Having been built from the ground up adhering to the JeOS principle, the OS is very lightweight and very suitable for the confined usage range of an HTPC.
There are also special editions of Linux distributions that include the MythTV media center software, such as Mythbuntu, a special edition of Ubuntu.
Digital security[edit]
Kali Linux is a Debian-based Linux distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing. It comes preinstalled with several software applications for penetration testing and identifying security exploits.[154] The Ubuntu derivative BackBox provides pre-installed security and network analysis tools for ethical hacking.
The Arch-based BlackArch includes over 2100 tools for pentesting and security researching.[155]
There are many Linux distributions created with privacy, secrecy, network anonymity and information security in mind, including Tails, Tin Hat Linux and Tinfoil Hat Linux. Lightweight Portable Security is a distribution based on Arch Linux and developed by the United States Department of Defense. Tor-ramdisk is a minimal distribution created solely to host the network anonymity software Tor.
System rescue[edit]
Linux Live CD sessions have long been used as a tool for recovering data from a broken computer system and for repairing the system. Building upon that idea, several Linux distributions tailored for this purpose have emerged, most of which use GParted as a partition editor, with additional data recovery and system repair software:
- GParted Live – a Debian-based distribution developed by the GParted project.
- Parted Magic – a commercial Linux distribution.
- SystemRescueCD – an Arch-based distribution with support for editing Windows registry.
In space[edit]
SpaceX uses multiple redundant flight computers in a fault-tolerant design in its Falcon 9 rocket. Each Merlin engine is controlled by three voting computers, with two physical processors per computer that constantly check each other's operation. Linux is not inherently fault-tolerant (no operating system is, as it is a function of the whole system including the hardware), but the flight computer software makes it so for its purpose.[156] For flexibility, commercial off-the-shelf parts and system-wide "radiation-tolerant" design are used instead of radiation hardened parts.[156] As of July 2019, SpaceX has conducted over 76 launches of the Falcon 9 since 2010, out of which all but one have successfully delivered their primary payloads to the intended orbit, and has used it to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. The Dragon 2 crew capsule also uses Linux.[38]
Windows was deployed as the operating system on non-mission critical laptops used on the space station, but it was later replaced with Linux. Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot in space, is also Linux-based.[157]
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has used Linux for a number of years "to help with projects relating to the construction of unmanned space flight and deep space exploration"; NASA uses Linux in robotics in the Mars rover, and Ubuntu Linux to "save data from satellites".[158]
Education[edit]
Linux distributions have been created to provide hands-on experience with coding and source code to students, on devices such as the Raspberry Pi. In addition to producing a practical device, the intention is to show students "how things work under the hood".[159]
The Ubuntu derivatives Edubuntu and The Linux Schools Project, as well as the Debian derivative Skolelinux, provide education-oriented software packages. They also include tools for administering and building school computer labs and computer-based classrooms, such as the Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP).
Others[edit]
Instant WebKiosk and Webconverger are browser-based Linux distributions often used in web kiosks and digital signage. Thinstation is a minimalist distribution designed for thin clients. Rocks Cluster Distribution is tailored for high-performance computing clusters.
There are general-purpose Linux distributions that target a specific audience, such as users of a specific language or geographical area. Such examples include Ubuntu Kylin for Chinese language users and BlankOn targeted at Indonesians. Profession-specific distributions include Ubuntu Studio for media creation and DNALinux for bioinformatics. There is also a Muslim-oriented distribution of the name Sabily that consequently also provides some Islamic tools. Certain organizations use slightly specialized Linux distributions internally, including GendBuntu used by the French National Gendarmerie, Goobuntu used internally by Google, and Astra Linux developed specifically for the Russian army.