Portal:Linux
The Linux Portal
Linux (/ˈlɪnʊks/ LIN-uuks) is a family of free and open-source software Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, which was first released on 17 September 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Some members of the family are typically packaged as a distribution (a.k.a. distro), which includes the kernel alongside supporting system software and libraries developed by third parties—such as GNU, Red Hat, and X.Org—to create a complete operating system; however, not all Linux-based operating systems are considered distros, with Android being an example. Linux was originally designed as a clone of Unix and is distributed under the copyleft GPL license.
Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open-source software collaboration. The Linux kernel is considered by many to be the largest free and open source project. While originally developed for x86-based personal computers, it has since been ported to more platforms than any other operating system. When combined with Android, which uses a Linux-based kernel and is designed for smartphones, they have the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems. (Full article...)
Selected articles -
Smack (full name: Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel) is a Linux kernel security module that protects data and process interaction from malicious manipulation using a set of custom mandatory access control (MAC) rules, with simplicity as its main design goal. It has been officially merged since the Linux 2.6.25 release, it was the main access control mechanism for the MeeGo mobile Operating System. It is also used to sandbox HTML5 web applications in the Tizen architecture, in the commercial Wind River Linux solutions for embedded device development, in Philips Digital TV products., and in Intel's Ostro OS for IoT devices.
Between 2016-2021, Smack was required in Automotive Grade Linux (AGL) where it provided in association with other Linux facilities the base for the AGL security framework. (Full article...)
Container Linux (formerly CoreOS Linux) is a discontinued open-source lightweight operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed for providing infrastructure for clustered deployments. One of its focuses was scalability. As an operating system, Container Linux provided only the minimal functionality required for deploying applications inside software containers, together with built-in mechanisms for service discovery and configuration sharing.
Container Linux shares foundations with Gentoo Linux, ChromeOS, and ChromiumOS through a common software development kit (SDK). Container Linux adds new functionality and customization to this shared foundation to support server hardware and use cases. CoreOS was developed primarily by Alex Polvi, Brandon Philips, and Michael Marineau, with its major features available as a stable release. (Full article...)- The Linux Foundation (LF) is a nonprofit organization formed in 2007 to support the development of Linux and open-source software. The foundation provides hosted projects with governance structures and shared legal and operational services.
Originally focused primarily on Linux, the foundation has expanded into an umbrella organization for open-source projects and foundations across areas including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, software security, networking, and embedded systems. Its ecosystem includes the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which hosts Kubernetes; the PyTorch Foundation; and the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF). (Full article...)
Arch Linux (/ɑːrtʃ/) is an open source, rolling release Linux distribution. Arch Linux is kept up-to-date by regularly updating the individual pieces of software that it comprises. It provides monthly "snapshots" which are used as installation media. Arch Linux is intentionally minimal, and is meant to be configured by the user during installation to add only what is needed.
Pacman, a package manager written specifically for Arch Linux, is used to install, remove and update software packages. The Arch User Repository (AUR) serves as a community-driven software repository for Arch Linux and provides packages not included in the official repositories and alternative versions of packages. AUR packages can be downloaded and built manually, or installed through an AUR 'helper', such as Yet Another Yogurt (yay). (Full article...)
Since the 1990s, there has been ongoing debate over whether operating systems that use the Linux kernel in combination with GNU software should be referred to as Linux or GNU/Linux.
Supporters of the term Linux argue that it is more widely used in the media and by the general public, and that it serves as a practical shorthand for systems that combine the Linux kernel with software from a variety of sources, including the GNU Project. (Full article...)- ext4 (fourth extended filesystem) is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3.
ext4 was initially a series of backward-compatible extensions to ext3, many of them originally developed by Cluster File Systems for the Lustre file system between 2003 and 2006, meant to extend storage limits and add other performance improvements. However, other Linux kernel developers opposed accepting extensions to ext3 for stability reasons, and proposed to fork the source code of ext3, rename it as ext4, and perform all the development there, without affecting existing ext3 users. This proposal was accepted, and on 28 June 2006, Theodore Ts'o, the ext3 maintainer, announced the new plan of development for ext4. (Full article...) - In a series of legal disputes between SCO Group and Linux vendors and users, SCO alleged that its license agreements with IBM meant that source code IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rights. Members of the Linux community disagreed with SCO's claims; IBM, Novell, and Red Hat filed claims against SCO.
