Distros / OSs

to fix

Linux

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions
• http://distrowatch.com/
• http://oswatershed.org/
• http://www.distrogeeks.com/

• http://constantmayhem.com/ty-stuff/linuxsurvey/2013.html

• http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5349626

• http://futurist.se/gldt/

• http://futurist.se/gldt/wp-content/uploads/12.10/gldt1210.svg [1]

Arch

• Arch Linux
  • Arch Linux news - lists major upgrade changes
  • Arch Linux wiki
  • AUR - Arch User Repository

• Arch vs. Slackware, a friendly comparison - Dec 30, 2009

• http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=UBfD8aWK - heh

10Gb is NOT enough for the root partition (where packages are stored).

• https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/607117-build-a-serious-multimedia-production-workstation-with-arch-linux

• http://gotux.net/arch-linux/arch-linux-2013-installation/

• http://archbang.org/
• http://manjaro.org/
• http://www.chakra-project.org/

Debian

• http://static.debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/
• http://debian-administration.org/

• http://wiki.debian.org/AptPreferences

• http://people.debian.org/~hmh/invokerc.d-policyrc.d-specification.txt

• Backports
• Backport Instructions

• http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/33999/backports-on-debian-not-working
• http://serverfault.com/questions/322533/best-way-to-install-package-from-wheezy-on-squeeze

not in backports (as of oct 2012): vim 7.3, atop 1.26/1.27-3

• http://www.mepis.org/

• http://www.dotdeb.org/about/ - LAMP, etc.

• http://www.linuxdeepin.com/ - gnome

Ubuntu

• http://ubuntu.com/

• https://fixubuntu.com/ [2]

Server

• http://www.ubuntu.com/business/server

• https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
  • http://wiki.dennyhalim.com/ubuntu-minimal-desktop

• https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Core

• Ubuntu JeOS (pronounced "Juice") is an efficient variant of the Ubuntu Server operating system, configured specifically for virtual appliances. Currently available as a CD-ROM ISO for download, JeOS is a specialized installation of Ubuntu Server Edition with a tuned kernel that only contains the base elements needed to run within a virtualized environment.

Varieties

• http://xubuntu.org/ - XFCE
• http://lubuntu.net/ - LXDE
• http://kubuntu.org/ - KDE
• http://ubuntustudio.org/ - media creation
• http://mythbuntu.org/ - media centre
• http://edubuntu.com/ - educational

• http://ubuntugnome.org/

• http://ubuntu-mate.org/ - MATE

Articles

• http://www.osnews.com/story/26192/How_to_Undo_Unity

• http://askubuntu.com/questions/100925/unity-links-to-usb-drives-do-not-open-nautilus

• https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-terminal/+bug/1055766

• http://joshrendek.com/2013/01/securing-ubuntu/

CentOS

• http://www.centos.org/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CentOS
• http://centosnow.blogspot.co.uk/

• http://wiki.contribs.org/Main_Page

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available only through a paid subscription service that provides access to software updates and varying levels of technical support."

"Since Red Hat Enterprise Linux is based completely on free and open source software, Red Hat makes available the complete source code to its enterprise distribution through its FTP site to anybody who wants it. Accordingly, several groups have taken this source code and compiled their own versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, typically with the only changes being the removal of any references to Red Hat's trademarks and pointing the update systems to non-Red Hat servers. Groups which have undertaken this include CentOS (the 8th most popular Linux distribution as of November 2011), Oracle Linux, Scientific Linux, White Box Enterprise Linux, StartCom Enterprise Linux, Pie Box Enterprise Linux, X/OS, Lineox, and Bull's XBAS for high-performance computing. All provide a free mechanism for applying updates without paying a service fee to the distributor.""

• http://redhat.com/products/enterprise-linux/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux

If going down the based-on-RHEL route, consideration needs to be paid towards the update delay of the distros when a new RHEL release comes out.

