A Linux distribution is an operating system made from a software collection that is based upon the Linux kernel and, often, a package management system. Linux users usually obtain their operating system by downloading one of the Linux distributions, which are available for a wide variety of systems ranging from embedded devices and personal computers to powerful supercomputers.
YaST is a Linux operating system setup and configuration tool.
The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard used in the Linux kernel. The LSB is based on the POSIX specification, the Single UNIX Specification (SUS), and several other open standards, but extends them in certain areas.
GNU GRUB is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a user the choice to boot one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer or select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular operating system's partitions.
The Yellowdog Updater, Modified (YUM) is a free and open-source command-line package-management utility for computers running the Linux operating system using the RPM Package Manager. Though YUM has a command-line interface, several other tools provide graphical user interfaces to YUM functionality.
Technical variations of Linux distributions include support for different hardware devices and systems or software package configurations. Organisational differences may be motivated by historical reasons. Other criteria include security, including how quickly security upgrades are available; ease of package management; and number of packages available.
openSUSE, formerly SUSE Linux and SuSE Linux Professional, is a Linux distribution sponsored by SUSE Linux GmbH and other companies. Its "Leap" variant shares a common code base with, and is a direct upgradable installation for the commercially-produced SUSE Linux Enterprise, effectively making openSUSE Leap a non-commercial version of the enterprise product. It is widely used throughout the world. The focus of its development is creating usable open-source tools for software developers and system administrators, while providing a user-friendly desktop and feature-rich server environment.
The DejaVu fonts are modifications of the Bitstream Vera fonts designed for greater coverage of Unicode, as well as providing more styles. The Bitstream Vera family was limited mainly to the characters in the Basic Latin and Latin-1 Supplement portions of Unicode, roughly equivalent to ISO/IEC 8859-15, but was released with a license that permitted changes. The DejaVu fonts project was started with the aim to "provide a wider range of characters ... while maintaining the original look and feel through the process of collaborative development". The development of the fonts is done by many contributors, and is organized through a wiki and a mailing list.
Metalink is an extensible metadata file format that describes one or more computer files available for download. It specifies files appropriate for the user's language and operating system; facilitates file verification and recovery from data corruption; and lists alternate download sources.
Sugar is a free and open-source desktop environment designed for interactive learning by children. Copyright by SugarLabs. Developed as part of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, Sugar was the default interface on OLPC XO-1 laptop computers. The OLPC XO-1.5 and later provided the option of either the Gnome or Sugar interfaces.
Fedora or Fedora Linux is a Linux distribution developed by the community-supported Fedora Project which is sponsored primarily by Red Hat Inc. with minor support by other companies. Fedora contains software distributed under various free and open-source licenses and aims to be on the leading edge of free technologies. Fedora is the upstream source of the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution.
The Open Build Service is an open and complete distribution development platform designed to encourage developers to compile packages for multiple Linux distributions including SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, openSUSE, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, and Arch Linux. It typically simplifies the packaging process, so developers can more easily package a single program for many distributions, and many openSUSE releases, making more packages available to users regardless of what distribution they use. Also, product and appliance building is supported by OBS.
RPM Package Manager (RPM) is a free and open-source package management system. The name RPM refers to .rpm file format and the package manager program itself. RPM was intended primarily for Linux distributions; the file format is the baseline package format of the Linux Standard Base.
MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin and Maemo. Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances in the consumer electronics market, MeeGo was designed to act as an operating system for hardware platforms such as netbooks, entry-level desktops, nettops, tablet computers, mobile computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, SmartTV / ConnectedTV, IPTV-boxes, smart phones, and other embedded systems.
KVIrc is a graphical IRC client for Linux, Unix, Mac OS and Windows. The name is an acronym of K Visual IRC in which the K stands for a dependency to KDE, which became optional from version 2.0.0. The software is based on the Qt framework and its code is released under a modified GNU General Public License.
Hanthana Linux is a computer operating system based on the Fedora distribution, distributed as free and open source software. Hanthana Linux is among the active Fedora remixes.
A delta update is an update that only requires the user to download the code that has changed, not the whole program. It can significantly save time and bandwidth. The name is drawn from the fact that the Greek letter delta, Δ or δ, is used to denote change in mathematical sciences.
dracut is an event-driven initramfs infrastructure. dracut is used to create an initramfs image by copying tools and files from an installed system and combining it with the dracut framework, usually found in /usr/lib/dracut/modules.d.