On August 10, 2007, a federal district court judge in SCO v. Novell ruled on summary judgment that Novell, not the SCO Group, was the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. The court also ruled that "SCO is obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM and Sequent". After the ruling, Novell announced they had no interest in suing people over Unix and stated "We don't believe there is Unix in Linux". The final district court ruling, on November 20, 2008, affirmed the summary judgment, and added interest payments and a constructive trust. (Full article...) - Linaro Limited is an engineering organization that works on free and open-source software such as the Linux kernel, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), QEMU, power management, graphics and multimedia interfaces for the ARM family of instruction sets and implementations thereof as well as for the Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA). The company provides a collaborative engineering forum for companies to share engineering resources and funding to solve common problems on ARM software. In addition to Linaro's collaborative engineering forum, Linaro also works with companies on a one-to-one basis through its Services division.
Linaro works on software that is close to the silicon such as kernel, multimedia, power management, graphics and security. The company aims to provide stable, tested tools and code for multiple software distributions to use to reduce low-level fragmentation of embedded Linux software. It also provides engineering and investment in upstream open source projects and support to silicon companies in upstreaming code to be used with their systems-on-a-chip (SoC). Since the 3.10 Linux kernel release, Linaro has consistently been listed in the top ten contributors to the Linux kernel. (Full article...) 
The first-generation Nexus 7 tablet running Android, an operating system using the Linux kernel. While Linux-based operating systems are in common use in tablet computers, they are less frequently adopted as desktop computers.
The criticism of Linux focuses on issues concerning use of operating systems which use the Linux kernel.
While the Linux-based Android operating system dominates the smartphone market in many countries and accounts for more than 72% of mobile device usage globally (as of 2024-2025), and while Linux is used on the New York Stock Exchange, on most supercomputers, is used to host 96.3 percent of the top 1 million web servers, and even is used on more virtual machines on Microsoft's own Azure cloud service than Microsoft Windows, it is used in few desktop and laptop computers. Much of the criticism of Linux is related to the lack of desktop and laptop adoption, although as of 2015[update] there has been some controversy with the project's perspective on security and the adoption of systemd by leading Linux distributions. (Full article...)
Gentoo Linux (pronounced /ˈdʒɛntuː/ JEN-too) is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary Linux distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for the specific type of computer. However, precompiled binaries are available for some packages. Gentoo runs on a wide variety of processor architectures.
Gentoo package management is designed to be modular, portable, easy to maintain, and flexible. Gentoo describes itself as a meta-distribution because of its adaptability, in that the majority of its users have configurations and sets of installed programs which are unique to the system and the applications they use. (Full article...)- GoboLinux is a Linux distribution whose most prominent feature is a reorganization of the traditional Linux file system. Rather than following the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard like most Unix-like systems, each program in a GoboLinux system has its own subdirectory tree, where all of its files (including settings specific to that program) may be found. Thus, a program "Foo" has all of its specific files and libraries in
/Programs/Foo, under the corresponding version of this program at hand. For example, the commonly known GCC compiler suite version 8.1.0, would reside under the directory/Programs/GCC/8.1.0.
According to the GoboLinux developers, this results in a cleaner system. (Full article...) - Android is an operating system developed by Google, designed primarily for smartphones and tablets (touchscreen-based mobile devices originally; later for other devices, such as TVs), based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software. First released in 2008, Android is the most popular operating system in the world with 4 billion users, and the most used operating system for smartphones. The latest version, released on June 16, 2026, is Android 17.
At its core, the operating system is known as the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), that was originally only made for a smartphone, and is free and open-source software (FOSS) primarily licensed under the Apache License. However, most devices run the proprietary Android open-core version developed by Google, which ships with additional proprietary closed-source software pre-installed, most notably Google Mobile Services (GMS), which includes core apps such as Google Chrome, the digital distribution platform Google Play, and the associated Google Play Services development platform. Other Google services including Firebase Cloud Messaging, used for push notifications, are recommended for applications. While AOSP is free, the "Android" name and logo are trademarks of Google, who restrict the use of Android branding on "uncertified" products. The majority of smartphones and other devices based on AOSP run Google's ecosystem—which is known simply as Android—some with vendor-customized user interfaces and software suites, for example One UI. Numerous modified distributions exist, which include competing Amazon Fire OS, community-developed LineageOS; the source code has also been used to develop a variety of Android distributions on a range of other devices, such as Android TV for televisions, Wear OS for wearables, Android Automotive for in-car systems, Android XR for virtual reality headsets, and Android for PCs (e.g. Googlebook OS or One UI on Galaxybooks). Commercial products like micro consoles have also used Android. (Full article...) 
Ubuntu 26.10 Stonking Stingray
Releases of Ubuntu—a Linux operating system mostly composed of free and open-source software—are made semiannually by Canonical Ltd using the year and month of the release as a version number. The first Ubuntu release, for example, was Ubuntu 4.10 and was released on 20 October 2004. Consequently, version numbers for future versions are provisional; if the release is delayed until a different month (or even year) than planned, the version number will change accordingly.