• http://www.rosalab.com/products/desktop_fresh

Fedora

• Fedora is an RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and owned by Red Hat.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system)

• Fedora Spins are alternative versions of Fedora, tailored for various types of users via hand-picked application sets or customizations.
  • https://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce

• Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (or EPEL) is a Fedora Special Interest Group that creates, maintains, and manages a high quality set of additional packages for Enterprise Linux, including, but not limited to, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL),CentOS and Scientific Linux (SL). EPEL packages are usually based on their Fedora counterparts and will never conflict with or replace packages in the base Enterprise Linux distributions. EPEL uses much of the same infrastructure as Fedora, including buildsystem, bugzilla instance, updates manager, mirror manager and more.

• https://kororaproject.org/

Scientific Linux (SL)

• http://www.scientificlinux.org/

Oracle Linux

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Linux

Quicker to release was FUD? corperate atmosphere of Oracle has a baaad relationship with the open source world in general [3]

SUSE

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUSE_Linux_distributions

• http://www.opensuse.org/en/ openSUSE is a free and Linux-based operating system for your PC, Laptop or Server.

Gentoo

• http://www.gentoo.org/
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentoo_Linux

• http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Hardened_Gentoo
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardened_Gentoo

• http://opensource.dyc.edu/tinhat

• http://www.funtoo.org/wiki/Welcome

• http://funroll-loops.info/

• http://www.sabayon.org/

Sugar

• http://sugarlabs.org/

Slackware

• http://www.slackware.com/

• http://www.slax.org/

Misc

• http://bedrocklinux.org/

• NixOS is a GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In existing distributions, actions such as upgrades are dangerous: upgrading a package can cause other packages to break, upgrading an entire system is much less reliable than reinstalling from scratch, you can’t safely test what the results of a configuration change will be, you cannot easily undo changes to the system, and so on. We want to change that.

• Pardus
  • Pardus is a Linux distribution developed with support from the Turkish government. Pardus’ main focus is office-related work, including the use in Turkish government agencies.[1] Despite that, Pardus ships in several languages. Its ease of use[2] and availability free of charge spawned numerous communities throughout the world.

Free

• http://www.gnewsense.org/
• http://www.blagblagblag.org/
• http://www.fsfla.org/ikiwiki/selibre/linux-libre/

Custom

• http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

• http://exherbo.org/ - gentooish, different packaging
  • http://halffull.org/2009/03/07/review-of-exherbo-linux-from-a-users-perspective/

Small

• http://www.tinycorelinux.net/

• http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

• tomsrtbt - The most GNU/Linux on 1 floppy disk.

• SliTaz is a free operating system providing a fully featured desktop or server in less than 35 MB.

In Live mode SliTaz can run completely in RAM and boot from removable media such as a cdrom or USB key. The system is secure, stable and easy to use.

to sort

• http://www.zenwalk.org/ - slackware based
  • http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=zenwalk
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenwalk

• http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page antiX is a fast, lightweight and easy to install linux live CD distribution based on Debian Testing for Intel-AMD x86 compatible systems. antiX offers users the "antiX Magic" in an environment suitable for old computers. So don't throw away that old computer yet! It should run on most computers, ranging from 64MB old PII 266 systems with pre-configured 128MB swap to the latest powerful boxes. 128MB RAM is recommended minimum for antiX. The installer needs minimum 2.2GB hard disk size. antiX can also be used as a fast-booting rescue cd.

• Zenix OS?

• Zentyal Server is a Linux small business server, that can act as a Gateway, Infrastructure Manager, Unified Threat Manager, Office Server, Unified Communication Server or a combination of them. These functionalities are tightly integrated, automating most tasks, avoiding mistakes and saving time for system administrators.

• SME Server is a leading Open Source distribution for small and medium enterprises. It is a simple, powerful, secure Linux server for networking and communicating, used by thousands of individuals, companies and organizations all over the world. SME Server provides a friendly, free alternative to expensive proprietary software, standing apart from the competition by shipping with most common functionality preconfigured, and features a number of popular additional enhancements in the form of downloadable Contributions.

