A Linux distribution is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro, if distributed on its own, is often obtained via a website intended specifically for the purpose. Distros have been designed for a wide variety of systems ranging from personal computers to servers and from embedded devices to supercomputers.
Beonex Communicator is a discontinued open-source Internet suite based on the Mozilla Application Suite (MAS) by Ben Bucksch, a German Mozilla developer. It was intended to have a higher security and privacy level than other commercial products. The Internet suite contains a Web browser, an email and news client, an HTML editor and an IRC client.
Knoppix, stylized KNOPPIX, is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD or DVD or a USB flash drive. It was first released in 2000 by German Linux consultant Klaus Knopper, and was one of the first popular live distributions. Knoppix is loaded from the removable medium and decompressed into a RAM drive. The decompression is transparent and on-the-fly.
c't – Magazin für Computertechnik is a German computer magazine, published by the Heinz Heise publishing house.
Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a computer operating system for the x86 family of personal computers. It is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU GPL and other free and open-source licenses. It was designed to run graphical user interface applications on older PC hardware, for example, machines with 486 and early Pentium microprocessors and very little random-access memory (RAM). DSL is a live CD with a size of 50 megabytes (MB). What originally began as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.
dyne:bolic GNU/Linux is a Live CD/DVD distribution based on the Linux kernel. It is shaped by the needs of media activists, artists and creators to be a practical tool with a focus on multimedia production, that delivers a large assortment of applications. It allows manipulation and broadcast of both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode, and stream. In addition to multimedia specific programs, dyne:bolic also provides word processors and common desktop computing tools.
OpenVPN is a virtual private network (VPN) system that implements techniques to create secure point-to-point or site-to-site connections in routed or bridged configurations and remote access facilities. It implements both client and server applications.
m0n0wall was an embedded firewall distribution of FreeBSD, one of the BSD operating system descendants. It provided a small image which could be put on Compact Flash cards as well as on CD-ROMs and hard disks. It ran on a number of embedded platforms and generic PCs. The PC version could be run with just a Live CD and a floppy disk to store configuration data, or on a single Compact Flash card. This eliminated the need for a hard drive, which reduces noise and heat levels and decreases the risk of system failure through elimination of moving parts found in older hard drives.
Smoothwall is a Linux distribution designed to be used as an open source firewall. Smoothwall is configured via a web-based GUI and requires little or no knowledge of Linux to install or use.
DrayTek is a network equipment manufacturer of customer-premises equipment including firewalls, VPN devices, routers, managed switches and wireless LAN devices.
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) is an open standard that operating systems can use to discover and configure computer hardware components, to perform power management, auto configuration, and status monitoring. It was first released in December 1996. ACPI aims to replace Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification, and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification. ACPI brings power management under the control of the operating system, as opposed to the previous BIOS-centric system that relied on platform-specific firmware to determine power management and configuration policies. The specification is central to the Operating System-directed configuration and Power Management (OSPM) system. ACPI defines hardware abstraction interfaces between the device's firmware, the computer hardware components, and the operating systems.
Video Disk Recorder (VDR) is an open-source application for Linux designed to allow any computer to function as a digital video recorder, in order to record and replay TV programming using the computer's hard drive. The computer needs to be equipped with a digital TV tuner card. VDR can also operate as an mp3 player and DVD player using available plugins. VDR uses drivers from the LinuxTV project. VDR was originally written by Klaus-Peter Schmidinger, one of the founders of CadSoft Computer GmbH and original developer of the EAGLE electronic design application. The software was originally hosted on CadSoft's server.
Amiga Forever is an Amiga preservation, emulation and support package published by Cloanto, allowing Amiga software to run on non-Amiga hardware legally without complex configuration.
OpenWrt is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. The main components are Linux, util-linux, musl, and BusyBox. All components have been optimized to be small enough to fit into the limited storage and memory available in home routers.
Kid3 is an open-source cross-platform audio tag editor for many audio file formats. It supports DSF, MP3, Ogg, FLAC, MPC, MPEG-4 (mp4/m4a/m4b), AAC, Opus, SPX, TrueAudio, APE, WavPack, WMA, WAV, AIFF, tracker modules.
Endian Firewall is an open-source router, firewall and gateway security Linux distribution developed by the South Tyrolean company Endian. The product is available as either free software, commercial software with guaranteed support services, or as a hardware appliance.
WireGuard is a communication protocol and free and open-source software that implements encrypted virtual private networks (VPNs). It aims to be lighter and better performing than IPsec and OpenVPN, two common tunneling protocols. The WireGuard protocol passes traffic over UDP.
IPFire is a hardened open source Linux distribution that primarily performs as a router and a firewall; a standalone firewall system with a web-based management console for configuration.
Proxmox Backup Server is an open-source backup software project supporting virtual machines, containers, and physical hosts. The Bare-metal server is based on the Debian Linux distribution, with some extended features, such as out-of-the-box ZFS support and Linux kernel 5.4 LTS. Proxmox Backup Server is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.
