A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that includes the Linux kernel and often a package management system. They are often obtained from the website of each distribution, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to servers and powerful supercomputers.
In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.
In computer science, dynamic recompilation is a feature of some emulators and virtual machines, where the system may recompile some part of a program during execution. By compiling during execution, the system can tailor the generated code to reflect the program's run-time environment, and potentially produce more efficient code by exploiting information that is not available to a traditional static compiler.
In software engineering, a compatibility layer is an interface that allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates system calls for the foreign system into native system calls for the host system. With some libraries for the foreign system, this will often be sufficient to run foreign binaries on the host system. A hardware compatibility layer consists of tools that allow hardware emulation.
In computer security, a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs, usually in an effort to mitigate system failures and/or software vulnerabilities from spreading. The sandbox metaphor derives from the concept of a child's sandbox—a play area where kids can build, destroy, and experiment without causing any real-world damage. It is often used to kill untested or untrusted programs or code, possibly from unverified or untrusted third parties, suppliers, users or websites, without risking harm to the host machine or operating system. A sandbox typically provides a tightly controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as storage and memory scratch space. Network access, the ability to inspect the host system, or read from input devices are usually disallowed or heavily restricted.
QEMU is a free and open-source emulator that uses dynamic binary translation to emulate the processor of a computer. It provides a variety of hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run different guest operating systems. QEMU can be used in conjunction with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to execute virtual machines at near-native speeds. Additionally, QEMU supports the emulation of user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one processor architecture to run on another.
A free and open-source graphics device driver is a software stack which controls computer-graphics hardware and supports graphics-rendering application programming interfaces (APIs) and is released under a free and open-source software license. Graphics device drivers are written for specific hardware to work within a specific operating system kernel and to support a range of APIs used by applications to access the graphics hardware. They may also control output to the display if the display driver is part of the graphics hardware. Most free and open-source graphics device drivers are developed by the Mesa project. The driver is made up of a compiler, a rendering API, and software which manages access to the graphics hardware.
OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) virtualization paradigm in which the kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, including containers, zones, virtual private servers (OpenVZ), partitions, virtual environments (VEs), virtual kernels, and jails. Such instances may look like real computers from the point of view of programs running in them. A computer program running on an ordinary operating system can see all resources of that computer. Programs running inside a container can only see the container's contents and devices assigned to the container.
In computer security, executable-space protection marks memory regions as non-executable, such that an attempt to execute machine code in these regions will cause an exception. It makes use of hardware features such as the NX bit, or in some cases software emulation of those features. However, technologies that emulate or supply an NX bit will usually impose a measurable overhead while using a hardware-supplied NX bit imposes no measurable overhead.
In computing, virtualization is the use of a computer to simulate another computer. The following is a chronological list of virtualization technologies.
In computing, virtualization (v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers.
A mini PC is a small-sized, inexpensive, low-power, legacy-free desktop computer designed for basic tasks such as web browsing, accessing web-based applications, document processing, and audio/video playback.
Linux Containers (LXC) is an operating system-level virtualization method for running multiple isolated Linux systems (containers) on a control host using a single Linux kernel.
Android-x86 is an open source project that makes an unofficial porting of the Android mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance to run on devices powered by x86 processors, rather than RISC-based ARM chips.
PPSSPP is a free and open-source PSP emulator for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Switch, BlackBerry 10, MeeGo, Pandora, Xbox Series X/S and Symbian with a focus on speed and portability. It was released to the public on November 1, 2012, licensed under the GNU GPLv2 or later. The PPSSPP project was created by Henrik Rydgård, one of the co-founders of the Dolphin emulator.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a feature of Microsoft Windows that allows for using a Linux environment without the need for a separate virtual machine or dual booting. WSL is installed by default in Windows 11. In Windows 10, it can be installed either by joining the Windows Insider program or manually via Microsoft Store or Winget.
Anbox is a free and open-source compatibility layer that allows Android applications to run on Linux distributions by using containerization techniques. Originally introduced by Canonical, Anbox executes Android applications in a lightweight system container, isolated from the host system for security and efficiency.
UserLAnd Technologies is a free and open-source compatibility layer mobile app that allows Linux distributions, computer programs, computer games and numerical computing programs to run on mobile devices without requiring a root account. UserLAnd also provides a program library of popular free and open-source Linux-based programs to which additional programs and different versions of programs can be added.
Android devices have the ability to run virtual machines or emulate other operating systems. It does this either via desktop virtualization, platform virtualization, or emulation via compatibility layer.