• pfSense includes most all the features in expensive commercial firewalls, and more in many cases. The following is a list of features currently available in the pfSense 2.0 release. All of these things are possible in the web interface, without touching anything at the command line.

• http://zorin-os.com/ - easy gui

• http://www.dynebolic.org/

• http://sta.li/

Anonymity

• Tails is a live DVD or live USB that aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity.

• http://freedomboxfoundation.org/

Security

• Qubes is an open source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing. Qubes is based on Xen, X Window System, and Linux, and can run most Linux applications and utilize most of the Linux drivers. Qubes Release 1 has been released in September 2012. Qubes Release 2 is currently in the works, and Beta 1 has already been released. Qubes 2 supports Windows-based AppVMs.

• Kali Linux, the most advanced and versatile penetration testing distribution ever created. Successor to BackTrack Linux
  • http://www.kalilinux.net/community/
  • http://www.offensive-security.com/kali-distribution/kali-linux-iso-of-doom/
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zflPxpmxk-o

• Security Onion is a Linux distro for IDS (Intrusion Detection) and NSM (Network Security Monitoring). It's based on Ubuntu and contains Snort, Suricata, Sguil, Squert, Snorby, Bro, NetworkMiner, Xplico, and many other security tools. The easy-to-use Setup wizard allows you to build an army of distributed sensors for your enterprise in minutes!
  • http://securityonion.blogspot.co.uk/

• Whonix is an operating system focused on anonymity, privacy and security. It's based on the Tor anonymity network, Debian GNU/Linux and security by isolation. DNS leaks are impossible, and not even malware with root privileges can find out the user's real IP. Whonix consists of two parts: One solely runs Tor and acts as a gateway, which we call Whonix-Gateway. The other, which we call Whonix-Workstation, is on a completely isolated network. Only connections through Tor are possible.

Data and media

• FreeNAS enables users to build network-attached-storage (NAS) on nearly any hardware platform of their choosing. The FreeNAS project and software were founded in 2005 on the principle that network storage be made available to the world at no cost and unencumbered by license restrictions. The FreeNAS Project has a mature community and a team of developers dedicated to meeting that goal and providing the best open-source NAS solution on the market.
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeNAS

• OpenMediaVault is the next generation network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. It contains services like SSH, (S)FTP, SMB/CIFS, DAAP media server, RSync, BitTorrent client and many more. Thanks to the modular design of the framework it can be enhanced via plugins. OpenMediaVault is primarily designed to be used in home environments or small home offices, but is not limited to those scenarios. It is a simple and easy to use out-of-the-box solution that will allow everyone to install and administrate a Network Attached Storage without deeper knowledge.

• GeeXboX is a free and Open Source Media-Center purposed Linux distribution for embedded devices and desktop computers. GeeXboX is not an application, it’s a full-featured OS, that one can boot as a LiveCD, from a USB key, an SD/MMC card or install on its regular HDD. The GeeXboX distribution is lightweight and designed for one single goal: embed all major multimedia applications as to turn your computer into an HTPC. GeeXboX runs on x86, PowerPC and ARM devices.

• forked-daapd - A re-write of the firefly media server (mt-daapd).
  • RPiForked-Daapd is a Raspberry Pi orientated iTunes server (DAAP server) made by Julian Blache, based on mt-daapd (Firefly). It's also a Roku server (RSP server). Unfortunately forked-daapd is no longer maintained upstream, so the packages available in the Debian repositories have a couple of issues.

• KXStudio is a collection of applications and plugins for professional audio production. KXStudio provides Debian and Ubuntu compatible repositories and its own Linux Distribution based on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS.

• 64 Studio Ltd. produces Debian and Ubuntu releases specialising in multimedia and digital content creation.

Wayland

• Maui aims to offer an excellent desktop experience. Instead of forcing you to know every detail of your computer we expect you to turn it on, sit down and simply use it. Uses Qt 5, QtQuick and Wayland.

