This is a list of companies, organizations and individuals who have moved from other operating systems to Linux. On desktops, Linux has not displaced Microsoft Windows to a large degree. However, it is the leading operating system on servers. [1]
See also : List of BSD adopters
As local governments come under pressure from institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the International Intellectual Property Alliance, some have turned to Linux and other free software as an affordable, legal alternative to both pirated software and expensive proprietary computer products from Microsoft, Apple and other commercial companies. The spread of Linux affords some leverage for these countries when companies from the developed world bid for government contracts (since a low-cost option exists), while furnishing an alternative path to development for countries like India and Pakistan that have many citizens skilled in computer applications but cannot afford technological investment at "First World" prices. Cost is not the only factor being considered, though — many governmental institutions (in public and military sectors) in North America and the European Union make the transition to Linux because of its superior stability and the openness of the source code, which strengthens information security. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
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Linux is often used in technical disciplines at universities and research centres. This is due to several factors, including that Linux is available free of charge and includes a large body of free/open-source software. To some extent, technical competence of computer science and software engineering academics is also a contributor, as is stability, maintainability, and upgradability. IBM ran an advertising campaign entitled "Linux is Education" featuring a young boy who was supposed to be "Linux". [77]
Examples of large scale adoption of Linux in education include the following:
Linux is used extensively on servers in businesses, and has been for a long time. Linux is also used in some corporate environments as the desktop platform for their employees, with commercially available solutions including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, and Ubuntu.
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.
Xandros, Inc. was a software company which sold Xandros Desktop, a Linux distribution. The name Xandros was derived from the X Window System and the Greek island of Andros. Xandros was founded in May 2001 by Linux Global Partners. The company was headquartered in New York City with its development office in Ottawa, Canada.
Kylin is an operating system developed by academics at the National University of Defense Technology in the People's Republic of China since 2001. It is named after the mythical beast qilin. The first versions were based on FreeBSD and were intended for use by the Chinese military and other government organizations. With version 3.0, Kylin became Linux-based, and there is a version called NeoKylin which was announced in 2010.
Red Flag Linux is a Linux distribution developed by Red Flag Software. As of 2009, the executive president of Red Flag Software is Jia Dong (贾栋).
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution derived from Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in multiple editions: Desktop, Server, and Core for Internet of things devices and robots. The operating system is developed by the British company Canonical and a community of other developers, under a meritocratic governance model. As of October 2024, the latest interim release is 24.10, with most-recent long-term support release is 24.04.
Xgl is an obsolete display server implementation supporting the X Window System protocol designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL. It supports hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or Beryl. The project was started by David Reveman of Novell and first released on January 2, 2006. It was removed from the X.org server in favor of AIGLX on June 12, 2008.
Linux adoption is the adoption of Linux-based computer operating systems (OSes) by households, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and governments.
SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop computers.
PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server program distributed via the freedesktop.org project. It runs mainly on Linux, including Windows Subsystem for Linux on Microsoft Windows and Termux on Android; various BSD distributions such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and macOS; as well as Illumos distributions and the Solaris operating system. It serves as a middleware in between applications and hardware and handles raw PCM audio streams.
LiMux was a project launched by the city of Munich in 2004 in order to replace the software on its desktop computers, migrating from Microsoft Windows to free software based on Linux. By 2012, the city had migrated 12,600 of its 15,500 desktops to LiMux. In November 2017 Munich City Council resolved to reverse the migration and return to Microsoft Windows-based software by 2020. In May 2020, it was reported that the newly elected politicians in Munich, while not going back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux wholesale, will prefer Free Software for future endeavours.
Linux began in 1991 as a personal project by Finnish student Linus Torvalds to create a new free operating system kernel. The resulting Linux kernel has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. Since the initial release of its source code in 1991, it has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to the 4.15 version in 2018 with more than 23.3 million lines of source code, not counting comments, under the GNU General Public License v2 with a syscall exception meaning anything that uses the kernel via system calls are not subject to the GNU GPL.
Nova is a Cuban state-sponsored Linux distribution launched in February 2009. It was developed in Havana at the University of Information Science (UCI) by students and professors to provide free and open-source software (FOSS) to inexperienced users and Cuban institutions. While the initial version was Gentoo-based, the developers switched to Ubuntu beginning with Version 2.1.
Leafpad is a free and open-source graphical text editor for Linux, Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), and Maemo that is similar to the Microsoft Windows program Notepad. Created with the focus of being a lightweight text editor with minimal dependencies, it is designed to be simple-to-use and easy-to-compile.
Linspire is a commercial operating system based on Debian and Ubuntu and currently owned by PC/OpenSystems LLC. It had been owned by Linspire. Inc. from 2001 to 2008, and then by Xandros from 2008 to 2017.
System76, Inc. is an American computer manufacturer based in Denver, Colorado that sells notebook computers, desktop computers, and servers. The company utilizes free and open-source software, and offers a choice of Ubuntu or their own Ubuntu-based Linux distribution Pop!_OS as preinstalled operating systems.
GendBuntu is a version of Ubuntu adapted for use by France's National Gendarmerie. The Gendarmerie have pioneered the use of open source software on servers and personal computers since 2005 when it adopted the OpenOffice.org office suite, making the OpenDocument .odf format its nationwide standard.
The use of free software instead of proprietary software can give institutions better control over information technology. A growing number of public institutions have started a transition to free-software solutions. This grants independence and can also address the often-argued need for public access to publicly funded developments. This is the only way that public services can ensure that citizen data is handled in a trustworthy manner since non-free software doesn't allow total control over the employed functions of the needed programs.
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.
Comparison of user features of operating systems refers to a comparison of the general user features of major operating systems in a narrative format. It does not encompass a full exhaustive comparison or description of all technical details of all operating systems. It is a comparison of basic roles and the most prominent features. It also includes the most important features of the operating system's origins, historical development, and role.
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