Releases are scheduled every April and October to incorporate new GNOME releases made every March and September. Free support is offered and includes security updates for "main" free software packaged. Every fourth release, scheduled for April of every even-numbered year, is designated as a long-term support (LTS) release, meaning it receives free support for five years. Non-LTS releases are designed as interim releases and receive free support for nine months. The Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM) service from the Ubuntu Pro subscription, which is free for personal use on up to five devices, extends long-term support to be ten-years long and include security updates for community-managed "universe" free software packages. The Legacy subscription add-on extends long-term support to fifteen years. (Full article...)
GNOME (/ɡəˈnoʊm, ˈnoʊm/) is a desktop environment and suite of software for Linux and BSD developed by the GNOME Project and released as free and open source software. The primary components of GNOME are the GNOME Shell, which provides features such as virtual desktops and window management; and the GNOME Core Applications, which distribute a suite of software that integrates with the shell and provides basic system features such as a file manager and a computer configuration application.
The GNOME Project is composed of both volunteers and paid contributors, the largest contributor being Red Hat. In 2023 and 2024, GNOME received €1,000,000 from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund. (Full article...)- deepin (Chinese: 深度操作系统; pinyin: Shēndù Cāozuò-xìtǒng; formerly known as Linux Deepin and Hiweed Linux) is a Linux distribution, formerly based on Ubuntu and Debian,[better source needed] that features the Deepin Desktop Environment (DDE), a desktop environment built on Qt and available for a variety of distributions. The Deepin userbase is predominantly Chinese, though DDE is in most prominent Linux distributions' repositories as an alternative desktop environment. The company behind the development, Deepin Technology, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnionTech (统信软件), is based in Wuhan, China. (Full article...)
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Release news
- 2026-10-18 Linux kernel 7.3 released.
- 2026-10-15 Ubuntu 26.10 "Stonking Stingray" released.
- 2026-09-16 GNOME 51 released. (announcement)
- 2026-08-17 Linux kernel 7.2 released.
- 2026-06-29 Mageia 10 released.
- 2026-06-16 KDE Plasma 6.7 released.
- 2026-06-14 Linux kernel 7.1 released.
- 2026-04-28 Fedora Linux 44 released.
- 2026-04-23 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS "Resolute Raccoon" released.
- 2026-04-12 Linux kernel 7.0 released.
- 2026-03-18 GNOME 50 released. (announcement)
- 2026-02-08 Linux kernel 6.19 released.
- 2025-11-30 Linux kernel 6.18 released.
- 2025-10-28 Fedora Linux 43 released.
- 2025-10-09 Ubuntu 25.10 "Questing Quokka" released.
- 2025-10-01 openSUSE Leap 16 released.
- 2025-09-28 Linux kernel 6.17 released.
- 2025-09-17 GNOME 49 released. (announcement)
- 2025-08-09 Debian 13 "Trixie" released.
- 2025-07-27 Linux kernel 6.16 released.
- 2025-05-25 Linux kernel 6.15 released.
- 2025-05-13 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 released.
- 2025-04-17 Ubuntu 25.04 "Plucky Puffin" released.
- 2025-04-15 Fedora Linux 42 released.
- 2025-03-24 Linux kernel 6.14 released.
- 2025-03-19 GNOME 48 released. (announcement)
- 2025-02-11 KDE Plasma 6.3 released.
- 2025-01-19 Linux kernel 6.13 released.
- 2024-11-17 Linux kernel 6.12 released.
- 2024-10-29 Fedora Linux 41 released.
- 2024-10-10 Ubuntu 24.10 "Oracular Oriole" released.
- 2024-09-18 GNOME 47 released. (announcement)
- 2024-09-15 Linux kernel 6.11 released.
- 2024-07-14 Linux kernel 6.10 released.
- 2024-05-12 Linux kernel 6.9 released.
- 2024-04-25 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS "Noble Numbat" released.
- 2024-04-23 Fedora Linux 40 released.
- 2024-03-20 GNOME 46 released. (announcement)
- 2024-03-10 Linux kernel 6.8 released.
- 2024-02-28 KDE Plasma 6 released.
- 2024-01-07 Linux kernel 6.7 released.
- 2023-11-20 Rocky Linux 9.3 released
- 2023-11-07 Fedora Linux 39 released.
- 2023-10-30 Linux kernel 6.6 released.
- 2023-10-12 Ubuntu 23.10 "Mantic Minotaur" released.
- 2023-09-20 GNOME 45 released.