Gaming

• live.linuX-gamers.net is a Linux live distribution: "boot 'n play". The idea is for you to be able to carry a decent amount of high-quality Linux games with you where ever you go for purposes of demonstration, gaming or parties. Your computer will remain completely unchanged as everything will run live.

Embedded

• http://elinux.org

• http://www.uclinux.org/

Supercomputing

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compute_Node_Linux

BSD

• http://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/open-source/57589-upstream-vendors-can-harm-small-projects-openbsd-dev

FreeBSD

• http://www.freebsd.org/

• http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/49906/why-is-freebsd-deprecating-gcc-in-favor-of-clang-llvm/49970#49970

• http://www.pcbsd.org/ - based on freebsd

• http://zfsguru.com/

OpenBSD

• http://www.openbsd.org/
  • http://bsdly.blogspot.ca/2013/04/youve-installed-it-now-what-packages.html

NetBSD

• http://www.netbsd.org/

PC-BSD

• http://www.pcbsd.org/ - based on freebsd

DragonflyBSD

• http://www.dragonflybsd.org/ - based on freebsd
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFly_BSD

Darwin

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

• http://www.puredarwin.org/

• http://darling.dolezel.info/en/Darling

Open Solaris forks

• http://openindiana.org/ - forked from
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenIndiana

• http://wiki.illumos.org
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illumos

NeXTSTEP

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP

• http://www.johnmirandaphoto.com/next.htm

EdgeBSD

• http://www.edgebsd.org/ - new in 2013, netbsd fork [4]

Hurd

• http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd.html
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Hurd

• http://www.archhurd.org/
• http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd/

• http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/features/whatever-happened-to-the-hurd-the-story-of-the-gnu-os [5]
• https://archive.fosdem.org/2013/schedule/event/hurd_microkernel/attachments/slides/163/export/events/attachments/hurd_microkernel/slides/163/2013_02_02_fosdem.pdf

Plan9

Unix done 'better'. Ideas from Plan 9 made it into Linux, like more things being files.

• Wikipedia:Plan 9 from Bell Labs
• http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/rc

• http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/plan_9_wiki
  • http://www.plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/what_do_people_like_about_plan_9

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9P - networking

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_(text_editor)
  • http://research.swtch.com/acme

• http://swtch.com/plan9port/
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_User_Space

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/9vx

• https://code.google.com/p/nix-os/ - fork

Minix

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MINIX
• http://www.minix3.org/

Other

• http://www.osnews.com/

• http://www.haiku-os.org/ - really other..

• http://templeos.org/

• http://www.menuetos.net/
  • http://kolibrios.org/en/

• http://www.osv.io/ - for cloud containers
  • http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/pipermail/linux-il/2013-September/010649.html
  • https://github.com/cloudius-systems/osv
  • https://github.com/cloudius-systems/osv/wiki/Running-OSv-under-KVM-QEMU
  • https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11mxUl8PBDQ3C4QyeHBT8BcMPGzqk-C8bV1Fw8xLgwSI/preview?pli=1&sle=true#slide=id.g104154dae_12
  • http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/567222/d02ddd1c4e25ae22/ [6]

• http://www.skyos.org/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyOS

• https://www.ethos-os.org/ [7]

• http://arrakis.cs.washington.edu/ [8]

• http://contiki-os.org/start.html
  • http://www.wired.com/2014/06/contiki/ [9]

Live Distro

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_CD
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB

• http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Live+Medium

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_live_CDs
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Linux_distributions#Live_media

Tools

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_to_create_Live_USB_systems

• UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions without burning a CD. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. You can either let UNetbootin download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.
  • http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNetbootin

• MultiBootUSB is a software / installer which allows user to install multiple Live Linux Distros in to a single USB drive / Pendrive / Flash drive and able to boot from it. USB can be tested without reboot using inbuilt QEMU.

Testing

qemu-system-x86_64 -m 512 distro.iso