- 2023-08-27 Linux kernel 6.5 released.
- 2023-06-26 Linux kernel 6.4 released.
- 2023-06-10 Debian 12 "bookworm" released.
- 2023-05-16 Rocky Linux 9.2 released.
- 2023-05-10 AlmaLinux 9.2 "Turquoise Kodkod" released.
- 2023-04-23 Linux kernel 6.3 released.
- 2023-04-20 Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster" released.
- 2023-03-22 GNOME 44 released.
- 2023-02-19 Linux kernel 6.2 released.
- 2022-12-11 Linux kernel 6.1 released.
- 2022-11-16 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.1 and AlmaLinux 9.1 released.
- 2022-11-15 Fedora Linux 37 released.
- 2022-10-20 Ubuntu 22.10 "Kinetic Kudu" released.
- 2022-10-02 Linux kernel 6.0 released.
- 2022-09-21 GNOME 43 released-
- 2022-07-31 Linux kernel 5.19 released.
- 2022-05-26 AlmaLinux 9 released.
- 2022-05-22 Linux kernel 5.18 released.
- 2022-05-18 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 released.
- 2022-05-10 Fedora Linux 36 released.
- 2022-04-21 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" released.
- 2022-03-23 GNOME 42 released.
- 2022-03-20 Linux kernel 5.17 released.
- 2022-02-02 Slackware 15.0 released.
- 2022-01-09 Linux kernel 5.16 released.
- 2021-11-02 Fedora Linux 35 released.
Selected image
Video games for Linux do their rendering through OpenGL and their input e.g. through Simple DirectMedia Layer.
Related portals
Selected biographies -
- Con Kolivas is a Greek-Australian anaesthetist. He has worked as a computer programmer on the Linux kernel and on the development of the cryptographic currency mining software CGMiner. His Linux contributions include patches for the kernel to improve its desktop performance, particularly reducing I/O impact. (Full article...)
Matthew Garrett is an Irish technologist, programmer, and free software activist who is a major contributor to a series of free software projects including Linux, GNOME, Debian, Ubuntu, and Red Hat. He has received the Free Software Award from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for his work on Secure Boot, UEFI, and the Linux kernel. (Full article...)
Solar Designer at PHDays 2012
Alexander Peslyak (Александр Песляк) (born 1977), better known as Solar Designer, is a security specialist from Russia. He is best known for his publications on exploitation techniques, including the return-to-libc attack and the first generic heap-based buffer overflow exploitation technique, as well as computer security protection techniques such as privilege separation for daemon processes.
Peslyak is the author of the widely popular password cracking tool John the Ripper. His code has also been used in various third-party operating systems, such as OpenBSD and Debian. (Full article...)- Peter MacDonald is a Canadian software engineer, best known as the creator of Softlanding Linux System (SLS), widely regarded as the first complete Linux distribution. Some of his work served as a foundation of Wine. He also created the Tcl web browser BrowseX, and the PDQI suite of Tcl utilities.
Current projects include Jsish, an embeddable JavaScript interpreter with builtin type-checking. (Full article...) 
Harald Welte, also known as LaForge, is a German programmer.
Welte is the founder of the free software project Osmocom and was formerly involved in the netfilter/iptables and Openmoko projects. He is a member of the Chaos Computer Club. (Full article...)
Andrew Keith Paul Morton (born 1959) is an Australian software engineer. He is one of the lead developers of the Linux kernel, and a co-maintainer of the Ext3 file system, the journaling layer for block devices (JBD) and memory management. (Full article...)- Robert M. Love (born c. 1981) is an American author, speaker, Google engineer, and open source software developer.
Love is best known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, with notable work including the preemptive kernel, process scheduler, kernel event layer, virtual memory subsystem, and inotify. At Google, he was a member of the Android team and helped launch the first version of the platform. Love is also active in the GNOME community, working on NetworkManager, GNOME Volume Manager, Project Utopia and Beagle. (Full article...) - Keith Packard (born April 16, 1963) is a software developer, best known for his work on the X Window System.
Packard is responsible for many X extensions and technical papers on X. He has been heavily involved in the development of X since the late 1980s as a member of the MIT X Consortium, XFree86 and the X.Org Foundation. (Full article...)
Gaël Duval (French pronunciation: [ɡaɛl dyval]; born 1973) is a French entrepreneur. In July 1998, he created Mandrake Linux (which became Mandriva Linux, now discontinued), a Linux distribution originally based on Red Hat Linux and KDE. He was also a co-founder of MandrakeSoft (which merged in Mandriva, now discontinued) with Jacques Le Marois and Frédéric Bastok.
Gaël Duval was responsible for communication in the Mandriva management team until he was laid off by the company in March 2006, in a round of cost-cutting. Duval suspected part of the reason for his dismissal was disagreement with management over the company's future strategy, resulting in a lawsuit against the company. (Full article...)
Rusty Russell is an Australian free software programmer and advocate, known for his work on the Linux kernel's networking subsystem and the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. (Full article...)
Chris Wright is a Linux kernel developer and CTO with Red Hat. He was the Linux kernel co-maintainer for the -stable branch with Greg Kroah-Hartman. He is involved in Linux kernel security related topics and is currently the maintainer for the LSM framework.
Wright also serves as the Chair of the OpenDaylight Project Board of Directors. (Full article...)
Jon "maddog" Hall (born 7 August 1950) is the board chair for the Linux Professional Institute. (Full article...)
Hans Peter Anvin (born 12 January 1972), also known as hpa, is a Swedish-American computer programmer who has contributed to free and open-source software projects. Anvin is the originator of SYSLINUX, Linux Assigned Names and Numbers Authority (LANANA), and various Linux kernel features. (Full article...)
Mary Gardiner is an Australian Linux programmer who was director of operations at the Ada Initiative, described as a "non-profit organization dedicated to increasing participation of women in open technology and culture". She was a council member of Linux Australia until September 2011. In 2012, Gardiner and Ada Initiative co-founder Valerie Aurora were named two of the most influential people in computer security by SC Magazine. (Full article...)
Ian Ashley Murdock (April 28, 1973 – December 28, 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. (Full article...)
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General images -
The following are images from various Linux-related articles on Wikipedia.
Debian 4 "Etch", 2007 (from Debian)
alt=Ubuntu Sway logo (from Ubuntu)
The official logo (also known as open use logo) that contains the well-known Debian swirl (from Debian)
Fedora 21, a version that brought experimental Wayland and HiDPI support (December 2014) (from Fedora Linux)
![Image 7Ubuntu family tree[dubious – discuss] (from Ubuntu)](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/UbuntuFamilyTree1210.svg/120px-UbuntuFamilyTree1210.svg.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail)
Debian 10 "Buster", 2019 (from Debian)
alt=Ubuntu Asahi logo (from Ubuntu)
Linux kernel panic output (from Linux kernel)
Debian 13 "Trixie" running KDE Plasma 6 in a live environment (from Debian)
alt=UbuntuDDE logo (from Ubuntu)
Sankey diagram of Linux Kernel Source Lines of Code (from Linux kernel)
The Linux kernel supports various hardware architectures, providing a common platform for software, including proprietary software. (from Linux kernel)
The Linux Storage Stack Diagram (from Linux kernel)
At XDC2014, Alex Deucher from AMD announced the unified kernel-mode driver. The proprietary Linux graphic driver, libGL-fglrx-glx, will share the same DRM infrastructure with Mesa 3D. As there is no stable in-kernel ABI, AMD had to constantly adapt the former binary blob used by Catalyst. (from Linux kernel)
Cloud Ubuntu Orange Box
Eucalyptus interface (from Ubuntu)
Ian Murdock, Debian's founder, in 2008 (from Debian)
Fedora with the KDE Plasma Desktop, formerly one of the several official Fedora Spins. As of Fedora 42, it became an official Fedora edition alongside Fedora Workstation with GNOME. (from Fedora Linux)
The core values of the Fedora community (from Fedora Linux)
Fedora Workstation 41 with its default applications (from Fedora Linux)
Debian 10 "Buster" box cover (from Debian)
Map of the Linux kernel (from Linux kernel)
Redevelopment costs of Linux kernel (from Linux kernel)
Package installed with aptitude (from Debian)
Boot messages of a Linux kernel 2.6.25.17 (from Linux kernel)
Debian 12 "Bookworm" installation menu (from Debian)
Debian 3 "Woody", 2002 (from Debian)
Linus Torvalds at the LinuxCon Europe 2014 (from Linux kernel)
Logo of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD (from Debian)
Logo of GNU Hurd (from Debian)
Debian 3.1 "Sarge" (from Debian)
A fresh install of Silverblue 41 (from Fedora Linux)
Four interfaces are distinguished: two internal to the kernel, and two between the kernel and userspace. (from Linux kernel)
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![Image 7Ubuntu family tree[dubious – discuss] (from Ubuntu)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:UbuntuFamilyTree1210.svg)
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Did you know?
- ... that Shuah Khan, the first woman fellow of the Linux Foundation, "signed off" on a patch recommending the use of inclusive terminology in the Linux kernel?
- ... that researchers submitting to the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy intentionally introduced security bugs into Linux?
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